by Minda Webber
Adam chortled at Pavlov's expression, while the assistant continued with his complaints. "Hugo's also obsessed with marbles. He likes to drop his down the bell tower steps when we are trying to put him back in his room."
"Does he lose his marbles often?" Adam asked.
Pavlov sighed. "At least once a week, the demented old dwarf. He's a master at picking locks and escaping the inescapable. So we're oftentimes bombarded with bells."
"I see. He's a menace," Adam said.
"Oui, exactement. But he's our menace." Pavlov sighed. "Dr. Eve treats all her in-house patients as eccentric relatives. She—Merde, what am I saying? You know your wife and her work. I know she writes to you faithfully at least once a month to tell you of her problems and solutions. At least, I have seen her writing the letters in her study…"
Adam jerked his head in a brisk nod. He might not know Eve Bluebeard, alias Eve Griffin, well yet, but he intended to know her very well as soon and as often as possible. And in the biblical sense.
Pointing to a door, the Frenchman opened it briefly. Adam stuck his head inside and saw a large stone gargoyle perched upon a massive stone fireplace mantel, albeit a rather short fireplace. The mantel was three feet from the floor and quite thick. The large and oddly constructed fireplace took up almost half the space in the room. There was only a small bed and chair, and an encoignure rested in one corner with several books and a large candle set upon it.
Pavlov closed the door, and they continued their journey. "Mr. Carlen, as you can see, is a mad gargoyle. Since it's daylight, he is in his stone form at present. Yet when it is night and the stone becomes flesh, Mr. Carlen remains as if stone. Catatonic is the word they are using now for his malaise."
"What does Dr. Eve think causes this catatonia?"
"Dr. Eve thinks it has something to do with fear—a very great fear."
Adam pictured the rather odd fireplace, and suddenly he knew. "He's afraid of heights!"
"Oui. Mr. Carlen has vertigo."
Adam shook his head, recalling various gargoyles he had seen atop towering spires in France and Germany. "Hmmm. I surmise that for a gargoyle that would be a tad upsetting."
Pavlov nodded.
He next halted outside a very clean door, which looked like it had been scourged again and again, what with missing wood chips and the smell of lye wafting from the old oak. Indicating the door, Pavlov explained, "This patient is Mrs. Gina Monkfort. She's our newest. Dr. Eve is still evaluating her, but already we know that Mrs. Monkfort has an obsession with cleanliness. She even washes her own water!"
Adam cocked a brow, but Pavlov shrugged. "What can one say? They do claim cleanliness is next to godliness. So she's a saint," Pavlov finished emphatically.
"Is that why she's here? She washes water?" Adam asked.
"Only a small part. She's a widow, once married to a wereboar, for over seventeen years. I gather from what Dr. Eve has said that Mrs. Monkfort's husband was rather a piggish fellow. Always snuffling around the house with his piggy hooves all muddy, snuffling at the clean linens and leaving dirt all over. Dr. Eve concluded that Mrs. Monkfort has stored up rage over her husband's messiness. When he died, the rage came out as an obsession to have everything always as clean as possible. Mrs. Monkfort can't handle the disorder of dirt, and seeks to control her environment."
Knocking on the door elicited a voice calling out, "You may enter if your hands are clean and you've washed behind your ears."
Adam entered the room and assessed its lone occupant. Seventeen years of wedlock had left their mark, and all beauty lay in the past. The woman's gestures were erratic and encompassed massive amounts of cleaning, always keeping her fretful hands busy. Today the widow was dressed in black, though crocheting a monstrous white lace blanket that looked like a gigantic spider web.
Nodding politely, Adam watched the widow don glasses and check him over from the top of his head to the soles of his boots. Her gaze was in no way seductive, but studious.
"I'd like to introduce Dr. Eve's husband, Dr. Griffin," Pavlov said.
Mrs. Monkfort sat down and wrinkled her nose at Adam, still inspecting him like a bug under glass. Finally finished, she put a distressed hand to her mouth. "Oh, my, you have dirt on your boots! I must clean it immediately." And so saying, she rose and went over to one of several large buckets of water.
