Our waiter turned to me, and my mind went blank. I was thirsty, and a glass of water would have been most welcome, but, like Blackwood, I was somewhat intimidated by the surroundings and the barely disguised disdain of the staff. Warthrop rescued me, whispering something into the waiter’s ear. The man glided silently away with a tread as measured and sedate as an undertaker’s.
A few moments later he returned with our drinks, setting before me a tall, clear glass in which a caramel-colored liquid bubbled. I eyed my drink doubtfully—why would someone serve a boiling beverage in a glass?—and the doctor, who missed nothing, smiled slightly and said, “Try it, Will Henry.”
I took a tentative sip. My attendant delight must have been evident, for Warthrop’s smile broadened, and he said, “I thought you might like it. It’s called Coca-Cola. Invented by an acquaintance of mine, a gentleman by the name of Pemberton. Not to my taste, really. Too sweet, and the inclusion of carbon dioxide is an inexplicable and not altogether pleasant addition.”
“Carbon dioxide, did you say?” asked Blackwood. “Is it safe to drink?”
Warthrop shrugged. “We shall observe Will Henry carefully for any negative effects. How do you feel, Will Henry?”
I told him I felt very good, for I, with half of the fizzy concoction already in me, was feeling very good indeed.
Blackwood’s gray eyes darted about; his hands moved restlessly in his lap. He was waiting for Warthrop to take the lead. The great scientist had never so much as granted him the time of day, and now here he sat across from him at the most exclusive club in New York. It was a wonder—and a riddle.
“Blackwood, I need your help,” the monstrumologist said.
The Englishman’s eyes widened at this confession. It was clearly the last thing he’d expected Warthrop to say.
“Dr. Warthrop—sir—you know I have only the deepest admiration and respect for you and your important work—”
“Spare me the sycophantic drivel, Blackwood. For the past two years you’ve been hounding my every step, to what purpose I can only guess, though I suspect it has more to do with scandal and gossip than admiration and respect.”
“Oh, you wound me, Doctor. You cut me to the quick! My interest goes far beyond the necessities of my employment. Your work comes so close to my true passion: the universe that lies beneath—or within, I should say—the hidden universe of human consciousness, the metaphorical equivalent, if you will, of your Society’s Monstrumarium.”
“Henry, I care not for your theories of consciousness or the ‘universe within.’ My concern is far more practical.”
“But it is only by extending ourselves past the ordinary that we journey to the undiscovered countries of our boundless potential.”
“You’ll forgive my lack of enthusiasm,” replied the doctor. “I have had my fill lately of undiscovered countries.”
“The ultimate truth does not lie in science,” insisted the amateur philosopher. “It lies in the unplumbed depths of human consciousness—not the natural but, for lack of a better word, the supernatural.”
Warthrop laughed. “I really must introduce you to von Helrung. I think the two of you would hit it off splendidly.”
Then the monstrumologist got down to business. He leaned forward, crooked his finger at his flushed-faced companion, and whispered conspiratorially, “Henry, I have a proposition for you. I need someone to break a story for me in tomorrow’s papers. It is scandalous, it is sordid, and it involves one of the city’s most prominent families. It is certain to make you a pretty penny—at least enough for you to buy yourself a decent suit. It may even earn you steady employment—a good thing, because it is obvious to me you have too much time on your hands.”
Blackwood nodded eagerly. The gray eyes sparkled; the magnificent proboscis flared with excitement.
“With this proviso,” Warthrop went on. “You are not to reveal your source to anyone, even to your editors.”
“Of course not, Doctor,” whispered Blackwood. “Oh, I must tell you I am intrigued! What is it?”
“What you’ve been waiting for, Blackwood. The story of a lifetime.”
On the way back to the Plaza, the doctor confided, “I may live to regret my bargain with Blackwood, but we must trust what aid fate puts in our path. His story in tomorrow’s papers will set the city ablaze, mobilizing millions to our cause—and the good name of Chanler be damned.”
He looked utterly exhausted. His face was a ghastly yellow by the light of the streetlamps, and he was more tired and careworn than I had ever seen him, even worse than those terrible days in the wilderness, borne down by the weight of his burden. That burden he had set down in Rat Portage, but now he carried another, far greater one.
“I should have gone with her, Will Henry,” he confessed. “I should have listened to my instincts.”
“It isn’t your fault, sir,” I tried to console him.
“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped at me. “Of course it’s my fault. Did you not hear a word that Meister Abram said? The entire affair is my fault. I told you we should be honest with each other. More important by far is that one be honest with oneself. I have always been, and it has cost me dearly,” he added bitterly. “Nothing matters but the truth. I have dedicated my life to the pursuit of it, no matter where it hides. That is the heart of science, Will Henry, the true monster we pursue. I gave up everything to know it, and there is nothing I will not do—no place I will not go—to find out the truth.”
