The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath: From the Peculiar Adventures of John Lovehart, Esq., Volume 1 (Notebooks of John Loveheart, E)

by Ishbelle Bee

  “Is there anything else, Mrs Butters?”

  She kept laughing.

  “Mrs Butters?” Detective Sergeant White repeated coldly.

  The laughing stopped suddenly and those little dark eyes looked down at her own hands and played with the dirty brown lace over her fingers. “I would say he’s as mad as a hat. I really can tell you nothing more, gentlemen.”

  She stood to leave, Detective Sergeant White escorting her to the entrance, down a long, narrow corridor. She stood by the door and turned to look at me sideways and bowed very low. And then, smiling like a wicked goblin, she disappeared out of the door and into the busy street.

  I stood there, my feet planted in the carpet. Rooted to the floor. My brain dumb. And then I shouted, “IT’S HIM. IT’S HIM!”

  But he was already lost in London.

  VIII: December 1886

  Tumbletee & Mr Fingers

  My name is Ebeneezer Tumbletee and I am a puzzle box. I am an emporium of magic tricks. I am the saw that the magician cuts his assistant in half with. And then people wonder why she’s dead.

  I am a nasty thing and as mad as scissors .

  * * *

  Snip snip Snip snip

  * * *

  Tumbletee.

  That is my name.

  And you ask me, what is my story, where am I from? Am I even human? And I shall tell you. Yes, yes, I was once human, but I was never nice.

  I was raised by a wealthy family in London. My father was a merchant in jewels and made a fortune travelling the world. I was an only child, independent and bright, and it was thought I would take over my father’s business when I came of age. My father would bring home pockets stuffed with pearls and emeralds as big as eyeballs. And I would juggle them – play with a king’s treasure like a court jester. I was given everything I could ever want and yet I still turned out wrong.

  I killed all our family pets, threw their bodies in the sewers, but I kept the teeth as a souvenir. Stuffed them in the velvet jewellery boxes my father brought back from his trip to Paris. Diamonds were replaced by teeth. My collection was kept at the bottom of my wardrobe. Row upon row of little black boxes. Little magic boxes for a wicked fairy.

  By the time I was ten years old I had killed my first human being. It was our serving maid. I pushed her down the stairs. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA

  It was easy enough. And her teeth were my prize. Despite my deformity of the mind, my family remained blissfully unaware. I sometimes wonder if they were completely stupid. I managed to commit seven murders before my fifteenth birthday, one of which included my cousin, Septimus, to whom befell an unfortunate accident. He slipped and fell off the roof. My foot firmly planted in his backside. Tee hee hee!! It was all far too easy and far too enjoyable for me to ever be able to stop.

  Our house was a lavish but gloomy three storey building near Hyde Park, which my bedroom window overlooked. I would watch the pedestrians and think of ways to get their teeth. You may wonder why I had such an obsession for teeth. I have often wondered myself and I really don’t have a clue. I cannot give you an answer. My first memory of teeth was my grandfather’s. I was sitting perched on his knee, my face close to his mouth, which was covered in grey whiskers. And his teeth were huge and yellow fang-like monstrosities. Incisors like a sabre-toothed tiger. I remember thinking, he’s going to take a bite out of me.

  And now you’re wondering if I now have those specimens in one of my little dark boxes don’t you? Well, the answer is yes. They have always been my prize possession. I didn’t kill him. He died peacefully in his armchair. I just pulled them out later.

  But things change, they always do, and my life just after my fifteenth birthday changed dramatically.

  My father had been away for several months in Africa, overseeing a diamond mining operation, and he returned unexpectedly one evening with a terrible fever, with pustules on his face and body, sweating and hallucinating. The doctor confined him to his room, but it was far too late.

  The next day my mother contracted the disease, followed by myself. My father died on the third day, screaming. We let the servants go. The doctors could do nothing; they could not recognize the disease. I lay in my room and I could hear my mother crying next door, dying. During the night she passed away and I was left alone. I did not want to die. I did not want to end. I kept thinking I could see my grandfather sitting in the corner of the room watching me, smiling and toothless. He smelt of boiled butterscotch sweets. I think he was happy watching me die. I think he was chuckling.

