It was a windy spring afternoon. The leaves were filling out on the trees. Perfect blue sky, sunny, the works. As I walked down a quiet residential street, I whistled a happy tune and drummed time on my thighs with my hands. I was in a good mood. And why not? It was my day off.
Holidays are scarce in my line of work. Investigating murders is an involving job. But I found myself between cases, sitting in my office, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly I thought of my friend Dave, who had been having trouble of late with his roommate. I turned on the answering machine and walked to his place.
Dave was a friend from high school. Like most of my friends, he had followed a trend in moving out of his folks' place and moving in with a roommate, in the student ghetto. But unlike my other friends, Dave didn't go to school. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself. And unlike my other friends, Dave did not enjoy sharing a place with his roommate. In fact, he couldn't stand the guy.
Arriving on Dave's street, I reached his apartment building and turned in to the front walk. Then I saw something. A heap of multicoloured cloth. My instincts made me stop walking, and I narrowed my eyes to get a better look. Still I could not make out what it was. I strolled slowly closer and stopped again. The whistle died on my lips.
It was a clown. Or it had been a clown. Big red smile masking a grimace of agony. Huge jolly eyes staring blankly at nothing. Curly green wig askew on its head.
The clown's costume was what had initially confused me. Purple and orange pin-striped coat. Gold shirt with blue paisley pockets. Red and green checker-board tie, five feet long. Tartan pants. A perfectly ordinary outfit, you might say. For a clown.
But this clown's suit was soaked in blood.
I stepped over the body and entered the apartment house. Such is the irony one encounters in my line of work. My first day off in over three months and on an innocent visit to an old friend, it just figures that I stumble on a murder victim.
Well, I wasn't going to let it ruin my day. I walked up the first flight of stairs and tried to think of other things.
I found another dead clown on the second floor landing. This clown had a yellow topcoat with white flower patches sewn on the pockets. He wore quilted trousers. He had a blue Albert Einstein hairdo, and a big red frown instead of a big red smile. And this clown was swinging from a noose.
I passed it off as a coincidence and continued up the stairs.
I found the mimes on the fourth floor landing. The female mime lay clutching her throat, apparently poisoned. The male mime was propped up against an imaginary wall, an axe protruding from the back of his head. As silent in death as in life, they wore matching black and white greasepaint, matching black leotards, matching green and red striped socks.
As I walked to Dave's apartment door, I could see that things would get worse before they got better.
Sprawled against the apartment door lay another clown. A midget clown. I was hardly surprised at all to discover that he was dead. But recently dead. His cigar was burning against his lips, producing a horrible stench.
Could robbery have been the motive? I rifled the little clown's pockets and found forty dollars. No robbery. Perplexed, I pocketed the money and entered the apartment.
It was a slaughterhouse. Dead clowns everywhere. One had been forcibly drowned, his head in a bucket of water. Another had been strangled with a Slinky. In the kitchen, clown legs protruded from the oven.
I started to worry about Dave. Had the killer, or killers, got him too?
I heard noises from deeper in the apartment and crept silently down the hall. The bedrooms were full of dead clowns. Sprawled under fallen bookcases, stuffed into dresser drawers, pinned to the wall with bloody darts.
The noise was coming from the bathroom. Tiptoeing to the door, I flung it open.
And there was Dave. He had just taken a shower. He stood there, dripping, a towel draped around his waist. He was at the sink, the hot water tap running full blast. He furiously tried to scrub bloodstains from under his fingernails.
He turned to me, his eyes wide open, leaving a broad ring of white around the iris. He opened his mouth to speak, faltered, and then tried again.
"They're not funny!" he cried, defensively, "They're stupid!"
I stepped away from the bathroom door to think. On the surface the situation was straightforward. A large number of amusing people, of both the happy and the sad variety, all wearing disguises for reasons unknown, had been murdered. No mystery there.
There was overwhelming circumstantial evidence that the murderer was my friend Dave. No mystery there, either.
