by C. J. Archer
“To ask if you sent a thief to Charbonneau’s house to burgle him.”
Lord Coyle’s chuckle started deep in his belly and rose to his chest. It rocked him, making his entire body shake and his jowls tremble. “Very amusing, Glass.”
“Did you?” I pressed.
“To steal what, precisely? I already have enough magical iron in my collection.” He indicated the shelves that were in fact a secret door that led to the hidden room. “Did Charbonneau put you up to this? The man dislikes me, you know. Can’t think why.”
The library door opened. “Who was that—?” Hope cut herself off when she saw us. A visible change passed over her, like a ripple. It lifted her features and put a smile on her lips. It was entirely for Matt’s benefit, of course. I doubted seeing me would raise her spirits. “Dearest cousins, how lovely to see you both. Do come through to the drawing room. The library has a strange smell in it that the maids can’t get rid of.”
“The Glasses are about to leave,” Lord Coyle told her. “They stated their business, and I suspect will have nothing further to say when I tell them they’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“What tree is that, Husband?”
“I did not send a thief to steal anything from Charbonneau.”
Hope gasped. “He was robbed? How awful. What did the thieves take?”
“A magical object,” Matt said.
“No wonder you think it was my husband. But I can assure you, he hasn’t sent a thief to steal from Mr. Charbonneau. You ought to look elsewhere for your culprit.”
“And you know everything he does?” I asked. “Every person he meets, including the woman who just left?”
Hope’s spine stiffened. So I was right. She’d come in here to ask her husband who’d visited.
Lord Coyle put out his hand to her. “Come, my dear. There’s no need to be jealous.”
Hope’s wince was almost imperceptible and I wondered if her husband noticed it. She hesitated a mere moment before going to him.
“She was a magician,” he told us.
“Who?” I asked.
“No one you know. I asked her here to touch a magical object for me and confirm whether or not it does have magic in it.”
“I could have done that for you,” I said.
“You are the one who gave it to me, and it’s fair to say I don’t trust you. Indeed, I shouldn’t say gave, I meant sold, and it was Glass, not you, who asked a considerable thing in return.”
My blood chilled and my heart raced. Beside me, Matt shifted his weight to his other foot.
“I see from your faces that you realize I now know you sold me an ordinary rug, not a magical flying one.” He indicated the rug beneath our feet. “I thought it was too small to be the one we saw that day.”
“You didn’t expect us to hand over something so valuable.” Matt did not pose it as a question so Lord Coyle offered no answer.
He merely sat there, holding his wife’s fingertips as if he’d just managed to catch her before she snatched her hand away. “You crossed me, Glass.”
“Go on,” Matt said idly. “Next you have to issue a threat. That’s how these exchanges go.”
I could have kicked him, but I doubted that would have shut him up. Matt was not going to bow beneath Coyle’s ferocity any more than Coyle was going to let us get away with the duplicity.
“I won’t threaten you,” Lord Coyle said. “Not if you give me the real magical carpet.”
“It’s lost,” I told him. “It landed in a paddock somewhere near Brighton and has since disappeared.”
“Perhaps a cow ate it,” Matt said without taking his cold glare off Coyle.
“I want that carpet!”
Hope and I both jumped at Coyle’s bellow. Coyle’s grip tightened on her fingers.
Hope swallowed. “You could speak the spell into another one.” She tapped her toe on the rug beneath her feet. “Why not this one? Do it now.”
“The spell was stolen from Fabian and I haven’t memorized it,” I said.
Her eyes widened. She turned to her husband.
He let go of her hand. “Another carpet will not suffice. I want the original. That was what I purchased.”
“Why does it matter?” Hope asked. “It will still be one of two flying magical carpets in existence.”
“It matters!”
I jumped again, but Hope seemed prepared this time. She regarded him with that superior air she often used on me. I wondered if it galled him as it galled me. After all, she was only on her lofty pedestal because marrying him put her there.
