The building was no less imposing on the second time they saw it. In fact it was possibly larger and had less windows than it was in Victor's memory. The Nord Industrial headquarters' main doors were unguarded, so Victor and Caughlin just walked up the steps and through them.
About half an hour earlier they had been looking at a crate in Harland Seaton's house. He was fast becoming their best suspect, largely due to the fact that the crate was printed with the Nord Industrial logo. It was a stencilled “NI” with interlocking cogs; wheels within wheels.
“What does it mean?” Caughlin had asked Victor as they saw the familiar logo on the crate.
“It means, we need to visit Strickland,” Victor explained.
That's why they walked past the gold plaque, and into the building's vast and hushed main hall. It was, as before, lit with flickering flames, and there was a reverent hush to the place.
As they crossed the lobby to the main desk, Caughlin felt as though he should whisper.
“Shouldn't we have contacted Strickland first?” he hissed to Victor.
“What would be the purpose?” Victor shrugged without looking back.
“Well,” Caughlin caught up, or perhaps Victor slowed down, “it seems to me they are most likely just to throw us out.”
They walked past the vast three dimensional rendering of the corporate logo.
“I very much doubt that,” Victor shot Caughlin a conspiratorial glance, “besides, why wait for us to send a message and then receive one back and so on.”
“Do you have some sort of plan?” Caughlin worried, “Or are you just making it up as you go along?”
“Planning leads to failure,” Victor stated matter of factly.
“How on earth can you think that?” Caughlin shook his head in disbelief. Sometimes he thought Victor just liked to say outrageous things like that for shock value.
They arrived at the desk.
“Don't you want to stop the killer before he strikes again?” Victor asked with a slight smile before turning to the desk clerk.
“Of course I do, but...” Caughlin was interrupted by Victor speaking to the clerk.
“Hello there,” Victor said seriously. “My name's Victor Hart and I demand to speak to the CEO immediately!”
“Immediately?” the clerk seemed surprised. “Can I ask what this is about?”
“Of course,” Victor stated loudly. “He is about to be implicated in a series of crimes that threaten the very fabric of the Empire.”
The desk clerk goggled at them, unsure whether he was a lunatic or not.
“I... see...” the clerk looked around himself for a moment as if unsure what to do, “I'll just...”
Company workers passing through the hall whispered to each other; a hill of ants who had found a discarded sandwich. They passed messages between them and scuffled about through doors.
Victor smiled as he watched the chaos he had caused around him.
“Hit the beehive with a stick...” he said to himself under his breath.
Caughlin couldn't believe that Victor was about to accuse the CEO of Nord Industrial of something so serious without even talking it over with him first. It could put the Freemasons in an extremely difficult position.
“What's going on, Victor?” Caughlin was astonished, “I think we should have spoken about this with Burgrave first...”
“Nonsense,” Victor dismissed, “it's all under control.”
The worker bees seemed to reach some kind of consensus and the pair watched as a group of them passed worriedly through the same double doors, deeper into the building, that Victor and Caughlin had gone through last time.
After a few moments John Strickland emerged from the doors. He was wearing a clipped expression as Victor and Caughlin just stood there and watched him approach them like a shark through reeds. He greeted them by the desk.
“What's all this about the CEO?” Strickland challenged.
“Cheese,” Victor answered cryptically.
“Cheese?” Strickland's eyebrows shot up his head, then he turned to Caughlin. “Is this man quite insane?”
“Firstly,” Caughlin suddenly understood, perhaps he was getting better at this, “yes, quite probably, but in this case I think he means to say that you're the mouse.”
“What?” Strickland blinked uncomprehendingly.
“Today I don't need the CEO,” Victor addressed the confused representative, “I wanted to speak to you.”
“Then why come in making bizarre accusations?” Strickland was clearly angered by the commotion Victor's behaviour had caused.
“It caught your attention, didn't it?” Victor grinned, angering Strickland further.
But then the man drew the mask back over his true face and settled down.
“I think you had better come up to my office then,” he smiled welcomingly.
Strickland led them in silence through the maze up to his office. This time there were no tea and cakes. Neither did Strickland offer them a seat, but Victor took one nonetheless. Caughlin followed suit after Strickland himself sat down.
“Alright, out with it,” Strickland demanded wearily. “I assume you're not just hear to play the fool.”
Victor regarded Strickland in silence for a few moments and wondered to himself how long a silence it would take to start Strickland squirming. He didn't wait to find out.
“All I want,” Victor stated calmly, “is one thing, a name.”
Strickland began speaking as soon as Victor's last syllable had ended without even space for a breath.
“I am not going to talk to you about the CEO,” Strickland snapped, “so if that's what you came for...”
“Not that name,” Victor interrupted, “a different name.”
Strickland looked at Victor sideways, “whose?”
Victor stretched the muscles out in his arms casually, “last time I was here, you told me about an intern who stole a crate of scorpions. I want his name.”
“And I told you then,” Strickland returned to his indignant state, “we didn't choose to report the matter because we wanted to keep our name out of it.”
“We're not the police,” Victor insisted.
“No, you're not,” Strickland stated, “but you might as well be.”
Victor spotted an in. All he needed was to dovetail their goals.
“We've got no interest in smearing Nord Industrial's name,” Victor began. “Look, the culprit is about to get caught by the police and implicated in a series of murders, and once that happens the police are going to follow the same clues we did to find you.”
“They might not...” Strickland said, but Victor could detect a note of uncertainty somewhere in his voice.
“They might not,” Victor agreed, “but the alternative is that he's free to keep killing.”
Victor let that sit for a few moments. Strickland might be a dishonest weasel, but he wasn't the sort that would allow murders to happen when he could have stopped them. He was too weak for that.
Victor relaxed into his chair.
“There is a third option,” Victor suggested.
“You catch him first?” Strickland said, mildly incredulously.
“And we keep your name out of it,” Victor smiled. “Nobody need know that he has anything to do with the company at all.”
“And all you want is a name,” Strickland asked demonstrating to Victor that Victor had already won.
“That's the deal,” Victor nodded, “but it has to be today. Right now.”
Strickland exhaled heavily, a long uncomfortable breath. He was used to hiding things to protect the company, revealing things to do the same did not come easily to him.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” he relented, “Seaton. Harland Seaton.”
* * *
* * * *
* * *
Outside the building, the midday sun dropped soft shadows on the cobbled street beneath them as they walked from the front steps of Nord Industrial to where they had parked the mainspring.
To Caughlin this case was becoming incredibly confusing and contradictory. He couldn't imagine that Victor was in a much better position than he.
“Are you any closer to answers?” he asked, “I just cannot understand what's going on...”
They took a left down a small street that had buddleia hanging over a fence surrounded by a flittering cloud of cabbage white butterflies.
“What's confusing you?” Victor asked as he gently swished a butterfly from his face with a hand.
“If Harland Seaton stole the scorpions from Nord Industrial...” Caughlin explained his confusion, “that means it must be him, and yet we already know it can't be him because he has an alibi... and he has no connection to anyone except Nicholas Foster... this makes no sense.”
“Makes no sense? On the contrary,” Victor seemed bewildered by Caughlin's confusion, “it's all starting to come together.”
They emerged from the butterfly-filled street and honed in on the mainspring which was parked just near the alley's mouth.
“Well,” Caughlin shrugged, “I wish you'd let me in on it because it's baffling to me.”
“All in good time,” Victor stepped round the vehicle to the passenger side. “I'd rather keep my ideas to myself at this point, until they are confirmed. To that end, I want to go to Bow street.”