The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [311]
CHAPTER 51
Moving with a sense of purpose what wiped out all the growing joy we’d felt during dinner (and also seemed to sober the adults up at a quick pace), we ran back up High Street toward the court house. About halfway there it became pretty clear that the bell we were hearing was the one in the steeple of the Presbyterian church: not a good sign. As we ran along the sidewalk, lights came on and lamps were lit in various houses along the way, though only a few daring souls came outside in their nightclothes to try to find out what was going on. The whole thing remained very mysterious until we’d almost gotten to the court house, when I suddenly realized that I recognized the voice what was screaming for help.
“It’s the other guard!” I called to the Doctor. “The one what was on the front door when we left!”
“Are you certain?” the Doctor called back to me.
“I talked to him before they brought Libby up from her cell!” I answered, listening to the voice again. “Yeah, that’s him, all right!”
Peering into the near darkness ahead of us—there were only two or three streetlamps between Mr. Picton’s place and the court house—I tried to make out any signs of activity; then I noted that the bell had stopped ringing. When we got near the court house lawn, I caught sight of a figure on the front steps of the building, one whose arms were frantically waving to us.
“There he is!” I called out, when I could see for sure that it was in fact the guard what I’d had words with earlier.
The Doctor’s face opened wide with horror when he saw that I was right, but he never let up his pace; and soon we were face to face with the panic-stricken man.
“For God’s sake!” the guard said, pointing. “Get downstairs! Try to help them, Doctor! I’ve got to go for Sheriff Dunning!”
“But what’s—” the Doctor started to ask; the guard, though, was already shooting away.
“Help them, Doctor, please!” he cried as he left.
Marcus watched him go, wondering, “Why the hell didn’t he use the telephone?”
“He’s terrified past reason,” the Doctor answered quickly, catching his breath. “And I can only think of one reason why—come!”
Leading the way again, the Doctor entered the court house, shooting over to the doorway behind the guard station. It opened onto a set of stone stairs what the Doctor had no trouble negotiating, given the many times he’d been down them during his interviews with Libby Hatch. As his feet danced quickly along, leading us into the bowels of the building, he kept muttering to himself, over and over again, “Stupidity—stupidity!”
Bursting into a central room in the basement what was the receiving area for the various jail cells beyond, the Doctor suddenly stopped—as did the rest of us, when we followed him to take in the scene in that dimly lit stone chamber:
Propped up against one wall was the guard Henry. His eyes were open wide, and his jaw was hanging away from his head at an awkward sort of angle. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, and there were a few other stab wounds in his chest. He wasn’t bleeding, though—at least, not anymore. Every drop of blood in his body, it seemed, had oozed out to drench his clothes and create a huge, dark pool on the floor under and around his body.
Across from him, also propped up against a wall, was Mr. Picton. He, too, had a few ugly wounds in his chest, and a nasty cut on one side of his neck; but unlike Henry’s, his open eyes held a faint glimmer of life, while his mouth seemed to be taking air in, even if it was only in fitful little gasps.
The pool of blood what surrounded him, though, was near as big as the one what the dead guard lay in.
While the rest of us were studying this scene in shock, the Doctor got straight over to Mr. Picton and made a quick examination of his wounds. “Cyrus!” he called. “I’ll need my medical bag from the house!” Without a word, Cyrus vanished back into and up the staircase. “Detective Sergeant!” the Doctor went on, looking to Lucius. “You, too, Sara—help me! John, Marcus, we’ll need bandages—shred your shirts, both of you!”
As everybody else