  And so I said out loud, “My name is Ebeneezer Tumbletee and I will make a deal with any angel or devil to save my life.”

  I didn’t get an angel. But I wasn’t expecting one. And he appeared and stood by my bed with his little black spectacles and introduced himself as the Lord of the Underworld.

  “You are a curious thing, Ebeneezer,” he said, leaning against the wardrobe. I could barely keep my eyes open; a haze was forming around the room, dark and smoggy. My grandfather had disappeared.

  “I think you had better come with me. And don’t worry, I won’t bite,” he said, smiling.

  June 1887

  Tumbletee trades a soul for teeth

  I am a magician. I am a collector of rare artefacts, especially teeth. And I had one particular artefact I wished to sell. A soul. A very rare soul. I kept it in a beautiful glass jar. The soul was a wispy trail of blue, swirling and bubbling. I was sad to part with it, but there were other things I required.

  I visited the clockmaker, Albert Chimes. The extender of lives, the killer of children. I had a trade for him. A soul for teeth, a soul for teeth, a soul for teeth… toothypegs.

  “Good morning, Albert,” I said, and took off my top hat. He looked positively terrified and this pleased me. I was perhaps the one thing that frightened him.

  “What are you doing here, Tumbletee?” I had traded with him before, he knew what I liked.

  “I have something to sell. Something that might interest you,” and I removed the jar from my coat pocket and put it into his hands. His eyes lit up, mesmerized by the contents.

  “A soul.”

  “A very unusual soul,” I replied.

  “How did you acquire this?”

  “It is from an Egyptian princess. I spent some time on an excavation in Cairo. Her tomb was painted with red flowers. Her soul lay in a little pot waiting to be collected.”

  “This soul is not human. It is something else,” Albert muttered, shaking it slightly. He was excited. I could see his hands trembling.

  “Yes, she was rather unusual. Some sort of sorceress, perhaps? Put her into one of your clocks.”

  And then I spied a beautiful grandfather clock engraved with ladybirds, at the back of his shop. “Something appropriate. Something like that,” and I pointed at it.

  “And what do you want in exchange?”

  I smiled. “Teeth. Teeth of the children. I need rather a lot.”

  “What do you want with the teeth?” He looked disgusted.

  I laughed out loud. “You have the audacity to ask me what I need children’s teeth for, and yet you kill them and stuff their souls into clocks. Give me the teeth, Albert, there’s a good boy, and you can have the soul.”

  “Very well,” he rasped, and a deal was struck.

  “How shall I get the teeth to you?”

  “My manservant Foxhole will come and collect. I need a rather large supply.”

  “Of course, but I will need a little time to get it ready for you.” And he examined the soul as a schoolboy looking at a jar of sweets. “Wonderful,” he sighed.

  “I thought you’d like her.”

  June, 1888

  Captain Mackerel & the Voyage Back to England

  The Mermaid’s Tail sliced through the waves. Taking us back to England, back to the ladybird clock. Back to my mad grandfather. Back to the beginning, to find an ending.

  I peered over the edge of the boat into green waters, saw a
flash of silver fin. Closed my eyes and imagined an underwater city with pyramids tangled in black seaweeds, the priests float through their temples with fish tails and algae frilled eyes. I dipped my hand into sea foam, icing on a great salty cake. I smell shipwrecks and shark bites. But Captain Mackerel is favoured by the old Gods; he wears bone charms round his neck and kisses mermaids. We are safe with him.

  Goliath and Captain Mackerel play chess at night. Captain Mackerel always wins (I think his cat helps him, for cats know about hidden things, they can smell secrets). It purred and flicked its tail, expecting a boiled herring. I stroked its back, stared into its giant jewelled eyes. “What sort of magic cat are you?” I asked it.

