Matthew, Hudson, Julian and Guinnessey also stood in the room. There was one other armchair available, but no one else had been invited to sit. As Firebaugh—obviously nervous and nearly trembling in this first encounter with the professor—took the chair Fell had motioned toward, Matthew saw that the study was about the same as when he’d last been here on the occasion of Mother Deare’s death by Julian’s hand: shelves of the specimens and books, a black wrought-iron chandelier in the shape of an octopus hanging from the ceiling’s thick rafters and holding a taper in each of its eight tentacles, the etchings of fantastic sea creatures of fable and nightmare upon the gleaming oak walls, and a door to the right leading out to the balcony that surrounded the topmost floor. Through a broad window could be seen the cloud-streaked sky and the movement of white-capped waves. The only difference in the study that Matthew could tell was that the beautiful Oriental rug with its cast of colors in sea greens and blues had been replaced by a simple dark blue rug. Matthew reasoned that Mother Deare’s blood and brains upon the Oriental had finished it off, and he recalled that her brains had also splattered across the specimen shelves. He would very much have disliked that job of tidying up the professor’s domain, which now smelled not of Julian’s gunpowder or Mother Deare’s death but a bittersweet incense that was burning in a little black cup on a table near the stairs.

Firebaugh sat down.

Fell’s gaze shifted to Guinnessey. “Go tell Stalker that I forbid any retribution against Mr. Greathouse. He is a guest here and—though he does not obey my orders very well—he is to be treated with respect.”

“Yes, sir,” said Guinnessey, who went down the stairs and out.

“I didn’t hit Stalker that hard,” Hudson said. “He must have a glass jaw.”

Fell ignored him and directed his attention over Firebaugh’s head toward the two returned travellers. Julian had removed his cap to display the stubble of his blonde hair, and with his dark-shadowed eyes in his pallid face he hardly looked to be the same man who’d ridden out. Matthew as well appeared altered, and not just by the bullet crease beneath the plaster or the dappling of his fading bruises, but a difference in the eyes—a look that Hudson had thought was both wounded and yet harder than he remembered.

“You two,” said the professor, “have experienced some difficulties. I will have you both go to the hospital for a visit with Dr. Belyard.”

“Excuse me, sir.” Firebaugh’s voice trembled. “But … I assumed I was to be the doctor here?”