The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(27)

“Of course, I would not have brought it to you for safekeeping were I not unequivocally certain of its authenticity,” said the monstrumologist. “There is no one else in whom I place more trust or hold in higher admir—”

“Please, please, Dr. Warthrop. Your incessant chattering is giving me a headache.”

I cringed, waiting for the explosion. But none came. Beside me Warthrop was smiling as benignly as Buddha, completely unfazed. No one in my experience had ever talked to my master with such impertinence, with such condescension and disdain—in short, the way he usually spoke to me. Many times I had witnessed eruptions that would rival Krakatoa in their ferocity over the smallest slight, the most trivial of untoward looks, so I expected “the full Warthrop,” as it were.

The curator pinched a bit of the sticky resin between his gloved thumb and forefinger and tugged it free. He rolled it into a tiny ball and snifft, bringing it dangerously close to the end of his nose.

“Not bad,” he opined. “Not bad—very close. More—what is the word?—pungent than the Lakshadweep nidus, but that is to be expected.… But what is this? There are fingerprints here!” He looked across the desk at Warthrop. “Someone has touched it with his bare hands!” Then his gaze shifted to the bandaging on my left hand. “Well, of course! I might have guessed.”

“I didn’t touch it,” I protested.

“Then, what happened to your finger?” He turned to the monstrumologist. “I am surprised and disappointed, Dr. Warthrop. Of all who desire to apprentice under you, and I know there are many, you choose a liar and a sneak.”

“I did not choose him,” the doctor replied, brutally honest as always.

“You should send him away to an orphanage. He’s no good to you or himself. He’ll get both of you killed one day.”

“I shall take my chances,” Warthrop returned with a wan smile. He nodded to the nidus between them; it was not an easy task, keeping Professor Ainesworth on track. “You’ll note it is nearly identical in every aspect—well, except, perhaps, the smell, which of course I had no means to compare to the Lakshadweep nidus.”

“Do you know he tried to bribe me!” the old man barked suddenly with a shake of his cane.

Startled, the monstrumologist asked, “Who? Who tried to—”

“Mr. P. T. Barnum! That old blackguard offered me seventeen thousand dollars for it—just to borrow it for six months, so he could put it on display right alongside Tom Thumb and the Feejee Mermaid!”

“The Lakshadweep nidus?”

“No, Warthrop, my toenail clippings! Gah! You were fairly clever once. What in heaven’s name happened to you?” Click, click, click went the teeth of his son. “I refused, of course. Denied I even knew what he was talking about. How he heard about it, now that’s a mystery. He used to chum around with that unsavory Russian monstrumologist. What was his name?”

“Sidorov,” said my master. Apparently he needed to hear only the words “unsavory” and “Russian” to know the answer.

“Shish kebob? No, no—”

“Sidorov!” shouted Warthrop, his patience at last wearing thin.

“Sidorov! That’s the one. Thick as thieves, those two, and they were, too—thieves, I mean. I suspect it was Sidorov who told him about the nidus. It was my idea, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Professor. Your idea?”

“To boot him! Kick him out upis rapacious two-faced arse!”

“Whose two-faced arse? Barnum’s?”

“Sidorov’s! ‘He’s a schemer,’ I told von Helrung. ‘Up to no good. Expel him! Strip him of his credentials!’ I had it on good authority Sidorov was an agent of Okhranka.” Adolphus looked at me, muttonchops aquiver. “The czar’s secret police. I’ll wager you didn’t know that, which is why I say monstrumology is no business for children! Really, Warthrop, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you’re lonely for companionship, why don’t you just get a dog? At any rate, you can hardly blame him.”

“Blame… Will Henry?”

“The czar! If I were him, I would want a monstrumologist in my secret police! Anyway, that’s how Barnum got wind of it, is my guess. Whatever happened to him, do you know?”

“Barnum?”

“Sidorov!”

“Back in Saint Petersburg, the last I heard,” said the doctor, and then hurried on. “Professor Ainesworth, I promise you, I am no friend to Mr. P. T. Barnum or Anton Sidorov or the czar. I’ve come here today—”

“Without an appointment!”

“Without an appointment—”

“And unannounced!”

“And unannounced, yes… in order to entrust to your care this rare and altogether incredible addition to our—your— collection of extraordinary finds and irreplaceable oddities. It would, in short, be an honor if you would secure it in the Locked Room with its cousin, the Lakshadweep nidus, which you have so admirably protected over the years from the likes of Barnum and Sidorov and the treacherous Russian secret police.”

Old Adolphus’s eyes narrowed. His teeth clicked. He pursed his lips and stroked his muttonchops.

“Are you attempting to flatter me, Dr. Warthrop?”