Tears now coursed down the old monstrumologist’s cheeks—tears for John, for the doctor, for the woman between them. He held out his hands beseechingly. Warthrop did not accept them; his own hands remained clenched at his sides.
“It is a terrible thing, mein Freund, to love one who loves another. Unbearable, to know you are not the beloved, to know the heart of your beloved can never be free from the prison of her love. This is what John knew.”
In a rare moment of disingenuousness, Pellinore Warthrop feigned ignorance. “I am surrounded by madmen,” he said in a tone of wonder. “The whole world has gone mad, and I am the last sane man alive.”
“Muriel came to me before he left. She said, ‘Do not allow him to go. It is spite that drives him. He would humiliate Pellinore, make him the fool.’ And then she confessed that she had burdened him with the truth.”
“The truth,” echoed Warthrop. “What truth?”
“That she loves you still. That she loves you always. That she married him to punish you for what happened in Vienna.”
“Vienna was not my fault!” Warthrop cried, his voice shaking with fury. Von Helrung flinched and drew back, as if he feared the doctor would strike him. “You were there; you know this to be the truth. She demanded that I choose—marriage or my work—when she knew, she knew, my work was everything to me! And then, in the ultimate act of treachery, she ran to the arms of my best friend, demanding that he sacrifice nothing.”
“It was not treachery, Pellinore. Do not say that of her. She chose the one who loved her more than he loved himself. How can you judge her for this? She had been scorned by the one she loved, for a rival against whom she could never prevail. You are not a stupid man. You know Outiko is not the only thing that consumes us, Pellinore. It is not the only spirit that devours all mankind. Her broken heart drove her to John, and John’s drove him into the wilderness. I think now he went never meaning to come back. I think he sought out the Yellow Eye. I think he called to it before it called to him!”
He fell into his chair, giving way to his sorrow. Warthrop made no move to console him.
Though von Helrung begged him not to leave, the doctor insisted on returning to our hotel. His logic was brutally efficient. “If he is in fact exacting some kind of twisted reparation for the past, he will look for me next. Better to be in the place he expects to find me.”
“I will come with you,” von Helrung said.
“No, but if you’re concerned about your own safety—”
“Nein! I am an old man; I have lived to the fullness of my days. I am not afraid to die. But you cannot be both bait and hunter, Pellinore. And Will Henry! He should stay here.”
“I can think of no worse idea,” shot back my master.
He would brook no more arguments or entreaties. Timmy brought the calash around, and in short order we were disembarking at the Plaza.
Warthrop stopped abruptly outside the lobby doors, his head down and cocked slightly to one side, as if he were listening to something. Then, without a word, he took off, leaping over a hedge and tearing down the lawn toward the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to the park, running as fast as his long legs could carry him, which was very fast indeed. I raced after him, convinced he had spotted his quarry lurking along the low stone wall. I fell farther and farther behind. He was simply too fast for me. By the time I entered the park, he was a hundred yards ahead. I could see his lanky silhouette darting between the arc lights.
Warthrop’s prey veered off the path and into the woods. The doctor followed, and I lost sight of both for a moment. The racket of their scuffle led me to where they rolled on the ground locked in each other’s arms, first the doctor on top, then his opponent. I stopped a few feet from the tussle and drew the silver knife von Helrung had given me. I did not know if I would be able to actually use it, but it gave me comfort to hold it.
I would not need it for anything other than comfort, for I quickly discerned the man was not John Chanler but the same raggedy figure who had been stalking us since our arrival in New York. He fought bravely enough, but he was no match for the monstrumologist, who had by this point managed to straddle him, one hand clutching his scrawny neck, the other pushing down on his narrow chest.
“Don’t hurt me!” the man squealed in a high-pitched English accent. “Please, Dr. Warthrop!”
“I’m not going to hurt you, you fool,” gasped the doctor.
He released the man’s neck and sat back upon his chest with his legs thrown on either side of his torso. The doctor’s catch turned his light gray eyes beseechingly in my direction.
“I can’t breathe,” he wheezed.
“Good! I should squeeze the life out of you, Blackwood,” said the doctor. “What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to breathe.”
The doctor heaved an exaggerated sigh and pushed himself to his feet. The man clutched his stomach, sat up, cheeks ablaze, sweat shining on his high forehead. His nose was extraordinarily large; it dominated his pinched face.
“You’ve been following me,” the doctor accused him.
Blackwood was staring at me—or rather at the deadly object in my hand.
“Could you ask the young man to put away the knife?”
“He will,” said the doctor. “After he runs you through with it.”
The monstrumologist held out his hand to Blackwood, who accepted it, and Warthrop hoisted him to his feet. Then the thin man’s face split open into a wide unabashed grin, as if they had dispensed with some kind of bizarre preliminaries. He thrust his hand toward the doctor’s chest.
“How have you been, Dr. Warthrop?”
Warthrop ignored the gesture. “Will Henry, may I introduce Mr. Algernon Henry Blackwood, a reporter who masquerades as a spy when he isn’t a spy masquerading as a reporter.”
“Not much of either, really.”
“Is that so? Then, why have you been lurking outside my hotel since I got here?”
Blackwood grinned sheepishly and lowered his eyes. “I was hoping for the same thing I always hope for, Dr. Warthrop.”
The doctor was nodding slowly. “That’s what I suspected—and what I hoped. Blackwood, you look terrible. When was the last time you had something decent to eat?”
The monstrumologist had an idea.
And so it was that I found myself, a half hour later, sitting on a sofa of rich velvet in the lavishly adorned sitting room of a private “gentlemen’s club,” as such organizations were called in that day, situated within sight of the more famous Knickerbocker Club.