The Hunchback Assignments (19 page)

“It looks like a portion of Dr. Hyde’s notes,” Modo said. “Lycaeunium might be the name of the tincture.”

“Did you read the last line: five percent of the subjects die.”

“It may be worse than that.” He held the paper up to
his eyes. “There’s another number in front of that five, but I can’t read it.”

“Ah, I don’t want to know. Just put it away. The less time we spend here the better.”

Modo stuffed the scrap into the breast pocket of his coat.

They went into the smaller room, finding what appeared to be two operating tables surrounded by trolleys of surgical instruments. Octavia picked up a restraining belt, then let it drop. “Their patients weren’t exactly willing. We certainly don’t want to be caught by these people.”

“Oh, I can guarantee that,” Modo replied.

“But why did they destroy everything?”

“Perhaps they know we’re on their trail.”

She shone the pocket lucifer on a small set of manacles attached by chains to the wall.

“For children,” Octavia said, her stomach churning as she thought of Ester.

Modo cried out in alarm as he leaned over and snatched a red cloth from an upturned chair.

“I gave this neckerchief to a boy at the Red Boar!”

“A boy?”

“Oppie. He’s such a good child.”

“I remember him. He led me to your room. How can you be sure it’s his?”

Modo held it up to the light of the pocket lucifer, revealing an embroidered W in one corner. “It’s for Wellington. I thought it would be a nice touch for my business. Poor, poor Oppie.”

Octavia could see he was devastated and her heart
ached for him, but before she could tell him how sorry she was, something chirped on the far side of the larger room.

“Did you hear that?” she asked. They followed the sound to a desk littered with broken flasks. A glint caught Octavia’s eye and she shone her light on a small silver sparrow, half covered by a sheet of paper, its head cocked to one side.

“Why, it’s a clockwork toy,” Modo said, reaching for it. But the bird flitted a few inches away and blinked at them. Modo grabbed at it, but it hopped over his hand. “It must be able to sense when I’m too close,” he said, wonder in his voice.

“What a clever device,” Octavia said as the bird stared at her light. “But why would they leave it behind?”

“Who knows? Maybe they have hundreds of them.” He thrust his hand out one more time, and snatched the sparrow. “There! Got you!” He lifted the bird up and held it proudly out to Octavia, who said, “Modo, a string is dangling from it.”

Then, something began to glow behind the desk.

“What’s that?” Octavia cried.

“Quick! Shine your light over here!” Modo said, dropping the bird. Now they could see that the string, which trailed down the back of the desk, was burning and connected to a handful of candles that had been strapped together. No, thought Octavia, not candles.

“Modo,” she whispered, “it’s dynamite.”

Then she felt Modo grab her around the waist and leap toward the tunnel. It was a moment too late.

M
odo felt as though a huge hand had tossed him, whirling and tumbling, through the air. Stinging chunks of brick and wood banged against him. The force of the blow sent him right through the open door and back into the sewer, splashing, facedown, in the sludge. He let out a bubble, then panicked. Something was on his back. The weight shifted, and Modo was able to push himself up to his hands and knees, sucking in a breath, then coughing at the stench and the burning in his lungs.

“Well, that was a piece of luck,” Octavia said. She stood close by, well lit by the flames inside the chamber. She wiped her hands on her pantaloons. “I landed right on you. Very gentlemanly of you to lay yourself down for me. Otherwise I’d be soaked in sewage too.”

Modo stood up, and brought his hand to his head.
No blood. Flicking aside his sopping hood, he felt the water drain down his back. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I seem to be intact, thanks to you.” She looked into the chamber. “That was a very clever trap.”

Modo patted his body, searching for injuries. His ears were ringing. “Dr. Hyde is the one who uses clockworks. That bird must have been his invention.”

Octavia had the pocket lucifer in her hand. The lid was twisted and it wouldn’t work. “They broke my light!” she lamented, and tossed it into the stream. “Well, I guess that’s all we’ll find here.” Octavia sloshed back toward where they had entered the tunnel.

Modo paused to look behind them in the burning room. To his surprise, he saw his walking stick floating on the water. He grabbed it and followed Octavia.

