Doktor Glass (30 page)

Langton forced open a locked bureau and hauled papers out only to strew them on the floor.

“Langton.” Forbes Paterson stood in the doorway, with McBride peering over his shoulder. “Langton, please. This isn’t the way.”

Langton turned, his mouth already open to argue. He took a deep breath and held it, eyes closed, until the pounding and roaring faded.

“They didn’t use the attic,” Forbes said. “We found no doorways, no
hatches. And the snow on the roof is untouched, so they didn’t go over the top.”

Exhausted, Langton forced himself to concentrate. There could be only so many ways to escape this house. He remembered the smells from the lower floors of the house. “The basement.”

He led the way downstairs, glancing at the detectives patiently searching each deserted floor. He stopped at the entrance to the basement, where harsh light gleamed on empty shelves. “Look: muddy footprints on the floor.”

“So?”

“So Doktor Glass and his men carried the contents of the shelves to some other location, some safe house or storeroom.”

“My men saw nothing.”

“Exactly.” Langton stalked the room, trying to follow logically the direction of the prints. They led from shelf to shelf, to the zinc table in the room’s center, and to the walls. Curiously, they didn’t head for the doorway that led upstairs. “The answer lies in this room.”

All three detectives searched the walls for hidden doors. They looked for seams, the narrow border between door and jamb. They found nothing.

“I don’t understand,” Langton said. “It
has
to be here. There’s no other way.”

With his anger returning, he thought about ripping the shelves from the walls; he even stepped forward and gripped the nearest section. His boots echoed on the tiled floor. He looked down. “Sergeant, bring me the sledgehammer.”

Langton dropped to his knees and rapped the tiles with the butt of his Webley. He fanned out across the floor, listening, with Forbes Paterson silent behind him. The echoes did sound different. There. And there. At the foot of the wall farthest from the door, the tiles gave back a deeper, longer echo.

Langton looked up at Paterson and grabbed the sledgehammer
from McBride. As Langton went to raise it, Paterson said, “Wait. If they used some kind of trapdoor, there must be a switch or mechanism.”

“Can you see one in here? We’ve searched every crevice.”

“What about the passageway, sir?” McBride said. “Or the kitchen?”

Langton hesitated. He knew he wanted to use the sledgehammer on the house; he wanted to see those tiles chip and fly. He wanted to destroy. But Paterson and McBride had a point. He set the sledgehammer aside.

They found the recessed lever in the brick-lined passageway. While Langton and McBride stood ready with revolvers drawn, Forbes Paterson reached into the slot beside the massive door. On silent hinges a section of tiled floor rose to reveal a square, dark pit. Dank air rushed out from the shaft and carried the odor of wet earth, brick, and decay. No sounds save the rush of distant water.

Langton looked over the edge of the shaft and saw the head of a ladder. Before Paterson could stop him, he swung over the side and grasped the rusting metal rungs. His right hand still held the Webley, but the darkness gave no target.

Almost by accident, he brushed against the resin switch set next to the ladder. Electric bulbs encased in caged globes flickered to life and showed a circular brick tunnel stretching left and right. The sudden illumination sent fat rats scurrying along the wet floor.

“What do you see?” Paterson called down, his head framed by the square trapdoor above.

“An escape route,” said Langton. “It must stretch right under the square.”

To his left, the tunnel dwindled with distance; the lights, strung up every ten yards or so, showed crumbling brickwork and slimy walls. The sound of distant rushing water came from that direction. To his right, the tunnel curved slightly until it bent out of sight.

“I should have known,” Paterson said, splashing down beside Langton. “Doktor Glass wouldn’t leave himself without a back door.”

“We couldn’t foresee everything,” Langton said. But he wondered if Sapper George knew about these tunnels. If only Langton had realized.

He blamed himself. Doktor Glass was always one step ahead. At least.

“Which way does it lead, sir?” asked McBride.

Paterson looked up and along the tunnel, trying to orientate himself. “Southwest, as far as I can gauge. Toward Toxteth.”

“Come on.” Langton led Paterson and McBride along the cold tunnel, heading right. No sound came from ahead; no draft carried rank odors. Upon turning the bend, Langton saw why: The crumbling brick roof had collapsed, blocking the path.

