Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  The Committee on Public Safety loves its maps. Street maps. Topographical maps. Epidemiological maps most of all, draft upon draft, all projecting different “what if” scenarios. If the Cough strikes here, it will then travel there, but if it strikes there, it will then go here. These projections are invariably wrong. But—make no mistake—they are loved.

  However, these maps all have a flaw, a blemish marring their beauty like a cold sore.

  Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet.

  It had been Gibson’s idea to burn it. He’d made the case—and Senator Reynolds had agreed—that a seedy little sewer like Magruder’s, with its profane exhibits and uppity caretaker, had no place in the glittering future envisioned by investors. Gibson’s discovery of fleas in the museum provided a convenient excuse to eliminate what had long been a pockmark on the island. And now that old clown Archibald Deschamps claims that Spencer, of all people, has appointed himself Magruder’s protector? Spencer, who abandoned his family in a time of crisis and left Gibson to take up the slack? And that damn bag of cash never did show up in the Reynolds’ account, just as Gib had feared.

  When the senator had packed up for Newport and realized that Spencer was nowhere to be found, he’d flown into a rage. He’d announced he was done with the obstreperous boy—that he’d lost one son to polio and been abandoned by the other. That he no longer had any heirs at all.

  Hmm, Gib had thought at the time, is a position open?

  If so, Gibson Tilden Jr. was just the man to fill it. Magruder’s was clearly the key—it was, in Gibson’s view, the very wellspring of Spencer’s betrayal. But so far, he hasn’t had any luck in convincing the Committeemen to go anywhere near the actual building, much less burn it down.

  In fact, Gibson has spent most of his time skulking around Dreamland, trying to get someone to pay attention to him. He’d arrived grandly, blustering his way through the quarantine checkpoint and announcing himself as Senator William Reynolds’s aide-de-camp…a phrase that departed Gibson’s mouth tasting of honey and reached the Committeemen’s ears stinking of shit. Gibson’s position as aide-de-camp was of utmost importance to him, but it appeared to be of absolutely zero importance to anyone else. Which strikes Gibson as not merely offensive, but also odd—the senator founded the park, so how is it that the Reynolds name carries no weight in Dreamland?

  But this afternoon, finally—a break in the weather.

  “All right, Mr. De Camp,” the secretary mutters. “Chief McGrath will see you.”

  Chapter 41

  The Telegram

  Like a stream flowing over rocks, the routine of daily life has a way of smoothing out even the sharpest of edges. Even someone as determinedly strange as Timur can become predictable if you live with him long enough, and over time, Zeph had become acclimated to Timur’s quirks. The doctor’s inscrutable but urgent errands, his obsessive secrecy and intense dislike of fellow humans, his near-magical command of the principles of engineering… Over time, it all came to seem utterly normal. However odd Timur might be, Zeph believed there was nothing the doctor could do to surprise him.

  Then Timur met Nazan.

  That evening, Zeph had prepared dinner for her, Rosalind, and Vivi.

  “Hoecakes they call these?” Nazan asks, reaching for a second helping. “These are wonderful.”

  “You aren’t even slightly curious what the meat is?” Rosalind asks, eyebrow raised.

  Nazan turns to Zeph, worried. “This isn’t—”

  “A lion? No, no, don’t worry.” He shrugs. “It’s, ah, you know…pork?”

  Rosalind holds up his fork and displays a crunchy strip of something fried. “And which part of the pig would this be, Zeph?”

  He frowns. “Ya know, Ros, I’m not sure that’s really—”

  “I think Miss Nazan would love to know… Feet? My guess is feet.”

  Nazan puts her fork down. “Pardon me?”

  “Feet?” Zeph asks, mock-scandalized. “I would never, never serve hoecakes with pigs’ feet.” He smiles mischievously. “The feet you pickle. These are snouts.”

  During the meal, Timur emerges from his attic lab, demanding an update on the whereabouts of his expected telegram. Pausing to shovel an entire hoecake into his mouth, he overhears Zeph and Nazan chatting. As Nazan explains to Zeph for the second time what exactly a “damn milliamp” is—what it measures; how it might transform a lump of silver into a cure—Timur draws closer. Suddenly, he interrupts their conversation to interrogate Nazan about something called Faraday’s paradox. He fires off a series of gruff questions that Nazan, although startled, apparently answers correctly. There’s a quick round of “Doc, meet Nazan Celik” and “Nazan Celik, meet Doc.” And that’s that.

