All this to say, Lucy did take to bed that night, and the door was left open, and Mr. Olderglough did hide away with a birch club gripped in his hand and a look of dogged resolve stamped upon his face. He had told Lucy they were not to speak, and so they did not. At one point Rose crept across the room to sniff and nip at Mr. Olderglough’s foot; Lucy collected her and fetched her back to his bed, rubbing her bare belly, which made her restful, and soon she slept, ignorant to the woes of her master.
Lucy’s dread was consistently urgent. Time and again he thought he heard the shuffling approach of the Baron, and yet the doorway remained vacant, and Lucy could only gaze into the bottomless darkness and wonder at what it held. An agonizing hour crept by, and then a half-hour, and now he became aware of an unfortunate fact, which was that Mr. Olderglough was sleeping standing up, this made apparent by the man’s gentle, wheezing snore. Lucy had thrown off his blanket that he might cross the room to awaken him when he saw the Baron hunched at the top of the stairwell, completely naked, bathed in grime, panting, and staring at Lucy with a puzzled derangement.
Lucy said, “Mr. Olderglough, sir.”
The Baron stepped sideways into the room.
“Mr. Olderglough.”
The Baron moved ever closer to Lucy.
“Mr. Olderglough!”
Mr. Olderglough snuffled, and the Baron, hearing this, peered over his shoulder at the door. Stepping nearer, he drew the door back, and there stood Mr. Olderglough, leaning against the wall, arms slack at his sides, mouth agape, dozing babe-like. The Baron studied him for a time, as though in distant recognition; reaching up, he laid a hand on Mr. Olderglough’s cheek. At this, Mr. Olderglough awoke, and upon seeing the Baron before him he let out a brief yet sincere shriek, raised the club high, and brought it down over the Baron’s skull. The Baron dropped where he stood and lay motionless on the floor.
Mr. Olderglough was studying the birch wood admiringly. “Do you know, I enjoyed that,” he conceded, and his face bespoke an exhilaration, for how curious life was, how unfathomably novel, and occasionally, wonderful. Mr. Olderglough moved to lay the Baron prone on his back. Taking up the man’s filthy wrists in his hands, he said to Lucy, “Get his feet, boy, will you?”