Her Dark Curiosity (33 page)

I scrambled to the opposite door—locked as well. Trapped. I pressed my back into the furthest corner, eyes wide. Dr. Hastings clutched a pistol.

“You know, I always detested von Stein, thinking himself so much smarter than the rest of us,” he said. “Pity he isn’t here to protect you anymore.”

“Were you the one who killed him?” I seethed.

“That honor wasn’t mine, but no matter. Seeing you locked away for the rest of your life will please me well enough.” He held the pistol unsteadily in his left hand, the one I had maimed. I couldn’t see the scars in the dark carriage, but I knew they were there.

“Newcastle promised me a chance to dole out my
own
punishment. The courts can be so lenient sometimes. I’m a biblical man myself. An eye for an eye, isn’t that how the expression goes?”

Anger seeped up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. I’d be damned before Dr. Hastings laid a hand on me again. I wished the Beast had clawed his heart out when he’d had the chance. Some people didn’t deserve to live, and if that made me a monster, so be it.

He smiled in that thin-lipped way that showed the tip of his tongue.

“Now, now, Miss Moreau.
I’ve
the blade this time.” He flicked open a knife, sliding closer until I could smell his spoiled-milk stench. The pistol’s cold metal barrel pressed against the gooseflesh of my arm.

“Hold out that wrist of yours like a good girl. It’s either a slice through the tendons of your hand, just as you did to me, or a bullet in the head. Your choice.”

Fury screamed inside me. I could kick him, throw myself at him, yet he held the two weapons. As he reached the knife toward my wrist, there came the sound of a key turning hastily in the lock.

The carriage door swung open, and my hopes surged until I recognized the familiar outline of Inspector Newcastle, his copper breastplate glinting in the moonlight.

“Another few moments, Inspector,” Dr. Hastings said. “And I’ll be done with her.”

“You’re done with her now, you blackguard,” he said. He grabbed the doctor by his collar and dragged him onto the hard street. I could only stare, stunned and numb. Newcastle coming to my rescue was the last thing I’d anticipated.

He said a few words to the driver in reference to Dr. Hastings moaning on the sidewalk, then climbed in and shut the door. With a rumble, the carriage started moving.

“My apologies for exposing you to that vile man,” Newcastle said, adjusting his shirt cuffs. “He was a necessary evil, I’m afraid. Without his statement we had no grounds to request a warrant.” He paused. “Were you truly the one who mangled his hand like that? Quite impressive.”

I tore at the door handle, trying to break the lock, but he hauled me away, pushing me onto the plush seat cushions across from him.

“Miss Moreau, calm yourself. I’ve no wish to hurt you. I desire only to speak.”

“Is that why you’ve abducted me?”

“This isn’t an abduction. It’s an arrest, and I’m fully within my legal grounds. The case against you was dropped last year, but not the formal charges.” He adjusted his copper breastplate. “With luck, we’ll be able to reach an agreement that will keep you out of prison. In fact, I think you’ll find that what I shall propose is exceedingly beneficial for the both of us.”

When I didn’t respond, he smiled in an almost sad way and added, “I know you saw the spectacles. You left your fingerprint on one of the lenses.”

The carriage jostled as we left Belgravia’s smooth pavement and moved onto a cobblestone street. Stately Street, perhaps, or the north end of Highbury. The heavy curtains hid the outside world.

“Who killed him?” I asked, deathly quiet.

Newcastle reached up to turn on the lantern as though he hadn’t heard my question. He sat below the flame, hidden by its own flickering shadow, so all it accomplished was blinding me whenever I looked at it.

“You must be freezing. Take my coat.” He shrugged out of his wool coat and extended it to me. As much as I wanted to throw the coat back in his face and demand an answer, my bare, damp limbs were shivering beyond my control. I wrapped the coat around me, hating having the smell of him so close.

“You haven’t involved Lucy in this, have you?” I asked.

“It isn’t I who involved her, Miss Moreau, but you. I would never have put Lucy in any sort of danger.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you actually care about her.” A man like him, so deceptive, was not the type to care about anything.

