Day One
In the heart of Dublin City, between the River Liffey and the Grand Canal, surrounded by Merrion Square, Trinity College, and St. Stephen’s Green, sits the imposing and stately Leister House where meets the Royal Dublin Society. And housed in the newest wing of this residence-turned-Society premises is a museum of a most unusual nature. Its contents are not unknown elsewhere; its function is not strange for a museum. It is made unusual by the oddity of its name, a moniker both amusing and dark.
This place of learning and study and preservation is a museum of natural history, filled with the remains of animals large and small, bird and insect, mammal and fish. Skeletons sit alongside wax models that occupy displays alongside taxidermy of a most realistic nature. Whales and eagles, rodents and trout, a Tasmanian tiger and a polar bear. The species are too numerous to name here, but the museum is far from empty. And its contents have earned it, amongst the locals, the name “The Dead Zoo.”
Early on a spring morning, Amos Cavey, a man who had earned in his thirty-five years a reputation for intelligence by virtue of having mentioned it so very often, stepped inside the zoo of no-longer-living creatures, having been sent for by William Sheenan, keeper of the exhibit of mammals.
William had asked this tower of intellect to call upon him at the zoo, not out of admiration but desperation. Amos never ceased to brag of his intellectual acumen, and William was in need of someone who could solve a very great and pressing mystery.
Amos walked with unflagging confidence up the Plymouth stone stairs to the first floor where the mammals were housed. He was not unfamiliar with the museum and its displays. Indeed, he had once proclaimed it “quite adequate, having potential to be impressive indeed.” He had made this observation with a great deal of reluctance as it might very well be seen as a declaration of approval of the Royal Dublin Society, which he did not at all intend it to be.
Alighting on the first floor, he stepped into the grand hall where the preserved species were displayed, some on shelves, some behind glass, some posed on pedestals. The ornate ceiling rose three stories above the stone floor. Two upper stories of balconies overlooked the space beneath. Tall columns supported those surrounding galleries, giving the room a classical look, one designed to complement a place of learning.
He held back his inward expression of frustration at having to step over and around a mop employed by a janitor. The man offered no acknowledgment of their near collision, but simply continued his efforts, so intent on his work that one would assume he was expunging the worst of muck and grime rather than polishing the floor of a museum that was kept quite clean.
“Do not mind Jonty,” William said as he approached. “He is so very dedicated to his work. We owe the beauty of this building to his unflagging efforts.”
Jonty grunted but didn’t speak, neither did he look up from his mopping. As William had declared, he was quite good at what he did, and no oddity of character would see him dismissed from his position. Do we not endure things in people when we value something else enough?
“Your note,” said Amos with his usual air of superior intelligence, “indicated you are faced with some puzzle you find unsolvable.” He spoke the last word with an unmistakable tone of doubt.
“Indeed, I am.” William’s tone held far too much worry for anyone to mistake his sincerity.
“I fancy a challenge,” Amos said. “Tell me of your mystery, and I will find your answer.”
The reader may find this declaration a touch too arrogant, but Amos did have a most impressive intellect. He was not wrong to rate his abilities so highly, though his tendency to regularly regale people with acclamations of his intelligence made him a difficult person with whom to spend any length of time. Were William not truly in need of Amos’s particular assistance, the self-assured intellectual would not have been offered so sincere a welcome.
“How familiar are you with our collection?” the harried keeper asked as he motioned for Amos to walk with him amongst the displays.
“I have visited a couple of times.” Amos looked over the nearest animals with an eye to evaluating them. “I found the musk ox mother and calf intriguing. The particularly large trout, however, I take leave to declare might actually be a salmon.”
William let the criticism pass, not wishing to dwell on anything other than the matter at hand. They passed the dodo skeleton, a particular favorite of his, though why it was displayed amongst the mammals, he could not say.
“I am, however,” Amos said, “quite intrigued by the polar bear.”
