Part 18 (1/2)

”I'm well aware of it,” said St. Ives.

”I'd wager a small sum that your knowledge is trifling. Suffice it to say that Clara Wright, who has magnificent hydroscopic powers, found De Salles's head buried several feet beneath the sandy bottom of a riverbed in your small corner of the Empire. The head had been preserved by Sarah Wright in a cunning manner his life, that is, his faculties. Ironically, it would have been better for her to incinerate the head, if indeed the intention was to eradicate the man's spirit. That puts me in mind again of poor Harrow, who will soon begin to stink, I'm afraid.”

He picked up the head of James Harrow, clutching it by the ears, and carried it to the furnace, where Willis Pule raised a hatch in the iron lid, his hand encased in an asbestos-lined glove. Klingheimer dropped the head into the red glow, flames leapt upward with a great roar, and Pule dropped the hatch into place.

”This oven attains a heat in excess of a thousand degrees centigrade,” Klingheimer said. ”It was built at no small expense by the factory that produced the Woking Crematorium. I fully expected that they would inquire as to its use, that they would be in some sense curious. But they were not curious. They fixed a price, and all of us were happy. I like a clear, single-minded motive, Professor. Indeed I do.”

He gestured at the third head now, which had long, lank hair and eyes that might have belonged to Satan himself. The eyes twitched sporadically, as if something in the brain was overactive. Even so they had a demonic cast to them. ”I like to refer to Maurice De Salles as 'the wizard,'” Klingheimer said. ”He had quite a reputation among the cognoscenti. I was aware of his work at a very young age, and I had the pleasure of seeing him murder a boy with no other instrument than his mind. It was from De Salles that I bought the bottle of elixir I spoke of earlier, to my great good fortune.”

”You had the pleasure of seeing him murder a boy? Finally you reveal yourself,” said St. Ives.

”By 'pleasure' I meant a purely scientific satisfaction, of course. I took no emotional pleasure in the boy's death, nor did I feel any particular aversion. Death is the fate that awaits the lot of us, after all, unless we take steps to avert it. De Salles was a prodigy of arcane learning, to say the least. I have high hopes that he will recover his wits in time. His being a blood relative to Ignacio Narbondo might lead to interesting results were the two linked. But of course he cannot speak except in thought, which you are deaf to. His thoughts are primitive distilled anger, eager hatred. Some would call it idiocy, which it might very well be. I communed with him only once, and his mind was... a force, and little more. But it was a force that I could... access. An accelerant, as it were, very like turpentine poured onto a fire. Listen! The wizard attempts speech!”

De Salles's mouth worked, bubbling out green fluid, his lips making a distinct flapping sound. Everything that Mother Laswell had told St. Ives about her dead husband was quite evidently true. It was written plainly on his face, even in its wizened, desiccated condition. If ever a head wanted badly to be cast into the furnace, it was the head of Maurice De Salles.

”Come, Professor,” Mr. Klingheimer said, gesturing at the viewing seats, ”I believe that you'll have a first-rate view in the second row. Take the seat two rows in front of Jimmy, if you will. Yes, directly in front of him, where he can put a bullet through your heart if the need arises. Pule, do us the favor of fetching Mr. Fez. Be quick about it. I'll reveal to you, Professor, that I intend to undertake a small experiment while Dr. Peavy is busy performing his duties as a mad doctor. I can a.s.sure you that the patient whose mind I intend to probe will not come to any harm. I beg you not to interfere. If Jimmy is compelled to shoot you, Alice will find your head in Mr. Harrow's basin, I'm afraid. We all wish for a happier outcome.”

And then, to Jimmy, Klingheimer said, ”It is my direct order that you shoot Professor St. Ives in the back if he endeavors any heroics, any at all. I need not tell you, however, that we must preserve the head.”

St. Ives calculated the odds of taking Jimmy by surprise, liberating the pistol, and blowing Klingheimer to kingdom come. The odds weren't at all good. The act would necessitate standing, turning, and scrambling over seats, which would give Jimmy adequate time to murder him or simply to knock him down with the b.u.t.t of the pistol.

The door into the hallway opened, and Pule ushered the man wearing the Egyptian hat into the room. He looked about himself furtively. His head jerked uncontrollably, and he was attempting to speak, but could do little more than make noises in his throat. He hadn't been nearly so agitated when St. Ives had seen him previously. Pule guided him to the chair that Clara had recently vacated, put his hands on the man's shoulders, and compelled him to sit. Immediately he strapped his wrists and ankles and belted him into the chair at the waist and around the forehead.

