by Oisin McGann
“But they’re just spaniels!” Tatty cried.
“They have eyes and genitalia—that is all that is required for fiendish imaginings!”
There were several sharply indrawn breaths as Elvira’s ravings reached this new low.
“And what about your parrot, Mother?” Gerald said sharply. “It has shared your bedroom for decades. One can only guess at what it has witnessed.”
“Which might well account for its foul language,” Nate muttered under his breath.
Tatty heard this and had to cover her mouth to contain a fit of the giggles. Barnum did not say a word, preferring to let this unconventional family argue the finer points of propriety among themselves.
“Mark my words!” Elvira pronounced. “That wretched thing will not darken the door of any lady’s chambers in this house!”
There was a tense moment of silence in the room, until Daisy spoke.
“How much are you asking for it, Mr. Barnum?” she inquired.
II
MANEUVERS IN THE DARK
The trans-portmanteau cost roughly as much as a landau carriage, but Daisy considered it money well spent—and not just to see Elvira go through the roof. She and Berto traveled abroad whenever they got the opportunity, and she found the more exotic one’s destination, the more luggage one needed. But she detested women who brought half the contents of their house with them when they traveled.
It was late in the evening, and she had retired to the suite of rooms near the top of Wildenstern Hall where she and Berto slept. From the windows, she could see the overlapping, undulating shapes of the Dublin Mountains, and those of Wicklow beyond them, heaving up and fading back against the dark blue sky. Like all good Christian couples who could afford it, she and Berto slept in different bedrooms. But they were rarely separated from each other for very long and he almost never traveled alone.
Daisy regretted having dismissed the maid who had helped her undress. The girl’s inane chatter could be irritating, but at least she was friendly company.
Sitting on the end of her bed in her nightdress, Daisy brushed her long dark hair. She gazed at the trans-portmanteau as it sat motionless in the form of a dressing table. Looking at her reflection in its mirror, she wondered if it was looking back at her. It had no eyes that she could make out, but it could obviously see where it was going, or sense its environment in some way. At the end of the evening, it had followed her obediently up to her room, folding itself so that it walked on four corners. Now, it hardly seemed alive at all. Her thoughts went back to what Elvira had said—that it was unseemly to have an engimal in your bedroom, watching you.
There was something about the creature now, the way it squatted as still as the piece of furniture it imitated, that disturbed her slightly. Still, she was happy to have defied Elvira. Time and again, Daisy found she had to assert her authority in the house, to establish her position, often at odds with the older generation.
This was the nineteenth century, when a woman in Ireland—or Britain for that matter—was the property of her father, husband, or brother and could not vote, or take part in government, could not own property or a business. But this did not stop Daisy from helping steer her somewhat batty husband through his business affairs—much to his family’s disapproval. But she was not a woman to be trifled with, and slowly but surely they were learning that lesson.
Still, it was at times like this when she missed Berto desperately. Even among a family of predators, she was never anxious when he was around. Despite his upbringing—one that encouraged him to think of his family as allies who could betray him at any moment—he always managed to maintain a warm, kind heart, able to make light of the most serious matters. Without him, the huge intimidating house did not seem like home.
She stood up and walked over to her normal rosewood dressing table and laid down the hairbrush. She tied up her hair—she never slept with it down—and moved back in front of the trans-portmanteau, staring into its mirror again.
“I wonder what’s going on in your mind,” she said out loud. “And where is your mind, anyway? What part of you is your head? Or do you even have a head? You’re a bit of a mystery, aren’t you?”
Apart from showing her how to use the engimal, Barnum hadn’t said much more about the creature’s background or history. He had been invited to stay for a few days—with his performance over dinner, he had proved himself a fine storyteller and an entertaining companion. Well-traveled people so often were. But he had a ship to catch, apparently, and did not want to tarry too long. Making his apologies, he had left.
Daisy turned away from the creature, feeling suddenly exhausted. She took a few steps toward her bed and that was when the trans-portmanteau uncurled out to its full size and rose up over her. With hardly a sound, it fell over her, swallowing her in the folds of its metal body. It happened so quickly, Daisy was completely encased before she could scream.
III
A CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
Daisy’s disappearance was discovered early next morning, when one of her maids noticed her mistress had not rung the bell for her at the usual time. Daisy had a full day, every day, and never failed to be up by seven o’clock unless she had resolved to sleep in, in which case her instructions would be explicit. The maid had peeked into her room to find her mistress was gone—unthinkable, considering she had not dressed—and that her new engimal was also missing.
As was the policy in the Wildenstern home, the worst was automatically assumed. Nate was told first, being in charge of security. His first act was to have Barnum summoned. He was quickly informed that their guest could not be found. Nobody knew which ship he was supposed to be travelling on. His second act was to send for Gerald, who arrived to find Nate instructing the butler to organize the staff into search parties. While Nate and his cousin were, of course, concerned, they were also intrigued by the mystery of it all. After questioning Daisy’s maids thoroughly, they turned their attention to the room.
