Some time later, the echo of footsteps interrupted my reading. The bizarre architecture of the library meant sound had a way of echoing oddly, making it impossible to tell how near or far the walker might be. I grabbed the heaviest tome out of my stack and held it tightly, just in case my visitor proved to be Mr. Quinn, come to strangle me under the influence of a symbol on a piece of paper.
When Griffin appeared at last from behind the stacks, I almost sagged with relief. My arms ached from holding the heavy book up, and I dropped it to the table with a loud thud.
“Hello,” he said, a bit uncertainly as he eyed the book.
“Sorry. After…well. My imagination has run away with me,” I admitted.
“So I see. How is your research coming?”
“Quite well.” I wished I dared risk kissing him, but who knew if one of the librarians might be near. “And your morning?”
“A profitable few hours spent at City Hall.”
“City Hall?”
“Tell me of your progress first; then I shall tell you of mine.”
“As you wish.” I cast a wary glance about for Mr. Quinn, but saw nothing to suggest he might be eavesdropping. “I’ve been looking through the Unaussprechlichen Kulten for any information on the Eyes of Nodens.”
“And did you find anything?”
“Fragmentary hints and veiled suggestions, for the most part. Von Junzt believed the cult existed from ancient times, its name changing from place to place depending on the local dialect and deities. The one thing all iterations have in common is the worshippers believe themselves to act as the conduit through which their god—or gods, perhaps—can sense what passes on land. The god watches through their eyes, hears through their ears…and, when necessary, acts through their hands. It communicates with them through dreams. Supposedly, it also sings to the mad.”
“Hmm.” Griffin’s brow furrowed. “Didn’t I read something in the paper just a few days ago? Yes, I remember—the night of the murder! There was a disturbance at the asylum, with the patients screaming in their sleep.”
What of the strange dreams I’d had? The things glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, the salty tang of the ocean…
No. My dreams had nothing to do with whatever monstrous thing sang to its followers from the depths of the sea. I was neither a cultist nor a madman. Any odd night terrors were merely the product of interrupted sleep, mingled with the stress of the case.
“What of your morning?” I said, hoping to turn the conversation to something else.
“Ernest spoke of seeing Zeiler socially. It stood to reason the good doctor might have somewhere in town to stay,” Griffin replied. “And, possibly, to have the sort of clandestine meetings he couldn’t conduct in his apartments at Stormhaven. I went through the deeds at City Hall and discovered he bought a house in Widdershins only six months ago.”
“And you mean to break in and search it for anything incriminating.”
“Of course.” Griffin clapped me on the arm, before rising from his chair. “Let us find Christine and discover if she is willing to undertake a bit of law-breaking this weekend.”
Chapter 11
As it proved, Christine was indeed willing to join us on Saturday night. First, however, we had to get through the dinner with Griffin’s family.
Our destination was Le Calmar, the fanciest restaurant in Widdershins, so when Griffin and I dressed for the evening, we both paid careful attention to our wardrobe. Griffin, of course, looked handsome in anything, but I had to work at it.
My hair, in particular, posed problems; it had the awful tendency to stick in every direction, as if I’d forgotten to comb it. A judicious application of macassar oil could tame it for a while, and Griffin kindly offered to assist me.
Accordingly, I sat in the chair in front of him, as if he were a barber, and he laid a towel across my shoulders to protect my suit from the oil. Before beginning, he ran his fingers through my unruly locks, and I sighed in pleasure at his touch.
“You look very handsome,” he murmured. “I can’t wait to have you back here tonight, alone with me. It will make putting up with poor Ruth’s lovelorn sighs worth it.”
“Is she very taken with you, then?” I asked, as he pulled back and began to comb my hair into place.
“Me?” He chuckled. “Didn’t you notice? I rather fear you’ll break her heart. Father worries you’re a cad poised to take advantage of an innocent farm girl, while Mother sees Ruth’s future made.”
