The second installment...

Order Clonazepam no prescription, [More pulp-style Franzavius, as before, unedited and written at speed - the first installment is here. I'm a little worried that it's becoming very English and more Conan Doyle than Walter Gibson. I may have to shift narrators and see what happens...]

 

The Hospitality of Doctor Franzavius

by Nick Harkaway

 

            In the smoking room of the Pangolin Club, it was the quiet time between late lunch and early dinner, before the true revellers have arrived, but after the early starters have taken their fill and relaxed into the overstuffed and moth-holed chairs by the log fire.

            It being a Tuesday, the club was not very full. Tam Flanders the oarsman was there, big hands clasping an equally enormous jar of ale, and next to him his friend Peter Fisk who worked in the Foreign Office, and a fellow named Giles who was their guest: a tiny Germanic sort with wet eyes and damp hands answering to the name of Gustav Meier. Rather unusually, there was also a man in a uniform of a senior police officer of these Sceptred Isles, gravely drinking a brandy against the chill outside.

            “I can’t help but feel,” the Scotland Yard man said at last, “that I didn’t come to be here by chance.”

            “Well, who of us is?” asked Fisk, philosophically. “God’s creation is informed by the divine plan, we’re told.”

            “Well, fair play to the Church,” the first replied, “but I have something rather more immediate in view, order Clonazepam no prescription. I think,” he added somewhat sternly, “that you’ve brought me here on a purpose, and while I like a glass of something and a fine game pie as much as the next man, I’d as soon hear it now, before the day gets away from us and you maybe change your mind.”

            This with a touch of asperity, for our nation’s civilian guardians don’t take over-kindly to the doings of the FCO, which oftentimes run counter to our laws and are excused on grounds of national interest and international fellowship and the rest, and uncovering their work can be a waste of detection and resources which could have gone elsewhere. Before the matter could become uncomfortable, however, comprare Clonazepam sconto, the little German raised his hand politely, and spoke in precise accents which marked him as a native of the high regions of that country.

            “You must forgive Mr Fisk, sir. It was at my request that he brought us together unofficially. The fault is mine. Order Clonazepam no prescription, I have a story, but I do not know the whole of it, and it may be my understanding makes it appear more woeful than it is. Moreover, I have no clear idea of what transpired, or to whom. Just an odd thing. My people do not enjoy that which is odd. We are against it on principle. In London, on the other hand, it seems that odd is de rigeur, order Clonazepam no prescription. What my own office, therefore, does not comprehend, I bring to you in the expectation that it will appear innocent and trifling to an Englishman, or at least, if it is wickedness, that you will recognise it and we will be able to proceed against the malefactors.”

            “And how do these other gentlemen enter into the matter, Herr Meier, if I may ask?”

            “Mr Fisk was the only person in British officialdom to whom I felt comfortable speaking of my misgivings, and Mr Flanders is my witness. He can confirm and supplement my story with his own observations.”

            The policeman glanced at Flanders, who shrugged.

            “I was there,” Flanders said. “Right enough. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Like Gustav, though, I don’t fully grasp the business. Uncanny it was, Idaho ID , though. That’s for sure. So when he said would I mind coming along, I threw in with him. He’s a fine fisherman,” the oarsman added, by way of endorsement, “knows the streams of his country like I know the Isis. Showed me a thing or two about lures, too.”

            The policeman seemed to have no interest in the minutiae of coarse fishing, so Flanders petered out, and the little teuton commenced his tale.

            “We were on a train, order Clonazepam no prescription. It was not an express, but one of those which stops at every station on a very long line. Fortunately, in this context, such was no a grave matter, because there were few stations along much of the track. This was the great Trans-Caucasian Railway which runs from Berlin to Tbilisi and on to Iran, and I – as an envoy of my country on matters of viticulture – had business in those parts of the Caucuses where wine is grown. You may not know this, but the wines of Georgia and Dagestan are of some considerable merit. Order Clonazepam no prescription, The French, of course, would have you believe otherwise, but a good wine maker can achieve remarkable results in the mountains, where the sun is strong, the rain plentiful, and the phyloxera will not plague the roots. I have great hopes for Argentina, also.”

            “I’m sure,” the Scotland Yard man said, perhaps a little brusquely, desirous as he was to head of a discussion of the iniquities of the Bordeaux vinyardman and his friends in Gigondas. “So you were on a train.”

