"The equivoque principle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Craske Darren)

CHAPTER V
The Extinguished Spark

TWINKLE'S CORPSE WAS laid out on the simple mortuary table amidst the labyrinth of rooms in the basement beneath Crawditch police station. Cornelius Quaint and Butter stared at the small sheet-clad shape before them as if it were something of alien origin. Of all of Quaint's charges, she was the most angelic, the most innocent. Her death would surely send a shock-wave throughout the whole circus. Quaint removed his top hat in respect, sensing a gnawing pain kicking at his insides like the mother of all indigestions. He didn't need to pull away the sheet to know the awful truth. He needed no confirmation other than that which his heart was telling him. As if he were being coerced at gunpoint, he carefully held the corner of the sheet, and steeled himself to reveal what was underneath.

Constable Marsh suddenly placed his hand upon Quaint's arm. 'Mr Quaint…are you sure about this? You must understand…the lass was disfigured quite badly. Are you sure you want to see that? Perhaps…perhaps it would be best to remember her as she once was. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'Constable Marsh, I thank you for your sensitivity, but she was under my care, so I must see her…one last time. I owe her that much at least, man.' Quaint slowly pulled the white sheet away from Twinkle's body. No amount of focus prepared him for what he saw.

Twinkle was virtually unrecognisable without the vibrant spark of life that was her trademark. She was stripped naked; her face and neck covered with tiny specks of blood, and a long, crucifix-shaped gorge was cut deeply into her chest. Her mouth was frozen in a silent scream of horror. Quaint prayed she had not suffered long.

'Your doctor made quite a mess of the body, didn't he?' Quaint asked, his eyes alight with anger. 'The man's a butcher! Was he doing the bloody post-mortem blindfolded?'

'No, sir,' said Marsh, shaking his head. 'It wasn't Dr Finch. He hasn't arrived in yet. I'm sorry, but she…she was found like this. I did try and warn you.'

The onrush of grief was akin to a father losing his child, indeed, in many ways that is exactly what it was. Cornelius Quaint regarded all his employees as his family. The big man's eyes glazed over as he stared down at Twinkle's body, and the gnawing hole in his stomach grew wider, as if this void were trying to consume him from the inside out. Upon seeing Twinkle so lifeless, he almost wanted to let it do so.

Butter removed his anorak's hood, and stepped closer. He looked to Quaint for some clue as to how he should feel, what he should do, but his employer and friend was as lost as he was. Grief has the ability to erase a man's soul, and empty his heart until only pain remains.

'My poor, dear, sweet girl…how ever will we carry on without you?' Quaint whispered, as he placed a gentle kiss upon Twinkle's brow. He glided his hand over her face, as if trying to feel the last vestiges of warmth from her body. 'She was a good person, Constable. No good person should ever have to die this way.'

'What was her name?' Marsh asked.

'Madeline,' whispered Quaint, 'Madeline Argyle. But we all called her Twinkle…because she was our little star.' He paused, cupping his closed fist to his mouth to stifle his emotion. 'Her life glowed just as brightly, and she would light up any room. Twinkle was no child, as you wrongly said earlier, Constable Marsh. She was a dwarf…a priceless, irreplaceable part of my circus, and she was Prometheus's lover. I know that he loved her with all his heart, and she him. So you see, it's impossible for me to believe that he'd ever harm a single hair on her head.'

'She was…a dwarf? I don't know what to say, Mr Quaint, I didn't know, I'm so sorry. There was…so much blood, you see. But, you must understand…your friend Prometheus was found with her body by his side. Her blood was all over him, and with no other witnesses…we had to bring him in.' Marsh rubbed at his jaw in contemplation. 'But, you're right, we do need to get to the bottom of all this mess, and with your friend being a mute…maybe it is for the best if you see him…for a short while at least.'

'Thank you, Constable,' Quaint nodded. 'I would like that very much.'

'But you have to keep a lid on this. You're a civilian and if the Commissioner finds out, I'll be for it, whether you're an old pal of his or not.'

'Understood. Lead the way, Constable.'

Constable Marsh led the way out of the mortuary, directing Quaint and Butter back upstairs, where they faced a massive iron door barring their way. 'The Commissioner will hit the roof if he finds out about this,' he whispered, turning a large metal key in the lock. He swung open the massive metal door, sending a resounding scream of metal against stone around the corridor. 'But as long as you aren't planning on staying for longer than five minutes, I don't see it'll do any harm.'

Leading from the narrow hall were four other dark-grey doors with tiny, metal grated slats three-quarters of the way up them, identical apart from painted letters daubed on them. Marsh paced down the long corridor, brushing his hand against the doors as he went. He tugged on his bottom lip, trying to remember in which cell Prometheus was being held, and then he stopped in his tracks outside one of the grey doors. A small blackboard was affixed to the wall outside, and the single word: 'MILLER' was written in chalk upon it. Marsh unlocked the cell door, and stepped to the side, allowing Quaint and Butter to enter the room.

As he entered the stillness of the cell, and spied the voluminous shadow sitting hunched in the corner, Cornelius Quaint was suddenly reminded of the many tombs and pyramids that he had explored in Egypt in his youth. Prometheus was hunched in the corner, unmoving and silent.

