I left her alone. There was no holding her hand now. She had to walk this mental gauntlet on her own.
“What’s he doing?” she asked.
“Studying anatomy,” I told her as I circled the theater. “He’s got a cheap supply of bodies.”
“Isn’t this illegal? Isn’t it...blasphemy?”
I shrugged. “Can’t speak to the blasphemy. As to the laws...well, his method of acquisition might be fraudulent, but the dissection is legal.”
Magnates were pragmatic on this front, since it wasn’t their bodies getting sliced up. In New York, for instance, nascent doctors got their pick of criminals and indigent on the way to Potter’s Field.
“Peaceful graves,” I told her, “are a luxury for the rich.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna dig me up when I’m gone.”
“One more reason you should’ve stayed in Darke County.”
“I’m sorry I called you a nanny,” she whispered, avoiding my eyes.
I scratched my cheek to hide my embarrassment. “Look, sometimes I don’t let a thing go. Forget about it.” I was about to compliment her, tell her how I thought she could take care of herself. But I didn’t. My mouth couldn’t form the words.
It left me with that lingering regret of things-unsaid. I was used to it. That same regret was a defining feature of my marriage.
I turned away from her and examined the rest of the room.
With a body in mid-dissection, it was easy to overlook the stenographer’s station and a large cluttered desk. The desk had a difference engine on it next to what appeared to be a brass pump about the size of my fist. I wasn’t sure why Liutt had his plumbing here, but then it’s often hard to follow Technocrat logic. I knew because I was friends with one.
The stenographer’s typewriter still had ribbon in it.
“Notes,” I said, glancing through them. It was no ordinary typewriter—the machine automatically transferred the ribbon to the Babbage, which fed the words through a mechanical cipher, encoding them.
I knelt over and tapped a few keys.
“What’re you typing?”
“It’s not fit for a lady’s ears,” I said, smiling.
Phoebe approached and looked at the eerie symbols on the ribbon. “He’s covering his tracks. ‘The wicked flee when none pursue.’ This can’t be legal.”
I was surprised it had taken her this long to quote scripture at me. “The fraud’s illegal, the autopsies aren’t. He’s not hiding his crimes, he’s hiding his work.” It was a good habit among researchers. Savants were as jealous and petty as the rest of us. It was common to filch technology—and glory—from a rival.
Inside the drawers I found several ledgers filled with code.
I glanced at the Babbage, wondering if I could translate the notes with it. It seemed doubtful. I hadn’t had much luck with the damn things, plus it might not even work as a decoder. There were sophisticated analyticals that used rolling algorithms which couldn’t be used for reverse translation. A separate decoding-machine had to be used to unlock the data.
I took this on faith, of course. The idea of a machine which could encode but not decode the same numbers made my head spin. I didn’t bother to tell Phoebe this. If a self-made scholar like myself had trouble comprehending that, I could hardly expect a wild creature from the country to.
One of the ledgers was different from the others. It was older.
I flipped it open and was rewarded with something I could read.
The pages weren’t encoded, unless you consider German a code. I was unfamiliar with some of the words. I saw Geneva mentioned several times, so the journal must’ve belonged to a Switzer. It was difficult at first, since I grew up speaking and reading Deutsch from Germany Proper, but I could get the gist of it.
“Looks like Liutt studied in Europe for a bit.”
“No surprise,” the girl said. “Europe is chock full of decadence.”
“John Calvin was European,” I said absently.
“Who’s that?”
“Ask your preacher.” I flipped the pages. “This is strange. Liutt’s interested in some dropout from the University of Ingolstadt. I don’t get it—the guy was a real loser. He wasn’t published or anything. He didn’t even finish his degree. In fact, he’s been dead for decades. Looks like the fool died of pneumonia back when Monroe was in office. Why would Liutt follow his career so closely?”
Phoebe was staring at the corpse again. “Maybe you should be asking why he didn’t finish. Maybe the fool didn’t drop out. Maybe he got kicked out.”
“Maybe,” I said, closing the book.
Aside from cuckolding a professor or attending lectures drunk, I didn’t want to think about what got you kicked out of med school. There were rumors from time to time—the papers loved to sensationalize them—of doctors doing unspeakable things, like vivisection or worse. A few rags even speculated about med students getting a little too friendly with the cadavers, if you know what I mean. I never paid it mind because printers weren’t selling truth, they were selling papers.
I dropped the book back into the drawer and glanced at Phoebe. She was staring at the dissected corpse again.
“He ain’t getting any deader.”
Despite the heat, she hugged herself and rubbed her arms.
My eyes lit on a set of wire shelving behind the desk. Glass vials of every imaginable color, shape, and composition hung suspended in tight steel rings.
A row of them were blue—a beautiful blue.
Phoebe’s eyes were on the dead man.
I stepped closer and narrowed my eyes at the ampoules. They stared back, impossible blue, lined up like bullets waiting to be loaded.
Before I knew what I was doing, I pocketed them all along with two syringes made of noncorrosive steel.