“Dear lord!” That explained the strange way in which his parents had reacted at the museum. “Miss Kerr strikes me as an intelligent young woman, and we had a serious discussion of Latin. There is far more to her than simply who she might marry. Besides, I thought…well. They hoped you would become her suitor.”
“So no tossing me aside for a respectable wedding?” he teased.
“You know better. Besides, Father would be horrified if I married some penniless country girl. Whom one weds is even more important than if.”
“Poor Ruth. She does seem very nice. And, as you said, intelligent.”
“Yes.” I hesitated. “Have you…have you ever been with a woman?”
His hands stilled. “Do you truly want an answer?”
“I take it that means ‘yes.’”
He resumed combing. “After I left Kansas, I was…desperate, shall we say, to prove myself normal. To convince myself the indiscretion with Benjamin merely resulted from never having had the opportunity with a woman. So I hired a prostitute at the first station we came to.”
“Oh.” This tale had turned sordid more quickly than I’d expected. Although given what little I knew of his adventures in Chicago, particularly in the bathhouses, it was probably rather tame in comparison. “And you, er, enjoyed the act?”
Griffin applied more oil to a particularly stubborn lock. “What is a food you don’t particularly care for, but everyone else seems to love?” he asked nonsensically.
“Apples,” I said.
“Apples? Really?” He laughed. “I am very fond of apples, myself. So if you and I shared an apple pie, I would very much enjoy the entire experience, beyond the simple fact of food giving nourishment to my body. As for you, of course it would sustain your health if choked down, but you would be left wishing it had been…”
“Raspberry.”
“…raspberry instead.”
“I see.” And I thought I did. “And after…?”
“Informants I needed to charm. Nothing detrimental to the lady in question, I assure you. I am not quite such a scoundrel as to take advantage in such a fashion, and I parted with them all on excellent terms and, I believe, to their satisfaction. Why do you want to know?”
“Oh…no reason.” Did he find Ruth attractive even if, as he said, he might prefer something else?
“Hmm.” He didn’t sound as if he believed me, but he let the matter drop. Whisking away the towel, he said, “There. You look extraordinary. I shall have to do battle with both the women and the waiters at Le Calmar for you.”
I blushed. Why did he feel the need to say such things? I was quite aware I possessed no great beauty; quite the opposite, in fact. Only he had ever noticed me. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“You’re welcome.” He stepped in front of me and leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine. “And tonight, once we are home again, I shall make a wreck of your hair. When you look across the table during dinner and meet my eyes, know I’ll be imagining stripping off your clothes and flinging you onto our bed, to touch and suck you until you beg for release.”
I made a small sound of protest. “We’re going to dinner with your parents!”
“Then your night will at least be interesting.” He withdrew. “I had best go to their hotel and collect them. And Ruth.”
“I’ll bring the book for her.”
“And you call me a trouble maker.” But he said it fondly. “I will see you and Christine in an hour.”
“Goodbye,
” I said, and tilted my head back for a kiss. But he’d turned away without noticing, and I merely sat and listened to the door close behind him.
~ * ~
Christine’s boarding house was close enough to the restaurant to walk, and the weather mild enough to allow it. She met me on the curb, looking rather impatient. She wore a fashionable dress, which meant sleeves large enough to contain a small child, and an enormous, feathered hat. “Let us get this farce over with, shall we?” she asked upon seeing me.
I offered her my arm, and she sighed loudly before taking it for appearances’ sake. “Look upon it as a chance to show Miss Kerr what a woman may accomplish,” I suggested.
“A good point. It would be a better one, if the Kerrs did not believe you and I were courting.”
“The assumption is entirely their fault, not ours.”
“You are a dreadful liar. Or you don’t fully appreciate Griffin’s devious nature.”
I remained silent out of loyalty. Christine rolled her eyes but let the matter drop, instead choosing to turn the conversation to the director’s absurd decision to allocate more funds to the American History Wing and, therefore, Bradley. By the time we were through abusing the director, the trustees, and of course Bradley, we arrived at the restaurant.
