Chapter 9 - The Surgeon’s Mask
Doctor Moreau let out a soft, low chuckle, his sharp blue eyes locking onto Julien’s with an icy, intellectual amusement. He did not look like a man accused of a federal crime; he looked like a professor amused by a student’s clever but flawed theory.
"A brilliant piece of fiction, Inspector," Moreau said, his hands resting elegantly on his lap. "But you are forgetting your own timeline. Roger the conductor stated that I left my compartment at ten-fifteen to go to the dining car, and returned twenty minutes later. The crime took place between ten-forty-five and eleven o'clock, while I was inside my own room, Compartment 3. I have an absolute alibi."
"You have a temporal illusion, Doctor," Julien corrected, his voice hardening. "In 1952, a notorious thief named Vittorio Rossi pulled off a famous heist on the Venice-Simplon Orient Express by manipulating the mechanical clocks inside the passenger cars while the conductor was away. You did something far simpler, yet far more scientific."
Julien pointed to the mechanical clock mounted on the wall above the conductor’s desk. "When you walked past Roger’s desk at ten-fifteen to go to the dining car, you noticed he was busy filling out his logbook. You returned twenty minutes later. But before you sat back down, you used your surgical precision to slip into Grimaldi's room while he slept, applied the chloroform, and signaled Gaston through the maintenance hatch to open the filed fire door."
"And the timeline?" Moreau challenged, his eyes narrowing.
"You changed the time on your own expensive pocket watch, Doctor. When you showed Roger your watch later, claiming you had been in your room the entire hour, you were lying about the internal mechanics of the train. But more importantly, you made one critical, scientific error."
Julien reached out, grabbing Doctor Moreau’s right hand and turning it over. The skin of the palm was impeccably clean, but right at the base of the thumb lay a small, faint yellowish stain—the distinct, chemical discoloration left by prolonged exposure to concentrated liquid chloroform when a cloth is held tightly against a victim's face.
"Chloroform is highly volatile, Doctor," Julien said, his grip tightening on the surgeon's wrist. "It evaporates quickly in the air, but when it dissolves the natural oils of the human skin, it leaves a distinct chemical burn that takes forty-eight hours to fade. You didn't wear your leather gloves when you attacked Grimaldi because you needed the tactile precision to handle the delicate lock-picking wires."
Moreau’s elegant composure finally shattered. His face twisted into a snarl of raw, aristocratic fury. He attempted to pull his hand back, his left hand reaching into his tailored jacket pocket for a small, silver scalpel.
May you like
But Julien was faster. He twisted Moreau's wrist downward, forcing the surgeon to drop the scalpel onto the desk, while his right hand brought the heavy iron barrel of his revolver directly under Moreau’s chin.
"Sit down, Doctor," Julien commanded, his voice cold as the midnight rain. "The train is entering the outer yards of Brussels. Your destination has changed."
