by Peter Bunzl
She took it delicately and inspected the curved ivory face with its unsettling Punch-like features. “A crescent moon,” she said, turning the locket over and examining the map. “This may be a place marker.” She tapped the single red jewel.
“That’s what we thought,” Lily said. “A starting point.”
“Or an end point,” Robert added. “Like X marks the spot.”
“You mean it could be the location of the Blood Moon Diamond?” Tolly asked excitedly.
“These two words,” Anna said, “and the triangle – they’re some sort of code. Perhaps it’s a place name? Except there are no capital letters…”
“We’ve solved the cypher,” Robert explained. “It says: flows underground.”
“Very cryptic!” Anna muttered.
“Isn’t it?” Lily replied. “But there’s another part of the locket – we think Selena might have it. A gibbous moon that we’re guessing makes a whole map and the rest of the riddle.”
“I see,” Anna said.
“And that’s why we have to find her before Jack does,” Robert added.
Anna opened the locket and looked at the picture of Robert’s family inside. “Is this the only picture you have of your mother, Robert?” she asked.
“No, we’ve this as well.” Lily took out the inspector’s theatre poster and unfolded it, revealing the picture of the Doors.
“This picture won’t do you any good,” Anna said. “It’s too old. Selena’s only a girl.”
“We’ve already been round the theatres with it,” Malkin added. “And everyone’s so clinking scared of the Doors, they don’t want to give us information.”
“That’s no good.” Anna tutted. “We shouldn’t make assumptions about the message or the map until we know more. But lucky you came to me with this, we should be able to dig up something more about the Doors and Selena in the records of The Daily Cog.”
She closed the locket and handed it carefully back to Robert. “Now, eat up, there’s work to be done! I find I think better on a full stomach. Soon as we’re finished, we’ll head to the records office and start our investigation.”
“Our investigation – you mean we can all help?” Tolly asked hopefully, finishing his butty.
Anna patted his shoulder. “Course, Tolly! We need every brain we can get. And you’re the best detective I know… Apart from Robert and Lily, that is.”
“And me!” piped a voice from under the table. “I’m the best investigative nose I know.” Malkin gave a loud sniff.
“And you, Malkin, yes.” Anna patted his head and took a bite of her fried egg.
Anna directed them across a factory floor filled with the most enormous printing press. The noise was deafening. Loud clanks and bangs emanated from the machine as a big roll of newspaper was dragged through it to produce the daily edition.
At the far end of the production line, where men and mechanicals took the printed pages from the machine and stacked them in piles to be bundled and sent out, she led them through a door and into an office room. It was filled with dusty shelves stacked floor to ceiling with yellowing newspapers. Above the door was a clock embossed round the edges with the emblem of The Daily Cog.
“This is the records room,” Anna explained, pulling out the drawer of a card catalogue in the centre of the space. “We’ll start by going through the theatre ads, reviews and classifieds for the last six months. If your ma’s been performing in London, Robert, we’re bound to find some evidence of her somewhere amongst those pages.”
Anna took down stacks of papers and she, Lily, Robert and Tolly took a pile each and began to leaf through them. Malkin they kept out of the way; he was too impulsive and they didn’t want him shredding any important documents before they’d had a chance to read them.
It took nearly two hours to go through the papers from the last six months, and still Lily could find nothing that might be a clue to the whereabouts of Selena Door.
Finally, in despair, she picked up the newest issue of the paper, hot off the press, with the ink still wet, and turned to the advertisements.
A line-drawn portrait of a woman with her eyes shut and her fingers pressed to her temples caught Lily’s attention. Behind her head was a large white circle that looked like a halo or crystal ball, or…yes, Lily realized, a moon! Underneath the picture was a headline. She read on.
Lily rushed over to show Robert, Tolly and Anna, who were sitting at another desk.
“Look!” she cried. “This can’t be a coincidence, surely?”
