Devil's Workshop

A thumping noise distracted Jack and he turned toward yet another door, next to the one leading out into the hall. This second door, which Jack presumed separated the pantry from the rest of the kitchen, was closed, and someone was pounding on it as if in response to Sergeant Hammersmith’s attack on the front door. Jack stepped closer to the closed door.

“Hello?”

“Hello?” said a girl on the other side of the door. “Is someone there?”

Oh, little fly, Jack thought, I told you to leave the children alone.

“Your back door was open,” he said. “There’s a terrible mess out here. What’s happened?”

“Be careful. There’s a very dangerous man out there.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right.”

“He locked the door. Can you open it?”

Jack shrugged and glanced around for a key, but he didn’t care very much whether the girl stayed in the pantry.

“I don’t see a key,” he said.

He set his black leather bag down in a relatively clean space on the table and opened it. He leaned to one side and looked down the hallway. The tailor was still there, hesitating, his hand on the latch, while Hammersmith battered at the other side of the front door.

Kingsley had already started to turn back toward the bedroom when he saw a bald man appear at the bottom of the stairs, facing the door. The man was covered in blood and he was twitching. Kingsley felt torn for a moment, then hurried back to the room. Claire was clutching the bedsheets with one hand, her face pale, her baby squirming in the crook of her other elbow.

“Claire,” he said, “what you undoubtedly feel is the placenta coming. It will not be difficult to deliver.”

“It feels just like before. Not easy at all.”

Kingsley found a scalpel in his bag. He didn’t want to tell Claire that there was an intruder in the house. She might panic. And he couldn’t move her. She needed to remain calm.

“You’ll be fine for a moment, Claire. Just breathe slowly and evenly and I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t leave me!”

He went to the bedroom door, swallowed hard, and ran to the staircase. Fiona was somewhere below and the stranger had an awful lot of blood on his suit.

Behind him, the baby began to cry.

“W ho are you?” the girl in the pantry said. “I don’t recognize your voice.”

“I’m. .” Jack hesitated, then glanced at the black bag on the table. “I’m a doctor.”

“Can you see. . Is there a constable out there somewhere?”

“Oh, I see him.”

Jack looked through the bag and found what he was looking for. He removed a flannel the size of a handkerchief and a small glass vial. He unstoppered the vial and poured a bit of the colorless liquid onto the cloth, careful to keep it far away from his face. The fumes were powerful. He set the vial back on the table and stepped out of the kitchen just as someone ran down the stairs ahead of him at the far end of the hall.

• • •

“WHO ARE YOU?” Kingsley said.

But he didn’t wait for an answer. He was afraid he might lose his nerve if he hesitated, so he barreled straight at the bloody bald man and knocked him back against the wall next to the front door.

“Don’t move,” he said. Then: “Fiona!”

He looked around wildly, hoping he would not see her body on the floor, shouting as loud as he could, and hoping she was able to respond.

“Fiona, are you all right?”