“I won’t take up any more of your time.”
She strode out with as much dignity as she could muster, but she could not help overhearing Henry giving an audible sniff, as if he were smelling something unpleasant, and saying to Will, “Definitely on the rag.”
21
It came to Lizzie in the middle of the night: Victor had been a medical student, which meant that there had to be a file somewhere containing his medical records. The logical place for current files would be in Moulsdale’s study. If she could get in there for fifteen minutes or more, she could read what had happened to Victor in the days leading up to his death. Of course, records could be falsified, but at the very least she could see whether the official report matched the story about Victor’s appendicitis. She might find some answers or at least something that might spark his memory. At worst, she would miss one lousy dining hall meal. Considering the effect all those starchy suppers were having on the fit of her corset, that might not be such a bad thing.
* * *
She waited until she was sure that everyone else was at supper before making her way to Moulsdale’s office. She didn’t think she knew how to navigate the back corridors, so she took the main staircase, then turned left. She had only been to Moulsdale’s office once, at the beginning of term, to have her schedule of courses approved and signed. Now, as then, she was struck by how the upper floor seemed more like a mansion than a monastery. The heavy oak banister, the age-darkened oil portraits of bewigged dignitaries and the Italian marble underfoot were all improvements that had been added long after the monks had been removed from their home.
Moulsdale’s study, predictably, was the most ornately decorated room of all. Just as she had hoped, the heavily carved door was unlocked. Lizzie slipped in and then paused to catch her breath. There were no cleaners here yet, and the air was still thick with the odor of Moulsdale’s cigars. On the far side of the room, a faint, reddish glow from the setting sun illuminated the high, arched Palladian windows, and on the other side, a fire was burning low in the tiled fireplace. She didn’t have long to find what she was looking for, as the room was settling into evening shadow.
She didn’t want to turn on any lamps, but in the fading light it was hard to make out details, and for a moment she mistook the crouched shape in the corner for another heavy, dark oak and leather chair. Then the figure moved and her heart skipped a beat before she realized it was a Bio-Mechanical. Now she could make out the rough jacket and workman’s cap, as well as the feather duster and broom propped against the filing cabinet. He was so intent on his work that he hadn’t noticed her presence.
Just my luck the brute would be cleaning right where I need to be. Her heels made no sound on the thick Persian carpet, and it was not until she was standing a few feet away that the cleaner grunted in surprise.
“Don’t worry,” she said in the voice she used for small children and large dogs. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Elizabeth?” He stood up, pulling back the cap’s brim so she could see his face.
“Victor!” Her broad smile wavered, confronted by his frown.
“What are you doing here?” He glanced behind her, at the slightly open door, then back. There was a shadow of stubble on his jaw, giving his handsomeness a harder edge.
“Trying to find out what really caused your death. What are you doing here?”
“Trying to find out what it was that got me killed.”
His disapproving tone made her want to back down, so she made herself do the opposite. “Did you remember something else?”
“Just bits and pieces. Nothing that would explain why someone would have wanted to murder me.”
“You’re certain it was murder, though?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “I’m not certain of anything. Perhaps my appendix did rupture. Perhaps there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all of this.” He met her gaze. “But what if there isn’t?”
“Then we need to find out the truth.” She lifted her chin. “Would you do any differently, if you were in my shoes?”
“No, of course not. I would do exactly what you’re doing.” There was something new in his expression now—a gentling of his eyes and mouth. “But I am not now, nor ever have been, a young woman. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”
He had leaned in, looming over her, and although she tried to ignore this, she felt the tingle of awareness waking every nerve ending in her body.
“If it’s dangerous for me, then it’s dangerous for you. The fact that I’m a woman has nothing to do with it.”
His scowl turned into a look of pain. “I’m a lost cause, Elizabeth.”
“That’s not true. You deserve to know what happened to you and why.”
He gave a humorless huff of laughter. “When you’re a little older, you’ll realize that what one deserves and what one gets are seldom the same thing.” He looked down at her, and his gaze felt like a caress. “You need to get out of here, Elizabeth.”
She put her hand on his right arm, aware of the strength of his bicep even through the rough material of his shirt. “I want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Then why are you holding on to me?”
His blue eyes registered surprise, and then a bleak hint of humor. His left hand had come around her waist, drawing her in to him. She became aware of the scent of him, a hint of masculine perspiration. He’d probably been doing hard physical labor all day and hadn’t had a chance to wash. This should have repulsed her, she supposed, but instead, she had the urge to inhale the saltiness on his skin, or possibly even...taste it.
“You know why I’m still touching you. I’m part of the danger you’re in.”
She could see the shadow of a beard on his chin, and wondered what it would feel like against her cheek. “You wouldn’t do anything to hurt me,” she said, her voice a little breathless.
He met her gaze. “Wouldn’t I?”
