There came another scrape, closer, like a crab shell on stone. No, I was only making the comparison thanks to the blasphemous carvings. They’d put the idea in my head.
It was just a bear. Or a mountain lion. Or—
The rope fell back down to me. “Whyborne! Grab hold!”
I dropped the lantern and ran for the rope. Footsteps sounded behind me, and I grabbed the rope with all my strength. “Go! Go!”
They hauled me up immediately. But I was only a short distance off the floor, when a hand wrapped around my ankle.
I let out a cry of alarm and looked down. A young man who seemed vaguely familiar clung to my foot, adding his weight to mine. “Let go!” I cried, but his eyes were flat and black, more like the unmoved gaze of an insect than the desperate stare of anything human.
I tried kicking him in the face with my other foot, but with all my weight on my arms, my strength failed. I fell heavily to the stone floor, sending great spikes of pain into my hip and shoulder. And still he clung to my ankle, trying to draw me back, deeper into the cave.
“Whyborne!” Christine shouted. “Don’t move!”
I went limp. An instant later, her rifle spoke, deafeningly loud in the close confines of the cave. My assailant jerked, blood bursting free from his throat. His grip loosened on me, and he collapsed to one side, gurglingly loudly.
The stench of ammonia was overwhelming.
Griffin and Christine both yelled at me to return to the rope. But I had recognized the young man at last, and I staggered toward him, one hand outstretched.
“Your mother—” I started. But there was no flicker of recognition, of warmth.
Then it was too late, his features shifting from impassivity to the slackness of death. The chemical stench receded, and I sucked in great gulps of air, fighting to breathe and calm my racing heart.
“Whyborne!” Griffin shouted. “Hold on—I’m coming down!”
“No.” I held up my hand, even though my head spun. “We need to get him out of here. Back to Threshold.”
“Why?” Christine asked.
I swallowed against the tightness in my chest. “Going by the photograph we saw, I believe this is Lucas Kincaid.”
Chapter 12
“It ain’t true! He wouldn’t have hurt nobody!”
Mrs. Kincaid’s voice carried through the front window of the Pinkerton barracks, before dissolving into an inconsolable wail. Elliot had ordered his men to bring the body here, after retrieving it from the hillside where we had left it concealed. The lower level of the building contained an iron-barred cell, which served as the town’s jail, Elliot’s office, and a large front room. They’d laid out Lucas in this latter area, before sending for his parents and the company doctor.
“Fredericks, please take Mrs. Kincaid home,” Elliot said. Apparently, Mr. Kincaid had been too sick to leave his bed. A moment later, the door opened and Fredericks led the sobbing woman across the porch. I was deeply glad she didn’t look over to where Griffin, Christine, and I sat amidst the growing darkness. Her cries tore my heart; I couldn’t imagine how she must feel. I glanced at Christine, but she had turned her head away.
“He would have killed me,” I said quietly.
“I know, Whyborne. Don’t be stupid.” She rubbed impatiently at her face.
Elliot stepped out onto the porch, his expression grim. “I’m sorry I abandoned you earlier,” he said. “If I’d imagined anything like this would happen, I would never have left.”
“You had no way of knowing,” Griffin said tiredly.
“Why do you think he attacked us?” I asked Elliot.
Elliot shrugged. “At a guess? He and his brothers found the carvings in the cave while out hunting. They remembered the stone sent to Mr. Stotz and decided it might be valuable. The elder two left to find the stone, and Lucas remained behind to guard their find.”
I recalled Lucas’s impassive expression, far too similar to the look on the faces of his brothers when they’d accosted me. Elliot’s explanation was perfectly reasonable, but I didn’t believe it. The blank-eyed man in the cave barely even seemed like the same person as the laughing, smiling youth in Mrs. Kincaid’s photograph.
From inside, the doctor let out a muffled exclamation. “What the devil?”
Griffin hurried to the door. Elliot swore. “Blast it, Griffin, this is no longer part of your investigation!”
