The Devil's Opera(126)
Gotthilf was still frowning. Nichols grinned. “Think about it, Sergeant. Have you ever seen a piece of beef or pork blister on a grill or in the fire? Or a chicken breast?” Nichols shook his head, still grinning. “Never happen. Burn, yeah, but not blister.”
His expression sobered and he turned back to the corpse. “So if he didn’t blister, he was already dead when the boiler blew. I’m not going to go out on a limb and say there’s something wrong here, but if I were you I wouldn’t cross that idea off the list just yet.”
Like Gotthilf, Dr. Schlegel was now writing notes in his own notebook. He looked up. “I think I understand your concerns. I will examine this man most carefully.”
Gotthilf looked at Byron. His partner’s eyes were narrowed, in that expression he knew from experience meant that the up-timer’s thoughts were racing furiously.
After a moment, Byron straightened. “Okay, thanks, Doctor and Doctor. I think we can take it from here, but I’ll want to see the results of those examinations as soon as they can get done.”
Dr. Schlegel closed his notebook and slipped it back in a jacket pocket. Dr. Nichols nodded, then held out his hand. “Right. I’ve got to get back to the palace and see to the emperor. Good luck.”
* * *
Otto Gericke looked around as someone stepped into place beside him on the side opposite of Prince Ulrik. He was faintly surprised to see his brother-in-law Georg Schmidt standing there also, face ashen, the latest in a sequence of the “important” people who had come to view the disaster.
“Georg,” he said, turning back to watch the patrolmen starting to fan out across the disaster area.
“Otto,” Georg responded. “I came as soon as I heard. This is horrible.”
“Yes, it is,” Otto responded tightly. “But what’s even more horrible is the idea that Captain Reilly just shared with me.”
“What was that?” Georg asked the obvious question.
“That this may not be just a terrible accident.”
Georg furrowed his forehead. “What do you mean?”
“The up-timers have a saying that goes something like this: ‘once is an accident, twice might be a coincidence, but three times is enemy action.’”
“What are you talking about?” Schmidt sounded bewildered now.
Otto started ticking items off on his fingers. “One: the fire that destroyed much of the stored timbers for this project. Two: the murder of the two employees and the theft of the payroll money. Three: the explosion here today.” He crossed his arms and looked back to the disasters. “They may all be related. Someone may be trying to destroy this project.”
If it was possible, Schmidt was even paler.
“How could that be? Who would do such a thing? What would they gain from doing it?”
“The who and the why of it are what the Polizei will be looking into shortly. If this is indeed some part of someone’s evil plan, the detectives will find them. I know these men. They will not rest after this.”
Otto brooded quietly for a few moments, watching the patrolmen gather the bodies one by one. “If this was indeed an act of what the up-timers call sabotage, I pity the fool who set it in motion. The Committees of Correspondence are not at all happy. This hospital addition was something they were supporting in full, and to not only see it almost destroyed, but to see so many men killed—many of them CoC union members and supporters—has them ready to strike out. Gunther Achterhof is livid. He had already arrived at the same conclusion, and he’s convinced that there is an agency at work behind all of this. If Captain Reilly had not set them the task of checking all the roofs for coals and fire, they would be on a hue and cry through the streets of the city at this moment, searching for an instigator.”
Schmidt said nothing more. After a few minutes, he turned and walked away without a farewell.
* * *
Gotthilf proved to be a prophet. When it came time to move the corpses of the dead workers, several of the patrolmen joined Sergeant Milich in depositing the remains of their breakfasts on the ground. Gotthilf had felt his own gorge start to rise a couple of times. He was able to firmly resist it enough that it settled down, but he didn’t think he’d be eating much for dinner that night.
The heavy clothing worn due to the weather appeared to have provided some protection to the men. But the steam had ravaged any exposed skin. Faces, hands, necks—if it was uncovered, it was badly blistered. Fingers were so blistered they resembled sausages; hands were almost obscenely swollen.
But it was the damage done to the tender tissues of the face that seemed to trigger nausea the most. Eyelids were so blistered that the eye-sockets resembled some kind of horrible growth; ears were severely misshapen; noses couldn’t be recognized; and lips were hideously swollen, like a travesty of a marionette.