Dave was right there before me, trying to put on his pants without removing the towel. He turned away from me, modestly.
I sighed. Not a very challenging case. Logically, I should apprehend Dave and haul him down to the police station. But the case seemed too cut and dried. There had to be a mystery here somewhere.
"Let's go out to the balcony, Dave," I said, "I have some questions I want to ask you."
There was another dead clown hanging over the balcony railing. This one had dozens of bicycle horns attached to every part of his tattered brown suit. One of the horns had been removed from the suit and inserted into the clown, so that the rubber bulb protruded from his nose and the flared opening protruded from his right ear. I shoved him off the railing and, with a honk, he fell.
Seconds later, with a great many honks, he landed.
When Dave walked out onto the balcony, I asked, "Where's Gregor?"
His eyes flashed with anger as he thought of his roommate. "I don't know. He must have left for school before I woke up today."
Dave sat in a plastic chair and stared straight ahead. He had lost the crazed facial expression, and now he just looked tired.
"Dave," I began, "Did you kill these clowns?"
A bad start. I wished he would deny it. If only there were some other explanation; one that would not force me to send my friend to jail.
"They were driving me crazy. You know I don't like clowns."
"Yes, Dave, you hate clowns. We've had this conversation before. But why kill them? Why not just avoid them?"
"That's just it! I couldn't avoid them! Everywhere I went, clowns kept approaching me. Staring at me. Following me!"
"They were following you?" I asked. Here was something. I looked around. "That's right," I said. I was beginning to get excited. "What the hell were all these clowns doing around here, anyway?"
"I don't know!" said Dave. He looked at me like I had a screw loose.
"So the mystery is not WHO killed the clowns. You admit you did it. It's not WHY you killed the clowns. I mean, who could blame you? The mystery here is, what attracted them? What made them come to you?"
He looked at me, thoughtful now. "You're right," he said, "That is the real mystery. Why did they come? Why did they come today? And, not that I'm complaining, but why did they stop coming?"
"All right," I said, "Let's get to the bottom of this," I pulled out my notebook. "Name: Dave Bidet. Age: 24. Occupation: What IS your occupation, anyway?"
"Unemployment Insurance recipient. Layabout. Welfare recipient. Take your pick."
"I'll write down Unemployed. When did the first clown show up?"
"This morning, while I was watching The Price Is Right. Just after they spun the giant wheel for the first time."
"That would be, what? 11:30 A.M.? And what did the clown do?"
"He walked right into the apartment without knocking. Then he said, `Mind if I come in?' I said, `Get out! Goddamn clown!' Then he started to dance."
"No. I threw the TV Guide at him. He caught it. He ran over to the TV and turned it off. Then he opened up the TV Guide and pretended to be reading it. He said, `Let's see what's on the Boo-oob Too-oob.' He said it just like that. `Boo-oob Too-oob.' Then he just kept on saying that, over and over. `Boo-oob Too-oob. Boo-oob Too-oob.' Again and again."
Dave was shaking, as he relived the experience.
"And the TV Guide was upside-down. He was pretending to read it, but it was upside-down." Dave was crying, now, his face buried in his hands. "He was doing it on purpose! He was holding it upside-down on purpose!"
"Yes! I killed him, the bastard! I wrung his neck and then I panicked. I didn't know what to do. So I dragged him down to the basement and jammed him into the washing machine. I...I...turned it on...I don't know why...I was rattled!"
I waited for the sobbing to die down. Then I asked, "What did you do next?"
"I turned the TV back on. I watched the end of The Price Is Right. Then I went to the store to buy some beer."
"Ah! And you met some clowns on the way."
"On the way back. I was running down the street..."
Dave looked at me like I was an idiot. "Because, stupid, if you go to the store right after The Price Is Right, you have to run or else you'll miss the beginning of The Flintstones."
"So I was running down the street, and suddenly I slipped on a banana peel..."
