The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (14 page)

"You'll be dismissed without a reference, you thieving swine."

"A bit rich, coming from you," he said.

"Is that why you can't stand me? Because I'm not rich like Goddard?"

I wasn't Goddard's equal. I wasn't even Collins's equal. Only Goddard's esteem stood between me and the streets. But that night, Goddard had made his esteem manifest in gold: loyalty, fidelity, and eternity.

It didn't matter what the manservant thought.

"That's part of it," he said.

"What's the rest?"

He cocked his heavy, closely cropped head, examining me as if for the first time. Though he held himself as befitting a gentleman's confidential servant, spoke the Queen's English, and had Eileen press his garments twice daily, the manservant had a boxer's nose and the hands of a strangler. His eyes were small and mean. His disdain for me did not change as he considered my question. In the end, though, he shrugged, as if figuring there was nothing I could do to him regardless of his answer.

"How long have you been in Dr. Goddard's employ, Mr. Adler? Two years? A bit longer than the others, that's true. But I've served Dr. Goddard for twenty. I've seen your like come and go."

I wasn't Goddard's first, of course. The night of our first assignation, he'd taught me things I hadn't learned in my years whoring myself on the streets. But he'd never mentioned anyone else coming to York Street to live. I glanced at my ring.

"I was with him at Cambridge, when his troubles began," the manservant continued. "I was here when he carried each of you boys back from the East End like half-drowned kittens, and I'll be here when Dr. Goddard realizes the futility of his misguided charity
again
."

My head snapped up at the mention of Cambridge.

After the promising start of a brilliant career, Goddard had been dismissed from his post. The door of the ivory tower was locked so firmly behind him that more than a decade later, he still couldn't do better than an occasional evening class in basic composition. He might have made an enemy of the wrong person, found himself on the wrong side of some political struggle. But Goddard preferred persuasion to confrontation, and avoided politics of all sorts. I suspected a scandal--something shaming him into a lifetime of silence.

Something that would ruin his career forever.

And St. Andrews had been at the center of it.

A nauseating picture began to form in my mind.

"What happened at Cambridge?" I asked.

Collins regarded me evenly.

"That's for Dr. Goddard to reveal, should he see fit to do so."

Which he wouldn't bloody well do, and we both knew it. No matter.

"I'm not leaving," I said.

Collins turned the knife over in his hands, watching the blade catch the light from the lamp I'd set on the edge of the table. He suddenly gripped the knife by the handle and stabbed it into the thick wood of the kitchen table, where it quivered beside the pile of empty red seed pods.

"For a while I thought you were different," he said. "You didn't throw the master's money around as if it were your own. You didn't bring your filthy friends by when he was gone. You genuinely seemed to appreciate that he wanted to improve your mind. But you don't care for him. Not like you should."

"But I said I wasn't leaving," I argued.

My tone was unconvincing. I'd been mindful of Goddard's unusual generosity and careful not to abuse it. But I couldn't help feeling that Collins was right on some level. I had definitely been taking advantage of Goddard's affection. I did enjoy Goddard's company. I respected and liked him. But was that enough to merit that evening's grand gesture?

"He asked me to stay, and I intend to," I said.

"In the end, your kind always leave. And it always takes its toll. Dr. Goddard is a very busy and very important man, Mr. Adler. He can really do without this kind of abuse."

Enraged, I thrust my hand in his face. The golden snake's diamond eyes glittered in the gaslight. Collins's eyes narrowed as he examined it. One corner of his mouth lifted in a sad half-smile.

"He gave you that, did he?"

"He said he had it made specially."

"Especially for you? Oh, yes," he continued. "I've seen that ring before. I keep trying to tell him that it's useless, but he never listens. Forgive me, Mr. Adler. I was taken in by the first few of your predecessors as surely as Dr. Goddard was, but it always ends the same way. This time, I'm not taking any chances."

"But--"

"Tell me, is Dr. Goddard aware of the little problem between your legs?"

For a moment, there was no sound save for the pounding of my heart. Though it was cooler below stairs, the air suddenly felt hot and thick. Needless to say, the crawling sensation that had been merely irritating earlier an hour ago, now raged and burned with the fury of hell.

"What do you know of it?" I asked.

"Oh, I've seen it before."

He leaned over to pick up the dustbin. He held the bin below the lip of the table, and used his hand to sweep the empty seed pods into it. He reached for the bowl of pulp and tipped it in as well.

"It starts with an itch," he said, taking the bowl to the sink. I watched him rinse it, give it a shake, and set it on the rack to dry. "You begin a bathing regimen, but it only seems to aggravate the situation. You scratch, it gets worse. You do nothing; it becomes unbearable. You try every manner of pharmacopoeia--one of your predecessors even sought the services of a spiritualist--but nothing seems to help."

He crossed back, removing the apron and using it to brush the remaining traces of his activity from the table.

"All the while you keep the secret festering inside you, terrified to broach the subject with the master, because you're not sure which would trigger a more violent response, his supposition that your misery was a result of your own infidelity, or your implied accusation of a dalliance on his part."

He met my eyes, his own like two cold pebbles.

"Of all the reasons for leaving, Mr. Adler, a shameful disease is the most disappointing, wouldn't you agree?"

I swallowed. Goddard credited my recent fondness for oil rubs and herbal baths to a newfound hedonistic streak. But though the oil provided a pleasant enough distraction when Goddard applied it, even my favorite herbs now seemed to irritate. Nurse Brand had sworn up and down there was no evidence of disease, and yet Nate had spotted the problem immediately. From Collins's unerring description of the progression of symptoms, he knew the truth as well. Whether Goddard had brought the infection to our bed or whether it was my souvenir from earlier days was immaterial. Sooner or later, we would both have to face the truth. And if Goddard thought I had disrespected him in this way, his justice would be swift and merciless.

