‘So you went looking for a Demimonde adventure,’ Kingsley said to Kipling.
‘A modest, but useful, one. I thought that if I discovered something more about the Immortals’ interests then it might shine a light on possible weaknesses. When my informants told me of this place, I was simply compelled to come and investigate. Imagine my astonishment when I recognised you, Kingsley.’ He looked about him. ‘And what exactly is this place?’
Kipling once again made notes as Kingsley and Evadne took turns to explain their plan and the contributions of the talented Finny.
Kipling was thoughtful. ‘Mr Finny is a cheat, a sharp, a dodger? That’s someone I would very much like to talk to.’ Then he sagged. ‘All this is a sham? My usefulness has quickly become uselessness. Perhaps I’m not fated for a story of my own.’
‘It’s not as bad as that, Mr Kipling,’ Evadne said. ‘I’m sure you had a time simply getting here.’
‘Oh yes, indeed. Remarkable, it was, once I found the right access door at the end of the right platform.’
‘There you are, then.’ Evadne put her cup back on her saucer. ‘You’ve been vouchsafed something, then. And I’m sure we can arrange a meeting with Finny, to chat over this and that, when we’re done.’
‘And you’re just in time to see our plans bearing fruit,’ Kingsley said. ‘We believe a minion of the Immortals is with us right now.’
Kipling leaned forward eagerly. ‘Really? How can you tell?’
Kingsley waved a nonchalant hand. ‘The Spawn bodyguards are a telltale hint.’
He ignored Evadne’s dagger of a look.
‘You have these Spawn creatures here?’ Kipling said. ‘May I see?’
Kingsley then remembered that Mr Kipling had only heard about the Spawn and not encountered them himself. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so eager to meet them.
‘Carefully,’ Evadne said. She took him to the curtains.
‘So these are the creatures made by magic? Astounding.’
‘And very dangerous.’ Evadne steered him by the shoulders away from the curtains. ‘They’re accompanying someone we hope can lead us to the Immortals.’
Kipling’s fingers twitched. Kingsley could see him aching for his pencil and notebook. ‘Are you going to wring their location from him?’
‘We have something more subtle than that in mind.’ Kingsley glanced towards the stairs that led to the basement. ‘If you retire below, you may see something special.’
‘How could I resist such a tantalising invitation?’ Kipling hurried for the stairs. ‘Good luck to you both.’
TWENTY-FOUR
After Kipling left, Evadne parted the curtain. ‘Our brothers have been replaced by three more of the Free Trojans. Lavinia and Troilus are managing the roster beautifully. Mrs Kropotkin is reeling in that awful man wonderfully.’
Kingsley joined Evadne at the parted curtain. Mrs Kropotkin was hard at work with her atrabilious client, who was demanding another text. Three young grey-haired men were on the far side of the room, hunched over books and papers, intent on their imaginary work. They all looked moth-eaten and distracted. One had gone so far as to have different coloured fingerless gloves, a touch that Kingsley applauded. Another had an Astrakhan hat pulled down almost to his eyebrows. He read with his nose nearly touching the page, a picture of absorption. The third was making an art of copying text from a book the size of a sailor’s sea trunk.
Evadne consulted her watch, a neat Dent repeater. ‘Mrs Kropotkin can’t stay much longer. She said she had an appointment.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘She has a big fight coming up soon with the Holborn Hussy. She needs to get to the gymnasium for some last minute sparring.’
Images of Mrs Kropotkin whaling away at a punching bag danced in front of Kingsley’s eyes. ‘We can’t stand in the way of that, can we?’
Mrs Kropotkin looked towards the front desk. Kingsley was immediately alert. He patted his beard to make sure it was secure. ‘I believe it’s our turn,’ he breathed to Evadne.
He shuffled through the curtain, Evadne close behind.
‘Ah, sir,’ Mrs Kropotkin said. ‘I’m glad you’re here. This gentleman, Mr Gompers, has a few queries for the management.’
Kingsley rounded the desk. He put his hands together and bowed to the truculent old man. ‘I hope that Mrs Kropotkin has convinced you of the utility of our collection?’