            “I was travelling alone, but at dinner on the first night out of Berlin, I came across a convivial fisherman from Oxford – whom you see here with me in the person of Mr Flanders – and we became friends. We shared an ambition to try our hand at fishing in the Caspian, though sea-fishing is for us both a new ambition. One hears good things of the bream, acquistare a buon mercato Clonazepam. They are great fighters, it is said.., order Clonazepam no prescription. In any case,” he continued, seeing his audience less than riveted, “for two nights we dined alone in the restaurant car. And then on the third evening, we were joined by a quite refined lady of middle years and her companion, a somewhat unsuitable fellow whom I took to be an opportunist, if you understand me, but who claimed to be her nephew.”

            “I know the type,” his listener said at once, “if you recall a name…?”

            An outburst of snoring from the fellow in the corner rocked the room. It sounded quite as if someone were sawing wood or gelding a donkey. The gentlemen by the fire looked at one another rather in horror. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Tam Flanders walked over and peered into the sleeper’s face.

            “He’s fine,” Flanders reported. “Out like a baby, noise like a paddelsteamer. Knew a fellow like that at Baliol.” He returned to his seat.

             The little German continued.

            “The lady – I have undertaken for the moment that I shall not identify her otherwise – the lady was on a visit to the tiny kingdom of Noatijan, which is caught in the cleft of Georgia and Azerbaijan. It has never been subsumed under the banner of either, you understand, because it is an inhospitable place, quite barren and bleak, and filled with the most aggressive manner of Caucasian fellow you can imagine. The Turks in Istanbul and the Sikhs in Amritsar; the Chechen themselves in Grozny… these are great fighting peoples of Asia and impervious to fear, but even they tell stories of the ferocity of the Noati and their appalling females.”

            “And an Englishwoman was voluntarily travelling to such a spot, order Clonazepam no prescription. Or is that the matter in hand. You believe she was constrained?”

            “It is more than that, sir. Kansas KS Kans. , It is so much more. The things you must understand, the things you will have to believe… well. Order Clonazepam no prescription, In its time, sir. You will have the whole tale. No, she was not under duress, that much I will say is a certainty.”

            “Then, pray continue.”

            Another thunderous bout of snoring shattered the privacy of the smoking room for some seconds, and then there was peace.

            “That fellow,” Gustav Meier, “must have a quite remarkable nasal construction.” He appeared quite ready to go over and peer at it, but the Scotland Yard man shuffled impatiently. Herr Meier took this, rightly, as an encouragement to get on with it.

             “On the next night, we made so bold as to present ourselves to the lady and her companion, and they gave every evidence of being glad to have company. We volunteered our interest in matters pescatorial, and the young man acknowledged that he had travelled in the region before and heard that it might be all that we hoped. When we came to discuss the lady’s reasons for travelling, however, she became unwell, and hurried to withdraw, order Clonazepam no prescription. I thought that we had in some way given offense, but the young man reassured us.

            “ ‘The matter is most tragic,’ he explained to us. The lady goes to retrieve the her son, who has got himself in trouble at Ladish, the capital. Of what precise sort, we are uncertain. Money, certainly, ordering Clonazepam online cheap, but there may be a woman involved as well. Order Clonazepam no prescription, My friend is in some considerable maternal confusion. Please forgive her.’

            “ ‘No, indeed,’ I replied, thinking of my own mother, who is back in Adelstadt -” but Tam Flanders took over the narrative, lest his little friend’s discursive nature drive his audience to violence, which seemed – from the look in the policeman’s eyes - entirely possible.

            “Gustav and the young lad were all a-flutter with apologising to one another,” Flanders said briskly, “but I was concerned for the lady. So I tottered down the companionway and found her leaning against the door of her cabin.

            “ ‘Hullo,’ says I, ‘I fear we’ve given you a turn, and I’m sorry for it. Please do come back and have a glass to restore the nerves.’

            “Well, a lady of substance knows the value of a tot in time of darkness, and can put it away, too - which she did, and told us the whole ragged tale. This son of hers was doing his tour, meeting society and such, and made the acquaintance somewhere of a fellow named Franzavius, order Clonazepam no prescription. They played cards, and pretty shortly the lad was stripped of his earnings and began to make rash wagers, and the other players left the table. Franzavius didn’t, though, and the boy ran up a debt against him which he couldn’t easily discharge.

            “ ‘That’s all right, Clonazepam online kopen, ’ says the foreign fellow, ‘no cause for alarm, no cause at all, not between men of breeding. Do me a favour and the matter’s settled.’

            “Well, of course, the boy wants to know the nature of the favour, but on the whole this seems as if it might be a hot chance to evade some harsh words from his mother and a red face in Mayfair.

