The image on the screen, the final, impossible testament of a dead man, had ceased to be a clue. It had become an icon of terror, a symbol of a new and dreadful reality that had struck the greatest minds of a generation utterly dumb. The silence in the hotel suite was no longer one of tension; it was one of profound, existential dread. The very foundations of their rational world had been turned to dust. Poirot's final, whispered word, demon, hung in the air like a death sentence.
They were adrift in a sea of the impossible, and it was the oldest, most unassuming member of their party who threw them the first lifeline.
"No," a soft voice said, cutting through the thick, horrified silence.
All eyes turned to Miss Marple. She had picked up her knitting once more, the needles clicking with a soft, steady rhythm that was a defiant sound of normalcy in a room that had lost all sense of it. She did not look at the screen. She looked at the faces of the men around her.
"Your fear," she continued, her voice gentle but firm, "while perfectly understandable, is illogical. We are not hunting a demon, Monsieur Poirot. If we were, our task would be hopeless. Demons, you see, are creatures of pure motive. They are evil for the sake of evil. They have no vanities, no doubts, no lingering affections. They are, in their own way, perfect."
She paused, her gaze resting for a moment on the shocked face of Sherlock Holmes. "We are hunting something far more complex, and far more vulnerable. We are hunting a human being."
Connor, who had been running endless, fruitless diagnostic loops trying to reconcile the data with the laws of physics, finally spoke. "Ma'am," he said, his voice a model of synthetic confusion, "the data is irrefutable. The subject's motor functions continued after confirmed clinical death. This event is not possible within the known parameters of human biology. The term 'human' is no longer a sufficient descriptor for our suspect."
"Oh, I quite agree, dear," Miss Marple replied with a placid nod. "The weapon is not human. The power he wields is something quite beyond our understanding. A magic wand, a wishing ring… a demon's notebook, perhaps. But the hand that wields it, the mind that directs it, the heart that desires its power… that is a man. And men, my dear young man, are not perfect. In fact, I have found in my long life that human beings can be far more twisted, far more creatively cruel than any demon of folklore. But they still carry the baggage of being human. They carry pride, and fear, and anger, and sometimes, even a little flicker of pity. And it is in that baggage that we will find their downfall."
She set her knitting down, a new, grim light in her eyes. It was a look of deep, ancient unease, the look of someone who has stared into the petty, cruel hearts of people for a very long time.
"The problem," she said, her voice now devoid of its usual gentleness, "is that our Kira has built a fortress of divinity around himself. He has convinced himself that he is no longer a man, but a god. And in that fortress, he feels no fear and no doubt. If we are to catch him, we must find a way to make him feel human again."
She looked around the room, at the stunned faces of the detectives. "I am going to suggest an experiment. It is a cruel and manipulative thing, and I must confess, the thought of it makes me feel quite ill. But I believe it may be effective."
She took a slow, steadying breath. "We need to present Kira with a test, not of his power, but of his… philosophy. We will need to find a suitable subject. A criminal, certainly, but one whose story can be shaped. Let us find a man who has done wrong, but who is not a monster. A low-level gangster, perhaps, someone who was injured during his arrest. Someone with a family. A wife. A small child."
The room grew colder as the others began to understand the shape of her plan.
"We will not present him to the world as a criminal," she continued, her voice a low, steady instrument of cold strategy. "We will create a story. A televised, 'human-interest' piece. We will show this man in his hospital bed, wounded and repentant. We will interview his tearful wife. We will show a photograph of his little girl, who asks every day when her papa is coming home. We will have the man himself look into the camera, his name and face in full view, and he will not ask for mercy for himself. He will beg Kira for the chance to live, only so he can see his daughter grow up."
She looked at them, her gaze unflinching. "We will craft a narrative of pure, unadulterated emotional blackmail. We will present Kira with a test. Is he a god of pure, cold, infallible logic, who will execute any criminal regardless of circumstance? Or is there a flicker of humanity left in him? A pride that insists he is a just god? Would a god of justice strike down a broken, repentant father who is begging only for his child? We will give him a choice that has no logical answer, only an emotional one."
She sighed, a soft, weary sound. "A human being, you see, is a thing of infinite holes. Like a leaky bucket. You can try to patch them up, to present a perfect, solid exterior to the world, but if you put enough pressure on the vessel, a new hole, one you never even knew you had, will inevitably spring forth. We are going to put pressure on Kira's soul, and we are going to see what leaks out."
The plan, in all its cold, psychological brutality, lay bare in the centre of the room. L's expression was one of deep, unreadable contemplation, but a flicker of profound, analytical respect showed in his eyes. Holmes was utterly still, his mind clearly captivated by the sheer, terrifying audacity of the experiment. Watson and Hastings looked at each other, their faces pale with a shared, moral horror. This was not the work of a detective; it was the work of a vivisectionist of the human spirit.
But it was Poirot whose shock was most palpable. He stared at Miss Marple, at this kindly, gentle old woman with her soft wool and her teacups, and saw her for the very first time. He had thought her a charming, if unusually shrewd, observer of village life. But in that moment, he saw a mind that possessed an understanding of human cruelty so deep and so unsentimental that it bordered on the terrifying. He had been looking for a demon on a television screen, but he was beginning to suspect that the most formidable and ruthless mind in this room was the one that resided behind a pair of gentle, twinkling blue eyes.