"Do you happen to know how we could contact her?"
"No," the auctioneer said churlishly. "And I don't have time to find out for you, either." But then he relented—perhaps because he felt bad, or perhaps because he hoped there might be a reward involved. "You could ask Mrs. Worley's maid. She's still hanging around for some reason, though I don't know who she thinks is ever gonna pay her."
They found the maid in the kitchen, blowing her nose into a handkerchief that had already seen plenty of use that day. Wolf sat down across the kitchen table from the girl, smiling far more charmingly than Sacha would ever have thought he could. Within moments, he was drinking a cup of tea and patiently listening to Mary Mulvaney's entire life story (starting in Ballyseede Castle parish, Tralee, County Kerry), followed by Mrs. Worley's entire life story (starting on Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia), followed by the sad saga of Mr. Worley's bankruptcy and suicide.
As far as Sacha could make out—the maid kept bursting into tears in the middle of sentences, which made it hard to keep track of things—Mr. and Mrs. Worley had enjoyed a nice normal life right up until two weeks after he filed the patent application for his Soul Catcher. But then a smooth-talking lawyer had shown up in a long black motorcar and paid him an unspeakable amount of money for all the rights to his invention. And from the moment he took the money, he was cursed to misery and misfortune.
Every investment he made crashed as soon as he bought into it. Crops failed. Bridges collapsed. Ships sank. Respectable businesses floundered under the weight of unspeakable scandals. Soon he had lost not only the money from Morgaunt but his entire life savings as well.
"It's them Wall Street Wizards what done him in!" Mary Mulvaney wailed. "It oughtn't to be legal, what they do! The stock market's just a cheat and a scandal, and it'll ruin any honest man who puts his faith in it!"
"So why did Mr. Worley put his faith in it?"
"Because of them! Before they got their claws into him, he was as sensible a man as you could ever ask to work for. Well, except for the inventing. But he only did that in his spare time, and he always provided for his family decentlike. And such a loving husband. In the end, I don't think he killed hisself over the money at all. I think he just couldn't live with what he'd done to Mrs. Worley."
"It must have been a terrible shock to her," Wolf sympathized.
"I can hardly stand to think of it. She's always been that nice to me. I would've given anything I had to help her, but what could I do?"
"Well, I'm sure your being here is a great help to her," Wolf said kindly.
The girl sighed. "She couldn't bear to see the auctioneers going through her things, so I stayed behind to close up the house and, and—" Sobs threatened to overcome her again.
"I understand Mrs. Worley isn't here right now?"
"She left for the city last week." More sobs. "She wouldn't let me go with her 'cause she can't afford to pay me no more, but ... but I can't bear to think of her alone in that awful place!" Mary buried her head in her sodden handkerchief.
Sacha felt a sharp stab of sympathy. It was obvious that she was a nice girl who'd had a hard life, even by Hester Street standards. And it was just as obvious that there had been real affection between her and the Worleys, the kind of attachment that went far beyond doing a job and collecting her wages. They must have been genuinely kind people to have earned such loyalty.
He felt an odd rush of heat that flushed his cheeks and set his heart thumping. It took him a moment to recognize the feeling as anger. He couldn't imagine why he would be so angry about something that had happened to people he didn't even know. But he was. And even though it wouldn't bring back Mrs. Worley's husband, Sacha suddenly wanted very much to punish the men who had driven him to kill himself.
When had he become so vindictive? Was he starting to think like an Inquisitor instead of a normal person? Uncle Mordechai would probably say it was the first step in his transformation into an anti-Wiccanist tool.
"And what are you going to do now?" Wolf was asking when Sacha forced his attention back to the conversation.
"I hadn't even thought yet," Mary sniffled. "Go back and stay with my sister in the tenements while I look for work, I guess."
"I meant what are you going to do about punishing the men who ruined Mr. and Mrs. Worley?"
She shook her head bitterly. "Men like that, they're too rich to be punished."
"Maybe. But if I can't find them, I can't even try. And I can't try to get Mrs. Worley's money back, either."
