Lucy let out a cry and I whirled around. A beast hovered on the wall next to her, tusks bared, black eyes glinting. She ducked behind a sofa as I let out a deep breath. It was a taxidermied boar, and it wasn’t the only trophy. At least twenty mounted heads hung on the walls: bucks with nine-point antlers, lions with snarls frozen in time, bodiless zebras, and stuffed owls perched atop the upper bookcases.
“This can’t be a good sign,” Lucy muttered, backing away from the boar.
“Not necessarily,” I said, studying the unblinking eyes of a stuffed squirrel on the table nearest me. “Plenty of people like taxidermy, and it doesn’t mean anything. Even the professor keeps a stuffed bobcat in his study. A gift from some relative, I think.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Lucy said, shivering.
Montgomery had already gone to the bookshelves, and was now riffling through the leather-bound titles. Lucy occupied herself by inspecting the framed awards and diplomas on the walls. There were no cabinets, no desks or boxes where notes might be stored. The room was exactly as it appeared—an elegant, masculine space filled with leather club chairs and cigar humidors for a dozen or more men to lounge in while they bragged about their accomplishments.
I ran my hands along the seams of the walls and the grand fireplace for hidden compartments, but found nothing. There were more framed photographs on the walls, documenting the King’s Club’s history of charitable works. Photographs of the construction of the orphanage, and a framed royal decree dated 1855 thanking the members for their efforts to stop the cholera outbreak. Seeing their supposed good deeds hanging on the wall only turned my stomach. There was no telling what their real motives were. For all I knew, those poor orphans were destined for a terrible fate. After all, that brain in the hatbox had to come from somewhere.
After twenty minutes, we had searched every inch of the room and found nothing about the plans for the New Year’s paupers’ ball, or references to any kind of scientific experimentation they were funding.
“They must store their records elsewhere,” Lucy said, flouncing onto a leather sofa.
I nodded. “Perhaps if we could get a copy made of the key, and come back to spy on them when they’ve a meeting in progress—”
But Montgomery cut me off with a quick signal. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered. “Into the hallway, quick.” He flipped off the light, plunging us into darkness.
I found Lucy’s hand, and we hurried through the doorway. I could hear footsteps coming but the hallways were like a maze, and the echoes of sound fooled the ear. Lucy had just enough time to slip the key into the lock before someone rounded the corner. It was a pair of men with a bull’s-eye torch that shone directly onto us.
“Who’s there?” one yelled.
I felt like a deer blinded by a hunter’s lamp. Montgomery grabbed our hands and we raced away from them, but Montgomery didn’t know these hallways. I did.
“This way,” I said, rounding a corner that led to a staircase into the basement. The professors often left one of the exterior doors down here unlocked from the inside. We hurried down the stairs, but the men pursued us. A shrill night guard’s whistle echoed through the dark halls.
“Over here!” I whispered as loud as I dared to Montgomery and Lucy. The cadaver storage room was just around the corner, and from there it wasn’t far to the exterior door. There were no windows here to break the darkness, and the only light came from our pursuers’ torch as it flashed on the walls behind us.
At last we reached the exterior door. I threw myself against it, but it didn’t budge. “Blast!” I said. “The one night they lock it from the outside.”
Our pursuers were nearly upon us, so I felt the grooves and blocks of the wall until my hand connected with a doorknob. I threw it open, heedless of where it led.
The three of us stumbled down a narrow flight of stairs, black as death, which led even deeper to a level I hadn’t known existed. The air was thick with mildew and an earthy smell not unlike the jungle. We huddled together at the base of the stairs, listening. The sounds of footsteps came overhead, but no one approached the door. We waited for what must have been ten minutes, though it felt like an eternity. My fingers felt the wall, but there were no electric light switches, nor gas lines, either.
“They must not have fitted this level with electric lights,” I whispered.
