The Devil's Hound

Chapter 20 - Wednesday 8th August continued

There was shout from the warden for the men to rise for the day. He followed the yawning men down to a breakfast of gruel and the daily allocation of bread for the morning. Nigel sat down with Gilbert and his friends.

"You still leaving today?" Nigel asked.

"Not until after dinner. It's Wednesday we get beef and potatoes today," one of Gilbert's friends said.

"Don't get your hopes up. The beef is tough enough to wear on your feet and the potatoes are full of weevils," Gilbert said. "It ain't the food we're staying for. It's because of the full moon tonight. I don't want to be having to walk back to London with the werewolf out hunting."

Nigel paused with his spoon resting in his bowl of gruel. It was the full moon tonight. Yet he had seen werewolves over the past few nights. Either they could change outside the light of a full moon or perhaps they weren't werewolves after all. But then what were they?

Ten minutes later the bell chimed for work to begin. Nigel joined the men trudging towards the workshops for a day of hard labour. He took his place at the bench in the kindling shed. For over two hours he swung the hatchet, his hand cramping painfully around the handle, the sores on my hand weeping, and he even managed to get a nasty splinter in his left hand from one of the sticks he had been splitting. When the warden pulled him aside he almost cried with relief.

"You're wanted at the front desk," he grunted not elaborating any further.

Nigel found the Professor standing in the lobby at the front of the men's barracks. Without a word he gestured to Nigel to follow him outside. Nigel walked beside him along the road towards the infirmary. Outside the work crews were busy in the vegetable patches, working amongst the pigs, and cutting the grass in the orchard.

"What have you found out for me?" the Professor asked stopping in front of the children's barracks. From an open window he could hear a teacher screaming at one his pupils for not doing his class work. Nigel wondered if he was about to receive a similar reaction from the Professor.

"I think one of the wardens is involved."

"You think or you know."

"I..." For a second Nigel considered telling the Professor everything he had witnessed in the barn. Nigel could explain that he had seen a man transform into a werewolf. That the werewolf was a member of staff with the initials H.C. Then Nigel would have to listen to the Professor tell him, he was wrong and that men don't become wolves. Instead of telling the truth Nigel said, "I think it highly likely."

"Think is not good enough," the Professor said. "I am to go in front of the Board of Governors this afternoon and I have nothing to show for our investigation apart from a dead man in the morgue. To make matters worse he was a vagrant. There is no record of his past, he has no family, he will be buried and forgotten about. And so will this hoaxer if we are not careful. I need something. Anything or Rinder will have you thrown out of here."

Nigel thought again about telling the Professor the initials, but the Professor would want to know how he had discovered them, and then before Nigel knew it, he would have to give the Professor answers he would not believe. It was better to keep quiet.

"Sorry sir, I..."

The Professor held up his hand. Nigel fell silent waiting for him to speak. Marshalling his thoughts the Professor watched the men cutting the grass in the orchard. In the children's barracks behind them the teacher shouts had been replaced by the sharp cracks of the cane and the screams of pain from the receiver.

"You will have to keep looking," the Professor eventually said. "I will try to convince the Governors to give you more time. Dig harder, Nigel. Find me something."