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Munck shuddered again, this time in the grip of an entirely different emotion.
He could now hear the boy’s voice raised in protest over some point or another of cards. As he listened, he heard a step down the hall—there she was: the duchess. Her step was very light indeed. She entered the room and he heard the murmur of her voice, the slight protest of the boy Joe, and then more soft footsteps and murmurings, followed by the opening and closing of a door.
Joe had gone to his own room. It was past eight o’clock: bedtime. The duchess remained in the girl’s room, speaking softly. It took several minutes, but finally that door closed as well: the duchess had left the girl in her room for the night.
He waited.
The duchess’s footsteps passed by his door, went down the carpeted stair, and vanished. Silence settled over the household. Now was the time to act.
He eased the door open a crack and peered down the hall. Empty. Two doors down, he knew, was the girl’s room. He slipped out into the passage and moved carefully to her door. He paused at the threshold—then, silently and with great rapidity, he opened the door, strode over to the bed, and clapped his hand over the girl’s mouth before she even knew what was happening. She struggled, eyes wide.
“Do what I say or I’ll kill your brother,” he told her in a whisper.
She stopped struggling.
“I’m going to remove my hand. You make a sound, your brother dies. Nod if you understand.”
She nodded, her violet eyes wide with fear. But there was no panic in them: Munck knew she had spent all her life in the Five Points, and the sight and sound of violence was not new to her.
He removed his hand. She continued staring at him. “You’re coming with me. Nice and quiet, like.”
He pulled back the covers and yanked her out of bed. She was in her nightdress. That would not do. He crept to her closet, pulled out a sweater, coat, and shoes.
“Put these on. Real quiet, now.”
She began putting the clothes on over the nightdress. As she did, Munck moved back to the door, listened a moment, and then cracked it. The hall was still empty. Then, suddenly, the door leading to the third floor opened and the tutor emerged. Munck was startled: this was not part of the expected routine.
The tutor closed the door to the stairway and began approaching along the hall. Munck instinctively realized he must be coming to the girl’s room to say goodnight. That, of course, could not be permitted. Munck felt the gratifying thrill of what was about to happen course over him as he slipped out the door—and, all in a silent rush, met the surprised tutor and slit his throat from ear to ear before he could utter a sound.
The man collapsed, twisting slightly as he did so, blood jetting like a fire hose. Munck skipped back to avoid the spray, allowing himself to just douse his hands in it, exulting in the glossy gorgeousness of the blood painting the wall as the man knelt, hand fumbling at his throat, the look of surprise in his eyes fading to blankness as he toppled over.
Munck slipped back into the bedroom, then stopped. The girl was gone. He was unconcerned: the door to the water closet remained in the same position it had been before. The little vixen was hiding. He would find her soon enough.
He looked under the bed—nothing. Then he yanked open the closet door, swept aside the clothes—and there she was, the little mademoiselle bitch. He jerked her out into the room, pulled out a silk handkerchief, gagged her—and then slapped her hard across the face. The little guttersnipe hardly flinched, staring back at him with such hatred it gave him a queer sensation in his gut.
Then he grabbed her by the neck and pushed her out the door and down the hall, in the direction of the stairs.
73
PENDERGAST, FROZEN WITH HORROR, could do nothing but stare at the face exposed by the coverlet. The body in the bed was not asleep, but dead and growing stiff: but it was not the corpse of Mary. It was Gaspard Ferenc.
As Pendergast stared, the awful revelation sank in. Ferenc had somehow escaped Proctor’s supervision and managed to use the machine himself. Somehow, he had been captured by Leng; tortured; and killed.
Following immediately upon this revelation was another, even more terrible: Leng now knew everything.
No wonder he had attained this underground room so easily, with no resistance. He had been practically lured here by Leng. From the depths of his horror, Pendergast felt a surge of self-loathing at being outmaneuvered.
But there was no time to think about that. He must get back to Constance’s mansion—because that was surely where Leng would strike while he wasted his time down here.
He turned and sprinted from the room, down the corridor, through the doors, and—at last reaching the staircase—raced up it two steps at a time. A moment later, he burst through the door into the alcove and ran from Shottum’s Cabinet, scattering the patrons in his headlong rush. Once in the open air again, he dashed northward up Catherine Street. There were no cabs to be found in the slums, but there would surely be some along the Bowery.
And there was one: waiting at a cab stand, the driver dozing in his high perch. Pendergast leapt up on his horse and pulled out his knife, slashing off the traces and reins and freeing the animal. The cabbie, roused, began shouting and trying to strike at Pendergast with his whip, but it was too late: Pendergast dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and, with a shrill whistle, sent the animal galloping up the Bowery toward Union Square and beyond.
74
D’AGOSTA STOOD OUTSIDEthe iron bars, staring up at the open window and its curtain, fluttering almost like a distress signal in the cold December wind.
Munck had climbed up there and gotten in. There was no other possibility. What was the bastard doing? Making a nocturnal recon…or something worse?