Theophilus Grim and the Fowl of Ruin
Page 4
search for French delicacies and followed me to the curb, where I hailed a cab, the driver dropping us each off at our respective locations.
The next morning, I awoke to a Daily Telegraph which chronicled a night of carnage and destruction at the talons of the terrible pheasant monster. Feeling extreme unease at the thought of the beast Professor Grim had unwittingly created, I fed my fat Siamese cat, Agatha, and then caught a cab to Grim's warehouse. The entire ride down to Wapping High Street, I could not put my mind at ease about the situation. I ordered the driver to drop me off at Stickey's Tavern where I enjoyed a dram and a bowl of porridge, all the while thinking not only about the horrible fowl beast, but also about Professor Grim's odd behavior as of late. In particular, the rooting for truffles in the park like a swine. I recalled that he had taken the same serum as the pheasant. It haunted me that he might at any time transform into a terrible beast like the one that was, at present, rampaging the city.
Professor Grim was at the curb to meet my cab upon arrival. He handed me his Purdey side-by-side and then checked his own Enfield revolver for bullets before sitting down next to me in the cab. Without hesitation, he ordered the driver all the way back to Westminster, in the same vicinity we had searched so robustly the day earlier.
“We must speak with a Mrs. Lucy Kiddington,” Grim said. “She is the one mentioned here who operates the Little Kid Dairy, which is essentially a cheese shop, specializing in the production and sale of goat cheese. According to the newspaper's account, Mrs. Kiddington had heard a loud rustling sound inside her dairy just after dark. She entered to find that some sort of creature had gotten into her vat of goat's milk. When she made her presence known by turning on a light switch, the beast reacted by violently splashing out of the vat, stomping on top of the poor cheese-maker, and flying through a window, littering her dairy floor with spilled milk and broken glass.”
“Heavens,” I said. “That must have been terrifying for her. I hope that she is not too shaken up to speak with us.”
“I feel terrible,” Grim said, placing his revolver into his waistband. “I shall promise to compensate her for her broken window, and any loss of revenue she may have incurred due to my recklessness.”
“Now, now, Professor Grim,” I said, after a sip from my flask. “It is quite generous of you to compensate the woman, but do not take on as much guilt. Your experiment promised a great hope for a great many people. It is a shame that it has turned out this way, but you must not take on too much responsibility yourself.”
We later spoke with Mrs. Lucy Kiddington, who owned the cheese shop near Regent's Park. Mrs. Kiddington was sweeping up glass on her dairy floor when we arrived. The room was not overly grand in size and contained a large tub where Mrs. Kiddington made the cheese. A large milk vat nearby stood open, with its mangled lid on the floor beside it. I was surprised to find a door open to the dairy's back garden, where several goats were munching on a pile of hay.
“Do you know which way the beast might have gone?” Professor Grim asked the middle-aged woman earnestly.
“No, sir,” she said, offering us a sample of her goat cheese, which she had sliced into rounds and placed upon a tray. “I turned on the light, the beast jumped out of the milk vat, and burst through the window. I guess now I can tell folks that I've lived to see pigs fly.”
Grim picked up a bit of cheese from the plate. “How long have you been in business here?” The professor ate the cheese as Mrs. Kiddington shared her history with us. Professor Grim continued to question the cheese-maker, each time taking a bit of cheese, until he had eaten the entire plate.
Before we left, Grim offered the woman a sum of money to cover her damages, as well as offering his apology.
Like the previous day, Professor Grim and I continued to canvass the area for the rest of the day, looking for any hint of a clue as to the beast's whereabouts. What we found was a city in fear—the streets were virtually empty. People stayed home if they could in order to avoid an encounter with the terrible beast. Some shops were closed, others had few customers. London was like a ghost town.
Just before dark, we stopped for tea at a shop near Regent's Park. Grim ordered black tea with a splash of goat's milk. I made mine a coffee, as I was trying to wake myself up from several nights of insomnia and a hard day searching.
“Funny that the beast would be so interested in a vat of goat's milk,” I said, watching Grim pour the goat's milk into his tea and recalling his voracious appetite for the cheese samples at Mrs. Kiddington's dairy.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “However, I must say that that was the finest goat cheese I have ever sampled.”