“The bed hasn’t been slept in, which means she was most likely taken last night,” Gerald noted. “We’re at least eight hours behind the kidnapper.”
“There must be more than one,” Nate said. “She was taken without a sound and carried off out of a thirty-story building without anyone seeing a thing. The obvious assumption is that our new engimal and its former master have done the dirty on us.”
“Mm,” Gerald assented.
“Daisy would never allow booby traps to be set on or around her door,” Nate commented, studying the layout of the room. Booby traps were common practice among the Wildenstern men. Assassinating a man in his sleep was something of a family tradition. “Despite Berto’s pleading, she insisted it was entirely un-Christian. Of course, we had the outer handle of her door rigged to a very well-hidden, very powerful electrical battery anyway, whenever she was asleep. Only her personal staff knew about it, along with Berto’s manservant and mine. If someone had opened this door from the outside without disarming the battery, their dead hand would most likely still be clutching the handle now.”
“Yes, and I’ve examined the battery,” Gerald said. “It’s still fully charged. So either Daisy left of her own volition or, if she was kidnapped, she let her kidnapper in. I would consider both unlikely, but there you have it.”
“Unless her kidnapper found another way in,” Nate wondered aloud. “What about the adjoining door between her bedroom and Berto’s?”
“Yes,” Gerald murmured. “I don’t think that was booby-trapped … still, there’s no telling, you know, marriage being what it is. But there was no one in Berto’s room and that is exceedingly well protected. The same goes for all the secret doors too. Can’t see them being bypassed. Better have them all checked anyway. There doesn’t seem to be a ransom note either. No doubt one will materialize in time.”
Wildenstern Hall was riddled with disguised doors leading to secret passage
s and hidden rooms. The family all learned about them as children, though some were more secret than others, depending on your rank in the family. Nate turned to his stony-faced manservant, a straight-backed, middle-aged man who acted as both footman and bodyguard.
“If this was someone from outside the house,” he said, “and I’m thinking specifically of Mr. Peter Barnum and his wonderful pet—they will be trying to put as much distance between themselves and the estate as possible. Send out some capable men to track them down, but be discreet about it. Then get the rest of the staff together and search the house from bottom to top—starting with the basement and working up. The servants who know the secret passages must do the same with those. As for the family … well, you know who not to trust. Go to it, man! The longer she’s missing, the less chance we have of finding her!”
The footman nodded without a word and strode off to carry out his instructions.
“Searching the passages could take weeks,” Gerald grunted. “Hardly anybody knows the whole place now—particularly the tower. And we can’t trust most of the family to help either. We’ll need dogs if we’re to have any chance, and there aren’t many men who can handle them. Even covering all the exits downstairs will take twenty men.”
“I think if the culprits wanted to leave, they’d be gone by now,” Nate replied. “And I suspect they are. We must count on our search parties to find her if that’s the case. In the meantime, let’s examine the room, and see if we can find out how she was taken; perhaps we can even use a dog to track her. But any clue to how she was seized could provide us with more information about our adversary. If any of the family is involved, they’re breaking the Rules of Ascension and they know it—and will pay the price. If no relatives are involved, then somehow an enemy has infiltrated our home—one who is able to get past our guards, take Daisy without a struggle, and navigate the hazards of the house without detection. Which would make him a formidable opponent indeed, and an unknown quantity. For Daisy’s sake, I hope that is not the case.”
“Bloody right,” Gerald sniffed. “With enemies like that, who needs relatives, eh?”
The Wildensterns were not only enormously wealthy, they were also blessed with extraordinary powers of healing and could live long lives, if they were permitted. However, this old Irish clan had a cold-blooded means of weeding out any weak strains and honing the qualities of toughness, ruthlessness, and cunning so valued in Wildenstern tradition. The men of the family were allowed to advance their position in the family business—the North American Trading Company—by assassinating any male in a superior position.
If carried out in the approved manner, the family would keep the authorities out of the matter, and cover up the murder. Women were not allowed to take part, nor was it permitted to target a woman for an Act of Aggression. Although there were plenty of other ways of tormenting women in a male-dominated world. There were strict rules governing the whole assassination process, taught to each boy from adolescence onward—the Rules of Ascension. They went like so:
Number One: The Act of Aggression must be committed by the Aggressor himself and not by any agent or servant.
Number Two: The Act must only be committed against a man over the age of sixteen who holds a superior rank in the family to the Aggressor.
Number Three: The Act must only be committed for the purpose of advancing one’s position and not out of spite, or because of insult or offense given, or to satisfy a need for revenge for an insult or injury given to a third party.
Number Four: All efforts should be made to avoid the deaths of servants while committing the Act. Good servants are hard to find.
Number Five: The Target of the Aggression can use any and all means to defend himself, and is under an obligation to do so for the good of the family.
Number Six: Retribution against the Aggressor can only be carried out after the Act has been committed. Should the Aggressor fail in his attempt, and subsequently escape to remain at large for a full day, only the Target of the Aggression and no other person will be permitted to take Retribution.