As William was partial to the Arctic predator, he found himself better pleased with his current company than he had been. “That bear was brought back by Captain Leopold McClintock after his Arctic search for the lost Franklin expedition. The bear’s fatal wound has been left in the fur, giving us a perfect picture of how the creature looked in its final moments.”
They’d reached the taxidermied animal they were discussing. Amos eyed it with curiosity. Something about it was different from what he remembered. He prided himself on his eye for detail and would not be satisfied until he knew what had changed since he last saw the animal.
“We have recently added this Arctic ringed seal.” William motioned to the large pinniped, displayed in all its taxidermied glory in a wood-framed glass box. “Our collection of ice-bound animals is growing.”
Amos took pointed notice of the seal before studying the bear once more. Two glances at each were all he needed to sort out the change in the massive polar bear. Its positioning had been changed from the last time he saw it. The museum had turned the bear’s head to be looking not at the lions, as it had on Amos’s previous visit, but at the seal.
Clever, he thought to himself, as the seal was a polar bear’s natural prey. He hadn’t realized the taxidermied animals could be repositioned.
The Dead Zoo possessed an unavoidable degree of eeriness, being so full of creatures that had met their demise. Row after row of skeletons, of long-dead and, at times, not-long-dead animals frozen in poses meant to mimic life but never fully capturing it. How chilling was the effect of a dangerous, deadly animal, focused unblinkingly on the very animal that constituted nearly the entirety of its diet, but both animals nothing more than skin and fur stretched over expertly formed frames.
The janitor trudged past, pulling his mop and bucket with him, grumbling something neither William nor Amos attempted to overhear. As soon as he was out of sight, William addressed the matter at hand.
“I’ve asked you here because pieces of our collection have gone missing. I dismissed the first few disappearances as items being misplaced or pulled off their shelves for repair or cleaning, but they have never returned.”
“You wish me to solve for you a string of petty thefts?” No man in possession of as much pride in his cleverness as Amos could help but feel disappointed at the request.
“These are no ordinary thefts.” William guided him past kangaroos, posed in mid-jump, and an armadillo preserved in full armor. All around were skeletons and glass-eyed forms. Tall displays cast odd shadows. Rows of displays broke up the large space into small, sometimes confining sections.
Amos glanced backward as they walked, fighting the oddest sensation that someone was there, watching or wishing for his attention. But he saw no one. Only row upon row of animals. Bears. Lions. A magpie.
From the long-ago years of his childhood came the familiar refrain of the well-known nursery rhyme about magpies.
One for sorrow.
Two for joy . . .
He’d long ago outgrown superstitions, but that lone bird sent a shiver over him, one he clamped down with effort.
The two men paused at a display of rodents, many of a variety unseen in Ireland. William indicated three separate empty places. “These are newly missing, but they were held in place by strong metal bands and thick bolts. Freeing them from their confines is not a simple task. These specimens couldn’t simply be picked up and slipped in one’s pocket. This required time and effort, yet we’ve seen nothing.”
That bit of additional information did offer some degree of intrigue to the mystery.
“And what does the museum director have to say about these thefts?” Amos asked.
William glanced in the direction of the director’s private office. “I would rather not tell Mr. Carte about this, not if we can discover the thief’s identity and recover the stolen items.”
While Mr. Alexander Carte was not a vindictive man, there was no doubt he would be none-too-happy to hear that the museum, whose collection was not yet what he wished it to be, was being diminished by thievery. The director’s displeasure might very well cost William Sheenan his position.
“Are these the only specimens to have been stolen?”
“No,” William said, “only the most recent. We have lost mammal skulls, taxidermied rodents, even a couple of small felines.”
“And how long has this been happening?”
William’s expression grew ever wearier. “For a week now. Something has disappeared every day. That is all I know for certain. The items disappear, though I know not when or how. I’ve seen nothing, can explain nothing. I am at a loss.”
Amos took a slow look around the enormous display room. Row after row of specimens spread out over three floors, the ground-level floor not yet completed. The museum was quite popular, owing in no small degree to Carte’s exhaustive efforts to raise funds, expand the collection, and build interest.
