Chapter Ten #3
Sam and Hel exchanged a look. It was true, if a tad melodramatic. But then, this was Mr. Bishop they were talking about. The mood, despite the somber attire, was far from funereal. There was almost an edge of anticipation.
“You,” Mr. Keene said, his voice gilded with scorn, “are an arse.” He moved to shut the door.
“No, no, no, wait!” Mr. Bishop said, a strange note of almost desperation in his voice. Mr. Keene must have heard it, too, for he hesitated. “I spoke too swiftly. I’m sorry, I can’t help myself. You are . . . right. I am an arse. But you must listen.”
“Oh?” Mr. Keene said grudgingly.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” Mr. Bishop said, his fingers wrapping around the frame, as if he were a contortionist and meant to pull himself through the crack. “But I—I do. I just, if you would let me in—”
Sam recalled what he’d said in the Shelbourne Hotel, before Mr. Enfield had died: You have no idea what I’m dealing with—what she’s capable of.
Noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the ragged edges of his nails.
Was this whole argument about a woman? Somehow, Sam had thought it would be something more .
. . arcane, given Mr. Bishop’s fearsome reputation.
“Of course,” Mr. Keene said, sounding disgusted. “I don’t know what I expected. Rest assured you will never see her again.”
“No, no, stop, you can’t do this,” Mr. Bishop said as he tried to force his way inside, like a rat trying to escape a flooded cage. But Mr. Keene sent him stumbling back with a boot to the chest.
“Take care that you do not darken our doorstep again, Mr. Bishop,” Mr. Keene said. “Or I will use every art I know to ensure you cannot.”
“For once in your life, don’t let your self-righteousness get in the way of your self-interest, you sanctimonious old fool!” Mr. Bishop snapped. “Or you can be sure you will regret—”
The door slammed in Mr. Bishop’s face. It rattled on its hinges, a strip of black crepe wafting down past the sidelights, twisting in the wind. The crowd quickly found other things to occupy their attention.
Mr. Keene looked at the bloody handprint on the doorframe and sighed.
Sam felt a quiet thrill. There it was again—our doorstep, Mr. Keene had said, like Lord Lusk’s us. There was some understanding here, some society. Something Mr. Enfield, Lord Lusk, and Mr. Bishop all had a part in.
Van Helsing was apparently of the same mind. “We need to speak with that man.”
Sam caught his arm before he could barge up to the front door and attract attention. “Not that way.” Whatever they might glean from Mr. Bishop, she didn’t want Mr. Keene and the others to know of it. “There’s a servants’ door. I’ve been watching the staff go through it all evening. Come on.”
To Sam’s surprise, he listened. The crowd was distracted, chattering excitedly amongst themselves about Mr. Bishop and what he might portend, as Sam led the way out the servants’ door.
They found the iconoclast still staring at the front door, his hands fisted and his face oddly drawn.
He almost looked afraid. Van Helsing strode ahead of Sam and Hel to confront him.
“Mr. Bishop,” he said. “What exactly is your relation to the people in this house?”
Mr. Bishop turned. Whatever shadows Sam thought she’d seen in his face had gone.
“Oh, it’s you.” He looked vaguely disappointed, but still he put in the effort, cocking an eyebrow. “I thought my reputation wasn’t fit for a lady’s ears.”
“I’m not asking after your reputation,” Van Helsing said. “I’m asking after what you know. It sounds as if you’re in some sort of trouble. Perhaps we could assist you.”
“If you do not know already, then I highly doubt it, curious stranger,” Mr. Bishop said dismissively. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Van Helsing scowled. “Have you no shame?”
“Not really, no. It doesn’t suit me.”
“Self-interest then,” Van Helsing tried. “A man is dead. After what you said in there, you do realize how it looks.”
“Oh, whatever shall I do,” Mr. Bishop said tonelessly.
“A pity looks don’t constitute proof, isn’t it, good sheriff?
You could simply punish those who look the part, let free those who can simper convincingly enough.
Alas, poor soul, you must make due with evidence and facts. And so, I leave you to it.”
Tipping his hat to Sam and Hel mockingly, Mr. Bishop left Van Helsing seething in his wake, strolling toward a glossy black carriage pulled by shaggy black horses.
The carriage was gilded with flame moulding, out of which twisted human faces caught in the throes of torment, terror, and, in a few cases, what looked perilously like ecstasy—like souls caught in the fires of Hell.
Some of which were apparently masochists.
Sam felt a twist of envy. Not at the carriage, which was a bold choice to say the least, nor his choice of styling himself a duke of Hell.
But at his devil-may-care way of dealing with the world.
I can feel things and still deal with them, Sam had said.
But all the caring, the guessing, the diminishing of herself .
. . it was exhausting. What would it be like to just stop? Sam wondered. To just be.
Van Helsing sighed and, before Sam could stop him, rapped on the front door with his knuckles. It swung open, and Van Helsing narrowly dodged a punch, twisting sideways just in time to watch it sail past his nose.
“Oh! I’m terribly sorry about that,” Mr. Keene said, his face falling when he saw who it was—or rather, who it wasn’t. He ushered them in and shut the door behind them. “I thought you were someone else. Whatever were you doing outside?”
“Investigating a murder. Who exactly did you think I was?” Van Helsing said, as if he didn’t know.
Which, Sam had to give him credit, was clever.
It occurred to her that he did this often—pretending ignorance to see what cards you might show him.
It was a tool she’d used herself. But she hadn’t thought he’d have reason to learn it.
Generally, it was a skill one picked up when one was underestimated, by those who took a distasteful amount of pleasure in explaining things one already knew.
But who would dare do that to the great Van Helsing?
“Mr. éamonn Bishop,” Mr. Keene said, his mouth making a moue of distaste. “Have you had the displeasure of his acquaintance? It’s my understanding that quite a few people have become perhaps more familiar with his appetites than is strictly appetizing, in the wake of his exodus from Rome.”
“Unfortunately, we have,” Van Helsing said sourly.
“Pity him, if you can,” Mr. Keene said. But Sam wasn’t paying attention.
She’d caught the strangest whiff of . . .
sulfur? But no one else seemed to notice.
A vision, then? Except it seemed as if it were coming from under the door.
“His soul is empty, and so he tries to fill it with everything he can find in the hopes that he might feel something. What’s worse, he lacks imagination, presuming all men to be of the same villainous—”
Hel’s eyes widened. “Get—”
An explosion rocked the house.