Free The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma

castle.
    â€œHow is it possible that the thing scares me even now?” the doctor admitted suddenly, breaking the silence.
    He rose to his feet and, doubtless emboldened by drink, shuffled over to the disguise with a penguin-like gait.
    â€œBe careful, Russell; take a silver teaspoon with you just in case!” yelled Price, waving his in the air.
    The doctor dismissed the butcher’s advice with a drunken flourish that sent him tottering toward the animal hide.
    â€œLook out!” shouted Sinclair, leaping from his chair like a nursemaid watching over her wards at play in the park, his mechanical eye emitting a buzz of alarm.
    The captain planned to take the disguise back to London, to the Chamber of Marvels in the basement of the Natural History Museum. This was where the Special Branch stored evidence from cases passed on to them because they defied man’s reason. He wanted the skin, which he saw as an important part of their division’s history, to reach the museum in one piece. When he saw the doctor regain his balance with no other consequence than the hilarity of the onlookers, his face relaxed and he smiled benevolently, although, since he was already on his feet, he decided to go over to the costume himself. Chief Constable Dombey instantly followed suit, as did Price and Harris. Doctor Russell then launched into a scientific exposition of the methods used to create that handiwork, while the others, including Sinclair, felt obliged to nod diligently as the quack continued to show off his knowledge.
    And while that impromptu conference was taking place around the disguise, back at the table Clayton finally plucked up the courage to look straight at the countess, from whom he was separated by a generous expanse of solid oak. Throughout all the weeks of his investigation, whenever he and the countess were together, whether in a room full of people or in a garden maze, Clayton’s eyes would invariably end up meeting hers, those eyes that seemed to have been waiting for him forever, and whose mystery had begun to haunt his nights. For the inspector, who prided himself on his ability to read a man’s thoughts from the way he knotted his tie, was utterly incapable of deciphering her gaze, which might have been expressing gentle adoration, the cruelest disdain, or even some unimaginable private hell. Perhaps all of those at once. And it was in those same eyes that Clayton was drowning now as he admired the countess, and she allowed herself to be admired as always with a smile, enveloping him in her dark, bewitching beauty, which transformed the voices of the other guests into a nonsensical babble, the dining hall into a hazy backdrop, and the entire universe into a distant, possibly imaginary place.
    Clayton had never seen Valerie look as magnificent as she did that evening, or as painfully fragile. She was dressed in black and silver: her dazzlingly pale neck rose out of a velvet bodice that emphasized her proud breasts and matched her long calfskin gloves; her silver skirt fell in billowing folds that revealed a constellation of tiny diamonds. Seeing her seated there, illuminated by the shimmering candles, Clayton could not help thinking that, regardless of her indeterminate age, she resembled more than ever a girl queen, childish and capricious, cruel only by birthright. Realizing he was clutching his glass more firmly than usual, and fearing he might break it or do something even more stupid, like leaping onto the table and sprinting frantically toward the countess, swept along on the current of his confused desire, Clayton averted his gaze, and the room regained its movement, its sounds, its stubborn solidity.
    â€œThe fact is, the more I look at it, the more I admire it,” he heard the doctor say. “A truly splendid piece of work, gentlemen. Look at this. The hide is perfectly tanned and uncommonly soft.” He leaned forward and sniffed one of the feet. “I’d say it was