Doktor Glass (6 page)

Langton wondered how the Professor knew so much about the subject. But the Professor had only just begun; he didn’t seem tired in the least. In fact, his eyes burned with a keen intensity.

“I could go into the minutiae of the matter,” he said, “and tell you about the waveforms, frequencies, amplitude, and so forth, but it isn’t necessary. In this instance, all you need to know is that certain people believe they can apply it to the animus, the very essence of humanity. To the soul itself.”

Langton leaned forward. “How? How do they do it?”

“They locate a container of glass or clay, some material that will not conduct electricity, near the subject. Then an aerial is inserted through the jar’s lid and carries a negative electrical charge. The subject is connected to a positive charge.”

Langton remembered the faceless man. “The burns on his neck.”

“Precisely.”

“I don’t see—”

“Watch.” The Professor reached across the table and pulled the electric lamp within reach. He switched it off so that only the light of the fire remained; it tinted the right side of his face red. “Imagine this lamp is the dying subject. Close to the end. The soul is the light contained within, contained only by a fading shell that will soon wither.”

Langton stared, hypnotized by the words, as somewhere deep inside of him began a scream; Sarah had gone through this. Sarah had withered away as he’d watched.

“Now the end comes,” the Professor said. “The soul is free.”

The light blinded Langton and flooded the room.

“See how it travels to every corner. The experimenters needed to isolate it.” The Professor manipulated the shade until only a narrow beam of light left the lamp. The beam focused on a decanter and made the claret within glow deep red. “The subject’s waveform carries the positive charge and gravitates toward the negative aerial of the waiting jar. In this way, the experimenters found, or so they said, that they could capture the final essence of a dying subject. Capture it and keep it alive.”

Langton doubled over, fighting for breath. The Professor snapped on the overhead lights and knelt before him. “What is it, man?”

“My wife…Sarah…” Langton said, the words shuddering as they left him.

“Lord, forgive me.” The Professor bowed his head. “Forgive me for these petty theatricals. I had no idea.”

Langton grabbed his claret and swallowed it in one gulp. The wine burned his throat but helped him recover his breath. “You were not to know, Professor.”

“Even so.” The Professor got to his feet and swayed slightly. “Perhaps Sister was right: I need sleep.”

“Before you do, please tell me something.”

“Of course.”

“Do they exist? The Jar Boys. Or are they mere fancy?”

The Professor sat down and poured more wine. “As a surgeon and a scientist, I should tell you that they are a fiction, and a poor one at that. I would be lying if I did; I have seen the apparatus in action. For a short time, many years ago, I assisted Professor Klaustus in Frankfurt. He experimented with near-death patients for some years.”

“And you saw this work?”

“I saw
something
,” the Professor said. “A charged field did leave the subject’s body; Klaustus captured it in a heavy jar similar to a Leiden container. And there did seem to be some kind of Brownian motion within that jar. But his laboratory and its contents were consumed in the great winter fire of eighty-four, although the doctor himself possibly survived.”

“But…a jar?”

The Professor shrugged. “It’s not a new icon, Inspector. Consider the Holy Grail, most probably no more than a simple clay chalice. Or the Egyptian mummification process, where the organs of the deceased are transferred to canopic jars. Other civilizations have used similar containers for similar reasons.”

To Langton, the story could have come straight from the pages of the penny periodicals, and the more alarmist ones at that. But to have it endorsed by a renowned professor…

“You actually believe this?”

“Consider the times in which we live, Inspector. We have achieved more in the past fifty years than we have in the last five hundred, or a thousand. We have come so far since Thomas Willis and the ‘Oxford Circle’ of philosopher-physicians back in the seventeenth century first posited the human brain as the engine of reason, passion, and insanity.

“We have pushed back the boundaries in every subject: science, engineering, medicine, manufacturing, art. Why not this? And why should there be any boundaries at all? What if all the disciplines are connected? There may be no separation between medicine and superstition, or between science and religion.”

The Professor’s zeal disturbed Langton. And he thought he detected a hint of hubris, maybe even of arrogance. “What good would come from capturing someone’s soul?”

