Free Tourquai by Tim Davys

the room. It must have been a rather bulky object.”
    “And there was an attack alarm in the desk,” Derek Hare pointed out. “If Vulture had sensed trouble he could have easily called for help.”
    “A brand-new invention?” Anna proposed. “C’mon, Earwig could have possibly pretended he was carrying around some contraption that was a new patent.”
    Tapir shrugged his shoulders to show that he was not convinced.
    “The curtains,” said Anna, changing tracks, “are another idea. The crazed animal could have hidden himself behind the curtains already the day before.”
    “Shut up now,” Bloodhound asked. “The question is when did the murder occur?”
    “Ah, but that’s more difficult,” said Tapir. “I prefer to wait for the autopsy before I give any definitive statements.”
    “If Cobra is telling the truth,” said Anna Lynx, “there’s not much to talk about. Earwig left, we came, in between someone trimmed the head.”
    “That doesn’t need to be wrong,” nodded Tapir. “That was actually what I wanted to say. That doesn’t need to be wrong at all.”
    Tapir never took any risks, and Bloodhound knew that the doctor wouldn’t say even this much without being fairly certain.
    “Thanks,” said the superintendent. “You can go now if you want to, Tapir.”
    “I do,” said Tapir.
    The elderly doctor left the room.
    “For any of you who think that as usual it’s the widow who’s guilty, you can get that thought out of your head,” the superintendent stated. “Apart from the fact that she was genuinely surprised, suitably dense, and generally incapable of action, she thinks the vulture has swindled her out of all the cash. Rambled on that he was going to donate the fortune to some foundation. Still remains to be seen whether that’s true, I assume, but the point is this: she assumes she has less money now than when he was alive.”
    “But that isn’t—” Anna began, but was brusquely interrupted by the superintendent.
    “For a hag like Flamingo, I can promise you, money is everything.”
    Hare squirmed impatiently in his chair.
    “Was there anything else?”
    “In a hurry, Derek?” asked Bloodhound. “Have you promised some little female she could play with all your fine toys down there?”
    “Just tired of you, Larry,” Hare replied.
    “Children,” said Anna, “you’d be happy in day care. In the pillow room. Tell us about Vulture’s office, Derek. I know you haven’t started your full analysis, but your impressions? Feelings?”
    “The office was completely void of personality,” said Hare. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Nothing. The only thing that fell outside the frame was the small laptop computer on the desk. His business correspondence was in the desktop computer. But there were no personal folders or documents. We haven’t got into the small machine yet. No, the vulture seems to have had gloves and a face mask on at work. What I think is strange is that the murderer seems to have been equally meticulous. Maybe we’ll find something today, but up to now we haven’t seen a single trace of the head. I mean, even if the murderer is a ghost, someone must have seen the vulture’s head being carried out of there.”
    Falcon nodded. Now that Tapir had left the room, Inspector Ècu regained some of his courage.
    “You’ve already thought about this, I’m sure, but it struck me that even if we do find the head, it’s not a certainty that Vulture can tell us who did it,” he pointed out. “Tapir said the stroke did come from behind.”
    The stuffed animals in the room pondered this truth in silence.
    “Surveillance cameras?” asked Anna. “Shouldn’t there be some?”
    “In the reception area,” Hare replied. “I’ve asked for all recorded material since before the weekend. Perhaps the murderer’s been caught on tape. We’ll soon see.”
    Bloodhound got up.
    “Well, we can’t sit here fiddling with our belly buttons any longer,”