Murder: Cryogenesis

July 23, 2007, 9:58 PM

London, England

In a large, rambling, and dusty Victorian house on a noisy London street near the Thameslink Kingscross rail line, which shuttled commuters from the North to the large station by Euston Road and the city's colourless offices, an unusual party was gathered in the parlour of Dr. Maxwell Stott. Dr. Stott, a top British geneticist, recently from Cambridge, had moved house to London and was currently in the employ of the ***** company at a cryogenics research facility a few blocks away on Kensington Street.

The arrival of Mr. Wentworth and his colleague Mr. Eddings had been unexpected, at least to Dr. Stott, or else the casual disorder that prevailed in the parlour would have been set to rights, the furniture dusted, the silver tea set brought out. There would have been a note in Max’s pocket book which might have read something like "contact Mrs. Gibbons--meeting Thursday" to remind him to leave instructions for the housekeeper the morning before his guests were due to arrive.

Dr. Stott, known as Max by his friends and the regulars at the local pub, relied upon fastidious preparation for all his daily activities in order to impose some semblance of organization upon his cluttered life. Memos and reminders were meticulously affixed to every inch of surface in his study, but the good doctor really longed for an unfettered lifestyle free of his obligations. However, his plain British good sense enabled him to suppress any conscious deviations into reckless behaviour. With vigorous flowing strokes he scrawled additional notes in the margins of his research and sometimes stopped to glance over them, admiring the quality of the writing itself rather than the content it conveyed.

It was just after ten o' clock when Dr. Stott's guests arrived. Max had finished up reviewing his research for the ***** company and was about to take his supper--the usual roasted cheese sandwich, topped with a dash of pepper and a cup of boiling tea cooled with a spot of milk--when to his amazement he heard a loud knocking at his front door.

Mr. Wentworth, dressed head to toe in a tan trenchcoat wrapped tightly against the gales of wind, greeted his host with a curt hello, then introduced Mr. Eddings, a young American businessman dressed in a dark navy suit.

"Meet Eddings. He's in on this business, too. Shall we have the meeting here?" Wentworth tapped his foot in agitation, glancing around the bronze satin of Max's dressing gown to the darkened foyer. "Anyone else at home?"

Max could only shake his head. There was no one. Wrinkles gathered between his brows, a clear indication of his confused state of mind. Max was utterly useless at dissembling his emotions.

Meanwhile, Wentworth sighed inwardly, remembering his first encounter with Dr. Stott in the ***** research labs a few weeks earlier. This evening confirmed his initial appraisal of the absent-minded professor; Wentworth wondered if the man could be relied upon, if he was worth all this effort. Still, his employers felt they needed Stott in the operation, so Wentworth had been dispatched to make the first contact.

Dr. Stott finally remembered his manners and ushered them inside, leading his guests in silence to the parlour room. He offered the Edwardian sofa and an antique Georgian chair to the two men but remained standing himself, leaning against the left side of the marble mantlepiece, beneath which an artificial gas fire flickered red and gold, letting out a constant hiss of air. Dancing shadows fell upon the two seated men until Mr. Eddings stood to turn on the table lamp. Max watched him do this in irritation, not realizing that his attitude regarding the pleasant ambiance of the firelight were what some might call sentimental.