by Arthur Slade
“What’s calling you?”
“A hat.”
“A hat?”
“Robert Russel’s hat was there.”
“Who?”
“He’s a reporter. He disappeared the night of the big party.”
“So?”
“Well, Mr. Cecil could have convinced him to leave. Bribed him. Or Mongo may have threatened him. Or worse.”
“What kind of worse?”
“Well. Murder, I guess.”
Raul gave her a frown. “You think he’s murdered a reporter.”
“Something bad happened. Maybe there’s some kind of proof. And I’m certain Jolly was in that room once. The orphan. I think she saw something she wasn’t supposed to. And she died from scorpion hornet bites.”
Raul crossed his arms. “Why would you think that?”
“I saw welts on her arm.”
“You saw her body?”
“I found her just after she died. There were welts that could’ve been stings.”
“That must have been horrible to see.” His voice was soft.
“It was.”
“I mentioned the orphans to my father once, just wondering why they didn’t come here anymore. He said not to ask questions.”
“I have to ask questions. I have to know. I need to go back into Mr. Cecil’s cottage.”
“No,” Raul said. “I can’t do that.”
“I know, I’m asking for too much. But Izzy needs to be protected. He’s hurting her. And he’s hiding something from me. From us.”
“I could disappear.”
“Disappear?”
“Yes,” he said. “People like me just disappear in this country. No one notices. One of Papá’s cousins disappeared from a farm last year after he complained about the owner. Even here, odd things happen. There are only three Chinese men working in the kitchen. There used to be five.”
“Did they get other jobs?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see them leave.”
“What are you implying?”
“I have to be extra careful, that’s all.”
She fiddled with the medal in her pocket. “I just want to peek in his house.”
“I won’t go in there again.”
“But you have to come inside!”
“You didn’t ask what happened to me.” Again his voice was soft. “You didn’t ask.”
“What do you mean?”
He held out his right hand. It was lined with red marks and dried cuts. “Mr. Cecil spoke to my father and I got the strap. Papá does it on the hand so I remember as I work all day. That was three days ago.”
“And it still looks that bad? I—I’m sorry.”
“I can’t go in there. I want to. But the next punishment might be for Papá.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “I know I’m asking too much. But I just can’t face going back in alone.”
“Well, if you’re going to beg like that.” He said this softly. “I’ll take you to the door. No farther.”
“I wasn’t begging,” she said. “And to the door is far enough.” She was certain she could convince him to go inside. She led him down one of their secret pathways and back to Mr. Cecil’s home. Every flower had been cropped, every blade of grass shorn. They made their way through the cottage’s garden.
It was a space with iron benches and black iron latticework. Each stone in the dry creek bed was obsidian. The garden had been set in a perfect triangle. Everything was black, including a black dahlia. It was as if they were walking into a world of night that existed in the middle of the day, that denied the existence of sunlight. A fountain sputtered water, but being built of black stone, it only served to enhance the darkness.
The shutters on the main windows were closed. A heavy door led from the garden into the cottage. It was the door through which they’d fled. Beatrice peered in the door’s window and saw the shadowed hallway beyond. She gingerly touched the doorknob and turned it, then pulled on the door.
“It’s locked,” she said. “Maybe we can jimmy a window.”
“No. Wait.” Raul brushed by her and a moment later the door unlocked with a click. “There!”
“How’d you do that?” she asked.
“Magic!” he said, then he waved a gold key under her nose. “The master key. I stole it from my father years ago so I could sneak paper from the storage room. And get soda pop whenever I want.” His smile flashed.
He opened the door. Beatrice tensed, but only air hissed out. She took the first step into the cottage.
30
Raul was still standing in the doorway, the sunlight making him bright and almost hard to look at.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I said I’d only take you to the door.”
“I can’t go by myself.”
“You have to,” he said. “I’ll keep a watch out for you.” He released the door and it slowly closed on its own.
She was blinded by the darkness.
Breathe. Breathe.
Fine, then! I’ll do it myself. A door was open partway down the hall. Beatrice went up to it and peered around the corner to discover Mr. Cecil’s bedroom, which was lit by a small square window. The room was spartan: a cot with a grey blanket being the only bed. She stepped into the room. Paintings of dark splotchy objects hung on the walls, Rorschach shapes that made her feel queasy. Not a hint of colour. Bookshelves lined one wall. The texts were medical or historical or philosophical: Jung, Nietzsche, Clausewitz; all in perfect order.
The cot looked as though it had never been slept on. But all mammals slept, she knew that. He had to sleep.
She touched the spine of an ancient edition of the Bible. She’d never read it. Each time she’d asked to have it in her collection she’d been stonewalled. She opened the Bible. Many of the characters in novels quoted from it. It was heavy and the words were small. So many words. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Well, that was a good start. She flicked through a few pages, then set it down. Beside it were Dictionnaire Infernal by J. A. S. Collin de Plancy, and S. L. MacGregor Mathers’s The Lesser Key of Solomon.
