“No.”
“Please?”
“I don’t understand,” Luke said. “Why do I need to see her? Just tell her I’m not coming”
“She thinks you can help her. I can’t find what she’s looking for. For some reason, she thinks you can.”
“How could I help her? I don’t know anything.”
“Couldn’t you just tell her that yourself? It wouldn’t take long.” It was clear that Perry wasn’t prepared to let the matter go.
“Why is this so important to you?” Luke stopped walking abruptly. There could be only one reason that it was important. “Is she putting pressure on you to get to me? You’re supposed to deliver me up so she can get something out of me?”
“Well, she asked me to ask. ‘Deliver you up’ is a little strong.”
“And if you can’t get me to play along, she’ll tell your father all your nasty little secrets. Is that it?”
Perry shrugged. “More or less. After all, that’s how she works.”
“And what happens if I refuse?”
“I was hoping you’d help me out, Luke. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask.”
Then Luke was struck by a thought so cold he could barely find his next words. “Is … is that what this is all about? Has been right from the start?”
“No!” Perry said. “Of course not.”
Luke’s head was spinning. “I thought you just wanted to be with me.”
“I do!”
But the reason for Perry’s persistence was beginning to make sinister sense to Luke. “I should have known. You made such a point of rushing over to me that night at Lavinia’s party.”
“Luke! No!” Perry protested. “That’s not how it is at all.”
“And then you came running as fast as I called.” Luke felt a wave of anger rising up over his dismay. “You’ll do anything to keep your hands in your father’s pockets, won’t you Perry? Who else are you willing to go off into the woods with if it’ll get you what you want?”
He could tell by the look on Perry’s face that the words stung.
“Do you really think I’d do that? Is that the kind of person you think I am?”
“I don’t know what else to think, Perry. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
Their raised voices were starting to draw stares from passing pedestrians, but Perry didn’t appear to care who overheard him.
“You can go to the devil, Luke Lewis,” he shouted. “Go on — run back to your stupid little village and leave me alone. I’m sorry I ever met you.” He turned and strode angrily down the street. Equally angry, Luke set off in the opposite direction.
Anger kept him walking, in spite of the fact that an omnibus and two horse cabs rumbled by. What a fool he’d been, to think that Perry could have any genuine interest in someone like him. He’d been blackmailed into seeing Luke, that much was clear, and like the small-town dupe he was, Luke had walked right into the trap. Well, Lavinia could go to the hangman for all he cared. And so could Perry.
He could only be thankful, he supposed, that he hadn’t told Perry anything about his prior encounter with Phillip Van Hansel. What price would Lavinia exact if she knew that he’d been present the night an Irish girl shot her husband? Not only present, but helped spirit the girl away after, far beyond the reach of any vengeance Hands might take? Or that Luke’s father had written a letter that directed suspicion Van Hansel’s way? If Lavinia knew that, Luke would be vulnerable to whatever threat she chose to employ.
And then he realized that she had no need of that knowledge. She already had an effective threat she could use against him. The same one she was using on Perry. Blackmail was too easy when the target was so open.
What an idiot I am, to think that I could get away with this. Cherub had followed him after Lavinia’s tea party, he was sure of it. She could have followed him to his tryst with Perry as well. Or, for all he knew, Perry had told Lavinia all about it, the three of them sniggering about him over tea in the parlour. One word to Christie was all it would take. One word to Christie and another to Thaddeus and Luke’s life would be in ruins.
So would Perry’s, he realized, if he had been telling Luke the truth. And as angry as he was, Luke couldn’t wish that to happen. He had liked Perry, right from the first. If he didn’t like him, why would he now be so angry?
Because he had been used, he told himself, in spite of what Perry claimed. And then unbidden, Perry’s protests came back to him. That’s not how it is at all, he said. But how else could it be?
It could be like it was with Ben, came the unwelcome argument. Luke had been a poor student, cold and penniless. Ben gave him food and shelter and friendship just when Luke needed it most. To someone who hadn’t known them, would it appear that Luke was nothing but an opportunist? It might well have, he realized.
