An odd-looking bloke, I thought. But he doesn’t appear to be Odditoria, let alone powered by the animus like Mack.
“I asked you a question, lad,” Nigel said. “Something wrong with your hearing? Or is the sight of me a bit too much for your tongue?”
“Yes, sir,” I stammered. “I mean, no—I mean—yes, sir, I’m the Grubb from the trunk, and no, sir, my hearing is just fine, thank you very much.”
“Right-o, then,” Nigel said, extending his hand. “Nigel’s the name, no need to call me sir. Gentlemen’s shake if we’re going to be working together.”
“Working together?”
“That’s right. Mr. Grim’s orders.”
Nigel’s big beefy hand swallowed mine past my wrist. He shook it twice, his grip gentle but firm, then he picked up a stack of papers from one of the covered tables.
“You see these handbills here?” he asked, sliding one off the top for me. “We’re to pass these out to people in the street. Public relations, Mr. Grim calls it.”
I was able to recognize most of the words as Nigel read aloud:
“Right-o, then,” Nigel said, heading toward the lift. “Let’s be on our way—”
Presently a loud clanking noise rang out from the library—“Blast it!” cried Mr. Grim within—and Nigel and I rushed inside to find a pair of skinny black legs sticking out from the fireplace.
“Everything all right, sir?” Nigel asked.
“Oh, it’s that blasted conductor coupling again,” said Mr. Grim, shimmying out of the flue and onto the hearth. He had dressed down to his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and in his right hand he held a small wrench. “And of course, today of all wondrous days, the loose connection is in a place I can’t get to.”
Frustrated, Mr. Grim tossed the wrench onto one of the armchairs, and as he stood up and brushed off his pants, some of that same, sandy red soot sprinkled down upon his shoes.
“Anything I can do, sir?” Nigel asked.
“Not in time for the preview,” said Mr. Grim, raking back his hair. “In fact, unless the connection to the Eye of Mars is repaired, there’s not going to be any preview.”
“Oh dear,” Nigel said. And as the men gazed up at the lion’s head above the mantel, I noticed that the red light had gone out from the big cat’s eyes.
So the lion’s name is Mars, I concluded. Mr. Grim snapped his fingers and startled me from my thoughts.
“Master Grubb,” he said. “Perhaps a lad of your experience is just what we need. Tell me, have you any knowledge of electromagnetic induction?”
“Er—uh—begging your pardon, sir?”
“Of course you don’t,” said Mr. Grim with a sigh. “Nevertheless, somewhere in that flue is a pair of pipes that need tightening. Under normal circumstances I would have to disconnect the entire network of pipes below in order to reach the faulty connection. However, given the immediacy of today’s preview, there is simply no time for such an undertaking. Do you understand me, lad?”
“I believe I do, sir. You want me to climb up into that flue and get the eyes of Mars glowing again.”
Mr. Grim looked confused, as if he hadn’t expected my reply, and I pointed to the lion’s head. “Mars,” I said. “His eyes have gone black.”
Mr. Grim and Nigel exchanged a look.
“But of course,” said Mr. Grim, smiling thinly. “The lion’s head, that’s it.”
I had the impression that he was hiding something, but him being Mr. Grim, I wasn’t about to press the matter. “Well, what do you say, lad?” he asked, offering me his wrench. “You think you’re up for the job?”
“You can count on me, sir!” I cried, snatching the wrench from his hand. And in a flash I was up inside the flue.
Almost immediately I was met with a tangle of pipes that took up nearly the entire shaft. None of them felt loose, however, so I squeezed myself past them and, feeling around in the dark, came upon a pair of pipes that rattled against each other.
“I think I’ve found them, sir,” I called down, and set to work with the wrench. There was little space for me to move, but after a few minutes of twisting and turning, the pipes finally felt secure.
“I think that’s done it, sir,” I called again.
“Just a moment, please,” said Mr. Grim. I heard a muffled hiss and what sounded like the squeak of a cabinet door opening in the library. Mr. Grim mumbled something in a language I did not understand, and then a low humming began and the pipes inside the flue grew warm.