The journey back to the gazebo was one Modo would never want to repeat: the pitch-black, the squeaking rats, and the cold, slimy walls that he had to touch to keep his bearings. He followed Octavia’s sloshing until he saw a spot of light.

They climbed the rope ladder, and Octavia pulled on her dress and petticoats while Modo looked away. He wiped off his face and hands on a petticoat Octavia sacrificed for the purpose. “You are a master of propriety,” she said, clearly amused.

“It’s my nature.”

Octavia climbed up the wood ladder first, and Modo entertained the idea that he might be able to catch her, should she fall. He knew it was very unlikely that she would slip.

Once outside he took a deep, delicious breath. He’d
never tasted such sweetness. He sucked in more fresh air, so hard that he started hacking, and had to press his hands against his ribs.

“Are you going to live?” Octavia asked. “You’re looking more than a little pale. And what’s that rash?”

Modo put a hand to his face, horrified. “Oh. No. Hmmm. Apparently bathing in sewage doesn’t agree with me.”

“Well, it doesn’t agree with my shoes either!” Octavia said, pointing down at her ornate shoes which were now ornately covered with crud. “They’re ruined!”

She cursed her sorry shoes for a few moments, then they walked to the street. It took wily charm and three extra pence, but Octavia was able to procure a cab, and a short time later the smelly mess of them was dropped off at Towerhouse.

Modo knew immediately something was wrong. The door was hanging by one hinge and a foyer window had been broken. Where was Mr. Socrates? He charged through the door and into the hall.

“Wait, you fool!” Octavia shouted. “You don’t know who’s in there.”

He carried on, picturing Mr. Socrates and Tharpa bleeding, broken, maybe dead. He turned the head of the walking stick so that the knife was out. If someone was lurking in the house, Modo would slice them to pieces.

He burst into the dining room, brandishing the walking stick like a sword. The round table had been pushed over, and the globe broken. Books had been pulled from the shelves. And blood! Blood on the rug. He ran over to take a better look, but discovered it was just spilled wine.

“You shouldn’t charge in mad as a Stamford bull.” Octavia stood in the doorway, hands on hips. “Surely you were trained to do better than this. You could have a bullet in the center of your forehead.”

Modo clenched the walking stick. “If they’ve hurt Mr. Socrates, they’ll suffer.”

“Come now, Modo.” Octavia grabbed his rigid arm. “Be calm! Chances are Mr. Socrates wasn’t even home.”

Modo found another red stain on the floor, and this time it indeed was blood. He stared down at it as though looking into an abyss.

“Is it Mr. Socrates’?” he whispered.

“There’s no way to know. But he’s survived worse attacks than this. And he would have had Tharpa with him.”

Modo couldn’t picture anything that could defeat Tharpa, other than a bullet.

“We need to take stock of what happened.” Octavia pointed at the blood. “Obviously someone was wounded. If they were dead, I imagine they’d still be lying here, or there’d be a trail of blood out the front door. We can take heart in that, at least.”

Modo stared at the blood, then shook his head. He told himself to calm down. She was right. This was not how he had been trained to react in a crisis. “Yes, Tavia,” he said. “But how did they find Towerhouse?”

“I don’t know. It’s surprising they did; Mr. Socrates guards his secrets well. Men like Mr. Socrates have many places to hide. If he and Tharpa escaped, they’re safely somewhere else by now.”

“How do we find them?”

“There’s the rub.” She paused. “We can’t find them. This is the only house I was allowed to know about and Mr. Socrates isn’t someone you can easily find. He prefers to find us.”

Modo’s heart rate had slowed down. I need rest, he thought, rest. But how could he rest without knowing the fate of his master with certainty?

Octavia sat down on a parlor chair with a heavy sigh. “What shall we do, Modo?”

He turned the knob on the walking stick once more and leaned on the now dull end. He didn’t want to sit down with all the filth caked and dried to his clothing. “Well, we don’t really have an assignment at the moment. We have no further leads on the young men; one can only hope that Mr. Socrates has located the other ones on the list, including the prince. Perhaps we ought to see if we can locate the missing children?”

“Ah, you’re thinking now, Modo,” Octavia said.

“What if the people who carried out this attack return?”

“I don’t know that I’d want to remain here past nightfall, but I wonder if my room at the Langham is safe?”

