The steam cycle came to rest in the middle of the entrance hall, where it lay spinning on its side in a widening pool of water, rear wheel turning madly, clouds of steam venting from a cracked boiler jacket. Conan Doyle and Wilde lay on their backs several feet away, winded but alive. Finally, both staggered to their feet amidst much grunting and groaning.
“Is there a chance they heard us?” Wilde asked.
Conan Doyle looked at his friend askance. “Heard us? A brass band and a firework display would have made less noise.”
Miraculously, Conan Doyle had managed to hang on to the pistol, and now he waved it to indicate the way. “Come along, Oscar, there’s no point in stealth now. We must rescue our loved ones. Time to beard the devil in his den.”
Wilde nodded at the steam cycle, which sputtered and hissed like a dragon in its death throes. “What about that thing? I fear it may start a fire.”
Conan Doyle pondered a moment. When the boiler ran dry it was entirely likely it would explode or catch fire. “Yes, I believe your concern is well founded. Still, a fire will give them something to contend with.” He fished in a coat pocket and pulled out the glass bottle of calcium carbide pellets. The hall table boasted a solitary vase holding freshly cut flowers that had somehow escaped the mayhem. He snatched out the vegetation, tossed it aside, and emptied the full bottle into it. The white pellets hit the water and erupted in a fury of frothing bubbles.
“What are you up to, Arthur?”
“Mischief. Should we encounter Mister DeVayne and his cronies, this may provide us with some fog of our own.”
A pair of masked servants ran into an entrance hall, mutely gesticulating with alarm.
“RUN!” Conan Doyle shouted at them. “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT’S GOING TO EXPLODE!”
The servants needed no further persuasion, and bolted through the front doors, leaving the two friends to move unimpeded through the house. With a growing pall of steam following behind, the two authors tramped the empty hallway until they reached the open doors to the great hall where Wilde had witnessed the orgy. A quick glance inside revealed some kind of meeting under way. Conan Doyle held the pistol ready and whispered, “Prepare yourself, Oscar.” And with that, the two friends burst into the hall, ready for anything…
… other than what they discovered.
Convened around a long table were all the faces they recognized from the newspaper clipping.
“The Fog Committee,” Conan Doyle breathed.
“Yes. And all quite dead.”
Shockingly, the cadre of high-powered politicos and industrial magnates, along with Edmund Burke, the commissioner of police, and the right honorable Judge Robert Jordan, sat slumped in their chairs, bodies relaxed in postures of death — heads hanging slackly, glazed eyes staring at nothing. Rufus DeVayne sat at the head of the table, host of the macabre dinner party, his head fallen to one side, eyes half-lidded, a trickle of green liquor dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Several of the Fog Committee had vomited in their last moments. Glutinous ropes of saliva trailed from the judge’s open mouth to the green syrup puddled on the table before him. The coal mine owner alone had managed to rise from his seat, but sprawled dead a foot from his toppled chair. Many cold dead fingers still gripped a glass holding dregs of the fatal green cocktail.
Conan Doyle set the gun down upon the table and felt at the judge’s throat. “Still warm. Death must have come upon them swiftly. The green liquor no doubt contains a poison of great efficacy.”
“But why? And why would DeVayne drink his own poison?”
A bottled-up laugh burst from somewhere, and suddenly DeVayne jerked upright in his seat, the rictus grin relaxing into a wicked smile. Conan Doyle grabbed for the gun but DeVayne lunged first and snatched it up. “Too slow, Doctor Doyle!” DeVayne cackled. He rose to his feet while keeping the gun leveled. “I know you’re asking yourself, how did he survive? Did he really take the poison? In fact, I drank two full glasses. But I have been taking small quantities of the poison for months to build up a resistance.”
“But why kill your fellow conspirators?” Conan Doyle asked.
“Who can be trusted in a conspiracy? They wanted me only as a figurehead. In the days after the revolution, I knew I would prove obsolete, disposable, an embarrassing reminder of the regime they had just overthrown. After any revolution, there comes a time when the revolutionaries turn upon each other, as during the days of The Terror. Besides, I no longer need them, and a dictatorship is far less messy to manage.”
“I care not what group of despots runs this country,” Wilde said. “You or the current rogues’ gallery. I came to get my boy back. Arthur came to get Miss Leckie. Return them to us and you can go about your sordid little revolution with no interference from us.”
DeVayne dropped back into his chair, sitting sideways, one leg dangling over the chair arm. He waved the pistol carelessly as he spoke. “I’m sorry, but you two are far too deeply involved. I trusted these fools more than I trust either of you, and I just killed them all. Besides, I have a special use for both the woman and your pretty young boy. They are waiting in my private dungeon right now. Oh, but don’t worry, I won’t kill them immediately. The rite of immortality requires the sacrifice of a virgin, and you absconded with my last two.”
“You monster!” Wilde spat. He lunged at DeVayne and Conan Doyle struggled to restrain him.
The marquess fixed Wilde with a pitying scowl. “Monster am I? Well, if it’s a monster you want, it’s a monster you shall have.” He raised his voice and called out, “Gentlemen, would you bring in our Italian friend. Mister Wilde and Doctor Doyle are anxious to become reacquainted.”
The double doors at the end of the hall opened and the two men entered pushing a wheeled version of the restraining chair. Conan Doyle recognized Dr. Lamb immediately, but gasped aloud when he saw the second figure: a frock-coated gentleman in a stovepipe hat. “Ozymandius Arkwright!” he hissed. “I knew he was somehow implicated in all this—” But then the words died in the Scotsman’s throat. As the figure approached, he saw that it was not Ozymandius, but Jedidiah, the toy maker and owner of the Emporium, transformed by his attire into an eerie echo of his square-jawed brother.
“Evidently Ozymandius lied,” Wilde muttered. “His brother Solomon clearly did not die that day.”
Pinioned in the restraining chair was the corpse of the Italian valet, hanging slack and lifeless in its cage of iron bands. DeVayne left his seat and strode over to join them.
“I am the one who brought these two geniuses together. As I once said to you, Mister Wilde, in the new regime men such as these will be lauded as gods. Unfortunately, neither you nor Mister Doyle will live to see that day.” He turned to the engineer. “Solomon, I believe our friends need a demonstration of our improved assassin.”
DeVayne eyed both of them cruelly. “You were lucky to escape the first time. We discovered your little trick with the photograph. But this time I will ensure that the creature fully imprints upon you both. I shall tell it you murdered Vicente’s sister. The animal drives of hatred and rage are far stronger than the weak human notions of love and sentiment, as you will discover when the monster’s hand plunges through your ribcage and rips out your heart.” He nodded at Solomon. “Begin the resurrection.”