“Only the best,” Billy said. “We even have an W.C. and a claw tub big enough for...”
“Two?” Pat asked, and Billy slightly flushed.
“Um. Let me show you around. I figured you’d want to see the library.”
“Library? I never knew you to be much of a reader, Billy.”
“Fact is, you never really knew me all that well. Mostly, you were chasin’ me. That is, when you weren’t drinkin’ with me.”
Pat followed Billy from the main hall with the long, broad staircase, through a set of double doors and into a spacious room lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves.
“Married life suits you,” Pat said and nodded, taking in the scene.
“That it does.”
Pat stepped to the shelves opposite and ran his fingers along the spines while Billy looked out the window to the front porch to see if the two strange interlopers had happened along.
“Hmm,” Pat mused, and began calling out some of the titles as he moved his finger along, pausing occasionally. “Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon.”
“Fiction,” Billy said, and chuckled. “None on that shelf is real.”
“Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, Kipling’s Captains Courageous, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin...hmm. Rousseau. Shouldn’t that be in philosophy?”
“Maybe so, but it’s still fiction,” Billy replied.
“Yeah. I see your point. Where do you keep your scientific stuff?”
Billy pointed. “That whole wall, although most of my engineering, metallurgical, and applied science is out in the workshop I built next to the Argent.”
“There you go with ‘the Argent’ again. I’ll have to see this thing.”
Billy continued to gaze out the window.
“Bunch of medical texts here. Say, isn’t that—?”
Billy turned to see Pat shiver. He recognized the book in the man’s calloused hand. “Yeah,” Billy said. “The Cell and Regeneration, by Jonathan Conklin, M.D. You don’t know how difficult it is to come by that book.”
“He was a madman, wasn’t he?”
“The worst kind. We all knew something was wrong with him, but no one pegged him until it was far too late. I know who he was, although the rest of the world hasn’t figured it out. It was something you said that tipped me off.”
“Something I said. Hmph. I don’t recollect saying anything about the bird.”
“It was before the Arcadia left Earth. In fact we were at that hotel in San Antonio—you, me, Ekka and Two Hats—and you mentioned something about a prostitute being cut up in Colorado Springs. It wasn’t until Ekka and Tesla and I were staying at Avi’s home in Ceylon with his family after
the return that I figured it out.”
“You figured out what?” Pat asked.
“Conklin. He was Jack the Ripper. The London Whitechapel murders ceased about the time he joined our merry band.”
“Well I’ll be a mummy’s uncle.”
“I’ve had time to think,” Billy said as he looked out the window again. There was a long pause, then he said, “Looks like we got company comin’. Are you loaded?”
“I’m always loaded,” Pat replied.
[ 6 ]