Gompers grunted. ‘You have several volumes that my employers may be interested in. Minor interest, but that’s something.’ He frowned. ‘What else do you have? Your woman here said I’d need to take this up with you.’
Mrs Kropotkin moved away. ‘I’ll be off, then.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Kropotkin,’ Evadne said. ‘And good luck.’
Gompers watched Mrs Kropotkin leave and then, with a sniff, dismissed her as if she were a slightly useful animal of no further interest. Kingsley was repelled by the man’s attitude, but he guessed that someone who worked for the Immortals was unlikely to be a soft-hearted man of the people.
Gompers glanced at his Spawn, who were standing on the other side of the table with their backs against the bookshelves, but then he dismissed them, too, with a sniff. He jabbed a finger at Kingsley. ‘Now, pay attention. Do you have anything other than books? Artefacts, perhaps?’
It was all Kingsley could do to stop smiling. The hook is in, now to play him gently. This was one of the crucial moments that Finny had warned him about. Too much eagerness would arouse suspicions. Too cool a response would fail to reel him in. Gently, gently. Work on self-interest and greed.
Kingsley touched his beard. ‘We do have certain objects,’ he allowed. ‘Our founder collected many over the years and has bequeathed some to the Institute, some that he thought useful for study. Tablets, inscriptions, odds and pieces like that. We have robes that once belonged to Marcello Ficino himself.’
‘Which is of no importance to my employers.’ Gompers waved a hand testily. ‘Do you have anything more recent? Anything powerful? Anything from India, say?’
Bingo.
‘Ah, objects of power.’ Kingsley turned to Evadne, who nodded significantly. ‘We have occasionally heard of such, and, once or twice, we have acted to determine the genuineness of such artefacts, tracing their provenance for discriminating buyers.’
‘We? Who is this we?’
Evadne tensed. Gently, Kingsley told himself, gently.
‘My colleague –’ he indicated Evadne – ‘and I have been curators of our founder’s collection for some years. We have also acted as brokers, bringing together those who would purchase such items with those who would sell them.’
‘My employers are in the market for such objects.’ Gompers glanced at them sharply. ‘As long as I’m convinced of their worth.’
‘You would wish to examine any items we have?’
‘I would wish to conduct tests.’
‘We have something here today,’ Kingsley said, ‘but we couldn’t show someone who isn’t a member of the institute.’
‘Pah! I will join, then. One guinea, correct?’
Kingsley relaxed. ‘That’s it, sir. One guinea for a lifetime of unparalleled scholarship.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
Kingsley was startled to find Gompers was paying with a single gold coin. Kingsley flipped it in his palm to find the year 1813 incised on its obverse.
‘Don’t goggle at it like that,’ Gompers said. ‘It’s good.’
Kingsley took out a ledger from under the counter. Make it look proper. ‘Your name, sir?’
Gompers produced a card. ‘Musgrave Gompers’ it read, with a perfectly ordinary post office box number.
Kingsley returned the card after he’d entered the name in the ledger. ‘If you will wait here a moment, Mr Gompers, I’ll ready the object for your inspection.’
Kingsley and Evadne swept through the curtains to the back room.
‘Gompers,’ Evadne hissed. She s
talked about, circling the large wooden crate in the middle of the room, fists on hips. ‘Gompers, here and I can’t do anything about it!’
Kingsley was happy for Gompers to wait a little, all according to Finny’s dictums. ‘Tell me what you know about him,’ he said, more in a desire to calm Evadne than to elicit any useful information.
‘I met him at the Empire Theatre in Oxford, two years ago.’
‘He was in the audience?’ Kingsley did some quick arithmetic. Evadne had been sixteen and performing on the stage?
‘In the front row. I thought he was dreadfully angry with my performance, but he applauded well enough when I finished.’
‘I couldn’t imagine anyone being less than ecstatic at your act,’ Kingsley said stoutly.
Absently, she touched him on the arm. ‘I thank you, but Musgrave Gompers is hard to understand. He was in the same seat for each night of our two-week run, but I don’t think I saw him smile once.’
‘An admirer, then.’