Glancing up at them with a moue of distaste, she asked, "Do you know what's in this water? I do. It's disgustingly horrid, nasty, and dirty."
In a soothing voice, Pavlov addressed her. "The eau is fine, Mrs. Monkfort. Mrs. Fawlty cleaned it especially for you this morning. Besides, you know what Dr. Eve has said about your cleaning constantly. Have you been a bad girl today?"
Mrs. Monkfort lowered her head. "I… couldn't help it. My door was reeking, so I did what I must. After all, I am a lady."
Pavlov shook his head. "So you cleaned your door. Anything else?"
Sneaking a peek out of the corner of her eye, the woman frowned at the short Frenchman. "Maybe."
Adam found the dialogue strangely fascinating. There were more screws loose in this place than he had originally thought. If the Towers were a clock, time would stop. "I think I see. Water is a wellspring of hope, is it not?" he said.
Raising her eyes to meet his, she nodded. "Yes, it is. You understand why I cleaned my shoes and the maid's shoes."
"And?" Adam probed gently.
"I might have cleaned Mrs. Fawlty's too," she admitted reluctantly, staring off into the distance, a guilty look on her face. The silence finally compelled her to speak. "Oh," she said crossly. "She had such dirty shoes! They had smudges on them, and flour, and were just reeking of grime."
Again Adam probed. "Anyone else? Confession is cleansing to the soul," he said.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, she nodded. "Yes, I suppose it is. And I am clean, sparkling like a star." Noting Pavlov's little frown, she admitted, "I also cleaned that nasty little leprechaun's shoes. And don't frown at me, Mr. Pavlov, because Fester had been out digging in that messy, dirty garden again, and you know how dirty dirt can be."
Pavlov shook his head and looked at Adam. "Comprendez-vous. Fester is forever digging holes here, there, and everywhere. Which reminds me, Mrs. Monkfort, you must take care. Don't take a walk at night without a lantern or you'll end up falling into one of Fester's pits."
Studying Pavlov, Adam again began to wonder if there truly was some hidden gold. He would use his considerable talents to solve this puzzle sooner rather than later.
"That grimy little leprechaun should be kicked out of the Towers for bringing in all that nasty dirt. He's insane, you know," Mrs. Monkfort confided sagely, her head bobbing like a broken jack-in-the-box. Holding up her skirt she added, "See how my slippers sparkle? Not a bit of pig drool on them. Did I mention I also scrubbed the hallway? It was a veritable dirt hill out there. Of course, that was before I came."
Pavlov seemed torn between trying to reprove or soothe her. He finally decided on the latter. "Oui. I must say our shoes and hallways have never looked so nice."
Adam bit his lip to keep from chuckling. The weird widow smiled happily and picked back up the large white spiderish-looking mass she was crocheting.
Making their good-byes, Pavlov and Adam hurriedly left, closing the sparkling clean door behind them. Eve's assistant frowned. "I don't know if Dr. Eve will able to break Mrs. Monkfort of her obsessions or not."
Smiling sympathetically, Adam remarked, "In the words of James Boswell, 'Spree meliora.'"
Pavlov smiled, working out the Latin. "I do hope for better things. Thank you, Dr. Griffin. I too shall pray for that poor deluded woman." His expression was rather somber as they walked down the hall to another set of rooms. "Mr. Jack Rippington's room is here. A fascinating case. Rippington used to be a barrister in London, where he earned the reputation of being crazy like a fox. Not surprising, since he is a werefox. Tragically, when a young kit, he fell deeply in love with a vampire named Rose. She
was staked. This loss caused him to acquire some rather peculiar habits as he grew."
"What kind of problems?" Adam asked.
"Prickly problems, which made his family send him to us. He had embarrassed them rather infamously at a ball. He's known now as Jack the Rip."
"What is the little peculiarity that landed him here, and why the odd nickname?" Adam pressed, not wanting to beat around the bush any longer.
Pavlov sighed. "The nickname really says it all. He… rips off his clothes and exposes himself… to rosebushes."
Ouch, Adam thought. A sticky business, trying to cure a man who flashed his prick at pricker bushes. "The man must be mad."
"Cela va sans dire."
"Quite so," Adam remarked. " 'That goes without saying.' Quite so."
