The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist) (15 page)

“Me? But how am I to blame?”

“You invited him.”

“Oh, I thought you meant—”

“The man is as useless as . . .” Warthrop searched for the proper metaphor.

Pelt drawled a suggestion: “Teats on a bull.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” von Helrung admonished gently. “We have not gathered here to discuss Dr. Walker’s teats.”

Lilly’s shoulders were shaking violently. She was having some trouble controlling herself. I gave her hand a reassuring pat.

“What’s done is done,” said the Argentine monstrumologist seated next to Pelt, whose name—Santiago Luis Moreno Acosta-Rojas—seemed longer than the man was tall. He was, according to Warthrop, senselessly argumentative and hopelessly stubborn, but even the doctor acknowledged Acosta-Rojas’s expertise in all things
T. cerrejonensis
. “Pointing fingers, assigning blame, these are the true teats upon our hypothetical bull. These do not serve to retrieve what has been lost. And retrieve it we must, and quickly!
We stare into the abyss of two separate, equally disturbing possibilities: the failure of these blackguards to secure the creature—or their success! If it escapes, many will die. If it does not, many will be ensnared by its potent venom.”

“You are leaving out the worst possibility of all,” Warthrop said. “That someone may kill it.”

“Well, we know
why
they took it,” Pelt said. “The question is who
they
is. Or
are
, I mean.”

“Elements of the criminal underworld.” Walker sniffed, as if the answer were obvious. “The Dead Rabbits, I would say, based on the Irish accents Warthrop described.”

“Ach!” von Helrung snorted. “There haven’t been Rabbits since the seventies.”

“The Gophers,” Pelt suggested. “That’s my guess. Pellinore?”

The monstrumologist stiffened; his face darkened as if Pelt had insulted him. “I never guess. There may be a gang involved—or two, given that one of the thieves was shot in the back of the head by another. However, the fact remains that with twenty dollars and ten minutes in Five Points, I could find a dozen eager hoodlums with no connection whatsoever to organized crime.” He wasn’t looking at us. He was staring thoughtfully into the blank eyes of Darwin, running his finger up and down his hero’s marble nose. “The salient issue is not
why
or
who
but
how
. How did these ill-educated ruffians know of the hidden treasure in the
sanctum sanctorum
of the Locked Room?”

His question hung heavy in the air. Von Helrung understood at once, and the barrel chest expanded, straining the buttons of his vest. He pursed his thick lips and held his tongue while Warthrop went on:

“Dr. von Helrung will correct me if my count is off, but to my knowledge only six men knew of my special presentation to this year’s colloquium. One is dead. The rest are in this room.”

Acosta-Rojas rocketed to his feet; his chair clattered to the floor. “I am deeply offended that you even suggest such a thing!”

“What is more offensive?” Warthrop shot back. “The betrayal of a sacred trust or the suggestion of it?”

“Now, now, we mustn’t leap to conclusions,
mein Freund
,” von Helrung protested, waving his pudgy hands before him. “We are honorable men. Scientists all, not profiteers.”

“I am not surprised,” Walker announced blandly. “Contemplating the worst of nature has perverted his perception of men.”

“Oh, spare us the banalities, Walker!” the doctor exclaimed. “We are students of the
best
that nature offers, but that is beside the point. Reason is neither good nor bad; why do you think so few people are reasonable? I think we can safely rule out Adolphus as the traitor. He had no motive. For sixty years he’s had access to treasures great and small and never once tried to profit by them.”

“To me the most likely suspect is obvious,” Pelt said.
“This Maeterlinck fellow—or the mysterious client who commissioned him. Neither could have been very happy about the resolution of his offer. It wouldn’t be too difficult to follow you here to New York and ascertain the whereabouts of
T. cerrejonensis
.”

I spoke up: “Impossible. Maeterlinck is in London.”

“And how do you know where he is?” Acosta-Rojas demanded with narrowed eyes.

“There is nowhere else he would go,” I answered carefully.

“How odd,” Walker said, “that Warthrop’s apprentice would know the whereabouts of the mysterious Mr. Maeterlinck. I wonder what other intelligence he may be privy to.”

“Walker, I don’t know what I find more offensive,” growled Warthrop. “The insinuation that Mr. Henry is a turncoat or the incongruousness of the word ‘intelligence’ issuing from your lips.”

“Enough!” cried von Helrung, striking his breast in consternation. “This bickering, these childish insults—they accomplish nothing. We are all friends here, or at least colleagues, and I, for one, would stake my reputation—indeed my very life—upon the honor of the men gathered in this room. With all due respect, Pellinore, it is
not
why or who or how, but
where
that must concern us. The rest can wait until we have recovered what we have lost.”

“And that we’d better get to, and quick,” Pelt admonished. “The scoundrels could be halfway to Roanoke by now.”

“Roanoke?” Warthrop asked.

“Just an expression.”

“Odd, I’ve never heard it,” Acosta-Rojas said.

“Well, you’re from Argentina; I’m not surprised.”

“It struck me as odd too,” Walker said suspiciously. “Why Roanoke, of all places?”

“So I picked a random city!” Pelt exclaimed. “What of it?”

“Expressions are not random,” Acosta-Rojas said. “Otherwise they would not be expressions.”

Even Warthrop had had his fill. He realized, I think, the fruitlessness of pointing fingers at this crucial hour. “Von Helrung, I suppose there’s no avoiding it,” he said briskly, turning to his old master. “A few discreet inquiries in the appropriate quarters of New York officialdom are in order.”

