The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(53)

“Now, you might be thinking, ‘Well, I know which one I’d try for!’ But wait. Right as he’s about to pick, he looks up and sees the princess. Ah, true love will triumph! Good will overcome immoderate meanness! For she does indeed know what is behind each door. And lo, when he looks up at her, she flicks her finger to the right—meaning ‘Pick the door on the right; trust me!’

“Now, her lover may have been a commoner and may not have had all the perks of a royal education, but he was no simpleton. He begins to think about it. He begins to wonder how his dear would feel if she had to watch her true love spend the rest of his life in the arms of another, albeit just a notch or two less beautiful, woman. Did that flick of the finger mean, therefore, ‘Dinner’s served?’ Oh, but no, ‘Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not.…’ Wish him to be torn limb from limb and eaten before the king and the court and her? Impossible! So it must be the lady behind the right door.

“But wait! Did I mention who the lady is? She is well-known to the king’s daughter, a woman she despises, loathes with all her being, so if it is her behind the right door, the princess will be forced to watch, for the rest of her life, this hateful creature have what she, the royal princess, cannot. And her poor lover knows this.

“‘Still, I cannot believe she could simply sit there and watch me be eaten,’ our poor lover thinks. ‘So she points to the door that will slay her heart but save my life.’ He starts to turn the knob on the right-hand door.

“‘But wait!’ he thinks. ‘What if she is worried that I do not trust her? That would mean she points out the tiger, thinking I will choose the other door and thus live. I must choose the door on the left!’

“So he steps to the door on the left. But just as he’s about to open it, he thinks, ‘But wait! I do trust her. Her heart could not bear the sight of my mangled corpse being dragged around the arena by a wild animal, entrails trailing in the sawdust, blood everywhere, a mess. The lady must be behind the right door! Unless… unless I shouldn’t trust her. Love may suffer long, but a lifetime is an awfully “long” long. The tiger is behind the right door. I should open the left!’

“Two doors. Behind one, the lady. Behind the other, the tiger. Which should he choose?”

Torrance fell silent. Arkwright, convinced by this point, perhaps, that he was in the presence of a lunatic, said nothing at first, and then, unable to bear the tension any longer, blurted out, “All right, which is it? Which door did he choose?”

“I don’t know! The bugger just leaves it there. He can knock off two and a half hot dogs in a minute, but he can’t finish a damn story. Anyay, it’s the wrong question. The correct question is which will you choose—the lady or the tiger?”

Torrance nodded to me. I stepped into the hall and returned with the rolling cart; its wheels had not been oiled since its construction, most likely; they squeaked and squealed as I pushed it into the small chamber. Arkwright’s eyes cut to the cart and the large jar sitting on top of it—and then cut away. His shoulders bunched and relaxed; his right leg jerked.

“You know what this is,” Torrance said with a flick of his finger toward the thing suspended inside the amber-colored preserving solution. Arkwright did not answer. His face shone with sweat. A nerve beneath his right eye danced. “Now, where did I put my gloves?” Torrance wondered. “Oh, here they are on the table. You too, Will. Put them on.” He picked up the scalpel from the cart and sliced through the wax ring around the lid. “Hold this a moment, please, Will,” he said, handing me the scalpel. He unscrewed the lid. The sound was very loud in the closed space.

“All right,” Arkwright said loudly. “All right! This really is becoming tiresome. I demand to speak to Dr. von Helrung immediately!”

Torrance set the lid aside, and then reached inside to remove the nidus, grimacing a bit, not from fear, I think, but, because his forearms were so large, it was a tight fit. He carefully lowered the nest of woven human remains next to the jar, where it glistened wetly in the lamplight.

“Spatula, Will,” Torrance murmured. I handed him the flat-bladed tool, which he used to coax off a dime-size amount of the bonding material, the sticky sputum of Typhoeus magnificum.

“What is it?” Arkwright shouted. “What are you doing over there?”

“You know what I’m doing.”

“You do not realize it, sir, but you have made a grievous mistake. A grievous mistake!”

“Me? I have made a grievous mistake?” Torrance held up the spatula.

“Do you think that frightens me?” Arkwright laughed derisively. “You won’t do it. You can’t do it.”

“I can’t do it?” Torrance seemed genuinely puzzled.

“No, you can’t—because I don’t have to tell you anything. I won’t tell you anything unless you release me. Ha! Now which shall you choose? If you do this to me, you will never know.”

“Never know what? I don’t recall asking you a damn thing.”

Arkwright tried to laugh. It came out as a strangled hiccup. His hands were locked around the rear legs of the chair, and they were shaking, and so the chair too was shaking. The very air around Thomas Arkwright shook; the dust particles vibrated in sympathy to his terror.