Beastly Bones (20 page)

“Miss Rook?”

“I'm going to kiss you now,” I said. “That's going to happen.”

Charlie swallowed, his eyes wide, and then he nodded quickly. I held on firmly to his starched lapel and leaned forward on the balls of my feet. His lips were warm in the chilly rain, and his fingers were gentle and delicate, if just a little tremulous, as he lifted a hand to my cheek. I dropped back to my heels. “I have work to do,” I said. “I matter. What I do matters. But I look forward to hearing from you. Oh—and the next time you write,” I said as he blinked his eyes open dreamily, “I do hope you will address me as Abigail.”

The whistle blew again, and I hurried onto the train. The car rumbled to life as I dropped into my seat, and we gradually chugged forward. I slid myself close to the rain-spattered window and waved good-bye. Charlie stood on the wet platform just where I had left him. He looked tired and damp, but a smile was spreading from ear to ear. He waved back earnestly until the train sped up and the station slid out of view.

Jackaby had buried his nose in an old ragged book before Gadston was behind us. I sat back happily on my seat cushion, revisiting the moment in my mind. It was, with every reprise, an unquestionable victory—my first unadulterated success in weeks. I felt my cheeks dimpling in a sappy schoolgirl smile, and I could not even bother to bring myself to feign composure.

“Did you see . . . ?” I asked Jackaby.

He lowered the book just beneath his line of sight and eyed me inscrutably. “I see that you are . . .” He sighed gently. “Giddy
.
”

“He kissed me.”

“
You
kissed
him
—which I believe was rather the point. I'm sure Miss Cavanaugh will be very proud when you inform her. Please feel free to contain your enthusiasm until such time as you can share it with her.”

“He kissed me
back
, though.”

“Oh for Pete's sake. Melancholy might have been more palatable.”

He ducked back behind his dusty book, and I contented myself with watching the rain stream gracefully across the window as the countryside rolled past.

Chapter Thirty-Five

C
ommissioner Marlowe stood on the platform with his arms crossed as we disembarked. He had the cheerful demeanor of someone who has been beaten about the face all night with a sock full of porridge—only even more so than usual.

“Marlowe,” said Jackaby.

“Jackaby,” said Marlowe.

“Commissioner,” I said. “How kind of you to come to greet us. How did you even know that we would be on . . .”

“I make a habit of being well-informed,” he said.

Jackaby nodded. “Then I take it you're already well-informed about the most recent developments in Gad's Valley? Well, that saves a great deal of paperwork on our end, doesn't it? Miss Rook, you should be pleased about that.”

“I could use a few more details,” Marlowe said.

“And you shall have them,” Jackaby replied. “Rook is splendid with details—lots of descriptive adjectives. Maybe too many.”

“We'll have a full report to you by tomorrow,” I assured the commissioner.

“Good,” Marlowe grunted. “In the meantime, I'll take the abridged version. Did you learn anything at all?”

I nodded. “There's someone in the center of all this,” I said. A vision of the pale man hung in my mind. He had stolen the tooth. He had guided Hudson to breed the dragon. He had known about the chameleomorphs. I swallowed. He had killed all those people. “I don't know who he is or what he's up to—but he's the one to watch out for. I'll give you a full description in our report.”

“Do,” said Marlowe. He turned back to my employer. “And for future reference,
discretion
doesn't generally involve blowing a crime scene off the map with a fireball the size of an ocean liner.”

“No?” said Jackaby. “Language can be such a nuanced art.”

“The papers are calling it a lightning strike,” I said. “So you needn't worry about your townspeople being gripped by any new monster panic.”

Marlowe looked unsatisfied, but he nodded and we parted ways.

“Perhaps they should be,” Jackaby murmured as we left the station.

Jackaby took a circuitous route back to his building, which led us past the New Fiddleham post office. He sidled up to the drop box and pulled a slim package wrapped in brown paper from his pocket. On the front, in his barely legible scrawl, I made out the word
Chronicle.

“Sir?” I said.

“Miss Fuller asked me to keep this safe for her,” he said. “I don't believe her final wish was that it gather dust on our shelves, do you?”

I stared. “Marlowe is not going to be happy about that,” I said.

“That is a distinct possibility.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I don't even know if the plates survived the heat. I guess we'll just have to see what develops, won't we?” The brown paper package made a tinny clank as it slid down the mail chute.

