"I'm well aware of it," said St. Ives.

"I'd wager a small sum that your knowledge is trifling. Suffice it to say that Clara Wright, who has magnificent hydroscopic powers, found De Salles's head buried several feet beneath the sandy bottom of a riverbed in your small corner of the Empire. The head had been preserved by Sarah Wright in a cunning manner his life, that is, his faculties. Ironically, it would have been better for her to incinerate the head, if indeed the intention was to eradicate the man's spirit. That puts me in mind again of poor Harrow, who will soon begin to stink, I'm afraid."

He picked up the head of James Harrow, clutching it by the ears, and carried it to the furnace, where Willis Pule raised a hatch in the iron lid, his hand encased in an asbestos-lined glove. Klingheimer dropped the head into the red glow, flames leapt upward with a great roar, and Pule dropped the hatch into place.

"This oven attains a heat in excess of a thousand degrees centigrade," Klingheimer said. "It was built at no small expense by the factory that produced the Woking Crematorium. I fully expected that they would inquire as to its use, that they would be in some sense curious. But they were not curious. They fixed a price, and all of us were happy. I like a clear, single-minded motive, Professor. Indeed I do."

He gestured at the third head now, which had long, lank hair and eyes that might have belonged to Satan himself. The eyes twitched sporadically, as if something in the brain was overactive. Even so they had a demonic cast to them. "I like to refer to Maurice De Salles as 'the wizard,'" Klingheimer said. "He had quite a reputation among the cognoscenti. I was aware of his work at a very young age, and I had the pleasure of seeing him murder a boy with no other instrument than his mind. It was from De Salles that I bought the bottle of elixir I spoke of earlier, to my great good fortune."

"You had the pleasure of seeing him murder a boy? Finally you reveal yourself," said St. Ives.

"By 'pleasure' I meant a purely scientific satisfaction, of course. I took no emotional pleasure in the boy's death, nor did I feel any particular aversion. Death is the fate that awaits the lot of us, after all, unless we take steps to avert it. De Salles was a prodigy of arcane learning, to say the least. I have high hopes that he will recover his wits in time. His being a blood relative to Ignacio Narbondo might lead to interesting results were the two linked. But of course he cannot speak except in thought, which you are deaf to. His thoughts are primitive distilled anger, eager hatred. Some would call it idiocy, which it might very well be. I communed with him only once, and his mind was... a force, and little more. But it was a force that I could... access. An accelerant, as it were, very like turpentine poured onto a fire. Listen! The wizard attempts speech!"

De Salles's mouth worked, bubbling out green fluid, his lips making a distinct flapping sound. Everything that Mother Laswell had told St. Ives about her dead husband was quite evidently true. It was written plainly on his face, even in its wizened, desiccated condition. If ever a head wanted badly to be cast into the furnace, it was the head of Maurice De Salles.

"Come, Professor," Mr. Klingheimer said, gesturing at the viewing seats, "I believe that you'll have a first-rate view in the second row. Take the seat two rows in front of Jimmy, if you will. Yes, directly in front of him, where he can put a bullet through your heart if the need arises. Pule, do us the favor of fetching Mr. Fez. Be quick about it. I'll reveal to you, Professor, that I intend to undertake a small experiment while Dr. Peavy is busy performing his duties as a mad doctor. I can a.s.sure you that the patient whose mind I intend to probe will not come to any harm. I beg you not to interfere. If Jimmy is compelled to shoot you, Alice will find your head in Mr. Harrow's basin, I'm afraid. We all wish for a happier outcome."

And then, to Jimmy, Klingheimer said, "It is my direct order that you shoot Professor St. Ives in the back if he endeavors any heroics, any at all. I need not tell you, however, that we must preserve the head."

St. Ives calculated the odds of taking Jimmy by surprise, liberating the pistol, and blowing Klingheimer to kingdom come. The odds weren't at all good. The act would necessitate standing, turning, and scrambling over seats, which would give Jimmy adequate time to murder him or simply to knock him down with the b.u.t.t of the pistol.