She picked up Dictionnaire Infernal. It was a thick book, written in French, and stuffed with illustrations of demons and monsters that had human faces and animal bodies and insect or bird wings. She flipped through and came across a page with handwriting on it. At the top was an image of a horrible-looking fly with a skull and crossbones etched in its wings. Belzebuth ou Belzebub ou Beelzebuth, prince des démons . . . was what the text at the bottom of the page said. The names sounded familiar to her. Below the image were the notes that had caught her eye. They were in Mr. Cecil’s handwriting: Lord of the flies, Philistine god, Prince of demons. Offspring drawn to this plane. Phalanges needed. She was curious as to why he’d jotted down those names. And she was somewhat upset that he’d written in a book in ink. She set the book down.
Phalanges needed? It made no sense. Why would the drawing need finger bones?
One wall of the room had a closet. She pushed on the closet door; it slid into the wall on well-oiled tracks. The walk-in closet went back at least fifteen feet, and hanging along both sides was suit after suit, each perfectly pressed. His skin had touched the fabric, his hands had buttoned every button, the same hands that had hurt her so.
She slid the door closed and turned. There was an insect collection along the far wall: giant spiders, praying mantises, moths the size of her hand. That display included all the steps of metamorphosis forever preserved—egg, larva, pupa, adult moth. The collection far surpassed her own; in fact there were several insects she’d never seen before—but none as horrible as the Zebûb.
Zebûb. Zebûb. She ran the name through her head. Belzebuth. Could there be a connection? Belzebuth had been the lord of the flies according to the note Mr. Cecil had written. And the Zebûb was a sort of insect.
Next to the insect collection were several larger jars on a shelf, one with what look
ed to be a black cat floating in some kind of liquid. Another had a human hand, the flesh green, the fingers splayed. There were organs and other body parts in various jars. The last and largest jar was dirty, the liquid a dark green. She looked inside and eyes stared back. A tiny fetus edged toward her and knocked against the glass, its mouth moving.
She took a step back. No, it was dead. It hadn’t blinked. It had only moved, pressing its forehead against the glass because something had shifted in the house.
What sort of man keeps a dead fetus in a jar? And where did he get it?
It had to be for scientific reasons. Beatrice took a deep breath, calming her nerves. It was just a room. Disturbing because Mr. Cecil slept here, even more so because he had jars with human remains.
She left the bedroom. It felt as though an hour had passed, but it was likely that only a few minutes had ticked off the clock.
She went farther down the darkened hallway. It was cooler here, and the walls were grey. There were lights hanging from the ceiling, but she didn’t want to turn them on.
Beatrice stopped and stared through the window in the door to Mr. Cecil’s study. After a few moments of observation, she opened the door and waited. Nothing moved. She took a step inside.
From this position she realized the room was quite wide, but narrow at the end where they had climbed in the window. Another triangle. There were more lights here, though none of them had been left on. A large chair sat in the centre of the room. It hadn’t been there on her previous visit. There were straps along the arms and legs. She lifted a strap and dropped it. It must be a prop.
She was nearly certain that conclusion was incorrect. But thinking any further about why the chair was there might break her resolve.
She went over to the projector and lifted a scalpel and lowered it. The spliced film was piled neatly along one side of the table. The Cinétone was connected to the projector by cables, so that they looked like two metal insects melded into one. A larger version of this machine had been used to show the film the previous night. But there was nothing further to learn from it. The film was done.
She went back to the sarcophagus. She’d read enough tales about archaeologists who discovered such prizes and how the coffins were often booby-trapped or there was a trick to opening them.
She felt around the back. Nothing. Looked at the front. Nothing. Pulled on the pharaoh’s ear. Finally, she poked him in the right eye. It moved inward. There was a click and the lid to the sarcophagus opened an inch. She gently pulled it open the rest of the way, standing to one side in case a dart came shooting out.
She peered around the edge. The inside of the sarcophagus was pure gold. There was a showerhead made of gold tubes at the top, a hook a few inches below that, and a grille at the bottom. And it was perfectly clean. It was as if you could take a shower in it.
“Well, Watson,” she said, mimicking a British accent. “That is extremely odd.” The slightest acidic smell burnt her nostrils. She closed the door.
Then she looked at the brown hat. There wasn’t a black feather in the headband, even though her memory had painted one there. She sighed. Beatrice stood on her tiptoes to grab the hat. She examined it. Even gave it a sniff. It did look a lot like the one Robert Russel had been wearing.
She found a hair. If it was the same brown as Robert Russel’s then that would support her conclusion, but there wasn’t enough light to tell the colour. Then she ran her fingers along the inside of the hatband. And discovered a piece of stiff paper.
The card said: Robert Russel. The New York Times.
31
Beatrice slowly, reluctantly, put the hat back on the sarcophagus, standing up on her toes.
The presence of the hat doesn’t prove anything. That was her brain talking. But her gut said: Jolly is dead and gone. And Robert Russel is gone. And Mr. Cecil paid money to Sergeant Muckler, who investigated both cases. To cover something up?
Robert Russel must be dead like Jolly.
