The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Murdered?” Mr. Holloway’s face had turned as pale as curd, and his hands trembled as he reached up to fiddle with his spectacles. He looked as though he would faint at any moment. “All of them?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Mr. Taylor was as gentle as a soldier breaking news of a wife’s death to her husband. “You didn’t know this?”

  “I knew they were dead.” Mr. Holloway’s voice grew yet fainter, and his fingers fluttered on his spectacles. “My bank informed me that I wouldn’t be receiving further payments from them. But I thought . . . they were old . . .” His voice trailed to a stop, and his eyes widened, as though taking in a new thought.

  Mr. Taylor voiced the thought for him. “Sir, I have been in touch with the women’s prison about these killings. Upon being questioned on this topic, your wife has confessed that she had heard of your benefactors’ murders, but, believing that you had no part in them, she concealed the news from you, so as not to grieve you.”

  Barrett, who was standing near the junior Seeker, gave him a sharp look. Mr. Holloway’s wife had also been the one who had decided to conceal the bloody knife, and had then changed her mind and persuaded her husband that they should inform the soldiers of the evidence. After eight murders and an attempted murder, had she begun to lose faith in her husband’s innocence?

  Barrett set aside the matter in his mind. He could not judge her actions; hers was not a comfortable position for any woman of virtue to be placed in. It might well be that her doubts had lingered for some time now, and only this latest murder attempt – with its clear evidence that her husband had been involved – had led her to break her silence. Even then, she had not spoken about the previous murders to the soldiers searching her until she had been directly questioned about them.

  None of this, it appeared, was going through Mr. Holloway’s mind, for he was shaking his head and saying in a sorrowful voice, “She has always sought to protect me, but she ought to have known that I would want to hear of the unhappy fates of the men who had shown me such kindness and generosity. As it is—” His throat-ball bobbed as he swallowed. “You say that these murders all occurred on the nights I had my headaches?”

  “Yes. Do you have any memory of what you did on those nights?”

  Mr. Holloway shook his head. Removing his spectacles with trembling hands, he began to wipe the steam off them with his handkerchief.

  “The last of these murders was many weeks ago.” Mr. Taylor’s voice remained gentle. “It’s understandable that your memory of those times would be faint.”

  “I—” Mr. Holloway stared down at the glass lenses; he was blinking rapidly now. “It is not because I have forgotten those times. The murder of the Duke of Fincastle . . . that occurred on my birthday. I remember that day clearly.”

  “But not the night?” came Mr. Taylor’s soft reply.

  “No.” Mr. Holloway’s voice was shaking now. “No, all I remember is the headache. And waking up early the next morning because . . . because a stray cat had entered the house and found his way into the cold pantry, where we keep the milk. Either my wife or I had left the house’s front door ajar, you see. Yet we were both sure we had checked that it was locked before we went to our separate beds.”

  Mr. Phelps – who had taken great care to keep his dagger sheathed when visiting this breaking cell for the past month – winced as Mr. Holloway completed his testimony. Only long training kept Barrett from doing the same. Hell-damned and hell-damned and hell-damned . . . every word that Mr. Holloway spoke provided evidence of his probable guilt.

  Yet would probability alone be enough evidence for Mr. Taylor? For what evidence did they truly have? Only that Mr. Holloway could have committed the murder – not that he had, but that he could have. And the only evidence they possessed that he was of a murderous temperament was a single attack they had witnessed. Would that one attack be enough to convince Mr. Taylor of his guilt?

  Polishing his spectacles over and over as he stared down at them, Mr. Holloway said, “I could not believe that I would undertake such an act . . . but I would not have believed that I would use violence against a man of the law, and you say that I tried to attack your guard last month.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holloway.” The junior Seeker now sounded as though he were consoling the grieving widower. “All three of us saw it happen. I know that it must be hard for you to trust the word of strangers . . .”

  “No, sir.” Mr. Holloway shook his head vigorously. “No, sir. I do not doubt your word. No man who had evil intentions toward me would have taken the trouble that you have taken to explore all avenues for my innocence. I . . . this is just a great shock for me. I don’t understand how I could have done such a thing, and to such fine men.” A tear escaped his control; he ignored it, polishing the glass so hard that Barrett felt sure Mr. Holloway would grind the lenses.