“No harm done,” Matt said. His cheerfulness got everyone’s attention in the way a sharp object down a chalkboard does. “No money exchanged hands and we hadn’t yet collected our payment. As to the matter of the burglary…”
Coyle pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“Can we at least look at your collection? Just to make sure, of course.”
An unexpected ally came in the form of Hope. “That seems like a good idea. We can have this resolved in a moment.” To her husband, she added, “We don’t want them thinking you’re a common thief.”
Coyle’s jowls took on a life of their own as he struggled to contain his rising temper. He failed, however, and his face turned a dangerous shade of puce. “I said get out!”
The door opened and the butler and a burly footman stood there.
Matt smiled at Coyle. “Why won’t you listen to your wife on this? If you want us to think you innocent, you should just open the secret door.”
“I don’t care what you think,” Coyle ground out between a locked jaw. He flicked a hand at the butler. “See Mr. and Mrs. Glass out.”
The butler indicated we should exit the library ahead of him.
“Then bring me a cigar,” Lord Coyle snapped.
Hope pulled a face. “You promised me you wouldn’t smoke in the house. It makes the furniture smell.”
“It’s my bloody house, my furniture, and I like the smell.”
“That’s the end of that love affair,” Matt said as the butler closed the front door behind us.
“I don’t think love had much to do with their relationship. Certainly not on her part. Her reasons for marrying Coyle were entirely avaricious.”
Matt gave Woodall the address Fabian had given for Mr. Trentham’s toyshop. He’d gleaned it from the toymaker at Louisa’s soiree. Once we were settled in the carriage, Matt tucked the blanket over my lap. When the horses set off, I rocked forward, bumping my forehead on his chin. He kissed the spot, his warm lips lingering invitingly.
But I wasn’t in the mood for kisses. “Do you think we need to worry about Coyle’s threat?” I asked.
“He didn’t threaten us. Not really.”
I regarded him levelly. “You know what I mean. Should we be worried that he knows we tricked him?”
“We should always worry about Coyle.”
I sighed. Worrying about Coyle and what he’d do was constantly in the back of my mind of late. The problem was, we weren’t entirely sure what he wanted. Money seemed the most obvious, but why? He had no heir to leave it to, unless Hope fell pregnant. Perhaps he wanted power, but I wasn’t sure how collecting magical objects would get it. Collecting information certainly did, and had allowed him to manipulate people and events to his liking, but not magical things.
“I wonder why he didn’t want us seeing his collection today,” I said.
“Probably because your spell is in there.”
“I suppose so.”
The question now was, who stole it for him? And if it was the toymaker magician, would he admit it to save himself? Or did Coyle have some incriminating information against him that would see him lie, no matter what?
Chapter 4
Mr. Trentham’s toyshop on High Holborn was a delightful fantasy land for any child. It was crammed with everything a boy or girl could dream up, from baby rattles to sophisticated train sets. A rather intricate dolls house with miniat
ure furniture reminded me of a carpentry magician we’d met recently. It sat at the back of the shop beside a life-sized medieval knight complete with helmet, chainmail and shield. There were also toy soldiers arranged in battle formation, board games, rocking horses, boats and a collection of puppies that looked eerily lifelike.
It was the workshop at the back that delighted me more, however. Spread over a counter, desk and on the floor itself, were half-built toys, painting tubes and brushes, and internal mechanisms that looked similar to those used in timepieces. They must be for the drum-playing monkey automaton perched on the end of the long workbench. It looked poised to make a loud bang on its drums, and going by its mischievous expression, it couldn’t wait to annoy the adults of the household while delighting the children.
I picked up a toy soldier’s wooden leg only to put it down again when I spotted train carriages lined up to be painted. They were wooden too, with a pull string for a young child to tug. A metal train set on the desk looked more interesting and I bent to have a closer look.
“How does it move?” I asked. “Can I look inside to see how it works?”