Christine and I followed them inside. The dead man had been laid out on top of a large table, hopefully not one used for dining. A heavy sheet had been placed beneath him to catch any blood. The doctor stood by the body’s head, his skin almost matching the corpse’s in pallor.
“What is it?” Griffin asked.
“I…I was just doing a quick examination, to fill out the death certificate,” the doctor said.
“How much of an examination do you need, man?” Elliot asked indignantly. “I would have thought the gaping hole in his throat would be enough to attest to cause!”
The doctor blinked, but seemed too stunned and confused to properly react to Elliot’s ire. “It was, Mr. Manning. But I have an interest in phrenology. I wondered if there had been any obvious signs as to Kincaid’s criminal nature, and decided to examine his skull. And I found…this.”
He pulled back a section of the dead man’s hair, exposing the scalp. “Bring a lamp,” Griffin ordered. The doctor’s servant fetched one and brought it near enough to see a line of very fine stitches.
“An injury?” I asked, confused.
The doctor said nothing, only continued to pull the hair aside, exposing more sutured skin. The wound—if wound it had been—wrapped in almost a complete circle, all the way around the back of his head. As if someone had tried to scalp him. Or open up his skull.
“Dear God,” Christine breathed. “What could it possibly mean?”
~ * ~
A short while later, I sat in one of the private parlors of Brumfield House, along with Christine and Griffin. We had ordered a bottle of brandy, and sat nursing it in silent, horrified contemplation.
“I must say, gentlemen, I don’t care for any of this,” Christine said at last, breaking our silence.
“Nor do I,” Griffin agreed. “Although I can’t say what any of it means.”
“Someone performed surgery on him,” I said, clasping my hands about my knee. “Not the company doctor, clearly.”
“I can’t imagine there are many practicing surgeons in the wilderness,” Christine mused.
“We know there’s at least one,” Griffin said wryly.
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “You didn’t see the carvings, Griffin. One of them showed a creature cutting into a man’s skull. It can’t be a coincidence.”
Griffin paled. “Why? Did the carvings indicate what it was doing to him?”
“The writing probably did, but I can’t read it. But none of the Kincaids acted at all like the men their mother described. Perhaps whatever procedure was performed on Lucas turned him into a slave of the things—the yayhos. Doubtless it was performed on his brothers as well.”
The line between Griffin’s brows deepened in thought. “Perhaps,” he murmured.
“Even if I’m wrong, the rockfall was deliberate,” I said. “And now we’re attacked by one of the missing men, whose brothers assaulted me in Widdershins? Even if we don’t consider the deaths of Johnson and the boy who brought the stone back to town, it all seems very odd.”
“Yes.” He tilted his head back and frowned. “And Elliot the only survivor.”
A chill touched me. “Do you think he’s involved?”
Griffin chewed on his lower lip, his eyes staring at something far away as he considered. Finally, he shook his head. “No. I’ve known Elliot for too long—his shock when he heard Kincaid attacked us was genuine. Elliot has many faults, to be sure, but he joined the Pinkertons because he truly wished to do good, not just cash a paycheck.”
A soft knock sounded on the open door. A small man with
very large ears stood there, wearing a bowler hat and a suit, which was slightly too big for him, and an enormous camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“Yes?” Christine asked suspiciously.
He tipped his hat to her, then to us. “Toby Webb, from the Threshold Times,” he said. “Reporter and photographer. I’d like to interview you about the shootout, and maybe get a few photographs, Mr. Whyborne.”
“Dr. Whyborne,” I corrected automatically. I disliked his ingratiating smile.
“Of course, of course. Your father is Niles Foster Whyborne, right? The railroad tycoon?”
“And what if he is?” Griffin asked stiffly. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d taken an immediate dislike to our guest.
Webb sidled farther into the sitting room and gave us a little bow. “Word is, Mr. Whyborne sent you lot to Threshold to investigate the mysterious happenings here,” he said, his voice lowered but no less oily.
“Is this for your newspaper article, Mr. Webb?” Griffin met the reporter’s smile with a cool glare.
