"Oh, certainly."

Honestly it's the best lead they have but it's going to be awful, especially because most conversations Oscar's had with Terrence are much less tolerable. Maybe he just needs a goal to deter him from proselytizing about his favorite play. "What tack do you think we should take with him, then? We've met at a party but that was maybe a two minute conversation."

"Of course. Could be completely fabricated. But still, very strange." Terrence thinks. "I mean, we could try the truth. Or a version of it. A friend of Roby's asked us to look into his case, for... for the judge's review of his case. We're fellow literary men. What does he think of Roby? What does he think Roby's involvement was? Et cetera. Speaking of which, did you happen to learn anything about our mysterious DeVille?"

"No. I didn't learn much about DeVille-- or I think it was Best?-- though I did get this sense from Carter's description that Roby maybe, uh--" why is he being this coy about it, come on-- "hung around with a lot of particularly queer people. Not that it's my business how he spends his time." Hopefully if Terrence's real uptight about that kind of thing, he won't even notice the innuendo. You never know with him, honestly.

"Mm. You know our circles; doesn't surprise me." He shrugs.

Truly an ambiguous answer. But Oscar has no reason to dwell on it.

"You said you found a book his friend wrote?" With his luck, each of Roby's friends have written five boring small-press books each. But that's why there's Terrence-- division of labor.

"Yes - Best wrote this." He takes British Gods out of his bag and sets it on the table. "If it has anything to do with the case, I don't see it yet, but it's up my alley, so I suppose I'll give it a gander anyhow."

"Thanks, Terrence." It's selfish but he doesn't want to use his reading time on a work of history written by one of Roby's friends. "So I guess I should be the one to get in touch with Parker?"

"If you don't mind? I could give it a shot but you might be better placed. I could try reaching out to Best."

Say what you will about him, but Terrence remains one of the better people to approach Parker with. He's good at asking questions about other's work, and almost disarmingly friendly, actually. "Yeah, it's probably better if you write Best. It's your area," Oscar replies.

Meanwhile--

It turns out Sal is WRONG about some fundamental things about reality.

So... he is maybe... going to try to get a detailed list from Inaaya of everything she knows about this stuff, and how she knows it, and how provable it is. And he might also... see if he and Roby have any overlapping contacts that he can talk to about all this.

It turns out he does know someone who knows someone who knows Alexander Roby, and by coincidence they met at a party a few weeks ago.

"Hellooooooo you wanted to see me?"

"Hi. How do you feel about impossible murders." Should he be so abrupt? He is gambling on everything he knows about William Way.

"Incredibly in favor."

"It's about Alexander Roby. He's in an asylum these days, you know. Commited for a murder it would've been impossible for him to commit. His doctor actually asked us to consult, because he's starting to think he's not even insane. And when he talked, he sounded... esoteric? Some play had changed his life, and he was talking like he intended to bring about some mystical event via ritual."

"I went in under the assumption that he couldn't have done it and was a harmless eccentric, and stuck to that until... yesterday morning, when the woman one door over from him was found covered in blood with a dead nurse in front of her, and no possible way she could've done it."

"And I have since learned things that make me... less certain about which things are truly impossible."

"So I'm trying to find out more about Alexander Roby, with more of a mind to the stranger things about him."

He grimaces. "Oh, that unsolvable murder."

"Technically, at this point, there have been three loosely connected unsolvable murders."

"You came to the right place!" he says cheerfully. "I'm the one who discovered the bodies."

"Oh dear. I'm sorry, I should've checked."

"Checked what? I'm the best possible person to talk to."

lmao if he is SUFFICIENTLY CHEERFUL there is NO PROBLEM HERE. it was NOT extremely scarring to discover the dead bodies actually!!!!! it was COOL. dead bodies are COOL.

"Well. We've already heard the official accounts, but I suppose another description won't hurt." He is not in charge of managing William Way's emotional health. He will, however, probably get better results if they don't talk about this. "But I'm really here to ask about what Roby was like before."

"He was cool! He wrote poetry. I took him out to jazz clubs, that sort of thing. He only had three friends so I thought I would help him out a bit, you know."

"I know about Chris Parker and Ben Best, who was the third?" 

"Some guy named DeVille. I wish I'd thought of that. William DeVille. It has a ring to it."