The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man

by Rod Duncan

  “I’m distressed,” she said to the agent.

  He recoiled slightly as if not knowing how to deal with such a statement of emotion.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But I am distressed!” She opened her arms, as if to display her piteous state or perhaps for him to hug her. The smooth line of his jacket showed a slight bulge on the left side of his chest. It could have been a small gun in a holster or something resting in the inside pocket.

  “Shall I send for more tea?” he asked. “Or I could–”

  “But I’ve come halfway around the world! I’ve faced threats and violence!” She raised the pitch of her voice, making it shrill. “I’ve returned to civilisation… and now I’m to be locked up?”

  “Not necessarily. If you’ll just cooperate. We could–”

  “…Locked up by the very people I sacrificed everything to help!”

  He had taken a halfstep back as she approached. Now she lurched towards him. He looked ready to run, but she’d thrown herself into a stumbling fall. He made to catch her. She grabbed hold of him. One hand on his left shoulder. The other inside his jacket. Not a gun. A wallet. Tinker was waiting for it, bless the boy. As she dropped her arm, she felt him just behind, snatching the wallet from her hand. He pushed on past them, through the doorway, into the drawing room, out of McLeod’s eyeline.

  The agent lowered Elizabeth to the ground and backed away into the main room, as if remaining near her bed after such closeness might threaten his vow of celibacy. The last thing she saw before putting her head down into a feigned weep was Tinker behind him, stuffing the wallet into grubby trousers.

  “I’m so sorry,” she wailed.

  Julia followed the agent out of the bedroom. “Don’t just stand there,” she cried. “Order more tea!”

  Though Julia had not been brought up in fairgrounds and travelling shows, she’d learned enough from Elizabeth’s stories to understand what came next in the dipper’s playbook. The mark might realise the strangeness of events. He might feel the lightness of his pocket. Agent McLeod was a quick thinker. His agile mind would need to be kept busy.

  He’d just finished writing the order for tea and was ready to send it down in the dumbwaiter, when Julia said, “It needs to be medicinal tea. Ordinary won’t do.”

  “Medicinal?”

  “You saw her! And you’re responsible.”

  “But I didn’t… And I don’t know what–”

  “She needs these things,” Julia cut in, keeping him off balance. “Get fresh paper and write them down. Quick now!”

  Tinker returned to the bedroom and stood against the wall to the side of the door, out of the agent’s sight. He pulled the wallet from his trousers and opened it so that Elizabeth could see the folded banknotes. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, crisp as if freshly minted, and seemed set to take out more, but she shook her head. It was a huge sum in any case. They had to leave doubt in his mind. That was the trick. They couldn’t let him be certain that he had been robbed.

  Tinker opened the other pocket of the wallet and held it for her to look inside.

  Julia was still dictating in the outer room. “Aspirin, tonic water, clean flannels, lavender oil…”

  Agent McLeod’s back was towards the bedroom as he compiled the list.

  Elizabeth dipped into the wallet and took out a fold of papers. The first three leaves were receipts. The next was headed Memo of Entitlement: a Patent Office warrant of some kind. A letter in John Farthing’s handwriting set her heart on an irregular beat: his request to be the one to meet her at the Niagara crossing, formally worded, cold and logical. She ached inside. The last paper was a travel pass.

  Tinker looked away as she lifted her skirts and pushed the banknote inside the top of her stocking. The other papers she replaced, then closed his hand around the wallet. “Put it with his things,” she whispered.

  He stuffed it back inside the waistband of his trousers and slipped from the room. Back on the bed, Elizabeth watched him through the door, stealing across towards the agents’ bedroom.

  McLeod had finished taking Julia’s dictation. He put the note into the dumbwaiter and pulled the rope to send it down to what must be the kitchens below. Elizabeth held her breath. Tinker emerged just as he started to turn.

