The Mislaid Magician

by Patricia C. Wrede

  As the weather improved, Mr. Scarlet was seen to leave the house early, driving a smart curricle and pair, and to return well after darkness fell. If he had any attendant to see to the horses, no one knows of it.

  The rest of the information is negative. No one saw Mr. Scarlet depart. No one has seen Mr. Scarlet since. So far as we can establish, no one ever saw the woman with the tinker’s cart but us.

  There is one detail Reardon and Piers turned up I find of considerable interest. Three days after Thomas and I took Edward and Drina from the abandoned house, a stranger arrived. He made inquiries very similar to our own. (Who lived in the house? Where had he gone? When?) Upon learning of Thomas’s interest in the matter, the stranger withdrew. He said he intended to put up at a reputable inn. Wherever he went, it was nowhere in the vicinity. He has not been seen since. For what a physical description is worth under the circumstances, he possessed a handsome face, gentlemanly behavior, and a fashionable appearance. He expressed concern, no more, at the exciting circumstances surrounding the house, and he did not hint in any way that he had a connection either to the house or to its recent tenant. Yet he vanished from the scene at the first opportunity, despite his expressions of interest. What more could a discreet accomplice do?

  Piers is of the opinion that the mention of Thomas’s name put the wind up the fellow and caused him to retreat. Thanks to the excellent description of the man’s curricle and pair provided by a boy who lives in Mr. Scarlet’s street, Piers found an inn on the Cirencester road where the equipage put up for the night. At the inn, the man called himself Mr. Jones. He behaved as well as a fashionable young man with an interest in sport could be expected to behave, paid his shot promptly, and left at first light, last seen driving in the direction of Cirencester. All we have against him is his appearance at Mr. Scarlet’s house and his abrupt loss of interest when he learned that the house was uninhabited and that Thomas was greatly interested in the whereabouts of the previous tenant.

  Piers and Reardon did all they could, but they were unable to learn anything more about Mr. Jones. Thomas has written to Mr. Wrexton (who I fear will some day tire of being treated as Thomas’s social vade mecum—I look forward to the day when we are together here again and I can show you his reply to Thomas’s letter about Drina—it is a true masterpiece of sarcasm) to ask him to inquire about the possible antecedents of Mr. Jones.

  Although he refuses to admit it to me, Thomas would much prefer to go to London and snoop into the matter himself. (How can I blame him? I would rather be in Mayfair myself.) But for all his impatience, Thomas remains here. He chides me when I seem surprised by his steadfastness. Although it has been quiet here, I know he views this interlude as the calm before a storm. I believe he would welcome a storm. Thomas may be at his best in a crisis, but he certainly does get thoroughly bored in the meantime.

  If I keep on in this vein, I will be forced to ask Thomas to enchant this letter without reading it, and that would only pique his curiosity. So I will simply add that Arthur and Eleanor are thick as thieves with Drina. Diana and Edward are still their willing acolytes, and Alexander is exactly as sweet as Laurence. All are in bounding good health. All of us send you our very best wishes. We look forward to your return.

  Love,

  Kate

  28 April 1828

  Skeynes

  (Enchanted by T.S.)

  Dear James,

  Finding a needle in a haystack is as nothing compared to finding a surveyor in a sheepdog. Congratulations.

  I direct this missive to you at the London address Cecy provided Kate. May it find you both there safely.

  Perhaps I should change “both” to “all,” given the recent addition to your ménage. I trust that by the time you read this, the Royal College will have succeeded in restoring Herr Magus Schellen to his rightful shape. You know I am eager to hear all he can tell you. Do resist the urge to suggest I am dogging you for the story or panting after the details. After all, it would never do to jest at Herr Magus Schellen’s misfortune.

