Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  “Stop being crude,” Rosalind says, “and tell us what happened to him.”

  “I don’t think they rightly know,” Whitey says. “Apparently he woke up with a cough this morning. This afternoon? Dies screaming with these black lumps on his neck.”

  Rosalind grimaces. “He got sick and died in one day? Where did you hear this?”

  “That cutie Susannah told me. You know her? The Flamingo Girl at Steeplechase, the one with her knees on backward?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Hey, flamingos don’t lie.”

  “I don’t like it,” Zeph mutters. “We got dead rats in the street, hausfraus having fits, now Orloff’s gone? What’s going on in this town?”

  The drinkers and their bartender fall silent, and Zeph’s hometown singers drift across the room like ghosts.

  “Wade in the water

  Wade in the water, children,

  Wade in the water

  God’s gonna trouble the water.”

  Chapter 10

  Only in New York

  Kitty sits in a flat-bottomed boat in the sky.

  Back in England, Nate the budding architect had bored her senseless with his stories about the size and scope of Manhattan: five-story buildings giving way to seven-story, to ten, fifteen, twenty. And the engineers weren’t finished, Nate declared, not by a long shot.

  “Only in New York!” he’d cried. “That’s what they say! Only in New York do they sort out how to charge you for a piece of the sky.”

  Sitting at the top of Dreamland’s Shoot the Chute ride, she feels her brother’s enthusiasm tickle her spine. Oh, Nate, if only you could see this. But Archie, seated beside her, just looks irritated.

  Their boat will sail down a track at a forty-five-degree angle, travel underneath a footbridge, and splash into a rectangular lake at the center of the park. Dreamland is arranged in a U-shape around the lake, and from her perch, Kitty can see crowds milling about the many attractions along the promenade. All the buildings are painted white, and the most remarkable one glares across at her from the far end of the lake—Beacon Tower, stretching almost four hundred feet into the sky.

  Archie scowls down at the track. “They’d best not dampen my suit. This is bespoke, straight from Saville Row.”

  Kitty looks away, the better to hide her skepticism of that particular boast. After the ordeal at the restaurant, when Archie practically forced her to relate every excruciating detail of her last few days, he’d offered to take her to Dreamland. This was meant as a kindness, to take her mind off her troubles. But this much time spent with an older man she barely knows strains the limits of propriety, and Kitty is becoming concerned about what he’s really after.

  She told herself as they mingled with the crowds on the promenade that the strangers glancing their way saw nothing more than a pleasant father-and-daughter outing. But the occasional twinkle in their eyes, the odd hat tipped subtly in Archie’s direction, made Kitty suspect that father and daughter was not precisely the relationship other people were picturing.

  Still, she is hardly in a position to complain. What else can she do, go back to that bench?

  She smiles at Archie cautiously, and then suddenly they’re off, gliding straight down with wind whipping their hair and buildings flying by, all blending into one expanse of white with candy-pink sky overhead, and there’s the footbridge right ahead of them, and it seems for a moment like it’s all gone horribly wrong and they are about to crash, but then the boat dips a bit lower, and they sail under the bridge, plunged into total darkness for half a second before coming to a dramatic, splashy stop in the middle of the lake.

  Archie is, indeed, rather wet. Cranky, he mutters that it’s time to visit one of the beer sellers at the far end of the park. On their quest for refreshment, they pass the entrance to Lilliputia. Archie explains that inside the gate is a true-to-life version of the German city of Nuremberg but rendered in half size to suit its three hundred small residents. Lilliputia has its own “royal family,” who travel in an elaborate carriage pulled by ponies, as well as its own police force and fire brigade. It has a beach with midget lifeguards, its own theater, its own farm—even its own laundry. “A Chinese midget doing French cuffs.” Archie chuckles. “Have you ever heard the like, Miss Hayward?”

  A giant strides past them in a natty pin-striped suit and beret. Archie calls to him. “Master Coyne!”

  The giant squints down and smiles. “Archibald, how are you?” He has an odd, echoing voice that seems to emanate from deep beneath his massive black shoes.