Discovering who amongst the many visitors could possibly be pilfering items would be a challenge, indeed. A challenge worthy of a finely honed mind.
Amos tugged at his right cuff, then his left. He smoothed the front of his sack coat, then straightened his neckcloth.
“I will return in the morning,” he said, “when the museum is open once more to visitors. I will observe, study, sort, and, I have no doubt, solve these mysterious thefts.”
William offered his gratitude along with expressions of confidence in Amos’s ability to do just as he had promised. One would be quite justified in wondering if he offered the praise as a matter of sincerity or in the hope of convincing himself that the disaster awaiting him, should his superior discover the thefts, could yet be avoided.
“Until tomorrow.” Amos dipped his head quite regally.
“Tomorrow,” William repeated.
He watched as the would-be detective left, a spring in his step and an unmistakable confidence in his stride. He watched with heavy expression, tight pulled lips, and tension radiating from him. The situation was a dire one, more so than Amos Cavey yet realized.
Day Two
Amos did not begin his investigative efforts until the day after being asked. He’d told William Sheenan that would be the case but hadn’t confessed that there was no reason for the delay. Truth be told, Amos simply wanted to seem quite in demand. A reputation was only as impactful as one made it, after all.
With an air of casual authority, he stepped into the expanse of the collection of death. From a scientific perspective, it was the very height of anthropologic intrigue. To one who possessed even a modicum of superstition, it was the very height of horror. Amos Cavey never permitted any mental anxiety he experienced to hold greater influence over his decisions or behavior than the more logical part of his mind did.
The museum was not empty, but neither was it bustling yet. This was the perfect opportunity for gathering clues. Amos had armed himself with a small notebook and a lead pencil sharpened to perfection. With both firmly in hand, he began a slow, pointed circuit of the first floor where the mammals were displayed, along with a few oddities from other corners of the animal kingdom. He chose to overlook how utterly sloppy a bit of work that was. He had been asked to solve a series of thefts, not teach the keepers the proper classification of species.
All seemed well around the largest displays. Nothing appeared amiss with the rhinoceros or American bison. He walked slowly around the open-air display of a walrus. All was well. A bit of dust hung about the zebra.
The wooden frame of the glass case surrounding the seals was a bit beaten up. The museum really ought to place their older cases in lesser visited corners of the room, not on full display such as this.
Mr. Carte had gone to such lengths to build the reputation of the Dead Zoo. Carelessness would only undermine it. Then again, so would knowledge of the thefts Amos had agreed to try to solve. He ought not be surprised to find other flaws beneath the veneer.
His investigation took him up the stairs to the second-story balconies where the museum housed its display of birds and fish. Amos spotted a gap in the display of birds and made directly for it. Not seeing a placard indicating the specimen had been removed for repair or cleaning or such, he studied the spot more carefully.
As with the case that had once housed the now-missing rodents, this case containing the display of birds boasted a bit of injury, precisely what one would expect after someone had quickly and inexpertly used a tool of some sort to loosen the bindings. The scratches he saw were not scattered in every direction, as one would expect from the natural wear and tear of years of visitors, but concentrated, repetitive. Someone had removed this bird without the precision one would expect from the keepers of this odd zoo who valued their animal population.
A disconcertingly familiar sensation—that of being watched—tiptoed over him just as it had the day before. It set his neck hairs standing on end. He swallowed, but not without a little difficulty. There were far too many eyes in the museum, not all of them human, not all of them seeing, for some sensation of being observed not to be felt. He told himself it was merely a trick of the mind.
But his eyes fell upon a murder of magpies—made still by death—watching him. Seven. Seven magpies.
One for sorrow.
Two for joy.
Three for a girl.
Four for a boy.
He could not stop the rhyme from echoing in his thoughts.
Five for silver.
Six for gold.
Seven for a secret, never to be told.
Seven for a secret.
Amos pushed down the feeling of foreboding. He would not allow himself to be ridiculous.
