Till Death Do Us

BACK AT THE BAWDY HOUSE

"Why do you need to perform this experiment in a bawdy house?" Phineas asked in the last row, one seat from his cousin.

Cousin Rudy nodded at the stage, where the blonde continued to gyrate and writhe, dexterously scooping up the coins that landed at her feet while coyly allowing the large feather fans to reveal brief and tantalizing glimpses of her anatomy.

"It has come to my attention that the charged physical sensations I experience in here are akin to those I feel if I rub my feet on a carpet," Cousin Rudy explained. "I know for a fact that rubbing my feet on the carpet can produce those tiny sparks of kinetic efflux. Therefore, I've decided to conduct the experiment here in the hope of producing a more sustained flow."

From a pocket of his coat Cousin Rudy produced some string, horse hair, and a ribbon. "I've been experimenting with strands of different material in the hope of finding one that will conduct the kinetic efflux from my body to the two leaves of foil in the jar. So far nothing's worked. I was just about to try picture-hanging wire."

Staring at the undulating maiden on the stage, Cousin Rudy grasped one end of the picture-hanging wire in each hand. To Phineas's amazement, inside the glass jar, the two leaves of foil spread apart, as if by magic.

"Rudy!" Phineas gasped. "It's... it's working!"

With a frown, his cousin stared down at the jar in his lap and shook his head. "Hardly. Do you see any light?"

"No, but, clearly something is happening," Phineas replied. "This is remarkable, Rudy."

"I suppose," admitted Cousin Rudy without apparent excitement. "At least we've discovered an adequate conductor in these wires. And furthermore, we've confirmed that stimulated by the sight of yon dancing maiden, my body has commenced to generate its own supply of kinetic efflux. The efflux runs down these wires into the jar where it causes these leaves of foil to move." Phineas's cousin sighed with disappointment. "But without producing any light, what's the point?"

But to Phineas, who'd been in the mortuary preparation room for the embalming and readying of any number of bodies for burial -- and had thus reluctantly inspected the insides of more corpses than he could count -- didn't see it that way. "This is the point, Rudy! It's remarkable. You're proving that these so-called kinetic effluxes are created inside the body. I've never heard of anything like this!"

But Cousin Rudy had turned his head and was no longer listening. Instead, he was staring down at an exit door just to the right of the stage. "It's her."

Unnoticed by the crowd of men whose eyes were glued to the quivering, quavering female on the stage, someone wrapped in a dark shawl had just entered through the exit door to the left of the stage and was now standing in the shadows, watching the performance.

"Who?" Phineas asked.

"The one from the funeral."

Phineas squinted. He could see that it was a woman beneath the shawl, but that was hardly a surprise in a place like this. Now she left the exit doorway and quietly started up the aisle toward the back of the theater, where Cousin Rudy and Phineas were seated. As she came toward them, the shawl slipped from her face for an instant. Phineas went stiff with the recognition that it was indeed Miss Theodosia Boudreaux!