“He doesn’t have the manuscript anymore, does he?”
Müller opened an eye and looked at me. It was the sign I’d been looking for.
“Mycroft destroyed it, didn’t he?” I continued, reasoning as my uncle might have—and did.
“Is that what happened?” asked Jack Schitt. Müller said nothing.
“He’ll be wanting to find an alternative,” observed Hicks.
“There must be thousands of original manuscripts out there,” murmured Schitt. “We can’t cover them all. Which one is he after?”
“I can’t tell you,” stuttered Müller, his resolve beginning to leave him. “He’d kill me.”
“He’ll kill you when he finds out you told us that Mycroft destroyed the Chuzzlewit manuscript,” I responded evenly.
“But I didn’t!—”
“He’s not to know. We can protect you, Müller, but we need to capture Hades. Where is he?”
Müller looked at us one by one.
“Protective custody?” he stammered. “It’ll need a small army.”
“I can supply that,” asserted Schitt, using the truth with an economy for which he had become famous. “The Goliath Corporation is prepared to be generous in this matter.”
“Okay . . . I’ll tell you.”
He looked at us all and wiped his brow, which had suddenly started to glisten.
“Isn’t it a bit hot in here?” he asked.
“No,” replied Schitt. “Where’s Hades?”
“Well, he’s at . . . the—”
He suddenly stopped talking. His face contorted with fear as a violent spasm of pain hit his lower back and he cried out in agony.
“Tell us quick!” shouted Schitt, leaping to his feet and grabbing the stricken man’s lapels.
“Pen-deryn!—” he screamed. “He’s at!—”
“Tell us more!” roared Schitt. “There must be a thousand Penderyns!”
“Guess!” screamed Müller. “G-weuess . . . ahhh!”
“I’ll not play your games!” yelled Schitt, shaking the man vigorously. “Tell me or I’ll kill you with my bare hands right now!”
But Müller was now beyond rational thought or Schitt’s threats. He squirmed and fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
“Medic!” I screamed, dropping to the floor next to the convulsing Müller, whose open mouth screamed a silent scream as his eyes rolled up into his head. The smell of scorched clothes reached my nostrils. I leaped back as a bright orange flame shot out of Müller’s back. It ignited the rest of him and we all had to beat a hasty retreat as the intense heat reduced Müller to ash in under ten minutes.
“Damn!” muttered Schitt when the acrid smoke had cleared. Müller was a heap of cinders on the floor. There wouldn’t even be enough to identify him.
“Hades,” I murmured. “Some sort of built-in safety device. As soon as Müller starts to blab . . . up he goes. Very neat.”
“You sound as if you almost respect him, Miss Next,” observed Schitt.
“I can’t help it.” I shrugged. “Like the shark, Acheron has evolved into the almost perfect predator. I’ve never hunted big game and never would, but I can understand the appeal. The first thing,” I went on, ignoring the smoking pile of ash that had recently been Müller, “is to treble the guards on any places where original manuscripts are held. After that we want to start looking at anywhere called Penderyn.”