“Ah, there we are,” said Mr. Grim, relieved. Another squeak, another hiss, and Mr. Grim ordered me back down into the library.
Again I squeezed my way past the tangle of pipes, and as I emerged from the fireplace, I discovered that the light had returned to the lion’s eyes.
“Job well done, Grubb!” Nigel said, patting me on the back.
Mr. Grim dashed across the room and flicked the switch on another one of those talkback contraptions beside the door. “Are you still in the kitchen, Mrs. Pinch?” he called. No reply. “Good heavens, Mrs. Pinch, where are you?”
“Blind me!” the old woman said finally. Her voice sounded muffled, but the irritation in her tone was clear. “Heaven forbid I should drop what I’m doing just to talk to you!”
“Are the ovens working again?” asked Mr. Grim, just as irritated.
“Why, yes they are,” she said. “And I don’t mind telling you that it’s about time. Blind me if I’m going to spend my day—”
Mr. Grim flicked the talkback switch, and Mrs. Pinch’s voice cut off.
“Splendid!” said Mr. Grim. “You have singlehandedly saved today’s preview, Master Grubb. I am forever in your debt.”
Mr. Grim gave a slight bow, and my heart swelled with pride. I was feeling quite clever, too. From what I had seen in the kitchen, I gathered that, in addition to Mr. Grim’s blue animus energy, there was some kind of red energy pumping through the Odditorium’s pipes. Hadn’t I felt its warmth in the flue, as well as seen it burning bright in Mrs. Pinch’s ovens?
Come to think of it, I said to myself. I’ll wager all that soot I’ve been scraping comes from the red energy too.
As to how all of it worked, well, I’m afraid I wasn’t clever enough to figure that out yet. And it certainly wasn’t my place to ask. I was just a chummy, and if there was one thing I learned from Mr. Smears, it was when to keep my trap shut.
“Now if you’ll both excuse me,” said Mr. Grim, sitting down at his desk, “there is much more work to be done.”
“That there is, boss!” Nigel said, waving his stack of handbills. “Right-o, then. Come along, Grubb.”
Following Nigel back into the parlor, I caught sight of something that stopped me cold. There on the hearth was Mrs. Pinch’s broom, sweeping the soot into a bag all by itself!
“Good day to you, Broom,” Nigel said, saluting. “Looks like old Mars left a mess for you in the library, too.”
The broom parted its bristles and gave a slight curtsy, then carried on with its sweeping.
Nigel chuckled and said, “I wager you could’ve used a friend like Broom in your line of work, eh, Grubb?”
I just nodded, speechless, and followed Nigel into the lift. Not a word was spoken as we traveled down to the floor below, but I was struck by how gentle the big man was in his movements, as if he was afraid he might break something.
We emerged into a small empty room about half the size of the parlor above, and as I followed Nigel to the door at the opposite end, I noticed for the first time not only how big his feet were, but also how unusually light and bouncy his step was.
Nigel produced a large key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door.
“This is the gallery,” he said, waving me inside. “Stay close behind and watch your step. And don’t touch anything, Grubb, or you might get yourself squished.”
Nigel chuckled to himself and lead me through a dark and narrow maze of crowded wooden crates, some piled as high as the gallery’s ceiling. Sca
ttered between the crates was a most fantastical collection of objects: giant statues with animal heads, piles of shields and swords and helmets, a stack of oddly shaped brooms, and still another pile of colored glass balls as big as my head. In the center of the room was an enormous black cauldron, and finally, standing upright against the wall on the opposite side of the gallery, a pair of ornately decorated coffins.
“Bow your head, Grubb,” Nigel said. “You’re in the presence of Egyptian royalty.”
“Begging your pardon, sir—I mean, Nigel?”
“Never mind,” the big man snickered. “I’ll explain it to you later.”
We’d come to another iron door, and as Nigel unlocked the bolt, my eyes fell upon the pair of samurai standing guard there. Each held a sword like the samurai behind Mr. Grim’s desk, and in the dim light of the gallery, I could see their eyes glowed blue behind their scowling black face masks.
