The Technologists (39 page)

“The fellow fights hard,” said one of them. “He deserves to rest.” A blunt object stung the back of Marcus’s head.

*   *   *

Rap-rap rap-rap
.

Ellen leaned her ear against the door. “Clear?” she whispered.

Again, two pairs of distinct raps.

She unlatched the door to allow Bob to slip inside and then she closed it behind him.

“I wouldn’t give the ‘clear’ signal, dear Professor, if it weren’t clear.”

“Mrs. Blodgett moves with a silent step through the house. You must be careful, or she will throw you right out the window,” said Ellen. She had never had a man with her in her room before and enjoyed a spotless reputation among her fellow boarders, as well as in the eyes of Blodgett and her family. Ellen had coached Bob in his application for a room, telling him exactly what to say when confronted with the quintessential three-word question of Boston landladies, each one pronounced with
the moral force of a hell-fire sermon: “Who are you?” Ellen’s guidance secured Bob a room, as she had known it would, but that would not erase Mrs. Blodgett’s suspicions of a young single man, which were only surpassed by those she harbored for young single women, and approximately equal to those held close to her breast about a student of science.

Ellen knew she must seem quite nervous to Bob as they stood together in the room—and that annoyed her at the bottom of her soul. She abruptly turned her face from him. “The telescope is there, Mr. Richards—but it is heavy.”

“It is good for our sakes I have used dumbbells every evening for three years,” Bob said, as he looked around and then paused, an expression of surprise on his face.

“What? Out with it,” Ellen said impatiently.

“It is remarkable! Your room.”

She had never considered the room special, but smiled at his appreciation for something other than her scientific expertise.

“I like everything in apple-pie order. Those are all my plants, you see. I have carved out the center of this dining table and lined it with zinc to better provide them with water.”

At one window ivy emerged from a basket and wound its way up along the frame. An array of roses and silver-leaf geraniums were budding and spreading, while festooned clematis brightened the rest of the small parlor. Displayed above was a contraption made of two sheets of pasteboard and a pole.

“That is a barometer of my own simple construction,” Ellen said before he could ask about it. “It is but a sample of the instruments, used correctly, that will allow science to predict the weather.”

“Predictive weather! Another of your eccentric sciences.” He continued to survey the room.

“If it should aid the practice of farmers, then indeed it is. What is it you’re so interested in here, Mr. Richards?”

“Your rooms are not what I expected.”

“Did you think I lived in a cave?”

“Something like that, perhaps. Or perhaps I imagined your laboratory at the Institute as your home.”

“Mr. Fogg laughs on the nights I’m there later than he and says I
am a spook. He said it is a darky term for a ghost spirit that wanders through the night.” Ellen was chagrined to find herself speaking at an even quicker tempo than usual.

Baby trotted out to greet him. “Greetings, old fellow—any new experiments today?” Bob asked, petting him above the tail. The feline gave his distinct mew.

“Well,” Ellen said, wanting a little measure of revenge for his assumptions about her, “I expect a rich boy like you to come from a mansion in the acropolis of Beacon Hill, with your doting family.”

“Pinckney Street, only with doting mother.”

“This is all I have, Mr. Richards, and I am content with it. I believe I—and Mr. Mansfield—are what Bostonians like to call their country cousins. I take no offense at the notion. This is the Athens of America, the brains of our continent, and I intend to make it my home for the rest of my days.”

“Nellie!”

“What did you say?” Ellen asked, gasping.

Bob had found a drawing on the wall that was signed “With gratitude, to Nellie.”

“When I was at Vassar, in order to earn my pin money, I served as a coach to some of the girls who had mathematical difficulties. I had to submit to being hugged and kissed and thanked in return, I’m afraid.” She added, “I do not know why that is even on the wall. I suppose I cannot afford fine art.”

“That is all good, but it is written here that this is a gift to Nellie! Is that what you are called?”

“By friends, yes, Mr. Richards.” Even as she said it, she wished she had not. She meant only to be firm, direct, admirably unblinking, but not harsh. She no longer desired to control her fellow Technologists but would not be thrown off her guard. Bob appeared stung for a moment, though he quickly repaired his expression by unfurling his easy, charming smile. “We—you and I—are rather peers,” she added.

“Peers,” Bob repeated gamely. “Will you not call me Bob, then? You say you wish to be treated like the other Tech boys; therefore I suggest you act as they do more often.”

She thought about this and shook her head. “Robert will do.”

“Closer, I suppose. Would you do it again?”

“Say your name?”

“Coach girls to be up in science and mathematics.”

Ellen considered. “I do wish I could teach women of science like myself at the Institute who will then educate the world in ways men cannot. Women can reason—they must. They desire to vote, but first must prove they deserve it.”

“You mean to have such ladies put their microscopes into my blueberry pie and my drinking glass.”

“I look at anything that interests me. Once I see it under the microscope it will interest me for certain. I have of late, before our present study became so pressing, been analyzing the appearance of ergot in rye and wheat.”

“That’s Dutch to me, Professor.”

“Ergot is a disease occasioned by the presence of a fungus that needs far more study,” she explained, “as does its constitutional effects on any that consume it. Science must learn how to keep the body in good condition to do the bidding of the spirit. Do you know how few persons there are who can properly analyze the chemistry of babies’ food used to substitute for mothers’ milk?”

“Well, I suppose you are set to bring many improvements to the Institute, with your vegetable chemistry and whatnot!”

