The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(43)

“I hate the opera,” Lilly complained. “I don’t understand why Mother drags me to it.”

We were sitting in a private box high above the orchestra when I thought I spotted him in the crowd. I knew it was him. I did not question why the monstrumologist would be attending the opera—that did not matter. It was him. The doctor had come back! I started to stand; Lilly tugged me back into the chair.

“It’s Dr. Warthrop!” I whispered excitedly.

“Don’t be silly,” she whispered back. “And don’t say his name in front of Mother!”

I thought I saw him a second time, in Central Park, walking a Great Dane. When he drew close, I realized he was twenty years older and twenty pounds heavier.

Whenever I saw von Helrung, I asked the same question:

“Have you heard from the doctor?”

His answer on the seventeenth day was the same as his answer on the twenty-seventh:

“No, Will. Nothing yet.”

On the thirty-seventh day of my exile, after hearing those words again, No… nothing yet, I said to him, “Something is wrong. He should have written by now.”

“It could be that something is wrong—”

“Then, we must do something, Dr. von Helrung!”

“Or it could mean everything is very right. If Pellinore has picked up the trail of the magnificum, he would not take the time to write two words. You have served the man; you know this to be true.”

I did. When the fever of the hunt was upon him, nothing could distract him from his goal. But I was troubled.

“You have friends in England,” I said. “Can’t you ask them if they know where he’s gone?”

“Of course I can—and I will, if circumstances dictate, but not yet. Pellinore would never forgive me if I allowed that particular cat out of the bag.”

I returned on a blustery afternoon in early April to ask a special favor.

“I want to work in the Monstrumarium.”

“You want to work in the Monstrumarium!” The old monstrumologist was frowning. “What did Emily say?”

“It doesn’t matter what she says. She isn’t my guardian and she isn’t my mother. I don’t need her permission to do anything.”

“My dear little Will, I suspect the sun itself needs her permission to shine. Why do you want to work in the Monstrumarium?”

“Because I’m tired of sitting in the library. I’ve read so much, it feels as if my eyes are bleeding.”

“You have been reading?”

“You sound like Mrs. Bates. Yes, I do know how to read, Meister Abram. Well? I’m sure Professor Ainesworth could use some help.”

“Will, I don’t think Professor Ainesworth cares much for children.”

“I know. And he cares even less for me. That’s why I’m coming to you, Dr. von Helrung. You’re the president of the Society. He has to listen to you.”

“Listen, yes. Obey… Well, that’s something altogether different!”

His hope for success was not high, but he decided to humor me, and together we descended to the old man’s basement office. The meeting went well only in the sense of its outcome; the rest bordered on the disastrous. At one point I actually feared Adolphus might bash von Helrung’s head in. I do not need any help! He will sabotage my system! The Monstrumarium is no place for children! He will get himself hurt! He will get me hurt!

Von Helrung was patient. Von Helrung was gentle. Von Helrung was kind. He smiled and nodded and expressed his utmost respect for and admiration of the curator’s achievements, the finest collection of monstrumological relics in the world, and not merely that but the creation of the most unique cataloguing system in the Western hemisphere. He intended to propose at the next congress that a section of the Monstrumarium be named in his honor—the Adolphus Ainesworth Wing.

The professor was not mollified.

“Stupid! Too wordy! It should be the Ainesworth Wing—or better, the Ainesworth Collection.”

Von Helrung spread his hands apart as if to say, Whatever you like.

“I do not like children,” said the curator, scowling at me over his spectacles. “And I especially do not like children who meddle in dark places!” He pointed a crooked finger at von Helrung. “I don’t know what it is about this boy. Every time I look up, there he stands at the side of another monstrumologist. What happened to Warthrop?”

“He has been called away on urgent business.”

“Or he’s dead.”

Von Helrung blinked rapidly several times, then said, “Well, I am not sure. I don’t think so.”

“That’s the most urgent business there is, when you think about it,” Adolphus pronounced in my general direction. “Death. Sometimes I will be sitting here, just sitting here working away, and I will think about it, and then I will jump up from my chair and think, ‘Hurry Adolphus. Hurry, hurry! Do something!’”

“You should not worry yourself over such things,” said von Helrung.

“Did I say I was worried? Bah! I have been surrounded by death for forty-six years, von Helrung. It isn’t the dead that worry me.” Then, turning to me and glowering, he barked, “What are you good at?”

“I can organize your papers—”