Our timing was, for once, excellent. As we approached, a carriage pulled up at the corner and disgorged Griffin, his parents, and Miss Kerr. They greeted us enthusiastically, Griffin shaking my hand as if we hadn’t parted less than an hour ago. I was extremely impressed by Christine’s fortitude when she refrained from making some sarcastic remark.
Mr. Kerr took his wife’s arm, which left Griffin paired with Ruth. There was no reason to be jealous, I reminded myself as we followed them inside. And I wasn’t, not of Ruth, anyway. She seemed quite a lovely person, and I had no quarrel with her. But Griffin seemed so relaxed, so normal, as her escort.
The two of us had eaten dinner together in public, many times. But never…like this.
“Oh, do stop scowling, Whyborne,” Christine ordered.
“Forgive me.” I reordered my expression hastily.
Fortunately, the waiter seated us immediately. It had been some time since I’d set foot in Le Calmar; had it been for Stanford’s eighteenth birthday? Things had changed, of course, but for the most part it matched my memory: a large room filled with tables, each bearing a pristine white tablecloth and extravagant centerpiece. Waiters in white suit coats glided between the tables, pushing carts laden with covered dishes. A mixture of cologne, sweat, and cooked beef mingled with the perfume wafting from the roses and lilies in the centerpieces. The enormous windows looked out on River Street, and Mrs. Kerr let out a cry of delight when the electric street lights came on outside.
Christine ended up seated between Griffin and me, with Mrs. Kerr to my right, Mr. Kerr on her other side, and Ruth across from me. “Look at all the forks, Ma!” Mr. Kerr exclaimed.
“One uses them from the outside in,” Griffin advised. “Shall we have champagne with our meal?”
“Please,” Christine said, a bit too quickly.
Griffin ordered champagne, and I began to wonder just how much he intended to spend tonight. Our combined incomes kept us comfortably situated, and we didn’t go out much so we had a little money set aside, but this lavish meal would certainly put a strain on our coffers. Like the Pinkertons who had trained him, Griffin charged a per-day fee and expenses for his cases, which meant he wouldn’t receive a handsome reward should he somehow manage to clear Allan of the murder charges. Which, perhaps, was just as well, as such an outcome seemed increasingly unlikely.
The first course, chicken and leek soup, arrived and our glasses were filled. “A toast,” Griffin said, raising his glass. “To friends and family.”
Christine downed her champagne in a single gulp and motioned the hovering waiter for more. Fortunately, the Kerrs didn’t seem to notice.
It seemed a good opportunity to offer Ruth the Latin primer; I pulled it from my coat and passed it across the table. “The book I promised, Miss Kerr. I hope you find it interesting.” That sounded neutral enough, didn’t it? Friendly but certainly not flirtatious. I couldn’t even do flirtatious with Griffin.
“Oh!” She seemed surprised I remembered, and her cheeks went bright pink. “I, er, th-thank you, sir.”
“So, Dr. Whyborne,” Mrs. Kerr asked as we set into the first course, “what church do you attend?”
I choked on my soup. Christine helpfully pounded me on the back. “Er, um, First Esoteric,” I said, when I recovered. I’d been christened there, anyway.
“Oh.” Mrs. Kerr frowned a little. “Is that like Episcopalian?”
“It’s a small denomination,” Griffin said helpfully. “A few churches here, in Arkham, and Kingsport.”
“So we won’t see you at services on Sunday?” she asked, sounding disappointed.
“No.”
“I belong to First Esoteric as well,” Christine said quickly, which was an utter lie since I didn’t think the church allowed non-Widdershins natives to even attend services, let alone join.
“Oh, you and Dr. Whyborne know each other from church?” Mr. Kerr said, as if he’d been wondering. Didn’t the man realize we worked together?
“Yes,” Christine said. “Parson, um…?”
“High Priest Thornhill,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth.
“Yes. His sermons are quite invigorating.”
“The tiaras are most impressive,” I added.
