The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(32)

“Indeed it must be, my dear Dr. Warthrop! Singularly curious indeed!” His frail form was racked a second time in a fit that lasted a good minute. He repeated the ritual of removing the filthy kerchief and depositing the effluvia into its reeking folds. “But mere curiosity, even an intense or a singular curiosity of the kind to which you confess, could not be construed by even the most lax linguist as a necessity or, as you put it to Mrs. Bratton, “a matter of extreme importance.”’

“My father apparently believed in the veracity of his claim.”

“Well, given his profession, no doubt he would.”

“To the extent he felt compelled to come here, as I have tonight. I know the patient is old and not in good health…”

“And so you rode three hours from New Jerusalem without making the proper inquiries first, because you were compelled… by what precisely?”

“As I have said,” replied the doctor carefully, “Varner’s condition, the advanced age of the case, and other pertinent factors compelled me to-”

“Ah, yes! That’s it! “Pertinent factors.” That is what tweaks my curiosity, Dr. Warthrop. What, pray tell, might those ‘pertinent factors’ be?”

The doctor took a deep breath, straightened in his chair, and said tightly, “I am not at liberty to say.”

“Then you will forgive me if I take the liberty to say it,” said Dr. Starr sarcastically. ‘Anthropophagi. Anthropophagi, yes? Did you think I’d never heard of them? The old salt has repeated his tale for any and all who were willing to listen-even to those who were not! I am not an ignorant man, Warthrop; I know my Shakespeare: “The Anthropophagi … men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders.’ Oh, yes, I know well enough what has brought you to my doorstep!”

“Very well, then,” rejoined the monstrumologist calmly. “May I see him now?”

Dr. Starr cast an eye toward the parlor door, and then back to the doctor: “He is, as you surmised, quite old, and his health is more tenuous than even my own. I may fear I am dying; Captain Varner is dying. And his mind is nearly spent as well, I’m afraid. Your quest has been in vain, Dr. Warthrop.”

“Are you refusing to let me see him?” demanded Warthrop, nearing the end of his patience. “I have come merely to clear up a few lingering questions on an old case of my father’s, but I can be content to let them linger. It is of no special interest to me.”

“That is not the impression you gave my housekeeper, and it is certainly not the impression you gave me, Dr. Warthrop.”

“Nevertheless,” growled the doctor. He rose from his chair, shoulders thrown back, hands clinched into fists at his sides. “Come, Will Henry. We are wasting our time here.”

“I did not mean to give you that impression,” said Starr with a sly smile. “I was only pointing out that your time and the interest of science might be better served by speaking to me about the case. Captain Varner has been, as you know, under my care for twenty-three years. I’ve heard his story hundreds of times, and I doubt there is a detail of which I am not as conversant as he. I would venture that I am more conversant, given the deterioration of his faculties.”

Warthrop said, “I wish to hear it from the captain.”

“Though I have informed you he is hardly lucid?”

“I will be the judge of that.”

“You certainly are an accomplished fellow, Warthrop. A doctor of psychology as well as a doctor of-what is your so-called science?-monstrumology.”

Warthrop did not answer. In the pregnancy of that taut moment, I feared he might lose all self-control, leap across the room, and throttle the old man. The ancient alienist did not know the doctor as I did: Though by outward sign Warthrop appeared completely calm and collected, within him a fire burned, as hot as the sun, and only by the supreme effort of his inestimable will was the doctor able to contain it.

Again Starr glanced toward the door, as if he were expecting something. He went on, still wearing that secretive smile. “I mean no offense, Warthrop. My area of expertise is held in no greater regard than yours. I do not mean to mock or ridicule your life’s work, for in one way at least it mimics my own: We have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of phantoms. The difference is the nature of those phantoms. Mine exist between other men’s ears; yours live solely between your own.”

At that point I expected the doctor to invite Starr to New Jerusalem so he could see with his own eyes how phantasmagorical the nature of his life’s work was. But he held his tongue, and he, too, glanced toward the doorway. Both men seemed to be waiting for something.

“It is a hard and lonely life,” whispered the old man, his tone softening somewhat. “We are, both of us, Warthrop, voices crying in the wilderness. For fifty years I’ve provided an invaluable service to my fellow man. I have sacrificed, barely subsisting on meager donations and philanthropic grants. I could have taken a steady and certainly more lucrative position at a university, but I chose instead to dedicate my life to helping the poor unfortunates whom fate and circumstance have washed up upon my shore. Mistake me not, I do not complain, but it is hard. Hard!”

Remarkably, the Cheshire grin had fled, and in its place were a quivering lip and a solitary tear trailing down his weathered cheek.

“And this is how I end my days!” he cried softly. “A destitute wretch with hardly enough in his purse to cover the expenses of his burial. You asked for the diagnosis of my affliction, and I spoke truthfully there is none, for I cannot afford the services of a physician. I, a doctor myself, who has sacrificed his well-being upon the altar of altruism, am forced to suffer a humiliating end because I refused to worship the golden calf! Ah, Warthrop, ’tis a pity-but I beg for none! ’Tis pride my undoing-but I would not undo it! I have no regrets. No lungs, either, but I’d rather die honorably poor than dishonorably live.”