The air sizzled as Lucy struck a match, throwing a dim light on the corridors. They were older than I even imagined, part of the original stone foundation. The ground was littered with the husks of dead insects and refuse, and I wasn’t certain anyone had been down here in years until Lucy lowered the candle to reveal fresh footprints in the dust.
Montgomery bent down to pick up a broken candle, and while he and Lucy struggled to light the ancient thing, I wandered to a doorway at the end of the hall. I tugged on it—locked. I stooped to my knees to peek through the keyhole, but it was very dark within, not a single window. Yet in the pitch-black my ears caught a hint of a strange yet familiar sound, almost like rippling water. I leaned closer to the keyhole and nearly choked from the thick chemical smell.
“Over here,” I called. “Someone’s been here recently.”
Montgomery tugged on the door. “Locked.”
“Try your keys, Lucy,” I said.
“These are Father’s personal keys. The only one with the King’s College crest is for the smoking room upstairs.”
“We haven’t many options.”
To our surprise, the fourth key twisted in the lock. My stomach knotted with foreboding worries about why the King’s Club would need a secret room so deep in the belly of the university.
Montgomery drew his pistol. “Stay behind me, just in case.”
The door creaked open. We stepped inside, at first seeing only worktables and rows of cupboards in the flickering candlelight. But on the far wall, Lucy’s candle reflected in what looked like mirrors. The smell grew stronger. In the faint light I began to make out the shapes of a half dozen identical glass tanks, which upon closer inspection were filled with a clear fluid. We exchanged uneasy glances. Lucy hung back, but I took a step closer to peer into the murky liquid.
“Juliet.” Montgomery’s voice came with a warning. “Not too close.”
Something roughly the size of a large cat was suspended, unmoving and silent, in the liquid. As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I could make out the vague shape of a half-formed creature not unlike a large rodent with only a hint of limbs. It was hairless from the tip of its jaw to the suggestion of a curling tail. The mouth was further developed than the rest of the body, powerful and wide like a reptile with a gleaming set of teeth.
Recognition dawned on me. “They’re the creatures from the island. Father’s ratlike creatures, only much bigger.”
Montgomery came to peer within the murky liquid. “It’s your father’s design, for certain,” he confirmed. “Although I’ve never seen one created in this fashion. They haven’t been stitched together. It’s as though they’re growing them here, made from various animal components, using these tanks as artificial wombs. Rat and opossum, I would guess, given their physical traits, with something to account for their large size.”
Memories returned to me of a glass jar in Father’s laboratory, a strange living thing pulsing in the liquid. Was that what Father had been doing with those glass jars I’d smashed on the island? Could this be how he’d created Edward? My stomach shrank to think of Edward in a tank like this; he was too real for such things, too much a person like me.
“There’s more!” Lucy said. She shone the candle against the opposite wall, which had a dozen more half-formed creatures in tanks.
“What are these things?” she asked.
“Experiments,” I said, glancing at Montgomery. “This is where the King’s Club does their experiments. They’ve already begun.” The horror of it crashed into me, and I leaned against the wall, afraid I’d be sick. Lucy’s face had gone white as the walls.
/> Desperate to know why, I grabbed the candle from Lucy’s hand and went to the cabinets lining the walls. A stack of journals sat on one end with a bundle of loose notes. Flipping through the pages, I recognized Father’s precise handwriting. This was the research he’d sent, in exchange for them funding his expenses and supplies. I pored over it quickly, but as well trained in anatomy and physiology as I was, I understood little of it. Highly detailed explanations of cellular replacement and something Father kept referring to as “hereditary transmutational factors,” with complex pen-and-ink blueprints of the water tanks and creatures within.
“See if you can make some sense of this,” I said, handing the pages to Montgomery, who took them and pored over them with careful attention. I started in on the notebooks, which were all in the same hand, but not Father’s. I called Lucy over, who said it wasn’t her father’s handwriting, either. The notebooks contained dated records of the writer’s experimentation. The most recent was on top, the latest entry just this morning. I read it with stilled breath.