  Timur helps himself to a glass of whiskey and elbows Zeph out of the seat beside Nazan. To the amazement of the rest, they discuss hydraulic canals beneath Niagara Falls and high-voltage power lines in Montreal and a dozen other topics that not one other soul in the tavern can comprehend. Nazan even musters her courage to ask him about Mrs. Hayward and the silver colloid that Timur seems so sure will be her salvation. When the hour grows late and Nazan’s eyelids heavy, Timur stands. “You sleep. I must work. Tomorrow, you come to attic, see laboratory. We talk colloid. Also, Theobold will be interested about you.”

  Zeph cocks his head at the Doc. “Theobold? Who’s Theobold?”

  “Bah.” Ignoring the question, Timur turns to waggle a finger at Nazan. “Celik, do not sleep late. I no like.”

  Zeph gives Nazan a wink. “Welcome to the circus, my friend.”

  • • •

  The next morning, Zeph goes to wake Nazan, but he needn’t have bothered. She’s awake and waiting, sitting by Mrs. Hayward’s bed and wiping her brow.

  “She any better?” Zeph asks.

  Nazan shakes her head. “Worse, if anything. I think her breathing is slowing.”

  “Okay,” Zeph says, “let’s you and me go visit the big man, see what he can do.”

  As she and Zeph climb the stairs, Nazan can see a pale, peach-colored glow emanating from the attic.

  Entering the lab, Nazan doesn’t see the worktables with gas jets sprouting like metallic bouquets. She doesn’t see the rows of metal shelving, packed with glass bottles of every size and style. She doesn’t see the library of technology journals in a variety of languages, or the metalworking table with piles of brass watch works in various states of assembly. Nazan doesn’t see any of it, because she can’t take her eyes off the dozens of large, rubber balloons, floating and bumping against the attic ceiling. They glow a soft, orangey pink, like tinted moonlight.

  Timur bats one of the balloons out of his way. “Much to show, Celik. In corner, that is induction coil, generating electrostatic field, and—”

  Zeph waves at Timur to slow down. “Give her a minute, Doc.”

  Nazan boggles at the pink balloons, riding air currents like glowing jellyfish on the tide. “I… It’s just…” She looks at Timur. “You said last night that you had wireless power up here. I heard you say it. But I didn’t imagine…” She stares some more, shaking her head. “I didn’t imagine.”

  Zeph climbs up on the worktable beside her. The table is covered with sawdust, which surprises him. Doc’s not the carpentry type normally. Then again, who knows what he gets up to up here? Zeph reaches out and taps one of the balloon lights, sending it careening into another, and that one into another. The balloons ripple and bounce, some drifting up toward the ceiling and some down toward the floor. “Neat, huh? Hate to say it, but I kinda got used to them. Forgot how pretty they are.”

  Timur grunts. “Yes, you forget. I know this because so many are leaking helium since someone forget to refill.”

  Zeph sighs. “I’ll get to it, Doc. Been a little busy.”

  “Bah.” Timur smacks another balloon in annoyance. “Argon, I tell you. Argon better t
han helium.”

  Zeph disagrees. “Do you know what I’d have to go through to get this much argon? Helium we got in Coney in spades, but argon? Plus, you said argon glows blue, which ain’t as good a light source as—”

  “Color of light is not relevant to—”

  “Argon won’t float,” Nazan interjects. She gazes at the glowing balls as they dance. “The floating is important.”

  “Ugh,” Timur says. “Another romantic. Just what I need.”

  From downstairs, a voice calls out, “Hello? Anyone there? I’m from Western Union. I have a telegram for Mr.…Teemoore?”

  “Ahh!” Timur does a little dance, like a young boy who needs to pee. “Am coming,” he calls. “Celik, you make the colloid. I busy.” He dashes downstairs. “Am coming!”

  Nazan watches in amazement as Zeph flutters around the lab, climbing up and down shelves, gathering the equipment. Zeph navigates the room as though his lack of legs is no bother at all—indeed, as though having legs would only slow him down. “So, Celik,” he says, gently mocking Timur’s rather impolite nickname. “How’d you learn all this science anyway?”

