The Merchant and the Rogue by Sarah M. Eden

by Brogan Donnelly

Day Four

William watched from the first-story windows of the museum the next morning as Amos paced the grounds below. The man had arrived nearly three-quarters of an hour earlier but had not come inside. The calm air with which he had taken on the task of solving the mystery William had presented to him was growing thin. His once-tidy appearance had given way to a haphazard one. A frantic detective was, he supposed, better than no detective at all.

Unaware he was being observed, Amos made yet another circuit of the wide expanse of lawn situated outside the Dead Zoo. How was a simple matter of thievery baffling him so entirely? He couldn’t wrap his powerful brain around it. It wasn’t even a sophisticated scheme. Displays were hastily opened. Specimens were made off with while no attempt was made to cover up the effort.

This was hardly a complicated matter, and he was not a simpleton. On and on he paced. The tension in his shoulders grew by the moment. He’d not slept more than a few moments here and there. Though he’d not passed anyone upon his entrance to the grounds, he felt certain the Royal Dublin Society members stood about somewhere, laughing at him. Mocking him.

“That’s why I feel eyes on me,” he muttered to himself, pushing his mess of hair away from his face. “That’s why I feel followed.”

He eyed the museum. He remained on the grounds, not out of fear of going in but as a means of watching delivery persons coming and going. Who else could arrive regularly with a cart and haul items in and out without arousing suspicion?

That was who he was looking for. It had to be. He could not be wrong again. He was Amos Cavey, an intellectual and a logician. He would not be felled by so simple a mystery.

Yet half the day passed without a single workman coming onto the grounds. Nothing entered or exited the museum beyond a few members of the society. Even William Sheenan didn’t make an appearance outside of the building.

The two men’s eyes met in midafternoon, Amos standing in the grass, William standing inside at a window. Long minutes passed with them simply watching each other. Neither knew what the other was thinking but would, no doubt, be surprised if he knew.

William was holding out hope that the man he’d selected to undertake this difficult task did not mean to abandon it.

Amos’s frustration was turning to anger. He, who prided himself on his logic, on his unflappable intellect, stormed toward the building, his movements angular and stilted.

Mere steps from the door, he froze. More magpies—living this time—sat perched in a line on the branch of a tree. Twelve. All watching him.

Eleven is worse.

Twelve for a dastardly curse.

For the length of a breath, his heart froze. Twelve. Twelve.

No, he would not be undone by this. He would not give way to childish superstitions.

He pushed onward and through the museum doors. Amos stormed into the large display hall so forcefully that he nearly tripped over Jonty’s push broom.

“Watchya,” Jonty grumbled.

Amos might normally have pointed out the preposterousness of telling someone who had nearly tripped over a broom stretched across a doorway that he was the one needing to show greater care, rather than the one who had put the broom in the doorway in the first place. But he had larger fish to fry, as the saying went.

“What day are your deliveries?” he demanded the moment he reached William at the very window where he’d spotted him from the grounds below.

“We do not have a specific day.” William turned to him as he spoke. He was a patient man, as calm as Amos prided himself on being, but even his endurance was wearing thin. His frustration did not stem from thinking the mystery was taking overly long to solve—only four days had passed, after all, since he had recruited Amos Cavey—but rather the fact that he was finding himself the aim of Amos’s angry darts.

“How often have deliveries been made over the past fortnight?” Amos demanded more than asked. “How many were made by the same people? By people employed by the same people? Did they deliver with carts? Or wagons?” His questions came rapidly, almost without breath between. His wide eyes darted about.

“Are you unwell, Mr. Cavey?”

“Am I not permitted to be anxious in the solving of these thefts? Would you rather I shrug and leave you to face Mr. Carte’s wrath?” Had he been less overwhelmed, perhaps Amos would have recognized the unwarranted intensity in his questioning. He could not recall the last time he had failed in an intellectual endeavor. He hadn’t the least ability to endure it.

“A mere four days have passed since I first told you of our situation,” William countered. “That we do not yet have the answers is not a failure.”

“I do not fail,” Amos said. “Not ever.”

The man seemed horribly on edge. William judged it best to give the man room to breathe and calm himself. In a tone he hoped was soothing without being patronizing, he answered the earlier questions. “We had one delivery of note. It was a replacement pane of glass for a display case. That was brought almost exactly a fortnight ago, before these disappearances began. The courier did bring it on a wagon, but he and his wagon have not returned since.”

“Was anything taken from the case that needed the glass replaced?” Amos asked.

“No. Not a thing.” William had truly begun to worry about the man. He appeared quite rattled. “Perhaps you ought to return home for the remainder of the day. Rest a spell.”

“I am not unwell.” He took a breath, his jaw still taut. “The thefts are not occurring during the day. They must be the work of someone here at night.”

“No one is here at night,” William countered.

Amos pointed a finger in his direction. “No one you know of.”

“You suspect someone is sneaking in?”

“I am nearly certain of it.” Amos paced a few steps away before returning to where William yet stood. “I will stay here after closing tonight and watch. By morning, your mystery will be solved.”

“You sound very confident.”

Amos raised up to his full height. “By morning, you will have your answer.”

Not quite as sure of himself as he wanted to appear, Amos returned to his own home long enough to have a bite to eat and a cup of tea. His appearance, he knew, had grown haggard. In his eagerness to resume his investigation that morning, he had not stopped to shave, nor had he invested any effort into his appearance save running a comb quickly through his hair and remembering to change out of his nightclothes. He did not bother addressing the state of himself before returning to the Dead Zoo.