            “ ‘Simplest thing in the world,’ Franzavius says, ‘I’ve a lady staying with me, a convalescent. Order Clonazepam no prescription, I must leave Ladish, and of course there’s servants and such to look to her, but no one of quality. Now, if you’d step in for a week, say, see the place run well, and send for me if there’s an alarm of the slightest sort, I’d consider myself in your debt!’

            “So, they strike a deal and off they go to Ladish. Seven nights watchfulness, all the while as Franzavius’s guest, mind, and that’s all there is to it. Part as friends, letters of recommendation to certain of Europe’s more outré royalty, all the boy could ask.

            “Franzavius is the local prince or baron of what have you, an independent ruler. Lots of village headmen and so on down there, councils of elders and suchlike, but they all answer to him, Illinois IL Ill. . He raises a militia to see good public order, and one gathers it’s good enough, order Clonazepam no prescription. The roads are safe, and a fellow can walk through Ladish with money in his pocket and see no more harm than if he were in Cambridge. Less, most likely. But there’s a strange feeling about the place, a kind of watchfulness. I’ve seen it before in deep country in Africa, and somewhat in Afghanistan. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Anywhere the Empire’s writ runs only to aftermath, where our fellows can go in and avenge and see justice, but not prevent a massacre, if that’s what some bandit has in mind. Y’see?”

            It did not seem to occur to Herr Meier that his rumpled boating companion displayed a degree of confidence about odd corners of the world and dangerous places which was a little out of place. Perhaps he expected this sort of thing of an Oxford man, or perhaps he knew as well as anybody can that a chap who wanders the globe on business may find himself requested by his country to do a little of this and a little of that at one time or another, and that these small favours may take him on some very long and perilous detours.

            “Well, we asked the lady and the young fellow if they’d like some extra company at Ladish, and they said they’d not mind a bit, so we made a little change to our plans and changed in Abkhazia to the branch line. I don’t mind admitting,” Tam Flanders said, “that I’d heard there were some truly staggering catfish to be had from the lakes of Noatijan. They say it’s where the ark came to rest, y’see, and some of those primordial species which flowed beneath its holy planks are still surviving. Or maybe it’s just that small nations breed large fish, order Clonazepam no prescription. At any rate, I fancied a cast, and serving a lady in a fix into the bargain, well…” He waved his hands to indicate the wealth set out at his feet by such a position.

            “So, after some messing around at Baikonu, where the stationmaster was drunk as a drover on New Year’s morning, αγοράσετε Clonazepam έκπτωση, we came to Ladish, and checked into our hotel.” Flanders shrugged himself down into his chair, and Fisk refreshed his glass.

            “Well,” Flanders continued after a moment’s reflection, “it wasn’t much of a hotel. More an inn. But acceptable, for all that. Lot of dark wood, a decent fire, and ale at the bar. Order Clonazepam no prescription, As fine an example of the peasant traveller’s lodge of the West Asian and Eastern European borderlands as one could ask for, complete with bears’ heads on the wall, and muskets and swords and what have you. A few years ago, you know, they still had a town patrol in Ladish to make sure no wolves ventured in at night. Landlord told me that was mostly unnecessary these days. ‘Mostly’, he said. I enjoyed that…

            “Anyway, there we were, and immediately the lady set about the business of finding her boy. Let’s give the lad a name, shall we, order Clonazepam no prescription. Call him ‘Peter’, and her ‘Beatrice’. So off she went, asking questions high and low, hither and yon, and sure enough, it seems Peter took the deal Franzavius offered and went to the high house – that’s what they call the manor there, though it looks as much a fortress as a home – and stayed to look to the lady. A great beauty, comprar Clonazepam baratos, they say, and restricted to her bed by a malady contracted, if you can believe it, in Wiltshire. I can just imagine Ladish mothers telling their children that Wiltshire’s a plague pit. Order Clonazepam no prescription, ‘Go where you will in the slums of Calcutta or the swamps of Florida,’ they say, ‘but as you value your life, stay out of Wiltshire!’”

            It seemed that Tam Flanders was no quicker teller of tales than the little German, who shifted somewhat in his seat, and Flanders returned to the topic.

            “Well, Peter being there apparently did the lady a power. She was up on her feet by the end of the week, and by the time Franzavius got back, the boy was smitten and didn’t want to leave. The lady herself was torn between ‘em, they say. She told Golda – Golda’s a maid in service at the high house – she told Golda that she loved Franzavius, of course she did, but young Peter was such a fine figure of a man, so broad and strong… well. Pretty clear to those of us who’ve been around what the score is. Franzavius was a fascination, mysterious and dangerous, with all that style and dash these continentals have, and no doubt there’s some genuine meeting of minds as well, for he reputedly treated women the same way as men, absolutely on a level, order Clonazepam no prescription. Now whether that’s modern of him or just because he views everyone else in the world as on a lower plane than he is, I can’t say. To be honest, having met the man, I incline to the latter belief.”