And then it occurred to him that Perry didn’t understand the implications of what he was asking. He didn’t know the danger the Van Hansels posed. He didn’t know, because Luke hadn’t told him.
He should have given Perry the benefit of the doubt, or at the very least an opportunity to explain himself. Instead, Luke lost his temper and let his bruised feelings guide his tongue. He had been vile to Perry, his words to him inexcusable. What’s wrong with me? he thought as he continued walking north. I can be up to my chin in blood and muck and filth and keep a cool head, but whenever I have to deal with my own feelings I fall to pieces.
By the time he reached Tollgate Road, Luke was thoroughly miserable. Go back to your stupid little village Perry had shouted at him. Luke would. And then he would stay there. But in order to stay there safely, he would have to find out what Lavinia wanted.
All she had asked Perry to do was to arrange a meeting. Luke couldn’t imagine what she would ask of him, but if this concession was enough to extricate him from the mess he’d gotten himself into, he would go and hear her out.
Chapter 17
With remarkable ill timing, Lavinia suggested that Luke meet her at the Van Hansel house on the same day that Thaddeus was more or less due back in Yorkville, although his schedule tended to be erratic and subject to sudden change. When Luke woke that morning he was relieved to discover that his father hadn’t returned yet, and hoped that he wouldn’t make an appearance until later in the day. If he didn’t have to dodge Thaddeus, he wouldn’t need to find excuses. They had agreed that they would avoid the Van Hansels, and he had no way of explaining to his father why he was going against that decision without revealing at least part of the reason.
Nor, he decided, would he inform Dr. Christie that he was going into the city. Now that the summer epidemic had burned itself out, there really wasn’t a great deal of work to get through in a day. Should an emergency arise while Luke was gone, Christie could take care of it, although if there was a sudden accident or illness Luke would have to think of some way to account for his absence. But he couldn’t run the risk that Christie might mention something to Thaddeus.
He had only two patients to call on that morning — Mrs. Cory, who as a teetotaler required a script for her evening’s dose of brandy, and an old man who caught a summer cold that had turned into pneumonia. The latter’s condition was exacerbated, Luke was sure, by the fact that he had been employed at the brickyard for more than twenty-five years and no doubt had breathed more than his share of fine brick dust. He prescribed some extract of belladonna and instructed the man’s wife to set him up in a chair by an open window.
“Keep him wrapped up, but let him sit upright. There’s a lovely breeze. The fresh air can only help him.”
The woman looked dubious, but she would probably do as he instructed. After all, he was the doctor. He wished he could direct the rest of his affairs as easily. Just a word and everyone would do what he wanted.
It was still only eleven o’clock when Luke arrived back at Christie’s. Desperate for a diversion, he wandered into the parlour and grabbed a book from the jumble of titles lying unshelved on the table
. A Compendium of Gods and Heroes from Greek Mythology, he read. Intrigued in spite of his worries, he took the book through to the office with him. Ever since Perry had told him the tale of Orestes and Pylades he had been meaning to ask more about it. Well, he wouldn’t be able to ask now, would he? He’d have to look it up for himself.
He might have known that Dr. Christie would have a relevant book on the matter. Christie had apparently received much the same sort of education as Perry had, and no doubt was familiar with the story, although it was unlikely that the same construction would have been put on it.
Luke could find no reference to it in the book. It was apparently not a popular tale. Perry said as much, he remembered. There were, however, a number of other interesting stories: Prometheus, who stole fire and was punished for it by having an eagle set to an eternal feasting on his liver; Pandora, who opened the lid on the woes of the world; the great Trojan War and the journey of Odysseus. As Luke skimmed through the book he found numerous instances where the gods had descended to earth and by force or by guile had impregnated beautiful women to give rise to a race of heroes. Here and there he found veiled references to love, or more likely, he thought, lust, between men, but nowhere could he find any reference to Orestes and Pylades. Their story had been omitted from this particular edition.
