“Pointing fingers won’t accomplish anything at this point,” Dr. Pelt said. He had draped his lanky frame upon a settee and was sipping black coffee from a cup that looked toy-size in his large hand. Brown droplets clung to his enormous handlebar mustache.
“True,” Sir Hiram allowed. “We can address repercussions at the conclusion of the affair.”
“Repercussions? What do you mean?” Warthrop demanded. “I did nothing wrong.”
“You brought it here. You decided to stash it in the Monstrumarium. It is your ‘prize,’ is it not?”
Warthrop’s face drained of all color. The doctors who had treated him at Bellevue had cautioned him to avoid strenuous activity—in fact had strongly urged bed rest—or he might have bashed the man’s head in with the bust of Darwin by his elbow.
“Hiram,” he said levelly, “you are a spineless, chinless, mutated sponge of a man, possessing the mental acumen of a sea slug, but I forgive you for that. A man cannot choose his own mother, after all.”
Walker’s beady eyes grew still beadier and his mouth moved soundlessly, revealing the upper row of yellow, uneven teeth. Beside me Lilly bit back a laugh. I let mine out.
“Mock me while you can, Warthrop. Let’s see how far your laughter will carry from Blackwell’s Island!”
“I blame you for this, von Helrung,” said the monstrumologist, turning to the old Austrian.
“Me? But how am I to blame?”
“You invited him.”
“Oh, I thought you meant—”
“The man is as useless as . . .” Warthrop searched for the proper metaphor.
Pelt drawled a suggestion: “Teats on a bull.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” von Helrung admonished gently. “We have not gathered here to discuss Dr. Walker’s teats.”
Lilly’s shoulders were shaking violently. She was having some trouble controlling herself. I gave her hand a reassuring pat.
“What’s done is done,” said the Argentine monstrumologist seated next to Pelt, whose name—Santiago Luis Moreno Acosta-Rojas—seemed longer than the man was tall. He was, according to Warthrop, senselessly argumentative and hopelessly stubborn, but even the doctor acknowledged Acosta-Rojas’s expertise in all things T. cerrejonensis. “Pointing fingers, assigning blame, these are the true teats upon our hypothetical bull. These do not serve to retrieve what has been lost. And retrieve it we must, and quickly! We stare into the abyss of two separate, equally disturbing possibilities: the failure of these blackguards to secure the creature—or their success! If it escapes, many will die. If it does not, many will be ensnared by its potent venom.”
“You are leaving out the worst possibility of all,” Warthrop said. “That someone may kill it.”
“Well, we know why they took it,” Pelt said. “The question is who they is. Or are, I mean.”
“Elements of the criminal underworld.” Walker sniffed, as if the answer were obvious. “The Dead Rabbits, I would say, based on the Irish accents Warthrop described.”
“Ach!” von Helrung snorted. “There haven’t been Rabbits since the seventies.”
“The Gophers,” Pelt suggested. “That’s my guess. Pellinore?”
The monstrumologist stiffened; his face darkened as if Pelt had insulted him. “I never guess. There may be a gang involved—or two, given that one of the thieves was shot in the back of the head by another. However, the fact remains that with twenty dollars and ten minutes in Five Points, I could find a dozen eager hoodlums with no connection whatsoever to organized crime.” He wasn’t looking at us. He was staring thoughtfully into the blank eyes of Darwin, running his finger up and down his hero’s marble nose. “The salient issue is not why or who but how. How did these ill-educated ruffians know of the hidden treasure in the sanctum sanctorum of the Locked Room?”
His question hung heavy in the air. Von Helrung understood at once, and the barrel chest expanded, straining the buttons of his vest. He pursed his thick lips and held his tongue while Warthrop went on:
“Dr. von Helrung will correct me if my count is off, but to my knowledge only six men knew of my special presentation to this year’s colloquium. One is dead. The rest are in this room.”
Acosta-Rojas rocketed to his feet; his chair clattered to the floor. “I am deeply offended that you even suggest such a thing!”
“What is more offensive?” Warthrop shot back. “The betrayal of a sacred trust or the suggestion of it?”
“Now, now, we mustn’t leap to conclusions, mein Freund,” von Helrung protested, waving his pudgy hands before him. “We are honorable men. Scientists all, not profiteers.”
“I am not surprised,” Walker announced blandly. “Contemplating the worst of nature has perverted his perception of men.”
“Oh, spare us the banalities, Walker!” the doctor exclaimed. “We are students of the best that nature offers, but that is beside the point. Reason is neither good nor bad; why do you think so few people are reasonable? I think we can safely rule out Adolphus as the traitor. He had no motive. For sixty years he’s had access to treasures great and small and never once tried to profit by them.”
“To me the most likely suspect is obvious,” Pelt said. “This Maeterlinck fellow—or the mysterious client who commissioned him. Neither could have been very happy about the resolution of his offer. It wouldn’t be too difficult to follow you here to New York and ascertain the whereabouts of T. cerrejonensis.”
I spoke up: “Impossible. Maeterlinck is in London.”
“And how do you know where he is?” Acosta-Rojas demanded with narrowed eyes.
“There is nowhere else he would go,” I answered carefully.
“How odd,” Walker said, “that Warthrop’s apprentice would know the whereabouts of the mysterious Mr. Maeterlinck. I wonder what other intelligence he may be privy to.”
“Walker, I don’t know what I find more offensive,” growled Warthrop. “The insinuation that Mr. Henry is a turncoat or the incongruousness of the word ‘intelligence’ issuing from your lips.”
“Enough!” cried von Helrung, striking his breast in consternation. “This bickering, these childish insults—they accomplish nothing. We are all friends here, or at least colleagues, and I, for one, would stake my reputation—indeed my very life—upon the honor of the men gathered in this room. With all due respect, Pellinore, it is not why or who or how, but where that must concern us. The rest can wait until we have recovered what we have lost.”