"You could do that?" she asked, as if he'd just promised a miracle.
"Probably not," Wolf admitted. "But like I said, I can't even try until I find them."
Mary stared down at her handkerchief, biting her lip. Then she went to the breakfront cabinet and flipped through a tin box of recipe cards until she'd found the one she was looking for.
"You understand I wasn't supposed to tell anyone," she warned Wolf. "She'll be that upset with me, she will! She might not even speak to you."
"Don't worry," Wolf said, flashing that surprisingly charming smile again. "It won't be the first time I've had a door slammed in my face."
She stood in front of him, clutching the recipe card close to her body as if she still hadn't quite made up her mind to give it to him. Then she thrust it into his hands as if it burned her.
Sacha craned his neck to peer at the card over Wolf's shoulder. It was a recipe for Sally Lunn cake, whatever that was. Wolf turned it over to reveal the hastily scribbled address on its back—and looked up in astonishment.
"Mrs. Worley is living on the Bowery?"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mrs. Worley's Soul Catcher
DUSK WAS DESCENDING on New York by the time they pushed their way off the El and followed the rush-hour crowd down the wrought-iron stairs to the Bowery. The arc lights had just come on, and they blazed so brightly it hurt to look at them. These days Broadway was slowly eclipsing the Bowery as New York's Great White Way. But despite Broadway's high-class theaters and fancy beer gardens, the Bowery was still where ordinary New Yorkers went to have fun when the sun went down and the lights went on.
As they reached the curb, Wolf took Lily and Sacha by the arm to shepherd them safely across the flood of carts and carriages and trolley cars. And then the most extraordinary thing happened.
Wolf dropped their arms and leaped into the middle of the street alone—straight into the path of an oncoming omnibus. Just as it seemed the horses were about to trample him, Wolf bent down like a baseball player diving for a ground ball, swept something small and dark up off the cobblestones, and flung it into the air with all his might.
There was a swift flash of blue and white and russet feathers. Then, inches in front of the startled horses, the hurtling ball of feathers exploded into full flight. For a moment Sacha was certain the swallow would be dashed lifeless against the hard metal roof of the omnibus. But at the last instant, it swerved up into open air. And then it was gone, its shadow rippling along the cobblestones as it winged away under the blazing lights and vanished.
"A grounded swallow," Wolf explained, rejoining them at the curb. "They're the most perfect flying machines. They live their whole lives on the wing and nest in the cornices of the skyscrapers. But on the ground they're helpless. They can't walk. They can't even take off again unless someone throws them back into the air by sheer force. Landing is practically a death sentence." Wolf suddenly got that sheepish look Sacha had seen him wear when he thought he'd said something too personal—though Sacha couldn't figure out what was so personal about the flying habits of swallows. "Anyway, saving a swallow is supposed to be good luck. And right now we need all the luck we can get."
They didn't have any trouble finding the address Mary had given them. The sign over the door of the building was neither the tallest nor the newest on the Bowery, but it was by far the longest. In fact, it was so notorious that Sacha could have recited it to Lily without even looking at it: MANDELBROT'S AETHERO-THERA
PEUTIC INSTITUTE AND DIME MUSEUM.
As they approached the museum, he could hear the practiced patter of the museum's barker promising geeks and egg cranks and tattooed marvels and waxwork figures. Last but not least on the list of attractions was Madame Worley and her mysterious Soul Catcher.
Wolf bought three tickets and handed the change to one of the beggars who seemed to be drawn to him by some kind of invisible magnetic force. Then they ran the gauntlet of freaks and spectacles. And then they were standing at the back of a half-empty theater whose stage was occupied by a tired-looking middle-aged woman and a machine just like the one they'd seen in Morgaunt's library.
The show had just ended. The audience was getting to their feet, muttering and rubbing their eyes and searching for hats and gloves. Sacha didn't get the feeling that the performance had been a success. Wolf waited until everyone had filed out, and then strode down the aisle and stepped onto the stage.
Mrs. Worley, who had already started to pack away her machine, stopped and shook her head. "The money's all gone." She sounded like she'd said the words so many times they no longer meant anything to her. "You'll have to go to Ossining and put your name on the creditors' list."