            “You’ve met Franzavius?” demanded the policeman sharply.

            “Part I’m coming to,” Flanders said. “If I may?” Everyone nodded, except the sleeper in the corner, who burbled into his cushions. Flanders went on. Order Clonazepam no prescription, “Well, then, Franzavius is a fascination to the mind and heart, but young Peter is the liver, right enough, or the body, if you care to be direct. He’s attractive, and roughly her own age, Where to buy cheap Clonazepam, and here she is in a foreign climb and apt to be moved in new directions. You follow. And this is the scene we arrive to. Herr Meier and I got ourselves invited up to the place – Meier discovered that they make win in Ladish, and quite filthy stuff it is, too, but we hitched it to our wagon and rode it into the heart of the enemy. Persuaded Lady Beatrice to dally at the inn in case Franzavius was inclined to be difficult, for we’d heard a few things about him along the way which made it seem possible, order Clonazepam no prescription. He wasn’t, though. Came to greet us with open arms, and soon we were all best of friends, wandering the grounds together while Peter took a dip in the ornamental lake.

            “And there we were, watching the girl – her name was Cosima, of all things – positively swoon over Peter. But the curious part was, Franzavius didn’t mind a bit. That continental thing again, I suppose. Order Clonazepam no prescription, He positively encouraged it. ‘Is he not splendid?’ Franzavius remarked, ‘is he not strong. The form of an athelete. An Olympian. If I were a woman, I should find him irresistible.’ And here’s the girl, blushing and laughing, and her hand on Franzavius’s arm and her eyes on the boy.

            “All well enough, you might say, and we sent down for Lady Beatrice to join us, and pretty soon it was all happy families, ordering Clonazepam pills, and you might think Franzavius would transfer his affections to the mother – I gather she’s a widow, and the nephew was apparently just that – but not a bit of it. Quite proper he was with her, and quite openly lecherous with the girl, and she lapped it up, being the centre of his attention and young Peter’s, order Clonazepam no prescription. Modern, you see. Opera in the blood, I shouldn’t wonder.

            “So here’s where it gets strange, gentlemen, and where I start to doubt my own story. We were in playing a game of billiards after dinner, and I asked Franzavius how he spent his time. Order Clonazepam no prescription, ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘I am a scientist.’ Well, that sounded about right, for he’s a scrawny old hound with a round forehead full of brain. ‘I happen to know a few of those fellows at home in London,’ I replied, ‘what field are you in?’ And Franzavius stiffened a little and said he covered a lot of ground, but in any case, no one in London was like to read his work. ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because of prejudice, Mr Flanders,’ said Franzavius. ‘Once a thing has been found to be very difficult for men from the Cavendish Laboratories, for example, it is unthinkable to them that it might be done by a mere Caucasian princeling. I have results in the field of surgery, which you would find magnificent… which they decline to examine or discuss with me, order Clonazepam no prescription. I brought my discoveries to England some months ago and was not well received. So be damn to them!’ he added, with some heat, ‘damn them and that is all. Kopen goedkope Clonazepam, I shall do my work here. I shall show them what it means to be a scientist, to understand things others do not, to achieve things, oh, yes. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Not merely to speculate, nor to lecture on the stage of the Royal Society, but to do the things of which one speaks.’

            “ ‘What sort of thing?’ I asked him, for this struck me as a very peculiar pronouncement. ‘Come, then,’ he replied, ‘and see.’

            “The nephew said could he come along as well, and Franzavius said he’d be delighted. We left the others to a game of bridge, and he took me down into the cellars, and I must say, it was as impressive a set-up as I’ve ever seen. Brass and glass and rivets and surgical tables and the like, and all along one wall, cages containing the most remarkable animals specimens: chimps and parrots and dogs and other things I’ve not seen before except in pictures.

            “ ‘You are aware,’ Franzavius said, most sniffily, ‘that English science cannot yet re-attach a severed limb. And yet, see here.’ And I swear, there was a chimp with a great scar across one arm, and a series of those x-ray photographs and images from the surgical table, honestly quite grotesque, showing Franzavius removing and re-affixing the arm. Turned my stomach, but it represented a great advance in medicine, if real, and he didn’t strike me as a fraud, order Clonazepam no prescription. An arrogant man, yes, North Carolina NC N.C. , and an intemperate one, but he’d have no patience with illusion, and no interest in it. ‘The nerves must be individually reconnected,’ Franzavius explained, ‘or the arm will lack feeling. It is painstaking work.’