“Good day, gents,” Nigel said. The samurai did not respond, and we stepped out through the gallery door and onto a narrow landing.
As Nigel locked the door behind me, I peered over the balustrade. A pair of staircases curved down from either side of the landing to a grand reception hall below. Nigel chose the staircase on the right, and as I followed him down, he said:
“Now listen up, Grubb. You’re to stick by me at all times. Most important, however, is to let me do the talking. If anyone speaks to you, you just say, ‘Direct all questions to the man in the goggles.’ That’s me, you understand?”
“Yes, Nigel. Direct all questions to the man in the goggles.”
Nigel nodded and we crossed the hall to the front door. Glancing behind me, I spied a life-size portrait of Mr. Grim on the wall between the two staircases. He sat proudly in an armchair—his face stoic, his black eyes piercing as in life—but in one hand he held a burning blue orb that glowed nearly as bright as the Odditorium’s sconce light.
“Now, you remember what I told you?” Nigel asked.
“Yes, Nigel. Direct all questions to the man in the goggles.”
“Right-o, then,” Nigel said. Two more samurai stood guard at the front door. Nigel saluted them and unlocked the bolt. “Ready, Grubb?”
I took a deep breath and nodded, and then we stepped outside.
The sunlight blinded me for a moment, but still I was struck by the sense of bustling activity beyond my squinting—the clip-clopping of horses, the rattle of carriage wheels, the voices of people in the street. However, as Nigel and I descended the Odditorium’s front steps, the street sounds began to die down. Indeed, by the time we reached the bottom, my eyes had adjusted well enough for me to see that everyone—including the horses and pigeons, it seemed—was staring at us.
Instinctively I turned around.
Gazing up at the Odditorium for the first time, I could hardly believe my eyes. There was an open-air balcony, on top of which stood an enormous pipe organ—its pipes twisting and stretching all the way up the front of the bulbous black building. A large silver letter G had been emblazoned on the door, and along the sides of the Odditorium four tall iron buttresses folded back on themselves like a quartet of mechanical legs.
“Any relation to Mr. Grim, young man?” a voice asked, and I whirled round to find a lady and a gentleman staring down at me. Londoners, I thought, looked just like people back home, only they were better dressed and spoke as if they were in a hurry.
“Have you been inside the Odditorium all this time?” the gentleman asked.
“Direct all questions to the man in the goggles,” I said, looking up at Nigel. He smiled and gave me the stack of handbills.
“Start passing these out,” he whispered. And in a flash, he sprang up the steps, spun round, and threw up his arms dramatically. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted. “May I have your attention, please!”
A crowd had already gathered on the sidewalk, but I was able to gaze past it to the wonder of my surroundings. I had never seen such buildings, nor had I ever seen so many of them packed so tightly together. Most were as tall as the Odditorium itself, but some appeared even taller. Wrought-iron lampposts dotted the street in both directions, and the cobblestones themselves seemed to sprout people and coaches.
This whole place is magical, I thought, and decided at once that London was indeed the proper place for Alistair Grim’s Odditorium.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Nigel repeated. “Today, and only today, comes the moment you’ve all been waiting for! At promptly three o’clock this afternoon, Mr. Alistair Grim shall present to you a sight unlike any other. A sensational and spectacular preview of his mechanical wonder, the Odditorium!”
A murmur of excitement spread among the crowd, and I took it upon myself to pace back and forth along the bottom step, waving my handbills.
“That’s right,” Nigel said. “Take a handbill! Take two, and give one to your neighbor! And be sure to tell your family and friends. Today, and only today, a sensational and spectacular preview of Alistair Grim’s Odditorium!”
“What sort of preview?” a woman asked me.
“Is this another delay, lad?” asked another.
“Direct all questions to the man in the goggles,” I said proudly. The crowd had grown thicker, everyone stepping closer and reaching for a handbill.
“That’s right, ladies and gentlemen,” Nigel shouted. “This afternoon’s spectacular display will not only amaze you, but is also a preview of what to expect when the Odditorium opens exactly one month from Friday!”
