Robert McCammon - Mister Slaughter

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Berry asked.

"Like what?" He'd let his mind wander and his eyes linger, and so he immediately brought himself back to the business at hand. In answer to Berry's knock, a small square aperture in the door flipped up and an eye-glassed dark brown eye peered out. The first time Matthew had visited up here, he'd been witness to McCaggers' experiments with pistols on Elsie and Rosalind, the two dress-maker's forms that served for target practice. Not to mention the other items behind that door. In another minute or two, Berry was going to be beating a hasty retreat back down the stairs.

The door opened. Ashton McCaggers said, in a light and pleasant voice, "Good afternoon. Please come in."

Matthew motioned for Berry to enter, but she was paying no attention to him anyway and had already started across the threshold. Matthew followed her, McCaggers closed the door, and then Matthew had almost run smack into Berry because she was standing there, quite still, taking stock of the coroner's heaven.

The light through the attic's windows streamed upon what hung suspended from the rafters above their heads. McCaggers' "angels", as he'd once described them to Matthew, were four human skeletons, three adult-sized and one a child. Adorning the walls of this macabre chamber were twenty or more skulls of different sizes, some whole and some missing jawbones or other portions. Wired-together bones of legs, arms, ribcages and hands served as strange decorations that only a coroner could abide. In the room, which was quite large, stood a row of honey-colored file cabinets atop which were arranged more bone displays. There were animal skeletons as well, showing that McCaggers gathered bones for the sake of their shapes and variety. Next to a long table topped with beakers of fluid in which objects of uncertain-but certainly disturbing-origin floated was McCaggers' rack of swords, axes, knives, muskets, pistols and cruder weapons such as clubs studded with frightful-looking nails. It was before this assortment of things that turned human beings into boneyards that Hudson Greathouse stood, holding in one hand an ornately-decorated pistol he was in the process of admiring.

He looked now from the pistol at Berry, and said with a faint smile, "Ah. Miss Grigsby."

Berry didn't answer. She was yet motionless, still studying the grisly surroundings, and Matthew wondered if she could find her tongue.

"Mr. McCaggers' collections," Matthew heard himself say, as if it would do any good.

A silence stretched, and finally McCaggers said, "Can I get anyone some tea? It's cold, but-"

"What a magnificent " Berry paused, seeking the correct word. "Gallery," she decided. Her voice was calm and clear and she stretched out an arm toward the child-sized skeleton that hung nearest her. Matthew winced, thinking she was going to touch its hand, but of course it was too high for her to reach. Though not by much. She turned her gaze toward the coroner, and as Matthew walked quietly around to one side he could see her mind at work, examining the man who lived amid such a museum. "I presume these were unclaimed corpses, and the cemetery is not filling up so quickly in New York that there's no more room?"

"Indeed, not, and you presume correctly." McCaggers allowed himself a hint of a smile. He took off his spectacles and cleaned them on a handkerchief from the pocket of his black breeches. The better to see Berry more clearly, Matthew thought. McCaggers was only three years older than Matthew, was pale and of medium height and had light brown hair receding from a high forehead. He wore a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and was perpetually a day or two away from a decent shave. In spite of that, he kept himself and his attic as neat as Sally Almond's kitchen. He put his spectacles back on, and seemed to view Berry in a new light. "I don't have many visitors here. The ones I do have usually cringe, and can't wait to get out. Most people are you know so afraid of death."

"Well," Berry answered, "I'm not fond of the idea," and she gave Matthew a quick glance that said she still hadn't quite gotten over their brush with mortality in the form of hawk talons and killers' knives at the Chapel estate. "But for the sake of form, your specimens are very interesting. One might say artful."

"Oh, absolutely!" McCaggers almost grinned, obviously pleased to have discovered a kindred spirit. "The bones are beautiful, aren't they? As I once told Matthew, to me they represent everything fascinating about life and death." He gazed up at the skeletons with an expression of pride that made Matthew's flesh crawl. "The young man and woman-those two there-came with me from Bristol. The little girl and older man were found here. My father was a coroner in Bristol, you know. As was my grandfather before-"

There came the loud snap of the pistol's trigger being pulled, which served to stop McCaggers' recitation of his family history.

"Our business at hand," said Greathouse, who nodded toward a table across the attic where Zed sat in a spill of light cleaning and polishing some of the forceps, calipers and little blades that were tools of the coroner's trade. Zed's attire was a gray shirt and brown breeches, far removed from his suit of last night. When he looked up and saw everyone staring at him he returned the attention impassively, and then shifted his chair so his broad back was presented to his audience. He continued his work with admirable dignity.

"So," McCaggers went on, again concentrating on Berry. "You have an appreciation for art?"

Oh for Lord's sake! Matthew thought. If Effrem were present, the tailor's son might feel a twinge of jealousy at this obvious play for Berry's interest.

"I do, sir," Berry answered. "Most certainly."

Matthew could have told McCaggers how Berry's talent for drawing had helped solve the puzzle of the Queen of Bedlam, but he hadn't been asked. He shot a glance at Greathouse, who looked as if he were ready to shoot the coroner.

"Ah!" It was spoken by McCaggers as a sublime statement. Behind his spectacles his eyes took in Berry from shoetoe to hat brim. "And as a teacher, you have a curiosity for shall we say the unusual?"

Now Berry did appear a little flustered. "Pardon me?"

"The unusual," McCaggers repeated. "Not just in forms of art, but forms of creation?"

Berry looked to Matthew for help, but Matthew shrugged; he had no earthly idea what McCaggers was driving at.

"Listen," Greathouse spoke up. "In case you've forgotten, we're here about-"

"I don't forget anything," came the reply, which carried a touch of frost. "Ever. Miss Grigsby?" His voice warmed again with her name. "May I show you my greatest treasure?"

"Well I'm not sure I'm-"

"Of course you're worthy. Being interested in forms of art, and creation, and a teacher as well. Also, I think you might like to see a mystery that has no answer. Would you?"

"All mysteries have answers," Greathouse said. "It's just finding the one that fits."

"So you say." With that remark, McCaggers turned away and walked past a bookcase full of ancient-looking tomes bound in scabby leather. He went to a massive old black chest-of-drawers, which stood next to a cubbyhole arrangement that held rolled-up scrolls of paper. From the bottom drawer of the chest, McCaggers removed a small red velvet box. He came back to Berry bearing the red box as if it held the finest emerald from the mines of Brazil. "This is my greatest treasure," he said quietly. "A mystery that has no answer. It was given to my grandfather, as payment for work done. My father passed it along to me. And now " He paused, about to open the box. Matthew noted that even Zed had put aside his work and was watching intently. "I've never shown this to anyone else, Miss Grigsby. May I call you 'Berry?"