Necroscope: The Mobius Murders (7 page)

“Your…your
colour
!” His father choked the words out, as the leech fell on him, gripping the bones and loose skin of his shoulders in both fat hands. “That monstrous colour! You are as grey…as grey…as death!”

“Yes, but it’s
your
death!” the other replied, as something of that awful hue left him and transferred to his rapidly shrivelling father; and the coverlet sank down a very little, as the old man breathed his last…

No problems ensued from Hemmings’ deeds. By the time the Matron returned to the house that evening a death certificate had been signed, which showed the cause of death to have been inoperable cancer of the stomach, with the additional complications of old age. Hemmings’ father had been seventy-five years of age, after all. Moreover, the corpse had already been conveyed to a mortuary, and so the good Matron never had an opportunity to see for herself the awful
settling
of the body, which in any case would scarcely have appeared extraordinary; for while the old man was dead and still, his cancer had been gnawing away at him even to the last, and probably for some time after that.

Whichever, in its depleted condition the cadaver of Arthur Hamilton Hemmings was destined for burial, and just as soon as possible…

The next afternoon, summoned by Hemmings, a gentleman arrived at the house and introduced himself as Andrew Asquith, of Macdonald, Asquith and Lee, Solicitors, whose offices were on Edinburgh Castle’s prestigious Royal Mile. In his middle years, Asquith was tall, high-browed and balding, with searching hazel eyes. Hemmings ushered him into the sitting-room, where he offered him a glass of wine which Asquith politely declined. Then, without much of a preamble, the murderer “explained”:

“I would have called you earlier, but yesterday, after seeing to the most immediate, necessary requirements, I must have suffered an attack of some sort: shock, I think, which knocked the stuffing out of me. I could do nothing…I’m sure you’ll understand. My father’s death was hardly unexpected—inevitable, you might say—but still I wasn’t prepared.

“However, last night I couldn’t sleep, and as I wandered an empty house and my numbed senses recovered a little, I realized there was still much to be done, many things that had to be put in order. In an address book in my father’s study, I discovered your firm’s details, and when I called you this morning learned that I was correct in believing that Macdonald, Asquith and Lee were responsible for handling his affairs. Which is why—”

“—Why I am here,” the other finished it for him. “Yes, we have known your father for many years, but it must be said that it’s
very
many years since the office has had any close contact with him—at least thirty! He had little need for lawyers and the like, and we didn’t know him socially at all. Except by his excellent reputation at the College of Higher Education, he was almost a complete stranger to us. And now, alas…too late!”

“Ah!” Hemmings at once replied. “But now, with myself—his son and heir—an association which is only just beginning, perhaps?” And shrugging, shaking his head sadly, he smiled what he hoped was a wan, melancholy smile.

If Asquith was impressed it scarcely showed as he replied:

“His son and
only
heir, I believe, yes…” And after a moment’s pause, gazing penetratingly at Hemmings, he went on: “You mentioned yesterday’s immediate, necessary requirements—tasks which at first you were able to handle yourself before, er, the shock set in.”

“Why yes,” Hemmings nodded. “A doctor had to be called, to ascertain the cause and certify the death. I’m a professor, Mr. Asquith, a mathematician—not a physician! And then the mortuary had to be informed, in order that my father could be taken from the house and the funerary arrangements could be made. But…why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing of any great importance; in the circumstances you were understandably upset, to say the least. And that being the case you should be complimented that despite your state of mind you were able to act so swiftly and logically. Of course, there was no one else here—no siblings or other relatives—to advise you one way or the other.”

“Advise me?” Hemmings frowned.

“You see, in my experience, bereaved families are frequently so out of sorts, so bewildered, that at first they do very little. Their loss is unacceptable: stunned, they permit their loved one to simply lie there, perhaps thinking that he or she will wake up! Why, it’s even possible that the custom of allowing the deceased to ‘lie in state’ for a period has its origin in just such circumstances. But you—”

“Ah, I see!” Hemmings cut him short, his voice hardening as his true nature began to assert itself. “You think that I acted in haste, and it’s possible you wonder why.”

“Not so—not at all!” The other waved placating hands. But Hemmings would have none of that:

“No, no, I believe I can readily understand your concerns,” he growled. “And I don’t especially care for the nature of your enquiries. But on the other hand…it could be my fault. When I called your office this morning, it’s quite possible I didn’t make absolutely clear the circumstances of my father’s passing. I have a copy of the death certificate, Mr. Asquith…he died not only of old age but mainly of advanced cancer of the gut!”

“Ahhh!”
The other’s face fell. “Then there’s really no need to—”

But again Hemmings cut him short: “So, if you would care to accompany me to his room, where the bed still bears the indentation of his form, and the atmosphere still reeks of that awful disease…”

But Asquith was already shaking his head. “Entirely unnecessary, I assure you. If I had known from the beginning…but I didn’t. You have told me all I need to know, with the exception of just one thing. Ah, and there’s one
other
thing which I must tell you.”

“Oh?”

“In a moment. But first—did you by chance discover a will among your father’s effects, in one of his drawers perhaps?”

“A will? Why no, I didn’t so much as think of it! Maybe we should go to his study right now, where in my presence you can search through his documents.”