Robert peered closely at the picture, trying to decide if the portrait resembled Selena or not. “I can’t be certain,” he said finally.
“Lunar powers sound promising though…” Lily said. “You did tell me that Selena means moon, which also sounds like Celine, and if you think about it, Door and D’Ore are the same name too.”
“D’Ore also means gold in French,” Malkin added.
“Golden Moon,” said Tolly.
Robert pushed his cap back on his head, and examined the poster again. “Maybe it is my ma,” he said. “But if it is, she must know Jack’s out of prison and desperate to find her. Why take such a risk…?”
He stood and consulted the clock above the door. “Today’s Saturday. Matinee day – which means the next show is in less than an hour. We should go and see if it is her, and warn her immediately.”
“Anna, will you come with us?” Lily asked. She was feeling rather anxious about everything all of a sudden.
Anna shook her head. “I don’t agree with spiritualist shows. They’re hokum. Besides, I want to find out a little more about this Moonlocket – there must be some mention of it in the archives somewhere. But Tolly will take you, he knows Valentine Street. I’ll meet you outside afterwards.”
“Please,” Robert begged. “We need your help.”
Anna shook her head. “I’ve far too much work to do,” she said.
“Can’t you leave some of it until later?” Lily asked.
“All right,” she finally relented. “If you’re both nagging me, how can I refuse…? Let me finish up here first. You go on ahead and buy some tickets, but don’t go in without me. I shall see you there in a short while, I promise.”
They crossed the River Thames at Blackfriars Bridge then followed the railway line behind terraced cottages down towards the riverbank. All along the backstreets, people were decorating their windows and front doors with ribbons and pictures of the Queen in preparation for the parade tomorrow.
As they turned into Valentine Street they heard the lap of the river up ahead. A cool breeze with a mossy stink floated up from the water, banishing the muggy grey June heat. The smell of coal dust and smoke from the fires burning in the braziers along the front made Lily’s nose and eyes itch. Grey smog floated across the cobbles and Robert covered his mouth and coughed.
Malkin, unaffected, trotted along beside them. Because he didn’t breathe, the city air didn’t clog him up the way it did humans.
Tolly too seemed fine. “Pea-souper of a London smog,” he said. “People get ill from the fumes sometimes, but not me. I’m used to it.”
They followed Tolly along Valentine Street, brushing past people humping crates and barrels. The road bent round a corner, passing rows of little shacks clustered on the quayside.
Out in the river, boats were moored three deep. Tethered airships of various shapes and sizes floated above the water, grazing the clouds. The quay was buzzing with people bringing in last-minute provisions for the Jubilee celebrations.
Further on, they reached the insalubrious end of the docks, where scuttled wrecks lay like beached whales in the shallows of the Thames. Strange spiderwebs of metal, the ribs of rusting airships, were swarming with scavengers, mudlarks and beachcombers – hunched figures in torn coats and britches, who crawled about on those skeletal surfaces trying to prise free a likely-looking dongle or screw from the carcass – anything that might be sellable.
Tolly led Lily, Ro
bert and Malkin past these wrecks and along the wharf, to where a sailor was stowing ropes. Tolly stopped and spoke to him.
“We’re looking for The Theatre of Curiosities.”
The sailor nodded. “At the end of the dock. Be careful! It’s a dangerous place – a house of spirits, so they say.”
Lily felt a queasy sense of foreboding.
They thanked the man and scurried along the dockside, towards the place he had pointed out.
It was a small building with a wooden porch. The bricks had been painted in grey colours, and ghostly faces were faintly visible, chalked onto the shutters. The shadow of a zeppelin drifted over the roof, scaring up a murder of crows. The birds cawed and took flight, flapping past a faded white sign painted on the building’s brickwork, whose six-foot-high letters proclaimed the place was indeed: The Magnificent Theatre of Curiosities.
Despite what the sign said, there was truly nothing magnificent about The Magnificent Theatre of Curiosities. From the outside it had the feel of a delapidated salon rather than a reputable venue. They stepped from the muggy heat of the dockside into the shabby cool of a small lobby.