“We should scout around the rest of the house.”

They walked through several rooms, finding no more signs of a struggle. Climbing the spiral stairs to the top of the turret, they discovered an observation room with several slit windows and three telescopes. With all that equipment, Mr. Socrates still hadn’t seen the danger coming.

They ended their search in the kitchen. “Where are the servants?” Modo asked.

“They likely fled. In any case, Mr. Socrates kept very few besides Tharpa.” Octavia prepared two glasses of water and set them on the servants’ table.

“Thank you,” Modo said, gulping one down. He touched the teapot that sat on the table. “Tavia, it’s still warm. It wasn’t that long ago that all this happened. If only we’d returned a little earlier.”

He poured himself a cup of the tea and his stomach growled. In the bread cupboard he found a loaf, crusted with sesame seeds. Mrs. Finchley would have similar loaves ready whenever the master was visiting. He cut four pieces; picked up butter, honey, and cheese; and brought it all to the table. He and Octavia ate quickly.

“Your rash is getting worse,” she said as they finished.

In all the excitement, Modo had forgotten himself. Now he wanted to rush to a mirror. He felt his face with both hands. Everything seemed fine. It had only been four hours since his last transformation. “I’ll look after it later. Maybe there’s an ointment somewhere. What are we going to do now?”

“Well, I’m going to take a bath.”

“A bath?” Modo couldn’t hide his incredulity.

“We need to be clean if we are to take another cab. I suggest, though this may be improper for me to do so, that you, too, take a bath. You’re not smelling particularly pleasant.”

Modo made a show of sniffing himself and wrinkled his nose. “A bath it is.”

T
he claw-footed bathtub sat in the center of the room like a luxurious throne, a pedestal gas lamp at its foot. Modo locked the door, then ran the water. He undressed and glared at his crooked body. His arms and chest were dotted with bruises and he had dark marks under his eyes. He badly needed sleep, and a proper meal, too. Last night he had been in the Tower of London; the night before that in a burning house that had left him wheezing still.

He lowered himself into the hot water. He had never bathed in running water before. At Ravenscroft Mrs. Finchley would bring the kettle from the stove and pour the water into a small aluminum tub. All he had to do now was turn a tap. Mr. Socrates had always had the best of everything, while all his years at Ravenscroft Modo was left to freeze throughout the winter.

Immediately Modo regretted his anger. For all he knew,
Mr. Socrates could be dead, or lying injured in a cold cellar somewhere.

He scrubbed at his skin, wishing he could wash away the hump from his back, the mottled skin from his arms. He floated, feeling as though the hot water were warming his very soul. If only he could sleep here. He glanced at the clock on the mantel, surprised it was only half past one in the afternoon. So much had happened since he first opened his eyes this morning.

After drying off he looked in the mirror on the vanity table. His lip had swollen; his nose was putty. He worked very hard to make his face revert to its knightly form, but the heat had relaxed his tired muscles and he had no energy. Not now! he thought. He slammed his fist on the table, rattling a jar of fancy combs.

He threw on Mr. Socrates’ oversized bathrobe and wrapped a towel around his face in the manner of an Egyptian mummy, leaving a slit for his eyes. He listened at the door, even though Octavia was taking her bath downstairs in the servants’ quarters. Hearing nothing, he opened the door a crack and looked down the empty hall. The moment he stepped out, the floor creaked.

“A bit more haste would be appreciated,” Octavia shouted and Modo nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Yes, yes,” he shouted back. Once he’d ascertained that she was actually downstairs, he darted across the hall into the largest room. To his great happiness he discovered it was Mr. Socrates’. He quickly went through the closet and pulled out one of Mr. Socrates’ suits. The shirt and jacket were a little too tight and pressed against his hump, and he
had to take a pair of scissors to the legs of the trousers to shorten them, but by and large he looked quite smashing. He hoped his master would forgive the necessary alterations. He went back to the closet and selected a heavy black cloak with a large hood.

He stopped to stare at his face in the small mirror. It was growing more disfigured by the minute. And then he saw something sitting on a bureau just beyond the vanity table that surprised and delighted him. On a wooden stand was a flesh-colored mask he had worn a few years earlier. He touched it lightly.