The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist #1)(85)

“It would be a number that held some significance to him,” Kearns interrupted. “Not an actual time of day. A date, or perhaps a verse from the Bible, a psalm or something from the Gospels.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “Quickly, famous passages!”

“Psalm twenty-three,” Malachi offered.

“Not enough hours,” Morgan argued.

“Might be military time,” Kearns mused. He set the clock to 8:23. This time both he and Malachi, who seemed infected with Kearns ’s excitement, pushed against the stone, but the huge slab did not budge.

“John 3:16,” Malachi guessed next. Still nothing. Warthrop snorted with disgust.

“Pellinore!” called Kearns. “What year was your father born?”

The doctor waved him away. Kearns turned back to the clock face, fingers restlessly caressing his mustache. “Perhaps the year Pellinore was born…”

“Or his wife, or his anniversary, or any number of combinations for your clock without a C!” huffed the constable, having decoded Kearns ’s cryptic phrase at last. “It’s hopeless.”

Behind us Warthrop said, “The witching hour.” I noted the sad expression in his eyes, an acknowledgment of the unacceptable, the recognition of a conclusion unavoidable.

“‘The witching hour approaches,’” he continued. “From my father’s diary: ‘The witching hour approaches… The hour comes, and Christ himself is mocked.”’

“Midnight?” asked Kearns. “But we tried that.”

“The witching hour is an hour past,” said Morgan. “One o’clock.”

Kearns appeared dubious, but with a shrug tried that combination. Again the great slab would not move, even with all our shoulders pressed upon it.

“What did he say again?” Kearns asked. “The hour when Christ himself is mocked?”

“After his trial he was mocked by the Roman soldiers,” Malachi said.

“But what hour was that?”

Malachi shook his head. “The Bible doesn’t say.”

Warthrop thought for a moment, bringing all his prodigious powers of concentration to bear upon the riddle. “Not mocked by soldiers,” he said slowly. “By witches. The witching hour is three a.m., in mockery of the Trinity and a perversion of the hour of his death.” He drew a deep breath and nodded decisively. “It’s three o’clock, Kearns. I’m sure of it.”

Kearns set the hands to three o’clock, the tumblers inside softly clicked, and, before Kearns or anyone else could try his luck, Warthrop reached out and pressed against the nerveless rock. With a grinding groan the secret door slid straight back, creating an opening on one side through which two men could walk abreast. Neither light nor sound escaped from that dark fissure, only the faintest odor of decay, a smell with which I had, unfortunately, become all too familiar. Like the grave, what lay behind the great marble door was black and silent and reeked of death.

“Well!” Kearns said brightly. “Shall we draw lots to see who goes first?”

Malachi pulled the lamp from my hand. “I will go,” he announced grimly. “It is my place; I’ve earned it.”

Kearns pulled the lamp from Malachi’s hand. “It is my place; I’m being paid for it.”

Warthrop pulled the lamp from Kearns ’s hand. “The place is mine,” he said. “I inherited it.”

He glanced at Morgan, who misread the meaning of it. The constable dropped a hand onto my shoulder. “I’ll look after Will Henry.”

Before Malachi or Kearns could protest, Warthrop ducked into the opening. The light of the lamp faded, then disappeared altogether. For several excruciatingly elongated minutes we waited without speaking, straining our ears for any sound to emerge from the stygian darkness that dwelled behind the secret door. The lamp’s glow returned at last, attended by the doctor’s lean shadow, following next its glow upon his drawn features; I’d never witnessed him wearier.

“Well, Warthrop, what did you find?” demanded Morgan.

“Stairs,” replied the doctor quietly. “Descending down a narrow shaft-and a door at the bottom.” He turned to Kearns. “I stand corrected, Jack.”

“When have you ever known me to be wrong, Pellinore?”

The doctor ignored the question. “The door is locked.”

“A good sign,” Kearns said, “but a bad circumstance. I don’t suppose your father bequeathed you the key to it.”

“My father willed me many things,” replied the doctor darkly.

Kearns called for the crate to be brought inside the tomb, and he quickly laid out the supplies for the hunt: extra ammunition for the rifles; six of the remaining grenades; a small sack containing a collection of sachets, perhaps two dozen in all, their shape and size reminding me of tea bags; a tight coil of sturdy rope; and a bundle of long tubes with short, fat strings protruding from one end.

“What is that, Cory?” asked Morgan, pointing at the bundle. “Dynamite?”

“Dynamite!” exclaimed Kearns with a slap of his open hand against his forehead. “Now, that is something I should have thought of!” He pulled three canvas bags from the crate and packed each with two grenades, bullets, and a fistful of the little paper packets. He patted the empty sheath strapped to his leg and wondered aloud where his knife had gone.