No, not collapsed. Langton saw thick wooden staves—like coal mine pit-props—among the rubble. Ropes showed where Doktor Glass and his men had pulled the staves from ahead, bringing down the tunnel roof already weakened by age or by their deliberate erosion.

Either way, the tunnel lay blocked.

“I’ll get my men down here with picks and shovels,” Forbes Paterson said. “We’ll soon get this out of the way.”

Langton didn’t comment. He pocketed his revolver and returned to the rusting ladder. His muddied feet made fresh outlines on the basement room’s white tiles. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, he pushed through the busy detectives and sank into a leather chair in the front parlor. He stared ahead.

Doktor Glass had won. Again. He’d outmaneuvered the police as usual, probably with help from informants within the force. How else could he know what to expect?

Langton let his head sink back against the chair. His body’s adrenaline rush had faded, leaving only exhaustion and futility. What was the point? Why not simply admit that they were up against an opponent too intelligent, too cunning, too adept. They might as well try to catch fog in a net.

Without focusing on any one object, Langton let his gaze travel
around the parlor. An eclectic mix of furniture and ornaments: on the walls, oil paintings and etchings of Italy, France, the Mediterranean. Indian figurines raised their multiple arms to heaven. The electric gramophone, now silent, stood on a table next to cigar boxes and decanters. In the corner, an upright automatic piano with its scrolled music spewing from the front like a drunk’s shirt bib. And, standing next to the piano, a slender statue in chipped wood. No more than four feet tall, with patches of blue and gold still as bright as the day the Egyptian artisans painted her. Kohl-rimmed eyes and an enigmatic smile.

Langton remembered where he had seen the twin of that statue. The house of Professor Caldwell Chivers.

The Professor: the man who had shown such a keen interest in Langton’s home when he’d visited it, and who had been surprised at Langton having only one servant in “such a large, sheltered house.”

His lethargy gone, Langton jumped from the chair and ran into the hall, almost knocking over McBride.

“Sir? Where are you—”

“Protect Elsie,” Langton said. “She’s in danger.”

“Sir, what do you…”

McBride’s voice faded as Langton ran down the steps and skidded on the pavement outside. He sprinted across Falkner Square, down Sandon Street, and onto busy Upper Parliament Street. Swirling snow clogged his mouth, nose, eyes. He slipped and dodged between huddled pedestrians. As he ran across the main road, his feet went from under him; his hip slammed into the compacted ice and shot jagged pain up his spine. He rolled aside, ignored the cart drivers’ yells, and stumbled toward the mansion.

He could imagine the tunnel beneath his feet, beneath the roadway. A direct link between the Professor and his clients. So convenient. Langton thought of all those jars removed from the Falkner Square address and now standing in the Professor’s rooms. Enough evidence to link him to the trade.

On one level, Langton knew he couldn’t barge into the Professor’s
mansion without a magistrate’s warrant. But rage obliterated logic. And rage made him hammer at the front door with the butt of his gun. Even as the door began to open, he pushed past the butler. “Where is he?”

“Sir, you cannot just—” Then the butler saw the gun. “I’ll call the police.”

“I am the police.” Langton didn’t know if he’d shouted the words at the butler; a roaring filled his head like a waterfall pounding rocks.

He ran through the hall, through the drawing room, trying to remember how to get down to the Egyptian room. Frightened maids stumbled out of his way. A footman ran to him, then saw the gun and pulled back. The pounding in Langton’s head grew louder.

There. He remembered that passage. He ran down the descending floor and kicked open the door. Light glinted off trophies of gold and ebony, jet and silver. Impassive sarcophagi stared back at him. The shelved jars waited.

“Caldwell Chivers.”

Langton found another door and a spiral staircase leading down. Then, between two upright coffin slabs, a narrow panel left open an inch or two.

Not stopping to wonder why the panel stood open, Langton thrust it back and smelled that familiar odor of dank earth. Caged lights glowed white. Stone steps led down; Langton followed them with the Webley pointing the way. He knew he was close. Soon it would be over.

Then, at the bottom of the stairs, he sensed a movement behind him. A hand slid from the darkness and closed over his mouth. Another gripped the Webley. Immense hands like shovels, pale white against the black.

