“Do come in. I’ll let Jackaby know you’ve arrived.”
I hung Hudson’s coat beside the door, and tried not to notice the sharp hatchet hanging from one side of his belt or the long bowie knife strapped to the other. He had picked up a paper from a newsboy on the way over, and he waggled it as I escorted him down the winding hallway.
“Electric streetlights, here in New Fiddleham! Can you believe it? Within the year—at least accordin’ to the papers. You can tell that mayor fella’s up for reelection. They’ve got ’em up in Seeley’s Square already. Hah! I can still remember when they were puttin’ in the gas lines!”
I nodded. “Commissioner Marlowe’s got them talking about running telephone wires out to the surrounding cities as well.”
Hank shook his head in astonishment and whistled. “It’s a helluva world. Still, I’ll take stars in the sky and the dirt beneath my feet any day. I’m glad Gad’s Valley’s a little behind the times. I’m a little behind the times, myself, I guess.”
We reached the end of the hallway, and I knocked gently on the laboratory door. “Just to caution you,” I whispered. “Mr. Jackaby is in slightly bad humor—”
The door burst open and my employer stood before us, holding a long rod with a half-molten nub of metal at the tip. A pair of brass goggles had been pushed up on his head, forcing his already unruly hair upward in uneven tufts. He smiled broadly and threw his hands in the air enthusiastically, catching the door frame with a glancing blow from the metal rod. “Hudson! Auspicious timing. Come in, come in!”
The usual madness of the chamber was in full force, with racks of beakers and test tubes filled with liquids of various hues, a pinging copper boiler with its pipes reaching out like spider’s legs, and an odd, lingering aroma of strawberries and sulfur. Strewn across every available surface were panels of thick glass and strips of metal. Jackaby had popped one side off a stout terrarium and had extended the glass box by adding a few new walls. In a corner sat the dented bucket and the box from this morning, and a soft mewling told me the kittens were still inside.
Jackaby crossed the room and flicked off the hot blue flame on a Bunsen burner, dropping the metal rod beside it. “You’ve put together more animal enclosures than I have,” he said. “Do you think you could assist me in constructing a somewhat larger vivarium? I could certainly use another pair of hands on the soldering.”
Mr. Hudson dropped his newspaper on the table and strode happily over to the project, inspecting the freshly tacked joints.
“You could have called me in, sir,” I said. “I am here to assist—and I’m good for a lot more than sorting papers. As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about an angle on our latest case.”
“It isn’t personal, Miss Rook. Hudson and I have simply worked together on similar projects in the past. We all have our areas of expertise, and penning animals happens to be one of his. The beasts he hunts are generally still alive.”
Mr. Hudson looked up from the glass box. “Not really sportin’ to hunt the dead ones, is it?”
“I believe my employer is referring to hunting fossils—which is actually quite a challenge. The paleontologist’s prey might not be up and running, but they do have a tendency to scatter themselves about the landscape and lodge bits of themselves in solid rock.”
“Dinosaurs, huh? Bet you’re just as excited as a badger in a beehive about that find down in the valley, then.”
“What find? They’ve found fossils?” I asked.