“Make no mistake, I have a debt to Professor Rogers greater than any other person’s at our school. He has given me a chance to do what no woman ever did. To be the first woman to enter the Institute of Technology, to enter
any
scientific school, and to do it by myself alone. Unaided.” She felt she owed this senior, however bullheaded he might be, an explanation for her serious demeanor.

“Well, I promise not to aid you in any fashion after this is finished,” Bob said, his tone a bit colder.

“Thank you for that,” she rejoined with equal coolness.

“Shall we?”

He stared at her, putting his hands out. She realized she was standing right in front of the telescope. She smoothed her dress and stepped to one side. Bob Richards was concerned with saving lives and saving the Institute, as she was, and could not care a whit what she had to say about
herself. She felt silly for having momentarily imagined she had in any way injured such a handsome boy’s feelings. He who, when his beautiful hair grew out, looked like a statue of one of the ancient Greek gods. Until he cut it again and then looked like an ancient Roman god. How pathetic that she wished him to show feelings for her.

“Please be careful with it!” she called out as he moved the instrument from its corner near the window. “It is very dear to me.”

T
HE ROUGH RIDE
—the sack over his head must once have held rotten eggs; three times he thought he might pass out—pulled out of a carriage by his legs, shoved into the mud, yanked to his feet … turned around in a circle half a dozen times … dragged up one flight of stairs, then another, another. A series of locks unlatching. It was all darkness and noises and pangs of anguish for Marcus, his hands tied and his teeth clenching the gag so hard that if they clenched harder he might have shredded it and choked.

Maneuvered into a chair, he still felt his arm held by one of his captors.

The rusty, high-pitched singing came from somewhere behind him, in the far corner of the room.

“We have him, sir.” It was announced close enough to Marcus that he could smell the speaker’s brandy-laced breath.

“Give the worm sight,” said a gravelly, artificial voice.

The blinder was pulled off and the gag removed. Marcus’s eyes opened wide and darted around in search of the scarred man as he coughed in the air and adjusted to his surroundings. He would not make any attempt to resist. Yet. Not until he knew where he was and
whether any of his friends were in danger. The scarred villain and his accomplices had gone to much trouble to disorient him. They didn’t want him to know his location, which he hoped meant they did not plan on killing him.

It was a large chamber, illuminated only by candles. He flinched as he examined the walls and ceilings. Vivid murals of grotesque, outlandish tortures and cruelty covered all surfaces in which demons and beasts of no identifiable species tore limbs and flesh of naked humans into pieces.
I am the avenging angel and my tongue is my flaming sword:
The warning of the scarred man ran through his mind. On a table in front of him, next to a monster crimson-leather Bible, a set of sterling silver surgical tools glimmered ominously under the candlelight, the sharp blades and tips level with his face and pointing at him.

He closed his eyes and half-expected all of it to have dissolved away into a nightmare when he opened them again.

A lifelike statue of the devil, its fangs bloody and horns rising up from its three faces, was seated in a high throne on the other side of the table. Only when the devil faces leaned forward and peered at Marcus through the smoky light, he realized it was no statue. The men who had kidnapped him from the boardinghouse drew off their plain black masks to reveal other grotesque heads beneath—a wart-infested demon, a witch, a rotting skull covered in leeches, and a dragon. He could now see the black costumes beneath were academic robes. At the doors behind them stood two large guards dressed entirely in flesh-colored tights.

“This isn’t him!” the devil shouted. The beasts huddled together and seemed to be engaged in some debate. “He was in his room …” one of them whispered.

Marcus began to understand. The masked men had been looking for Bob. Imagining Bob beaten and tied up made him even angrier and, for the moment, grateful it had been him taken. What would they want with Bob? He felt the same blind rage he’d had with Tilden, and he knew he had to drive it down enough to get his bearings.
But if I could get hold of one of those silver scalpels, God help me …
While they were distracted, he craned his head and looked around again.

In the far corner, a young man no more than seventeen years old
stood on his head singing the Mother Goose nursery songs that had greeted Marcus’s ears on his arrival. Another young man crawled on the floor with a donkey’s collarbone fixed around his neck. Marcus also saw a display of mustaches with names and years below them. He remembered Edwin talking about the Harvard secret society—Med Fac, he remembered Edwin called it—shaving off freshmen mustaches as rites of initiation. He’d explained it was jokingly called the Medical Faculty because they claimed their dark deeds created a healthier college for the students. Med Fac!

*   *   *

B
OB RICHARDS WAS AT THE END
of his patience. He had been pacing the roof of Mrs. Blodgett’s boardinghouse, running his hand roughly through his hair, at intervals peering through the telescope at the entrance to the chemists’ building, then at the discolored window to look for any sign of a lamp being lit, then back.

Marcus and Edwin were likely already finished writing their reports about their discoveries for the press and here he was, waiting for the same blasted event he’d been waiting for since late that afternoon. A Richards couldn’t possibly remain this passive this long.

When Ellen came to relieve him again fifteen minutes later, he shook his head.

“Nothing! No sight of anything at that d—” He checked his tongue. “That wretched laboratory, and I’m tired.”

Ellen nodded sympathetically. “Take some rest while I watch the building for a while. I was thinking, Mr. Richards, if there are any vacancies in the laboratory building, say above or adjacent to the laboratory we have identified, given time we might drill a passageway—”

“Do you have a gun?” Bob interrupted.

“What?”

“A gun,” he repeated.