            “ ‘But superb,’ I said, quite genuinely, for it was. ‘Can it be done in the event of accident?’

            “ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘so long as the cut is relatively straight. Order Clonazepam no prescription, The mangling which takes place if a limb is torn, rather than severed, is rather more troublesome. In such a case, it may be better to use a donor limb.’ And when we did not understand, he explained: ‘a limb from another person. A cadaver, of course. It must be very fresh. I see your expression, Mr Flanders, but honestly: if you were in that position, should you rather have no leg, or the leg of a man your own height who no longer needs it. There are difficulties with the body’s defences rejecting the new flesh, but I have overcome these, also.’

            “ ‘The precision required must be staggering,’ the nephew observed, order Clonazepam no prescription. ‘I studied medicine myself for a while, but I haven’t the skill. This is extraordinary.’

            “ ‘That was one of my main problems. Buy Clonazepam, In the end I found it is best automated. These machines,’ and here he indicated a bank of brass and steel, with quite alarming articulated rods and arms protruding from them like spider’s legs, ‘can be set to perform with perfect accuracy a sequence of tasks. Order Clonazepam no prescription, The patient is kept absolutely still, and the mechanism does the rest. Even the stitching. The surgeon becomes the designer of a plan, a commander rather than a soldier, if you like. And there is another advantage – the more precise the cuts, the more accurate the machine, the less the trauma. Healing is greatly accelerated, from months to weeks. And I have recently bought some new diamond blades which will cut that time to days.’

            “ ‘Even the bones?’

            “ ‘No, the bones take longer, it is true, but in the meanwhile there are glues and pins which hold everything in place, more strongly than the original structure.’

            “ ‘And all this, the Society rejected?’

            “ ‘This, order Clonazepam no prescription. No. This is engineering. Accomplished, yes, but it is not science as I understand it. These are crossword puzzles, Mr Flanders. I seek something less… peripheral.’

            “ ‘How do you mean?’ asked the nephew.

            Order Clonazepam no prescription, “ ‘Immortality, gentlemen. Immortality of the body. Why not. If parts may be replaced, one by one, a man might persist for ever. The decay of the brain is a consequence of age. If the body were renewed, that tragedy might be averted.’ He looked at me, and I imagine my face must have been a picture, order Clonazepam no prescription. ‘Ahah. I have strained your credulity, New York NY N.Y. . But ten minutes ago, you would have sworn I could not re-attach an arm, either. No. Order Clonazepam no prescription, So when I tell you this is possible, you will at least consider it.’

            “ ‘I will, if you say it’s so,’ I replied. ‘Though the magnitude of what you propose is… remarkable.’ I didn’t want to say he was mad, but it had crossed my mind. And I had this crawling thought that he might be able to pull it off, at that. I thought of him making himself young again with a selection of corpse limbs, and I shivered. Franzavius didn’t notice.

            “ ‘Yes, exactly,’ he said, smiling. ‘Magnitude, order Clonazepam no prescription. Scale. I seek only that which is the very pinacle – and you appreciate that. The Royal Society, on the other hand, sees the aspiration as something to mock. So… it seems you are the better scientist.’

            “And that was it. Order Clonazepam no prescription, He took me back upstairs, and rejoined the party, and the following day Gustav and I went off to see about those fish. There was one odd thing, though: I had a strange moment with the nephew, which I should probably tell you about. He hadn’t said much, as you see, except to entertain Lady Beatrice, but he had sharp eyes which were always on the move. Osta alennus Clonazepam, While Franzavius was playing up to Cosima and Peter, he came over to me and said, in the most definitive of tones, that I should not accept any invitation to join the party at the high house, but must rest in Ladish.

            “ ‘Whatever do you mean?’ I asked.

            “ ‘I doubt it will happen,’ he said, ‘But if the good doctor should press you to come up here and sleep, on no account say yes. You have business elsewhere, Mr Flanders. You cannot presume, order Clonazepam no prescription. You have a fear of heights, or clean linens. Any excuse will do. But a man of your frame should not be here at this time if it can be avoided. It presents… temptations.’

            “I assumed he must mean that my addition to the group would place strain on the odd relationship between Cosima, Peter, and Franzavius, because if Cosima was impressed by Peter’s shoulders, well, I’ve a pair on me as well. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Still, it was a damned curious thing to say and coming from the nephew it was doubly so, for he was a mild sort and nearly my own build anyway.