The banana peel part of the story was very disturbing, but I gritted my teeth and dutifully took notes. As Dave described encounters with one clown after another, a pattern began to emerge. A clown would impose himself upon Dave and make an attempt at humour. Dave would try to avoid the clown, who would not get the hint. Dave would brutally murder the clown.
"What I'm wondering now," I said, "is why the clowns stopped coming around by the time I got here. It's as if someone turned some sort of clown tap to the On position at 11:30 this morning, and then turned it to Off at 2:00 this afternoon. Why?"
"I'm wondering something too," said Dave, "What do I do now? It's only a matter of time before one of the neighbours calls the cops. There are dead clowns everywhere. I'm scared."
I thought about this for a while, then, "I've decided," I said, "I've decided you're innocent, Dave. Something bizarre happened here. Something made all these clowns approach you; some Pied Piper sort of thing. We have to figure out what brought them here, and then we'll be closer to the truth.
"There is such a thing as justifiable homicide. The clowns annoyed you, so you killed them; yeah, sure, that's logical, but maybe there is more to it than that. You really aren't the type. Dave, I think somebody tricked you into killing these clowns. I'm going to look around for some clue as to how you were driven to murder.
"Meanwhile, you better hide out. Go to that nature reserve in the West End and lay low in the swamp. Pack a few things and get moving."
I could see that Dave felt much better, now that he knew I believed in him. He grabbed a knapsack and filled it with beer. He put on a jacket and filled the pockets with portable video games and spare batteries.
"Maybe you should bring a blanket," I said.
"Yeah. Good idea." He went and got one.
"And, Dave? May I ask you a personal question?"
"Did killing those clowns turn you on? I mean, did it give you some sort of sexual thrill?"
"Then why do you have a woody?"
Dave looked down at the telltale lump in the front of his trousers. It was unmistakeable. A hard-on. A boner. A stiffy.
Embarrassed, he held the blanket in front of his crotch. "I don't know," he said, "I've had it all day. It won't go away. I've tried everything."
Now I was embarrassed, too. "I just thought I should ask," I said, weakly, "just in case it's some sort of clue."
Dave left, and I started to search the apartment.
I was familiar with the place, having visited many times, so the mess did not surprise me. Other than the dead clowns, it always looked like it did now. I visited each of the rooms in turn. As I did so, I held my nose. Some of the clowns were starting to smell. Flies buzzed around them.
In the kitchen, dry strands of spaghetti decorated the walls near the stove. The sink and counters were cluttered with dirty dishes; it seemed that every dish in the place must be dirty. A glance into the cupboards told me this was true; they were practically empty. I knew that Dave hated this kind of mess; when it was his turn to do the dishes he would wash them promptly. But Gregor was of a different opinion. He would say, "Don't worry about it. I'll do them eventually. This just means I do more than my share." Dave would argue that he would rather wash the dishes more often and live in a clean house, but his protests would fall on deaf ears.
The silly thing was that this was the basis for all the conflict between them. One wanted to live in a neat apartment and the other was a slob. And they fought about it all the time. I guess all it takes is one little thing to set people off.
I found something in the kitchen that I couldn't explain. The coffee urn was among the piles of dishes, and it was full of a dark brown liquid the consistency of molasses. I held it close to my nose and sniffed. Whoo! It was coffee all right, but thick, concentrated coffee. Sort of an ultra-strong, coffee flavoured syrup. Just sniffing it perked me up.
I didn't see how thick coffee fit into the mystery, but it was the thing in the kitchen that seemed out of the ordinary, so I rummaged around under the sink and found a small glass spice jar. I poured some of the coffee syrup into the jar, put the lid on tight, and dropped it into the pocket of my trenchcoat.
