“By that time,” Matthew said, “you should be ready for a long nap.”
Sirki allowed himself an evil half-smile. “My blade does most of the work, young sir. I just guide it along. But there will be much blood, which makes the grip more challenging. Where was I? Oh…at the end, they will lose their heads and everything will be put into burlap bags and carried down to Agonistes. His pet, I think you’ve seen. So Mr. Smythe and Mr. Wilson will be consigned to the sea in the form of octopus turds. Are you absolutely certain you don’t wish to witness the process?”
“Tempting,” said Matthew, “but yes, I am certain.”
“Understandable. I am empowered by Professor Fell to tell you that he feels this is a job well-done, and if he is in need of your future problem-solving abilities might he count on you?”
“You mean to find Valeriani for him?”
“The professor made no mention of that,” said the giant.
Matthew pondered the moment. He hoped to destroy the gunpowder factory and to be on his way with Berry, Zed, Minx and Fancy to the harbor within twelve hours. He doubted if the professor would feel so grateful to him when all that powder went up. “My place is in New York,” Matthew said. “I’d like to be left alone.”
Sirki seemed to be deliberating this statement. He went to the door and then paused. “You are aware,” he said, “that the professor never takes ‘no’ for an answer.”
“I’m aware. But…no.”
Sirki bowed his head slightly. “I shall pass that response along. Your payment will be delivered on the morning of your departure, along with the Ga.” He offered the faintest of smiles. “I regret not being able to kill him, but sometimes one does not always get what one wishes.” With that remark, Sirki opened the door, left the room, and closed the door at his back.
Matthew always felt relief when that huge killer departed his presence, and so he did now. He gave Sirki a few minutes to make some distance, and then he took a cautious sip of the lemon water. Yes…it just seemed to be lemons, after all. He drank the rest of the glass. But now he was in need of food, having missed the mid-day meal, and he went along the corridor and down the stairs in search of a fruitbowl or a basket of muffins and corncakes that were sometimes afforded on the dining room table.
As he was going down the steps to the dining room, he heard a muffled scream from somewhere below.
It went on for a few seconds and then stopped on a strangled note.
Matthew saw that indeed there was a basket of muffins on the table. He was reaching for one when the hollow echo of a second scream rose up seemingly from the floor. It sounded to be from a different throat than the first, but also ended brokenly.
He thought that Nathan Spade had had his revenge, and wherever Spade was he considered Matthew Corbett to be a kindred spirit.
Matthew wasn’t certain to be happy or sad about that. But it seemed that in the professor’s world one dismembered corpse in a bag begat at least one or two others, and so with the deaths of Smythe and Wilson Fate—and Fell—had been satisfied.
Another scream came up, agonized and pitiful. It died down again, and might have broken the heart of anyone who did not know the history of the screamer.
Matthew decided on the biggest muffin in the basket. He took it and, gratified to find it was studded with chocolate chunks, chewed a big bite from it and then returned to his room to wait for the fall of night. Only behind the locked door did he break out in a cold sweat and suddenly have to lose his few bites of muffin and drink of lemon water in a rush of liquid over the balcony’s railing.
Twenty-Nine
AFTER midnight, when the castle had become tomb-quiet and even the Thackers’ bellows silenced, Matthew began to stir.
He left his room with a single stubby taper, walked quietly along the corridor and used the skeleton key to open Smythe’s room. Alas, the munitions master was not sleeping in this bed, but rather in the embrace of an octopus’s digestive system. He and Adam Wilson now shared the lowest of dwellings. Matthew continued out to the balcony, where he considered the drop of over twenty feet to manicured hedges in the garden. Were there fissures in the stone wall he might get his fingertips into? He shone his light downward. Yes, there appeared to be a few worthy grips, courtesy of years of earth tremors. It was this way or no way because for certain he could not risk the stairs and the front door.
He blew out the candle and put it into his coat pocket along with the tinderbox from his room. Then he eased over the balcony, and with the supple strength of youth and damned determination he began his careful descent along the cracked wall of Fell’s castle.
The night’s banquet had been another affair of seafood, salacious behavior from the two brothers toward the diminished-looking Fancy, drunken laughter from Sabroso at jokes no one had made, Aria Chillany’s body pressing toward Matthew and her breath reeking of fish and wine thanks to his returned ability to smell, Toy feeding Augustus Pons and their whispers and giggles like two schoolgirls sharing secrets, Minx silently eating her food without a glance at anyone in particular, and Mother Deare talking about how good it would be to get started back to England in the next few days. Evidently the group would be travelling on the ship Fortuna, another of Fell’s fleet of transports. Matthew thought that being cooped up with that bunch for nearly two months would be enough to make him dance down a pirate’s plank in a fashion that would win appreciative applause from Gilliam Vincent.
Two chairs had remained vacant at the table. “Where are those fuckers?” Jack Thacker had asked, his eyes bloodshot and whitefish foaming at the corners of his mouth. “Playing with—”
“Their sausages?” Mack finished, after which he tossed back a half-glass of wine so deeply-red it was almost black. Between the brothers, Fancy stared at Matthew for a few seconds, her eyes dark-hollowed and weary, before she looked away. She was like a fine animal that had nearly been broken, Matthew thought. Much more time with the brothers, and she would be used up and withered within. Still he had yet to see her smile or even attempt such. But what was there for her to smile about? If he could only get her alone for a few seconds, to tell her what he was planning…
Mother Deare said, “Mr. Smythe and Mr. Wilson are no longer with us.”
“What?” Pons pushed Toy’s fork away. “Where are they?”
“The two gentlemen,” said Mother Deare, with a passing glance at Matthew, “have been identified as traitors to the professor.”
“Them too?” Jack’s mouth was a ghastly mess. “How many fucking traitors have there been at this party?”
“Too many,” Mother Deare replied, with a faint motherly smile. “The situation is now stable.”
“I think you should take a look at this one’s pockets.” Mack jabbed his knife in the direction of Matthew. “Turn ’im upside down and give him a fuckin’ good shake.”
“Not necessary.” Mother Deare took a dainty sip of wine, her red-gloved hand huge upon the stem. “Mr. Smythe and Mr. Wilson have served their purpose, have been found lacking in loyalty and too prideful in their own powers. They were executed this afternoon. Didn’t anyone hear them screaming?”
“I thought it was Pons gettin’ his ass jabbed,” said Jack, and Mack laughed so hard the wine burst from his nostrils.
“Crude vulgarians,” Pons replied, with as much dignity as a fat man with three chins might summon. His eyes were heavy-lidded with disdain. He turned his attention to Mother Deare. “The…removal of Mr. Smythe and Mr. Wilson…quite sudden, it seems. I am to believe that they were both important assets—”