The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(69)

“I-I mean no offense,” stuttered Morgan, for he too must have glimpsed the not-human in the other’s eyes. “I simply don’t wish to entrust my life and the lives of my men to a mental defective.”

“I assure you, Constable Morgan, I am quite sane, as I understand the word, perhaps the sanest person in this room, for I suffer from no illusions. I have freed myself, you see, from the pretense that burdens most men. Much like our prey, I do not impose order where there is none; I do not pretend there is any more than what there is, or that you and I are anything more than what we are. That is the essence of their beauty, Morgan, the aboriginal purity of their being, and why I admire them.”

“Admire them! And you claim you aren’t defective!”

“There is much we can learn from the Anthropophagi. I am their student as much as I am their enemy.”

“Are we finished here?” Morgan demanded of Warthrop. “Is that all, or is there more of this drivel to endure before we’re done?”

“Robert is right; it’s very late,” said the monstrumologist. “Unless you have more of your drivel, John.”

“Of course, but it can wait.”

At the front door Morgan turned to Warthrop. “I almost forgot-Malachi…”

“Will Henry.” The doctor motioned toward the stairs.

Morgan reconsidered, and said, “No. He’s probably asleep. Don’t wake him. I’ll send someone over for him in the morning.” His eye wandered to the wound on the doctor’s forehead. “Unless you think-”

“That’s quite all right,” Warthrop interrupted. He seemed past all caring. “Let him stay the night.”

Morgan nodded, and breathed deep the cool night air. “What an odd man this Brit, Warthrop.”

“Yes. Exceedingly odd. But particularly suited for the task.”

“I pray you’re right. For all our sakes.”

We bade the constable good night, and I followed the doctor back into the library, where Kearns, having helped himself to Warthrop’s chair, sat sipping his cold tea. Kearns smiled broadly and lifted his cup. The mask was back on.

“Insufferable little marplot, isn’t he?” he asked, meaning the constable.

“He’s frightened,” answered Warthrop.

“He should be.”

“You’re wrong, you know. About my father.”

“Why, Pellinore? Because I cannot prove you wrong?”

“Setting aside the issue of his character for a moment, your theory is hardly more satisfying than mine. How did he manage to conceal them for such a long period of time? Or sustain them with their gruesome diet? Even granting you the outrageous assumption that Alistair was capable of such gross inhumanity, where did he find victims? How could he, for twenty years, without getting caught or even raising the least bit of suspicion, supply them with human fodder?”

“You overestimate the value of human life, Pellinore. You always have. Up and down the eastern seaboard the cities are seething with trash, the refuge washed up from Europe ’s slums. It would be no Herculean task to lure scores of them here with promises of employment or other incentives, or, failing that, to simply snatch them from the ghetto with the help of certain men who do not suffer from your quaint romantic idealism. Believe me the world is full of such men! Of course, it is entirely possible-though not, I would say, probable-that he persuaded his pets to adapt their diet to a lower form of life, assuming that was, as you propose, his goal. It is possible they have acquired a partiality to chicken. Possible, though not very probable.”

Warthrop was shaking his head. “I am not convinced.”

“And I am not concerned. But I am curious. Why do you resist an explanation that makes far more sense than your own? Really, Pellinore, would you care to compute the odds of them migrating here, to your own backyard, by sheer chance? In the back of your mind you must know the truth, but refuse to acknowledge it. Why? Because you cannot bring yourself to think the worst of him? Who was he to you? More important, who were you to him? You defend a man who barely tolerated your existence.” His boyish face lit up. “Ah! Is that it? Are you still trying to prove yourself worthy of his love-even now, when it’s impossible for him to give it? And you call yourself a scientist!

“You’re a hypocrite, Pellinore. A silly, sentimental hypocrite, much too sensitive for your own good. I’ve often wondered why you even became a monstrumologist. You are a worthy man with admirable attributes, but this business is dark and dirty, and you never struck me as the type. Did that have to do with him as well? To please him? So he would finally notice you?”

“Say no more, Kearns.” The doctor was so agitated by these barbs set with such exquisite surgical precision that I thought he might strike Kearns again, this time with something harder than his hand, perhaps the fireplace poker. “I did not invite you here for this.”

“You invited me here to slay dragons, did you not? Well. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

I slipped out of the room shortly after this fevered exchange. It was quite painful to watch, and, even now, decades later, to remember in such vivid detail. As I mounted the stairs to the second floor, I thought of soup and of the doctor’s words. Don’t suffer under any illusions that you are more than that: an assistant forced upon me by unfortunate circumstances. I did not, at the time, know why I should remember those words at that moment. Now, of course, the reason is obvious.