Number Seven: No Act of Aggression or Retribution may be witnessed or reported by any member of the public. All family matters must be kept confidential.
Number Eight: Any bodies resulting from the Act must be given a proper burial in a cemetery, crypt, catacomb, or funeral pyre approved by the family.
Some of the younger generation were appalled by this practice and were using their new positions of power to try and change their family’s savage ways, but the Wildensterns were not for turning. If one of them had acted against Berto by kidnapping Daisy, however, it was a clear breach of the Rules.
Gerald had a doctor’s case with him and he opened the top to show an array of instruments. A gifted medical student, he had given up university to devote his life to the study of engimals, but still acted as an assistant to the family’s doctor. However, he could apply his logical, scientific mind to any problem. He put on a pair of cotton gloves, took out a magnifying glass and began examining the frames of all the doors and windows in the room.
“No sign of a forced entry,” he said quietly. “And these locks are made to be difficult to pick. Opening the windows during the night would pull on these wires, ringing the alarm bells. They’re still connected, so no one climbed in from another floor. You know, the more I think about this, the more I’m sure it was an inside job. Barnum must have had help to get in here.”
Nate nodded, but didn’t answer. He knew of two hidden doors in this room. One was through the back of a wardrobe. He opened the doors, pushed some nightdresses aside and pressed a dark knot in the wood of the back of the wardrobe. It opened inward, revealing a dark passageway that ran between the walls dividing Daisy’s bedroom and Berto’s. The tripwires set to stop an intruder getting through this door were still connected up. A thin film of dust lay on the two hidden spring-loaded blades set to slice out at groin and throat level. They had to be held in order to be disarmed. The dust would have been disturbed.
The other hidden door was behind a bookcase—old-fashioned, but reliable. It was an emergency escape route and could only be opened from inside the room, but he checked it anyway. On one of the shelves, he found a book entitled The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories, a bound collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. He pushed it in, heard a latch open, and began to swing the counterweighted bookcase out toward him.
“Stop!” Gerald shouted. “Nate, stop! Don’t move!”
Nate froze. Looking down, he saw a thread extending out from the back of the bookcase, about a foot above the floor. It was connected to something just inside the frame of the hidden doorway. Gerald took a pair of pliers from his bag and walked carefully toward the bookcase, wary of creating any kind of vibration in the floor.
“Just … just stay perfectly still,” he said softly.
With steady hands, he positioned the jaws of the pliers around the thread and in one smooth motion went to snip the thread. It didn’t part. He gasped, careful to keep as still as possible and tried again with both hands. It took all his strength, but he finally cut the thread. Nate opened the bookcase a little further. Inside, they could see a round box about the size of a soup bowl with twelve holes in the top pointed toward the doorway. They leaned back and Gerald yanked on the thread. A dozen darts thudded into the back of the bookcase. The two young men swore loudly.
“Poisoned, no doubt,” Gerald grunted. “The cunning devil is setting booby traps of his own to fend off pursuers. We’d better call off the searches in the passages. Thread like this would be almost impossible to see by lamp light.”
“Good God!” Nate breathed. “It’s no thicker than a hair! How did you even spot it?”
“Pure blind luck, old chap,” Gerald sighed, examining the thread. “The light from the window made it gleam against the darkness behind. Whatever it is, it’s even finer than a hair. More like a strand
of spider’s web. And dashed strong too! I’ve only ever seen its like in the guts of dead engimals. It seems our kidnapper has dissected some poor creature and put its innards to good use.”
Nate called to a waiting servant to have a bloodhound and a handler brought up. It didn’t take long, but they had to inch along the dark passage, squinting into the gloom for any more of the near-invisible threads. The dog sought out the scent, but at the first junction, gave no sign that it had any kind of a trail.
“Remember how that engimal could fold up?” Gerald mused. “I’m betting the kidnapper wrapped her up in it. Could have smothered the smell. Hope it didn’t smother her in the process. I’d miss the arguments between you two.”
“It’s not supposed to be a spectator sport,” Nate said tartly. He looked down at the dart box he held in his hand. “This is a well-planned operation. Efficient, silent, ruthless. The engimal, that thread … this box is a fine piece of work too. Whoever this Barnum character is, he’s got money behind him. These are expensive items to just leave behind.”
“The man is taking on the Wildensterns,” Gerald reminded him. “He and his accomplices are hunting the biggest game there is. Though you have to wonder at their choice of prey.”
“Yes,” Nate clicked his tongue. “I’m not sure who to pity most—the victim or her kidnappers.”
IV
AN UNDIGNIFIED EXPRESSION OF HER FEAR
It is extraordinarily difficult to maintain one’s composure while sitting tied to a chair wearing nothing but one’s nightdress. But those very circumstances make it all the more necessary. Daisy woke to find she was blindfolded, so she left her head hanging, closed her eyes again, and concentrated on what her other senses could detect. It helped her overcome the vile desire to scream.
She had not been gagged, so wherever they were, it was obviously beyond a scream’s ability to reach friendly ears. To shriek now would only be an undignified expression of her fear, and she would not surrender to it.
