Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [213]
Mrs. Barlow shook her head. “There is one room; the others are closed up for the winter. It has a nice big bed for you gentlemen.”
“It won’t do,” I said.
“Like a mosquito in his ear,” she said and stared directly at me. In that instant, I saw one of her hairs, a long white one, drop off.
“Very well,” I said.
I made Chibbins turn around while I undressed and slipped beneath the blankets. Then he undressed, dropping his clothes in a pile on the floor. He approached the bed stark naked, all lumpen and the color of milk. I lifted the scalpel I’d placed on the night table next to me. Looking away from him, I said, “You’re sleeping on the floor.” I expected him to protest, forgetting for a second that this was Chibbins, whose reason was twisted as a pig’s tail. In silence, his pale pile drooped down to the floor. I lay back and entertained my thoughts about the case.
This was really the case that was no case. It was obvious. An investigation was wholly after the fact. What had happened, as I could see it, was that Rothac cooked up a pot of heady swill that had them all cockeyed. Barlow wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and took a falling icicle through the back. Unable to deal with the old man’s passing and high on Sheer Beauty, they’d conspired to concoct some outlandish tale about a bitter saint in search of revenge. That was it. The only concern for me that remained was delving deeper into Ludiya’s personality, searching for the key that might open her and give access to her most sacred physiognomical junctures.
I rested back on the pillow and realized that Chibbins had shimmied under the bed. He was down there moving around and scratching on the underside of the mattress. “Damn you, Chibbins,” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Making a nest,” he said.
“Stop it,” I told him.
All was silent. I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Five seconds later, from beneath the mattress there came an extemporaneous song, like a child might concoct, about a monkey who worked at an island inn. I got out of bed, fully intending to beat him to a pulp. “Come out, Chibbins,” I called. His head suddenly popped out from beneath my side of the bed, and I gave a start.
“Ever at your service, Physiognomist Cley,” he said, looking up at me.
I kicked him in the side of the head with my bare foot. My large toe smashed against his rock skull, and the pain was exquisite. I hopped on one foot to the middle of the room, cursing wildly. By the time the pain had subsided, Chibbins had crawled out into the open and stood there, like some bitter ghost, returned to murder Reason itself.
I took one step toward him, and that’s when we heard the strange cry. It came from outside, the sound of a woman wailing. Even with the window closed, it drilled through the glass and lodged in my spine, making my ears twitch and my neck hair rise.
“Get dressed,” I told Chibbins. “Hurry.”
MINUTES LATER WE were out in the dark, crunching through the snow. Chibbins carried a small lantern that emitted a weak light, and I carried my scalpel. The moon was absent, but there were stars above. A cry came again from off in the direction of the fountains. It was freezing and there was a stiff breeze, the bare willow whips tapping together with each gust.
“Nabdoodle,” said Chibbins and spun in a circle, the beam of the lantern dancing wildly against the dark.
“To the fountain, ass,” I said and ran. I could hear my partner scuffing through the snow behind me. I was winded by the time we reached the iced-over pool, and I sat on the edge of it. Chibbins soon arrived and held the lantern up to light the curious statue at the center of the circular stone basin. Its copper figures had gone green, and although I could not make out the features in the poor light, I knew, from having seen it earlier in the day, that one was the Master himself, Drachton