‘In a way. Perhaps. He sent letters to the stage manager, demanding that I be moved up the bill. He pointed out what an influential man he was, how much of an expert he was in what he called “minor variety acts”.’
‘I’m sure that worked in his favour.’
‘Hardly. Stage managers rarely like being told what to do by the public, so I was let go.’
‘You were dismissed? You? I’m sure the stage manager regretted his decision.’
‘We’ll never know. He disappeared the day after his decision to do without me.’
‘Gompers?’
‘Almost certainly. I was distraught. Lady Aglaia took me in and told me I was well off out of it. Gompers had a reputation of the worst kind. Many young people disappeared into his laboratories and never came out.’
‘He experimented on them?’
‘He wants to know why humans are different from animals. For years, he has conducted clandestine dissections, striving to find a physical explanation. Now, he suspects it is something in our brains.’
‘Which would explain why he is working for the Immortals.’
‘They’d allow him to do things that would get him arrested anywhere in the world.’ She looked up. ‘He does things to make sure he’s human.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I think he worries that he’s not. He listens to music and he goes to the theatre not because he enjoys it, but because he thinks that such things are the mark of a higher order of being. He apparently feels that he needs to go regularly for it to have an effect. Like some sort of medicine, I imagine.’
Kingsley, then, had a glimpse of the darkness that was Gompers. Not enjoying music or the glory of Evadne’s juggling, but simply enduring them as one would submit to unpleasant treatment, because it was good for one? ‘That’s both sad and frightening.’
‘And that’s Musgrave Gompers.’
Kingsley pushed through the curtains. Gompers was waiting at the counter. He narrowed his eyes. ‘I hope this is not an attempt to do me harm. I have powerful allies.’
‘The Ficino Institute of neo-Platonic Studies would never attempt to do anyone harm,’ Kingsley said, in what he hoped was a tone of dignified offence. ‘While I’m happy to do business with you, I’m sure I can find others who are interested, if you are not.’
Gompers regarded him for a moment, cold and hard. ‘I shall inspect this object.’
‘This way.’
The crate was sitting on a rug in the middle of the floor of the back room. The chairs and the table had been pushed to the wall, leaving plenty of space around it. Before proceeding, Gompers stood just inside the curtain and surveyed the room. Satisfied, he strode to the crate, Gladstone bag swinging. While the Spawn watched Kingsley with flat, incurious stares, Gompers put his bag on the floor and raised the lid of the crate.
His eyes widened.
‘Do you like what you see?’ Kingsley said, coming to his side.
‘Where did you get this?’ Gompers said. His voice was hoarse.
‘Discretion, sir, discretion. Suffice it to say that the person who wishes to sell this item has waterside interests.’
‘The docks,’ Gompers muttered. He pointed and the two Spawn heaved the lid off the crate. It tumbled and knocked over a chair, but Gompers was oblivious. He stalked around the crate, peering inside and scowling. ‘Pay attention!’ he said finally. ‘I must test it. We must know if it is genuine.’
‘As long as your tests are not damaging in any way, you’re welcome.’ Kingsley tapped his forefinger in the palm of his other hand. ‘One point: we cannot allow it to leave the premises.’
Gompers grunted, without taking his eyes off the dodecahedron. ‘I can conduct tests here. Stand back. Do not interfere.’
Gompers bent and opened his Gladstone bag. He took out an object that gleamed softly when light struck it. It was the size of an egg, and when Gompers held it up between his thumb and forefinger, Kingsley saw that it was a gold dodecahedron, a smaller version of the magical object in the crate.
Gompers lifted the object to his face. He opened his mouth wide and breathed on it.
If Kingsley had truly been a wolf, his ears would have pricked. It was as if the air in the room tightened, was drawn in and stretched towards the gold object.
A harsh tang made him wrinkle his nose.
Gompers placed the gold dodecahedron on the uppermost surface of the dodecahedron in the crate.
The tension in the room disappeared with an almost audible snap. Kingsley actually rocked forward onto his toes, a sign that he’d been resisting the ethereal stretching.
