He snatched hastily within the basket, came up with the latest thick grey issue of the Quart. Jrl. Geol. Soc., and swiftly swatted the card. After two sharp blows, it came apart into a thready curling mess, half-mixed with the blistered finish of the table-top.
Mallory slit open a begging-letter, tossed the contents out unread, and swept the ash into the envelope, with the sharp-edged spine of the geological journal. The table did not seem too badly damaged
"Dr. Mallory?"
Mallory looked up, with a guilt-stricken start, into the face of a stranger. The man, a tall and clean-shaven Londoner, very plainly dressed, with a gaunt, unsmiling look, stood across the library table from Mallory, papers and a notebook in one hand.
"A very poor specimen," Mallory said, in a sudden ecstasy of impromptu deception. "Pickled in camphor! A dreadful technique!" He folded the envelope and slid it in his pocket.
The stranger silently offered a carte-de-visite.
Ebenezer Fraser's card bore his name, a telegram-number, and a small embossed Seal of State. Nothing else. The other side offered a stippled portrait with the look of stone-faced gravity that seemed the man's natural expression.
Mallory rose to offer his hand, then realized that his fingers were tainted with acid. He bowed instead, sat at once, and wiped his hand furtively on the back of his trouser-leg. The skin of thumb and forefinger felt dessicated, as if dipped in formaldehyde.
"I hope I find you well, sir," Fraser murmured, seating himself across the table. "Recovered from yesterday's attack?"
Mallory glanced down the length of the library. The other patrons were still clumped together at the far side of the room, and seemed very curious indeed about his antics and Fraser's sudden appearance.
"A trifle," Mallory hedged. "Might happen to anyone, in London."
Fraser lifted one dark eyebrow, by a fraction.
"Sorry my mishap should cause you to take trouble, Mr. Fraser."
"No trouble, sir." Fraser opened a leather-bound notebook and produced a reservoir-pen from within his plain, Quakerish jacket. "Some questions?"
"Truth to tell. I'm rather pressed for time at the moment"
Fraser silenced him with an impassive look. "Been here three hours, sir, awaiting your convenience."
Mallory began a fumbling apology.
Fraser ignored him. "I witnessed something quite curious outside, at six o'clock this morning, sir. A young news-boy, crying to the world that Leviathan Mallory was arrested for murder."
"Me? Edward Mallory?"
Fraser nodded.
"I don't understand. Why should any news-boy cry any such damnable lie?"
"Sold a deal of his papers," Fraser said drily. "Bought one meself."
"What on earth did this paper have to say about me?"
"Not a word of news about any Mallory," Fraser said. "You may see for yourself." He dropped a folded newspaper on the table-top: a London Daily Express.
Mallory set the newspaper carefully atop his basket. "Some wicked prank," he suggested, his throat dry. "The street-arabs here are nerved for anything "
"When I stepped out again, the little rascal had hooked it," Fraser said. "But a deal of your colleagues heard that news-boy crying his tale. Been the talk of the place all morning."
"I see," Mallory said. "That accounts for a certain well!" He cleared his throat.
Fraser watched him impassively. "You'd best see this now, sir." He took a folded document from his notebook, opened it, and slid it across the polished mahogany.
An Engine-printed daguerreotype. A dead man, full length on a slab, a bit of linen tucked about his loins. The picture had been taken in a morgue. The corpse had been knifed open from belly to sternum with a single tremendous ripping thrust. The skin of chest and legs and bulging belly was marble pale, in eerie contrast to the
deeply sunburnt hands, the florid face.
It was Francis Rudwick.
There was a caption at the bottom of the picture. 'A Scientific Autopsy', it read. 'The "batrachian" subject is pithed and opened in a catastrophic dissection. First in a Series.'
"God in Heaven!" Mallory said.
"Official police morgue record," Fraser said. "Seems it fell into the hands of a mischief-maker."
Mallory stared at it in horror-struck amazement. "What can it mean?"
Fraser readied his pen. "What is 'batrachian,' sir?"
"From the Greek," Mallory blurted. "Batrachos, amphibian. Frogs and toads, mostly." He struggled for words. "Onceyears ago, in a debateI said that his theories Rudwick's geological theories, you know"
"I heard the story this morning, sir. It seems well-known among your colleagues." Fraser flipped pages in his notebook. "You said to Mr. Rudwick: 'The course of Evolution does not conform to the batrachian sluggishness of your intellect.' " He paused. "Fellow did look a bit froggy, didn't he, sir?"
"It was in public debate at Cambridge," Mallory said slowly. "Our blood was up "
"Rudwick claimed you were 'mad as a hatter,' " Fraser mused. "Seems you took that remark very ill."
Mallory flushed. "He had no right to say that, with his gentry airs"