“Apart from proving that such a thing existed? A good question.” The Professor sank down in his chair and suddenly looked old and tired. “Klaustus found a strange side effect in his experiment: He sealed the jars with copper and wax, and when he touched the metal
collar, he experienced a brief image from the subject’s life. For those few seconds, he relived some of the poor man’s memories.”

Langton didn’t want to make the connection, but the Professor did it for him: “Some people, Inspector, like to vicariously replay those captured lives. They enjoy the sensation of being someone else, of plundering other minds. Some consider it a great…delicacy.”

Langton looked around at the luxurious room and the staring Egyptian effigies. It seemed unreal, as did the city that surely existed beyond those walls. “This happens here? In Liverpool?”

Professor Caldwell Chivers nodded. “Throughout Britain, Inspector. With the Span completed, no doubt America also, soon enough.”

Langton remembered Mrs. Grizedale’s words, her belief that Sarah had been captured. Without realizing it, he gripped the Professor’s arm. “Who? Who deals in these jars? Who?”

“Please, Inspector.” The Professor pulled back. “It might be no more than hearsay. I have no proof—”

“Who?”

The old professor hesitated. “There’s Springheel Bob’s gang, and the Caribs, but I know of one name that my patients and their families repeat over and over again in fear, a pseudonym for Lord knows who.”

“What is the name, Professor? Please.”

The Professor looked into Langton’s eyes and said, “Doktor Glass.”

L
ANGTON WOKE IN
his own bed and enjoyed a moment of absolute, stupefied forgetfulness. Then, when his searching hand found only crumpled bedclothes, reality returned with its burden of fresh memories. He lay there for a moment, staring at the dull grey light through heavy curtains, then threw back the tangled covers and found his robe. The bedside clock said seven.

After the shocks and excitement of the previous day, he had been afraid to go to sleep. He’d expected the same recurring nightmare, only with the added horror that it might be more than a dream. Exhaustion had silenced his demons; he could remember no nightmares this morning.

One decision remained from his interview with the Professor: to explore Sarah’s final moments. Although Langton had arrived too late at the Infirmary, Redfers, their family doctor, had accompanied Sarah from home to the emergency room. Elsie had called Redfers out that night, while a case had preoccupied Langton. Now he couldn’t even remember the details of the case, or perhaps he didn’t want to think of that night.

He knew he must. He crossed to his bureau and jotted a note to Doctor Redfers. Not a request, but a statement: Langton would call on him that evening.

Downstairs, he found a new fire and the table laid for breakfast. Elsie hurried in with coffee and a shy smile. “Good morning, sir. Fog’s cleared. We might even see some sun later.”

Still half asleep, Langton let Elsie bustle about him like a mother hen. Only after his second cup of strong coffee did he say, “Elsie, I’d like to ask a question.”

She set down the tray of toast and waited, her hands held loosely in front of her apron. “Sir?”

“Have you ever heard of the Jar Boys?”

The good humor left Elsie’s face. “I have, sir.”

“Go on, please.”

Her hands tightened. “When my auntie’s youngest was on her way out, sir, close to the end, a man came calling. Well dressed, he was, spoke very far back, but Auntie ran him from her house, threatened to get the priest and the coppers, begging your pardon.

“Ten years old, I was, sir, but I knew he was a wrong’un; I thought he was a Resurrectionist after the body. After he’d gone, Auntie told me about the Jar Boys, how they wait like leeches and take away your soul. I heard it from other people, too. Always planned to steer clear of them, sir, if I could help it.”

Langton looked down at the table. “Thank you for telling me, Elsie.”

The maid went to speak, then curtsied and left the room.

Alone for the moment, Langton wondered what he’d hoped to hear from Elsie. Perhaps some honest common sense from a girl with her feet firmly on the ground. Perhaps he’d wanted her to laugh and tell him the Jar Boys were a fanciful fairy story used to frighten children in their nurseries. She’d only confirmed the words of Mrs. Grizedale and the Professor.

Back upstairs, as he bathed and dressed, Langton still didn’t want to
accept the Jar Boys as truth. He told himself that he needed more information. He had a good idea where he might find it.

The front doorbell rang as Langton finished dressing. He called downstairs, “Is it McBride?”

“It is, sir,” Elsie said.