The door into the hallway opened, and Pule ushered the man wearing the Egyptian hat into the room. He looked about himself furtively. His head jerked uncontrollably, and he was attempting to speak, but could do little more than make noises in his throat. He hadn't been nearly so agitated when St. Ives had seen him previously. Pule guided him to the chair that Clara had recently vacated, put his hands on the man's shoulders, and compelled him to sit. Immediately he strapped his wrists and ankles and belted him into the chair at the waist and around the forehead.

"This fellow's name is Kairn," Mr. Klingheimer said to St. Ives. "Dr. Peavy tells me that his bill is paid promptly on the first day of the year by an unknown party a bank draft. No one has visited the poor fellow in eight years now, alas. No one would know, in other words, whether he was alive or dead, or, if dead, how he died. He has a great fear of rats, has Mr. Kairn. Dr. Peavy put him to the test, do you see? Locked him into his room with a half dozen of the creatures. The result was extraordinary. It cost the poor man his tongue, which he chewed off in his fear. The rats were quite docile, actually in no way did they threaten the man. They would have been content to build a nest in Mr. Kairn's hat. There was nothing in their behavior, in other words, to provoke the fear. It is entirely self-invented, as are the great majority of our fears, alas. I am curious to see whether I can bring him to such a pa.s.s merely by mental suggestion."

Klingheimer took a seat in a part of the theater that was out of Kairn's sight. He put on the aura goggles and held himself quite still, leaning forward now in evident concentration. Kairn had fallen silent, and he gripped the wooden arms so tightly that his knuckles were white. Nothing at all happened for the s.p.a.ce of two or three minutes. Klingheimer's mouth was partly open, and he scarcely seemed to breathe, as if he had fallen into a self-induced trance.

Kairn's body abruptly went rigid. His eyes opened widely, and his head jittered rapidly up and down as if an electric current were running through him. He made a high, keening noise in his throat, and rocked his body erratically, the keening turning into a high-pitched shriek.

The wild idea came into St. Ives's head that he must break the spell, and he stood up and began to sing "G.o.d Save the Queen," as loudly as he could, but he got no farther than "Send her victorious..." before Klingheimer held up his palm and gave him a withering look. He shook his head at Jimmy, who was also standing now, the pistol aimed at St. Ives. Kairn had either fainted or died, although his head was held upright by the various restraints. He stirred now, and opened his eyes, looking around in apparent terror. Pule cast Kairn loose and supported the now-sobbing man out of the room.

"Well, well," Klingheimer said to St. Ives, a forced smile contorting his face, "if you will do me the favor of sitting in the chair recently vacated by Mr. Kairn, we will do what must be done."

St. Ives felt the muzzle of the pistol pressed against his back below his right shoulder blade, and when Jimmy grasped his collar in order to haul him to his feet, he stood up of his own accord. St. Ives decided that he would rather walk to the chair with some modic.u.m of dignity and with his wits intact than be compelled by Jimmy. Pule reappeared after a minute and set about strapping St. Ives into the chair. St. Ives, for his part, set his mind to the task of thwarting Klingheimer's attempts overcome his mind, for surely that was what the man intended to do.

Klingheimer, however, crossed the room to a collection of machinery and drew out a wheeled cart. Whatever lay on top of the cart was hidden beneath a cloth. As he rolled the cart toward the center of the theater, Dr. Peavy returned and without a word began to wash his hands at a sink. Klingheimer maneuvered the cart to a position in front of St. Ives, before pulling the cloth away with the flourish of his hand.

Beneath the cloth lay a device that was at first unidentifiable. In the center of it, suspended in the air, was a metal cylinder of sufficient diameter to settle over a man's head, and below that was a wooden apparatus with supports that were obviously meant to lie on the shoulders of the victim.

"What you see before you is an electronic decapitator," Klingheimer said to St. Ives. He had regained his composure, and looked almost jolly. "It was built by Dr. Peavy, whose talents never fail to astonish me." He bowed in Peavy's direction, nodding in appreciation. Peavy dried his hands on a towel. "It is a great improvement on the guillotine, which can splinter bone and which compels itself through flesh by mere gravitational force.

