Alex Grecian - Devil's Workshop

Blacker accompanied Day up the stairs. They went as quickly as Day could manage. Halfway up, they could hear an odd mewling sound, and Blacker left Day there on the staircase. He ran ahead, while Day called out his wife’s name.

He was relieved beyond words to hear her answer him.

By the time Day got to their bedroom, Blacker was already coming back out. Blacker nodded at him and went to check the other rooms on that floor.

Day stood in the doorway and held on to the wall. Claire smiled at him from the bed. She looked sleepy, but relaxed. In her arms, she held two tiny babies.

“Walter,” she said, “would you like to come say hello to your daughters?”

Day smiled and let go of the wall. He took a step forward.

And fainted.

J ack stopped outside and knelt by the curb. He took Griffin’s blue chalk from his pocket and drew a large zero on the footpath. Above it, he drew an arrow pointing toward the house. He stood and put the chalk back in his pocket and went to the door, pulled the bell.

He had been busy in the two days since saving Sergeant Hammersmith’s life. He had a lot of time to make up. When the housekeeper came to the door, he handed her Inspector Day’s card, lifted from the occasional table in Day’s hall, and was ushered into a reception room. He sat in a chair next to the door so that he wouldn’t be immediately noticed by anyone entering the room, and he waited. There was a large portrait above the fireplace of a jowly man with thinning hair. Jack stared at the portrait and folded his hands in his lap and felt utterly at peace.

Some fifteen minutes later, a man was preceded into the room by his voice: “So, Day, you’ve decided to join us, have you?”

A stout man stopped just inside the door and looked around, confused. He didn’t see Jack until it was too late. Jack rose and stepped into the doorway and grabbed the man about the throat from behind. With his free hand, he closed the reception room door, pushing it gently until the latch clicked.

The stout man resembled the jowly man above the fire. Jack wondered how they were related.

“Dr Martin Bickford-Buckley?”

“I’m Dr Bickford-Buckley. Who are you?” His voice was strangled and hoarse.

Jack let go of the man’s throat and allowed him to turn. As soon as the doctor saw him, he gasped.

“It’s you,” he said.

“You weren’t expecting me?”

“How did you. .”

“I thought I’d take the time to return your bag,” Jack said. He held up the black medical bag with the initials MBB stamped into the side. “And now that I have, perhaps there is a thing or two we might discuss.”

“I’ll discuss nothing with you.”

There was a knock at the door.

Jack whispered, “If you say a word that I don’t like, I’ll kill her, too. You have a last opportunity to be a noble man. Do you understand?”

Bickford-Buckley nodded, and Jack opened the door. The housekeeper entered with a silver tray. She set it on the table, curtsied, and left again without ever looking up at them. Jack closed the door behind her and latched it.

He smiled at the doctor. “How do you take your tea?”

“You’ve come to kill me. I regret nothing, so get on with it.”

“Gladly. But first, I hope you’ll give me the names of our mutual Karstphanomen friends. Not too soon, mind you. I have some sharp clinky metal things here I’d like to show you. Tell me, have you ever heard the phrase ‘divine retribution’?”

“Oh, good Lord!”

“Yes. That’s exactly right. I’m glad you understand.”

Jack barely caught the man again before he screamed, and after that he ensured that Dr Bickford-Buckley made no loud noises during their long visit. He didn’t want to disturb the housekeeper. She seemed like a nice lady.

He left a gift for her on the mantel before he let himself out.

Dr Kingsley had made special arrangements at University College Hospital, and a large sitting room had been refashioned into a private convalescence ward for two special patients. Day and Hammersmith lay side by side in clean white beds while nurses bustled about and patients in the nearby public wards cried out. Most of the time, the two policemen slept. When they were awake, they rarely spoke. Day’s legs were heavily wrapped in layers of gauze, and he was sedated for the first two days and nights of his stay. Hammersmith required more attention. One of his lungs was perforated, but the wound had been sewn shut in time to save his life. Dr Kingsley inspected the stitches and declared them to be adequate. It was clearly the work of an amateur, but a talented amateur, and there was no reason to submit Hammersmith to the trauma of reopening that wound. His chest posed a different problem. Fiona had kept him from bleeding to death, but her stitchwork was clumsy. Kingsley had removed the stitches from his chest and sewn him back up. He informed both Hammersmith and Fiona that there would be significant scarring, but that he had every reason to expect a full recovery. This did not comfort Hammersmith, who felt he should not have allowed himself to be stabbed in the first place.

Cinderhouse’s body had been put back together and examined. In addition to the missing genitals, Kingsley was unable to find the left kidney or the tongue. Mr Michael, owner of the house on Phoenix Street, eventually verified that one of the tongues found on his chimneypiece had come from Cinderhouse’s mouth, but there was no way to determine which one, and so both tongues were cremated along with the tailor’s remains.

The same day that Cinderhouse was burned and discarded, Claire Day finally visited the hospital. She pushed a pram that had been modified to fit two babies. A young nurse cooed over the infants and led Claire to the private room where Day had been awakened and dressed for the occasion. He lay atop his starched white sheets and smiled at Claire when she entered. She ran to him and they hugged, carefully, and she showered his lips and eyes and forehead with kisses.

“I’ve been so worried,” she said. “Dr Kingsley wouldn’t let me come.”

They whispered to each other, careful not to wake Hammersmith, whose ravaged chest rose and fell rhythmically, miraculously.

“How are you?”

“How am I? How are you ? Walter, you almost died.”

“Nonsense. A rough day on the job, that’s all.”

“You didn’t really get a chance to see the girls.”

She went to the pram and wheeled it to the bed. Day looked down at his daughters, who slept curled up around each other like kittens.

“They’re lovely,” he said. “Did it. . I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“Well, you’ve got a wonderful excuse.”

Day laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do. You’re all right now?”

“I haven’t slept much.”

“I’ve slept entirely too much.”

“Tell me about your legs,” Claire said.

“I’ve kept them both.”

“Well, that’s a good start. Will you walk?”

“I’m told I will, in time. There was tissue damage to the left leg. He didn’t do much to the right, and I should make a full recovery there. But I’ll walk with a cane.”

“It will make you look dignified.”

“It will make me look old.”

“I don’t care how old you look.”

Day pointed at the pram. “I wasn’t expecting two.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“They’re so tiny.”

“They came early. But they’re healthy.”