But he frowned in a sincere way. “I care about her a great deal. I’m in a business where I hear lies all day, Miss Moreau. You’ve no idea how I admire a young woman who says what she truly thinks, even if more often than not it’s to express her poor opinion of me. It only makes me love her all the more. If she suffers because of all this, it’s on
your
hands.”

“I had to warn her. Her own father is wrapped up in this.”

“Miss Moreau, the entire
King’s Club
is wrapped up in this.” He smiled, teeth glinting in the shadows. “But you already suspected that, didn’t you? When I heard you were back in London, I was curious to meet you. After we received word from Claggan that your father had died, all our hopes fell on you. I guessed you’d be clever. I’m delighted to find it’s true.”

He settled back into the seat and took out a pipe and tobacco from his breast pocket, which he packed delicately, as though we’d all the time in the world.

“You saw the laboratory, didn’t you?” His exhale of pipe smoke filled the carriage. “The night guard caught a glimpse of a girl in the hallways. I found footprints the next day that were decidedly dainty for any of our members.”

I considered lying. I considered not saying anything. I considered many things, including lunging for his throat. But in the end, my curiosity got the best of me.

“Yes, I saw it.”

“I’m terribly interested to know how it compares to your father’s laboratory, since you are one of the few people to have seen it.”

“Father kept his things tidier.”

He laughed at this, deep and rich. “Clever. You’re a rare woman, Miss Moreau.” The carriage jostled again as we returned to smooth pavement. He took another long, thoughtful puff on his pipe. “I was a student of his, you know. Forensics. He took me under his wing, but never extended an invitation for anything social. He was a difficult man to get to know.”

“Did you hire someone to kill the professor?” I interrupted. “Or was it one of your own?”

He reclined further into the plump cushions, moving easily as the carriage swayed from side to side, more than content to let my question go unanswered. “A pity, to be certain, but the professor was an old man. His death was necessary; we knew you were sheltering Moreau’s creation, and we thought the only way to flush him out was for you to turn on him—if, for example, you thought he’d murdered someone close to you.”

“Yet your ruse didn’t work, and now you’ve blood on your hands.”

“Another necessary evil, I’m afraid.”

“You have no idea what will happen if you bring those creatures in the water tanks to life,” I said. “You’ve seen what the Wolf can do. You think you will be able to control them, but you won’t. They’ll destroy this city.”

When he only flicked the ashes of his pipe onto the carriage floor, the terrible truth suddenly dawned on me, all their plans for New Year’s Day and the paupers’ ball in Parliament Square.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I whispered. “You
intend
to wreak havoc throughout the city. But why? For what possible purpose?”

“This isn’t about creating chaos, Miss Moreau. It’s about building something. Your father might have been a madman, but I assure you, I am quite sane. I’ve always seen the practical uses for your father’s research, and I’m not alone.”

“The French Ministry of Defense, you mean,” I spat. “They’re going to use them as biological weapons, aren’t they?”

He shrugged. “Weaponry is one possible application for Moreau’s research, yes, and certainly what the French government is most interested in. This isn’t limited to the French, though. We have an American research hospital that wants the technology for experimental procedures on baboon-kidney transplants. And a Dutch weaponry development company who wants to give its soldiers greater eyesight and hearing with animal biological grafting. They’ve even discussed using it for communications—talking dogs that can sneak behind enemy lines, though that seems a bit fantastical to me. We even have a private individual in Germany, a baron, dying of heart failure. He’s willing to pay half his fortune if we can prove pig-heart transplants are possible. Your father’s science will revolutionize the world, Miss Moreau.”

“You expect me to believe the King’s Club is building monsters and murdering people out of
altruism
? So an old man can get a fresh heart?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Believe what you like. We aren’t interested in the final ramifications, only in developing the mechanisms to make it possible. What the world chooses to do with the technology is its own business. Our plan is merely to perfect Moreau’s science and then do what we do best: profit off of it.” He took another long drag from his pipe and let the smoke cloud between us. “Unfortunately, our potential buyers are skeptical. We need to demonstrate the technology’s efficacy, starting with France.”