A box office booth filled the space. Behind it, through an archway, Robert could make out a large entrance hall, teeming with people, all chattering nervously as they waited to enter the auditorium. A horrible sense of trepidation bubbled through him as he and Lily approached the ticket counter.
A young girl sat behind its open window, humming softly to herself, deeply engrossed in a penny dreadful. Her dark hair hung over her face like a tangle of twigs, and her head dipped close to the page as she read what Lily felt sure was Murderous Mysteries Magazine. If she could engage the girl in conversation, she might be able to glean some information.
Tolly, who’d entered last, shut the street door with a clang and the girl finally looked up, twitching them a smile. She’d a pale face and heavy brows, and something about her seemed awfully familiar.
“We’re looking for Miss Celine D’Ore – we need to speak with her,” Lily told the girl.
The girl shrugged. “She’s getting ready for the matinee. She won’t see anyone before that – says it disturbs the balance of her aura.”
“I’ll disturb the balance of her aura,” Malkin snarled, “if she doesn’t agree to see us.”
“Shush,” Robert told him. He turned to the girl. “Do you reckon we could meet her after the show? We can wait.”
The girl shook her head. “’Fraid she’s not doing personal readings any more, on account of a family matter.”
Lily leaned an arm on the counter. “Is that Murderous Mysteries Magazine you’re reading?”
The girl closed the penny dreadful. “Why, yes, it is!”
“Our friend writes for that,” Lily said.
“Really?” The girl seemed impressed.
“Yes,” said Lily, “she’ll be along shortly.” She peered closely at the cover. “Issue fifty-two. That’s the one with Sweeney Todd in, isn’t it?”
The girl’s eyes brightened. “It’s my personal favourite… I’ve read it at least a dozen times. What are your names?”
“I’m Lily Hartman,” Lily said. “And this is my brother Robert. These are our friends, Tolly and Malkin.”
The girl opened a side door to the box office and stepped out. Standing between them, she looked much smaller than she had behind the window. She was perhaps only nine or ten. Through the gap in the door, Lily noticed a stack of cushions on her chair and a biscuit tin on the floor to stand on – little tricks to make her seem taller in the box office window.
“I’m Caddy.” The girl crouched down beside Malkin and petted him under the chin.
The fox purred, and nipped delightedly at the straggly ends of Caddy’s hair. He was far more friendly than Lily had seen him with other strangers; she wondered what it was about the girl that put him at ease.
Caddy took up Malkin’s winder, which hung on the chain around his neck. On the head of the key was the old logo for Hartman and Silverfish mechanicals, and she smiled as she examined it. “Your fox is a Hartman’s mechanical! How marvellous!” Caddy let the key go and stood up abruptly. “What did you want with Miss D’Ore anyway?”
“It’s a personal matter,” Robert cut in. “But it is very important that we speak with her.”
Caddy became rather brusque. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell her that you called. If you’re lucky, she might agree to see you after the show. Though private readings are usually three pounds.”
“We don’t have enough for that,” Lily said.
“Well, the show’s only sixpence,” Caddy told her. “It’s pretty spectacular. There’s ghostly manifestations and all sorts – that is, when the stars are aligned…”
“Sounds fun,” said Tolly.
“Sound tacky,” said Malkin huffily; he was rather cross that the girl had stopped tickling him.
“If we buy tickets, can you persuade Miss D’Ore to meet us afterwards?” Robert asked.
“I’ll try my best,” Caddy replied. “But I can’t promise anything. As I said, she’s refused all visitors this past week.”
Lily took her purse out from her pinafore. “Four for the show then, please.”
“That’ll be two shillings.” Caddy ripped four tickets from a roll, while Lily counted out the last of her coins onto the desk.
“There,” she said, when she’d finished. “That’s the end of our money, Robert. I hope this Celine D’Ore’s the one we’re looking for.”
