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le as it ponderously rocked itself across the floor. Although no one was near enough to be at risk if it fell over, I nevertheless called out a warning.
Flora took one look and shouted: “Stop it! Stop it right now!”
The gargoyle stopped moving, and so did the stick, although Jesperson still kept a tight hold and a wary eye on it.
Harcourt took a hesitant step forward, his eyes still fixed upon the stick. “Give—give it to me, if you please, Mr. Jesperson,” he said. “That—that is the weapon that killed poor Mr. Adcocks; and before that, a young man in Plymouth. If not for your exceptionally quick reflexes, you would have been its third victim.”
After a reluctant pause, Jesperson handed over the stick, saying, “You expected this might happen?”
“Never,” the man gasped, staring at the stick in his hands with an unhealthy mixture of lust and fear. “Who would imagine that the instinct to kill would be inherent?”
“You imagined it inherent in me,” said Flora. “A mindless, killing force so powerful that it could use me—a living, intelligent being—without regard for my own free will?”
“No, no, certainly not,” he said, without conviction. “You were a mere infant, with no ability to think or act for yourself, when fate used you to terminate the lives of three innocent souls. It is quite different now.” He had been looking at her, but the lure of the object in his hands proved too much, and he soon returned to staring at it like a besotted lover.
“You’ve always thought of me as another piece in your collection,” Flora said bitterly. “A mindless, soulless thing, and not even your favorite.”
“Dear Flora, don’t be absurd. I know you are no ‘thing.’ You have been like a daughter to me. Have I not always cared for you as best I could? Bought you whatever your heart desired? My only concern has ever been to see you safely and happily married to the man of your choice, when the time came.”
While my sympathies were entirely with Flora, I recognized that to an outside observer, she would seem hysterical, and Harcourt the sane one.
“Yet you must have wondered,” Jesperson said, as if idly. “Eh, Harcourt? You surely wondered if your ward was intended by Fate for family happiness. Perhaps you saw her first engagement as a scientific experiment. The result was not as you hoped, but perhaps as you feared . . . ?”
They exchanged a look, man to man, and although Harcourt shook his head ruefully, I saw the smug satisfaction beneath the solemn look.
“You’re vile,” Flora murmured. She cleared her throat and announced, “I can never marry. I won’t put another life at risk.”
This time, Harcourt did not protest. He shrugged and sighed, and said, “I would never force you to go against your will, no matter how foolish it seems to me.”
“That’s not all. I’m leaving your collection today, Mr. Harcourt—”
“Oh, come now. Don’t be childish. You can’t blame me for what you are!”
“Not for what I am; only for what you’ve tried to make me. The atmosphere in this house is hideous, not because of the objects, but because of your gloating fascination with murder and violent death. I’m going. I won’t set foot in this house again as long as you are alive.”
Having stated her intention, she made straight for the door.
I felt the shudder that ran through the house even before her hand touched the door handle; it was a sensation so subtle yet so profound that I thought at first I might be ill.
Harcourt yelled. His nose was bleeding; the walking stick had come to life again in his hand and seemed determined to beat him to death. He managed to remove it to arm’s length, and struggled to keep it under control. The gargoyle, too, was shuddering back to life, and, from the variety of creaks and groans and fluttering sounds I heard coming from the next room, so were other bits of the collection.
“Move,” said Jesperson urgently, propelling me forward. “Get out of the house! Is there anyone else?” Hearing the shouts, the little maid who’d let us in reappeared, and, although looking utterly bewildered, she allowed him to usher her outside as well.
We met Flora at the front gate and turned back to look at the house.
“Where’s Harcourt?” Jesperson demanded. “He was right behind me.”
“He won’t leave his collection,” said Flora. “He’ll have gone back for it. He used to worry aloud about what he should save first, if the house were on fire.”
“But it’s the collection itself that’s the threat!”
On my own, I might have left Harcourt to his fate, but when my partner ran back inside, I felt it my duty to follow. Mounting the front steps, I was able to see through the window into the study, and what I saw brought me to a standstill.
Pale and portly Mr. Harcourt was leaping and whirling like a dervish, holding the silver-headed stick away from his body like a magic staff, as he struggled to avoid a flurry of small objects from striking him. Occasionally in his efforts he unconsciously pulled his arm in closer to his body, allowing the stick to give him a sharp crack on his leg or shoulder, and then he would shriek in pain or anger.
Books and other things continued to tumble from the shelves. Many simply fell, but others seemed hurled with force directly at him, and these struck a variety of glancing blows against his body, head, and limbs. A glassfronted display case shook fiercely, as if caught in an earthquake, until it burst open, releasing everything inside. A great malignant swarm composed of small bottles, jars, needles, pins, razors, and many more things I could not recognize now enveloped the man, whose cries turned to a constant, terrified howling as they attacked him.
Feeling sick, I turned aside and went indoors to my partner, who was throwing himself bodily against the solid oak door, as if he imagined he could force it open. Seeing me, he stopped and rubbed his shoulder, looking a little sheepish.
