The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(37)

The thing in the jar, scratch, scratch.

“Isaacson!” I shouted against the wind. “Isaacson, are you a praying man?”

He yowled. I could not see his face.

“It was Dr. Walker, wasn’t it?” I shouted. “Dr. Walker who hired Maeterlinck to bring it and Dr. Walker who hired the Irishmen to steal it!”

“No!”

“The truth will set you free, Isaacson!”

“I’m telling you the truth! Please, please!” He could not go on. His sobs tore into the indifferent rain.

Mr. Faulk turned his head toward me slowly, his prominent brow wrinkled by a question: Let go? I shook my head.

“All right, he didn’t hire Maeterlinck, but he did the Irishmen—tell me yes, Isaacson, and we’ll pull you up!”

“He didn’t—I swear upon my mother, he didn’t! Please, please!”

I looked at Mr. Faulk. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “My arms are getting tired.”

“Isaacson! One more question. Answer truthfully and we’ll pull you up. Did you frig her?”

“What? What? Oh dear God!”

“Did you screw Lilly Bates?”

I waited for his answer. He was obnoxious, but he wasn’t stupid. If he had been with her and confessed to it, I might not keep my promise. If he denied it, he risked my not believing him, regardless of the veracity of his denial, which, in turn, made my dilemma no less perplexing than his.

He unleashed an unearthly wail, twisting in the wind.

“No! No, that never happened! I swear to God, Will; I swear!”

“You swear to what?”

“To God. To God, to God, to God!”

“It isn’t God who holds you now, Samuel.” Suddenly, I was furious. “Swear to me and I’ll pull you up.”

“I swear to you, to you, I swear to you!”

Beside me Mr. Faulk was laughing softly. “He’s lying, you know.”

“No, Mr. Faulk. Only God knows that.”

“ ’Tisn’t God who matters, Mr. Henry.”

“Quite true, Mr. Faulk.”

In the basement laboratory, when the chrysalis cracked open, I saw myself reflected in the amber eye. I was the humble conduit to the monster’s birth, the imperfect midwife, deliverer and prey.

Forgive, forgive, for you are greater than I.

Canto 4

ONE

Full dark had fallen by the time I stepped back inside 425 Harrington Lane. I found the monstrumologist at the table, gorging himself like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week, which very well might have been the case.

“You’re not hungry,” he observed midway through the gorging.

I pulled a pewter flask from my coat pocket (the kitchen was uncomfortably cold), unscrewed the lid, and forced down a mouthful of whiskey. The monstrumologist frowned and clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“No wonder you look terrible,” he opined, shoving a hunk of cheese into his mouth, the old rat.

“Perhaps I have been drinking too much,” I admitted. “What is your excuse?”

He ignored the question. “You smell like smoke. And your fingernails are encrusted with dirt.”

“Ash,” I said. “Your trash barrels were overflowing.”

His bemused expression did not change. “And the palms of your hands are rubbed raw.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

He smiled humorlessly. “There’re several pairs of work gloves in the shed, but you know that.”

“I do know that.”

“You must have forgotten, then.”

“My memory is not what it used to be. Just now I was trying to remember the name of that girl I hired to keep you fed and bathed and halfway human.”

Warthrop picked up a knife and sliced off a piece of apple. His hand was rock steady. He chewed very deliberately. “Beatrice,” he said. “I’ve already reminded you of that.”

“And you sacked her?”

He shrugged. His eyes darted about the table. “Where are the scones?”

“Or did she quit?”

“I told you I sacked her, didn’t I? Where are my scones?”

“Why did you sack her?”

“I have enough to do without some noisome busybody dogging my every step and stutter.”

“Where did she go?”

“How would I know?” His patience was wearing thin. “She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“It just strikes me as odd.”

“Odd?”

“Leaving without notifying me. I was her official employer, you know. Why didn’t she tell me you sacked her and demand the balance of her pay?”

“Well, I suppose that’s something you will have to ask her.”

“That might prove difficult, since neither of us knows where she has gone.”

“Why are you so concerned about the whereabouts of some dime-a-dozen scullery maid?” he snapped, his self-control giving way.

I sipped from my flask deliberately. “I am not concerned.”

“Well. Good. You shouldn’t be. What did you think would happen, anyway? I told you I neither wanted nor needed anyone.”

“So it is my fault?”