I searched the living room, hallway and bathroom, but found no clues. Next stop was Dave's room. As I expected, it was the only neat room in the apartment. Dave had reacted to his roommate's sloppiness in an understandable way. After trying without success to keep the place clean, he gave up. But he made it clear to Gregor that his own bedroom was off limits, and reverted to his innate neatness whenever he was in there. The bed was made, there were no clothes on the floor, and the room had recently been swept and dusted. I quickly determined that there was only one thing in the bedroom that seemed wrong. On the wall next to the bed, four feet high, was a squiggly brown line. From beginning to end the line was two feet long, and it was a sixteenth of an inch thick. The end of the line further from the bedroom door was punctuated with several brown drops.
I used my pocketknife to gouge a piece of plaster from the wall, with a two inch sample of the brown line, then carefully dropped this into a small plastic bag.
The only room I had not searched was Gregor's bedroom. I went in. Wading through piles of dirty clothes, I examined the room. I went to work, examining the mess bit by bit, looking for something unusual. I found something on the night table. There were three ashtrays there, two of them overflowing with cigarette butts. The third ashtray held a strange mixture. I looked closely. It was a brown liquid, but not the same as that I had found in the coffee urn. This liquid was a lighter colour and much less viscous. Floating in it were hundreds of amber flakes. I wondered what the flakes were until I noticed a heap of paper fragments next to the ashtray. Strewn amongst the bits of paper were cigarette filters. I picked one up and examined it. It was clean. No yellow stain from where the cigarette smoke had been puffed through it. The edge of the paper was not charred, either. These cigarettes had never been smoked. I looked again at the amber flakes, suspended in the gooey liquid that filled the ashtray. Of course! They were flakes of tobacco.
I sat on the bed and tried to piece together these facts. Someone had sat here before me and ripped apart numerous cigarettes, then placed the tobacco into the ashtray and added some sort of liquid. I smelled the liquid in the ashtray. It smelled like tobacco, all right. Bleah! But why would anybody want to soak tobacco in this way?
There was a clown lying dead on the floor next to the night table. Some of the brown liquid from the ashtray had spilled and, dripping from the edge of the table, trickled all over his wig and his coat. Part of a cuckoo clock, the part with the little door, protruded from his mouth and I realized that the clock had been forced into his throat, choking him to death. But there was something different about this clown. I crouched and stared at his face, trying to determine what it was. Suddenly, the door of the cuckoo clock burst open, and a little bird came out. "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" it said. Four o'clock. The noise startled me, and then I realized what was different about this clown. There was no buzzing! No flies flew around him. I wondered about this.
There was a large jar of brown liquid on the bureau. Another one! I realized I would want to take more samples, so I went into the kitchen and returned with two more spice jars. I poured some of the liquid from the ashtray into one of the jars, making sure to include some of the tobacco. Then I moved on to examine the bureau.
The jar on the bureau was made of plastic, and had once held peanut butter. I compared its contents to those of the two spice jars. Surprisingly, it did not match either of them. Three brown liquids! I opened the peanut butter jar and poured some of its contents into the third spice jar. The goo was intermediate in viscosity, compared to the other two. After closing and pocketing the spice jar, I sniffed at the opening of the peanut butter jar. The new liquid smelled different, but I thought I detected a familiar scent. Was it the tobacco? The coffee? Maybe I should sniff each of the jars in turn, to compare them.
Wait a minute! Something was happening. I felt a familiar sensation in my loins, and looked down at the crotch of my pants. A woody! I was getting a woody! I closed the peanut butter jar and put it back where I had found it. I noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the bureau, with a brown ring that showed where the jar had been. I scanned the text on the paper and then, perplexed, folded it and placed it into my pocket.
Taking a last sweeping glance at the room, I saw nothing else that seemed to require a closer look. I went to the living room and sat on the couch.
Over the next ten minutes, while I weighed the possibilities presented by what I had found, my erection gradually subsided. Then I pulled the three little jars from my pocket and sniffed their contents, one by one, pausing in between to check for signs of life in my pants. Tobacco: no change. Coffee: no change. Substance three, identity unknown: a sudden, raging hard-on! I resealed the jars and waited for it to go away.