"You are not situated in such a way as to see the intricacies of the circular blade, Professor, so I'll tell you about it. Electrical power causes the blade to spin, and as it spins, the circ.u.mference of the blade diminishes, the blade closing in upon itself. The blade is a simple spring, do you see, serrated and uncannily sharp, which maintains its shape as it is compressed. The compression of the blade is not absolute, however, and the last quarter inch of vertebra must be severed with a surgical saw. The decapitation is swift and clean, however, and the blade springs free of the incision when the electrical power ceases. The cylinder is raised an inch or two, Dr. Peavy wields the bone saw, and hey presto!, the man in the chair has lost his head, although the head remains supported by the cylinder, ready for the plucking. What do you say to that, sir? Not a great deal, I take it. No pretty speeches? Another stanza of 'G.o.d Save the Queen,' perhaps, falsetto instead of tenor? Ha, ha! Now then, you'll note that the floor is clear in a radius of ten feet roundabout it. The saw makes for a regular Catherine wheel, but blood rather than sparks quite an image, I dare say."

The door that led out onto the alley opened now, and Shadwell walked in. "She's here," he said to Klingheimer, and then he grinned at St. Ives.

"Excellent news!" Klingheimer said, rubbing his hands together. "Really first rate. Escort the lady in, if you will."

He turned to look at St. Ives now, and said, "I'm happy to say, Professor, that you'll be reunited with your own dear Alice without further ado."

THIRTY-TWO.

FINN AND CLARA.

Beaumont unlocked the door to the cellar and went in, groping with his hand to find the ribbon overhead that switched on the electric lamp, and knowing at once that all had changed since yesterday evening when he had last been here. The cellar was utterly silent, the machinery quiet. The stink of the toads was diminished, mixed with the smell of lye now. When the lights buzzed and brightened he saw that Narbondo's box was missing, although it was well past noon and should have returned from Peavy's by now.

The lot of it was gone the heads, the machinery, the barrels of toad fluid all of it cleared out, nothing left. The room had been swabbed down. They had shifted wholesale to Peavy's, giving Beaumont no part in it. They must have been at it all morning while the others were searching for Finn. He shifted his knapsack on his back, his coat hiding it somewhat nothing left in the garret that was worth taking.

He stood for a moment calculating. He was out of a situation, and no doubt about it. Klingheimer had given him the day's holiday because Klingheimer no longer had any use for Beaumont. How much time did he have, he wondered, before Klingheimer returned from Peavy's and sent for him in order to have a squint at him through the spectacles, or simply to have him hit on the head with a lead pipe?

He was certain that Klingheimer hadn't returned from Peavy's yet. The house was in too much of a taking. Klingheimer's influence in the house was absent, and had been since he'd turned his mind to Clara. There was a brutish air about the place, as if it was coming apart, everyone seeing to himself.

He turned in through the door of the storage room and switched on the light there. Plucking an empty flour sack from the heap, he set about loading it up with food. Drink they would find easily enough underground, but they'd get precious sick of eating dried meat if they couldn't bring down a pig or a goat. He thanked G.o.d that he had stowed the rifle and plenty of cartridge in the hovel. When Klingheimer came for them, which he surely would, he wouldn't expect the rifle.

He looked up and down the hallway before going out empty in both directions and he headed toward the stairs carrying the sack. On the second floor the hallway was again empty, although he heard a sneeze and then a blasphemy from within the card room, which had broad double doors, standing open now. There was low talk from within, and they would see him carrying the bag if he pa.s.sed. Also, he wanted to have a look into the room, where there were odds and ends that he could nick. He stepped into a handy alcove and waited.

"My ear's just about severed," someone in the card room said. "G.o.d-d.a.m.n that fat pig."

"You should have murdered him straightaway when you got into the alley. That's what I'd have done. Leave him for the dustman to find." Beaumont recognized Smythe's voice, and knew that the other must be Joe Penny, the two of them being pals, and Smythe having brought in the woman.

"He was on me like a s.h.i.te-bird. I had no time to murder anyone. Now you've come home with the Bracken piece and I've got nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y ear and two teeth knocked into the dirt."