Instead of struggling, Langton stepped back and drove his weight into the attacker. He rebounded as if from a brick wall. He jabbed his free left arm into the man’s ribs, pounding the chest with his elbow over and over. No response. Nothing.

The hand over his mouth moved to his throat. Fingers like clammy steel dug into his flesh. Langton struggled to breathe, to force air past the constriction. Panic made him fire the Webley. Two shots ricocheted from the basement walls. Then the attacker threw the gun into the shadows, releasing his second hand to join his first around Langton’s neck.

As the man’s grip tightened, Langton managed to turn. He kicked and punched and butted and scratched. But his attacker, invisible beyond the edge of light, didn’t react. His hands closed around Langton’s throat like a snare around a fox.

Langton’s eyes bulged. His bloated tongue jutted from his mouth. An obscene, wet gurgle erupted from his throat. He heard it as if from very far away.

As the pounding in his head obliterated all sensation and his body slumped in the man’s grip, Langton accepted his own death. He pictured Sarah and tried to fix the image of her face as his last thought. Then, just as Langton’s vision faded, his attacker leaned forward into the light.

Langton’s scream began and ended in his own head. He carried the final image of Reefer Jake’s cold, blank face into unconsciousness.

W
HITE FLOWERS
. T
HE
smell of lilies, orchids, freesia. Overpowering and oppressive. Sweet decay.

Langton blinked up at a rough timber ceiling, crisscross beams. Firelight flickered up there, orange and yellow twisting among darker shadows. Lethargic, he watched the elongated reflections for a while; the shapes they made reminded him of childhood evenings with his family. The memory comforted him. Even the overwhelming smell of flowers didn’t seem too harsh now. Death didn’t seem too bad.

He forced his heavy eyes open. Whatever this was, it was not death. This hurt too much.

Like a drunk unsure and suspicious of his surroundings, he worked outward from his own body: a soft material under him, velvet or plush. Warm. No shackles at his wrists or legs. He shifted position to ease the weight on his hip and side and touched his tender throat. With that came the memory of Reefer Jake, a man already dead. And with that came the name of Doktor Glass.

Langton jerked upright on the couch, eyes wide open, hands ready for attack or defense.

“Inspector. How are you?” Sister Wright, sitting across from him, poured tea into two white china cups. She replaced the pot on the low table separating her and Langton, then offered him a cup. “Milk? Sugar?”

Habit made Langton accept the cup. This had to be a dream or a delusion. It seemed so real; he could feel the heat of the tea through the thin bone china, smell the dark leaves.

Sister Wright saw him wince as he swallowed. “I applied ointment for the bruising and inflammation, but I’m afraid you’ll have to let time take its course.”

Langton had so many questions. How had Sister Wright rescued him? Where was he? How could Jake still walk with the living? All he could manage was, “Where am I?”

“A warehouse on Blundell Street, close to Gladstone Dock,” Sister Wright said, sipping her tea.

The room didn’t match her explanation. Apart from the lack of windows, it could have been a respectable front parlor with its dark dressers and bureau, its rugs, red velvet couch and chairs, its many vases of fresh flowers. But Langton thought he could detect the trace aroma of salt water. Perhaps he imagined it.

Sister Wright could have stepped in here straight from the Infirmary. Starched white apron over navy blue dress; black stockings and flat black shoes; upturned watch and Guild pin at her breast. Smiling slightly, she watched Langton like a nanny with a dim child.

“How did you get me out of the Professor’s house?”

“His mansion lies over a network of old tunnels; in fact, it used to belong to one of Liverpool’s most notorious slavers and smugglers.”

“How…I mean…”

“You’re still a little groggy, Inspector. I asked Jake to be careful, but he really has no idea of his own strength.”

Ice formed in the pit of Langton’s stomach. He set down the teacup
as if it might shatter at any moment. He had to concentrate on every movement. “You’re Doktor Glass.”

Sister Wright set her hands on her lap. “I am.”

It made horrible sense: the connections and clues to the Infirmary; her knowledge of the Jar Boys; her work at the encampment giving her ready access to victims. At the center of the investigation. Watching. Waiting.