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unpunished that he kept a trophy from each one of his victims.”
    Craig opened a large, square box, like those that women use to store their hats.
    â€œAlarcón was prepared to stop his crimes and, against my advice, became his assistant. He took advantage of his proximity to search for evidence about the murders; he found the collection of souvenirs from Kalidán’s victims. Unfortunately, he allowed himself to be dazzled by the magician’s skills.”
    Craig pulled a dull medallion, a scapular, a bit of lace, and a lock of hair tied with a yellow ribbon out of the box. “These macabre treasures gave Alarcón the illusion that he had solved the case; but the magician discovered what he was doing and killed him. He drank his blood just as he had the women’s. Then he made the body disappear.”
    The journalists took notes as fast as they could; Craig had shrewdly called this meeting at the end of the day so they wouldn’t have time to ask too many questions, since they were already due back at their editorial offices. The moment they left, the detective seemed to lose all his strength and he collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands.
    It seemed best to leave him in peace, but I had a thousand questions. Didn’t I, his assistant, deserve an explanation of the method that had enabled him to reconstruct the story? Since he didn’t respond to my questions, I put my hand on his shoulder. Physical contact was something that Craig couldn’t stand, but I was experiencing a maddening curiosity, the satiation of which would make even Alarcon’s gruesome murder seem like a gift.
    â€œIt’s true,” he said, sitting up with a piqued expression on his face.“The method. The perspective. Following clues. Salvatrio my friend, I am going to give you a lesson on the method that none of The Twelve Detectives can match.”
    Overcome by that dark energy that now held sway over him, he dragged me out of the house. We walked at top speed: Craig, the insomniac, went first, with a lit lantern. After an hour of walking in silence I wished we had called a carriage. I made some vague remark and he responded by saying, “Rented carriages can’t take us to where we’re going.”
    I was unfamiliar with those dark, disintegrating corners of the city. We passed a fallen tree and then a dead horse. His bones shone in the moonlight. Later that same night I saw something worse, but nightmares are capricious, and it was the horse’s empty eye sockets that haunted me for nights afterward. Farther on there was a shed, which was where we were headed. Craig opened the large door, without a key or a lock. Up high there were some broken windows that let in the moon’s white light. I thought I heard a whisper, but it was the buzzing of flies.
    In the middle of the shed a man’s corpse hung upside down. His feet were tied to a beam with rope. Craig raised his lantern so I could see it well. He was naked and covered in clots of blood. His inert, open arms seemed to retain something of the gesture he had used, night after night, in distant theaters, to elicit amazement. Beneath the body, there was a lake of blood that the dirt floor was struggling to swallow up.
    â€œHe was slow in telling me where Alarcón’s body was. Up until the very last minute he seemed to trust that some trick would save him.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do with…that?”
    â€œAs soon as the sun comes up I’ll go to the police station. I’ve already thought of how I’ll explain it, that I came here following the clues I got from the card players. The police are familiar with the harsh ways they punish cheaters. And thus ends Detective Craig’s Final Case.”
    As I left the shed I had the feeling I was being followed by blue flies. I couldn’t go back alone in the middle of the night, so I had to wait for Craig. I didn’t want to walk by his side.