            “ ‘What about you?’ I asked him.

            “ ‘I’ll fend as I must,’ he said, ‘but let’s not add to the confusion.’

            “Well, there. It seemed to me pretty clear how the land lay, even if Franzavius hadn’t caught on yet. Cosima was a great beauty, and an agile mind, and she’d been drawn to Franzavius by his intellect and by the magnetism that a true outsider has to a certain sort of respectable girl, order Clonazepam no rx. Now, though, she was missing Knightsbridge and St James’s, and here was Peter who was everything familiar and her own age into the bargain. Lady Beatrice – Franzavius had invited her and her companion up to the high house - would be taking them both back to London, if I knew life, and Franzavius would be left to find another beauty to adorn his home, order Clonazepam no prescription. So it goes. I doubted he’d cut up rough. He struck me as too intelligent to risk the consequences: Civis Britannicus Sum, and all that. So I took a few catfish and a number of salmon from the Ladish river – great fighters, too – and ate wild boar with Gustav in the evenings. It was an idyl.”

            Order Clonazepam no prescription, “ ‘The boar was excellent,’ inserted Gustav Meier, ‘but the wine sauce was a travesty.’ Flanders and the others peered at him for a moment, waiting for him to explain the importance of this remark, but apparently there was no immediate relevance, and so Flanders continued.

            “At the end of the week, that all changed. I had a message from Lady Beatrice to come at once, it was an emergency, and she didn’t know what to do. Peter was injured, Franzavius said he could save him, the nephew had gone berserk about something, and Cosima had gone to her room and wouldn’t come out. For some reason she wanted Franzavius not to help the boy, which argued for a lover’s tiff or something worse, and the whole matter had gone from calm to catastrophe in the space of an afternoon. Gustav and I went up to the high house and very nearly didn’t get in. Franzavius keeps a small staff including a couple of hefty lads for lifting and carrying, and they were standing at the gate like sentries.”

            “But you got in?” demanded the Scotland Yard man.

            “I’m afraid I lost my temper a little,” Flanders said, order Clonazepam no prescription. “Threw one of them into a rose bush and pushed the other onto the ground. They decided I was too much trouble to keep out.

            “Well, in the house, it was a mess. The nephew was confined to quarters, actually locked in. Clonazepam pedido en línea, Peter was recovering from his injury – a riding accident, apparently, he’d been thrown and then kicked , and his scalp torn open by the hoof – Cosima was in floods of tears and the maid was in a flurry over that, and Franzavius was nowhere to be found. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Apparently a courier brought news of a crisis in his affairs in India, where I gather he maintains considerable investments. He did what he could for the boy, Peter, and left immediately.

            “But somehow, the wheels came off as soon as he went. The nephew got it into his head that what Franzavius had done was in some way desperately injurious to Peter, whom he said was better of dead, and he said it in such a way that I thought he meant actually to make it so. He wouldn’t say why, but I rather imagined Franzavius had had to use a part of one of his animals to keep the boy alive. Well, it ain’t ideal, but it’s better than death, as I see it. These serious-minded fellows can be emotional about that sort of thing, the dignity of man, but I’ve seen death and it’s not dignified, order Clonazepam no prescription. It’s just death.

            “Cosima was a mystery, though. I’d have thought she’d be flapping around the lad and bringing him soup, but not a bit of it. She’d been on the ride with him, and seen the whole thing, which must have been a bit of a shock to the system, but that doesn’t explain why she wouldn’t touch him, or see him, or even hear his name.

            “Well, I settled everyone, För Clonazepam online, and left the organising to Gustav – he’s got a talent for it – and we saw the whole thing through. Very grey it was, not at all the party atmosphere of the week before. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Beatrice was care-worn, and even when the boy opened his eyes ten days later and started to talk, it was no better, because at first he barely remembered anyone. He might have had some heavy scarring, and frankly he was lucky to be alive, but whatever Franzavius did he did very well, because the wounds healed almost invisible, and very fast. He kept asking for Cosima and she wouldn’t come, and finally she actually left. She came home to England, just packed her things and was gone. I thought she might have lit out after Franzavius, but it seemed not.”

            Flanders shrugged. “That’s almost it – except for one more extraordinary occurrence on the way home, order Clonazepam no prescription. It was two nights into our train journey, and I was chatting with Lady Beatrice in the bar, when I heard a great yell go up from the first class carriage. I went back and there was the nephew, and Peter, too, and they were covered in blood and going at one another like pitbulls. Peter was screaming, and the nephew seemed to be trying to rip his head open. The savagery of it was extraordinary!