"And I've been skewered in three places, the wh.o.r.e," Smythe said. "I mean to teach her a lesson, is what. No woman treats me so and lives to gloat, I can tell you that."

"Gag her. She'll raise the house otherwise."

"His majesty is out for the day. To h.e.l.l with the house. In any case a woman can't shriek once her throat is slit."

"Well, I mean to look in on the blind girl," Penny said. "You ain't having all the fun."

"You're a stupid sod, Joseph Penny. The girl's marked for his majesty. You're worried about raising the house, and now this caper?"

"She can't speak nor see. Don't you know that? It's no kind of secret."

"It's coming it pretty high, is what it is."

"Well, I'm sick of this place," Penny said. "I shouldn't have come back this morning. If that fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d from the inn shows up and fronts Klingheimer like he said he would, it's over for me. I might as leave have my way with the girl now, while I've got the chance."

"It's your funeral, then," Smythe said. "We're wasting our breath sitting here, though."

There was the sound of the two men moving. Beaumont stayed where he was, well hidden, the two men going away toward the stairs to the upper floors. He peered past the doorjamb and saw their backs, and he took the chance of darting around into the now empty card room, where he plucked up six nice scrimshaw pieces on the mantelshelf, all of them carved in the last century if he was any judge, which he was. He looked around for something else, seeing a pair of silver candlesticks. He pitched the candles into the coalscuttle and put the silver into the sack before peering down the hallway again empty. He returned to the hearth for the fireplace poker, heavy iron, and then trotted along to the stairs, seeing that they were clear before going up.

Finn watched the brougham drive past on the street. He hoped that Clara was inside, although the angle was too steep for him to know. Mother Laswell hurried away in the direction of the Temple, carrying his message. He went to the desk and shoveled everything back into the creel, looked about to make certain nothing was amiss, and then slid beneath the bed, in among his things, nearly sneezing with the dust that lifted from the floorboards. He waited, listening hard, the time crawling past. When the key turned in the lock, the sound surprised him, and he held his breath, ready to move fast if he had to. Someone sat on the bed, however. The door closed and the key turned.

"Finn, is it you?" Clara asked, and Finn, elated, pushed out from under the bed and stood up.

"Yes, it's me, Clara," he said. "Are you... safe? Were you at Peavy's? You're dressed very elegant."

"Yes, mostly. Klingheimer means to marry me, and tells me that this is my wedding dress. I'd rather be dead."

"Don't say so, Clara. It's bad luck."

"Professor St. Ives was there, Finn. They've captured him. I don't know what they mean to do to him."

Finn was silenced by this. "Was the Professor hurt?" he asked finally.

"No. Not that I saw. Mr. Klingheimer was talking away to him six to the dozen, telling him things, like he does. He's full of himself, is Mr. Klingheimer. He's a terrible man, Finn."

"I believe you," Finn said. "He nearly had me this morning, but I bolted. I found my friend Beaumont, and he let me into this room to hide me. I've been here for a time, wondering if you were coming back."

"And I wondered whether you would be here when I returned. When we drew nigh to the house, I was sure that you would be. That's why I said your name when I came into the room."

"Tell me, Clara, Mr. Klingheimer must still be there? He's not here? Not in the house?"

"Yes, he's still there, lording it over them. I was brought home by the man they call Flinders. There's great activity at Dr. Peavy's. He sent me back to rest, but he means to come for me again tonight. I don't know if..."

In the pause that followed, Finn heard footsteps in the hallway. "I'll hide beneath the bed," he whispered to Clara, and very quietly he slipped out of sight again. There was the sound of laughter from down the hall men's laughter and then of a door banging open, and a woman's voice saying something coa.r.s.e. Laughter again, and the door closing, and then a moment's silence before the metallic clinking of a key in their own door lock. Perhaps it was a plate of food being brought in...

There was the sound of someone entering, saying nothing, and of the door closing behind and locking. Finn saw boots moving, the man who wore them standing silently over the bed. "You've been waiting for me like a good la.s.s," he said quietly. "If you can't hear, then I'm wasting my breath, but if you can hear, then you listen to me. If you call out, you're dead. There's no Mr. Klingheimer here to save you. Them that's left in the house might come, but they're worse than me. Do you understand me, girl?"