'Prometheus? It's me,' Quaint said softly, approaching the giant as if he were a sleeping baby. His intense eyes searched the Irishman's shadowed face for a flicker of recognition, but there was not so much as a twitch of the man's beard. 'My friend? Can you hear me? Are you all right? It's Cornelius.'

At the mention of the name, the giant turned around slowly like a great prehistoric beast. His face was pale and withdrawn, his thick beard speckled with dust and grit, as well as the remains of his breakfast, and his eyes were red raw from incessant, merciless tears. In the space of only a few hours, Prometheus had seemed to age by ten years. He slowly lifted his arms and offered them towards Quaint, like a child to its parent. As if drawn by some powerful magnetic force, Quaint flung himself into the gaping abyss of his embrace. Prometheus sobbed heavily, and his body quaked as he let his pain flood out, as if his soul had been wiped clean by the sight of Quaint. The circus owner could almost feel the giant's heart breaking inside his chest, and he chewed at the inside of his cheek anxiously, uncertain what to say. For what words of comfort could he give, when he himself was in just as dire need of them?

'Prometheus…Aiden…I know about Twinkle. I'm so, so sorry. We all feel your loss, and share your pain,' Quaint said, as delicately as he could. Even though Prometheus was only fifteen years younger than he, Quaint regarded the man-mountain as a surrogate son. 'Are they treating you well?' he asked.

Prometheus nodded, resting his head against his chest, his neck without the strength to support it. He sniffed a lion's roar of a sniff, and wiped a huge paw across his nose like a disobedient schoolboy.

'What happened last night, Prometheus?' Quaint asked. 'What did you see?'

Prometheus twitched his bushy beard at the question, and shook his head. He held his hands across his eyes like the See-No-Evil monkey.

'Nothing? You saw nothing?' Quaint translated. 'Prometheus, you're in a great deal of trouble here. I want to help, but you've got to tell me what happened, man. I need to know specifics. Was there more than one of them? Was there a struggle? Are you hurt?'

Prometheus clawed at his bald scalp in frustration, and let his arms flap down to his sides like dead flesh. The giant motioned for something to write with, and Butter produced a small pencil and notebook from one of the pockets of his oilskin coat. His nostrils flaring, his muscles finding renewed strength, Prometheus began scribbling away in the notebook frantically. He tore off the page and handed it to Quaint:

I WAS DRUGGED.

'Drugged?' demanded Quaint. 'Drugged by whom?' Prometheus took back the notepaper and wrote some more words, just as the loud crack of Constable Marsh's key turned in the door's lock. He handed the note back to Quaint with haste, eyeing the cell door. Constable Marsh poked his head around the door, and stared numbly at the huge man sitting on the bench next to Quaint. It was the first time he had seen the giant moving about since he was brought into the station. The man was a lot bigger than he recalled.

'Are you nearly done, sir?' asked Marsh. 'It's been five minutes.' 'Of course, Constable,' Quaint said, leaning closer to Prometheus, who thrust the notepaper into his hand. Quaint's eyes darted across the note:

LANDLORD BLACK SHEEP PUB GAVE ME WHISKY. DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS POISONED…YOU DON'T BELIEVE THEM, DO YOU? I DIDN'T KILL TWINKLE

'Don't be preposterous, Prometheus, of course I don't believe them,' said Quaint, trying hard to keep out of the constable's earshot. 'But they found you at the scene covered in Twinkle's blood. As far as they're concerned, they aren't looking for anyone else. Listen, I can't do anything right now to get you out of here. Just keep calm, and don't do anything stupid…leave this to me.'

'Come on now, Mr Quaint,' said Marsh standing in the open doorway, making a point of jangling the cell keys loudly. 'I hate to rush you, but it's my job on the line here.'

'Yes, yes, thank you, Constable, we're finished,' said Quaint. 'Come on, Butter, let's head back to the train.'

A few minutes later, Quaint and Butter were standing outside on the grimy steps of the police station. Quaint pulled his cloak tight against his chest, trying to shield himself from the cold wind. He was unusually quiet, and this fact made the Inuit at his side very uncomfortable. Butter stared up at Quaint's weathered face.

'We now wait and let police handle, yes?' he asked.

'We now wait and let police handle, no,' replied Quaint.

'But boss, we can do nothing until this Commissioner arrives.'

'How long have you known me, Butter?'

'Perhaps nine or ten in years, boss.'

'And in all that time have you ever known me to stand idly by and do nothing when people I care for are in trouble? Do you really think I'd let that lot in there deal with this? Prometheus wouldn't last an hour.'

'But, boss…from here, where we go?'

'From here, Butter?' Quaint answered. 'From here we go back to the train and try and form a plan of action. There's something rotten going on in this district, and if members of our family have been caught up in it, I want it brought to an end sharpish. If that means we have to take steps ourselves, then so be it.'

'And wise for us to be involved?' the Inuit asked tentatively, eyeing the familiar steely determination in his employer's eyes. 'Could bring more trouble.'

'It's a little late for that, my friend,' said Quaint. 'Thanks to whoever drugged our strongman, I'm afraid we're already involved.'