“Just so you know,” Caddy said, as she scooped up their change. “I would’ve let the fox in for nothing.”
“Oh, the fourth ticket’s not for him,” Robert said. “It’s for our friend Anna; she’ll be along soon, I expect.”
“There’s no late admittance after the performance starts,” Caddy said.
“And when’s that exactly?” Lily asked. This was beginning to seem like a bad idea. Anna had told them not to go in without her.
“Why, right now, of course.” Caddy snapped down the shutter on the box office. “Come on,” she said blithely. “I’ll show you into the theatre myself.”
“Oughtn’t we wait for her?” Lily asked. But the others were already following Caddy through a crowd of what Lily guessed to be nearly a hundred people that filled the immense entrance hall. They were all slightly down at heel compared to the West End theatregoers she’d seen milling about the Strand the day before, and they were all clamouring impatiently to be let in for the show.
Malkin sniffed at everyone’s shoes. Lumps of gilt and plaster had flaked from the ceiling and lay scattered about their feet. “Smells of mould and theatre frippery in here,” he declared. “Let’s find this Celine D’Ore and get out of this place before I suffocate.”
Lily ignored him. Her attention had been distracted by someone in the throng, a face she thought she recognized – it wasn’t Jack, or Finlo, but someone else who she couldn’t quite place. He was clean-shaven except for a neat moustache. She peered closer at him, but he turned away to talk to a friend – a tall, stately, official-looking man with a white beard – and then Caddy had ushered her past.
They had reached the far end of the room. Beneath a gold-leafed sign for the stalls stood two magnificent smoked-glass doors. Caddy threw them open.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “could you kindly take your seats, the show is about to begin!”
The crowds began shuffling into the stalls. Lily lagged behind, clutching her ticket in her sweaty palm. The inky words on the cheap grey paper had already rubbed off against her skin. She searched through the passing faces for the strange men amongst the congregation, but they seemed to have entirely disappeared. “Shouldn’t we wait for Anna?” she called out again to the others. But they weren’t listening, they were already filtering into the auditorium, among the sea of heads. Lily soon found herself being jostled along with them.
The twenty or thirty rows of the smallish auditorium were filling up fast. There were only a
few threadbare seats left at the front, beneath the gas footlights of the stage, whose proscenium arch Lily thought must’ve been rather grand at one time, but today looked faded, the figures in its designs all rather pale and flaky.
Robert squeezed into the front row with the others, grasping the locket chain around his neck to check it was still there. If this Celine was Selena and could look to the other side, then she would surely know his da had passed on, and would’ve realized Robert was trying to find her. How could he possibly face someone who knew all that and yet hadn’t got in contact? As the last few people shuffled in, and began filling up the corners at the back, Robert began to feel faintly sick.
Lily gazed over the heads of the crowd searching for Anna, but it was too late. Caddy was already leaving, closing the exit doors behind her. She tried not to worry and settled herself beside Robert. Malkin crawled beneath her feet and gave a disinterested yawn. Tolly took a few monkey nuts from his pocket and began to crack them open, dropping the shells on the floor around the fox.
“Watch it!” Malkin yapped, giving him a look.
“Well?” Tolly said. “It’s a theatre, ain’t it?”
Lily was about to tell them both to be quiet when, with a noise like the creak of an old set of bellows, the fire curtain rose to reveal a worn red velvet theatre drape, brocaded in gold.
With a fizzing hiss, the house lights dimmed. The crowd murmured as a spotlight picked out a moon-white circle on the curtains. Lily clasped her hands together, shivering at the sight of such an omen. Then the spot went out and the footlights dimmed to nothing, plunging the stage into darkness.
A long time passed; Robert gripped the locket. A cold dread fell upon him that seemed to seep into his very bones. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he’d imagined reconnecting with his ma. Fear filled him up like water in a glass… He shifted in his seat. He dearly wanted to leave, but suddenly…