The crated dodecahedron began to glow. Softly at first, the grey surface became less grey, then the individual triangular surfaces took on a colour – red, green and blue, clear and bright. A second later, they all changed, creating an entirely different pattern of red, green and blue across the faces of the magical solid.
Kingsley was astonished to see a smile creep onto Gompers’s face, then he saw that the crated dodecahedron was rising.
Gompers hissed through clenched teeth as the topmost edge of the large dodecahedron, complete with its tiny gold passenger, lifted itself up above the level of the crate. He grimaced, then twisted the gold dodecahedron a full ninety degrees. The large dodecahedron stopped its ascent, then slowly sank again into the crate.
When it settled, Gompers detached the gold dodecahedron. He weighed it in his hand and scrutinised the version in the crate, which had resumed its dull, inert state.
Magic of this sort – sorcery, enchantment, arcane power – was still new to Kingsley. Despite having seen things he once would have counted as illusions, he was taken aback every time he came across it. It was unsettling, the sort of thing the pack would skirt or run a mile from.
Of course, he told himself, a civilised person would be more rational, and examine the phenomenon as a chance to learn.
Sometimes, he was sure that his Inner Animal was far more sensible than his civilised self.
‘You are satisfied?’ Kingsley asked and was pleased to hear how steady his voice was.
‘It is what it appears to be.’ Gompers slipped the gold dodecahedron into his pocket. ‘We shall pay for it.’
During the haggling, Kingsley once again played the part to the best of his ability. He resisted, conceded, threatened to end negotiations, was offended, was amiable. Finally they arrived at a price that indicated that if the dodecahedron were a solid diamond, it would be substantially cheaper.
Kingsley found a hammer and a jar of nails near the sink. ‘And where should we deliver the object?’ he said easily. He slipped the lid back on, took a handful of nails and positioned the first to secure the lid again.
‘You will not,’ Gompers said. ‘I shall take it now.’
Kingsley gave a silent cheer. ‘Now?’
‘Pay attention.’ Gompers took a small metal box from his bag and put it on the table. With a sour face, he rummaged around and found another, which he placed on t
op of the first. ‘The price agreed is in there, in gold.’ Gompers pointed. ‘This door, to the rear. We shall take it out that way.’
Kingsley was pleased with his haggling skills. ‘If you wish.’ Then he drove the nail home with one strike. He drove home another half a foot away, taking two blows this time.
Raised voices came to them from through the curtain. Kingsley paused. ‘What is that?’ Gompers asked.
Kingsley left the hammer and nails on the crate and went to the curtain. When he parted it, he saw the three Trojans wrestling on the floor, while the other patrons backed away in various attitudes of alarm and concern. Evadne was shouting.
‘We have a brawl,’ Kingsley reported. He shrugged. ‘Neo-Platonic scholars can be an irascible bunch sometimes.’
‘It is of no concern to me.’ Gompers eyed the crate. ‘I shall go and organise my carriers.’
‘Wait.’ Kingsley motioned to him. ‘Something’s happening.’
The front doors slammed back. The three grey-haired wrestlers attempted to look scholarly, despite the tangle they were in. Christabel Hughes strode in, followed by half a dozen uniformed men, all armed. The men looked as if they hadn’t used their truncheons for weeks and were dying for an excuse to test their soundness.
‘Please stay where you are!’ Christabel announced. ‘I’m from the Agency for Demimonde Affairs! I have reason to believe that contraband magical artefacts are on the premises!’
‘What?’ Gompers joined Kingsley at the curtain. ‘The Agency, here? What do they want?’
Kingsley looked meaningfully at the crate.
Gompers glared. ‘I thought you would have been more discreet.’
‘We’re in the Demimonde, Mr Gompers. Secrets are hard to keep.’ Kingsley shook his head. ‘I take it you wish to withdraw from our arrangement?’
‘What? No! My employers would not be happy if I returned without it.’
Kingsley tugged at his beard. He took a peek through the curtains to see Christabel cornering Evadne, who was a picture of outraged dignity. The other patrons had been lined up against the wall and were uttering protests that ranged from the peevish to the furtive.
The Extraordinaires 2 Page 16