“Not at all,” Webb replied, undeterred. “In fact, it’s about what Mr. Orme told us not to print.”
I straightened. “What?”
“Thought that would get your attention, Mr.—sorry, Dr. Whyborne. Right after the Kincaid boys disappeared, the dogs sent up a ferocious barking on the end of town nearest the mine. One of the Irishmen who works the coke ovens swore some kind of creature was up on his porch, looking inside. I figured he’d been drinking, but I went out the next morning anyway, and there were the damnedest—pardon my language—prints in the mud outside his house. Not like any animal I’d ever seen. Figured maybe it was them yayhos Rider Hicks was on about, before he ran off. I took some photographs to run in the paper—we’ve got a nice half-tone printer—but Mr. Orme nixed the article. Said he didn’t want us stirring up folks.”
Was this the clue we’d been looking for? “Can we see the photos?”
Webb’s expression grew sly. Curse it—I’d given too much away with my eagerness. “I still have the prints and the negatives,” he said. “I’ll be glad to share them with you…for a price.”
“And what is your price?” Griffin asked, his green eyes narrow.
“Two hundred dollars.”
Griffin laughed. “You’re having quite a joke at our expense. They’re worth fifty at most.”
“One-fifty.”
“Seventy-five.”
Webb glanced at me, then back at Griffin. “Your boss is heir to the biggest railroad in North America.” I wondered if I ought to tell him I wasn’t likely to inherit as much as a dime. “One-twenty five.”
“Seventy-five,” Griffin said severely. “Take it, or we go to the editor at the newspaper and demand they be handed over for nothing.”
Webb scowled, but nodded. “Done. Meet me here for lunch tomorrow, and I’ll bring them with me.”
“I don’t have seventy-five dollars!” I exclaimed, when the photographer had left.
“No, but your father agreed to pay expenses. He’ll pay for this.” Griffin glanced down at my muddy oxfords. “And for a proper pair of boots.”
~ * ~
The next morning, Griffin and I left Christine and her manuscript ensconced on the hotel veranda, and went out into Threshold. On Griffin’s insistence, we visited the general store, which stood along the railroad tracks. A young man busily swept the porch, and a trio of women conversed nearby, while their children toddled around in the road.
The first floor was dedicated to receiving and storage; we took the stairs up to the second, where the store proper was located. The shelves sagged beneath the usual dry goods: bolts of cloth, hardware for home repair, tools, hats, and carpets. I noted a wide selection of canned food, sweets, coffee, and anything else a denizen of the town was likely to need. Including shoes.
Like everyone else in town, the storekeeper knew my identity and mistook me for the favored son. At least it guaranteed us quick service; within minutes, I found myself trying on a series of thick-soled boots. Griffin, in the meantime, drifted away to chat up the shop boy and the female customers.
When we eventually departed, I sported a brand-new pair of boots. The soles were much thicker than my trusty oxfords, and caused me to tower over everyone else even more than usual. I hunched my shoulders and wished I could disappear.
We spent an hour or so sitting on the store’s porch afterward, loitering about while Griffin did his best to strike up conversation with the passing locals. Although everyone was civil, it soon became clear no one wanted to talk to us.
No wonder. First Johnson died after conversing with me; next, we shot a young man who must have been well known to everyone in the community. Did they think us dangerous, or simply unlucky?
We returned to the hotel just at noon. Both hotel guests and residents from the town came in for lunch, it seemed, although the latter were mainly those who worked at the general store, the livery stable next door, or the newspaper. Christine awaited us at the end of a long table, and we took our seats with her just as the waiters began laying out our meal of pork chops, potatoes, and carrots.
“No sign yet of Mr. Webb,” she reported. “I hope your morning was profitable?”
“Not at all,” I replied gloomily. “Besides obtaining these horrible boots, anyway. I hope you had success working on your manuscript?”