He flipped to the front of the book and found a subtitle that he failed to notice before: Greek Mythology for Senior Classes. This was a school text, designed for innocent eyes. Perry’s schoolmaster had been teaching far beyond the usual curriculum and with an obvious purpose in mind. And even though he hadn’t found what he was looking for, the stories were fascinating and Luke continued to browse through the book, sampling the text here and there, skimming over pages to get the sense of each story. He had reached the end of the book when he discovered a thin paper in pamphlet form stuck between the endpapers. The Lives and Adventures of John Cottington, Alias Mul-Sack.
Curious, he pulled the booklet out and began to read:
Did you ever hear the like,
Or ever hear the fame,
Of five women barbers,
Who lived in Drury Lane?
Drury Lane, Luke assumed from the context, was an insalubrious part of the City of London. Mul-Sack had been apprenticed as a chimneysweep at a young age, a position that he ran away from before his term was up. He had learned the trade, he reasoned, and could set up easily on his own. He was so successful that he began to pass himself off as a gentleman: “No liquor but sack, forsooth, would go down with him, and that too must always be mulled to make it more pleasant.”
He acquired his nickname because of this habit, the story claimed. But what Luke read next made him nearly drop the paper. Mul-Sack was drinking in an unfamiliar tavern one evening when he spied what he thought was a very beautiful woman. He approached her, but she declined his attentions, insisting that only matrimony would suffice to gain her interest. Mul-Sack agreed, and off they went to their wedding. It was only that night in the marriage bed that Mul-Sack discovered that he had espoused himself to a hermaphrodite by the name of Aniseed Robin. Robin was well known in Drury Lane. Children chased him through the streets, throwing stones and lumps of manure at him. And contrite as he, or she, was, it was all too much for Mul-Sack, who after that took to a life of crime.
Luke hurried through the rest of the story, but could find no further mention of Aniseed Robin, only that Mul-Sack was eventually arrested in a riot in Drury Lane, in which five “Amazons” took it upon themselves to punish a wayward wife in a “highly barbarous” manner, and that Mul-Sack ended his life on the gibbet, brought finally to justice for theft, pickpocketing, and highway robbery.
At the end of the tale, Luke carefully replaced the pamphlet and returned the book to the parlour, where he sat down heavily in a chair and tried to determine what, if anything, the tale signified.
The facts surrounding Mul-Sack’s life of crime were straightforward enough. When Luke first saw the skeleton in the office, Christie openly referred to it by the highwayman’s name and described how he had acquired the corpse. He made no secret of his keen interest in the subject of corpses. He had recounted a famous case of grave robbing and murder in Scotland and had expressed a wish to view the next victim that turned up at the Strangers’ Burying Ground. Although slightly odd, Luke supposed that it was not an entirely aberrant interest for a physician, and it was in no way strange that Christie told him the story to explain the presence of the skeleton.
Luke tried to recall everything he could about the conversation of that first day. Christie summarized the tale in a few short sentences, referring to Mul-Sack only as “a famous highwayman.” He had then gone on to relate how he acquired the bones. Perhaps he hadn’t considered Mul-Sack’s strange marriage relevant to the conversation. He hadn’t mentioned the five Amazons of Drury Lane either.
But what if there was more to it than that? What if, in his brusque Christieish way, he assumed that Luke knew the story already, and concocted a reference to Mul-Sack in order to serve notice that he knew all about Luke and would brook no improprieties?
And then a second thought occurred to him that was so amusing it bubbled up through his anxieties and made him laugh out loud: Christie and corpses and the terrible smell that emanated at times from the nether regions of the house. Was it possible that he was not content with one skeleton, but was in the hunt for more? Was he the culprit who had been robbing the graveyards of their decomposed bodies?
He must remember to share this thought with his father, who would be amused at the notion of the elderly doctor creeping out at midnight to maraud in the local cemetery: Christie, who became short of breath when hurried and was disinclined to leave the house under the best of circumstances.