Silence followed, and then the man said. "It makes no matter, does it? You'll understand well enough in a moment."

Finn saw his trousers slide to the floor, then, and he yanked them off over his shoes. The bed slumped and creaked under his weight, and Finn very carefully slid out from under again, not making a sound, pulling himself around to the footboard. He stood up, grasped the handle of the water pitcher, and without hesitation, clubbed the man hard on the side of the head. The handle broke free, blood flew, and the pitcher thumped down on the bedside table with a loud bang. The blow had snapped the man's head aside, and he slumped sideways off the bed now, falling onto the floor where he lay unconscious.

After an hour of loitering, and despite seeing several men going in and out of Klingheimer's carriage house neither Smythe not Penny among them Tubby had learned nothing useful except that he was prodigiously hungry despite having consumed two breakfasts this morning. He had spent an empty half hour looking over the wares in the nearby tobacco shop, while surrept.i.tiously watching through the window, and had bought an envelope of headache powder from the chemist before going out into the wind to complete his third pa.s.s. He walked slowly now, taking an obvious interest in the great house beyond the wall. If Penny or Smythe saw him, his very presence on the pavement would dare them to come out. But neither Penny nor Smythe appeared, and it had begun to look as if he had sent himself on a fool's errand. His anger and determination had quite drained out of him, leaving him with the unhappy dregs of defeat.

He walked past the mouth of the narrow, shrub-lined alley that led along the side of the house, determined to make his way back to the Half Toad. On impulse he turned down toward the river, however, pa.s.sing a red-painted door in the wall of the house. He glanced fore and aft, seeing no one, and tried the door, which of course was locked. It came into his mind to knock, and then to simply burst in when the door opened, but doing so would be a rash act, quite likely fatal, and so he walked on.

A man appeared ahead of him, Tubby nodding to him as they pa.s.sed, receiving a scowl in return. At the end of the alley Tubby looked back, seeing that the man was just then going in through the door, the house swallowing him up. On impulse Tubby retraced his steps, seeing ahead of him an opening in the shrubbery wide enough to hide him.

Holding the pitcher handle, Finn stood listening in the sudden silence. It was quite possible that someone had heard. The man's head and elbow had both knocked on the floorboards, and the noise of the pitcher had been loud. He looked at the man who lay there, blood pooling around his head. Finn was shocked by the quant.i.ty of blood. Was he dead? Abruptly the man made a rattling sound in his throat, gasping for air. Finn set the pitcher handle next to the water gla.s.s, went around to the side of the bed, and slid out his things. "Did he hurt you, Clara?" he asked as he pulled on his shoes.

"No. He didn't touch me. He hadn't time. Listen, Finn. The house is stirring. Can we get out?"

There was a tumult of some sort in a room down the hall the screaming woman fighting back, perhaps. And now once again there was the sound of a key turning in the lock. Finn s.n.a.t.c.hed open the creel, yanked his knife from its sheath, and leapt toward the door as it swung open.

Beaumont slipped through, pulling the door shut after him and shifting his bag in front of him when he saw the knife in Finn's hand and the man who lay bleeding on the floor. He carried a fireplace poker. "I heard the ruckus coming up," he said.

"This is Miss Clara," Finn said. "Clara, it's Beaumont, who I told you about. Are we running?"

"Aye," the dwarf said. "This clatter will bring Smythe, who's with the woman." He nodded at the man on the floor. "That there's Joe Penny, with his trousers around his feet," he said. "Is he dead? Best if he is."

"I don't know," Finn said.

Beaumont glanced at Clara, who was up and gathering the few possessions that she had carried from Hereafter Farm. Beaumont knelt down and put the iron bar of the fireplace poker across Penny's throat, but before he pressed any remaining life out of him, the door flew open and a heavy man in a frilled shirt and stocking feet stepped in. He looked down at Penny bleeding on the floor and at Beaumont, who had stood up now. In that moment a female voice cried out, "You're mine now, Bucko!" and a short, stout woman with wild hair appeared behind Smythe and began beating him across the back of the head with the broken-off leg of a chair, swinging her weapon with shocking force, driving Smythe's head downward with each blow.