Christine launched into a long explanation of funerary jars, frequently interrupted by outbursts against colleagues who disagreed with either her theories or her methods. I listened with half an ear, nodding and murmuring agreement at the appropriate times, but, for the most part, I kept watch for the newspaperman. Where on earth was he? With the promise of seventy-five dollars in exchange for some photographs we’d not even seen, I could scarcely believe he wouldn’t bother to even meet us.
He did not, however. Lunch soon ended, and under the cover of scraping chairs, I asked, “What should we do next?”
“Perhaps he was detained at the newspaper,” Griffin said. “After all, he could hardly tell his employer he had a meeting to sell the photographs he was ordered to suppress.”
“He could have at least sent word, or thought of some other story,” I objected, but Griffin had a point. Possibly the man was simply rude. He’d certainly seemed it last night.
Leaving Christine to her work, we returned to the streets of Threshold to visit the newspaper office. It sat beside the train depot, no doubt for ease of access to the telegraph office within. As soon as we stepped inside, I felt the floor vibrating from the printing press in the back room. The smoke from cigarettes and pipes mostly obscured the large front room. A typewriter clattered noisily, almost drowning out an argument between two red-faced men. I assumed the loudest one must be the editor.
The only man not engaged in shouting caught sight of us. “Can I help you?” he called over the din of the press.
“We’re looking for Mr. Webb,” Griffin said. “Is he here?”
The man shook his head. “No—haven’t seen him all day. His desk is there.” He stopped typing long enough to wave a hand at a desk directly across from him.
Griffin and I exchanged a glance. “It’s very important we speak with him,” Griffin said. “Can you tell us where he might be?”
“Home, sleeping off the gin?” The man shrugged. “He’s married, so he doesn’t stay in the boarding house with the rest of us.”
A bit more badgering on Griffin’s part elicited the location of Webb’s house. Once we were back outside where we could hear ourselves think, I said, “Do you think he’s right and Webb stayed home?”
“He seems the type of have celebrated a windfall before actually having it in his pocket,” Griffin said. “Let’s hope his colleague was correct, and he’s merely suffering from a hangover.”
Webb’s domicile was a small, single-story structure built on the same plan as the worker housing. The location, however, was relatively pleasant. The house stood on the uppermost edge of the
cleared area, far enough away from the creek to keep down the stink. There was a bit more space between itself and its neighbors as well, and a small garden occupied the rear of the lot.
The trees loomed close enough to cast shadows over the walls, and I welcomed an escape from the sun. The humidity still made my clothing stick uncomfortably to my skin. Buzzing insects whined in my ears. I hoped Mrs. Webb would offer us a cool drink before our walk back.
I stared to step onto the porch, but Griffin abruptly caught hold of my arm. “Hold up. Something is wrong.”
Startled, I examined the structure more closely. Smeared mud tracked across the porch, and the front door hung open, although only by an inch.
Griffin drew his revolver. “Stay behind me,” he warned.
The wooden boards of the porch creaked beneath his feet, the sound unnervingly loud. Moving slowly, he pressed his eye to the crack between door and jamb. All his muscles tensed, and he flung the door open, sending it crashing back into the wall.
Only silence greeted us, broken by the soft creak of the door as it started to swing back again.
“Damn it,” Griffin said.
We entered the house. A foul odor thickened the air, as if someone had spilled a bottle of ammonia and neglected to clean it up. The single, large room, which took up the front half of the house, was a ruin: drawers pulled free from the desk and papers scattered everywhere.
Two rooms formed the rear of the house: a kitchen and dining room, and a bedroom. The bed had been overturned, the mattress torn and shredded in places. A low, flat trunk lay near the door, its lock bent and broken as if it had been violently ripped open. Whatever had been inside the trunk was gone now.
Of Toby Webb and his wife, there was no sign.
Chapter 13
“Griffin,” I began, then trailed off. That someone had ransacked the house looking for the photos seemed evident. As for the former occupants…
Griffin’s mouth thinned into a taut line, and his gaze took on a steely quality as he surveyed the wreckage. He went to the bed, inspecting the rents in the mattress, before dropping to his knees to peer carefully at the floor.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 37