  “I can understand that, Mr. Holloway.” Still soft, still cradling his prisoner with his words. “I do not in any way intend to suggest that you deliberately set out to commit these murders. I have asked our healer to come and examine you. It may be that she will be able to shed more light on this mystery.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mr. Holloway’s voice was broken now. “Of course, I will be glad to be examined by anyone you wish—” His fingers tightened on the lenses, and in the next moment, they slipped out of his handkerchief, landed on the floor, and shattered.

  Mr. Phelps stepped back in an automatic manner; several pieces of glass had shot in his direction. Mr. Taylor, more cool under fire, merely glanced quickly down to ascertain that none of the shards had landed on his trousers. “Please don’t touch the glass, Mr. Holloway; you might cut yourself. Mr. Phelps, would you kindly fetch a broom and pan and see that this is swept up? Mr. Boyd—”

  Barrett barely took in what he was saying. He was watching Mr. Holloway, who was staring at the glass at his feet, and whose breathing had turned rapid.

  Barrett realized what was going to happen in the same moment that it happened. “Sir, back!” he cried, and reached for his whip.

  Mr. Taylor – showing an alertness that would have saved him under fire on the battlefield – immediately took several steps back, but he was too late. Diving with inhuman speed, Mr. Holloway picked up a piece of glass and ran toward the nearest man, which was his Seeker.

  Mr. Phelps immediately hurried forward to intercept the prisoner. Barrett let loose with his whip. Neither of them was in time. With a strangled sound, Mr. Taylor staggered back, his hands over his hooded face, blood seeping through his fingers.

  Cursing, Mr. Phelps thrust the Seeker out of danger’s way and turned to face the attacker. He had his dagger out, but there was no need. Barrett’s lash caught the prisoner full on the back, and as the man screamed in pain, Barrett took three long strides forward. Repeating the same movement he had made five weeks before, he knocked Mr. Holloway unconscious with the hilt of his dagger.

  There was a moment of silence, broken by the soft thump of Mr. Holloway’s body hitting the floor. Guttural noises were emerging from Mr. Taylor, as though he were holding back screams. Barrett snapped, “Healer,” and Mr. Phelps turned and raced from the cell, his dagger still naked in his hand.

  Boyd took a swift glance at Mr. Holloway, duty-bound as he was to go first to his prisoner’s aid. But Mr. Holloway appeared to be breathing, and Boyd was far more worried by the blood trickling through Mr. Taylor’s hands. Taking the junior Seeker by the arm, he steered him through the cell door that Mr. Phelps had left open, locked the door behind them, and began to carefully pry Mr. Taylor’s hands from his face.

  Mr. Taylor did not resist this procedure, though he was trembling as hard as Mr. Holloway had before the attack. Barrett had a moment to be grateful for the dungeon’s new electric lights. Mr. Holloway’s breaking cell was located at the end of the dungeon next to the rack rooms; all of the cells nearby were cleared for renovation. If he had been at the entry-hall end of the dungeon, Barrett might have been standing in near
darkness, trying to see in the soft, wavering light of the old oil lamps.

  He glanced briefly down the rest of the corridor to ascertain that nobody was near – certain habits were hard to kill – before lifting the torn front flap of his Seeker’s hood.

  Some guards, such as Mr. Sobel, treated the first sight of their Seeker’s face as a matter of great momentousness. As far as Barrett was concerned, a hood was a piece of clothing like any other; under normal circumstances, he would have been no more moved to see Elsdon Taylor’s bare face for the first time than he would have been if he had first glimpsed the Seeker’s bare arm. These were not normal circumstances, however. His breath paused as he took out his clean handkerchief and tentatively dabbed at the blood.

  A minute passed before he could be sure of what he saw. Then he let his breath escape in a sigh.

  “How bad is it?” Mr. Taylor, understandably, sounded more like a frightened schoolboy than like a Seeker. His eyes were screwed shut, his eyelids covered with blood.

  “Only the healer will be able to say for certain, sir, but he missed your eyes. The wound on your temple looks shallow—”

  But Mr. Taylor’s eyes had flown open at his first words. “You’ve called for the healer?”

  “Yes, sir.” Barrett heard the puzzlement in his own voice. “Mr. Phelps has gone to fetch her—”

  “No!” It was nearly a shout; Mr. Taylor had gone rigid.

  Barrett stared at him; then, belatedly, he understood. Without a word, he turned to race after Mr. Phelps.

  He was too late, though. By the time he reached the corridor that ended at the door to the healer’s surgery, Mr. Phelps had already been intercepted and was pouring out his story – not to the healer, but to the High Seeker, whose stance was as motionless as that of the Vovimian god of hell, deciding which instrument of torture to use first.