Jackaby's cheery red door was a welcome sight at the end of our journey. I had once been reluctant to step inside the unusual abode on Augur Lane, but now I could not have been happier to be home. Dropping my luggage in the foyer, I breezed through the zigzagging hallway and slowed only a little as I rounded the steps up the spiral staircase. I had so much to tell Jenny. I hoped that she would be proud of me, but I knew I still had to make amends for the way we had left things. I tiptoed to her door and knocked quietly.

“Jenny?” I said. When no one answered, I tried the handle. It turned easily, and I pushed the door ajar just the barest sliver. “Jenny, it's Abigail. Are you still cross with me? It's all right if you are—I would be, too. I am sorry. Jenny?”

I was careful not to step over the threshold again without permission, but I let her door swing open and peered inside. The room was a portrait of destruction, and Jenny was nowhere to be seen. Bits of porcelain still lay scattered about the floor, a few shards embedded in the plaster of the walls. The armoire lay broken on its side, and the mattress and bed frame were on opposite sides of the room. Feathers littering the floor were the only signs that there had ever been a pillow. The windows had been stripped of their curtains, and in spite of the warmth of the noonday sun, I could see that the panes had frosted over. The only piece of furniture upright was the nightstand, which appeared to be unmolested by the spectral storm. A little sprig of bittersweets had been retrieved from the floor and placed daintily atop it, like a wreath atop a Roman pedestal. I stared at the scene for several seconds, and then shut the door quietly and went back down the steps.

Jackaby was in his laboratory when I reached the ground floor again. He was scowling and muttering to himself, drumming his fingers along the molten glass that had once been Jenny's amber vase. “What's on your mind, sir?”

“A catalyst.”

“A what?”

“A catalyst. It's an agent that accelerates a chemical reaction. It's not directly responsible for the results, just for how quickly they get out of hand.”

“You mean like a mysterious pale man who nudges a few key elements into place until, before we know it, we've got a life-sized dragon blowing up over our heads?”

“You're becoming remarkably astute, Miss Rook. I do believe I've been a positive influence on you. The real question is
why
?
”

“Well, it did destroy the crime scene, and any hopes we had of finding evidence.”

“But he couldn't predict that it would end like that. So why give Hudson the bone in the first place?”

I froze. “Because he wasn't giving Hudson a bone. He was throwing one for us.”

Jackaby raised his eyebrows curiously.

“Poor Mrs. Pendleton knew the answer ages ago. You don't throw a dog a bone because it's got any real meat left on it—you throw a dog a bone to keep it busy. The stranger knew about the chameleomorphs because he knew about Mrs. Beaumont, so he knew exactly what Hudson had in his hands when he gave him the bone. It didn't matter what happened then, because whatever it was, it was going to be bad, and we were sure to go investigate. The murders, the stolen fossils, the impossible beasts—can you think of a more perfect bone to keep us busy? And we've been biting from the start.”

Jackaby considered this with a scowl. I waited for him to tell me I was being foolish and explain it all away, but he only nodded solemnly. “Someone has gone to great lengths to cause this havoc.”

“To what end?” I wondered aloud.

“And to what beginning?” Jackaby amended. “If our mysterious stranger engineered this dragon ordeal and the Campbell Street chameleomorphs, what else is he behind? Dangerous irregularities have been occurring with alarming . . . regularity. It is troubling to consider a criminal manufacturing paranormal mayhem. How long has he been at it? Did he orchestrate the reclusive redcap's rise to become a predator in public office? Plant the swarm of brownies on the mayor's lawn? Promote adoption of the Dewey decimal system in libraries across the continent? It's the not knowing I find most irksome.”

“The Dewey decimal system?”

“It's gaining popularity. I don't trust it.”

“We'll catch him, sir,” I said. “I'm sure of it.”

“I very much agree, Miss Rook. Now that we know whom we're looking for, we can do more than flounder in his wake. This spectacular failure of ours may prove to be just the catalyst
we
needed to propel ourselves toward the greater triumph.” He nodded contentedly. “It makes sense, now. Oh, I feel much better knowing that there is a malevolent force out there, working directly against us at every turn, don't you?”

I smiled feebly. “It's a bright new world, sir.”

“Indeed. Speaking of which, you should be happy to hear that Douglas has done a fine job of looking after our little transformative pests. They're all present and accounted for as slightly hairy Gerridae—and the house is still standing, which is nice.”

