a sure way to spoil a fellow’s reputation in your refined circles.” My collar tightened and my vision was streaky from my elevated pulse, which in turn caused everything on me that was broken, crushed, or punctured to throb. I kept my cool by fantasizing about what I was going to do to my enemy when I tracked him to ground. Better, much better.
“It also didn’t help when the squalid details of Conrad’s provenance and subsequent upbringing eventually came to light. The poor chap was in and out of institutions for most of his youth. He worked as a clerk at (illegible) University and there reunited with papa Muybridge and ultimately joined the photographer’s staff. If not for Eadweard Muybridge’s patronage, today Conrad would likely be in a gutter or dead.”
“Oh, I see. Paxton didn’t become a hermit by choice, your people shunned him like the good folks in Utah do it.”
“In a nutshell, yes. Conrad’s childhood history is sufficiently macabre to warrant such treatment. Not much is known about the Paxtons except they owned a fishery. Conrad’s adoptive sister vanished when she was eight and he nine. All fingers pointed to his involvement. At age sixteen he drowned a rival at school and was sent to an asylum until he reached majority. The rich and beautiful are somewhat phobic regarding the criminally insane no matter how affluent the latter might be. Institutional taint isn’t fashionable unless one derives from old money. Alas, Conrad is new money and what he’s got isn’t much by the standards of California high society.”
“I don’t know whether to thank you or shoot you,” I said. “I’m inclined to accept your word for the moment. It would be an unfortunate thing were I to discover this information of yours is a hoax. Who are these associates that heard Paxton’s confession?”
“The Corning Sisters. The sisters dwell in Luster, one of several rustic burghs in Ransom Hollow. If anyone can help you against Conrad, it’ll be the crones. I admired Donald. Your father was a killer with the eye of an artist, the heart of a poet. A conflicted man, but a loyal friend. I’d like to know why Conrad wanted him dead.”
“I’m more interested in discovering why he wants to bop me,” I said. Actually, I was more preoccupied with deciding on a gun or a dull knife.
“He may not necessarily wish to kill you, my boy. It may be worse than that. Do you enjoy films? There’s one that may be of particular importance to you.”
* * *
Dick gave me a look when I brought Helios Augustus to the curb. He drove us to the Redfield Museum of Natural History without comment, although Bly’s nephew Vernon frowned and muttered and cast suspicious glances into the rearview. I’d met the lug once at a speakeasy on the south side; lanky kid with red-rimmed eyes and a leaky nose. Pale as milk and mean as a snake. No scholar, either. I smiled at him, though not friendly like.
Helios Augustus rang the doorbell until a pasty clerk who pulled duty as a night watchman and janitor admitted us. The magician held a brief, muttered conference and we were soon guided to the basement archives where the public was never ever allowed. The screening area for visiting big cheeses, donors and dignitaries was located in an isolated region near the boiler room and the heat was oppressive. At least the seats were comfortable old wingbacks and I rested in one while they fussed and bustled around and eventually got the boxy projector rolling. The room was already dim and then Helios Augustus killed the lone floor lamp and we were at the bottom of a mine shaft, except for a blotch of light from the camera aperture spattered against a cloth panel. The clerk cranked dutifully and Helios Augustus settled beside me. He smelled of brandy and dust and when he leaned in to whisper his narration of the film, tiny specks of fire glinted in his irises.
What he showed me was a silent film montage of various projects by Eadweard Muybridge. The first several appeared innocuous—simple renderings of the dead photographer’s various plates and the famous Horse in Motion reel that settled once and for all the matter of whether all four feet of the animal leave the ground during full gallop. For some reason the jittering frames of the buffalo plunging across the prairie made me uneasy. The images repeated until they shivered and the beast’s hide