Category: Books

This has been a hard week to stay focused.

I flipped back the sheet, to the shudders of the madam and Edgar both. I tsk-tsked them both. “The dead don’t care if you’re rude.” I looked down, at the one eye left behind to stare at me. “Besides, this poor bastard’s past caring about anything.”

Which was all for the best. Besides the eye, the face was battered, with gouges ripped through cheeks, and chunks of scalp missing. I suspected that if I bothered to open the mouth, I’d find it full of broken teeth, but why bother? The man was dead. More importantly, I’d never seen him before. I flicked my eyes down, assessing his clothes. “I take it this was not your companion, then.”

Edgar looked over, gulped, and turned his head. “No, Ha– sir. He was gone by the time I was called for.”

The madam spoke up. “The two gentlemen arrived together, sir.” She wasn’t gulping, I noted. Well, it probably wasn’t her first corpse, either. “When the commotion started, I naturally sent for him, so that he could restrain his friend.”

“Restrain him from what? …Right,” I sighed. “Why don’t we start from the beginning?”

Got snared on a little project, had to push myself to get some of this done.

The business I was upon was the sort that needed no gossipy cabbie to see, so I was half-soaked by the time I reached the disreputable house that was my destination. And there in front of me was young Edgar W[*], shivering and sniveling under the spluttering gaslight. His finery was soggy and his expression woebegone, neither of which were normal for him. But then; if the boy had been quite himself, he would never have needed to send for me.

These night-time enterprises typically go the same way, so I raised a hand to forestall him. “I do not care what you did or did not mean to do, my boy.” My tone at these little moments is much sterner than is my usual wont. It saves time. “That is not important. What is important is, who witnessed it, and who has been told already?”

“No! No!” he exclaimed, as if on cue. “It’s not like that, Harry!”

“On the contrary: it is always like that,” I told him, severely. “And no names. Names cost extra to wash away in the rain.”

The first one simply wasn’t gelling right. I’m going back to this one, instead.

“One wonders how much better a personal meeting might go,” I suggested, curious as to how it would be received this time. It was agreed that you had to know the right sort to get an introduction to the man, which I thought was rather clever of him. What surprised me was how difficult it was proving for me to know the right sort. I was almost starting to wonder if I had lost my touch.

“Oh, I have yet to meet him myself!” she cried, with a simper that made her somehow seem ten years younger. “I am assured by those who would know that it is no reflection on me. The poor man is so beset with would-be hanger-ons and creatures, it falls upon his true friends to ensure that only those advanced enough to understand his work are given the privilege of conferring with him directly.” The simper turned into a real smile, with just the hint of white. “I was most put out when I was first told this, of course. But now that I have studied his Method some, I quite understand their reasoning. I would have simply wasted his time before.”

“I find that impossible to believe,” I murmured more or less automatically. “At any rate, clearly I must attend one of the good doctor’s lectures, without delay. There is one this Friday, is there not?”

“Every Monday and Friday,” she told me immediately: I nodded, to cover the odd flicker of apprehension I felt from seeing her flashing eyes. “Seven PM sharp, at the Gibbons Building. The Doctor suggests that we refrain from eating for an hour before attending a lecture, and to drink nothing but broth. ‘A Clear stomach makes a Clear mind,” he always says.”