I did not have to wait long for proof of this vow. Hardly had we stepped foot into our digs when the doctor directed me to fetch his instrument case.
“We’ve one small matter to resolve before the night is out,” he informed me. “It involves a modicum of risk and could lead to certain difficulties with the law. You may wait for me here, if you wish.”
The thought of being alone after the day’s gruesome events rendered the suggestion intolerable. The burden of accompanying him on whatever dark errand now beckoned was far more preferable than the burden of a solitary vigil while the high wind sang outside the windows. Upon that final terrifying flight through the malefic wilderness, he had shouldered the burden he’d inherited, but he was not the only one so borne down. I declined the offer.
In short order we were disembarking our taxicab at the Twenty-third Street entrance of the Society’s headquarters. A diminutive figure stepped out of the shadows to greet us.
“You are late, mon ami,” murmured Damien Gravois. His eyes widened at the sight of the bandage around my neck. “There has been an accident?”
“No,” answered the doctor. “Why do you ask?”
The Frenchman shrugged, removed a snuffbox from the pocket of his fashionable short-tailed jacket, and partook of the powdered tobacco with a noisy snort.
“It is all arranged,” Gravois said. “Except the portage charge. I would have paid it myself, but such was my haste to comply with your request that I completely forgot my purse.”
The monstrumologist scowled. He had just completed a lengthy negotiation with our driver over the fare.
“Did you agree upon a price?”
Gravois shook his head. “I merely told him we would make it worth his while. You might know, Pellinore, but I do not know the going rate for body snatching.”
The doctor sighed heavily. “And the weapon? Or did you forget that too?”
Gravois responded with a wry smile. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and removed a pearl-handled switchblade. He pressed the button with his thumb, and the six-inch blade sprang out with a wicked click.
“A Mikov,” he said. “Identical to the one wielded by our Bohemian bodyguard.”
On the second floor of the old opera house, the Society had constructed an operating theater where lectures, demonstrations, and the occasional dissection were conducted upon a small stage specially built for the latter purpose: the floor was concrete and slightly concave, with a drain installed in the center for the conveyance of blood and other bodily fluids. The room itself was bowl-shaped, the seats arranged on steep risers that surrounded the stage on three sides in order to provide the participants unobstructed views of the gruesome proceedings.
Two large metal rolling tables occupied center stage, and upon each lay a body. The two cadavers were of nearly identical proportions, both were male, and both were as nak*d as the day they were born. I recognized immediately one of the corpses. It was the eyeless, faceless remains of Augustin Skala.
A burly man heaved himself from a seat in the front row upon our entrance, nervously patting his pockets as if searching for a bit of change. Gravois made the introductions.
“Fredrico, this is my colleague Dr. Warthrop. Warthrop, this is Fredrico—”
“Just Fredrico, please,” the man interrupted. His eyes darted about the theater; he was clearly suffering from a bad case of the jitters. “I brung ’em.” He jerked his head unnecessarily at the stage. “You brung the money?”
Had time not been a crucial factor in his investigation, I am sure the doctor would have indulged in a lengthy negotiation over the orderly’s fee for the illicit removal of two bodies from the Bellevue morgue. Still, Warthrop expressed outrage over the man’s asking price, deeming it exorbitant past all reason; the man had not delivered the crown jewels, after all, but a couple of bodies—and on loan, to boot! It wasn’t as if we expected to keep them. But time was of the essence, so the monstrumologist relented, and the man, once the money was counted and safely ensconced in his pocket, effected his retreat, informing us he had no interest in observing the proceedings; he would wait for us in the hall outside.
We began with Skala. Under the harsh glare of the electrified lighting, the doctor examined first the hollowed-out eye sockets, then the remnants of the face, and then the wound in the chest and the mutilated heart.
“Hmm, as I initially thought, Will Henry,” the doctor murmured. “Nearly identical to the wounds of our friend Monsieur Larose. Note the scoring of the ocular bone and the appearance of denticulated trauma to the heart.”
“Except the face,” I said. “Larose’s face hadn’t been stripped off.”
Warthrop nodded. “The skinning is reversed—with Larose it was the body, with Skala the face, but that could be owing to the factors of location and time. He had to work quickly with this one.”
“But not with Larose,” observed Gravois, who stood a bit to one side, looking somewhat sick to his stomach. “So why leave his face?”
The doctor shook his head. “There may be a pathological factor involved here. A reason that makes sense only to the author.”
“Or Larose was mutilated by someone else and Chanler employs his own interpretation upon the theme,” Gravois replied.
“A possibility,” Warthrop allowed. “But one that raises more questions than it answers. If not John, then who?”
“You know what von Helrung would say,” teased Gravois.