“My thoughts precisely,” said Asquith. “You see, I haven’t as yet told you everything—which wasn’t deliberate! I simply forgot to mention one other contact we had with your father.”

Hemmings frowned again. “A contact? Recently?”

“Yes. Some months ago, probably when he first began to feel ill, your father sent us a letter advising us that if he should die we should look for a revised will in his study—because he was considering revisions to the one he had given into our keeping that time all of thirty years ago.”

“Thirty…thirty years ago,” Hemmings repeated him stumblingly.

“I was just a very junior partner at that time, of course,” Asquith went on, “but the old document was still there where my seniors have kept it safe, and I have it with me. Since you are your father’s sole son and heir, a formal reading isn’t necessary unless you desire it. I am of course aware of the contents, but you may read the document for yourself when our business is concluded.”

Hemmings quickly recovered his wits, and grunted, “Then by all means let’s get it over with! Come, we’ll go to his study.”

They did, but found nothing of importance. The old man had been in debt to no one; it only remained to cancel his pension and pay various household bills, which amounted to very little.

“With your permission,” said Asquith, “I shall see to those details personally. Meanwhile, this is yours.” He handed over a manilla envelope containing the old will. “You’ll find that all has been left to you: the house, monies, some small investments…everything. Will you sell this place when all is settled?”

“No,” Hemmings replied, carefully opening the brittle parchment document. “I’ll let the house out for now, and perhaps one day return to live here.”

“Then again with your permission I’ll carry out the necessary searches, prepare documents of transfer and ownership, and send them on for your approval and signature.”

“Thank you,” said Hemmings, quickly scanning the will, which was written in his father’s neat, unfaltering, and thirty-years younger hand.

“There is only one requirement on your part,” said Asquith: “the final paragraph, which I’m sure has been answered in full. For as you pointed out, you are a Professor; moreover a mathematician, as was the old gentleman before you.”

At which Hemmings at once transferred his gaze to the paragraph in question:

“…All of which being contingent on the understanding that the aforesaid, Gordon J. Hemmings, has not only survived me but is grown into a law-abiding, principled, and worthy citizen…” Followed by the old man’s distinctive signature, the date, and nothing more.

And having read, finally the great leech fabricated another melancholy smile, nodded and said: “Oh, indeed! It would appear I have followed in his footsteps! For even now at the end we’re as one; and for however long, something of him will continue in me…”

As Hemmings’ memories faded, returning him to the present where he walked the Kirkaldy promenade:

So then
, he thought.
It suddenly dawns on me that my father was not in fact my first time but second, for my mother came first. But I shall continue to consider him my first—my ‘conscious’ first, at least—if only because I can’t remember her!

Or was that
actual
first time other than murder? Rather, a gift of life from his mother, and the instinctive acceptance or taking of it by a hungry, even greedy new-born child—himself. Whichever, he had known nothing of his birth until that morning by the old man’s deathbed, when he had deliberately, if experimentally, snatched what little life-force remained in him.

And so, to all intents and purposes, his father had indeed been his first. While in the two years gone by since then—

—Everything that mattered had seemed to come together for him, and quickly; while everything that mattered not at all had come apart with equal rapidity. Finally, financially stable, he had become lax at the University, and the classes he taught had suffered as a result. His “inheritance”—which worked out more a sufficiency than a plenitude—had nevertheless buoyed him up, making him increasingly assertive and far less inclined to heed the advice of his so-called peers and superiors.

Peers? He had none, not that he would ever have accepted as such. As for “superiors”—that was a laugh! What, those doddering, stunted old pedagogues; those puffed-up so-called intellectuals who taught standing on the shoulders of genuine, long dead geniuses without ever attempting to climb higher, seemingly failing to even realize there were just such elevated levels they could ascend to? Because of course they couldn’t! Not them, never! Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was fifty years old, yet they would still try to explain and—for God’s sake!—if there
was
such a Creator—“teach” it; as if it was a brand new, extraordinary, immutable idea, without even guessing at its higher functions…
because they couldn’t
! Pythagoras’ doctrines were some two and a half millennia older, yet they were mainly forgotten; while his studies in respect of the purging of the soul and its release from metempsychosis weren’t so much as mentioned, or were at best dismissed as nonsensical, along with his admixture of esoteric mysticism and mathematics.

But all of these mainly neglected things, matters of metaphysical space, time, and mind, were to him, to Professor Gordon J. Hemmings, the very essence of being: seminal sources of universal knowledge and existence.

If only, he conjectured, Pythagoras and Einstein—and perhaps Euclid and Riemann, and one or two others; for example the necromancer and Great Beast, Aliester Crowley, who he felt sure had come very close at times to solving certain mysteries—if only
they
had been able to get together in the flesh; what arcane prodigies might have emerged from that! Nothing mundane, be sure! Perhaps, he continued to conjecture, perhaps like himself Diophantus of Alexandria, and certainly Leonardo da Vinci and a small handful of others, they too had been mutants of the sort his father had posited. But far ahead of their time, unique examples of transcendent genes, it appeared they had all evolved along very divergent and occasionally darker pathways; himself especially.