Chapter Thirteen
The Good, the Bad, and the Good and the Mad
The skies were an ominous gray that perfectly matched Eve's mood, as did the aging buildings she was passing. Although Eve had seen a hundred docksides while growing up in ports around the world, they always depressed her. The taverns were shabby, and the patrons a dirty and uncouth lot living in abject poverty. Garbage always lined the streets, and the sewage smells were enough to put a person off her food.
Again Eve cursed her father for his interfering ways, and for having to seek him out in one of his favorite haunts. When she found him, she didn't know what she would do, but she did know that the coming confrontation would not be pleasant. Especially if she unleashed her formidable temper. "Loose lips sink ships," Eve muttered, remembering this fact well, since her father had drummed it into her as a child. He'd always advocated a united front for the Bluebeard family, no matter how bad things got. Of course, he was usually the one causing problems. "I shan't pull out his blue beard or curse a blue streak and threaten his liver. I shan't call him an infernal interfering boil on the arse of humanity," she reminded herself.
By her side, her butler nodded. He'd driven her here in the asylum trap. "That's right, Dr. Eve. I wouldn't think you should."
Eve gave an inarticulate grunt. "Don't get mad, get even," she muttered.
Teeter glanced around, taking in the rough-hewn cobblestone path. "Get who?"
She rolled her eyes. "No one. I meant, I shouldn't be angry; I should get even with that callous conniver who calls himself my father. He'll rue the day he crossed me!"
Teeter replied anxiously, his Adam's apple bobbing, "I wouldn't threaten to break his bottles of rum or lock him in a treasure chest and throw away the key, like you did the last time."
Eve glared at her butler. Then, continuing her search, she found her ire increasing, but no Captain Bluebeard.
"My father is like a hammerhead shark—hammering away until he gets what he wants," she complained. "Doesn't matter what he destroys in the process. Like my very fine life. Oh, no! He wants me married, pirate-booted, and pregnant, the old-fashioned reprobate. To his mind, a woman's made to stay on a ship for her master's pleasure, bearing his children and cleaning the poop deck. Perhaps wielding a cutlass in times of emergency. For him, one female is much like the others. Hence his seven marriages. He's a barbarian, the ripe old cod!"
As the afternoon wore on, Eve discovered that the captain wasn't at the Barbary Coast Pub, the Sword and Crossbones, or Thatch Blackbeard's Den of Scurvy. Finally she located her father at Lafitte's Pride, a regular nest of pirates with a few landlubbers thrown in for good measure. Materlinck, both the bartender and an aspiring writer, waved her through to the back, where her father was holding court by telling outrageous tales of his high-seas adventures.
The smoky room teemed with rough characters. Some wore eye patches, others earrings, and a few sported peg legs. There were scarred faces, grizzled beards, and smelly bodies, and a continual din of grumbling voices. Through the hazy atmosphere and the window's faint light, Eve spotted Captain Bluebeard sitting by a grimy hearth, with his back against the wall—the only way her father sat in a room full of cutthroats—a smile on his face. He was smoking his corncob pipe.
Turning to Teeter, Eve noted her father's condition. "At least he isn't castaway yet. I wish you to stay here by the bar." Seeing her butler's pleading eyes, she relented. "Yes, you can get yourself an ale."
Teeter's delighted grin spread from ear to ear, which had her hastily adding, "One ale. Only one. I need you to drive us back. Read my lips. No new taxies."
The grin fled as quickly as it had appeared, and the ogrish butler peered down his very long nose at her. Eve ignored his wounded expression and marched over to her father, pushing through the mass of disgustingly dirty humanity.
Catching sight of his daughter, Captain Bluebeard grinned. His dark blue eyes lit with joy, his lips twisting into a knowing smirk. The cat was out of the bag, the vampire out of the coffin, and the pirate off his ship. Ship ahoy! His daughter's prow was true and straight, and she was approaching at ramming speed.
Captain Bluebeard's smirk only made Eve's blood heat to the boiling point. "I'll personally kick his Tortuga," she muttered, but halted abruptly when she reached him. Ignoring his disreputable drinking companions—his crew were beyond three sheets to the wind, were more like eight sheets into a full-blown hurricane—Eve let loose her own personal nor'easter. "What skullduggery have you set loose in my asylum?"