Finn moved Clara behind him and backed away toward the far corner of the room as Smythe turned on the woman with a roar. She struck him again in the forehead, and the chair leg broke in two. Beaumont, who leapt to his feet as Smythe turned away, was already swinging the iron poker, cracking it against Smythe's wrist, which was trailing behind him. The woman fled away down the hall, Beaumont and Smythe moving out of the room after her.

"Stay here," Finn said to Clara, and he ran after them, gripping his knife, but there was no opening for him to lunge in. Beaumont wielded the poker like a saber, thrusting and parrying, gouging the man with the point of the thing and then hammering him, the poker whistling as he swung it. The woman reappeared, carrying the broken chair in its entirety, then smashing it wholesale over Smythe's head, she and Beaumont beating the man to the ground together. Beaumont stepped away, breathing hard, but the woman, dressed in a peignoir, but with her coat over it and her boots on her feet, calmly stepped on Smythe's face with the heel of her boot and leaned her weight on it.

"You've done good work, ma'am," Beaumont said, gasping, "but I'll ask you to let me finish it quick."

"Charmed, sir," she said, stepping back.

"In the room with him," Beaumont said to Finn, and the two of them grabbed Smythe's feet and hauled him through the doorway, laying him alongside Joe Penny.

Finn took Clara out into the hall, saying to the woman, "You must trust us, ma'am. Get what things you need. We're running."

"I'm with you," she said, already hurrying away.

Finn drew the door shut, having no real idea what Clara could see or could not see. Hearing was bad enough, and he led her farther from the door, which opened again a bare moment later. Beaumont stepped out, his face giving nothing away, and a moment later the woman rejoined them, fully dressed now and carrying her bag.

"My name is Cecilia Bracken," she said to them.

"Finn and Clara," Finn said, "and this is Beaumont."

"There's gallantry for you," she said, taking Beaumont's hand and kissing it, which seemed to stupefy the dwarf, who made a bow before turning away to lock the two corpses inside the room.

Then the lot of them hurried away along the hall, Miss Bracken taking Clara by the arm now and nodding to Finn as if giving him leave to do what he must. He wished that she had brought one of the remaining chair legs.

Down the stairs they went, Finn and Beaumont ahead and the women behind.

Into the lion's den, Finn thought. Then he saw the shadows of two men ascending, followed by the men themselves, looking upward, coming along in a rush. Finn bent at the knees and launched himself from the edge of a stair tread, rolling himself into a ball and striking both men at once and bowling them over. The three of them tumbled downward in a tangle, Finn's creel smashing to bits beneath him.

Finn rolled out onto the landing and onto his feet. His carved owl caromed off the wainscot, and Finn s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and pocketed it just as Beaumont ranged in among them, swinging his poker, his face strangely calm. Miss Bracken helped Clara past the sprawled men, and they were off again, down the last set of stairs to the ground floor, where a strange-looking, skeletal woman in an old green gown shouted incoherencies.

"Shut your gob, Mrs. Skink," Beaumont yelled at her.

Miss Bracken stepped past him, leaving Clara behind, and ran forward and struck Mrs. Skink hard on the side of the head with her fist, then pushed her over backward onto a wooden settle. She bent down and picked up the front of the settle and flung it over backward again, Mrs. Skink shouting "Oh! Oh! Oh!" as she rolled into the wall, the settle lying atop her.

Again they were running, Finn holding Clara's hand, Miss Bracken following. They were in a long hallway now, nothing to trip them up, a door at the far end freedom if they could open it! He heard the sounds of pursuit from somewhere behind and a m.u.f.fled shouting from Mrs. Skink. Finn saw that the door was barred, and with a heavy lock for good measure. A man looked out of a door on the left-hand side of the hallway, and then disappeared back into whatever room lay there. Beaumont, running swiftly on his short legs and waving his fireplace poker over his head, dipped into his pocket and came up with a key that he tossed at Finn before turning into the open doorway where the man had vanished.