Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [78]
‘And also fall under suspicion?’
‘Precisely.’
They were in the city now. Wide, well-lit streets, houses far enough apart to allow for grassy spaces and trees. Everything was so much cleaner here. Although in one square Geneviève noticed three bodies spitted on stakes. Children played hide-and-seek in the bushes around the impaled, red-eyed little vampires seeking out their plump playfellows and giving them affectionate nips with sharpening teeth.
‘Upon whom are we calling?’ she asked.
‘Someone of whom you will approve. Dr Henry Jekyll.’
‘The research scientist? He was at Lulu Schön’s inquest.’
‘That’s the fellow. He has no gods but Darwin and Huxley. No magic at all is admitted past his doorstep. And, speaking of Dr Jekyll’s doorstep, I should hope that this is it.’
The cab stopped. Charles climbed out and helped her down. She remembered to gather her dress and steady herself as she was extricated from the hansom. He told the cabby to wait.
They were in a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men: map-engravers, architects, Carpathians, shady lawyers, and the agents of obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort though it was now in darkness except for the fan-light, Charles knocked. An elderly servant opened the door. Charles presented his card, which Geneviève gathered was a free pass to every dwelling or institution in the country.
‘And this is Miss Dieudonné,’ Charles explained, ‘the elder.’
The servant took note, and admitted the visitors into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall, paved with flags, warmed after the fashion of a country house by a bright, open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak.
‘Dr Jekyll is in his laboratory with the other gentleman, sir,’ the servant said. ‘I shall announce you.’
He vanished into another part of the house, leaving Geneviève and Charles in the hall. In the dark, she could see more clearly. There were strange shapes in the flickering of the firelight on the polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on the ceiling.
‘Dr Jekyll obviously doesn’t believe in the incandescent lamp,’ she commented.
‘It’s an old house.’
‘I expected a man of science to live among the shining apparatus of the future, not lurk in the dark of the past.’
Charles shrugged, and leaned on his cane. The servant returned, and led them to the back of the house. They passed through a covered courtyard, and came to a well-lit building which abutted Jekyll’s house back-to-back. A red-baize door hung open and voices came from within.
Charles stood aside, and let her enter. The laboratory was a high-ceilinged space like an operating theatre, its walls covered with bookshelves and charts, tables and benches set up all around with intricate arrangements of retorts, tubes and burners. The place smelled strongly of soap, but other scents were not quite obliterated by regular scrubbing-down.
‘Poole, thank you,’ said Jekyll, dismissing his servant, who retreated to the main house with what Geneviève fancied was relief. The master had been in conversation with a broad-shouldered, prematurely white-haired man.
‘Mr Beauregard, welcome,’ Jekyll said. ‘And Miss Dieudonné.’
He bowed slightly and wiped his hands on his leather apron, leaving smears of some substance.
‘This is my colleague, Dr Moreau.’
The white-haired man raised a hand in greeting. Geneviève’s impression was that she would not care for Dr Moreau.
‘We have been talking of blood.’
‘A subject of much interest,’ Charles ventured.
‘Indeed. Of paramount interest. Moreau has radical notions on the classification of blood.’
The two scientists had been standing by a bench upon which was unrolled a length of oilcoth. Spread on the cloth was an arrangement of dust and bone fragments