Bluebeard chortled. "Skullduggery, you say? Just exactly what are you accusing me of?"
Eve didn't fall for the look of indignation that quickly covered her father's rugged face. The old scalawag was playing it for all he was worth. "You really should tread the boards on land, not on sea. Don't fash me, father. As if you didn't know! You can forget the protestations of innocence. You haven't been innocent since the day you were born. Knowing you, I bet you swiped the cookie of the baby next to you!"
Planting a large hand on his chest, Bluebeard groaned, playing to the audience of blasted buccaneers seated around the table. "To think me own dearest daughter speaks to her da like this. Doesn't trust me. Just breaks me heart, it does."
Eve stamped her foot. "If the eye patch fits, wear it!"
"Evie, my love, shiver me timbers. How cold is a thankless child!"
Glaring at her father's companions, Eve snapped out her next words: "Do you louts think you could pretend to be gentlemen for once, and leave me to speak with this old scalawag alone?"
The three pirates hastily departed, Ol' Peg almost getting his wooden leg caught in a spittoon. Drunk or not, none of Bluebeard's sea dogs wanted to get in the middle of this father-and-daughter talk; the Bluebeards' bites and their barks were equally bad.
Pulling out a chair, Bluebeard nodded for Eve to sit down. She obliged warily, plotting her options. Then temper won out. "How dare you presume to invent a husband for me when I've already invented one myself! It's utterly despicable! I want Adam whatever-his-name-is out of my life tonight! And I do mean tonight!" She lowered her voice to keep the tavern's crooked customers from overhearing, she didn't need to be blackmailed by this scurvy lot. Though, with the din of the crowd and the fact that most were so drunk they wouldn't remember much of anything, she wasn't too worried.
The Captain squinted. "Is someone pretending to be your husband? Why, I'll run him through, I will."
Eve scoffed. "That look hasn't worked on me since I took my hair out of pigtails."
Bluebeard fought down his pride. Instead of praising her courage he complained, "It's just unnatural for a daughter not to fear her da." But Eve had a good wind, all right, no doubt about it.
"It's unnatural for a father to pay a man to pretend to be my husband," she retorted, clenching her fists. She needed that money much worse than did the wastrel who was being paid to be her loving husband. In fact, she wanted to beg her father for some of his treasure right now, but knew she never could with the terms of surrender. They would be too heavy: Close the asylum and marry that hateful Hook.
"A pox on yer fears, daughter. Ye should trust me!"
Girding herself for more battle, Eve let n
othing show on her face. She wasn't her father's child for nothing, having his fierce determination to be victorious. She would stay afloat without Captain Bluebeard's plundered, pirated, sunk-shipped treasure.
Her father said, "You gave me no choice, lassie. Wedded bliss is a fine state, a holy state between man and woman. Marriage is forever and, well…" He hesitated before nodding. "Marriage is blissfully blissful."
"How droll! How can you say that when you've been married seven times?"
The captain remained unrepentant, ignoring her scorn. "Well, now, it took a bit of practice. But I got it right with your dear mother."
"Humph," Eve grumbled, shaking her head.
"Now see here, missy, no need to get on your high horse. 'Tis true—marriage is a fine state with the right companion. It's not me fault that six of me wives were she-devils in disguise."
Eve snorted inelegantly. "None of your wives were demons."
Bluebeard shrugged. "Nay, ye're right. They were worse. Me first wife was a witch. Mean-tempered, with a wart on her as—" Realizing what he had been about to reveal, he quickly said, "Never mind where the wart was. Just know that she was a stomach-churning shrew, always spewing curses and stinking up me ship with her boiling cauldron and mumbo jumbo. Me second wife was made more for the bliss bit of matrimony, but she just didn't have a strong constitution. Of course, it wasn't her constitution that got her in the end, just her poor eyesight."
Eve nodded, for she had heard the story a time or two when her father was in his cups.
"Aye. Imagine mistaking a crocodile for a stepping-stone," Bluebeard reminisced. "We were married only four years. I never should have taken her to Africa."