Everyone else stared at us as if we’d grown extra heads. Didn’t most preachers wear tiaras? Since my greatest religious feeling had come as a small child building altars to Pan and Bacchus, I didn’t really know for certain.
“Yes,” Christine said, stabbing the soup with her spoon. “The tiaras are excellent.”
“So, what do you think of Widdershins thus far?” Griffin asked his parents hurriedly. The waiters took away our soup and brought the next course, filet of beef and celery salad.
Apparently, they liked our town a great deal, which took us through the rest of the course and into the next, canvasback duck served with French peas. The champagne continued to flow, albeit mostly into Christine.
Some of it must have been going in Griffin as well, because halfway through the course, I glanced up to find him looking at me with a sly expression on his face. Seeing I’d noticed, he scooped up some of the peas and sucked them down one at a time in a suggestive manner.
I transferred my gaze to my plate, ears afire. Yet I couldn’t help but look again, to find him licking some of the sauce from his knife.
The man was determined to be the death of me.
“Tell us about your work, Dr. Whyborne,” Mr. Kerr said.
I jumped guiltily. What the devil had Griffin been thinking? My cheeks ached with heat, and other places ached as well, and dear lord, we were at dinner with his family and Christine. “Wh-what?” I stammered like an idiot.
Thankfully, Mr. Kerr didn’t seem to notice. “Did you do the excavating over in Egypt?”
Beside me, Christine stiffened. “Er, no,” I said. “I don’t leave Widdershins much, if I can help it. Christine is the archaeologist, not I.”
“Right, right, but who does the actual, you know, work?”
I closed my eyes. At least the threat of imminent death cured me of my untoward arousal.
“I have a large force of trained local men,” Christine said frostily. “They do the heavy lifting, but I assure you I am very familiar with the workings of a shovel.”
“Yes, but who directs them?”
I opened my eyes to see Christine’s smile grow increasingly brittle. “I do, of course,” she said, biting off every word.
“But you don’t actually live out in the desert with them.”
“And why the devil shouldn’t I?”
All the Kerrs flinched at her language. I drained my glass of champagne and signaled to the waiter for more, wishing I could discreetly ask hi
m to leave the bottle.
“What Christine means,” Griffin said, “is she directs the excavations in their entirety, from deciding on a location to dig, to supervising the packing and loading of any artifacts removed. Of course it means she must endure some hardships, but nothing more than any other scientist in such a distant locale.”
The Kerrs stared at her as if she were on display at the freak show. “The museum is cruel enough to ask a woman to do such work?” Mr. Kerr asked in horror.
“Indeed.” Christine stuck her fork into the duck on her plate, then gave a sudden, somewhat alarming, grin. “The greatest hardship is the food, of course. Let me tell you about it.”
In truth, I knew Christine rather enjoyed most Arabic cooking, but as with any foreign people, they had a great many dishes which sounded alarming to an American palate. I’d heard it all before, from the boiled sheep’s head—eyeballs still in place—to spit-roasted whole camel, to what happened when flies—or rather, their maggoty offspring—found the perishable foodstuffs. I simply ignored her while I ate. From the greenish hue on their faces, neither the Kerrs nor Griffin found themselves able to follow my example.
The waiters brought the dessert course of pistachio ice cream and fruit, just as Christine ran out of steam. “Quite the story,” Mrs. Kerr said with a pale smile. “How relieved you’ll be to give it up.”
Christine’s spoon clinked loudly against the side of her ice cream bowl. “Give it up?” she asked, brows drawing down. “Why should I do that?”
Mr. Kerr chuckled. “Well, I don’t expect Dr. Whyborne will put up with such nonsense.”
If the man hated me, couldn’t he simply challenge me to a duel? I started to make a stupid reply, but glanced up and saw Ruth watching me with a curious expression on her face, as if my answer actually meant something to her.
“My affection for Christine is predicated only on who she is, not on society’s view of who she should be,” I said, which was nothing but the truth. “As I trust hers is for me.”
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 58