Mr. Carte was leaving the museum as Amos approached. The director was not meant to know about their situation, so Amos slipped behind some tall shrubs, shielding himself from discovery. Once the path was clear and he was no longer likely to be caught, Amos stealthily moved to the doors of the Dead Zoo.

William awaited him there. “Mr. Carte is beginning to ask questions. Please take care not to disturb any displays or leave behind any indication you have been here overnight. I would struggle to explain that without digging quite a pit for myself.”

“I am not entirely inept.” Amos’s defensiveness came as naturally now as his arrogance once had.

With a barely withheld sigh, William motioned him to the door, which he held open. “Best of luck, Mr. Cavey.”

“I do not need luck. I will use my mind.”

“Such as it is,” William muttered not quite loud enough to be overheard.

As soon as Amos was inside, William pulled the door closed and locked it.

Night had not entirely fallen. Dim light spilled through the windows, illuminating the rows of displays and glass cabinets. The galleries, though, were in complete shadow.

Amos lit the lantern he’d brought in anticipation of this difficulty. He climbed the stairs to the lower gallery and placed himself in a corner he had specifically chosen for its view of the museum. The vantage point wasn’t perfect, but he could see enough to spot someone making off with an animal or a skeleton. And he could see the doors.

He would catch the no-good thief. He would!

For more than an hour, he stood rooted to the spot, studying every shadow, every still form. His eyes darted about, quick to examine any movement, though his mind told him there was none. He was the one doing the watching, and yet he couldn’t shake the all-too-familiar sensation of the situation being reversed.

The museum was empty. He was the only living thing inside, and yet he didn’t feel alone. The Dead Zoo had an unnerving effect on the senses. Surrounded by death, by ani-mals captured in lifelike poses but with empty glass eyes, even the strongest of minds would struggle—did struggle.

His eyes might have been playing him for a fool, but he trusted his ears still. And his ears heard something below.

The lantern cast quivering light as he made his way down the stairs to the mammal exhibit. The sound was clearer now.

Scraping. Scratching.

Someone, he felt certain, was attempting to jimmy open a display or loosen fastenings as had been done before. He was about to find his culprit.

The sound echoed off the walls and three-story high ceiling, bouncing off glass and huddling around taxidermied animals. The muffled confusion, nevertheless, grew more distinct as he grew nearer to it. Past the warthogs, past the goats. He’d studied the Dead Zoo enough to know what lay around each corner, which species was housed where. He passed beneath the suspended skeleton of the giant whale and approached the seals.

Suddenly, the sound stopped, and silence fell heavy around him. He held the lantern aloft as he circled the seal display. The light scratches he’d seen in the wood frame were not the only signs of wear he spotted now. Deep gouges marred the surface. New gouges. A powder of wood bits made a light coating on the floor below.

Someone meant to make off with a seal. How in heaven’s name did the miscreant intend to do that? Such a thing would require multiple people and a large wagon with a strong team. Seals were enormous, their only natural predator being the massive polar bear.

Amos glanced over his shoulder at the creature in question. But it was gone.

The polar bear was gone.

How had someone made off with such a large item without making noise, without being seen? It was impossible. Utterly impossible!

He studied the stand on which the bear was—or ought to have been—displayed. There was absolutely no sign of tampering. None at all. There was not even the tiniest speck of dust. It was almost as if the polar bear had simply walked away.

His mind insisted that was impossible even as his eyes darted frantically around.

Something heavy and soft, by the sound of it, landed upon the floor somewhere out of sight. The same sound again. Then again.

It sounded not unlike the pad of a dog’s feet on the floor. A rolling paw, soft enough to muffle the noise but made loud by the weight it bore.

Paws. Against the floor.

An empty polar bear display.

An inelegant attempt to gain access to a seal, the polar bear’s natural diet.

Amos shook his head, insisting the theory forming in his mind was too ridiculous to be true. There had to be another explanation. There simply had to be.

Heavier and quicker came the sounds of paws on stone.

Amos’s heart rate rose. He backed up, watching and holding his breath.

He could hear breathing—heavy, deep-throated breathing.

The wide expanse of the museum, its columns and high ceiling, turned even the tiniest sound into a cacophony, and nothing about these sounds were tiny. Fast, heavy paws and threatening growls came at him from every direction.

He did all he could think to do. He ran. Every turn he made, the sounds followed him. He swore he could feel hot breath on his neck, though he did not turn back long enough to look. He ran. Ran. Ran.

The door to the museum was locked. It would not give at his frantic pulling. He pounded and shouted, his own voice bouncing off the walls and attacking him anew. Perhaps another door? A window?

He raced back into the enormous room. Where were the windows? Why could he not find them? He knew there were windows. He’d seen William standing at one, looking at him. There were windows. There were! But where?

He could find nothing. His mind refused to identify anything. The shapes around him shifted and contorted, monstrous collections of limbs and heads. They moved. He swore they did. They turned and watched him as he ran past, and he never felt their eyes leave him.

He was running in circles, passing the same skeletons, the same animals, over and over again. But they were positioned differently, facing him no matter where he was. And all the while the fall of heavy paws continued.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of white. He dove behind the glass-sided display of deer.

A roar split the darkness. The display shook. Glass shattered.

Amos tried to scramble to his feet, but he couldn’t rise.

Closer came the sound of paws on the stone floor. Closer. Louder. Slower.

Deep, growling breaths.

A shadow fell across him. A shadow despite the darkness.

And then a face.