The Investigation by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online

any difference. You have a great personal interest in this case, don’t you?”
    “Yes,” Gregory answered. He sensed that an uncomplicated affirmative reply would be best.
    “Do you have any theories of your own about it? Something personal that you didn’t want to mention in my office today?”
    “No. That is…” Gregory hesitated.
    “Go on.”
    “This is just an impression. It’s not based on anything,” said Gregory. He spoke with some reluctance. “But it seems to me that this case really isn’t about bodies. I mean, they play a definite role, but not in this thing,”
    “In what thing?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Really?”
    The Chief Inspector sounded almost cheerful. Gregory wished he could see his face. This was a completely different Sheppard from the one he’d occasionally met at the Yard.
    “In my opinion this is a lousy case,” Gregory suddenly blurted out as if talking to a friend. “There’s something about it … something peculiar. It’s not that it’s difficult, but there are details that don’t fit … not for material reasons but because the only connecting links are all psychological nonsense. It all builds up to nothing and leads to a dead end…”
    “Yes, go on,” Sheppard chimed in attentively, still pacing back and forth. Gregory was no longer watching him. Unable to tear his eyes from the papers on the desk, he began speaking excitedly.
    “The idea that this whole case is based on some kind of insanity, mania, or psychopathology is almost irresistible. No matter where you start, no matter how anxious you are to avoid it, everything leads you back to it. But as a matter of fact that’s our out, because it only seems that way. All right, let’s say it was a maniac. But everything was so carefully planned and methodical… I don’t know, do you see what I mean? If you went into a house and found that all the tables and chairs had only one leg, you’d probably tell yourself that it was the work of a madman, that some maniac had decided to furnish his house that way. But if you went from house to house and found the same thing all over town? I don’t know what any of this means, but it just couldn’t be … this is not the work of a madman. I think we have to go to the other extreme. Someone very intelligent who is using his intellect for a purpose we don’t understand yet.”
    “What else?” Sheppard asked quietly, as if he didn’t want to do anything to intrude on the fervor which had quite obviously seized Gregory. Sitting behind the desk, still staring blindly at the papers, the younger man was silent for a moment, then answered.
    “What else?… Nothing very good. Nothing very good at all. A series of acts without a single slipup, that’s pretty bad… In fact it appalls me, it’s absolutely inhuman. Human beings don’t work that way. Human beings make mistakes, it’s in the nature of things that they miscalculate from time to time, make mistakes, leave clues behind, change their plans in the middle of everything. But from the very beginning these bodies … the ones that were moved … if that’s the right word for it… I don’t agree with Farquart that the perpetrator ran away because he was frightened. It wasn’t anything like that. At the time all he wanted was to move them. Just a little at first. Then a little more. Then, still more … until finally a body disappeared altogether. That’s the way it had to be, that’s the way he wanted to do it. I thought… I’m always thinking about it, why he … but I don’t know. Nothing.”
    “Are you familiar with the Lapeyrot case?” Sheppard asked. Standing in the back of the room he was almost invisible.
    “Lapeyrot? The Frenchman who—”
    “Yes. In 1909. Do you know the case?”
    “It sounds familiar, but I can’t remember. What was it about?”
    “About too much evidence. At least that’s what they said at the time, unfortunately. On a beach along the Seine River, for a certain period,