  Once you have Schellen sorted, and once you have turned someone at the College loose on the whole question of ley lines (Sulgrave would be my first choice—he’s young enough to take direction, yet old enough to hold his own against the true crustaceans at the College), I would consider it a personal favor if you would turn Cecy loose on her aunt Elizabeth. Wrexton has been next to no help in the matter of our superfluous young lady. Going by the clues we have (her expensive clothing, her flawless deportment, and a familiarity with duchesses Kate finds highly significant), it beggars belief that a child like this could disappear without raising an alarm somewhere. It’s not as if the greatest gossips of our time aren’t already assembled in London for the Season. Surely between the pair of them, Cecy and Elizabeth can learn something useful to us. You yourself, I seem to remember, have a way of soaking up scandal broth even as you seem to have a mind for higher and nobler things. Stir yourself.

  Believe me, if I could, I would be shoulder to shoulder with you, braving the boredom of the salons and assembly rooms. Unfortunately, my responsibilities keep me here. If I weren’t here to chivvy her out of doors regularly, I fear Kate would long since have gone mad from prolonged exposure to the infantry.

  In addition, there is the provoking fact that someone has been making discreet inquiries about me. I have made it clear in Stroud that anyone with any information whatsoever concerning Mr. Scarlet will be rewarded if they come to me with it. My sources tell me that questions have been asked about my intentions and antecedents. It would be useful to know who has been doing the inquiring. Alas, no word on that as yet. No matter what answers the questions elicited, no one has come to me with anything, useful or otherwise.

  All this may be moot in a fortnight. Kate thinks that all we need do is restore your children to you, persuade Georgy to take a repairing lease somewhere discreetly foreign, locate a Department of Lost Articles specializing in children of good breeding, and our problems will be solved. I fear the nursery is softening her brain.

  Write with news. I will do as much, if I ever get any.

  Yours,

  Thomas

  29 April 1828

  The King’s Head, Leeds

  Dearest Kate,

  As you may see from the inscription, we are not in London, nor, it seems, is there any immediate chance of our returning there. We are in Leeds, with no prospect of moving further. In point of fact, it is quite likely that we shall soon be compelled to return to Stockton, or perhaps Darlington. I am quite cross and altogether out of patience with a great many persons, most of them decades dead. My temper is not improved by the certainty that any news you may have sent will have gone to the London address and will therefore take several extra days to reach us.

  We left Stockton yesterday morning. Both James and I were anticipating a quick and easy journey to London, as the weather was fine and the roads good. We chose to travel by conventional methods, rather than take the railway, as we did not wish to draw any more attention to our sheepdog (and traveling by railway is a novelty that attracts attention all on its own; attempting to bring a sheepdog along would undoubtedly be a nine days’ wonder in the village).

  All went well for the first half of the journey, until the road turned away from the river, out of County Durham and into Yorkshire. Shortly thereafter, the sheepdog became restless. (I should mention that, as we chose not to travel on the Sabbath, I had spent much of Sunday attempting to devise a workable means of communication with Herr Magus Schellen. My efforts were of no avail; the transformation spell that affects him is quite thorough. Which is to say that, most unfortunately, Herr Magus Schellen is not a man in the shape of a sheepdog, who would perhaps be able to convey some useful information; no, he is simply a more-intelligent-than-usual sheepdog. So we had no way of discovering what the difficulty might be.)

  As we continued on, the sheepdog went from restless to whimpering, and then subsided into a lethargy. By the time we reach
ed the inn at Leeds, he was lying motionless on the floor of the carriage and I was growing quite worried. James was at first inclined to put the dog’s behavior down to carriage-sickness (or the canine equivalent), but he, too, was concerned when Herr Schellen had to be lifted down and then lay panting on the ground.

  Our situation attracted the attention of a number of stableboys and various idlers, who made a great many unhelpful comments and suggestions about what to do with our dog. James responded more and more stiffly (a sure sign of irritation), while I was torn between trying to attend to the Herr Magus, wishing to avoid attracting more attention, and a strong desire to lay into the onlookers with my parasol.

  And then I heard a voice that cut through the crowd easily without being raised to any vulgar pitch: “Does all this uproar have some point of which I am not aware?”