"I'm not here about money," Wolf told her. "I'm here about your husband's murder."
Mrs. Worley stared.
"So," Wolf said, "you do believe he was murdered."
"Who are jou?" she whispered. But when he showed her his badge, her face twisted with bitterness at the sight of it. "You're wasting your time, Inquisitor. Unless you want to be out of a job tomorrow, I suggest you forget you ever saw me."
"Why don't you just tell me what happened?"
She sighed, and her shoulders slumped a little—but only a little. She was the kind of woman who'd had good posture drilled into her since childhood, and she wasn't about to give it up merely because she was widowed and bankrupt and putting on a glorified magic show in a Bowery dime museum.
"They came with compliments and flattery," she said. "In a big, long, shiny motorcar. They offered my husband more money than he'd ever seen in his life. Far too much to refuse. No matter what conditions they put on it. It was only later that we realized the money was cursed."
"Wall Street Wizardry?"
"Of the subtlest kind, Inquisitor. Nothing you could ever prove even with an army of accountants. They took everything we had. And then they took my husband and replaced him with that ... that thing."
Wolf leaned forward intently.
"Oh, yes. My husband was murdered, all right. He was murdered two days before he committed suicide."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm his wife. You think I wouldn't know the difference?" She shuddered. "What was that thing, anyway?"
"A dybbuk. Or something very like one. Is it possible that your husband's machine could have been used to manufacture it?"
Lily gasped. But Mrs. Worley just laughed. "Wherever did you get such a ridiculous idea?"
"Is it so ridiculous?"
"Of course! I've read all the newspaper articles about Edison's etherograph over and over again. It's just my husband's machine dressed up with some new bells and whistles. It's a harmless toy. This idea of theirs about fingerprinting magical criminals is quite distasteful, of course. But manufacturing dybbuks? No, Inquisitor. I know the machine inside and out, and that's quite impossible."
"Perhaps Edison added some other component—"
"There's nothing you could add that could change it into what you're describing. Look, I'll show you how it works if you don't believe me." She smiled at Wolf's apprehensive expression. "I assure you, it's perfectly safe."
Wolf sat down stoically in the chair she offered him, stretching out his long legs as if he expected to be a while. Mrs. Worley flicked a few switches. The machine hummed to life. The spindle turned, and the wax cylinder began to spin. And then ... nothing. The needle hovered without descending. The fluted trumpet speaker was silent. As far as Worley's machine was concerned, Wolf's chair could have been empty.
"There's a problem," Wolf said.
"Yes. But it's not with the machine. It's with you. I think it has to do with having magical powers." She bit her tongue, obviously worried she had offended him. "Not that I mean to be impertinent, Mr. Wolf. But you being an Inquisitor, well, one naturally assumes..."
"You think I'm resisting the device."
"It's probably something Inquisitors learn to do naturally, dealing with magical criminals the way you do. But if you can just ... well ... let it happen?"
Wolf leaned back in his chair. "Mrs. Worley, I surrender myself to you entirely."
She started the machine up again. This time Wolf seemed to be listening intently for some sound no one else could hear. He must have heard it because after a moment he smiled and blinked in surprise. And then he laughed softly to himself and opened his hands in the same quick gesture with which he had freed the grounded swallow.
In that instant the needle sprang to life, and the Soul Catcher began to play the same unearthly music they'd heard in Morgaunt's library.
But where that song had been excruciating, this one was ... riveting. It was impossible to stop listening, just like it was impossible to stop staring when you rode the Elevated right past people's living room windows. Suddenly Sacha knew things about Wolf that he never would have guessed at ... things he really didn't have any right to know. He felt embarrassed, like he'd been caught stealing something.
"There," Mrs. Worley said at last, switching the machine off. "Harmless, see?"
"But rather unnerving." Wolf swiped the back of his sleeve across his brow. He looked pale and clammy and even more disheveled than usual.