By the time I could walk comfortably, sirens were wailing in the distance. The police were on their way. I did not want to compare notes with the cops just yet, so I got out of there and made my way back to my office, where I made a couple of phone calls. That night, I hopped into my car and made a trip downtown, to the Trade School. I came home with some very intriguing evidence. I was now positive that Dave was innocent, but I had a lot of things to mull over.
The next morning, I drove to the park where Dave was hiding out. Slapping at mosquitos, I bushwhacked my way into the swamp, wishing I had thought to bring some insect repellent. Deep in the bush, I stopped and listened and soon heard the faint, but telltale boops and beeps of Dave's portable video game. As I approached, he must have heard me coming, because the noises suddenly stopped. I called out that it was me, and he answered. Following his voice into a thicket, I found him sitting on a log, his back leaned against a tree, and the mossy ground around his feet littered with empty beer bottles.
The insects were driving me crazy, so I wasted no time. "We have a suspect and a motive," I said, "The thing I haven't quite figured out yet is the M.O." I slapped my left arm, killing six mosquitoes at once.
The bugs did not seem to be bothering Dave. "Who's the suspect?" he asked.
"I guess he's the closest thing I have to an enemy." Dave sounded skeptical, and confused.
"I haven't heard any logic. I killed the clowns. I remember doing it. Tell me one thing that makes you think Gregor was behind it."
"I found a jar on Gregor's bureau. When I sniffed its contents, I got a woody."
The skepticism disappeared, but the confusion remained. "Gregor. That bastard," said Dave, looking down at his pants, which still comically bulged outward, "But how?"
"The how is the only part I haven't figured out yet," I said, "but I have some theories." I smacked my shoulder. "Ow! Dammit! They even bite through my shirt. How did you stand this, all night?"
"The bugs? They haven't been bothering me."
"Do mosquitos usually avoid you? Some people are lucky that way."
"Come to think of it, they usually feast on me."
Something was tickling at my brain; something I had learned long ago. In school? No. From a book? Yeah, a book about...escaped convicts, fleeing through the jungle, and something clever they had done to defeat the insects. I slapped myself in the face.
"Listen, Dave, we better move. I can't think with these monsters eating me alive."
We walked through the woods and out of the swamp. Finding a farmer's field, we climbed to a grassy hilltop, where a light breeze kept the mosquitos away.
"So let me in on it," said Dave, "What was Gregor's motive?"
From my pocket, I removed the piece of paper that I had found on Gregor's bureau. Dave took it and unfolded it. As he read, his facial expression changed, first to shock, then to anger.
"The bastard took out rental insurance on me!"
"Can he do that? I mean, is it legal, without my permission?"
"Yes, it is. I phoned the insurance company and asked them."
"Let's go get him, then, and turn him in."
"Not so fast. You haven't been cleared of any crime yet. Until we can prove to the police that Gregor is responsible, you're in danger of being tossed into a cell."
"So I should keep hiding out here?"
"No. You're coming into town with me. I'm going to try to trick Gregor into implicating himself, and you're going to help me. Therefore, you'll need a disguise. Put this on." I handed him a paper grocery bag.
Opening it, he looked inside and said, "You've got to be kidding."
I watched as Dave put on the clown costume I had brought. A giant pink afro wig, a baggy grey suit with pinstripes going in all directions, a pair of two-foot blue shoes and a pink tie. With a distinct lack of expertise, I painted giant lips on his face with a pink lipstick, and used a ball-point pen to add some blue triangles above and below his eyes.
When I was done with him, he looked pretty good. Well, he was hard to recognize, anyway. We hiked out to the car and drove to the police station that was closest to Dave's place. I found the cop who was investigating the clown murders, and with some difficulty convinced him to dress up in another clown costume. He was reluctant at first, but I promised him a breakthrough in his case. The three of us drove over to Dave's apartment.