  The whole thing had taken less than two minutes. There was a puzzled look on McLeod’s face, as if he was beginning to suspect. Tinker sauntered back to her bedside, looking pleased with himself. He even suffered her embrace.

  “Where did you put it?” she whispered into his ear.

  “Wardrobe floor.”

  Though he couldn’t write or read and didn’t seem to know how to brush his hair or wash his face, the boy was a conspicuous genius.

  Elizabeth didn’t see the moment when McLeod realised his wallet was missing. But by the time the tea things and medicines arrived, his frown had turned into an angry scowl. He said nothing until Winslow returned. Then the inquisition began.

  “I must protest in the strongest terms! You’ve taken advantage of our trust. And of my instinct to help.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Elizabeth said.

  Julia was standing, looking out of the window. Transparent to the core, she’d not be able to sustain the falsehood.

  “Then you’re a liar as well as a pickpocket!”

  “What am I supposed to have done?”

  “I shall have you stripped and searched if you continue with this theatre. And each of your friends!”

  Elizabeth stood and spread her arms as if offering herself. “Will you unlace me, or should I do it myself?”

  “Have you no shame?”

  “Me? Me! You come here and talk of trust. What trust have you given? You accuse me of something – I still don’t know what. You threaten to remove my clothes. Is it my naked body you want to see? Is that it? You call me all manner of names. You hold it self-evident that I am a thief. Because of my background. It is you who should feel shame! Tell me what it is you’ve lost, and I will try to help.”

  She could feel the racing of her heart, knew her face would be flushed. Good. Let them see the signs and think it anger. Indeed, it partly was.

  Agent McLeod opened his mouth but seemed too shocked to speak.

  Winslow said, “You’ve stolen his wallet.”

  “I assume you mean he’s lost his wallet.”

  “You stumbled against him.”

  “I half collapsed. He was kind enough to catch me. At least, I thought it kindness. Now he wants me undressed. Did he catch me to feel my body through my clothes?”

  She saw the trace of doubt in their faces and felt only slightly guilty for it. Their eyes flicked to each other, as if for confirmation. She closed her own and sat heavily on the bed, feigning exhaustion.

  “I’ve not left this place. You’ve kept us like prisoners. If the wallet was lost here, it must still be close.”

  They searched the floor around the doorway first, as if the wallet might have fallen during the scuffle. Then they looked in the folds of the armchair where McLeod had been sitting and on the floor around it. It was Winslow who went to search their twin bedroom and came out only a minute later, his face deep red and the wallet in his hand.

  No one could have been more mortified than McLeod. He was so overcome with distress that he took himself away, out of the hotel.

  “Please accept our sincere apologies,” Winslow said, his hands clasped in front of him like a schoolboy. “Can we do anything to make amends?”

  “You can let us stroll in the grounds.”

  This made Winslow even more contrite. “That is not in my power.”

  “Then at least make us comfortable. Bring new clothes. And books for us to read. And paper and pen for writing.”

  Books were easy. There was a small library in the hotel. Clothes he agreed to in principle, though a tailor could not be brought in, he said, so they would need to be pre-made. “I will look into it,” he said. But paper and pen, he could gi
ve to her directly. He seemed grateful for the chance to offer at least that token.

  Julia was on the second page of her letter before Elizabeth stopped her.

  “It is the Avian Post. A few words only. And the pigeon master must transcribe them. So no mention of the Patent Office.”

  At last they agreed on the message: My Dearest Robert. I am alive. Please come. Life is nothing without you. Julia

  They folded the twenty-dollar bill inside the sheet of writing paper and around it folded another sheet, with the address and instructions, as if Tinker was merely an errand boy. If he didn’t need to speak, there would be no questions about his accent.

  Even with his small frame, it was a tight fit. Tinker climbed up into the dumbwaiter, folding his limbs so that he looked like a dead spider. Then Julia put her hand around the bell to stop it ringing and Elizabeth hauled the rope, sending the compartment and the boy within down through its narrow shaft.