As Langton came down, he saw Elsie and McBride take a step away from each other in the hall. McBride, blushing, turning his derby hat in his hands, said, “I’ve a hansom waiting, sir.”

Turning away to grab his coat from the rack, Langton hid a smile. “I’m sure I’ll be late, Elsie.”

Then, almost at the door, he took an envelope from his pocket. “Elsie, will you make sure Doctor Redfers receives this?”

“I’ll send a boy around with it this morning, sir.”

Outside, Langton could see down the steep road to the city and a sliver of grey river. Roofs still bore slabs of snow, but the fog had receded. The Transatlantic Span reared up, immense and faintly unreal, its scale dwarfing even the steel-hulled liners and freighters at the docks.

The police driver touched his cap with the whip. “The station, sir?”

“The Pier Head first.”

As they climbed into the hansom, Langton asked McBride, “Is Forbes Paterson back on duty yet?”

“I saw the inspector in the canteen yesterday, sir.”

Forbes Paterson supervised the officers who investigated the various swindles in Liverpool: the false investment companies, ersatz solicitors bringing news of amazing inheritances, and art dealers selling stolen or fake works, particularly following the latest fad for all things Egyptian. His duties also included the growing problem of manipulative clairvoyants, mystics, soothsayers, tarot readers, and mediums. If any officer on the force knew about the Jar Boys, it would be Forbes Paterson.

This made Langton think of Mrs. Grizedale. “Constable, a detour; take us to Hamlet Street in Everton.”

Mrs. Grizedale’s house seemed asleep. Most of the curtains
remained closed, while no new footsteps showed on the front garden’s snow, but dark smoke drifted from the chimney. Langton looked back from the front door and saw McBride watching him from the hansom window.

After two rings on the bell, a face appeared behind the glass; the door opened just enough to show Meera’s scowling face. “Missy Grizedale not seeing anyone.”

“How is she?”

“Resting. Sir.”

Langton hesitated. “I really do need to see her, Meera. Just for a few moments.”

Meera’s eyes blazed. “You hurt her bad.”

Then, at some sound from within the house, Meera turned away and listened. She said something Langton couldn’t hear, then glared at him and opened the door as if allowing in a muddied dog. “Missy see you.”

Langton followed the maid upstairs and found Mrs. Grizedale reclining on a red chaise longue. A blanket reached up to her bosom and a shawl covered her shoulders. She looked pale, with only two spots of red high in her cheeks. “Inspector.”

“I’m sorry to waken you.”

“I wasn’t asleep. Just resting.” Mrs. Grizedale smiled at Meera and said, “It’s all right, my dear. I’ll be fine.”

The maid glared once more at Langton as she left the room.

“I hope you’ve recovered,” Langton said.

“I will. It’s not the first time that…” She forced a smile, then waved to a chair. “Won’t you sit?”

“Thank you, no. I have a cab downstairs. I just wanted to check that you had improved.”

Mrs. Grizedale nodded. “And?”

“Pardon me?”

“Much as I appreciate your concern, Inspector, I’m sure you have something else you wish to ask me.”

He hesitated, then said, “I still have difficulty believing in these…these Jar Boys.”

“They exist,” she said.

“But—”

She leaned forward, dislodging the shawl. “I am sorry to tell you this, but your wife is beyond our help.”

Langton paced back and forth. “Is there no way to find her? To release her?”

“She is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of captured souls secreted by collectors.”

He froze. “Collectors?”

“That is what they call themselves. And no one man knows the contents of all the jars, all the vessels.”

“What about Doktor Glass?”

Mrs. Grizedale sank back. “You know of him?”

“Only that he is feared.”

“And with good reason,” she said. “Avoid him. Even fellow collectors will not talk of him.”

“Why?” Langton knelt beside her. “What is so special about this Doktor Glass?”

Instead of answering, Mrs. Grizedale began to hyperventilate. She couldn’t catch her breath. Meera burst into the room and pushed Langton aside. “Go.”

“But—”

Meera, already opening a small phial and holding it to the medium’s mouth, spat out the words, “Go, before you kill her.”

Langton ran downstairs and pulled the door shut behind him. He climbed into the hansom and slumped beside McBride. As they rattled along Hamlet Street, McBride asked, “Is this part of our investigation, sir?”