His tone made her think of frightening, thrilling things: brides and grooms and wedding nights. Except that he wasn’t offering marriage—in fact, he couldn’t, even if he wanted to, since Bio-Mechanicals were not considered human. “Now you’re just trying to scare me off.” She planted her hand on his chest and gave him a push, and he let go of her. “It’s not working.” She tried not to focus on how much she wanted his hands back on her.
“I can see that.” He shook his head, but he was smiling now. “Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”
“Yes, I do, which is why I think we ought to spend our time looking in that file cabinet. One of us should stand watch while the other locates your file.”
He took a deep breath, raked his right hand through his hair and then nodded. “All right. Two minutes, no more. I’ll stand watch.” He took the broom and moved in front of the fireplace, but it was hard to believe that anyone would be fooled into thinking he was a mindless drudge. He stood like a soldier—broad shoulders back, spine straight and powerful arms holding the long broom more like a weapon than a cleaning implement. For some reason, that thought made her want to touch him again, to feel the contained violence in him combust into passion instead of pain.
Looking back over his shoulder, he said, “What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing.” Lizzie knelt where Victor had been and forced her mind to the task at hand. As she rifled through the files, she realized they weren’t all in proper alphabetical order. Someone needs a secretary, she thought, squinting in the dim light as she checked again: Fink, Ferguson, Frank, Franken, Franks, Frobisher. She fought the urge to alphabetize them.
“Do you see it?” Victor’s voice was low and tense.
“No. I’m sorry. Do you think they would have thrown it out?”
“Possibly. But where’s my... Where’s William Frankenstein’s file? Surely they wouldn’t have di
scarded that one.”
Lizzie rocked back on her heels, thinking. “Could they have misfiled both under a different letter? I can go through all the f’s again from the beginning.”
“No. Wait.” Victor strode over to Moulsdale’s desk. “What are those papers there?”
“What papers—Oh.” She now saw that there were a number of papers on the desk. Picking them up, she read out the name. “They’re your files!”
“And Will’s. Damnation. What have you got yourself into, Will?”
As he stood behind her, looking over his brother’s file, she picked up the report marked Victor Frankenstein. Underneath the typed name, address, height, weight and general physical condition—excellent—someone had written out a character assessment in flowing cursive. Personality: V.F. is an exceptional surgical student, motivated and confident to a fault. “Driven,” “talented,” and “a bit of a cold fish,” according to his peers.
Not exactly the noble older brother Will had described. Nothing like the man she had come to know. Her Victor was cautious rather than cold, inquisitive but not ambitious and carried himself more with determination than arrogance. Her Victor cared passionately about his brother. Could the author of this report have gotten his character completely wrong, or had the transformation from human being to Bio-Mechanical changed his heart as well as his mind?
“Damn and blast.”
Startled, she looked up at Victor, who shook his brother’s file. “This says that Will approached Henry, asking questions about the circumstances of my death.”
Her stomach contracted as though she’d been punched. “Oh, um...” She tried to swallow. “Does it say anything else?”
“Such as the fact that a certain Elizabeth Lavenza accompanied him on his fool’s errand? It doesn’t need to. I could figure that one out for myself.” She had seen him angry before, but only at himself. Never at her.
“I’m sorry, Victor, but it made sense to go to your old roommate to learn a bit more about—”
“You went to Henry?” His voice rose, turning the last word into an epithet.
“Quiet, Victor, they might hear—”
“You daft, reckless... Tell me, what gave you that brilliant idea?”
“I... Will said you were roommates...”
“I am fairly certain that Henry’s the one who murdered me.”
She took an instinctive step back. “I thought... Didn’t you both... Weren’t you friends?”
Victor’s lip curled in an expression she had never seen before—one of contempt. “Funny thing about betrayal—only intimates can do it to you.”
Now it was her turn to be angry. “If you’re trying to say that I betrayed your trust, take a look in a mirror! You never told me anything about Henry that would lead me to believe he betrayed you!” She slammed her palm against his chest. “No wonder your file called you arrogant!”
“Arrogance is what thick people call the truth when they don’t like it.”
“Are you calling me stupid?” Too angry to come up with a coherent response, she slammed her palm against his chest again, and this time his hand shot out and caught hers, the metal gauntlet biting into her fingers. “Let go of me,” she said, trying to wrench her hand free. “You’re hurting me!”
“Elizabeth.” There was a note of strain in his voice. He no longer sounded angry; he sounded raw. “It’s not your fault. I should have told you about Henry.”
“Let go of me! I hate you! I don’t know why I ever bothered to try to help you.” But something had shifted in her, gone from fury to something quieter, and she stopped struggling. What was the point? She was only going to scrape her skin against his unyielding metal. He used his good arm to draw her into his embrace. “I hate you,” she said again, her forehead moving forward to rest on his chest.
“Of course you do.” His right hand was making soothing circles on her back.
She moved her head so her nose was in the hollow of his throat, and she could inhale the unique scent of his skin. “Now you’re furious at me,” she said.
His chest rose under her palm as he laughed. “Try again.”
She tilted her head back. “You’re angry at me?”
