15. THE DEDUCTION

Things are beginning to make some sense...

The natty Dr Niven, pathologist extraordinaire (natty in his own mind if in few others) breezed into Inspector Wasp’s office, whistling.

“You sound happy,” grunted the Inspector.

“I always enjoy life when I’ve got a conundrum for you,” smiled the pathologist, “and boy, I think this is one you’re going to absolutely love!”

“Tell me the worst, then,” said the Inspector.

“It’s the Styx dynasty,” grinned the pathologist, “I’ve got the DNA results back, and boy, aren’t they a joy to students of human behaviour like myself.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” sighed Wasp, “could it possibly be that the man and the women aren’t actually brother and sister?”

“They’re not. In fact they’re not related at all,” almost laughed Dr Niven.

“Not even distant cousins?”

“We’re all distant cousins if you go back far enough,” the pathologist told him, “I can see it in you when I go to visit the zoo! But no, our delightful twosome from the big house are unrelated, which spoils their brother and sister story.”

“Oh glory be,” sighed Inspector Wasp, “that put quite a new dimension on things. “I was hoping they’d at least be from the same family, maybe sharing recent ancestry.”

“No such joy. It would have made more sense if they’d stuck to the story of being man and wife! But there’s more.” The pathologist was stretching his information and hence his own amusement out.

“What more?”

“The two ladies, your decomposing corpse and the sweet young thing from this big house...”

“The one being cloned from the other?”

“No. Unrelated,” grinned the pathologist. “They may share features like noses and eyes if you look carefully but not much DNA.”

“But surely cloned individuals would have identical DNA?” stammered the Inspector.

“Now look, Waspy, I’m not an expert on such extreme sports as creating clones of individuals, but it strikes me that if two individuals are identical they must also have identical DNA, and our two Professor Styxes never did have much of a story to tell if you discount the chance of near physical similarity, and even that’s not too obvious, seeing as there’s half a century between them.”

Inspector Wasp groaned. “Tell me that at least two of them have some kind of blood relationship?” he almost begged.

“I can’t, I’m afraid. They’re all strangers, which I find quite amusing for folks who’re supposed to be cloned from each other, which, after all, is their cause célèbre.”

“And clones must share the same DNA as their sponsor?” queried Wasp.

“Most certainly so! Being an exact copy of another organism means you’re exactly the same in every respect. No, this Styx brigade have been having you on, Waspy, and you’ve fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.”

“He’s celebrated… Been published, that kind of thing,” spluttered the Inspector. “But this news makes me wonder what the whole shebang of them have been up to. Is anyone who they seem to be, or rather claim to be?”

“Well, this might help your deliberations, There have been some mighty powerful and quite new drugs involved for starters,” said the doctor. “The woman in the canal, now, she’s been in the drink for several days but there are still traces of some pretty toxic new chemicals in the bloodstream. And the old guy, the one you so fondly call Ruby, he’s coming round and almost communicating with the world now that the stuff he’s been plied with is wearing off. He might even be able to answer some questions sensibly before too long.”

“You think … he’s been doped up and that’s why he’s been acting three sheets to the wind?”

The pathologist nodded. “It’s amazing what a few chemicals can do to a soul,” he said.

“And it was him with his wife on the cover of that magazine...” Inspector Wasp was beginning to see through the mist of contradictory information coming his way. “If all there was in the affair consisted of a man and wife they would most likely be unrelated,” he said slowly, “and when that magazine with him on the cover was printed … it was him, not the young pretender!”

“And his pet subject was extending life,” suggested Dr Niven, “of a kind of immortality via the gift of long life. Not cloning! That was never mentioned, was it? In the magazine article, I mean. I’d guess he had a nose for healthy living and the right chemicals. After all, he’s certainly fit enough for a man of his age.”

“I’m lost,” admitted Wasp, “I’ll have to give all this a great deal of thought. Now let me see. We have a respected pensioner, retired scientist who reckons he’s on the cusp of inventing life everlasting, or something like that. Then there’s the young pretender, and he must be a pretender, who reckons he’s a doppelganger of the older man and wants all the glory for the discovery. Who reckons he’s an actual clone with all the memories of the original scientist intact and who gave us an example of that memory by recounting his first day at school, and like morons we accepted it whereas anyone could have told roughly the same story because everyone has a traumatic first day at school.”

“I didn’t,” smirked the pathologist, “I loved it. Every moment. My teacher smelled of Heaven and flowery pastures.”

“Have you always been a pervert, doctor? At that age! Well, you might have enjoyed it, and if you described it like he did then no one would have known anything else.”

“So the young fellow and the woman he calls his wife...”

“The one who described herself as his sister!”

“That’s right. And, I believe, the one who believes herself to be his sister...”

“Because he’s convinced her that’s what she is … maybe by using mind altering drugs … he seems to be big on drugs...”

“An impressive deduction, detective!”

“That’s it! I’m going to fetch the man back up from the cell where he’s having, I believe, a nice little nap! Because, and I’m of the mind that what he’s done has caused, directly, the death of Professor Styx’s good lady, the real professor Styx’s wife, and in my book that’s murder!”

© Peter Rogerson 26.09.19