The girl was still praying or stewing so I went around the table and approached the wall. A large contraption was built around an opening there. It had wheels and a belt-feed like an assembly line.
“What’s that?” Phoebe came up from behind me, face pale.
“The corpse-lifter. It must bring them up from the hospital.” I tried not to sound too satisfied. It’s good to be right every now and then.
“So Dr. Lichfield knows about this,” Phoebe said. “He’s in on it.”
“He’s more than in on it,” I said. “He’s running it.”
“What...you think Liutt and him are partners?”
“Partners?” I laughed. “No. Dr. Lichfield is Liutt. They’re the same man. This whole operation—the diggings, the plant, the carriages—it’s all a cover for his experiments.”
That was what I’d meant when I told Kober it wasn’t about money. My friend Verhalen—a Technocrat like Jonas Lichfield—put knowledge ahead of greenbacks every time. He and Dr. Lichfield appeared to have something in common—they had both been born with money and a lust for science. The efficiency of it, the heartlessly pragmatic machinations, reeked of Technocratic principles in the extreme.
“This is worse than greed,” Phoebe whispered, shaking her head. “This is worse than a robber baron.”
“It’s the same, actually. Greed for knowledge is still greed. Liutt is no different than the other Magnates. He just collects a different sort of coin.”
“Very eloquent, Mr. Schist.”
Phoebe jumped with a squeak. When we turned, we found Dr. Lichfield standing behind the corpse. Victor flanked him. At least, I thought it was Victor. He still wore the dented-up filterhelm fr
om the morgue.
“I can tell you’re not like other private detectives,” the physician said. “You have a scholarly inclination, don’t you? So rare in a man of your profession. You have made an intriguing diagnosis, Mr. Schist, but you’re wrong.”
I didn’t bother to argue. I just stared.
“Is it greed when you share your fortune? Those other men, the robber barons.” His lips twisted into a sneer. “They gather their gold and hide it in vaults. For what? To count it? Even when they buy something, it’s usually frivolous and stupid, like Persian rugs or racing yachts.” He shook his head. “My wealth serves a purpose. The answers I buy help the world. I’m advancing the species, Mr. Schist.”
“I’m sure those black-lunged miners are grateful.”
“Everyone has a role to play. Would it make you feel better if I told you how many miners I’ve saved? Dozens...maybe hundreds. All possible because of this.” He absently fingered one of the scalpels beside him.
Phoebe’s revolver leaped into her hand and leveled at the Technocrat. “Don’t even think about it.”
Lichfield smirked and withdrew his probing finger. “You misunderstand my intentions, young lady.”
I shook my head at her naïveté. “Men like him don’t dirty their hands, Phoebe.”
“In that, Mr. Schist, you are correct.” He turned. “Victor?”
The hardhead lurched forward to interpose himself between us and the doctor.
Phoebe’s gun wavered at the sight of him. “I’ll drill you first, doc!” She burst into action, sprinting sideways to get a clear shot. “Stand still, you dirty cheat!”
“Kill them, Victor. Kill them both.”
Lichfield dashed behind a large tank before the girl could shoot him. Phoebe fired at his distorted image, but the glass was too thick. Cracks spider-webbed across it as a torrent of yellow fluid gushed onto the floor.
My eyes watered at the sudden reek. Through my tears, I saw Victor rush after Phoebe. The angry chit was too quick, though. She was dogging the physician. The chamber echoed with a mad symphony of running people—the doctor’s whispering tread, the staccato clips of Phoebe’s heels and the stomping clod of Victor’s boots.
I knew better than to try my truncheon again. I sprinted to the tray beside the corpse and chose a particularly nasty-looking bit of cutlery. It had a sickle blade, barbed teeth, and was long enough to gut a buffalo.
When I caught up to the fray, Phoebe had chased the doctor back to the crematorium. He stopped to open the door. For a split second, Phoebe had a clean sight of him before Victor slammed her from behind. The gun went off.
A slash of crimson materialized on one of the doctor’s cheeks.
I had to admire the man. He didn’t even flinch at the graze. He jumped through and slammed the vault-door behind him. A chorus of locks clicked into place.
Victor, meanwhile, hoisted the petite gunwoman up and threw her like a rag doll. She hit the brick wall with a scream and tumbled onto a row of shiny steel gurneys.
Rage exploded from my belly like a cracked boiler. Before I knew what was happening, I charged forward, fell into a crouch and pounced, thrusting the long, curving point into Victor’s right kidney. Normally, I would’ve felt dirty stabbing a man in the back like that. I wasn’t a goddamn gutter-rat. But this brute was strong—easily the strongest man I’d ever met. Honor goes out the window when you meet a man who can crack your spine one-handed.
He grunted when I hit—the first time I heard him make a noise—and tried to turn.
Before he could retaliate, I had the knife out and tried to sheath it again in his left kidney. The blade slid off a hard object—it was round like a canister—and bit into his back. When I withdrew it, I looked down at the blade and felt the hairs on my arm stand up in revulsion.