”This fellow's name is Kairn,” Mr. Klingheimer said to St. Ives. ”Dr. Peavy tells me that his bill is paid promptly on the first day of the year by an unknown party a bank draft. No one has visited the poor fellow in eight years now, alas. No one would know, in other words, whether he was alive or dead, or, if dead, how he died. He has a great fear of rats, has Mr. Kairn. Dr. Peavy put him to the test, do you see? Locked him into his room with a half dozen of the creatures. The result was extraordinary. It cost the poor man his tongue, which he chewed off in his fear. The rats were quite docile, actually in no way did they threaten the man. They would have been content to build a nest in Mr. Kairn's hat. There was nothing in their behavior, in other words, to provoke the fear. It is entirely self-invented, as are the great majority of our fears, alas. I am curious to see whether I can bring him to such a pa.s.s merely by mental suggestion.”

Klingheimer took a seat in a part of the theater that was out of Kairn's sight. He put on the aura goggles and held himself quite still, leaning forward now in evident concentration. Kairn had fallen silent, and he gripped the wooden arms so tightly that his knuckles were white. Nothing at all happened for the s.p.a.ce of two or three minutes. Klingheimer's mouth was partly open, and he scarcely seemed to breathe, as if he had fallen into a self-induced trance.

Kairn's body abruptly went rigid. His eyes opened widely, and his head jittered rapidly up and down as if an electric current were running through him. He made a high, keening noise in his throat, and rocked his body erratically, the keening turning into a high-pitched shriek.

The wild idea came into St. Ives's head that he must break the spell, and he stood up and began to sing ”G.o.d Save the Queen,” as loudly as he could, but he got no farther than ”Send her victorious...” before Klingheimer held up his palm and gave him a withering look. He shook his head at Jimmy, who was also standing now, the pistol aimed at St. Ives. Kairn had either fainted or died, although his head was held upright by the various restraints. He stirred now, and opened his eyes, looking around in apparent terror. Pule cast Kairn loose and supported the now-sobbing man out of the room.

”Well, well,” Klingheimer said to St. Ives, a forced smile contorting his face, ”if you will do me the favor of sitting in the chair recently vacated by Mr. Kairn, we will do what must be done.”

St. Ives felt the muzzle of the pistol pressed against his back below his right shoulder blade, and when Jimmy grasped his collar in order to haul him to his feet, he stood up of his own accord. St. Ives decided that he would rather walk to the chair with some modic.u.m of dignity and with his wits intact than be compelled by Jimmy. Pule reappeared after a minute and set about strapping St. Ives into the chair. St. Ives, for his part, set his mind to the task of thwarting Klingheimer's attempts overcome his mind, for surely that was what the man intended to do.

Klingheimer, however, crossed the room to a collection of machinery and drew out a wheeled cart. Whatever lay on top of the cart was hidden beneath a cloth. As he rolled the cart toward the center of the theater, Dr. Peavy returned and without a word began to wash his hands at a sink. Klingheimer maneuvered the cart to a position in front of St. Ives, before pulling the cloth away with the flourish of his hand.

Beneath the cloth lay a device that was at first unidentifiable. In the center of it, suspended in the air, was a metal cylinder of sufficient diameter to settle over a man's head, and below that was a wooden apparatus with supports that were obviously meant to lie on the shoulders of the victim.

”What you see before you is an electronic decapitator,” Klingheimer said to St. Ives. He had regained his composure, and looked almost jolly. ”It was built by Dr. Peavy, whose talents never fail to astonish me.” He bowed in Peavy's direction, nodding in appreciation. Peavy dried his hands on a towel. ”It is a great improvement on the guillotine, which can splinter bone and which compels itself through flesh by mere gravitational force.

”You are not situated in such a way as to see the intricacies of the circular blade, Professor, so I'll tell you about it. Electrical power causes the blade to spin, and as it spins, the circ.u.mference of the blade diminishes, the blade closing in upon itself. The blade is a simple spring, do you see, serrated and uncannily sharp, which maintains its shape as it is compressed. The compression of the blade is not absolute, however, and the last quarter inch of vertebra must be severed with a surgical saw. The decapitation is swift and clean, however, and the blade springs free of the incision when the electrical power ceases. The cylinder is raised an inch or two, Dr. Peavy wields the bone saw, and hey presto!, the man in the chair has lost his head, although the head remains supported by the cylinder, ready for the plucking. What do you say to that, sir? Not a great deal, I take it. No pretty speeches? Another stanza of 'G.o.d Save the Queen,' perhaps, falsetto instead of tenor? Ha, ha! Now then, you'll note that the floor is clear in a radius of ten feet roundabout it. The saw makes for a regular Catherine wheel, but blood rather than sparks quite an image, I dare say.”

