Mr. Smith-so be it.

Actually, he had a thing about names. He was obsessive about them. The names of his victims were burned into his mind and also into his heart.

First and foremost, there was Isabella Calais. Then came Stephanie Michaela Apt, Ursula Davies, Robert Michael Neel, and so many others.

He could recite the complete names backward and forward, as if they had been memorized for a history quiz or a bizarre round of Trivial Pursuit. That was the ticket-this case was trivial pursuit, wasn’t it?

So far, no one seemed to understand, no one got it. Not the fabled FBI. Not the storied Interpol, not Scotland Yard or any of the local police forces in the cities where he had committed murders.

No one understood the secret patten of the victims, starting with Isabella Calais in Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 22, 1993, and continuing today in London.

The victim of the moment was Drew Cabot. He was a chief inspector-of all the hopelessly inane things to do with your life. He was “hot” in London, having recently apprehended an IRA killer. His murder would electrify the town, drive everyone mad. Civilized and sophisticated London loved a gory murder as well as the next burg.

This afternoon Mr. Smith was operating in the tony, fashionable Knightsbridge section. He was there to study the human race-at least that was the way the newspapers described it. The press in London and across Europe also called him by another name-Alien. The prevailing theory was that Mr. Smith was an extraterrestrial. No human could do the things that he did. Or so they said.

Mr. Smith had to bend low to talk into Drew Cabot’s ear, to be more intimate with his prey. He played music while he worked-all kinds of music. Today’s selection was the overture to Don Giovanni. Opera buffa felt right to him.

Opera felt right for this live autopsy.