The Scarlet Band

Dr. Walton ate another bite of moist, tender, flavorsome flesh from the oil thrush's thigh--the breast, without large flight muscles, was something of a disappointment. Then, resignedly, he said, "I am afraid you have the advantage of us, Mister...?"

"My name is Morris, Benjamin Joshua Morris. I practice law here in Thetford, and for some time my avocation has been chronicling the multifarious malfeasances and debaucheries of the House of Universal Disgust and the so-called Preacher. About time the authorities stop trembling in fear of his accursed secret society and root it out of the soil from which it has sprouted like some rank and poisonous mushroom."

"Perhaps you will do us the honor of sitting down and telling us more about it," Helms said.

"Perhaps you will also order a bite for yourself so we don't have to go on eating in front of you." Dr. Walton didn't intend to stop, but could--with some effort--stay mannerly.

"Well, perhaps I will." Morris waved for the waiter and ordered a beefsteak, blood rare. To the Englishmen, he said, "I see you are dining off the productions of the wilderness. Myself, I would sooner eat as if civilization had come to the backwoods here." He sighed. "The case of Samuel Jones, however, inclines me to skepticism."

"Samuel Jones?" Walton said. "The name is not familiar."

"You will know him better as the Preacher, founder and propagator--propagator, forsooth!--of the House of Universal Deviation." Benjamin Morris seemed intent on finding as many disparaging names for the Preacher's foundation as he could. "How many members of the House his member has sired I am not prepared to say, but the number is not small."

"He embraces his mistresses as they embrace his principles," Athelstan Helms suggested.

Morris laughed, but quickly sobered. "That is excellent repartee, sir, but falls short in regard of truthfulness. For the Preacher has no principles, but ever professes that which is momentarily expedient. No wonder his theology, so-called, is such an extraordinary tissue of lies and jumble of whatever half-baked texts he chances to have recently read. That men can become as gods! Tell me, gentlemen: has mankind seemed more godly than usual lately? It is to laugh!" Like a lot of lawyers, he often answered his own questions.

His beefsteak appeared then, and proved sanguinary enough to satisfy a surgeon, let alone an attorney. He attacked it with excellent appetite, and also did full justice to an Atlantean red with a nose closely approximating that of a hearty Burgundy. After a bit, Helms said, "Few faiths are entirely logical and self-consistent. The early Christian controversies pertaining to the relation of the Son and the Father and to the relation between the divine and the human within Jesus Christ demonstrate this all too well, as does the blood spilled over them."

"No doubt, no doubt," Benjamin Morris said. "But our Lord was not a louche debauchee, and did not compose the Scriptures with an eye toward giving himself as wide a latitude for misbehavior as he could find." He told several salacious stories about the Preacher's earlier days. They seemed more suitable to the smoking car of a long-haul train than to this placid provincial dining room.

Even Walton, who did not love the Preacher, felt compelled to remark, "Such unsavory assertions would be all the better for proof."

"I have documentary proof at my offices, sir," Morris said. "As I told you, I have been following this rogue and his antics for years, like. After supper, I shall go there and bring you what I trust will suffice to satisfy the most determined skeptic."

Having made that announcement, he hurried through the rest of his meal, drained a last glass of wine, and, slapping a couple of golden Atlantean eagles on the table, arose and hastened from the dining room.

Less than a minute later, several sharp pops rang out. "Fireworks?" Walton said.

"Firearms," Athelstan Helms replied, his voice suddenly grim. "A large-bore revolver, unless I am much mistaken." In such matters, Walton knew his friend was unlikely to be.

Sure enough, someone shouted, "Is a doctor close by? A man's been shot!"

* * * *

Still masticating a last savory bite of oil thrush, Walton dashed out into the street to do what he could for the fallen man. Helms, though no physician, followed hard on his heels to learn what he could from the scene of this latest crime. "I hope it isn't that Morris fellow," the good doctor said.

"Well, so do I, but not to any great degree, for it is likely a hope wasted," Helms said.

And sure enough, there lay Benjamin Joshua Morris, with three bullet wounds in his chest. "Good heavens," Walton said. "Beggar's dead as a stone. Hardly had the chance to know what hit him, I daresay."

Sergeant Karpinski popped up out of nowhere like a jack-in-the-box, pistol in hand. Athelstan Helms' nostrils twitched, as if in surprise. "I heard gunshots," Karpinski said, and then, looking down, "Great God, it's Morris!"