William arrived at his side not a moment later, no doubt the real reason for Amos’s premonition. He had been observed by the man who had asked him to be there. With his logical nature firmly in charge once more, Amos felt himself far more on solid ground.
“You should know that this bird has also been pilfered,” Amos said. “The display shows the same subtle damage, the same pattern of gouging.”
Though the keeper was, understandably, a bit embarrassed to not have realized the issue extended beyond the mammals exhibit, he did not grow offended. “I ought to have realized the thefts would not be limited to only my section of the zoo. Please tell me if you find any other specimens you believe we have lost to this unknown criminal.”
“He will not be unknown for long,” Amos said. “I can assure you of that.”
William dipped his head. “There is a reason I asked for your participation in this.”
It must be remembered that the Dead Zoo was run by none other than the Royal Dublin Society, the members of which were not precisely dunces. To not ask one of their membership to oversee a matter such as this was a good indication that either the mystery was indeed an exceptionally difficult one to solve or William Sheenan was particularly keen to keep the matter a secret. It is for the astute reader to ascertain which was, in fact, the case.
Amos continued his searching circuit of the museum, first on the second story, then making his way to the galleries on the third. He found in his perusal a number of missing items. Some showed not the least indication of having been tampered with. Others, however, were scarred with the same careless marks as the other hapless dead creatures. All totaled, he found nine specimens had been taken.
Seating himself upon an obliging bench at the far end of the mammal exhibit, Amos acquainted himself with all his notes, searching for the connection he knew he would find there. Visitors glided in and out, each awed by the displays and most filled with amazement at the collection. Few paid him the least heed. He did not mind.
Nine missing.
One feline.
Four rodents.
One fish.
Two birds.
One bicolored lobster.
All were small enough for an enterprising individual to tuck under a jacket or shawl. These thefts, he grew more and more certain, were not the work of a particularly gifted thief. Perhaps the items were taken by youths challenging one another to undertake what they saw as a lark. Perhaps it was a person with a propensity toward thievery for reasons even they could not explain; he had read that some people could not help the inclination. Perhaps someone wished to undermine the museum.
He rose from his place of pondering and meandered amongst the visitors, listening in with a degree of subtlety he felt quite proud of. None, he felt certain, would realize he was investigating them.
The mother and child peering at the whale skeleton were quickly eliminated. To undertake something like this in the presence of a child would be difficult indeed.
He hovered just beyond a group of young students from Rathmines as they spoke at length of how very bored they all were.
“We’d not be seen if we slipped off and moved a few things about,” one lad said. “Could pose the animals for a rugby match or some lark like that.”
His friend shook his head. “They’re likely all bolted in. And the museum man said once the animals are put on display, they don’t get moved about.”
The boys, then, were certain the specimens couldn’t be stolen or moved from their spots. They’d not think that if they were the ones making off with them.
Amos realized, of course, that the perpetrator might very well not be present that particular day and at that particular hour. But the museum was open only three days per week. For so much to have gone missing in so short a time, he reasoned, the person must have been coming in every open day to make off with something new.
On he wandered. As has been established already, he was not one to admit to any insufficiencies in his intelligence. And he certainly wasn’t likely to admit defeat after a single morning.
His footsteps took him past the polar bear once more. It was really a magnificent animal. Something in its eyes was more realistic than the other creatures strewn about. The glassy expressions one saw in all directions made clear how very dead the Dead Zoo really was. But this bear somehow gave a person pause. Perhaps it was simply the decision to have him perpetually watching the animal that might once have been his dinner. Even the least scientifically inclined visitor could understand hunger at a glance.
Amos wandered on, listening in on every conversation. Back up the stairs. Past the fish. Back to the birds. He ignored as he went the eyes that were deceptively upon him. He knew better than to believe the trick this place played on the senses.
Two gentlemen stood near the ostrich skeleton, having a lively conversation. A quick assessment of their attire told Amos they were relatively well-to-do. Their manner of speaking confirmed that evaluation.
“A remarkable specimen,” the taller of the two said to the other.
“Indeed,” was the response. “And the mounted birds are quite exquisite, as well.”