“One month from Friday?” a man shouted. “You mean we can’t come inside?”
“Not until the Odditorium’s grand opening!” Nigel shouted. “Only one month from Friday!”
“But we’ve been waiting for over a year!” the man replied.
“We’ve been waiting over five years!” another man shouted.
“That’s right,” said someone else. “First it was the screens and curtains blocking the construction, and then that awful racket at all hours of the night—and still none of us has any idea what this blasted Odditorium is!”
The crowd grumbled in agreement. All the traffic in the street had stopped now, and I noticed for the first time a tall, well-dressed lad jostling for position only a few feet away from me.
“Let me see,” he said, but a pair of gentlemen stepped in front of him and elbowed the lad back into the crowd.
“Now, now, ladies and gentlemen,” Nigel said. “Your patience has been much appreciated. And believe me when I tell you that it shall be rewarded this afternoon! At promptly three o’—”
“Enough of this!” someone cried, and a small man with a top hat and a neatly trimmed beard stepped forward from the crowd.
“Why, if it isn’t Judge Mortimer Hurst,” Nigel said. “Retired city official and newly appointed director of the Queen’s Museum Board of Trustees.”
The judge sneered. “Oh, don’t give me your pleasantries, Nigel Stout. Your boss knows better than anyone that such public displays require the proper permits. This is just another one of Alistair Grim’s stall tactics—a trick to shift the blame for another delay onto city officials!”
As the crowd grumbled its displeasure, I felt a tug at my elbow. It was the tall, well-dressed lad I’d seen before.
“May I have one of them fancy papers, please?” he asked, and I slipped him a handbill from the top of my stack. “Thanks, chum,” he said, and disappeared back into the crowd.
“I don’t know nothing about no permits,” Nigel said. “That’s something you’ll have to take up with the boss. You know I only work for Mr. Grim.”
“Oh yes, I know your kind well, Nigel Stout,” the judge said through clenched teeth. “I sentenced your brother William to hang for the murder of Abel Wortley, did I not?”
“That you did, Judge,” Nigel said blandly. “That you did.”
Abel Wortley, I said to myself. I had heard that name before in Mr. Grim’s study. And to think that Nigel’s own brother had murdered him!
�
��And furthermore,” said Judge Hurst, “don’t think for a second that I’ve forgotten how you appeared in London so soon after your brother went swinging. Doesn’t take a market gardener to know that where one weed is pulled its twin will soon sprout.”
“I might be William Stout’s twin, sir,” Nigel said, “but I’m not my brother. Been an upstanding citizen, I have. Besides, William’s done paid his debt. Done paid it and then some.”
“All right, break it up!” a constable shouted, and he elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “What’s the trouble, Your Honor?”
“Hear, hear!” came another voice, and Lord Dreary emerged from the crowd too.
“Very good,” said Judge Hurst. “Your timing is impeccable, Lord Dreary. I was just about to have that villain there hauled in for disturbing the peace.”
“Disturbing the peace?” said Lord Dreary. “Have you gone mad, Hurst?”
“This Odditorium has been nothing but trouble from the start,” said Judge Hurst. “An eyesore, a disgrace—and only two blocks from Her Majesty’s museum!”
“There are no city ordinances against passing out handbills,” Lord Dreary replied. “Mr. Stout cannot be blamed if these people stop and ask questions of their own accord.”
“But this!” Judge Hurst exclaimed, holding up his handbill. “The laws are quite clear as to where such spectacles can occur!”
“Which is why I’ve personally filed all the proper permits on Mr. Grim’s behalf.”
“Call his bluff, Judge!” cried a voice from the crowd.
“Let Alistair Grim have his preview!” cried another.
More and more people began chiming in. Judge Hurst frowned and looked suspiciously at Nigel. The big man appeared sad—he just stood there, slouching at the top of the steps with his goggles turned down toward his enormous feet. Poor Nigel, I thought. All that talk about his brother William must have really winged him.
Alistair Grim's Odditorium Page 7
