The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist) (7 page)

“I thought you might like another cup.”

“Cup?”

“Of tea.”

“Tea. Will Henry, the last known specimen of
T. cerrejonensis
was killed by a coal miner in 1801. The species is extinct.”

“A charlatan who let his avarice get the better of him. You were right to throw him out, sir.”

I dropped two sugars into his tea and gave it a swirl.

“Do you know I once paid six thousand dollars for the phalanges of an
Immundus matertera
?” he asked. There was an uncharacteristic pleading tone in his voice. “It isn’t as if I’m above paying for the furtherance of human knowledge.”

“I’m not familiar with the species,” I confessed. “Say he actually did have a living specimen. Would it be worth his asking price?”

“How can one put a price on something like that? It would be beyond price.”

“In the furtherance-of-human-knowledge sense or . . . ?”

“In nearly every sense.” He sighed. “There is a reason it was hunted to extinction, Will Henry.”

“Ah.”

“What does that mean, ‘ah’? Why do you say ‘ah’ like that?”

“I take it to mean a reason beyond the usual one of eradicating a threat to life and limb.”

He shook his head at me. “Where did I fail? Maeterlinck—if that’s his real name, which I doubt—spoke true about one
thing: an actual living specimen of
T. cerrejonensis
would have the potential to make its captor richer than all the robber barons combined.”

“Really! Then a million is not so outlandish an asking price.”

He stiffened. “It would be, in all likelihood, the last of its kind.”

“I see.”

“Clearly you do not. You know next to nothing about the matter, and I would appreciate it if you dropped it and never brought it up again.”

“But if there is even a
possibility
that—”

“What have I said that you fail to understand? You ask questions when you should be quiet and hold your tongue when you should ask!” He slammed the hefty book closed. The attending wallop was loud as a thunderclap. “I wish my father were alive. If my father were alive, I would apologize to him for failing to understand the Solomon-like wisdom of shipping off a teenager until he’s fully grown! Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Yes,” I replied calmly. “I must go to the market before it closes. The larder is completely bare.”

“I am not hungry,” he snapped with a dismissive wave.

“Perhaps not. I, however, am famished.”

FOUR

The Publick House was the finest establishment of its kind in town. With its well-appointed rooms and attentive staff, the inn was a favorite gathering place and stopover point for wealthy travelers on their way east along the Boston Post Road. John Adams had slept there, or so the proprietor claimed.

Number 13 was located at the end of the first-floor hall, the last room on the left. Maeterlinck’s practiced but entirely genuine smile quickly faded when he realized I had come alone.

“But where is Dr. Warthrop?”

“Indisposed,” I replied curtly, stepping past him and into the room. A nice little fire spat and popped in the hearth. A snifter of brandy and a pot of steaming tea rested on the small
table opposite the bed. The window overlooked the spacious grounds, though the view was hidden by night’s dark curtain. I shrugged out of my overcoat, draped it over the chair between the table and the fire, decided a drink would warm me up and steady my nerves, and poured myself a glass from the snifter.

“The doctor has given me discretionary authority over the matter,” I said to him. “The issue for him, as I guessed, is not the price of the thing but the thing’s authenticity. You must understand you are not the first so-called broker who has appeared at his door wanting to sell certain oddities of the natural world.” I smiled—warmly, I hoped. “When I was younger, I used to think of the doctor’s subjects as mistakes of nature. But I’ve come to understand they are precisely the opposite. These things he studies—they are nature perfected, not mistakes but masterpieces, the pure form beyond the shadow on Plato’s metaphorical wall. This is excellent brandy, by the way.”

Maeterlinck was frowning; he was not following me at all. “So Warthrop is willing to reconsider my offer?”

“He is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Then let us go to him at once!” he cried. “There is something altogether unnerving about this whole business, and I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have taken it on. The sooner I get rid of this . . . masterpiece, as you call it, the better.”

I nodded, downed the rest of the brandy in a single
swallow, and said, “There is no need to go to him. I have full discretion in the transaction. I believe I explained that, Maeterlinck. All that remains is for me to authenticate the find. Where is it?”

His eyes cut away. “Not far from here.”

I laughed. Poured another glass for myself and one for him. He accepted it without comment, and I said, “I will wait here while you fetch it, then.”

His eyes narrowed. He sipped the brandy nervously. “There is no need,” he said finally.

“I thought not,” I countered, falling into the chair and stretching out my legs. “So let’s pull it out and have done with it. The doctor is expecting me.”

He nodded, but moved not a muscle. I pulled a blank check from my shirt pocket and laid it on the table beside the snifter. He finished his drink. Set the empty glass beside the check. He stepped over to the bed, knelt, pulled out from beneath it a crate constructed of slatted boards, and set it carefully upon the mattress. The color was high in his cheek. I rose and handed him his glass, which I had filled while his back was to me, then addressed the crate. The top was hinged. I undid the heavy clasp on the opposite side and pulled up the lid.

Nestled in a bower of straw was an egg, dull gray and leathery in appearance, roughly the size and shape of an ostrich egg. The shell—though it more resembled human flesh cracked and brown from too much sun—was slightly
translucent; I could see something dark moving beneath the surface, a black pulsing something, and my heart quickened.