  It was two in the morning by the mantel clock. She prayed the kitchen staff would be asleep. The dull tinkle of the bell on the ground floor meant he had arrived. The rope went slack. Now all they could do was wait.

  CHAPTER 4

  They called it the Room of Cabinets. More properly, it was designated the Workshop of the Magician to the King of Crown Point. Its chief virtues were the locks that kept it secure and a window seat on the north side of the room, overlooking the valley of the Colombia River. It had been his mother’s room once. The place where she taught him the arts of conjuring and deception.

  “If I teach you to lie, it only makes the truth between us more precious,” she’d said, time and time again.

  Despite its favourable position in the north wall, it was a lonely corridor from which the Room of Cabinets was accessed. Out of habit, Edwin checked left and right, scrutinising the shadows before turning the door’s six brass tumblers, each inscribed with different symbols. They clicked through the combinations until a bolt sprung. Edwin checked along the corridor one final time before scrambling the tumblers again and stepping inside.

  No gold was held within. The treasures of the Room of Cabinets were merely secrets. But without secrets, his privilege and safety would be gone. Magician of Crown Point and First Counsellor to the king were positions of great influence but little direct power. A dangerous combination. The dogs were kept back by the king’s indulgence. But if for a moment that favour slipped, Edwin would be torn apart.

  He poured himself a glass of red wine then weaved between the cabinets and workbenches to take up his position in the window seat, looking down on the valley. The strands of the river reflected the hills on the far side, a smoky image of blues and greens. That view had once been the entire domain of the Lords of Crown Point. How quickly they had extended their reach. Ambition was one of the few things in the world that lacked discernible limits. But the wider the kingdom spread, the more vassal lords came under its influence, the more complex the politics became.

  A raven wheeled over the valley, level with his window, but far above the shingle at the river’s edge. Searching for carrion.

  If the king achieved his aim, what then? When the King of Crown Point became Lord of the world, he would have no more need of illusions to baffle the minds of his subjects. A few of his counsellors had already lost their belief in magic, though they would never admit to such doubts. Secret conversations were a different matter. If enough of them came to see coloured flames and mind reading acts as simple trickery, disbelief would become the focus of rebellion.

  Putting down the glass, half-finished, he walked back through the room, letting his fingers brush the cabinets on either side. The oldest among them were objects of awe, lacquered black with lettering or arcane symbols in blood-red. One had been decorated with closely spaced patterns, which drew the eyes and played with them, seeming to shimmer and jump. He ran his hand over its door, feeling the slight ridges where lines of decoration crossed the smooth surface. Opening the cabinet brought a waft of camphor, a memory of his mother.

  Spectacle had been her way. She’d learned her art in the travelling magic shows of England. But in the deadly politics of Crown Point, he had discovered that mundane settings worked better. When an ordinary cupboard vanished a gun, or produced one, magic seemed to be reaching its tendrils into the real world.

  Closing the cabinet, he stepped on through the room, deep in thought, hardly seeing his surroundings.

  If he could perform a grand illusion without the props of stage magic, it might convince more of the court that his powers were real. That could give him the authority to navigate the present crisis. He knew many tricks. But the greatest illusions required an accomplice: someone who had to know that the marvels were mere trickery. Such knowledge would give them a power over him of life and death. There was no one at Crown Point that he could so trust.

  A vanishing act would require just such a helper. Or, if doing it alone, he would be absent at the end, when the trick was revealed, which would undermine its very purpose.

  He’d been nursing two possibilities. The first was an ordeal of endurance. Something that would seem not magic, but superhuman. Surviving terrible cold or submersion in the river or a prolonged period without food. Perhaps burial alive. Feats of endurance they would be. Mental and physical. But not to the extent that they appeared. There were ways to take on food while fasting, or air while submerged or buried. There were devices that could allow life to continue in extreme cold. Such illusions would make him seem more like a holy man than a magician. But that might be a protection in itself.