We arrived at the front door. I put my ear against the door and heard music. "Good, he's home," I whispered, "You guys walk in and start hamming it up. Don't say anything. Let's see how he reacts."
They went in, but stayed in the hallway near the door, where I could see them. Dave walked into the wall, face first, then did a pratfall. He pretended the floor was slippery, so that he couldn't get up. The cop took his cue from Dave, and started doing the same. They flopped and slipped and sprawled. Dave was pretty good, I noticed; I almost smiled at his antics. The cop looked a little self-conscious, but he was doing okay. I heard Gregor speak.
"Nice try, guys, but you're one day too late. The ad said Tuesday, the tenth of June. That was yesterday. Can't you read?"
I made my entrance. "Thank you, Gregor," I said, "You've just provided me with the last piece of evidence I need. Officer, would you kindly cuff this man, and get a couple of uniforms to guard him?"
I wanted the cops as witnesses, so I went to the phone and quickly made a few phone calls. Before I was ready to produce Dave, I wanted to prove as well as I could that he was not responsible.
The doorbell rang several times in the next half hour. First a couple of cops showed up and posted a guard on Gregor. A plainclothes detective arrived next. Then I ushered in a janitor from the Trade School, a representative of their student newspaper, and a student from a nearby university. Finally, I quietly brought several clowns into the kitchen through the back door, asked one of them to change into a costume I had ready for him, and told them to stay in there and keep quiet until I needed them. At last all was ready, and I prepared to sum up my case.
I stood up and waited for the buzz of conversation to die down. I began, "I'm going to produce evidence that will show that Dave Bidet is not responsible for the deaths of a number of clowns. Dave admits to killing the clowns, but I will prove that he did so while in a physiological state where he cannot be held responsible for his actions."
"Sorry to interrupt," said one of the cops, "but would you by any chance know of the whereabouts of Mr. Bidet?"
"Yes, I do," I said, careful not to glance at Dave, who was sitting right next to the cop who had asked the question, "and I will produce him for you as soon as I have proved his innocence. To continue, I will not only prove Mr. Bidet's innocence, but I will prove to you that this man, Gregor Torchov, is the real culprit, and should be charged with murder, without delay."
The cops were sitting on the edges of their seats.
"On the night of Monday, June 9th, Mr. Torchov came home after his roommate, Mr. Bidet, had gone to sleep, and proceeded to make a pot of coffee. He deliberately made very strong coffee, by using many times more coffee grounds than would normally be recommended, and then running the resulting mixture through more grounds, again and again until he had a concentrated coffee syrup. I have some of that mixture right here." I produced the jar, and the cops passed it around, sniffing at it and reacting by widening their eyes.
"Then Mr. Torchov went into his bedroom and created a nicotine solution by mixing the tobacco from an entire package of cigarettes with a small amount of water. He made this mixture in an ashtray on his night table, and I have a sample of that, too." I pulled the second jar out of my pocket, and the cops passed it around, each taking a whiff and then recoiling in disgust.
"Mr. Torchov then mixed quantities of these two solutions with a third liquid, of which I do not have a sample. But I do have a sample of the resulting mixture." I produced the third jar and the cops passed it around. I suppressed my smile as they felt its effect.
"Is this some kind of practical joke?" asked one of the cops.
"No officer, I did it to prove a point. Any man who smells this mixture gets an erection. Mr. Gravy, would you please stand up."
"Mr. Gravy, what do you do for a living?"
"I'm doing my master's in biochemistry at the university, and I work in the chemical supply shop."
"Please, Mr. Gravy, tell me what occurred on the afternoon of Monday, June 9th."
"Sir, I sold a vial of pure testosterone to a clown."
"Now, Mr. Gravy, what would happen if I were to sniff the contents of such a vial?"
"You would probably get an erection."
"Thank you, Mr. Gravy. You may sit down. Miss Carruthers, would you please stand up?"
The young lady did as requested.
