The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist #2)(99)

“I don’t accuse you of assuming facts not in evidence. I accuse you of making them up out of whole cloth.”

“Very well, then!” von Helrung cried, throwing the papers down with a dramatic flourish. “Tell me—enlighten all of us, good doctor—what killed Pierre Larose? What stripped him of his skin and fed upon his heart and impaled him upon a pole? What dragged Sergeant Jonathan Hawk forty feet into the sky and crucified him upon the highest tree? What did our beloved colleague find in the desolation that did this to him?” He flung his hand toward the autopsy table, where the body lay exposed under the harsh glare of the stage lights.

“I don’t think,” said the doctor deliberately, “that he found anything at all.” He rose from his chair. I fought the instinct to rush to his side. He looked on the verge of collapse.

“I don’t know who killed Pierre Larose. It may have been the natives in an act of superstitious dread. It may have been a disgruntled creditor or someone to whom he owed a gambling debt. Perhaps John himself did it after he had succumbed to whatever demon possessed him. I doubt anyone will ever know. As for Hawk . . . clearly a case of bush fever. I ask what is a better explanation—that something dropped him from above or that he climbed that tree? A boy half his size climbed it. Why couldn’t he?”

He turned his head toward the body of his friend, and then turned away again.

“And John . . . I suppose that is the crux of it, isn’t it? What happened to John Chanler? You would make a monster of him, and I suppose one could call him that. I do not deny his crimes. I do not say he suffered horribly from something I little understand. The key being . . . Well, I suppose I am the sole gardener on earth who is ignorant of the seeds he plants. But I will say”—and here the monstrumologist’s voice became hard—“I will say he did his best to meet all our expectations. You wanted him to be a monster, and he obliged you, didn’t he, Meister Abram? He exceeded your wildest dreams. We do strive to become what others see in us, don’t we?

“I tried to save him. From the beginning I was willing to lay down my life for him, for there is no love greater than this . . .”

He stopped, overwhelmed. I rose to go to him. He waved me back.

“He asked me ‘What have we given?’ I do not pretend to know all that he meant by that, but I know this much: It shall not stand. I will not allow it to stand. You will not desecrate his body as you desecrated his memory. That is what I can give him. That is all I can give him. I will bury my friend, and I swear I will kill the man who tries to stop me.”

He swung his eyes to the crowd, and the crowd could not return his righteous glare.

“Take your vote now. I will answer no more of your questions.”

The doctor and I retired to our private box while the vote was taken. It would be, at von Helrung’s request, by secret ballot. Warthrop lay across the divan, arms folded over his chest, head upon the armrest. He stared up at the ornate ceiling and refused to watch the vote.

The silence between us was not of the comfortable variety. Since the death of Chanler, he’d barely spoken to me. When he looked at me, I detected that he was more confounded than angry. The affair had begun with his firm conviction that his friend had been past all salvation—and had ended with the equally steadfast belief that he would save him. That the doctor’s faith had been shattered by me, the last soul on earth bound to him in any way, seemed beyond his ability to comprehend.

So it was with no small amount of courage that I decided to breach the wall he had erected between us.

“Dr. Warthrop, sir?”

He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. “Yes, Will Henry, what is it?”

“How did—I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve been wondering—how did you know to look for me in the Monstrumarium?”

“How do you think?”

“Someone must have seen us?”

He shook his head; his eyes remained closed. “Try again.”

“Dr. Dobrogeanu—he followed us there?”

“No. He returned straightaway to von Helrung’s after he discovered you missing.”

“Then you must have guessed,” I concluded. It was the only explanation.

“No, I did not guess. I applied the lesson from the Chanler house massacre. What was that lesson, Will Henry?”

Though I gave it my best effort, I could think of nothing instructional in that horrific scene, except the sickening macabre stab at humor scrawled above the bedroom door: Life is.

“John himself told me where to find you,” the monstrumologist explained. “Just as he tried to tell me where to find Muriel. After Dobrogeanu brought us the news, I realized at once where he had taken you. Don’t you remember what he said? ‘He’ll put you on display in the Beastie Bin, where all you nasty things belong.’” He opened his eyes and, raising his head a bit, peeked over the railing. “Hmm. They’re taking their time. I wonder if that’s good or bad.” He lay down again. “They found the Nováková girl, by the way, at the bottom of the sludge, once they drained the cellar.”

I knew she was not the only victim who’d been found in that cellar. He noted my troubled expression and said, “There was nothing you could have done, Will Henry.”

And I answered, “That is what I did, sir. Nothing.”