Doktor Glass by Thomas Brennan Read Free Book Online

middle-aged man with a failing liver, perhaps not very far from terminal cirrhosis. Caucasian, but he’s obviously spent a great deal of time under the sun. A Boer, from the tattoos.”
    “The Orange Free State Irregulars of eighty-six,” Sister Wright said.
    Langton stared at her; she stared back, unflinching, but didn’t volunteer an explanation of how she knew.
    The Professor continued, “Cause of death was poisoning, a compound of hyosine and an opiate derivative. Slow acting. Paralysis would have set in first, followed by gradual loss of consciousness and then asphyxiation.”
    “So he would have been conscious but unable to move?” Langton asked.
    “In my opinion, yes. For a short time.”
    A truly horrible image reared up in Langton’s mind. “Do you think…Was he awake when they did this to him?”
    The Professor looked down at the excised face. “It is possible. I see little motive for it, other than madness, but it is quite possible.”
    Langton shook his head. What kind of men were they dealing with here?
    “These are the most intriguing aspects.” The Professor pointed the long knife at the dark patches on the dead man’s neck. “They appear to be burns. Low-voltage electrical burns unless I’m much mistaken.”
    “Why torture him further?”
    The Professor hesitated, then said, “I don’t think it was torture. I can’t be sure, but…Inspector, have you ever heard of the Jar Boys?”
    *  *  *
    L ANGTON STILL COULDN ’ T believe the Professor’s words. Even now, sitting in the dining room of the Professor’s Upper Parliament Street mansion, he refused to accept the coincidence. For that must be the case; hearing two references to the apocryphal soul snatchers must be strange accident and no more. There could not be a connection.
    He glanced at the ornate clock on the mantel: two fifty in the morning. Langton had sent McBride home; Sister Wright had stayed at the Infirmary. So now the world shrank to the luxurious, eclectic dining room of the Professor. Egyptian effigies stared back from the shadows, their gilt decoration reflecting the flames.
    Although he longed to ask questions, Langton waited until the Professor had finished his sandwich and poured out another glass of claret for both of them. The Professor leaned back in his chair and pushed the plate away. “Fine piece of beef. Hungrier than I realized. You get so intrigued by the day’s cases that everything else is forgotten; no doubt the same happens in your line of work.”
    “That’s true,” Langton said, fighting his impatience.
    “Are you a superstitious man, Inspector?”
    Pushing away the memory of Mrs. Grizedale, Langton said, “Not as a rule.”
    “No, nor me.” The Professor sipped his claret and leaned his head against the chair back. “I’ve lived a long life and I’m more open-minded than perhaps I once was. I’ve lost a great deal of my natural cynicism.”
    Langton waited. The clock ticked.
    The Professor continued, “I first heard of the Jar Boys thirty-odd years ago. You might recall the work of Tesla, Marconi, and Hertz in the field of radio communications.”
    “We traveled on ships that use their equipment.”
    “Quite. At the time, little was known about electromagnetic emissions. Edison, the American, made extravagant claims, and Faraday showed some promising experiments, but many people mistook their work for magic or misdirection. Some still do.”
    Langton remembered attending Crystal Palace, where he and Sarah had marveled at the latest inventions and feats of engineering, not least of which had been the palace itself. Some of the watching crowd had jeered the Marconi Company demonstrations, calling them street magicians and worse.
    “You know how their apparatus works?” the Professor asked.
    “To a degree; one piece of equipment emits some kind of message while the other accepts it.”
    The Professor nodded. “In essence, yes. Speech, or teletype data, is reduced to electrical pulses