  He found himself standing next to a low ottoman made from woven willow: one of his own construction. He’d painted it white, then rubbed all over the surface with a flat stone, leaving it scuffed as if uncared for. The seat, he’d upholstered in green paisley fabric, salvaged from an old curtain. Horse hair showed through one of the moth holes.

  Lifting the lid revealed the empty interior. The musty smell came from a layer of soil hidden within the base. That was a sensory detail he had worked out for himself – the illusion of neglect.

  He closed the lid and opened it again. This time a flintlock pistol lay in the bottom, the image of a leaping hare inlaid in turquoise in the stock. The balance of it in his hand and its texture were exquisite. The room was full of memories.

  The second possibility was more tantalising. He had read about the bullet catch and its dangers. He’d heard accounts of illusionists who’d tried it and failed at the cost of their lives. If all was set up correctly, he could allow a volunteer to fire the gun directly at him. He would then snatch the bullet from the air with his hand. Or, better, catch it with his teeth. That would impress the warriors among the king’s court, men who understood what something as small as a bullet could do to human flesh. The implication that he might have supernatural control over weaponry could do no harm. He might offer to cast charms and blessings over the army as it set out to do battle. But only if it outnumbered the expected enemy.

  The bullet catch had other virtues. It was loud. It would not be forgotten. And nothing excites an audience more than the possibility that a performer might make a fatal mistake.

  But the trickery of the bullet catch did not remove all danger. Who among the audience would step forwards and volunteer to take the shot? It would be all too easy for them to slip an extra bullet into the barrel or substitute their own gun.

  Edwin froze. He’d caught a small noise from outside the room, a scuffing of feet perhaps. Carrying the pistol, he slid back the bolts and opened the door.

  A man with a pasty complexion stood immediately outside, all his features soft-edged.

  “Eavesdropping, Lord Janus?” Edwin asked, mirroring the man’s gentle smile.

  “I’m no lord. But thank you.”

  “One day, perhaps.”

  It was impossible to know if Janus had been annoyed by the reminder of his low birth. Resting the pistol barrel on a forearm, Edwin positioned himself beneath the lintel, occupying the s
pace. “What fair chance brings the pleasure of your company?” he asked.

  “The hope of a few words.” Janus spoke as if this was the most reasonable request in the world. “This crisis consumes our waking hours. But we who have the king’s ear should make the time to speak, in private, don’t you think?” He cast his gaze along the corridor, as if to say their conversation would be so much more secure within the Room of Cabinets itself.

  “Of what would you speak?” Edwin asked.

  “Your plan to install a puppet king in Newfoundland.”

  “Our king’s plan.”

  “Every plan is the king’s plan. But all remember who suggested it. And when it comes to ruin…” The softness of the man’s brow could not have sustained a frown of any severity, but his eyes conveyed regret.

  “My magic is dedicated to the king,” Edwin said. “He understands my loyalty.”

  “Your magic…” Janus angled his head, looking over Edwin’s shoulder. “I sometimes wonder what I might learn from half an hour alone with your mother’s boxes. She was very proud of you, you know. Her son. Or daughter?”

  “She gave me this,” Edwin said, lifting the pistol in a limp grip, letting its aim linger on Janus’s chest, as if by accident.

  “There’s no need for that.” Janus pushed the barrel away. “I came with an olive branch.”

  “Then show it.”

  “Very well. When Newfoundland rejects your call to arms – and they will – what will happen then? You will lose your place at the king’s right hand. I will become First Counsellor. You will be – how should we say – vulnerable? I could protect you.”

  “Your price?”

  “Tell the king that he should follow my advice. No more waiting on the dream of an alliance. War without delay. Tell him to send the army across the border into the Gas-Lit Empire. Tell him the auguries have revealed themselves, or some such nonsense… I always admire the way you put these things. Tell him the ghosts have change their minds. Tell him you were wrong. Then I promise to protect you.”