            “Peter got loose and came to me for refuge, and I must tell you I nearly tore the nephew apart, I was so angry. Order Clonazepam no prescription, I don’t know if it was religious, or some strange jealousy, but to attack a man healing from such an ordeal, for whatever reason…” Flanders shuddered with remembered fury. “Well, Cheap Clonazepam online cheap, there you have it. I know there’s no crime here, not that I witnessed, and yet the whole business was so disorderly and strange that Gustav and I agreed we should report it to someone in case there was more to it than met the eye. Which, God knows, was enough, in any case.”

            There came at this moment a soft scraping from the corner of the room; the sound of an arm chair being turned about to face the company. The snoring sleeper had awoken, and now he smiled a grim smile. “It was not religion,” he said, order Clonazepam no prescription. “It was knowledge of a different kind, all together more mundane, and yet more terrible.”

            Flanders started to his feet with a shout. “You!” he cried. “I ought to break your head for you, see how you like it.”

            “I should like it not at all,” replied the other, “which is why I was so incensed in the first place. You have been witness to one of the darkest deeds in the history of man, Mr Flanders, and the thing you need to know to grasp the thread is very small and very simple. Shall I tell you what it is?”

            Order Clonazepam no prescription, “Tell us first, if you please,” interjected the police officer, “who you are.”

            “My name is Guy Milton,” responded the speaker, “and I am the nephew of the woman you have been calling Lady Beatrice. The boy Peter was my cousin.”

            “You said ‘was’. He is dead, then?”

            “Most assuredly.”

            “How?”

            “He was murdered.”

            “By you?”

            “No. I did the best I could to keep him alive, but I was too slow to appreciate the fullness of the danger. I thought… well. You’ve told a story here, Mr Flanders, which is the outer surface of a vile thing, order Clonazepam no prescription. Would you care to know the specifics. The prospect from within, Clonazepam discount. I shall be making a statement to the police in any case, though the matter passes beyond their remit, I fear, being too fantastical for a court to take on board.”

            “I should say I want to know the specifics. You’re about a minute from a beating, sir, unless this explanation of yours is very sound indeed!”

            “Then to spare you the trouble, I shall confide the simple truth I spoke of earlier, which will set you on the track of other, more sinister ones.”

            “Please do!”

            “It is this, then: Henry Franzavius does not keep horses.”

            “What?”

            “There is no riding in Noatijan. Order Clonazepam no prescription, The roads are treacherous and the native fauna antagonistic. Horses have never been a part of life there. Henry Franzavius cannot ride, and keeps no horses.”

            “I fail to understand you.”

            “Plainly, then: if there were no horses at the high house, then the story of the riding accident was a bare-faced lie. It was a lie in which Cosima Danson was complicit, out of love for Henry Franzavius, who struck my cousin down in front of her very eyes. She took it for jealousy, and was despite her revulsion moved to forgive. When she understood the true motivtion, it was too late.”

            “What true motivation?”

            “There is no name for it, order Clonazepam no prescription. A crime of passion, perhaps, but not a clean passion. A twisted and appalling variety for which we yet lack words. But we are ahead of ourselves. Let me give you my story from the beginning, Buy Clonazepam from canada, and you will see why I have done the things I have.”

            Guy Milton leaned on the mantle and sighed. His eyes grew distant for a moment as he gathered himself; the sign of a strong nature seeking its fullest resilience in a bad business.

            Order Clonazepam no prescription, “My aunt – Beactrice – asked me to accompany her to retrieve Peter from Noatijan because she knew me a capable sort. She did not know – and I, for better or worse, but alas, most likely the latter - did not tell her that I knew Henry Franzavius already, from another encounter. I had some misgivings about keeping my temper upon meeting him again, but I needed to know the disposition of the girl, Cosima. If she was a willing companion, I should leave off, and tell the Foreign Office likewise. If not, I must act. Franzavius would know this, so he might receive me ill, order Clonazepam no prescription. Still, if he were a common thug, I could not send my aunt to his clutches alone. If he were not, then all would be well.

            “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance on the train, Mr Flanders, and you, Mr Meier. I was glad of some extra hands, but I could not confide my doubts and concerns without prejudicing your perceptions, and I desperately wanted the objective opinions of two well-travelled men. So I withheld, and got to know the man. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Ours was a strange second meeting. He received us, and showed us every courtesy, comprar Clonazepam, and re-united my aunt with her son, and then took me aside.

            “ ‘Welcome to Landish, Mr Milton,’ he said, ‘I trust you bear no ill-will for the deception I practiced upon you when last we met. As you see, Miss Danson is here quite of her own volition. Indeed, she was snatched from me by that blackguard of a father of hers, who disapproves of scientific men and foreigners. Ours is a love match, sir. Will you give me your hand in friendship?’