Behind me Maeterlinck said, “You’ve no idea the trouble it is. New England is not the tropics, and keeping it warm is a constant worry and obstacle. I’m up all night tending to it. Putting it by the fire so it doesn’t get too cold. Pulling it away so it doesn’t get too hot. I am exhausted in mind and body.”

I nodded absently. I could not tear my eyes away from the object in the box.
It would be beyond price.

Maeterlinck’s voice rose in consternation. “Well, then? Are you satisfied? I am willing to let you take delivery immediately upon receipt of payment. I usually only accept cash, but in this case I’m willing—”

“You should have brought it, Maeterlinck,” I murmured. It took every ounce of my willpower not to touch the egg, to feel the warmth of its life beneath my hand. “If he had seen it, he would have lost all self-control and forgotten to be stingy.” I closed the lid carefully. “Some men lust for gold, others for power. The monstrumologist is that rare man who covets what others would destroy. But it is not too late. I think we can come to an agreement, you and I.”

I swung away from the bed and returned to the chair between the table and the fireplace. He remained standing for a moment, then sank into the chair across from me with a sigh. He rubbed his eyes. I filled his glass a third time.

“One million dollars,” he said, though I could tell from his tone that the price was not firm. He was willing to
negotiate and be done with this unnerving business.

I picked up the check. “Too much and you know it.”

He was losing patience with me. “Then tell me what you’re willing to offer, boy.” He sneered the word. It offended his dignity, being forced to bargain with someone far less than half his age.

I played with the check, turning it over and over in my hands, my heart pounding furiously. Part of me had the strange sense of having been here before, as if he and I were acting out a scene a hundred times rehearsed, the other part that I was a mere spectator to the melodrama, restless, a bit bored, wondering how long till intermission.

“Nothing,” said I, the actor, the onlooker.

He watched, speechless, while I tore the check in two and slipped the pieces into my pocket.

“Get out,” he said when he found his voice.

“But you haven’t heard my counteroffer. I am prepared to tender something far more valuable than money, Maeterlinck. This find is priceless, and I will pay you in kind. I don’t need to spell it all out for you, do I? Everyone knows the one thing that is beyond price.”

He jumped to his feet; his chair fell back, clattered to the floor. He fumbled in his pocket and his hand came out gripping a derringer pistol.

“It is too late for that,” I said levelly.

“No, you supercilious young pup, it is too late for
you
. Get out!”

He swayed; he tried to steady himself with his free hand upon the tabletop, but the room was spinning around him, the center would not hold, and the gun slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. His eyes were wide, the pupils grossly dilated, the lids fluttering frantically like a butterfly’s wings.

“What have you done?” he whispered hoarsely. “What in heaven’s name have you done?”

“Nothing at all in heaven’s name,” I replied, and then I watched him fall.

FIVE

I set the box on the floor. Laid Maeterlinck upon the bed. Removed the syringe from my pocket and placed it on the bedside table. Then I rolled up his shirtsleeve. I picked up the derringer and placed it on the table beside the syringe.

The sleeping draft would wear off in less than twenty minutes. I checked my watch, and waited.

Where did I fail?

You didn’t fail me, sir. You succeeded past all expectations. The wisest teacher desires to be surpassed by his student, and I have surpassed you: My lamp burns brighter than yours; it allows not the remotest corner a smidgen of dark; I see clear to the bottom of the well. And what I see is all there is and nothing more.
There is no room in science for any sentimental thing.

I had considered the alternative.

An overdose of the anesthetic. Or a pillow over his face while he slept. But disposing of the body posed a problem. How to remove it from the room without being seen? And even if I could accomplish that feat, there would be inquiries; I knew nothing about this man, where he was from, who had hired him, if anyone had, and who, if anyone, knew his business here. There were simply too many unknowns, too many places where the brightest of lights could not reach.

I had another drink. The room was overly warm now. I unbuttoned my vest, rolled up my sleeves. From a great distance I watched myself return to the bed. I had been here before; I had never been here.

Do you know what this is, Kendall?

Maeterlinck’s eyes roamed beneath the jittery lids. I picked up the syringe filled with amber-colored liquid and rolled it between my hands, five fingers on one, four on the other. The missing finger floated in a jar of preserving solution in the doctor’s basement. He’d chopped it off that I might live. I was indispensable to him, you see. I was the one thing that kept him human.

The man’s eyes opened. A few seconds before the world came into focus, but before his senses fully returned, I clamped my left hand upon his wrist and with my right jammed the needle home. His body stiffened as his head whipped toward my face, which was hovering a few inches over his, like a lover about to give him a kiss. I tossed the
syringe aside and pressed my free hand upon his moving mouth, hard.

“You must remain very still and listen very carefully,” I whispered. “It can’t be undone, Maeterlinck, and if you wish to live, you must do exactly what I say. The slightest deviation would have devastating consequences. Do you understand?”

He nodded beneath my hand. His brain was still a bit foggy from the drug, but he gathered the gist of my meaning.

“You have been injected with a ten percent solution of tipota,” I informed him, keeping my hand upon his mouth, the other on his wrist. “A slow-acting poison derived from the sap of the pyrite tree, indigenous to a small island near the Galápagos Archipelago called the Isle of Demons.
Tipota
, from the Greek. Do you know Greek, Maeterlinck? No? It doesn’t matter.”