Mr. Trentham chuckled softly. His wife, serving in the shop at the front, had shown us through to her husband’s workshop before leaving us alone. We had not yet stated our business.
“It uses a simple winding mechanism.” Mr. Trentham held up a key and inserted it into a slot at the front of the engine. “Like a clock.”
“No wonder I was drawn to it.”
He cleared some space on the workbench and positioned the engine at one end. He turned the key and the engine whirred then moved forward two feet before coming to a halt.
“Marvelous,” I said, successfully keeping the disappointment from my voice.
“That’s without magic.” Mr. Trentham returned the engine to the end of the counter then spoke a spell very similar in timbre to Fabian’s iron movement spell. He turned the key, released it, and the engine shot forward. It lost power about half way along the counter and stopped before it toppled off the end.
I applauded, although I was still somewhat disappointed. The counter was only about five feet long.
Mr. Trentham gave me a sheepish look. “I’m afraid that’s it. The spell only works for a single use.”
“It’s still magical, Mr. Trentham, and all magic is marvelous.”
“You’re too kind. I know it’s not much. My magic is…not what it ought to be.”
“Mr. Charbonneau told me you think a curse was laid upon you and your magic,” I said.
He picked up the engine and studied it with a sigh. “A rival magician toymaker, Nicholas Mirnov, put the curse on me several years ago. Before the curse, that train would have traveled clean off the counter and landed gently on the floor. Now, not only can’t it reach the end, but it would break if it fell.”
“Your spell could control its flight?”
“I controlled its speed and direction with my mind. I had to concentrate very hard, but it almost always worked. Now, my magic is a shadow of what it once was.”
It was very much how I’d made the carpet fly so I knew he must be speaking the truth. “Tell me about Nicholas Mirnov.”
“Despite the foreign sounding name, he’s English. He sells toys from a cart he takes around the poorer streets of Bethnal Green.” He made a face. “He’s friendly with the foreigners in those parts, and is part gypsy, I believe. Filthy, sticky-fingered thieves, the lot of them.”
“Why did he curse you?”
“It wasn’t him, it was his wife, but she did it upon his urging, I’m sure of it. She’s full gypsy. Her family are travelers, living out of caravans and tents, but she and Mirnov settled down in London when they married.”
“You seem to know him quite well.”
“We’re both members of the Toymaker’s Guild. I identified him as a magician immediately I touched one of his toys and felt its heat. I thought we could become friends, but…” He shook his head. “He saw me as a rival. He wanted to be the best toymaker magician in London, without equal. Hence the curse.”
“And yet he sells toys out of a cart,” I pointed out. “Whereas you have this wonderful shop.”
“He wants to avoid detection from the guild, but I suspect he has plans to make something marvelous, something unrivaled, and is worried I’ll beat him to it. Or he was worried, before the curse.” He cast a forlorn look at the engine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt touching things on the desk, picking them up and putting them down without properly inspecting them. He was waiting for me to finish before he asked his own questions. Considering my questions had nothing to do with the task at hand and were more to satisfy my own curiosity about curses, I decided to end my interrogation and let him take over.
“We need to ask you some questions, Mr. Trentham,” I said.
“I’m honored.” He fought against a smile. “My magic is humble compared to yours, Mrs. Glass. I hope I may answer to your satisfaction. What do you want to know?”
I suddenly had reservations about what we were doing. Fabian’s instincts had sent us here, not solid clues. Accusing Mr. Trentham of theft seemed somewhat presumptuous given our lack of evidence.
Matt had no such qualms, however. “Where were you last night after Lady Hollingbroke’s soiree?”
The question startled Mr. Trentham. “Why?”
“Mr. Charbonneau was burgled.”
Mr. Trentham gasped. “That’s terrible. But…do you suspect me?”
“We’re asking everyone about their whereabouts last night,” I said quickly.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone with an interest in magic.”
“Was one of his magical artefacts stolen?”