  “I read too much.” She reaches up and brushes one of the balloon lights with the tips of her fingers; it pirouettes away flirtatiously. “As it happens, my father is the purveyor of an extremely unpopular tearoom.”

  Zeph laughs, climbing another shelf to grab some more supplies. “Too bad for him, I guess?”

  “Yes,” Nazan agrees. “Bad for him, but very good for me. After I finished secondary school, I wanted to go to college, but—no, that’s not the truth. I begged to go. Pleaded. Threw tantrums. Everything. But my father said I’d already had more education than was healthy. College is not what good girls do, you see. Good girls work for no pay in their fathers’ failing tearooms until such time as they throw their lives away in arranged marriages to odd-smelling strangers from the old country.”

  Zeph whistles. “You really gave up a lot coming to Magruder’s, huh?”

  She laughs. “Definitely. At least the shop’s extreme unpopularity left me with time to read. But I’m just an amateur—I love the idea of chemistry, but I’ve never actually… For pity’s sake, this is the first actual lab I’ve ever been in. I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you.”

  Zeph climbs down with the supplies and spreads them out on the worktable in front of Nazan. “Well now, my amateur lady scientist, don’t you be so hard on yourself. Let’s see here: we got ourselves some test tubes and batteries and silver wire. We got a buncha other mess I don’t hardly know what it is. Let’s you and me save Mrs. Hayward, yeah?”

  She smiles.

  • • •

  Hours fly by as they work on the medicine. The first batch turns to an ugly black sludge, but Nazan deems the second attempt a success. “We should give this to her right now.”

  Zeph nods, tucking the vial of silver colloid into his pocket. “Why don’t you start another batch, and I’ll give this to Mrs. Hayward?”

  “Yes, of course. But, Zeph, I’m concerned about Spencer. I thought he’d be back last night, or surely by this morning. Do you think someone should go look for him? I don’t know how much sense that even makes, but…I just…”

  “Don’t worry,” Zeph says. “I’ll see to it. Rosalind won’t admit it, but he’s worried too.”

  • • •

  Zeph heads for the spare room where Mrs. Hayward lies unconscious. He looks around for a handkerchief to tie around his face before getting too close. Then he stops. “To hell with it.” He climbs up on the bed, tilts her head back, and pours the medicine down her throat. She coughs, sounding like she might choke, but the liquid goes down. “Come on, Mrs. H. You stay with us, you hear?”

  He goes downstairs and finds Rosalind gazing out the open Cabinet door.

  “Hey, Ros, you think you could take a walk, see if you can find Spencer anywhere? Nazan’s getting nervous, and frankly, I’m—”

  “I’ll go,” Rosalind agrees. “But we have another problem.” He points outside.

  “Oh, what is it now?” Zeph joins Rosalind at the door and gasps. Walking down the middle of the street is Vivi. In one hand, she grasps two leashes, with two leopards tied to each leash. In her other hand is a long-handled whip, which she flicks at the cats whenever they start to wander.

  “What the devil, Vivi?” Zeph calls. “You promised me cages!”

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Zeph. Oui, I am so sorry. Monsieur Bostock say he own the cages, and I may not take them. I did not know what to do!” She reaches the stoop with her cats in tow. She mutters to them in some hybrid of French, English, and meowing, and they curl up around her feet. But the smallest of the four glares up at Zeph, a hungry glint in its yellow eyes.

  “Vivi, I…” Zeph chuckles uncomfortably. “I don’t know…”

  “Please, Monsieur Zeph. Bostock will kill them.”

  He sighs. “Okay… Just for now, though, just till we figure something out. Take them out back and… I dunno… There’s an old crabapple tree. Tie ’em to that, I guess.”

  Rosalind’s eyes go wide. “Zeph! Are you out of your—”

  “We can’t leave ’em in the street, can we?”

  “No, but—”

  “Ros, it’ll be fine. They’re… Look at ’em. They look well behaved.” The leopards flick their tails against the hot sidewalk. “Ain’t they well behaved, Vivi?”

  “But of course!”