“Have you observed the penguins?” The taller gentleman indicated the birds in question by pointing at them with his cane. “I find myself quite envious. Something of that caliber ought to be in my collection.”
“Indeed.”
“There is, you understand, but one thing to be done.” The man’s mustache twitched. His silver brows arched haughtily.
“Indeed.”
“I must have a penguin of my own. I will not rest until I do. I have certainly managed to add to my collection of late.” The man’s tone was both self-satisfied and suspicious. “It would be a small matter to do so again.”
And with that, the miscreant sealed his fate.
“Sir, if you will be good enough to follow me.” Amos assumed his most demanding, unwavering tone.
“I beg your pardon.” The man eyed him disapprovingly.
“The keeper of the mammal exhibit requires a word with you.”
“Does he?”
Amos motioned him toward the stairs, counting on the man’s good manners to prevent a scene. He often depended upon people doing what he thought they ought. He was both cynical and trusting by nature, and he was not always a good judge of when to employ which. In this instance, he chose correctly.
William was easy to find. He seldom left his precious mammals, and there he was found.
“Mr. Sheenan, I have solved your mystery.” Amos held himself in a proud and defiant posture. “Your collection is the envy of many, some to the point of abandoning their good breeding to obtain what you have that they wish to possess.”
William looked from Amos to the tall gentleman and back once more. His confusion was lost on the self-assured detective, who was quite proud of having so easily solved a question that had baffled others. Had he paid greater attention, he would have noticed that William and the gentleman did not seem at all surprised to see one another. Neither had they asked for an introduction.
Confident in his conclusions, Amos pressed forward. “This man wishes for one of your penguins to be part of his collection. He spoke of it in quite strong terms, almost foregone terms. I contend that—”
“Pray pardon the interruption, Lord Baymount,” William hastily said to the man at Amos’s side. “I hope you will continue to peruse the collections here at your leisure.”
“Lord or not,” Amos resumed, undeterred. Oh, the follies one reaps when unwilling to give ear to others. “He spoke of his collection—”
“With pride, I hope,” William quickly interrupted. He knew the path Amos meant to trod and intended to save him from it. “Do go look them over.”
He breached protocol so much as to nudge his lordship away, desperate as he was to avoid the humiliation Amos had very nearly caused.
“You did not allow me to finish.” The intellectual was all wounded dignity.
“And for that you are quite welcome.” William pointed to the back of the retreating lord. “He has contributed a great many specimens to our museum. His ‘collection’ of items are on display here. That he saw the penguins and wished one were part of his collection was not a threat of thievery but a determination to add something of equal intrigue and significance to those items he has already donated.”
Few times in his adult life had Amos experienced the odd sensation of being embarrassed. It was a feeling he had as much experience with as being wrong. That he’d experienced both at once would astonish anyone who knew him.
His pride whipped up a frenzy of determination. He refused to be defeated by so simple a task. And he further refused to be humiliated again. The mystery would be solved, and it would be solved by him. His worth would be proved to William Sheehan, to the haughty Lord Baymount, to himself.
And, if it were the last thing he did, he would find a way to shake the unnerving weight of an unseen gaze that followed him all around the Dead Zoo.
Day Three
Amos had hardly slept. Such was the burden of one whose self-declared claim to fame was unparalleled intelligence but who had endured a monumental lapse in judgment. Burdened with questions of identity, Amos arrived at the Dead Zoo worse for wear yet unwilling to abandon the challenge he’d been issued.
The museum was not open every day. On this morning, no visitors would be admitted. Members of the Royal Dublin Society, however, had ready access.
If Amos were not so certain of his eventual success, he might have been ashamed to have not realized sooner the significance of thefts occurring while the museum was closed. Lord Baymount’s misleading conversation had planted in Amos’s mind a trail of thought he’d followed during the long sleepless hours of night.
For a collector of taxidermied, mounted, or skeletal animals, the Dead Zoo presented a treasure trove of possibilities. Someone without the preferred scruples might see in its displays a shortcut to the collection he desired. And who could wish for such a thing more than members of the society whose interest in such things had led to the Natural History Museum in the first place?