  It replied with a sly wink and leapt off my lap into shadows, in search of rats.

  At night Goliath told me fairy stories; princesses and peas, kissing frogs and bad tempered wizards. I liked to hear about the wizards; their funny pointy hats, their wands that zap, their long blue beards and unicorn horn shaped towers. Spiral to the top. Point at stars like a pyramid. I miss Egypt, I tell Goliath and pull his wild beard.

  “We will return, little one,” he says, and I fall asleep, my little fist still clutching his great beard. Taking him with me into dreams.

  IX: August 1888

  The Chase for Tumbletee

  My grandmother Isabella told me once that there are plenty of funny buggers in London. That gem of wisdom was given to me while she was peeling spuds. She said “men are like potatoes – occasionally you come across a rotten one, or one that looks suspicious.”

  Constable Walnut and I were on the trail for Tumbletee, and if he were a potato my grandmother would have slung him in with the pig slops. We had located the landlady, Mrs Pudding, off Mitre Square.

  “Do you think he will be dressed up as a woman again, sir?” said Walnut.

  “Be prepared for any eventuality, Walnut,” I replied.

  The lodgings were small and run down. A very short, plump woman in a mourning gown let us in.

  “Mrs Pudding?” I enquired.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “My name is Detective Sergeant White and this is Constable Walnut. Do you have a tenant named Ebeneezer Tumbletee?”

  “I do, and he’s a very fine gentleman.”

  “May we see his room, madam?”

  She took a brass key out of her pocket. “You may, but you’re interrupting my mourning of my late husband, Mr Pudding, who died at sea.”

  “My condolences, madam,” and we followed her up a flight of creaky stairs to the attic rooms.

  “Shark,” she added.

  “Where?” said Walnut and looked worried.

  “My husband was eaten by a shark.” Mrs Pudding crossed herself.

  We arrived at Tumbletee’s room.

  “He’s been a very good tenant. Quiet, pays his rent on time, polite and well behaved. I couldn’t ask for any more. He’s a perfect example of what I expect in a tenant.”

  She placed the key in the lock and the door swung open. The room was covered in blood. It was all over the floors and up the walls and on the ceiling. Mrs Pudding screamed and fainted into the arms of Constable Walnut, who buckled under her weight.

  I stood looking into the room. On the bed, which was saturated in gore, was a little box tied with a black ribbon. It was the only object in the room not bloodstained. I moved closer and picked it up. It was the size of my fist. I opened it. A row of human teeth sat at the bottom of the box, and a small piece of paper with writing on.

  * * *

  Dear Detective Sergeant White,

  Meet me for a little chat at the British Museum, 2pm today in the Egyptian exhibition.

  Your faithful friend,

  Ebeneezer Tumbletee Esq.

  * * *

  I informed Constable Walnut and left him with Mrs Pudding to take a brief statement. I left immediately for the British Museum, as I had less than an hour before my appointment. Walnut would follow shortly. The sky was already beginning to cloud over; thin eel-like swirls painted the sky.

  The Museum was quiet and empty. I counted only a handful of people. I walked past a series of Roman statues, each one smooth and cream-coloured, watching over me softly. My feet tapping, echoing on the stone floors.

  The Egyptian exhibition was on the second floor. I could see three people hovering about: a little girl and her mother, holding hands, peering at a gold and turquoise tureen within a cabinet with crocodile engravings. And a curate with red hair, and a large, equally red nose was touching the black sarcophagus in the centre of the room, where a young king slept in death. I could hear the little girl speaking to her mother, “Why do they like crocodiles so much, Mummy? Crocodiles eat people.”

  I stood next to the curate, “Hello, Mr Tumbletee.” I knew it was him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist it again.

  The curate turned, grinning manically. “Oh, well done, detective. So you met Mrs Pudding?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s in mourning, you know. So I hope you were sensitive with her.”

  I said nothing.

  “Of course,” he continued, “He’s been dead over fifteen years, so she needs to get over it at some point.”

  “I have to arrest you, Tumbletee.”