  The onlookers melted away like snow in sunlight. Only an erect figure in a modish burgundy walking dress and matching bonnet remained. “Aunt Elizabeth!” I said in mingled surprise, gratitude, and trepidation. “Whatever are you doing in Leeds?”

  “We came to find you and James,” Aunt Elizabeth replied, from which I inferred that Mr. Wrexton had accompanied her. “I had not expected—” She glanced at the sheepdog, and her eyes narrowed. “I had not expected to find you in such an interesting position,” she said, which I do not think was what she had meant to say to begin with. “You had better bring … everyone inside, where we can discuss matters without creating any more scenes.”

  As it was useless to protest that creating a scene had been the last thing we had intended, we followed her in. Or rather, I followed her in; James stayed with the sheepdog, attempting to persuade him to walk. When that failed, he was forced to bribe the lone stableboy who had remained within earshot to assist him in carrying the Herr Magus inside.

  I will spare you an account of the discussion with the innkeeper; suffice it to say, he was initially much put out by the presence of so plebeian an animal as a sheepdog, and James had to turn all top-lofty on him—and even then, I am not sure we would have prevailed had not Aunt Elizabeth taken a hand.

  Eventually, the five of us—Aunt Elizabeth, Mr. Wrexton, James, the sheepdog, and I—were served tea in a private parlor, while Walker and James’s valet saw to the trunks. I was more than usually happy with the bustle of servants setting up tea things, for I was uncertain what tack to take when the discussion began. It is so awkward when one is involved in a secret matter and has no notion how much other people know, or whether they ought to be told more or not. Despite my worries, I was glad indeed to see Mr. Wrexton’s cheerful face.

  Fortunately, I did not need to mind my tongue for long. As soon as the door closed behind the last of the servants, James turned to Mr. Wrexton and asked, “What brings you to Leeds?” (just as if he had not heard Aunt Elizabeth say, only a few minutes before, that they had come in search of us).

  “This business of Wellington’s,” Mr. Wrexton replied. He frowned at the sheepdog. “Though I suspect my news will wait. What have you stumbled onto?”

  James looked at me. I began an account of finding the sheepdog, but Aunt Elizabeth stopped me before I had gone three sentences. “From the beginning, Cecelia, please,” she said firmly. “Official reports are useful, but too often they sacrifice relevant details for brevity.”

  She was very careful not to look at James as she said this, but since his are the only official reports there have been of this matter, it was quite clear what she meant. She added, “I need not fear that your narrative will suffer from a lack of description.”

  (Dearly as I love Aunt Elizabeth, and much as I appreciate her sterling qualities, I confess that I cannot like the way she has of making me feel as if I am once more a scrubby ten-year-old with torn stockings and muddy petticoats.)

  So I did as she asked. I began at the beginning—with Lord Wellington’s summons to James—and recounted the entire business in order. Aunt Elizabeth and Mr. Wrexton listened with great attention, and when I finished, they looked at each other.

  “I believe this is more your area, my dear,” Mr. Wrexton said, gesturing at the sheepdog.

  Aunt Elizabeth rose and went over to the dog. She felt very gently behind its ears and at the back of its neck, then frowned. Then she made a chopping motion with her left hand and said, “Aperio.”

  The sheepdog howled. Aunt Elizabeth closed her hand into a fist and the sound stopped abruptly as the sheepdog collapsed once more.

  “Aunt Elizabeth, what—”

  “Hush, Cecelia. In a moment.” She rose, dusted her skirts, and hastily reseated herself. Giving me a warning look, she began to speak in a voice rather louder than normal, and much more in Aunt Charlotte’s style than her own. “Now, about the shameful way in which you and Georgina have been neglecting the London Season—”

  The door of the parlor burst open. The innkeeper stood there, sputtering apologies; behind him, the scowl on his wife’s face made clear who was responsible for their abrupt appearance. I blessed Aunt Elizabeth’s quick wits; for of course if she had not started in on the Season in that nonsensical way, the innkeeper and his wife might well have heard something they ought not.