Neither Matt nor I responded. Mr. Trentham’s gaze snapped from me to Matt then back again. Needing to avert my gaze so I didn’t give away too much, I picked up the automaton monkey.
“Was it something special?” Mr. Trentham pressed. “Perhaps something Mr. Charbonneau was working on with you, Mrs. Glass? Perhaps a new spell?”
“What new spell?” Matt growled.
“That’s enough speculation,” I said, snippily. The snippiness was for both his and Mr. Trentham’s benefit. Matt needed to know that Mr. Trentham was merely guessing, and neither Fabian nor I had mentioned our flying spell to him at the soiree.
Mr. Trentham put up his hands. “It’s an open secret among magicians that you were working on creating new spells. Many suspect you already created one before stopping your experiments. And since I asked a great many questions about it last night, Mr. Charbonneau suspects me of its theft. It explains why you’re here today.” When Matt nodded, Mr. Trentham sat heavily on the chair at the workbench. “I can assure you, it wasn’t me. I’m no thief.”
“Then you won’t mind answering the question,” Matt said. “Where were you last night?”
Mr. Trentham flipped open the lid of a paint pot. He picked up a paintbrush in one hand and a carriage in the other. “At home upstairs.”
“Your wife will confirm that?”
Mr. Trentham’s hand shook. “Of course.”
Matt opened the door leading to the shop and waited as Mrs. Trentham finished serving a woman and her small son. Once the customer paid, Mrs. Trentham came out from behind the counter and bent to the boy’s level.
“There you go, General,” she said, handing the boy a box painted with a battle scene on the lid.
His face lit up as he accepted it.
“Now remember to play with the soldiers every day or they get lonely. And be firm,” she said with mock sternness. “They require a strong commander, but one who is also understanding. Can you be that commander, General?”
“Yes, ma’am. I will and I promise to play with them every day.”
She straightened and saluted him. He saluted back, almost dropping the box.
Matt waited for the customers to leave before asking Mrs. Trentham to join us.
She was at least
ten years younger than her husband, with a milky complexion, rosy cheeks and blue eyes. Matt told Mrs. Trentham about the theft, then pointedly asked her if her husband had returned home after the soiree.
“Afterwards? Yes, of course.” She sounded relieved.
“Immediately afterwards?” Matt pressed.
She hesitated and glanced at her husband. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yes.”
“I’m not a fool.” Matt addressed them both, his tone not unkind although I’d heard him infuse more ice into it during questionings. “Mr. Trentham, leave the room.”
“No! This my workshop. You may leave.” He drew himself up, but he was rather shorter than Matt and not at all authoritative.
Matt didn’t move.
Mrs. Trentham laid a hand on her husband’s arm before letting it fall away. She picked up a doll from a shelf and stroked its hair. “We ought to tell them the truth. It proves you weren’t out thieving, so I think we must.”
Mr. Trentham glanced at me and swallowed. “Please don’t think ill of me, Mrs. Glass.”
Is that why he’d lied? Because he worried what I thought? How curious. “I won’t judge you. Not if you tell the truth.”
He blew out a breath. “I was at the Toymaker’s Guild most of the night. I arrived home at dawn this morning.”
“You were there all night?” Matt asked. “Doing what?”
“Playing cards, drinking, smoking.” He bit the inside of his lip as he looked at me through his lashes. “I never wager more than I can afford to lose. It’s just an innocent way to spend an evening with friends. My wife doesn’t mind, do you, my dear?”
She smiled. “It’s his evening to himself. I don’t begrudge him that. We have no children yet, so I don’t mind if he makes a little wager with friends over cards. It’s harmless enough.”
“Then why not admit it when I first questioned you?” Matt asked.
Mr. Trentham blushed. “Your wife is something of an idol to me, sir. I didn’t want her thinking me a poor husband.”
“The only person whose opinion you should worry about is your wife’s.” Matt put out his elbow for me to take. “We’ll be following this up with your guild.”