"That's just because of your being—you know. Ordinary people actually find it rather pleasant. Just as they enjoy admiring themselves in a mirror or looking at old photographs. Vanity, I suppose. But, as I said, quite harmless."
"And that's it?" Wolf asked.
"That's it." Mrs. Worley pulled the little gold and white cylinder out of the machine. "If Edison has made the machine into anything more than a parlor toy, then he's invented something new, and I wouldn't know enough to help you. Would you like your recording, though?" she asked when she noticed that Wolf was still frowning at it. "As a souvenir?"
"Thank you," Wolf said gravely. He took the cylinder and slipped it into his pocket.
Wolf seemed to recover his composure rapidly after that. He decided he wanted to see the machine in action again, and when Lily volunteered to sit for it, he didn't argue. Worley's machine had no trouble recording Lily, though the tune it played back was sweet and wistful and disarmingly un-Lily-like. Sacha gazed at her, searching her face for a hint of this hidden gentleness.
"What are you looking at?" she snapped.
"Nothing!" What on earth had he been thinking? Lily Astral wasn't sweet or sad or gentle. And if Worley's ridiculous machine made her sound that way, then what better proof did you need that it was all a load of hooey?
"And anyway," Lily prodded, "it's your turn now, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't think I really—" Sacha began.
But then he noticed that Wolf had suddenly gone all vague and bland and absentminded. Wolf wanted him to do this. And resisting would only make Wolf start wondering about the very things Sacha least wanted him to think about.
"Sure," he said, trying to sound nonchalant.
He sat down. The chair seemed to creak unnaturally loudly under his weight. Mrs. Worley turned the machine back on. It whirred and clicked for what seemed like an eternity. The cylinder spun. The needle hovered, and...
"That's odd," Mrs. Worley said.
Wolf leaned over her shoulder. "Is he doing the same thing I did?"
"No. And the machine's working perfectly. You saw how well it recorded Miss Astral just now. It's just—well—it's almost as if—"
"Almost as if what?"
"As if there's nothing there to record."
Sacha stared at Mrs. Worley, trying to comprehend h
er words. He felt numb. He tried to work out what she meant, but all the ideas that occurred to him were so horrifying that he flinched away from them before the thoughts even had a chance to form in his mind.
"Sacha?"
Sacha jumped. How many times had Wolf said his name before he noticed?
"Sacha? Are you all right?"
He looked into Wolf's eyes and saw a depth of sympathy there that he would never have imagined possible if he hadn't just heard the man's soul turned into music.
He had a swift, startlingly vivid image of Wolf snatching him out of danger and throwing him up to safety just as he'd done for the grounded swallow. For one dizzying moment, he thought of confessing everything. Then he thought of Morgaunt's laughing threats and the towering walls of Sing Sing and the sinister Semitic face of the Kabbalist in Edison's etherograph ads. Wolf was a good man, but he was still an Inquisitor. Telling him wouldn't solve Sacha's problems. It would only hurt the people Sacha loved.
"I'm fine," he lied.
Sacha had no idea how he made it back outside without being sick to his stomach. He could see Wolf and Lily staring at him. He could see the questions and doubts and suspicions swirling behind Wolf's eyes. But it felt like he was stuck at the bottom of a well and they were much too far away to reach him.
Wolf ushered the two children into the cab, muttering something about having to apologize to their mothers for keeping them out so late. Sacha looked longingly down the Bowery toward Hester Street, only a few short blocks away. But he was trapped in his lie, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He was cold and weary and footsore by the time he finally turned onto Hester Street. To his relief, everything looked normal. The street was quiet at this time of night, but there were still scattered signs of life on the front stoops and fire escapes. Sacha slowed his pace a little, figuring that now he could take the time to catch his breath before he went inside.
And then he felt it. That same swirling, sinking motion he'd sensed in Morgaunt's library, when he'd felt like all the magic in New York was spiraling down into Morgaunt's golden glass of Scotch. Only now there seemed to be no center to the whirlpool. Just the bleak, aimless, drifting rattle of dead leaves scattering before a storm.
The Inquisitor's Apprentice Page 16