“The paupers’ ball,” I said. “You’re going to let the beasts loose in a crowded square—” I did some calculations quickly. “Hundreds of people might die! Just so you can prove your point to some
buyers
? How are you going to explain it to the newspapers? You can hardly tell them what you’ve done.”

He took another puff calmly. “Haven’t you heard of the wild dog epidemic? Rumor is it’s been such a harsh winter that they’re coming into the city at night by the pack, looking for scraps or whatever they can sink their teeth into.”

I stared at him speechlessly.
Wild dogs
? Would the public believe such a ridiculous story? But the King’s Club controlled the
London Times,
among many other businesses, and Newcastle had influence over the police. They could publish whatever story they wanted.

“Montgomery found the shipping crates,” I said, almost to myself as I thought through their plan. “You’ll let the beasts loose on New Year’s Day, let the blood flow for your awful demonstration, and then ship them to France.”

He gave a casual shrug. “As I said, France is only the first. We’ve already started planning a second demonstration for the Dutch weaponry company. That one’s more difficult. Involves human test subjects. Lessing’s coordinating the planning stages since he oversees the orphanage. All those children with no one to care what happens to them, you know.”

I dug my fingers harder into the plush seat, squeezing my eyes closed. Elizabeth had guessed that Lessing wasn’t truly a historian, and she’d been right.

“You’re going to murder
children
,” I said.

“No, no. We aren’t totally heartless. They won’t be killed, unless something goes wrong. In fact, I imagine those orphans will love having sharper hearing and better eyesight. The scars will heal, in time.”

For a moment the carriage rumbled as we both silently assessed the other. He didn’t look like the monster he was. He had the easy air of someone used to getting his way, but there was nothing of the dandy about him, as I’d first thought. Beneath the metal vest the sleeves of his cream-colored shirt showed hard lines of the muscles that took discipline to develop. And his eyes—as they searched me, looking for clues as well—had a fire to them.

“I arrested you tonight so that we might speak as equals,” he said.

“Equals
? A teenaged girl and Scotland Yard’s finest detective?”

“We in the King’s Club are modern thinkers. A woman could gain great power in our midst. The daughter of Henri Moreau would be highly respected. I’ll even get rid of that fool Dr. Hastings for you. There aren’t many places that can offer you all that.”

I studied the lines of his face carefully. His mouth didn’t twitch. Hand didn’t scratch his nose. He was telling the truth—or at least one aspect of the truth.

He continued, “If you wish to influence our decisions regarding the future of your father’s research, then join us. We would listen to what you have to say. And in turn, we might be able to convince you of some of the positive implications of your father’s work. Don’t be so quick to judge without first considering all the information. We’ve convinced many doubting men of the validity of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

He was quite serious. A Scotland Yard inspector offering me an official role in determining the fate of my father’s research, amid the most powerful men in the greatest country in the world.

I couldn’t deny there was something appealing about the offer. Women were relegated to the bedroom or the tea salon in this city. No positions of power, authority, influence. Elizabeth’s fate told me that. A clever woman like her, interested in medicine, had been forced to live at the edges of the world to rule her own life.

But Newcastle was a fool if he thought I might ever be able to see the positive ramifications of Father’s work. I knew the results of Father’s work all too well, chained in the root cellar of the professor’s house.

“The devil take you and your offer,” I said.

His left eyebrow arched. “I must ask you to reconsider. The future of scientific achievement hangs in the balance.”

The carriage hit another rut and we both jostled. One thing I was certain of: his words might be polite, but they were a threat just the same. Side with him or face a prison cell.

“My answer is the same,” I said.

Newcastle rubbed his chin, considering my words. “I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer. All your talents would be lost behind bars, talents that are very useful to us. We’re a partnership, you see; each of us has a role. The members of Parliament keep the government in support of our businesses. Men like Radcliffe fund operations and provide discreet transportation for our products. Arthur Kenney tailors the newspaper headlines to read just what we want them to read.”