"Miss Carruthers, what duty do you perform for the student newspaper at the Trade School?"
"A week ago, did you sell an advertisement to a clown?"
"And is it unusual for you to deal with clowns?"
"Not at all. We have a clown program at the Trade School. Clowns come in once in a while."
"So, then, many student clowns read your newspaper."
"But would you recognize this particular clown if you saw him again?"
"I would recognize his costume, but I would have no way of knowing if the same person was wearing it."
I knocked on the wall beside me. One by one, the six clowns filed in from the kitchen and stood in a line against the wall.
"Miss Carruthers, was the clown who bought the ad wearing one of the costumes we see before us?"
"Yes. The second from the left. With the big purple nose."
"Mr. Gravy, can you identify the costume of the clown who bought the testosterone?"
"I have the same answer," said Mr. Gravy, "the second from the left, with the purple nose."
"Now, Miss Carruthers," I said, "Please read to us the text of the ad that was purchased by the clown last week."
Miss Carruthers read: "Employment opportunity. Clown wanted. Fifteen dollars per hour. Twenty hours per week. No experience necessary. Present yourself at 2063 Westmore, #8 on Tuesday, June 9th, between noon and 2PM. Be ready to entertain."
"Thank you, Miss Carruthers. Mr. Grody, please stand up."
"Mr. Grody, what do you do for a living?"
"I do janitorial work for the Trade School."
"And last night, when I came to see you, what did we do?"
"We used my computer to search for the locker number of a Mr. Gregor Torchov. Then we went to his locker and looked inside."
"And did we find a clown costume?"
"Yes. We found the costume that guy behind you is wearing right now, the one with the big purple nose."
"Thank you, Mr. Grody. Now I will continue to describe what Mr. Torchov did on Monday night. After making a mixture of coffee, nicotine solution and testosterone, Mr. Torchov filled a syringe with that mixture. He then went into Mr. Bidet's bedroom and expelled the excess air from the syringe by squirting some of it onto the wall, making a squiggly brown line, a sample of which I have right here."
I produced the sandwich bag containing a piece of Dave's bedroom wall. My audience collectively gasped, and all heads turned to stare at Gregor.
"Mr. Torchov then injected the contents of the syringe under Mr. Bidet's skin. My best guess at the desired result was that Mr. Bidet would wake up, as usual, late the next morning, feeling extremely agitated, due to the effects of the nicotine and caffeine, both of which are commonly known to be stimulants, and also feeling extremely aggressive, due to the effect of the testosterone. He would then be inexplicably confronted by a series of clowns. Mr. Bidet makes no secret of the fact that he detests clowns, a hatred that he is normally able to control, but unknowingly being under the influence of Mr. Torchov's evil drug cocktail, he would be unable to keep his feelings in check, and the result was the scene of clown carnage that confronted us yesterday."
"What was the motive?" asked one of the cops.
"There were several motives," I answered, "For one, I was surprised to discover yesterday, when Mr. Grody helped me track down Mr. Torchov's locker number, that he is enrolled in the Trade School's Clown Certificate Program. So it seems that by causing the deaths of many of his fellow students, Mr. Torchov eliminated some of his own competition, both for grades and for future employment in a job market that is, if you'll pardon the expression, no laughing matter."
"A second motive was financial gain." I handed the insurance form to the nearest cop, who passed it around the room. "Mr. Torchov took out rental insurance on the apartment he shares with Mr. Bidet. Part of the deal states that if Mr. Bidet is unable to pay his share of the rent, Mr. Torchov will be entitled to continue living in the apartment while paying only half the rent, with the insurance company paying the other half for the duration of the lease. And it seems that Mr. Torchov, despite the fact that they have not been getting along, recently convinced Mr. Bidet to extend the lease for three full years. It is understandable that he would want a long lease, when you consider that he expected to live for half price in a two-bedroom apartment for three years, all by himself, since he expected Mr. Bidet to be in jail.