Still, he did not mean to storm into the mammal exhibit with accusations falling from his lips. He would build a case, gather proof. He would not be made the fool again.
William Sheenan was not the first to greet our unlucky detective upon his arrival. Amos’s path crossed Jonty’s first. The gruff man was not mopping as he had been that first day. Indeed, Amos had not seen him mopping since. On this day, he was dusting displays.
He grumbled as Amos passed, his words indiscernible but his tone unmistakable. He did not care for Amos, did not like him being there. The feeling was growing more mutual with every encounter.
William, however, was pleased at Amos’s arrival. Though he’d not cared for the near run insult of the day before and had needed to patch things up with Lord Baymount, the situation at the museum required greater and quicker effort than previously.
“Our colobus monkey is missing,” William told him.
“The long-haired, black and white one, yes?” Amos asked, unable to hide the hint of pleasure in his expression. Another missing specimen offered opportunity for more clues. Though he was reluctant to admit as much, he needed more information than he had if he was to avoid another embarrassing misstep.
He followed William to the display. Amos checked the now-empty display and found it just as the others had been: a bit scratched, a bit scuffed. Whoever had undertaken the theft had done so with more care than before, but only a very little more.
He froze. That same feeling—a horrid, unnerving feeling—of being watched seized him. Even more than his failure of the day before, this flaw in his reasoning caused him great distress. He was not easily overset. He was not intellectually weak. Amos Cavey would not give way to illogical whimseys.
He told himself he would ignore any magpies he should see. Surely there were no more displays than the two he’d already seen.
He was wrong. The nearest shelves contained more. Ten this time.
Eight for a wish.
Nine for a kiss.
Ten for a bird you must not miss.
It is all rubbish. Nonsense. This place oversets the mind, is all. I will overcome it.
With himself firmly in hand once more, Amos stepped back from the vandalized display and set himself to a study of his surroundings. He had, of course, made a thorough inspection the day before, but that had yielded nothing but near-disaster. Today, however, would be different.
The comings and goings were fewer and focused. His primary group of suspects were present and no one else.
He could not err today. He would not!
Two members of the society entered the room, both looking quite pleased with themselves. Amos had interacted with them before and had found them unbearably arrogant. He was not opposed to confidence of character, mind you—he possessed quite a lot of it himself, after all—but he did not approve when he saw it in those who had not fully earned it. Some members of the Royal Dublin Society had offered inarguable proof of their intelligence. Others, like Mr. McClellan and Mr. Kearney, hadn’t.
They crossed paths in front of the hippopotamus, something Amos made look unintentional. “Gentlemen,” he said with a dip of his head.
“You do realize the museum is closed to visitors,” Mr. McClellan said. “Only members of the society have access to the collection today.”
“Unless one who has chosen not to join the society has been particularly invited by the keeper of the mammals.” Amos watched them for any signs of worry.
They did seem to find that odd, but not in a way that seemed to alarm them. Curiosity appeared to be the crowning response.
“Why has William asked you to be here?” Mr. Kearney asked.
Amos allowed a pitying look. “Alas, if you do not already know, then you were likely not meant to.”
Far from felled by this subtle insult, Mr. McClellan and Mr. Kearney simply exchanged looks heavy with amusement and walked away. Oh, yes. The members of this haughty and insufferable society were prime suspects. Prime, indeed!
Amos meant to trail them as unobtrusively as possible. They would not suspect his efforts. If luck were with him, they would unintentionally provide him with incriminating evidence.
His pursuit brought him past Jonty, who watched him with obvious disapproval, though what he’d done to earn the man’s dislike, he didn’t know. Still, he could not be bothered with such things at the moment. His intellect was at work, and he would not allow himself to be distracted.
His quarry must have sensed him following them. Now and then, they stopped and glanced backward. If he were, in that moment, within view, he busied himself with studying whichever specimen was nearest at hand. If luck favored him and he were not visible, he simply tucked himself more firmly out of sight and waited.