I nodded. “Don't look in Miss Cavanaugh's room any time soon,” I said. “Still a bit of progress to be made there. Although she did manage to pick up some of the flowers, so at least she's found her gloves, wherever you hid them,” I said.

Jackaby paused with a hand on the door to his office. He scowled and reached into his satchel. “You mean these?” He pulled out a bundle of ladies' gloves. There were two or three pairs in varying states of wear.

“Oh—you kept them with you while we were away? Really? That's a little mean, isn't it?” I thought about the bedroom and the bittersweets. “But then, how . . .” Jackaby stepped into the office, and I followed. A prickly feeling rippled through me, like electricity in the air.

Jenny was perched in the chair behind Jackaby's desk. “Welcome home,” she said. She gave our soot-caked clothes a glance. “Have you been cooking again, Jackaby?”

My employer did not answer her. He stared across the desk, and then a perplexed smile crept into the corners of his lips. “Miss Rook. You may want to fetch that little notebook from your valise.”

“Sir?”

“Unless I am very much mistaken, we have another case.”

The desk, I realized, had been cleared of its usual stacks of books and clutter, and a single file sat squarely in the center. Printed neatly on the front was the name
Jenny Cavanaugh.
The spectral figure reached out one bare, translucent hand and pushed the file firmly across the desk toward Jackaby. It slid without the slightest hesitation at her touch, coming to rest in front of my employer. A handful of notes and newspaper clippings slipped free from the bundle with words like
victim
,
murder
and
brutal
in bold type. Among them I saw a familiar image—an eerie man, pale and stout, and dressed in black. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up.

“It's time.” Jenny nodded. “I'm ready to know.”

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

I
t was some time after the business of the bones that I remembered to ask Jackaby about his unlikely version of the voyage of the HMS
Beagle
. According to my employer, during his expedition in Mauritius, Darwin discovered and brought back to England a live specimen of a chameleomorph. Upon his return, he was given a private conference with King William IV, who marveled at the creature's ability to mimic its prey. The old monarch ordered Darwin to keep the existence of the creature an absolute secret.

The king feared he might die before his niece, Victoria, turned eighteen, since this would make the Duchess of Kent regent, ruling on behalf of Victoria until she came of age. The old monarch loathed the duchess. He made it quite clear that he hoped the power of the throne might never fall into the duchess's hands, but his health was failing fast, and Victoria's birthday was still months away. As a fail-safe, the king ordered Darwin to feed the chameleomorph a steady diet of his own, royal blood. It was his hope that a facsimile king might rule just long enough for Victoria to come of age, if necessary.

Darwin, a loyal subject, reluctantly obeyed. Fortunately, William survived a full month beyond Victoria's birthday, and the bizarre project was aborted—but not before the beast had developed a nearly perfect resemblance to the old man.

With no human language or social cues, the doppelgänger was a grotesque caricature of the king. Most disturbing of all, the thing craved human blood, and it grew violent unless supplied with a meal laced with the stuff. When she learned of the secret, the newly crowned Queen Victoria was horrified and disgusted. She ordered the creature destroyed, along with all of Darwin's notes on the species, lest some immoral soul be tempted to recreate her uncle's abomination in a twisted effort to secure the crown.

Darwin again obliged his ruler, completely editing the monumental discovery out of his
Journal and Remarks
concerning the voyage of the HMS
Beagle
. The findings did fuel his interest in the abilities of organisms to adapt and change, and one can practically see the creature hiding just beneath the words in his subsequent publication of his work,
The Origin of Species
.

Ever the scientist, however, Darwin could not completely destroy such spectacular knowledge, and he created a secret dossier of the entire affair. These documents, never published, were kept in a location known only to Darwin himself.

At the time of his death in 1882, Darwin's dossier resurfaced. How Jackaby came to be in possession of such an impossible artifact I have never learned, but he allowed me to take a quick glimpse at its pages before returning it to the shady Dangerous Documents section of his private library. More than just chameleomorphs, the collection comprised accounts of dozens of unfathomable entities. In the few moments I had with the journal, I saw entries that I fear may never be cleansed from my memory. Strange and exotic grotesqueries seared themselves in my mind, but worse still were the ones all too familiar. It is a profoundly unsettling experience to see childhood nightmares—things recalled as horrid fantasies—laid plain, in perfect detail, upon the page. Jackaby had said not knowing was the worst, but I must confess, on many dark nights since then, I have found myself nostalgic for my ignorance.