She backed away from the sarcophagus, closed the door, her hands slippery with sweat. She heard a humming whirring sound. Beatrice looked over her shoulder for insects, but there was nothing. Then it became clear that something else was making the low noise: a motor was running outside the cottage. She was about to go to the window and peep out when the door to the room swung open. Beatrice ducked behind the desk, then crab-walked out of view. She slowly opened a cupboard door, praying that the hinges wouldn’t squeak, and crawled in. No matter how tightly she squeezed, she couldn’t close the door all the way.
Footsteps. Mr. Cecil walked directly to the cupboard door. Stopped. If she reached out through the crack she could touch his black leather shoes. Her fingers trembled. Every bone in her body trembled.
“These last hours are more tiring than I expected,” Mr. Cecil said.
There was no answer. There were other footsteps, though. She squinted through the crack. Mongo was standing near the door.
“Bring the victual in, please. My hunger demands sustenance.”
Mr. Cecil turned his back to Beatrice and walked to the centre of the room. She held herself completely still, so that she became only a pair of eyes. “One week since a full meal and far too much toil between.”
One week? A boa constrictor could go for weeks, even months without eating. But it was a reptile.
“Place the victual in the chair,” Mr. Cecil commanded.
Mongo walked into the room now, carrying what looked to be a mannequin. Beatrice pushed the cupboard door open a half inch. A band of light fell on her but she now had a clear view of where Mr. Cecil was standing behind the chair. Mongo had one of the men from the kitchen staff in his clutches, as though he were transporting an infant. The servant was not tied up, but was immobile, his arms crossed on his chest. His eyes were wide and frightened. Mongo set him in the chair and had to push him into place. His legs bent at awkward angles.
“This will not hurt,” Mr. Cecil said. “Thank you for your services.”
She wasn’t certain whether he was talking to Mongo or the servant, but the giant man backed out of the room and closed the door.
“Do not fear,” Mr. Cecil said. “It’s a natural process.”
Mr. Cecil reached down and parted the man’s hair. He licked his lips and stared for a moment. No, it was more than licking his lips, Beatrice realized. For he was making them extend, his mouth opening impossibly wide several inches above the man’s head. Then something lowered out of his mouth. It was grey and long and the only word that came to her mind was proboscis. The very thing insects used to feed. It stretched and writhed out of that elongated mouth. It attached itself to the servant’s head. He stiffened.
Beatrice stopped herself from screaming by biting her own tongue hard. Mr. Cecil’s cheeks sucked in. The proboscis undulated with whatever he was consuming. Mr. Cecil’s eyes were closed and his face looked calm. Satisfied.
Beatrice backed herself as far into the cupboard as possible and closed her eyes. She covered her ears to block the sucking sounds.
The feeding lasted so very long. Beatrice risked one more peek and saw that Mr. Cecil had grown in stature, stood straighter and taller. She couldn’t help imagining how a wood tick grew as it consumed blood. Then he let out a sigh, and the proboscis went back into his mouth and he closed it. The servant looked to be undamaged, except for a small line of blood leaking down his forehead. And his eyes were unblinking. He was clearly dead. “In the name of the master, I am thankful for this sustenance.”
Beatrice tasted blood from where she’d bitten her tongue. She shook, as if she were in an icebox.
She shut her eyes again. Forever. The door to the study opened and closed. Then she heard another, quieter door open, the almost noiseless hinges of the sarcophagus. Gentle hisses were made, like a misting from a hose. Is that where the bodies go? Then a long silence. The door to the study closed again. Gold does not react to most acids, the scientific side of her mind told her. A fact. A horrible fact. She knew
a strong enough acid would melt a body completely.
She huddled inside, shaking violently. She counted to a thousand before she found the will to unfold herself and climb out of the cupboard. She was alone in the room. Even the chair was gone.
There was no sign that anything at all had happened.
32
The waves lapped at Beatrice’s tennis shoes, staining the leather, but she kept marching north along the beach.
“What happened?” Raul asked. “I saw Mr. Cecil go in. But there was no time to warn you.” He was a step behind. He’d been waiting in the bushes near Mr. Cecil’s house and joined her the moment she came out. “Please tell me!”
La Casa Grande stood high on the hill behind them, the white tower casting a long shadow. Her sister slept inside a room that faced in this direction. Despite the sunlight and the heat, Beatrice shivered worse than she had with any fever. She kept blinking. She rubbed her eyes.
“You were right not to come in,” she whispered. “Something terrible happened.”
The proboscis. The sound of slurping. It was all so perfectly clear.
“What do you mean?” Raul touched her shoulder and she shuddered. Then the warmth of his palm strengthened her. In all their time growing up together, playing in the grass or running along through the bushes, he’d always had a gentle hand. If she had cut her knee on the gravel he had often been the one to wipe off the dirt. And here was that gentleness again. That humaneness. She leaned against him but didn’t stop walking.
“It made no sense,” she said after several seconds. “It wasn’t real. Mr. Cecil isn’t . . . well, it was not possible.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
She met his eyes directly. Those earth-brown eyes would not envision what she had to say. There were no words to explain what she had seen.
“It was . . .” she said at last, “. . . my imagination painting shadows in a cave.”
“What?” Raul took his hand away.
“I have to clear my head.” She rubbed at the top of her skull. “Let’s keep walking . . . maybe to the ends of the earth.”