  “Show Vivi through to the backyard.” Rosalind glares at Zeph. “Rosalind, we’re keeping these leopards safe for a while.”

  “These are dangerous creatures, Zeph. You don’t just—”

  “It’ll cut Archie something fierce, Ros, us keeping ’em when he wants to”—he waggles his eyes in Vivi’s direction, not wanting to say it in front of her—“you know. Wouldn’t that be worth it, just to see his face?”

  “All right, all right.” Rosalind storms back into the museum with Vivi and the leopards following. Zeph is pretty sure he sees the little one lick its chops on the way in.

  “Ros, wait,” Zeph calls. “You seen the Doc?”

  “Tavern,” Rosalind shouts back.

  “Right.”

  Zeph hustles downstairs to find Timur at the bar, curled over his telegram. He’s reading and rereading it, making notes and sketches on the envelope it came in. He mutters to himself. “Yes…no, what? No, no, this no right. Why does the fool think—oh, but maybe like this…” He scribbles some more.

  “Doc,” Zeph says, “sorry to interrupt, but we got a little situation up at the—”

  Timur leaps up. “Zeph! Good. We go up to lab.” He stalks out, not waiting for Zeph to follow.

  “Wait, we—” Zeph scuttles after him, crashing right into the knees of Archie, just arrived at Magruder’s.

  “Zeph, thank goodness,” Archie says. “I need to speak with you. The Committee on Public Safety is—”

  But Zeph doesn’t even stop moving. “Not now, Archie. I got half a dozen things in the fire more important than you.”

  Archie follows. “But this is very—”

  “Not now!”

  Upstairs in the museum, Rosalind has sent Vivi to the yard with her cats and is giving Timur a piece of his mind. “Doctor Timur, I’ve had about enough of—”

  Timur ignores him. “You, to attic. I have pieces built, must be carried to roof for assembly.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rosalind sees Zeph enter with Archie following. “Zeph, what is he talking about? There are dangerous animals with—”

  “They wait,” Timur says. “We take pieces to roof. Assemble.”

  “Actually,” Archie interjects, “I believe my news trumps all of—”

  Timur points at Archie. “You too. Attic.”

  Rosalind combusts, tears of rage spilling down. “I have had as much of you
as I can take. There’s a plague! We’ve had thugs wanting to burn down the museum at the front door, and now we’ve got man-eating beasts at the back. Spencer’s missing, and a little boy has been kidnapped, our little boy! All you can talk about are the gadgets in—”

  “I do this for him!” Timur shouts. “Since that night, when the men come, I no sleep, no eat—I work. For the boy, to bring him back to us.”

  “How is some ridiculous contraption going to bring P-Ray back?”

  Timur shakes his telegram. “Orville promise this work.”

  Chapter 42

  Digby

  Up the narrow steps connecting Magruder’s attic to the roof, Rosalind and Archie each carry one end of one section of Timur’s mysterious contraption. Two long, thin rails are connected by a series of struts and covered with an expanse of canvas. A cyclops is painted on the canvas, and its one eye glares angrily into space as Rosalind steps on his skirt, stumbles, and loses his grip. The wood-and-canvas construction falls, pinning Archie underneath.

  “Christ on a bike!” He shoves the canvas aside and stands, brushing himself off indignantly. “Enough with the charade. Go change into something sensible.”

  Rosalind gestures at his full-length walking skirt. “This is perfectly sensible.”

  “Look, dress however you want on your own time. You can play the goddamned Queen of Sheba, I don’t care…”

  Nazan and Zeph are coming up behind them, dragging a smaller part of Timur’s project.

  “…but when manual labor is required, it is beyond ridiculous for you to carry on like—”

  “Mr. Archibald,” Nazan interjects. “I must insist that you not speak to Rosalind that way! What difference does it possibly make what he wears?”

  Archie glares at Nazan for a second, then bursts out laughing.

  Rosalind elbows his way past Archie. He stops beside Nazan and strokes her cheek. “You are an angel, Miss Celik.” Rosalind straightens his skirt. “I will fetch some help, actual help, to assemble Timur’s contraption, whatever it is. And I will find Mr. Reynolds. I will do these things, even for individuals in this stairwell who do not deserve them.” He lifts his chin high and goes downstairs.