Would what matter, Mr. Clover?
—Sorry, my question wasn’t clear. What Whiskey Bill hinted about Pen Davenport. That Mr. Davenport chose you, rather than you choosing him. Would it make a difference if it were true, Mr. Fergins?
Maybe. Maybe in some ways it would make a difference. Who knows?
—What did Mr. Davenport say when you asked him if it was true?
Asked him! Could my modest abilities of description give you such an improper portrait of the man? No, Davenport would never answer such a question. It would not happen once in a thousand times that he would tell you something about himself when asked—maybe once in a million times, or twice in a million times a million times. He could tell you something about himself on his own, but never if you asked, though he would ask you anything he pleased.
At the asylum, I found myself gratified by the surprised and thankful exclamations of the patients who accepted books from my cart; some broke down in tears to have a new book to read for the first time in years. Certainly, some of the inmates were coarse or lacked conversational skills, and two different men, plus one woman, confessed to having been Jack the Ripper. But I now better understood the peculiar cheerfulness I had seen from the attendant who had taken us around on our first visit. Passing through a place of misery even briefly will infect your soul, but doing something to help, even if it was a small token, gave a feeling of resignation and an unexpected contentment. One rainy afternoon, while doing my rounds through the institution, an attendant brought a message received for me at the front office. It did not surprise me that I had been located there, since the lunatic asylum had become something of a second home. I tipped the attendant as though we were standing in a gold-trimmed hotel instead of this den of misery.
When I unfolded the paper, I had to catch my breath. It was a reply from one of Davenport’s informants I had contacted. Belial had been sighted sailing for the South Seas. One of the patients nearby began to weep. I put away my cart and started down a hall to the other side of the building to search for some privacy so I might concentrate and plan. I had to get word to Davenport, and quickly.
Then I heard someone call out, startling me. The words came again—stop thief! It was more of a screech, actually. I looked up and saw a rainbow-colored parrot in flight. It was the bird who was yelling “stop thief,” again and again. There were innumerable other birds among verdant surroundings—canaries, macaws, goldfinches. I had wandered through a curtain into an aviary.
Confusion swirled in my mind. Before exiting the building, I decided to peek in on the bookaneer, knowing it was time for his nap. Looking through the layers of dust on the small window that the attendants used to check on a patient, I could see his sunken cheeks and ghastly hairless head above the blankets. He seemed to be muttering something in his sleep. Quietly, I opened the door and crept in.
I leaned forward, close enough to take in his putrid breath. “The beast,” he seemed to say. “The beast.”
My hand hovered over his shoulder, tempted to shake him, but he sat bolt upright before I had the chance.
Bill shouted at the top of his voice, a mad glint in his eye: “Beware the beast, Penrose Davenport, beware the beast! The beast! The beast!”
The attendant rushed to control him but he kept shouting it until the agitated lunatics of the ward caught on to the cry and raised it to a fever pitch.
The beast!
The beast!
The beast!
The words rang out and shook the walls and floors from all sides; even some of the birds in the aviary joined the chant and screeched: “Beast!”
As attendants arrived to subdue Bill, he began laughing and spitting wildly. Two men held him under his armpits while one gripped his legs. I watched the once potent bookaneer carried off like a hare to the cookhouse. I followed as far as I could, as though there was something I might do. Even after they had disappeared into another wing of the building, I still could not bring myself to exit the grounds. I pushed my cart for a second round of deliveries. After an hour or so wrestling with my fidgety thoughts, I saw two somber attendants go back into Bill’s room. I hurried after them with my book cart to disguise my purpose. They left the door open. They were stripping away the bedclothes and collecting the personal belongings in a box. There were now two pieces of news to turn Davenport’s plans upside down: First, Whiskey Bill was dead; second, Belial had a head start on the mission of a lifetime.
IV