“Sampled?” I said. “Hmmph.” I laughed.
“What do you mean, sir?” Professor Grim asked, dipping a piece of toast into his tea.
“I simply mean that you nearly ate all of the cheese in that woman's shop,” I said. “I dare hope that she has some left to sell to her customers.”
“I suppose I may have eaten more than my fair share--” Grim said, but I stopped him.
“I only jest with you, my friend,” said I, biting a biscuit. “I did not mean any harm by it.” But it did seem peculiar that he would appear to be so uncharacteristically greedy, I thought.
“No harm done,” the professor said with a half smile. “Let's finish our tea and resume our search. I feel that today we will be successful in catching or killing our quarry.”
Professor Grim and I had scarcely left the tea house when we heard what sounded like a woman's scream coming from the vicinity of the park. Grim and I both ran as fast as our legs would take us towards the cry for help. As we entered the park, we found no such woman. In fact, the park appeared to be unusually empty today, due to the panic caused by the recent sightings of the pheasant beast.
“What do you suppose--” I started to ask, but found myself cut off by the sound of a scream, which came once more. But this time, in closer proximity, I was able to identify the sound as not being of a woman, but of an animal.
“Do you know where we are?” Professor Grim asked excitedly.
“We are in Regent's Park,” I said, not knowing what Grim meant to infer.
“We are in immediate proximity to the London Zoo,” he said. “I believe that the sound we heard might have been that of a peacock.”
“Very sensibly thought out,” I said. “I would be inclined to concur.”
“But if we are near the zoo,” the professor said. “There will be a great deal of other animals that might be at risk from the pheasant beast.”
“Oh dear,” I said, feeling a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I just had a terrible thought.”
“Pray tell, my friend,” Professor Grim said, his face showing grave concern.
“What if our terrible pheasant-swine-beef-venison-beast means to breed with some other animal at the zoo? We could find ourselves surprised with an epidemic of horrible beasts after a period of gestation.”
“A blood-curdling thought, Mr. Chumbles,” Grim said. “We must not allow this to happen.”
The professor and I headed for the entrance of the zoo, meaning to warn the zookeeper and other employees of the possible danger of the horrible pheasant beast. We were crestfallen to find that the zoo was closed and not a soul appeared to be present.
“What do you suppose we should do now?” I asked Professor Grim, who pulled a Caribbean cigar out of his pocket and began sniffing it ravenously. Grim did not answer my question, so I asked him again.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” the professor said, as if returning from a daze. “We must enter the zoo and keep on guard for the beast.”
“But the gate is locked,” I said. “How shall we enter?”
Professor Grim removed the pistol from his belt and fired at the lock securing a chain to the tall iron gates. With a deafening bang, the bullet ripped a hole through the lock, and it fell open. Grim immediately opened the gate, and we stepped through. W
e began to walk around the zoo's various exhibits, looking into the monkey house, and then the elephant house, and then the reptile room.
“Perhaps we could cover more ground if we separated,” the professor said. “Is your shotgun loaded, cocked, and ready to fire?”
I checked that indeed it was. Professor Grim and I agreed that we would regroup at the front gate every fifteen minutes before separating again and walking the grounds in order to protect the zoo animals from the terrible pheasant monster.
I approached the front gate at the appointed minute, but was surprised to find no sign of Grim. I began to call out to him, hearing only a belligerent monkey's chattering in reply. I waited for another five minutes before going out in search of my friend, hoping that no harm had befallen him.
As I searched the grounds, passing the seal pond and spotting a pair of elephants, I still saw no sign of Professor Grim. I was about to call out to him when I heard a horrifying sound that chilled my blood. It sounded as if a hawk had swallowed a wild boar and they both screamed out in pain at the very same moment. It was at the same moment that I first caught sight of the snarling pheasant beast.
The creature was about ten meters away from me and slowly walking toward me. I was standing under an electric lamp and the closer the monster stepped towards me the more clearly visible it became. As it neared, I raised the shotgun,