  “I’m very well, aside from my damp suit! Allow me to introduce my companion, Miss Kitty Hayward. Miss Hayward, this is Bernard Coyne, tallest man in the known universe.”

  Kitty takes Bernard’s badminton racket of a hand with both of hers. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Pleasure is mine, miss. Although, I’m not the tallest man in the universe. Don’t tell my boss, though.” He winks down at her with one of his giant turtle eyes.

  “On your way to Lilliputia?” Archie asks.

  “Just leaving. I’ve got a date with a table girl from Koster’s.”

  “You sly dog!” Archie goes to clap him on the back, but given Bernard’s height, the gesture winds up as more of a slap on the rear.

  “Mr. Coyne,” Kitty says. “I’m terribly curious. What’s your role in a place called Lilliputia?”

  He laughs. “I loiter around and magnify the effect of the place.”

  “Bernard Coyne,” Archie says, “making the small look smaller since 1897.” He pumps Bernard’s hand. “I wish you good fortune tonight, sir.”

  Bernard glances at Kitty one more time. “And you, sir. Pleasure to meet you, miss.” The giant saunters off into the crowd.

  “Doesn’t have a chance in Hades with a table girl, the poor bastard,” Archie muses. “Still. Good man, our Coyne.” He steers Kitty back into the flow of traffic on the Dreamland concourse.

  She stops abruptly. “Oh my,” she says. “What on earth is that?”

  Archie follows her gaze toward an open-fronted building with a white, brick facade. Perched on the roof is a demon, his massive wings stretching from one end of the building to the other. The demon leans over the roof, his sharp claws digging into the facade. His expression suggests he’d happily devour every human on the promenade and spit out their bones, if only he could be bothered to get up.

  “That’s Hell Gate. Silly, but the rubes seem to enjoy it. You pay your nickel and board a boat that runs along a track that’s laid beneath a pool of water. Why so many rides in this blasted park involve getting wet is beyond me.”

  “You aren’t wearing a corset,” Kitty points out. “I confess, I welcome a little moisture now that it’s warmed up so.”

  Archie nods. “Fair enough. Anyway, when the ride begins, the boats travel in circles, faster and faster, as though you’re caught in a whirlpool. And you travel around and around, closer and closer to the abyss, and eventually the boats are sucked down into the very pit of hell!”

  “That sounds terrifying!”

  “Hardly. Just a chintzy stage set. Sad fact is, it doesn’t take much to amuse most people. But this is what you need to understand: any good confidence game is built on two pillars—what people want and what they fear. At the gallery today, Pearson wanted money, and he wanted the satisfaction of knowing that snobby Brits patronize his establishment. And he feared looking like a fool who missed a big sales opportunity. People who plunk down for the Hell Gate ride—what do they want? A thrill? A good scare? Perhaps that’s all it is. Or perhaps they fear, deep down, that there’s nothing more to their existence than the fifty or sixty years they’ll spend scrabbling around this benighted planet. Maybe they’ll plunk down their hard-earned cash at Hell Gate just to feel, if only for a few minutes, that there’s more to human experience. On
ce you understand what people yearn for as well as what terrifies them, you’ll have them wrapped around those pretty fingers of yours.”

  Kitty shakes her head. “I’m sorry? Why would I want that?”

  “You did well today,” he says with a shrug. “At Pearson’s. You did well. With a little education, you could do even better.”

  A loud siren pierces the air. Kitty covers her ears, but Archie claps delightedly. “Young Miss Hayward!” he says. “This you must see.”

  • • •

  The siren continues to blare, and Archie hustles Kitty down the sidewalk to yet another attraction. They dart through the entrance and are confronted with a five-story building of the sort common in New York’s less desirable neighborhoods. Flames shoot out from the lower floors, and panicked residents lean out every open window, calling for help. A rapt audience crowds together on bleachers, but Archie urges Kitty up toward the front.