DECEMBER 22, 1895, 7:10 AM.
Provided the specimens with a nutrient-rich compound. Rate of growth is 29/38, even faster than we had anticipated. By all projections, specimens will be full-grown within one week of receiving the cerebrospinal fluid replacement. With an estimated 200 ml of cerebrospinal fluid from the host, we will have enough for a minimum of 100 cellular replacement therapy procedures.
I let the notebook tumble from my fingers as I turned to study the half-formed creatures in the water tanks. This wasn’t the vivisection I had witnessed in Father’s laboratory. This was something new, the procedure he’d designed to create Edward. And now they just needed Edward’s spinal fluid—the host—to finalize their development and bring them to awareness.
I turned to the others. “Father’s letters outline blueprints for these tanks and the fluids to use and how to grow the creatures. But his letters can only take them so far. It’s one thing to build a body, quite another to give it life. For that they need Edward and the transmutational code in his spinal fluid. If they can insert that code into the host bodies, they’ll replicate and make life possible.”
Lucy put a hand over her mouth.
I flipped back through the notebook and saw that the attending biochemist came twice a day, morning and evening. All the evening entries were dated between eight o’clock and eight-thirty at night.
“Montgomery, what time is it?” I asked quickly.
He drew a watch from his vest pocket. “Ten till eight.”
“The King’s Club’s medical officer will be back soon. He can’t find us here.” I replaced the notebook in a hurry and arranged the stacks to give no sign that we’d been there. “It’s time we told the professor about this. He knows these men. He can give us information.”
We locked the door behind us and climbed the stairs back to the basement level. Whoever had been pursuing us was long gone, and only silence echoed in the hallways. We climbed up yet another flight of stairs to the main floor, where the lecture hall was just emptying of sleepy-eyed ladies, and we joined the crowd headed back out into the dark evening. Montgomery helped us into the carriage before climbing into the driver’s seat outside.
Once we were safely alone in the carriage, Lucy leaned forward. “You said they need something within Edward’s body,” she whispered in a trembling voice. “Does that mean they’ll have to kill him?”
I was glad the carriage was dark enough to hide her face. “I believe so, yes.”
We were silent the rest of the way to Lucy’s house, where we dropped her off with plans to meet tomorrow. Alone in the carriage, I worked through what I’d tell the professor. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to tell him sooner; he’d exposed my father’s crimes because it had been the right thing to do, and I knew he would do what was right now, too. He was a quiet old dog, but he could bite when provoked. Elizabeth would make us her licorice tea, and the professor would dig up some cold meats from supper, and we’d come up with a plan and have a good night’s sleep for once.
At the professor’s street, Montgomery stopped the carriage up short in front of the neighbor’s house. I didn’t understand why until I climbed out and saw another carriage already blocking the professor’s front gate.
A heavyset horse with a cropped dark mane stamped its feet beside a constable. I caught sight of Elizabeth on the front steps, talking to another police officer. The front door was open, spilling warm light into the night shadows and over her face and hair. At the sound of my footsteps, she turned.
Tears streaked her face. She wore her housedress with an old coat of the professor’s hastily pulled over it. The lecture had only run a little late, so I couldn’t imagine we’d worried her. When she caught sight of me, she pressed a hand to her chest and stumbled down the steps.
“Juliet,” she breathed. “Thank God you’re home.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Her hands pulled at my hair, reassuring herself that I was safe.
“Is the professor still awake?” I asked, swallowing back a feeling of foreboding. “I’d like to talk to him.”
At the sound of his name, she sobbed harder and pulled me close. Over her shoulder, I saw the policemen shifting nervously, then noticed several more people inside the house.
All these men just because we were a little late?
“Oh, Juliet. The professor…”
My eyes fell on the broad side of the police carriage. It had bright white lettering painted over blackened wood, two words that seemed to sear themselves into my soul.
Police Morgue.