“I was.” He tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. “For a smart girl, you’ve been remarkably stupid.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he silenced her by saying, “But not as stupid as I’ve been. You’re like some damnable female mirror of me. I should know what to expect from you—the same thing I’d expect from myself.”
It wasn’t precisely a declaration of love, but Lizzie’s whole body warmed to his words as though it were. Was it normal to feel a hot rush of desire for a man who’d just been yelling at her?
“Victor,” she said, not at all sure what she meant to say next.
“Oh, no,” he said, stepping back and holding up his hands as if warding off an attack. “You do not say my name like that. Not with that look in your eyes. God almighty, woman, do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?”
“I think we’ve already established that I do not.”
One side of his mouth quirked up in a reluctant smile, but his eyes remained serious. “Elizabeth, we need to leave before someone catches us. And you have to promise me not to speak to Henry again. Neither you nor Will. Are you listening? This is important. You have to convince him that you’re not a threat.”
“I’m listening.”
“Promise me you won’t do any more snooping.”
“But the file... Victor, we haven’t read the rest of your file yet!”
“You have one minute. I’ll go back to guarding the door, and then we need to leave here.”
“A minute is all I need.” She had just gotten to the part of the file titled Cause of Death when she heard the door open.
“Someone’s coming,” said Victor in a low, urgent voice. “Hide!”
With no time to think, she did what she would have done at the age of six: she darted under Moulsdale’s large oak desk and held her breath.
“Good Lord,” she heard the intruder say. “You’re like Marley’s ghost, aren’t you? Come to remind me of all my sins?”
It was Henry Clerval, Victor’s former friend, and his possible murderer.
22
Victor schooled his expression into blankness, and then began to push the broom in jerky, uncoordinated mechanical motions.
“I don’t suppose you’ve been doing a bit of reading?”
Henry removed his hat and his jacket and hung them on a coatrack. His clothes carried a slight smell of damp earth and charred twigs. Whatever he had been doing, it had involved digging things up and then burning them.
“I suppose not, old chum.”
Henry picked up the files from the desk and stared at them for a moment. Could he tell that they had been handled? Victor forced himself to keep at his task, as mindless as Igor, as oblivious as Aldini the cat to the currents of ambition and intrigue that surrounded her.
“Arrogant and a cold fish,” Henry mused as he perused the file. Looking directly at Victor, he said, “They gave me brandy, you know. Right in this very room, as a matter of fact. A very fine Calvados, Moulsdale called it, with some sort of smoky cheese. Can’t recall the name. There were these tiny little slices of dark bread, and pickles...just enough to keep me from getting completely obfuscated. Still, I had a glorious shine on, if you take my meaning.”
I taught him that bit of slang, thought Victor. Like most middle-class boys, Henry had grown up trying to speak properly, only to learn that the upper classes garnished their speech with liberal dashes of workman’s slang.
Victor realized he had swept himself into a corner. He turned around and began work his way back across the room.
Henry wasn’t paying attention, however. He was looking at the leather chairs beside t
he fireplace as if seeing his own ghost sitting there.
“You have to give the old man credit,” Henry continued. “Had me talking for hours. At first it was all about me—how I was doing at school, my hopes and aspirations. Then he moved on to you. Did I like having you as a roommate, did you have any peculiarities, that sort of thing.” He shook his head as he moved around the desk. “Funny what they chose to pick out from all that jabber.”
Hilarious. Victor tried to keep Henry in his peripheral vision without appearing to do so. If his old roommate moved three feet to the left, his feet would come in contact with Elizabeth, curled up under the desk.
It was like some monstrous version of hide-and-seek.
“Take that line about us not being friends. I said that in a burst of maudlin appreciation of you. I went on and on, as I recall, about how I considered you my friend, but could never really tell if you held me in the same esteem.” Henry tapped the sheets to line them up. “My own file, by the way, is fairly thin. I don’t think they were prepping me for anything particularly important, the way they were you.” Henry slid the files into the drawer. “I took my fate into my own hands, though. You have to agree about that.”
It was so close to an admission of guilt that a chill ran down Victor’s neck. So, Moulsdale had approached Henry, but only to assess Victor’s character. Henry must have been simmering with jealousy before that interview, but that tantalizing brush with preferment had tipped the balance.
A jumble of emotions roiled in Victor’s stomach, but he was able to keep a poker face as he continued sweeping the floor. He couldn’t prevent his left hand from tightening on the broom handle until the wood creaked, but Henry didn’t seem to notice. Out of the corner of his eye, Victor saw his former friend take a thick cigar from a brass standing ashtray.
“I keep thinking there’s something left of you in there,” Henry mused out loud as he lifted a box of matches out of a brass holder affixed to the wall. Victor heard rather than saw Henry strike the match. “You look so much the same. I expected you to look like a mindless, shuffling automaton after. But you look...like you.” A faint, sulfurous smell filled the air in the closed room, followed by the spicy-sweet, burned-oak and leather fragrance of expensive cigar smoke.
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