  Aunt Elizabeth fixed our hosts with an imperious glare. “Gracious me,” she said in a forbidding tone. “What is the reason for this intrusion?”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you’ll have to be keeping that dog quiet,” the innkeeper said. His wife punctuated his remarks with emphatic nods.

  “Has there been some disturbance?” Mr. Wrexton asked with great politeness.

  The innkeeper looked quite taken aback, but his wife was made of sterner stuff. “That dog was howling, but a minute gone,” she said. “And we can’t be having it. Begging your pardon,” she added grudgingly after a pointed glance from her husband.

  Aunt Elizabeth put down her teacup and sniffed. I am sure you remember that sniff, Kate; we surely heard it often enough after our childhood adventures. “Nonsense!” she said. “Does that dog look capable of such an effort as howling?”

  Everyone looked at the sheepdog. The dog blinked but did not raise his head from the carpet. He gave every appearance of being incapable of lifting so much as an ear. Throwing back his head to howl was plainly beyond him.

  The innkeeper seemed willing to accept this evidence, and repeated his apologies. His wife was more reluctant to retreat, but it was clear even to her that she was no match for Aunt Elizabeth. When they had gone at last (and when we were quite certain that the wife was not listening at the door), I looked at Aunt Elizabeth and said, “Aunt Elizabeth, I never thought to hear such a string of bouncers from you, of all people.”

  “It has long since become clear to me that I failed, in your upbringing, to impress upon you properly how unattractive it is for a lady of quality to use slang terms adopted from her brother,” Aunt Elizabeth observed. “And I must point out to you that no word of falsehood passed either Michael’s lips or my own.”

  “A masterly job of misdirection,” James said. “But what, if anything, did you learn about our involuntary guest?” He nodded at the sheepdog.

  “Cecelia is quite right; this is a case of transformation,” Aunt Elizabeth replied. “I cannot, of course, determine who he is, or was, prior to becoming a sheepdog, but I think it likely that she is also correct in assuming him to be your missing engineer. Unfortunately, I fear he will not be easy to disenchant. The spell is linked to a power source somewhere northeast of here.”

  “Ah. That will explain the animal’s lethargy,” Mr. Wrexton said. “The spell is drawing on the dog’s energy to maintain the link over too long a distance.”

  “Good heavens!” I said, appalled. “You mean that he’s like this just because we brought him this far south? However are we to get him to the Royal College?”

  “I don’t believe you will, dear,” Aunt Elizabeth said. “Not without disenchanting him first.”

  “We can alleviate the problem, but only very temporarily,”
Mr. Wrexton said. “Not long enough to get him to London, I’m afraid.”

  The sheepdog whined. James and I looked at each other. “I don’t think Wellington is going to be pleased about this,” James said after a moment.

  “That’s another thing,” Mr. Wrexton said, and his tone drew James’s and my attention at once. He cleared his throat and went on, “There’s a bit of a bother at the prime minister’s office.”

  “Michael, dear,” Aunt Elizabeth said in a tone of mild reproof.

  “Yes, all right,” Mr. Wrexton said. “I’ve been dancing around the facts for so long that it’s become a habit,” he said apologetically to James and me. “To give you the matter without any bark on it, information has been leaking out of the prime minister’s office, and we don’t know yet who is responsible or why.”

  “Wellington’s staff?” James said in tones of horror.

  “Doubtful,” Mr. Wrexton told him. “The problem seems to date back to some months before Wellington took office. That’s not much help, though; there are dozens, if not hundreds, of clerks and functionaries who could be behind it. And the fellow’s been careful, to get away with it this long. We won’t be able to narrow the field until we find out what he’s after.”

  “What he’s after?” I said. “Can’t you guess from the sort of information that has been leaking?”

  “That’s the problem,” Mr. Wrexton said. “The things we’ve traced have been very … miscellaneous. Everything from the progress of trade discussions to the prime minister’s opinions of quite minor bills in Parliament. Some of the gossip about that last argument between His Majesty and the Duke of Cumberland was traced to the office. Nothing important, but Wellington was furious. And now this latest incident—”