It was during one of these moments of hiding that the sensation of being watched washed over him once more. Every time he felt the weight of eyes upon him, the feeling grew heavier and more difficult to explain away.
This time, his gaze sought out the janitor. But Jonty was nowhere to be seen. That, of course, did not preclude him being tucked away just as Amos was. The man had made clear his disdain and disapproval. It was, no doubt, his glares which Amos felt crawling up his neck.
Around the corner, Mr. McClellan, fully ignoring the card instructing otherwise, touched the skin of the moose on display. Such disregard for proper behavior. Oh, yes, these were his miscreants.
He stepped closer. Then came the sensation of someone stepping closer to him. He looked behind him. No one.
What was the matter with him? He never allowed his imagination to flourish, let alone run rampant.
Amos focused all his attention on the two suspicious men. They were very intent on the displays, but not in a way that spoke of true appreciation but rather amusement. They were in the Dead Zoo for entertainment, and what could be more entertaining than thievery to those inclined toward such things?
William was fast approaching. Now was Amos’s opportunity. He would denounce the men, insist William check their coats and pockets for something they meant to slip off with, and leave a hero. The Royal Dublin Society would ask him again to join. He would refuse again. But he would likely be invited to lecture and present and otherwise make even more of a name for himself. His prowess would see him praised not merely in Dublin, but in London as well.
He opened his mouth to begin what he anticipated would be a very impressive denunciation, but William spoke before he could.
“We’ve something else missing,” he said in a low voice. “I saw it was not in its display this morning but assumed it had been taken out by order of Mr. Carte. I have only just learned it was not.”
Something of panic lay in William’s words. That hadn’t been present before when he’d spoken of missing items. This, then, was different.
“What is it?”
With a shaking breath, William said, “Our hartebeest is missing.”
“Hartebeest?”
Amos quickly thought back to his previous wanderings in the Dead Zoo. He could picture the animal in his mind’s eye. An antelope, two- to three-hundred pounds in life. No doubt, lighter in taxidermied preservation, but still quite large. Too large for carrying off undetected. Not without assistance, and assistance beyond a single partner. One would have to have access to a cart of some kind. And it could not be done in sight of others.
A sense of foreboding settled over him. He’d nearly lobbed another accusation that would have proved humiliating. He’d nearly made an absolute quiz of himself once again.
How had he been so wrong twice? Twice?
What was happening to him? What dark spell was this place of death casting over him?
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 animals 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.
Day Five
Sebastian Hines considered himself quite a paragon of gentlemanly achievement. That the keeper of the mammals at the Museum of Natural History had, in an official capacity, asked for him to call was yet another feather in his cap. He stepped inside what the uncouth locals referred to as the Dead Zoo, feeling quite pleased with himself.
The museum was not open to visitors that day, which made his presence there all the more flattering. Yes, he was sharing space with two delivery men, but he did not permit that to dampen his spirits. The men carefully set down a pane of glass beside a display case in need of mending.
Nearby, a grizzled janitor bent over a mop, applying himself with pointed and focused effort to cleaning something off the stone floor. It was not exalted company, but they were there as tradespeople. He was there as a sought-after guest.
“Do not mind Jonty,” William Sheenan said as the new arrival approached. “He is so very dedicated to his work.”
“No bother.” Sebastian pressed a lace-edged handkerchief to his nose, managing to hide his look of displeasure. “I am curious as to why you’ve sent for me.”
“I have encountered a mystery here at the Museum of Natural History that I cannot solve.”
Sebastian was taken for a tour, past a display of a missing rodent, past a disgruntled Jonty working hard to clean something from the floor, past a display case in need of new glass. Past a taxidermied polar bear looking unblinkingly at a seal.
It had all happened before.
It would happen again.
Dear Reader, should you visit Dublin, should you jaunt past Merrion Square, should you wander into the Museum of Natural History, take care.
Not everything at the Dead Zoo . . . is dead.