"The third motive is simple revenge. Mr. Bidet might be surprised to hear this, but when a sloppy person and a neat person share a living space, it is not only the neat person who suffers. The sloppy person has to put up with repetitive nagging and whining, which can be just as irritating as living with someone who is extremely messy. I know from personal observation that Mr. Torchov suffered in this way."
"But that brings me to a final question. I am sure Mr. Torchov considers himself a master criminal, of sorts. And one might ask why a person of such evil genius would leave this trail of evidence behind himself. Part of the answer is arrogance. Mr. Torchov was certain that nobody would be clever enough to realize the significance of the clues he left behind. But arrogance is only half the answer. The fact is, Mr. Torchov is a sloppy person, and as a sloppy person he was too careless to clean up traces of evidence. He was also too careless to pay attention to the side effects of the drugs he used to control Mr. Bidet. It was these side effects that gave me the information I needed to solve the case. The first link between Mr. Bidet's condition and his roommate was when I found the mixture that gave me an erection when I smelled it. Having already noted that Mr. Bidet had an erection he could not get rid of, I immediately began to consider Mr. Torchov as my prime suspect. A second clue was the fact that one of the dead clowns, and only one, was not accompanied by a cloud of opportunistic fleshflies. This seemed so strange to me at the time that I actually double-checked to see if he was really dead. And this was the only dead clown that was found in Mr. Torchov's bedroom, with a mysterious brown mixture spilled on it. I noticed earlier today that mosquitoes seemed repelled by Mr. Bidet, in a situation where they were biting me severely. As Mr. Bidet is not a smoker, I began to consider the possibility that he had nicotine somewhere on his person. Mr. Gravy might be able to confirm that nicotine works as an insect repellant."
"That's true," said Mr. Gravy, "Nicotine is present in tobacco as a chemical defense against insects."
"At this point, I became certain that Mr. Torchov had somehow managed to make Mr. Bidet ingest the nicotine solution," I said, "And that, gentlemen, was the final piece of the puzzle. Well, Dave, I've said all I can say. You may as well show yourself."
Dave pulled off his wig, and the cops surrounded him, full of questions. We all went down to the police station to make statements, and they held Dave in custody for a few days, as I expected. A week later, he gave me a call. He was home! I drove over to his place.
Dave served me a cup of tea in his kitchen, which was already much cleaner. "They let me go, but I'm not allowed to leave town until Gregor's trial is over," he said.
"Another thing. I've come to a major decision about my future. Finally, I've made a decision. I'm going to enroll in the clown college."
This was unexpected. "But Dave, you hate clowns!" I exclaimed.
"Not anymore. Since you made me dress up in that clown suit, I realized that never in my life have I felt so free. There's something about being anonymous; something about the way people look at you when you're in the greasepaint. You know, they kind of look at you as if they expect you to be annoying, but they don't really mind. I like that."
"When you graduate, are you going to be a sad clown or a happy clown?"
"Oh, and there's another bit of good news," he continued, "It turns out that Gregor took out rental insurance on himself, too. In case he got sick or something, I guess. It means I'm covered! Gregor's going to jail, and I still only have to pay half the rent! This means I don't have to get another roommate." Dave beamed with delight.
"Excellent news, Dave. But I have one question. Is your woody gone?"
"I guess you should hear this from a friend, Dave. I talked to Mr. Gravy, the biochemistry student, again. And I talked to a couple of other experts. It seems that when a man has an erection for more than a few hours, it causes a certain amount of damage."
I went on. "You see, there is usually irretrievable damage to the blood vessels inside the, um, you know, down there. And then you can never get an erection again."
Dave said nothing. He just looked devastated.
"But keep this in perspective, Dave," I babbled, "Things could have turned out a lot worse. You could have ended up in jail, but you're free. You have a half-price apartment for the next three years. And you've found your calling."
He nodded, slowly. "I guess you're right. But I've changed my mind about one thing."