And, I thought, Collins's words echoing in my mind, perhaps I deserved it.

Two floors up, there was a faint thump. I'd been gone too long for a simple call of nature. Was Goddard getting up to investigate? I snatched my lamp from the table.

"I could be wrong, of course," Collins said, glancing toward the ceiling. "Your problem might clear up on its own before Dr. Goddard becomes suspicious enough to take action. The question is, how much are you willing to risk on such a hope, Mr. Adler, when you know in your heart that it's futile?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but there were simply no words. So this was how it was to end? On the very night that it began? The lamp began to tremble in my hand, and I had the sudden sense the entire basement was closing in around me. Collins said nothing, merely picking up the dustbin in one hand and the plate of scrapings in another.

"Sooner or later, the truth will out, Mr. Adler. Do him a favor. Do yourself a favor." He glanced up again. "He's always so disappointed when you boys just vanish, but eventually he picks himself up and moves on."

"Vanish?" I swallowed. His tone and his expression suggested the others hadn't simply abandoned the big house on York Street in favor of some Whitechapel doorway. "What do you mean? What happened to them?"

His mouth quirked into a sleepy smirk. "I'm rather curious about that myself. I have no idea what became of the other young men who wore that ring. Good night, Mr. Adler."

He turned toward the corridor where his room and Eileen's lay. I watched him pad away, the bin in one hand, the plate of scrapings in the other. When he got to the corridor, he paused briefly to turn out the kitchen light.

The truth will out.
Did he intend to share his suspicions with Goddard? A few pilfered opium pods seemed silly compared to a venereal disease. I absently stroked the head of the golden snake, but the metal felt cold against my finger, and the band felt more like a prisoner's shackle than the symbol of commitment it was meant to be.

With the wall lights extinguished, I became aware I was in a small, dark basement, with the weight of two well-furnished stories bearing down above me, and only the lamp in my hand for protection. I felt sick. And yet I couldn't go back to bed, not just now, not like this. And I couldn't stay in the basement. I had to get outside, just for a moment, and clear my head.

Back in the vestibule, I retrieved my slippers from the foot of the stairs. I considered dashing upstairs to dress properly. But I was only going out onto the front steps for a smoke. I clacked into the morning room and retrieved one of my cigarettes from the gilded box on the mantel. Ignoring the brush of the lavender letters against the backs of my fingers, I lit the cigarette with the barrel-shaped lighter beside the box. I inhaled deeply: Nile mud, dry desert air, and pyramid dust. On my life, there were few more things more salutary than a lungful of Egyptian tobacco when one most needed it.

In retrospect, the rectangular back garden, where Goddard grew his prized roses, would have made a much better choice. I might have stayed there for the rest of the night, the spicy smell of my tobacco mingling with the sweetness of the roses, until I'd either figured out how to tell him about my condition, and about Collins's treachery, or until I'd fallen asleep on the ornate iron bench. But I was in too much of a panic to think clearly. All I wanted was out. Leaving my lamp on the mantel, I went back to the vestibule and snatched, for decency's sake, the obnoxious tweed coat from the rack by the door. I slipped out the front, pulling the door shut behind me.

The very door, I realized, as the tumblers of the Chubb detector lock clicked into place, which had time and again proven impervious to my persuasion and the picklocks jingling in the pocket of that hated coat.

The Great Westminster Clock tolled three. The sun would be up in a few hours, but so would the neighbors' servants. One just didn't encounter half-naked men with kiss-swollen lips and love bites on the doorsteps of middle-class bachelors. In broad daylight, it wouldn't take five minutes for someone to twig to the idea my presence and state meant exactly what they did mean, and to rob our blackmailer of the opportunity to turn us over to the police. That fragrant breath of Egypt went foul in my mouth, and I expelled a sour plume of smoke into the early morning air.

The obvious solution was to let myself back in through a window. I'd have done it, too, had Goddard not nailed the ones below the second floor shut. I might have put a rock through one of them, but the sound of breaking glass would have attracted the attention of the legions of constables wandering the streets around Regent's Park instead of patrolling places where they might encounter actual crime. Eileen's room had no windows to scratch at, and the hope the girl would rise before her peers to scrub the front step was uncertain at best. The only thing for it was to wake either Collins or Goddard.

The cigarette was turning to ash in my fingers. I ground it out on the landing, leaving a black smudge, which I spat on and rubbed with the toe of my slipper until it became a long, ugly smear.

"Sorry, Eileen," I said under my breath.

I glanced toward our bedroom window. Goddard had excellent hearing, and was normally a light sleeper. However, after a night of vigorous exercise, even more vigorous sex, and half a bottle of expensive brandy, I doubted anything would have awakened him.

"Cain!" I hissed.

Silence.

I looked around for a pebble to toss, but of course both street and landing had been swept clean.

"Goddard!"

Suddenly, I heard approaching footsteps.

I almost cried out when I saw the unmistakable form of a bobby in his tall hat, silhouetted against the street lamp on the corner. I flattened myself against the doorway just in time to avoid his sweeping gaze, and drew in a long, cautious breath. That I should be skulking around my own doorway like a common housebreaker was outrageous. And it was all Collins's fault. Somehow, I'd have to convince Goddard that Collins was a thief before Collins convinced him I was a disease-bearing whore. I'd start the moment I found a way back into the house.

Eventually, the constable grew bored of searching a quiet street for imaginary criminals, and stepped out of the light. I waited until his footsteps faded away before letting out my breath and turning my attention back to the problem at hand. There had to be something I could use to get Goddard's attention--a stone, some acorns, a light piece of rubbish. I glanced around again, but York Street was as bare as a pauper's plate.