There was no blood. Not even a drop.
One of the gloved hands locked on my collarbone. The other probed for my throat.
It started again, the throbbing. It was like I was going mad, like I could hear Victor’s devil-pulse radiating out of him, as if the man were powered by a dynamo instead of a heart.
I struck up and out, slashing at his hand. Whatever complaints I may have about him, I have to admit that Dr. Lichfield was scrupulous with his tools. The blade was so sharp that it went right through the armored glove and took off three fingers, scattering them over the floor.
The hand on my shoulder squeezed harder than a wrought-iron vise. I tried not to scream. With inhuman effort, I didn’t drop the knife. I buried it in his guts instead.
The other hand, the one missing three fingers, backhanded me.
Years back, on this one case I did for the Pinkertons, an angry miner came after me with a shovel. Before I could get my piece out, the dirty bastard swatted me across the face and knocked me on my ass.
That is exactly how it felt when Victor hit me. Only this time, because he held me by my collarbone, I didn’t fall. I just twisted in his grasp as hot blood poured out my nose and into my mouth.
There was movement behind him, but I couldn’t tell if it was Phoebe or Lichfield. It occurred to me that the doc might’ve found his balls when the chit ran outta bullets. I hoped today wasn’t the day he decided to break his clean-hands policy.
Somehow, through the angry throbbing in my ears, I could hear the swishing of a heavy skirt. I didn’t feel relief, though.
“Run,” I tried to yell, spitting blood onto Victor’s overcoat.
Victor’s hand clapped down again and the world vanished in a cloud of pain. My hat tumbled from my head.
Phoebe was yelling at me. Or maybe Victor. I couldn’t tell what she was saying.
When I opened my eyes, I was hanging limply in Victor’s grasp. The eyes of the filterhelm stared down at me, pitiless and hollow. There was no hate or rage or cursing. In a way this was worse. It made me feel helpless, like a chicken about to be throttled.
My head lolled.
The lantern swam into my vision. We were standing—or he was standing, anyway—next to the gurney where I’d left it.
I grabbed it and emptied it onto his arm. The hot oil darkened his sleeve and oozed into his glove. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all, but then, I didn’t need it to. Before the next blow came, I twisted out of his slippery grasp and fell onto the floor. I rolled onto my belly and crawled clear.
Out of nowhere, a gurney rocketed past me.
It struck Victor squarely in the thigh. He pitched onto it and, as I watched panting on the floor, it flew to the crematorium. When it got to the hatch, the mnemonic engine clicked, the hatch opened, and the gurney angled up to dump its load.
Victor slid into the furnace and, before he could even roll off his back, the hatch shut.
The gurney wheeled back, spun, and rolled up to the wall again.
“Phoebe?”
The girl hovered over me, grimacing. “That’s a lot of blood.”
“Nosebleeds are like that,” I said in a thick voice. I looked around in a daze, trying to understand what had just occurred. One minute Victor was killing me, the next he was getting fried.
“That was quick thinking with the lamp oil, Mr. Schist.” She tried to help me up but I was too heavy.
“What just happened?”
She smiled. “I figured that the gurneys were used to dispose of bodies. So I inserted one of those memory-key things and turned it on.”
“And it went to dump its body, catching Victo
r on the way.” Through the pain, I managed a laugh. “You’re a clever chit.”
“It wouldn’t have worked if he’d been holding you.”
I staggered to my feet. “Is that what you were yelling about?”
“Yeah—I told you to get clear of him.”
“That was pure instinct, girl. And more than a little luck.”
She smiled. “You know what they say—better lucky than smart.”
“Don’t I know it.” I looked around. Lichfield was long gone. “It would seem the good doctor is both.”
She clenched her teeth. “One more second and I woulda ventilated his oversize skull.”
Though the world spun a little, I stumbled to the crematorium. Phoebe walked back to the gurneys and bent to pick something up.
I put my ear against the warm hatch. There were dull thuds coming from inside. Before Phoebe could hear them, I reached over and turned up the heat. The thuds diminished and stopped just as she walked up to me.
“Helluva way to die,” she said with a frown.
“Yeah, I guess.” The thought of burning a man alive should’ve turned my stomach, only it didn’t. I stared at the crematorium and thought about everything I’d seen. “We need to get outta here.”
“Where, though?” She stood on her tiptoes and put my bowler on my head. Luckily, no one crushed it during the struggle. “Stanislaus is looking for us. As soon as the doctor finds his Harrimen, they’ll be after us, too.” She shook her head. “We’ve got a talent for burning bridges, don’t we, Mr. Schist?”
I grunted.
She’d phrased it exactly the way I did. The poor girl had been around me too much. As the episode with Dr. Lichfield revealed, she’d also progressed to shooting people. Next she’d drink her coffee black. The final and most horrific stage would be when she started reading philosophy and questioning the divine authorship of the Bible.
I mentally added Corruption of Phoebe Mosey from Darke County, Ohio to my list of sins. One more thing the ferryman to hell could punch my ticket for.
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