Spring-heeled Jack and the President's Ring

Chapter 3 ~ Magnetron Unravels a Ruse

"I remained in the surgery as the doctor oversaw his patient's attempts to hold his breath while drinking backwards from a glass of Peruvian bark tonic."

A pale, gaunt man stood in the doorway, convulsing with an acute case of hiccoughs.  "I—hup—need a—hup—doctor—hup," he said, underscoring his declaration by collapsing to the floor.  "Nurse!" Dr. Glockenholz called down a corridor.  "Quickly," he said to me, "help me put zis man into ze surgery!"  As we raised the nearly unconscious man from the floor, my eyes fell once again on the nubbly cross-grained ceremonial mask which now seemed to leer at us.

Dr. Glockenholz was soon far too involved with his patient to continue the interview, but volunteered one final piece of information which was quite sufficient for me to solve much of the remaining puzzle.  Holding a paper bag to the afflicted man's mouth, he told me, "Ze medication caused a blue stain on ze doctor's fingernails.  Zat is vot made me sink of carbon monoxide."

With that, the details began to fall effortlessly into place.  The doctor had obviated further investigation by improvising a fiction wherein Dr. Hogalum had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.  No inquest was held, as the credibility of Dr. Glockenholz was above reproach.  News reporters repeated the police accounts of an accidental death, and the falsehood was elevated to the stature of truth in much the same manner that uncounted colossal lies have become incontrovertible verities.

He had protected the reputation of his young intern, who had yet to begin a promising career in medicine.  And Dr. Hogalum's reputation?  It would certainly have been tarnished posthumously if the facts were known, as he had concocted the deadly potion himself.  Dr. Glockenholz must have felt he had no choice but to shroud the facts from public scrutiny.

I remained in the surgery as the doctor oversaw his patient's attempts to hold his breath while drinking backwards from a glass of Peruvian bark tonic.  A buxom nurse cooed solicitously as she thumped the poor devil on his back, startling him at odd intervals by dropping metal trays on the floor.  As I observed this medical wizardry being performed, all of my suspicions about Dr. Glockenholz evaporated.  Yes, he had fabricated an elaborate deceit, but primarily to protect innocents.  Yes, he had lied to the police, in some part to protect his own reputation.  But how could I stand in judgment, being guilty of the same myself?

I excused myself from the surgery, as I felt I had learned all that I could.  Unaccountably, I could not resist asking about the extraordinary African curio which had commanded my attention earlier.  It had been a gift from Corbière.

That square concept attempted to navigate the round passageways of my mind during my entire journey home.  Why on Earth would a French medical student pack such an enormous African knickknack across the Atlantic Ocean to present it to a German man of science?

When I arrived home, I was pleased to find that my Hogalum brothers had returned, but horrified to find bedlam reigning over my ordinarily tranquil sanctuary.  Satyros clambered unsteadily on the steeply pitched roof, apparently attempting to rescue Pung, who was then dangling precariously from a third floor dormer and ululating like a moon-struck coyote.  Cerebelli and Coburn were engaged in a scurrilous and completely unintelligible verbal scrimmage and did not notice my arrival, but Mrs. Mackenzie accosted me immediately with a surpassingly blustery disposition.  "Beastly ignoramuses!" she said repeatedly, and at that moment I was not inclined to disagree.  Rather, I was preparing to eject the lot of them with a rather uncouth outburst of my own when Valkusian sidled soundlessly next to me, clearing his throat and speaking directly into my ear:

"Phineas," he said.  "We must leave at once."