  A sudden explosion ignites the third floor. People dangle out windows and cling to fire escapes, waving fruitlessly at the audience for assistance. A hook-and-ladder truck arrives; its telescoping ladder is leaned against the building, and a firefighter scrambles up to pull people from the higher floors. Meanwhile, other firefighters spread out a large net. One by one, the panicked residents leap from the building into the air. The audience tenses. “Jump!” they cry. “Jump! Jump!” They cheer at every successful rescue. A pump wagon pulls up in front of the building, and the fireman’s hose springs to life, spraying a cascade of water that does exactly nothing to tamp the flames. Victims appear on the tenement roof, while the fourth floor also catches fire. A young woman leans out her fifth-floor window, clutching a baby swaddled in a blue blanket. “Il mio bambino,” she sobs at the sky. “Si prega di Dio, salva il mio bambino!”

  Kitty can’t help but get caught up in the drama. “Is she quite all right?”

  “Pah,” Archie says. “They do this a dozen times a day.”

  “How’s it work?” Kitty whispers.

  “Gas jets. Pipes installed inside each window send out those flames. Since it’s gas, it doesn’t respond to water, which makes for a good show. But it’s completely controlled. Glorious, no? Hold on, here comes the best bit.”

  A second fire truck pulls up to the building, and an enormous ladder extends upward, leaning against the side of the tenement. A fireman clambers up the ladder as the young mother waves to him frantically. “Mio Dio,” she cries. “Salva il mio bambino!”

  “Oh, mio Dio,” Archie mutters. “Mio Italiano es horrible-o!”

  Even at the top of the ladder, the fireman is still slightly below and to the side of the woman in the window. He braces his body against the ladder and reaches up to her, while she reaches down toward him, their hands inches apart. “Pass me the baby,” he shouts. “Bambino! Give me the baby!”

  “Non posso! Non riesco a raggiungere!” She stretches her arm out farther, starting to lose her balance on the window ledge.

  “Come on, lady! Pass me the darn kid!”

  An explosion rips through the fifth floor, sending the woman tumbling out the window and knocking the fireman off the ladder into the net below. The woman clings to the window ledge with one arm, still holding her infant.

  The audience is riled, and people stand up. “Jump into the net!” “It’s your only hope!” “Save yourself!” “Save your baby!”

  The woman sobs hysterically and clutches the window ledge. “Oh Dio! Mio bambino!”

  The roof moans and collapses on itself. People trapped on the roof leap from the building, some landing in the net, others crumpling into broken heaps on the street.

  Kitty looks to Archie, wide-eyed.

  “It’s a padded floor,” he whispers. “Painted to look like sidewalk. It’s completely choreographed. Il genius-o, no?”

  The young mother clinging on to the building appears to be losing strength in her arm. Her body swings as she struggles to grip on the ledge without dropping the baby. She screams, an inhuman shriek that rattles Kitty’s bones. A firefighter climbs toward her, while others gather by the net, imploring her to hold on. But she loses her grip and drops, curling her body around her infant like a comma.

  The crowd cheers and celebrates as the firemen send one last blast of water at the burning tenement—somehow extinguishing the flames, while previous efforts had failed—and the building too, is saved. Then one miracle more: the bodies on the street spring to life again, bowing and waving.

  Archie joins the crowd in applauding and whistling. “Now that is a show!”

  Kitty claps along but shakes her head. “No, that is bizarre!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s a ‘show’ about something tragic that happens all the time, to real people! And real people who are forced to choose between burning and jumping? They don’t take bows afterward.”

  “Precisely my point! Child, look around you.” He gestures at the happy crowd, now gathering their belongings and streaming out in search of the next miracle. “These sheep live the most dreary lives imaginable. Lives that will, for the most part, end very badly indeed. What was it the poet said? ‘Eat, drink, and be merry’?”

  “For tomorrow we die in a tenement fire?”

  “Quite so. Tomorrow, we die in a tenement fire. But not today, you see. Today is our lucky day. Today, we cheat death once again.”

  Kitty smiles sadly, thinking of Nate. How his lucky day had come and gone. “Only in New York,” she says quietly.

  “Come! I’ve a mighty thirst, Miss Hayward. But not that watered-down swill they sell in the park. I have a better idea.”

  Chapter 11

  Unflappable Girls

  As night falls on Magruder’s, Rosalind sends Whitey home with a fresh bandage and strict instructions to get some rest and avoid entanglements with princesses and tattooed men alike.

