The Policeman of Secrets

Chapter 14 Part 2

They were standing in what Flair called his examination room, a cramped space that Stone found intensely uncomfortable. Doorways in the distance led to the rest of Flair’s quarters, some of which were magnificently appointed, yet the man insisted on performing his most important work in this miserable cellar, far from any chance of interruption. The acoustics here were excellent for his purposes, as he had protested when Stone suggested moving his assorted machines somewhere more convenient. It was certainly true that the rounded ceiling and curved walls magnified his victims’ screams, as Stone could attest from the various torture sessions he had witnessed.

The latest examinees were lined up on the eastern wall, their hands chained above their heads. A man and a woman, their clothes filthy and disheveled, stood in silence, limp and clearly exhausted. Their heads were each covered in the heavy cloth hoods that Flair preferred his patients to wear in the earliest stages of their examinations. The enforced blindness magnified their terror, he had carefully explained to Stone, and therefore made their responses to his assorted “tests” all the more powerful. “They cannot know what I’ll do next,” he had said, a broad smile on his face. “That sends them shaking with fear, and it is only through that fear that we obtain truth.”

Halfway along the western wall was an anteroom, dark and cramped and reserved for what Flair called his “special guests”. It currently contained Solomon Snow, manacled like the others. He was not yet hooded, but his head was hanging low and his one eye was closed. A patchwork of bruises—the result of his capture, Stone supposed—marred the right side of his face.

Stone had nothing but admiration for the doctor’s ruthlessness, and Flair’s ingenuity in the countless ways of inflicting pain knew no bounds. Yet he lacked style. The Arcanum were almost at the point where Flair could set up home openly in any building in the country. So why do so much work beneath the earth, in fetid, claustrophobic rooms reeking of their occupants’ final moments?

Stone loved the open sky and had deliberately sited his quarters high above London, a king above his domain. Yet Flair was almost his opposite, a servant forcing his master to make these miserable and increasingly frequent journeys through secret tunnels, rather than simply entering via the entrance within the doctor’s home. Some things were beyond under-standing, yet he humored Flair’s idiosyncrasies for now. Things would certainly change once all the necessary torturing was complete.

“You have begun the latest experiments?” Stone asked. Flair was busy at a machine, happily turning dials and nodding in satisfaction as they clicked into place. A quickening combination of thuds and hisses came from the device, along with the sound of thickening steam that Stone knew would be a precursor to pain for one of these new unfortunates.

“She is under the Assembly,” said Flair in a voice muffled by the mask, “and now I am about to see how much she can feel before some sign of life shows itself on her miserable face.”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Stone paced around, allowing Flair to prepare his equipment at his own pace. At first glance the prisoners were remaining still, but on closer inspection Stone saw that the woman was trembling uncontrollably. Curious, he grasped one of her outstretched arms, enjoying the way she flinched in shock. He held on tightly as the limb shook all the more.

“Start now, Doctor, if you would,” he said.

Flair moved from the machine, which was now emitting a fierce heat. He tugged on a pair of thick black gloves that stretched almost to his elbows, then pulled with him a narrow pipe of Indian rubber, on which was mounted a thin spigot. It was warm to the touch.

“She was a captain’s wife, I understand,” he explained. “Fairly strong-willed and of some reasonable intelligence. Should be an excellent subject. If you wouldn’t mind?” He nodded at her head, and Stone pulled the hood away swiftly. The gesture revealed the form of a woman in her late thirties, her pale blonde hair bedraggled and hanging limp around a frightened face. Whatever will to resist she might have once possessed had been wiped away by the effect of the Assembly on her brain, and she simply stared, terrified, at Flair as he stepped before her with the pipe in his hand.