The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(16)
“Well, you got a telling off for nothing, Russell,” the butcher laughed.
“I am aware of that,” the doctor snapped. “But who would have imagined that the werewolf terrorizing our town was in fact Tom Hollister dressed in that ridiculous disguise?”
Everyone looked toward the corner of the dining hall where the doctor was pointing, and a gloomy silence instantly descended on the room. Clayton watched the other guests shake their heads, each immersed in his own recollections as he gazed at the enormous wolf hide draped over a wooden easel, gleaming in the light of the candles dotted sparingly about the room. Sinclair had displayed it there like a trophy so the guests could examine it as they came in. And they had, with a mixture of horror and admiration, for the disguise was a work of art, worthy of an expert taxidermist. The enormous skin, which at first sight they had thought belonged to a giant wolf, was in fact made of several different pelts that had been carefully stitched together and then cut accordingly, with sections of it stuffed with hemp and straw to give the impression of a huge beast with bulging muscles. The forelegs had been stretched over a framework of jointed wooden bars until they vaguely resembled human limbs covered in thick fur, and each had tacked onto its end a glove that bristled with clawlike blades. The ensemble had been crowned with a wolf’s head whose mouth had been fixed into a hideously ferocious growl. It came as no surprise that Hollister, who was sturdy enough to support the cumbersome disguise, could transform himself into a terrifying werewolf in anyone’s eyes by draping it over his shoulders, fastening it to his arms and legs with special leather straps, and using the animal’s head as a helmet. Especially if he only appeared during the full moon, arching his back grotesquely and howling like a wild animal.
Clayton had also been taken in when he first saw the creature standing before him, huge and terrifying, and as he and the others chased it through the dark depths of the forest, his blood pulsing in his temples, his heart pounding in his chest, it was the certainty that they were pursuing a real werewolf that had mitigated his suspicions. Yes, it was a werewolf they were pursuing because, despite Sinclair’s evasive answers when he had joined the Special Branch, Clayton knew that such fantastical creatures did exist. But the monster had turned out to be a hoax. Inspector Clayton could not help but feel that this cast something of a pall over his triumph, and he was no longer sure that joining the Special Branch had been the right decision. Perhaps he had been too hasty in accepting Sinclair’s offer, having done so in the belief that a world closed to other mortals would open up to him. And yet his first “special” case had consisted of hunting down a yokel wearing an assortment of animal skins. Not to mention falling in love with a woman who lived in a sinister castle.
“How is it possible that the thing scares me even now?” the doctor admitted suddenly, breaking the silence.
He rose to his feet and, doubtless emboldened by drink, shuffled over to the disguise with a penguin-like gait.
“Be careful, Russell; take a silver teaspoon with you just in case!” yelled Price, waving his in the air.
The doctor dismissed the butcher’s advice with a drunken flourish that sent him tottering toward the animal hide.
“Look out!” shouted Sinclair, leaping from his chair like a nursemaid watching over her wards at play in the park, his mechanical eye emitting a buzz of alarm.
The captain planned to take the disguise back to London, to the Chamber of Marvels in the basement of the Natural History Museum. This was where the Special Branch stored evidence from cases passed on to them because they defied man’s reason. He wanted the skin, which he saw as an important part of their division’s history, to reach the museum in one piece. When he saw the doctor regain his balance with no other consequence than the hilarity of the onlookers, his face relaxed and he smiled benevolently, although, since he was already on his feet, he decided to go over to the costume himself. Chief Constable Dombey instantly followed suit, as did Price and Harris. Doctor Russell then launched into a scientific exposition of the methods used to create that handiwork, while the others, including Sinclair, felt obliged to nod diligently as the quack continued to show off his knowledge.
And while that impromptu conference was taking place around the disguise, back at the table Clayton finally plucked up the courage to look straight at the countess, from whom he was separated by a generous expanse of solid oak. Throughout all the weeks of his investigation, whenever he and the countess were together, whether in a room full of people or in a garden maze, Clayton’s eyes would invariably end up meeting hers, those eyes that seemed to have been waiting for him forever, and whose mystery had begun to haunt his nights. For the inspector, who prided himself on his ability to read a man’s thoughts from the way he knotted his tie, was utterly incapable of deciphering her gaze, which might have been expressing gentle adoration, the cruelest disdain, or even some unimaginable private hell. Perhaps all of those at once. And it was in those same eyes that Clayton was drowning now as he admired the countess, and she allowed herself to be admired as always with a smile, enveloping him in her dark, bewitching beauty, which transformed the voices of the other guests into a nonsensical babble, the dining hall into a hazy backdrop, and the entire universe into a distant, possibly imaginary place.
Clayton had never seen Valerie look as magnificent as she did that evening, or as painfully fragile. She was dressed in black and silver: her dazzlingly pale neck rose out of a velvet bodice that emphasized her proud breasts and matched her long calfskin gloves; her silver skirt fell in billowing folds that revealed a constellation of tiny diamonds. Seeing her seated there, illuminated by the shimmering candles, Clayton could not help thinking that, regardless of her indeterminate age, she resembled more than ever a girl queen, childish and capricious, cruel only by birthright. Realizing he was clutching his glass more firmly than usual, and fearing he might break it or do something even more stupid, like leaping onto the table and sprinting frantically toward the countess, swept along on the current of his confused desire, Clayton averted his gaze, and the room regained its movement, its sounds, its stubborn solidity.