  At the bar, Zeph, Rosalind, and Enzo nurse their drinks and mull over the strange events of the day. The door opens, and a young woman soon appears at the bottom of the steps. She wears a modest, ankle-length skirt in a warm-brown color with a white, high-necked shirtwaist top. Enzo nudges Rosalind and jerks his thumb at the girl. “See, peacock?” he says. “This is how proper ladies dress.”

  “Humph,” Rosalind mutters. “Dress like a mud pie with a face to match.”

  The young woman’s escort carefully ducks in the doorway. With his hat removed, he can just barely stand upright without bumping the ceiling. “Afternoon, folks,” he says, and his deep voice makes the glasses vibrate.

  Zeph smiles. “Bernard! How’s every little thing?”

  Bernard nudges the young woman toward the bar. Beside her towering companion, she looks like a midpriced china doll. They each take a stool—Bernard sits sideways to stretch out his massive legs. “This is my new friend Miss Maggie.”

  “Welcome to Magruder’s, Miss Maggie. Any new friend of Bernard’s and so forth. So, a glass of the good stuff for Bernard, and for you, miss? Can I get you something? I can make you a Belle Epoque; it’s a cocktail I invented for Rosalind. You’ll think you’re at the Manhattan Beach Hotel.”

  “I’ll try it, thank you.”

  As Zeph gets the drinks, Bernard says, “Maggie’s a table girl at Koster’s Music Hall.”

  “Table girl, huh? So you sit on their laps and talk ’em into ordering more beer than they should?”

  “And I sing!” Maggie says indignantly. “Sometimes I sing.”

  “She sings something beautiful,” Bernard says proudly.

  “Wasn’t criticizing.” Zeph rolls back with the cocktails. “We all gotta make a living.”

  “I’m confused,” Maggie says, looking around. “You said Magruder’s, but I thought Magruder’s was the dime museum? I guess I had it wrong?”

  “No, miss, you have it just about right. We prefer ‘curiosity cabinet,’ but dime
museum is close enough. That’s upstairs. Couple years back, Doc Timur built this big ol’ boiler contraption, kinda by accident, and he said”—here Zeph affects a thick accent—“‘Vell, Zeph, too-day aye make zis! But aye doo not know vat zis is!’ And I says to him, ‘Well, I do—zis is a still!’ So I went to work on it. We had nothing going on down here, so I thought, why not? Now, late afternoon rolls around; I close the Cabinet and open the tavern. Excuse me, be right back.” And whoosh, he’s off, flying down the bar to minister to Enzo’s empty glass.

  Maggie’s eyes follow Zeph but come to rest on a young man several stools down. He’s well turned-out in a fine waistcoat and pin-striped trousers; his Roman profile is accentuated by short, slicked-back hair. Maggie sits up a little straighter on her stool. Bernard is nice enough, but she can’t imagine a future with a man so towering that he has to stoop several feet to kiss her. This fellow at the bar, on the other hand, has potential…

  But then the fellow speaks to Zeph. “I’d adore another drink, darling.”

  Maggie frowns. Darling?

  The fellow continues. “I’ve always meant to ask you about that story, Zeph. Who accidentally builds a still?”

  Zeph shrugs and fixes another cocktail. “Who knows what the Doc gets up to in the lab? He could be up there turning crab shells into gold, for all I know.” He sees Maggie staring. “Ah, sorry, Miss Maggie. This here is Rosalind. Ros, meet Bernard’s girl, Maggie.”

  The Roman prince turns, and Maggie squeaks. On the right side is a fashionable young man. But the waistcoat that had so captured Maggie’s attention only covers half of Rosalind’s body; it is stitched into a fussy gown covering the other half. On the left, Rosalind is a fashionable young woman, with half a face of makeup and half a head of long, black hair pinned behind the ear. Rosalind’s female hand is adorned with rings and handmade porcelain fingernails, each painted like a peacock feather.

  Rosalind smiles at Maggie indulgently. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Maggie says before she can stop herself. “But… I mean… Why, you’re so strange! Have you always been this way?”