The door that led out onto the alley opened now, and Shadwell walked in. ”She's here,” he said to Klingheimer, and then he grinned at St. Ives.

”Excellent news!” Klingheimer said, rubbing his hands together. ”Really first rate. Escort the lady in, if you will.”

He turned to look at St. Ives now, and said, ”I'm happy to say, Professor, that you'll be reunited with your own dear Alice without further ado.”

THIRTY-TWO.

FINN AND CLARA.

Beaumont unlocked the door to the cellar and went in, groping with his hand to find the ribbon overhead that switched on the electric lamp, and knowing at once that all had changed since yesterday evening when he had last been here. The cellar was utterly silent, the machinery quiet. The stink of the toads was diminished, mixed with the smell of lye now. When the lights buzzed and brightened he saw that Narbondo's box was missing, although it was well past noon and should have returned from Peavy's by now.

The lot of it was gone the heads, the machinery, the barrels of toad fluid all of it cleared out, nothing left. The room had been swabbed down. They had s.h.i.+fted wholesale to Peavy's, giving Beaumont no part in it. They must have been at it all morning while the others were searching for Finn. He s.h.i.+fted his knapsack on his back, his coat hiding it somewhat nothing left in the garret that was worth taking.

He stood for a moment calculating. He was out of a situation, and no doubt about it. Klingheimer had given him the day's holiday because Klingheimer no longer had any use for Beaumont. How much time did he have, he wondered, before Klingheimer returned from Peavy's and sent for him in order to have a squint at him through the spectacles, or simply to have him hit on the head with a lead pipe?

He was certain that Klingheimer hadn't returned from Peavy's yet. The house was in too much of a taking. Klingheimer's influence in the house was absent, and had been since he'd turned his mind to Clara. There was a brutish air about the place, as if it was coming apart, everyone seeing to himself.

He turned in through the door of the storage room and switched on the light there. Plucking an empty flour sack from the heap, he set about loading it up with food. Drink they would find easily enough underground, but they'd get precious sick of eating dried meat if they couldn't bring down a pig or a goat. He thanked G.o.d that he had stowed the rifle and plenty of cartridge in the hovel. When Klingheimer came for them, which he surely would, he wouldn't expect the rifle.

He looked up and down the hallway before going out empty in both directions and he headed toward the stairs carrying the sack. On the second floor the hallway was again empty, although he heard a sneeze and then a blasphemy from within the card room, which had broad double doors, standing open now. There was low talk from within, and they would see him carrying the bag if he pa.s.sed. Also, he wanted to have a look into the room, where there were odds and ends that he could nick. He stepped into a handy alcove and waited.

”My ear's just about severed,” someone in the card room said. ”G.o.d-d.a.m.n that fat pig.”

”You should have murdered him straightaway when you got into the alley. That's what I'd have done. Leave him for the dustman to find.” Beaumont recognized Smythe's voice, and knew that the other must be Joe Penny, the two of them being pals, and Smythe having brought in the woman.

”He was on me like a s.h.i.+te-bird. I had no time to murder anyone. Now you've come home with the Bracken piece and I've got nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y ear and two teeth knocked into the dirt.”

”And I've been skewered in three places, the wh.o.r.e,” Smythe said. ”I mean to teach her a lesson, is what. No woman treats me so and lives to gloat, I can tell you that.”

”Gag her. She'll raise the house otherwise.”

”His majesty is out for the day. To h.e.l.l with the house. In any case a woman can't shriek once her throat is slit.”

”Well, I mean to look in on the blind girl,” Penny said. ”You ain't having all the fun.”

”You're a stupid sod, Joseph Penny. The girl's marked for his majesty. You're worried about raising the house, and now this caper?”

”She can't speak nor see. Don't you know that? It's no kind of secret.”

”It's coming it pretty high, is what it is.”

”Well, I'm sick of this place,” Penny said. ”I shouldn't have come back this morning. If that fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d from the inn shows up and fronts Klingheimer like he said he would, it's over for me. I might as leave have my way with the girl now, while I've got the chance.”

”It's your funeral, then,” Smythe said. ”We're wasting our breath sitting here, though.”

There was the sound of the two men moving. Beaumont stayed where he was, well hidden, the two men going away toward the stairs to the upper floors. He peered past the doorjamb and saw their backs, and he took the chance of darting around into the now empty card room, where he plucked up six nice scrimshaw pieces on the mantelshelf, all of them carved in the last century if he was any judge, which he was. He looked around for something else, seeing a pair of silver candlesticks. He pitched the candles into the coalscuttle and put the silver into the sack before peering down the hallway again empty. He returned to the hearth for the fireplace poker, heavy iron, and then trotted along to the stairs, seeing that they were clear before going up.