The Alchemist in the Attic Read Online Free PDF

his hand vigorously. It was less a question and more of an exclamation. The big-nosed man, Charlie, took an involuntary step backward under the unexpected barrage of friendliness. Walter slipped inside through the gap smoothly and silently, as if they had done this many times before. Atwood followed, only then relinquishing his grip on Charlie’s hand. He blinked after the two reporters in bemusement.
    There were six of them huddled in a haze of smoke and gloom around a rickety round table. The usual suspects were all present. There were the McClellan Brothers, lean, hungry dandies whose grand schemes and hopeless dreams inevitably led them back to corpses and dirt. Henry and Malcolm McClellan preferred to be called ‘resurrection men’, but in truth they were body snatchers and thieves like all the rest. Beside them sat Horace, Bryce, and Lint, each uglier than the last. They had a workmanlike bent to their shoulders and a gambler’s gleam in their eyes. They would have been the most dangerous men at the table, were it not for the final player.
    Mr. Ormond looked like a crinkly, kindly old grocer, but there was dirt under his fingernails, and his laugh lines were creased with avarice. He had never robbed a single grave in his life, but he had dug and tended more than his fair share. He was the groundskeeper at one of the city’s larger cemeteries and supplemented his income by turning a well-compensated blind eye to the activities of those around him. He possessed a grimy dignity the others lacked, and was the only one who greeted Atwood with any semblance of friendliness.
    “Come in, Atwood,” Ormond said. “Make yourself at home.”
    He made a calming gesture with his left hand, and the others at the table began to relax. One by one, Horace, Bryce, and Flynn removed their hands from their pockets, where they had been subtly fingering their knives, and for the moment they were all friends. Not that Atwood trusted it for an instant. Ormond wanted to know why he was there, and until then he’d play nice. That was all.
    Of McManus and Keeler there was no sign.
    “Thank you.” Atwood waved. “Gentlemen, long time no see.”
    “Have you come to join the game?” one of the McClellan brothers asked. Atwood thought it was Malcolm, but despite the brothers being several years apart, he always got them confused.
    “Oh no!” he replied with practiced self-deprecation. “Never again. Not after you cleaned me out the last time. But my friend here”—he nodded to Walter—”would be happy to play a few hands.”
    “Why not?” Henry McClellan cried.
    “Pull up a chair,” said his brother.
    The other players studied Walter’s sickly, silent form with unrestrained glee, all except Flynn, who recognized Walter from one of Chinatown’s more popular gambling establishments, and Mr. Ormond, who recognized something disquieting in Walter’s silence.
    Walter smiled his thanks and pulled up a chair, somehow managing to find the only patch of sunlight in the room. Dust danced around him and the light glinted in his spectacles as he regarded the others with an innocuous expression.
    “May I?” he asked, holding his hand out. With a shrug, Horace passed him the deck. “Thank you.” Walter proceeded to shuffle the deck with alarming speed and dexterity. The cards seemed to come alive at his touch. Atwood watched the players’ faces fall with barely disguised glee.
    Walter dealt with practiced precision and the room descended into concentrated and worried silence. Atwood retreated to the back of the room and puffed on his cigar, waiting. Slowly, one by one, the players forgot about him, all except Mr. Ormond. Walter was winning hand after hand. The money was piling up in front of him, and the McClellan brothers were getting restless.
    At last, Atwood judged them to be suitably distracted. He stood suddenly, and dragged a chair across the floor to sit behind Walter. The screeching echoed in the silence, and everyone