            “Well, I did, and quite a fool I feel now, order Clonazepam no prescription. I was relieved, to be honest. But then I spent a little longer in his company and realised that Franzavius is not your common villain. He is not a cutthroat. He is something infinitely more dangerous and inhuman. Order Clonazepam no prescription, He is a Tsar.

            “It’s hard for us in this country to understand what that means. We collared our kings with Magna Carta, and we put limits on them. In Noatijan, in common with the Russian Empire as it was, the land, the persons, the chattels… everything belongs directly and personally to the monarch. Everything, including life, Generic Clonazepam, is a gift from him, to be withdrawn at will. Franzavius is life and death, and his people fear him as they would a god, order Clonazepam no prescription. And when I asked around, I began to understand that they were right to do so. He used them as you or I would a pair of old boots or a pheasant, with no more regard for their individual lives than for those of flies. I heard whispers, and then I went out among the folk and saw evidence. Franzavius had not stopped his investigations at great apes, gentlemen. Order Clonazepam no prescription, When that was done, he experimented on humans, too. He severed limbs and reattached them. He swapped them over. And finally, he went beyond even that…

            “Well. That was enough for me to know the manner of the man. Not a criminal, but a devil, order Clonazepam no prescription. A monster. I became concerned for the safety of every one of us within his grip – only, when I began fully to appreciate the scope of Franzavius’s investigations into surgery, and to see the direction of his eye… well, I mistook. I thought he coveted your long limbs, Mr Flanders. I thought he proposed to renew his youth and compete with Peter by stealing your gold medal arms and legs. Order Clonazepam no prescription, I was a fool. He had something far more direct in mind.”

            Tam Flanders stared, and Gustav Meier looked sick. Only Fisk and the Scotland Yard man were emotionless.

            “You begin to see, I take it. Well, here it is in plain speech, Nebraska NE Nebr. . On the morning of the so-called riding accident, I was with aunt Beatrice, contriving a way to get us away as fast as I might. I had spoken to Peter and told him we must go, order Clonazepam no prescription. ‘This place is poison,’ I told him, ‘and Henry Franzavius is a viper. You must guard yourself against him at all times.’ I think he thought me a little mad.

             That morning, he and Cosima had gone to walk in the glades of the high house, and Franzavius was supposed to be examining his orchid specimens in a greenhouse he kept for them, which is on the edge of the property. There was a great flurry and a kerfuffle, and Cosima was screaming. We rushed to the scene, saw Peter being carried from the woods and Franzavius shouting orders to his fellows to bring him inside, to the surgery, and in a flash I saw the whole ghastly thing, and I saw that Cosima saw it too. Order Clonazepam no prescription, I rushed forward to put a stop to it, but Franzavius’s men restrained me and aunt Beatrice thought I’d gone mad. I should have confided in her but I held back for fear she’d think me deranged. Franzavius was leering at me over Peter’s head, grinning from ear to ear when no one else could see, smirking like the demon he is. The boy was looking up at him, and knew his fate right enough, and he moaned ‘help me, help me’, which broke my reserve and got me taken in charge. He had I held my temper, I might have slipped the trap and intervened... I tried to break free, but by then they had me trussed, order Clonazepam no prescription. They took me to my room and manacled me to the bed and locked me in. Franzavius had Peter in his laboratry, and free reign to do as he would.”

            “But he patched him up,” objected Flanders, “Peter’s home.”

            Guy Milton shook his head. “You don’t see it yet. Franzavius was gone the following day, off to India, we were told. Order Clonazepam no prescription, Peter was recovering, and Cosima wouldn’t come out of her room, because she knew what I knew, that this was dark work and terrible, and so much more than met the eye. I went to her, and I asked her outright where the body was buried, to shake her up and get to the precise truth. She looked at me with a queer look, and I realised I’d said it exactly right: ‘where is the body buried?’ She took me to the orchid house, and sure enough, there was some freshly turned earth. The place was in such turmoil, I just dug it up, and no one interfered. And what do you suppose I found?”

            “Well, I imagine you’re going to say it was the boy,” Gustav Meier said, “and that Franzavius had murdered him and stolen his limbs and used the processes of surgery to match his features, so as to regain the love of Cosima Danson.”

            “No,” Guy Milton said. “It was the body of Henry Franzavius. The body only – not the brain. Because the brain of Henry Franzavius was transplanted by his infernal machines into the head of my counsin, Peter!”

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