Spectacle(57)

No, that couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen her.

Had he?

At last he stopped and paused before a grave. She moved over to the left a few rows in order to approach and observe from the side.

He took off his gloves and reached into his pocket, opposite the one with the rat. Carefully he pulled out a white rose and placed it on the grave.

Pretending to gaze at the markings on the tombs, Nathalie drew closer, stealing glimpses every few steps. When she was several gravestones away, he knelt on the grass and blessed himself.

She narrowed the gap between them until she could see the gravestone better. The white marble, with scrollwork all along the border, had a faded inscription. She sidled nearer to see.

JANINE THéRèSE DUBRAY

BORN 7TH MAY 1862

DIED 20TH OCTOBER 1875

IN HIS WILL IS OUR PEACE.



M. Gloves buried his head in his hands and began sobbing.

She was suddenly ashamed of being here, intruding on him this way. She’d been mistaken. Entirely, utterly mistaken. She should never have considered him, not for one moment.

Those weren’t the bare hands of a killer who wore gloves. Only the shaking, desperate hands of a man still grieving. Not the hands that wielded a knife in rage, not the hand that held down screaming girls until they were sliced to death.

Flushed with shame, she turned to go. She kicked a rock into a gravestone, startling M. Gloves.

“Hello?” He peered behind him, tears streaking his round face. If he recognized her, he didn’t show it.

“Hello, I—I thought you were someone else,” she said, hoping the humiliation wasn’t as obvious as it felt. “I’m sorry. And … my condolences.”

“Thank you.” He gestured toward the grave. “My daughter. Lost her to cholera. Tomorrow her best friend from childhood is getting married, and…” His shoulders slumped.

Nathalie gave him a somber nod and left him, this man who plainly was neither the Dark Artist nor even M. Gloves. He was M. Dubray, a father still very much in mourning twelve years after his child’s death. He deserved to grieve in private.





25


Within a half hour Nathalie was immersed in the archives at Le Petit Journal, having spent the entire trip from the cemetery to the newspaper issuing mental apologies to M. Dubray. She chastised herself for being foolish, for having fixated on him at all. It was time to adjust her thinking and take a different approach.

More than ever she needed facts.

M. Patenaude was in an editorial meeting, which she didn’t mind so much, because she wanted to find out as much as possible on her own before talking to him. She was embarrassed that she’d known so little of Henard’s experiments and of the Insightfuls when she talked to Christophe. People who had or once had magical abilities may have walked by her on the street or stood next to her in the morgue room. There was so much to learn that she felt like an explorer discovering a new land.

Obviously her parents had avoided the topic because of Aunt Brigitte.

The archive room, a maze of soaring wooden cabinets, had at least one copy of every daily newspaper since its founding in 1863. Given that she didn’t know when Henard or his patients first made headlines, she began at the only place she knew for certain. The end. After searching just a week’s worth of newspapers—during September 1870, when Henard was killed—she knew she’d underestimated the enormity of the task.

Nathalie pulled out the article about Henard’s death and leaned against a drawer, sizing up the rest of the row. Hundreds and hundreds of newspapers. It would take days to sort through them all.

She unfolded the newspaper dated September 17, 1870 and began to read.

Pierre Henard, Doctor of “Insight,” Found Dead in Laboratory

Dr. Pierre Henard, 58, was found dead in his laboratory Friday morning. Henard, who briefly rose to fame with his now-infamous blood transfusions, was likely poisoned, says Prefect of Police émile de Kératry. Signs of a struggle were also evident; much of the doctor’s equipment was destroyed. Dozens of glass vials containing blood were shattered throughout the laboratory. Henard’s neck and face were covered in cuts made with a glass shard found at the scene; de Kératry said these were likely postmortem.



Vials containing blood. Like the blood jar. Was that a coincidence or a connection? Nathalie continued searching backward. In July 1870, there was another article of note.

Henard to Resume Transfusions

Advertisement posters spotted throughout Paris yesterday made an announcement: After a six-month hiatus following the accidental death of a patient during a transfusion, Dr. Pierre Henard is resuming his practice on August 1.

Despite the controversy surrounding Henard’s experiments, people continue to ask for the procedure.

“It’s not as busy as it once was,” said the owner of a nearby business, “but people are still coming out of there with bandages every now and then.”

In 1866, Henard conducted an experimental blood transfusion, blending science and, as some claim, “magic” to bestow “magical powers.” The procedure entails drawing blood, adding Henard’s proprietary chemical concoction to it, then reinjecting the blood into the body.

That first patient: the doctor himself.

Henard, who will no longer speak to members of the press, reportedly still possesses his power—the ability to diagnose disease through smell. He claims never to have experienced side effects, unlike all others who have received his transfusions, though rumors suggest he periodically loses his sense of taste.