  “Have you ever been to Egypt, Detective Sergeant White?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a fascinating place. I was over there for quite a few months, travelling and acquiring objects from excavations. Do you know much about the Egyptian gods?”

  “Mr Tumbletee, we need to go down to the station to have this conversation. Other constables will be arriving shortly.”

  “There is a god called Apophis. He’s comes from the underworld. He’s a snake god, but more importantly he’s a force of chaos. I like chaos. The body or coils of this snake god represent a void or black hole that swallows people up. Do you know what I am saying to you, Detective Sergeant White?”

  “I think I know what you are.”

  “Very good. We understand one another. There is absolutely no question of redemption or remorse for me.

  I am chaOs. I am a blaCk hOle.

  I will not stop unless someone is capable of stopping me.”

  Constable Walnut arrived. “Everything alright, sergeant?”

  “Yes, Walnut, everything is in hand. Mr Tumbletee was just about to accompany us to the police station.”

  “Let’s be having you then, you funny bugger,” Constable Walnut approached.

  “Ahh, Constable Walnut. The comedy sidekick.”

  “I’m not the one who dresses up as a member of the clergy with a rubber nose,” Walnut replied, waggling a finger in protestation.

  “Are you capable of stopping me?” Mr Tumbletee looked directly at me and then opened his hands. “Did I tell you I was a magician?”

  And he disappeared.

  “What the hell?’ cried Walnut.

  “Seal off the exits to the museum. He must be here somewhere,” I cried.

  But he wasn’t.

  A few days later a letter arrived for me, postmarked Paris:

  * * *

  Dear Detective Sergeant White,

  Paris is beautiful this time of year. I am sorry we couldn’t have got to know each other better.

  I have a little project I want to begin. It involves BUTCHERING women. So you’ll know when I have returned. Don’t try and arrest me next time, Percival. Just kill me.

  With love,

  Tumbletee

  X: August 1888

  Mr Tumbletee & Mr Fingers Have Dinner

  It was raining in Paris, and late evening. The moon and stars were dazzling. I don’t usually notice them at all, but it was hard not to that night. They were so bright. Spermy wriggling shooting stars fell, white across a black canvas. I was meeting my father for dinner. It had been a while since we’d met, but we’d a lot to talk about, and I could already smell him. He was underneath the earth, deep, deep down where the secret stains oozed. Mushroom spores,
broken glass, hands of women, bones of a saint. He’s a forbidden land and I am his map. See the ink stains in my eyes?

  I’d chosen a dark little restaurant and a candlelit table in a secretive corner. A bottle of champagne, and I’d ordered bloodied beef and custard apple tarts for pudding. Not that he liked that kind of food. Neither did I, really. His wafty scent mingled with the Parisian moonlight – it was dried blood, it was dark earth and cogs turning on his ancient clocks. Daddy DADDY DADDY daddy DADDY DADDY MY DADDY MY DADDY MY DADDY MY DADDY DADDY DADDY.

  Daddy of the Underworld.

  Ladybird waistcoat, dark spectacles, crooked smile. He sat and poured himself a glass of champagne.

  “Ebeneezer, my boy. It’s lovely to see you again.”

  “Father. I was hoping we could talk.”

  “I’ve been keeping track of your career. Very interesting. Very. Interesting,” He sipped his champagne. I could tell he was angry and it pleased me.

  “I want you to be impressed, Father.”

  “You gave a soul to Albert Chimes, the clockmaker. Why?”

  “I have no use for souls.”

  “Do you know what that soul was?”

  “I knew it was unusual. Some sort of witch princess.”

  “Did you realise the power it had?”

  “No.” Lying, tee hee!

  “Then let me tell you, boy,” and he forced a forkful of bloodied beef into his mouth and chewed. “That soul is able to open doorways to other worlds and to control time. The Egyptian princess had enormous power. You gave that soul to a grubby little clockmaker in the East End of London, who will stick it in a clock. I must now retrieve it for myself.”