Meister
Abram nodded gravely as he rolled the gnawed end of his expired stogie across his lower lip. “I know just the man—discreet, though not overly inquisitive. He recently was promoted to detective.”

Warthrop barked a laugh. “Of course he was!”

“A moment.” Acosta-Rojas seemed aghast. “You intend to bring the matter to the
police
?”

The monstrumologist ignored him. He said to von Helrung, “A murder investigation would be . . . awkward.”

“It would,
mein
Freund,
if I were idiotic enough to report one!”

TWO

The monstrumologist and I returned to the Plaza to change out of our evening wear while von Helrung left for police headquarters, Lilly in tow; he was seeing her off to her house on Riverside before heading downtown. Though she hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, Lilly was brimming with energy—her endurance rivaled Warthrop’s when the hunt was on.

“And now let’s send the little female off to bed with a warm pat and a gentle kiss!” she grumbled to me at the door. Her dress was stained with the grime of the Monstrumarium, her coiffure wilted, the ringlets exhausted loops of raven-black. But her eyes burned with an eerily familiar backlit glow. I tapped her gently on the shoulder and kissed her cheek. She failed to see the humor of my response, and
answered it with a sharp jab of her heel upon my foot.

“You had much more charm when you completely lacked any,” she observed.

“Get some rest, Lilly,” I said. “I’ll try to come by later if I can.”

She looked up into my face and said, “Why?”

If I’d had an answer ready—which I did not—I wasn’t able to give it: Samuel appeared at that moment, still dapper in his coat and tails, despite his horribly swollen jaw.

“You still owe me a dance, Miss Bates. I have not forgotten,” he said, slightly slurring the words. He lifted her hand to his lips, and then turned to me. His damaged mouth twisted in an obscene parody of a smile.

“Don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced, old man.” He seemed incapable of opening his mouth more than half an inch. “The name is Isaacson.”

I did not see the blow coming. He drove with his hips, pivoting neatly into the punch; perhaps he had studied some boxing. The von Helrung vestibule spun round; I collapsed onto the Persian rug, clutching my stomach. The world had been emptied of all oxygen. He loomed over me, white and black and pumpkin-headed.

“Warthrop’s attack dog.” He sneered down at me. “His personal assassin. I’ve heard about you and Aden—the Russians at the
Tour du Silence—
and the Englishman in the mountains of Socotra. How many others have you murdered at his behest?”

“About one short,” I gasped. “But it wouldn’t be at
his
behest.”

It is exceedingly difficult to laugh heartily without opening your mouth, but somehow Isaacson managed it.

“I hope you like the Beastie Bin, Henry. You’ll be an exhibit there one day.”

He stepped lightly over me and swept out the front door to hail a cab. Lilly helped me to my feet; I couldn’t tell if she was about to laugh or cry. Clearly she was fighting back something.

“Do you still think he’s a mediocrity?” she asked.

“It is not how he sucker punched me,” I informed her. “But how I fell.”

“Oh, you fell splendidly”—and now she did laugh. “It was the most impressive collapse I think I’ve ever seen.”

I don’t know why, perhaps it was her laughter, the pleasing jingle of coins tossed upon a silver tray, but I kissed her, still heaving for air, a pleasant suffocation.

“I’m a bit troubled, Mr. Henry,” she breathed in my ear, “by this curious association you have of violence with affection.”

I was grateful, in a way, that I had no breath with which to answer.

THREE

“It’s Walker,” I told Warthrop on the way to the Plaza.

“The obvious choice,” he acknowledged. “The man’s taste for the finer things exceeds his ability to obtain them—one of the reasons why I’ve always wondered at his choice of profession. Monstrumology is not the shortest route to riches.”

“Unless one stumbles across a species whose venom is more valuable than diamonds.”

He nodded and grunted noncommittally. “We cannot count out Acosta-Rojas. No one has hunted more diligently for a living
T. cerrejonensis
.”

“Precisely the reason we should count him out. He’d have no reason or need to send one to you.”

“Well, it may be one of them or none at all,” he said, growing testy. “Von Helrung is notorious for running his
mouth. And I’m afraid he might not remember to whom he let it slip or even that he let it slip.” He sighed. “Irish gangs! But equally foolish to assume that Maeterlinck or his client—if one exists at all—is responsible.”

He was drumming his fingers upon his knee, looking out the window. Carriage dodged automobile and both dodged the occasional bicycle and wayward pedestrian. The early-morning sun glinted off the buildings along Fifth Avenue and burnished the granite pavement a shimmering gold.

“Why did you go there?” he asked suddenly. “Why were you and Lilly Bates in the Monstrumarium?”

My face grew warm. “I wanted to say hello to Adolphus.” Then I sighed. Oh, what was the use? “To show her
T. cerrejonensis
.”

“To show her . . . ?” He clearly didn’t believe me.

“She has a certain . . . fascination for such things.”

“And you? Where do your fascinations lie?”

I knew what he meant. “I thought we had exhausted this topic at the dance.”

“At which point you proceeded to break her dance partner’s jaw.” For some reason he found my remark amusing. “Anyway, the topic, as I understand it, is nearly inexhaustible.”

“
You
exhausted it,” I reminded him.

“After it drove me into the Danube.”

I might have told him it wasn’t love that hurled him over that bridge in Vienna—or at least not love for another
person. Despair is a wholly selfish response to fortune’s slings and arrows.

“Well, it was a propitious arrival into the monstrumological pit,” Warthrop observed dryly. “In the nick of time and yet too late! Not unlike my friend pulling me from the water before the current carried me down.”