BAD ONE AND THE CASE OF THE DOUBLE MURDER IN THE THAMES

CHAPTER 7 NOCTURNE

Putting up little resistance, evening had let the night began. The first lights of the houses were turned on one after the other as if a giant tree decorated with bulbs had been illuminated in the middle of the darkness. The harmonious notes of the piano[1] that One completely engrossed was playing from a while ago, could be listened to through the open window of the living room of 23rd Chadwick Street. He was brilliantly interpreting with his fingers Chopin, his favorite musician. He was playing the Nocturne Op. 9,.The music gushed out filling the air with soft sensations and memories that seemed to stop the time, turning that room into a space of eternity. Agatha, sat in an armchair, enjoyed the melody holding a glass of brandy in her hand, with a Havana cigar in her mouth. She was enchanted looking at her friend’s hands that were floating weightless over the keys. The doorbell rang and Agatha got up to open. One suddenly stopped the music and exclaimed:

- It is my assistant who brings the report of his inquiries-.

It was indeed sergeant Cocowa who was coming with the latest news on the case. The sergeant and Agatha already knew each other.

- Agatha -.

He greeted distantly.

- Sergeant -. 

She answered with indifference.

- Agatha -.

He insisted again.

- Cocowa -.

She answered apathetically.

To prevent that plain conversation from extending indefinitely until very late at night, One interrupted,

- Tell me, sergeant. How was at Lawson’s house? -.

He asked distracted while lighting an embassy.

- Well, very… very well, Mr. One -.

He answered him nervously.

- I have this feeling that this woman has something to hide -.

He pointed out.

- Umm… Did she recognize her husband’s corpse at the laboratory? -.

- Absolutely -.

He affirmed.

- However she did not need to see the two birthmarks in the gluteus; she said it was he who knew every detail of his body. Even though she recognized him, she did not show the normal signs of grieving. She was not shocked; she did not make a gesture of horror when she saw the terrible aspect of the body -.

-A hard woman… Let me see the notes you have taken, please -.

Cocowa stretched his arm forward offering a small daubed notebook to his chief. Bad looked at it, and turned it around. Again he looked at it and turned it around over and over again, till at last he got fed up when he realized it was impossible to read a single word. He gave it back to the sergeant saying, 

- Here, here, better tell me what you have written; I don’t understand a word -.

Cocowa cleared his throat and began to speak, - At about 8:35 a.m. …-.

- Stop. Please stop -.

His boss begged him to get to the point.

- All right, Lady Lawson has a… a really sinister, strange and enormous housekeeper -.

- Umm, interesting, go on -.

They sat around the chimney, and Cocowa gave a detailed description of everything he had observed there. He logically omitted the detail of Lady Lawson walking by the large windows wearing a negligee.