And then another, more sobering thought struck Luke. What if Christie had been tendering a bargain? What if the culprit really was Christie and he was offering his silence on Luke’s proclivities in exchange for Luke’s silence on his own?
But the bargain had been offered far too subtly, he realized, for either of them to be sure it was struck at all. Still, it was a tantalizing theory. Luke had not paid much attention to Morgan Spicer’s graveyard puzzle and didn’t know what his father had managed to discover so far. In fact, when he thought about it, Luke realized that he had not been paying much attention to his father either. He would trot out his preposterous notion of Christie as bone digger, he decided. It would be a peace offering that Luke and Thaddeus could laugh about together.
There was still no sign of Thaddeus when Luke went in to the dining room for his dinner. He could safely meet with Lavinia Van Hansel, and by the time he returned to Yorkville, his father would probably be back as well. Luke would tell him then.
There appeared to be no one around when Thaddeus reached Christie’s house the next day. The noontime dinner was long over and the dishes cleared away from the dining room table, although the smell of cooking seemed to linger in the room. In search of Luke, he knocked at the office door. When no one answered, he tentatively opened it, but there was no one there. The boy must be out seeing patients. Thaddeus had no idea where Christie might be. He wondered if Mrs. Dunphy was in the kitchen, but he hesitated to barge into her domain. Thaddeus had been made more than welcome in this house, and had been encouraged to consider it his home, but he still felt like a boarder and was loath to trespass into the rooms that he hadn’t been specifically invited to use. He returned to the front hall and called out a hello.
Mrs. Dunphy appeared at the top of the stairs, broom in hand.
“Oh, Mr. Lewis, you’re back again, are you? All is well?”
“Yes, thank you, but I’m feeling a little peckish. No, don’t come down,” he said as Mrs. Dunphy prepared to descend. “I want only a slice of bread or two and I can get it myself, if that’s all right with you.”
“Well, of course it’s all right,” Mrs. Dunphy said. “Help yourself to whatever you need. The bread is in a box in the pantry. You’ll find som
e cheddar wrapped in a cloth beside it as well, if you’d like it. And push the kettle over onto stove while you’re there. I’ll be ready for a cup when I’m finished here.”
Thaddeus went through to the kitchen and located the bread box in the pantry. He lopped himself a couple of thick slices and helped himself to a wedge of cheese. He looked for somewhere to set his makeshift dinner while he filled the kettle. There was an old pine table and four chairs in the centre of the kitchen, but the tabletop was mostly occupied by something wrapped up in a greasy-looking tarp.
As he set his food on one corner of the table, he became aware of a musty smell emanating from the bundle, and then he noticed a dark stain that had seeped through the tarp and left a stain in the pine. He filled the kettle and set it on the stove. Then he hesitated. The contents of the bundle were really none of his business, but the odour and the stain were so peculiar that he was curious. Gingerly, he peeled back the layers of canvas to find a long, thin, flayed carcass. Whatever it had been, its pelt had been skinned away to reveal the muscles and vessels beneath it.
He could only guess at what it had been. Weasel? Otter? But why on earth would Mrs. Dunphy have a skinned otter sitting on her kitchen table?
“It’s a marten.” Thaddeus jumped at the sound of the voice. “Oh good, you remembered to put the kettle on.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Thaddeus said. “It’s just that I noticed the smell.”
Mrs. Dunphy snorted. “Oh, that’s nothing. Wait until he boils it. I try to make him do it outside. The smell is dreadful if he does it in here.” She seemed completely unconcerned by his macabre discovery.
“Where did it come from?”
“Someone brought it to Stewart — Dr. Christie,” she said. “He likes to boil things down and look at the bones. Should I bring you a cup of tea when it’s ready?”
“Thank you. That would be lovely.” He retrieved his bread and cheese and retired to the dining room in confusion. He’d had no idea that Dr. Christie was in the habit of cooking animals so he could “look at the bones” as Mrs. Dunphy put it. Who would want to do that? And he didn’t confine his efforts to animals, apparently. After all, there was the peculiar skeleton in the office that he was so proud of having reconstructed himself.
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