“The professor is dead,” came her strangled voice. “He’s been murdered.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE POLICE HAD NOT yet moved the body. Dimly, I was aware of them explaining about a “crime scene” and a “murder investigation.” Words that reduced the professor’s life to pages in a report. It wasn’t a crime scene; it was the professor’s tidy little study where the cat liked to nap in the worn depression of his chair. He wasn’t just another victim, as the police kept referring to him—he’d given me a life again. In time, he could have been the father I should have had.
As they explained the murder, Montgomery kept his arms tightly around me, as though he feared the news would make me slip away into nothing. Elizabeth shivered in the professor’s oversized coat, despite the warmth in the house.
“I want to see him,” I said.
“Oh, Juliet. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Elizabeth said. “I wish I hadn’t seen. Coming home from supper at the ladies’ club and walking into that study to find…” She turned away before her voice broke.
“I have to,” I said.
Montgomery said nothing, just took my hand and exchanged a few words with the police, who followed us into the study. I recognized the shape of the professor’s head, sitting like he always did in that chair. He was as cold and silent as the rest of the room.
Beneath the chair was a pool of blood.
I stumbled forward, one shaky step at a time, until I could see him. His wire-rim spectacles were missing, his eyes still open. His murderer hadn’t touched his face, only left three deep slashes across his chest.
I turned away with a cry.
I thought of how the professor had made me tea once when I’d been ill, and how he loved to tinker over that old cuckoo clock with a plate of Mary’s gingerbread.
“Don’t look,” Montgomery said. “It’s better if you don’t.” Even his voice, normally so calm in the face of any crisis, sounded hollow.
“He’s dead,” I said, coiling my fists in Montgomery’s rough shirt, anger sparking through the nerves of my muscles.
“I’m so sorry.”
“He’s dead, Montgomery! Heart clawed out, just like the rest…” I choked on the thought of the bodies in the morgue. I thought the Beast killed only those who had wronged me, but the professor had done nothing but provide for me, believe in my chance for a future, t
reat me as a father should treat a daughter. Those thoughts turned to the Beast’s snarling lips as he’d held me down in my workshop, twisting Edward into a fiend before my very eyes.
I never should have forgotten what he really was.
“You know who did this,” I hissed.
Footsteps sounded in the doorway. I looked up to find Inspector Newcastle, dressed in finery as though he’d been called away from a state supper. His copper breastplate was gone now, as was the revolver at his hip, and it made him look younger somehow. He paused in the doorway, exchanging a few low words with Elizabeth before taking in the body with the calm eyes of an inspector who had seen this sort of thing countless times.
“Miss Moreau. How sorry I am for your loss, and in such a manner…” He swallowed, looking for once unprepared. I doubted he’d had much practice speaking to ladies on Highbury Street about murder.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand to Montgomery.
Montgomery introduced himself and added, “I’m Juliet’s fiancé from Portsmouth. I’ve been staying here a few days.”
Elizabeth cleared her throat and excused herself, though as she left the room she gave Montgomery a careful glance, her eyes settling on the bulge at his side where his revolver was holstered. She was a shrewd woman. Before the night was out, she’d want an explanation for why my supposed fiancé was carrying a pistol.
“I’ll have to examine the body before we move it,” Inspector Newcastle said. “Terribly sorry. It would be best if you weren’t here for that, Miss Moreau.” He raised his hand as though he might give my shoulder a reassuring pat, but Montgomery cleared his throat, and the inspector let his hand fall. “Perhaps you might stay, Mr. James, for a few questions.”
Montgomery turned to me, a question in his eye. I nodded.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” I said, and started to leave.
“You’ll have to be questioned as well, I’m afraid, Miss Moreau,” Newcastle said. “They’ve already taken Elizabeth’s statement.” But he must have seen the look on my face, because he quickly added, “I’ll get what I need now from Mr. James, and you and I can speak later, at a more appropriate time.”
Her Dark Curiosity Page 19
