Jonathan knew the possibility existed that there were any number of submarines in the world. Then again, who could say? Maybe submarines were like the other elfin marvels – the Lumbog globe or Escargot’s invisible cloak, or a bottomless bag of marbles owned by Squire Myrkle – maybe there was only one. Six months back, the Professor had said that if Escargot’s submarine wasn’t elfin, then it had been made by the marvel men in the Wonderful Isles. But as far as Jonathan knew, there were no Wonderful Isles in Balumnia. So he had every reason to hope, contrary to the Professor’s philosophy of wishing for the worst, that the ship nosing up out of the depths of the Tweet was piloted by none other than Theophile Escargot, noted thief and adventurer. And it certainly was beginning to look as if it was his craft.
The tips of a line of what appeared to be arced shark fins sliced up out of the water as if what was surfacing were some sort of finny deep-sea monster. A row of porthole windows, lit from within and shining like eyes, glowed beneath. Behind them, protruding from the sides of the craft, two great splayed fins made the whole thing look like some close cousin to a frogfish or tidepool sculpin.
Long strands of kelp and weed clung to the pointed nose and fins of the strange ship, and as it humped up out of the depths and settled on the surface, streams of water shot out of ports along the stern, and the lights within the nose of the ship blinked out.
The craft seemed to be made almost entirely out of copper and brass that had become encrusted over the course of time with verdigris. Here and there patches of clean metal glowed in the sunshine. Around the ports and edging the fins atop and along the sides was bright silver, not in the least dulled or tarnished from voyages in the sea. Jonathan suspected that it was probably elf silver or something very much like it.
Almost everyone in the cafe was standing along the edge of the balcony watching the approach of this wonderful ship. On the docks below, people had given up work and were gawking away, pointing and shouting and speculating.
‘It looks as if Dr Chan is about to renew his supply of squid clocks,’ the Professor remarked to Jonathan.
Just then one of the shark fins began to turn as if it were being unscrewed from inside. It twisted and twisted then suddenly popped free, falling back on a hinge to reveal an aperture in the ship. A head shoved out and looked around. It belonged to Dooly, grandson of Theophile Escargot. Half of the rest of Dooly followed; he was dressed in, of all things, Jonathan’s man-of-leisure suit. He waved at everyone on the dock. Then he waved at everyone on the balcony at the cafe, Then he shouted a greeting at a man in a dory who pulled past some twenty or thirty feet to starboard. Then, jerking back around as if he’d been poked in the shoulder with a stick, he squinted up again toward the cafe. He shaded his eyes with his palm, hunched forward and shouted, ‘Mr Bing Cheese!’ He waved both hands in the air, jigging about so enthusiastically that he nearly tumbled out of the shark fin hatch and into the water. Ahab, his head shoved through the slats in the little picket fence that ran around the veranda, seemed to recognize Dooly at about the same time, for he began to bark and dance and jig around, and came tolerably close to upsetting a table full of coffee cups.
Dooly sank back into the ship. A moment passed and then another head appeared – the grizzled piratical head of Theophile Escargot. His hair and beard hadn’t been cut since last winter; that much was certain. His eyes, peering out of an almost hidden face, seemed very fierce indeed. Jonathan had long ago observed that Escargot had the uncanny ability to change the appearance of his eyes. In his current incarnation as a pirate, they seemed to almost burn, giving him the look of a man who should not be trifled with. Years before, when he’d come through Twom-bly Town selling cookbooks door to door, just the opposite was the case. He had had a sort of obsequious look about him, a humble look, the look of a man who believed above anything else in his cookbooks. Now he looked as if he ate cookbooks – all of which probably explained why he was such a success; he was inscrutable.
Escargot pulled off his cocked hat, scratched his curly black hair, and waved up at the lot of them on the balcony. It looked like a tired wave to Jonathan, the wave of a man who’d come into town looking for a spot of fun only to discover unforeseen trouble. If the hatch had slammed shut and the submarine had turned about and sailed back out of the harbor, it wouldn’t have surprised Jonathan much – and it would have surprised the Professor even less.
But no such thing happened. Escargot disappeared below, and the submarine idled up to the dock. The splooshing of water in the rear ports fell off, and the ship seemed to shudder just a bit as if it had gotten a chill. Both Dooly and Escargot climbed out and tied the ship to the dock with a heavy line. Then they clumped along up toward the cafe, leaving a little knot of people behind them chattering over the ship.
‘Mr Bing Cheese!’ Dooly shouted again as he and Escargot pushed out through the swinging doors onto the veranda. A great deal of helloing and handshaking and chair-scraping followed. It was like old home week.
‘You lads ain’t here on holiday, I suppose,’ Escargot remarked, who, of course, was well aware that it was only with the help of the elves that Jonathan and his company were in Balumnia at all.
‘You’ve got it right,’ Jonathan said. ‘We were off on holiday originally, but it got cut short. Foul play popped up.’
‘Oh?’ Escargot motioned at a waiter who scuttled past with a tray of plates. ‘You lads sure have a nose for it. Now me, I try to avoid it. When I pass it on the road, I pretend to be a blind man, and I tap right along past. You boys stop to talk, and that’s a bad idea. Very bad.’
Professor Wurzle laughed a bit. ‘Then later on you run into us, and you have a chat. And first thing you know, we’re all in the soup together.’
‘Ye-es,’ Escargot drew the word out as if admitting to something he’d rather not admit to. ‘But the lad and I are here on business. I do a bit of trade with some of the local merchants. Squid clocks and whale-eye charms and the like. There’s a big market for dried dialulas and sea lemons here. They wear them as ornaments – brooches and such. It’s all the rage. I know where there’s heaps of them. Two more runs out through the gate and I’m set for a year. Lately there’s been some call for singing nautili too, ever since I brought one up about a year ago. But they’re rare as anything, and quick too.
‘That’s the ticket!’ Escargot said when the waiter showed up once again with a steak and fries on a plate. The steak was as broad as a hat brim and looked as if it had been cooked for thirty or forty seconds over a lit match. ‘A man gets sick offish,’ Escargot said, carving out a big forkful of the steak and shoving it past his beard and into his mouth. Dooly had ordered half an apple pie.
The Professor tossed one of the Squire advertisements onto the table in front of Escargot, who paused in his chewing and pointed at the drawing with his fork. ‘Miles du Bois drew that. I can tell by the little dots in the shaded areas and by the look on the Squire’s face. Miles always puts that same half smirk on his subjects’ faces. Like they were in on some kind of joke. What’re you lads doing hanging around with the magician? You’re probably in more trouble than you think.’ He shoved another bite of steak into his mouth and smacked away at it in a self-satisfied way, like a man who was tolerably sure that he wasn’t in any such trouble. ‘What’s become of the Squire?’
‘Selznak is after him,’Jonathan said.
‘Here?’ Escargot asked. ‘What in the devil is the Squire doing here? Did he come with you?’
‘No,’ the Professor said. ‘We came after him. He’s here because of the blasted Lumbog globe. Why you ever saw fit to give such a thing away to Squire Myrkle, I don’t know.’
‘He found it first.’ Escargot shrugged. ‘If it had been me who found it, it would have been another story. But none of that makes a lick of sense anyway.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ the Professor asked, squinting at him.
‘Not that I can see. How did the Squire get to Balumnia if he didn’t come with you?’
‘Like the Professor said,’ Gump put in, ‘he had the Lumbog globe, the one he found when we were up rescuing you at the tower last winter.’
Escargot gave Gump a pained look. ‘I know which bloody globe. There ain’t but one. I’m the one that let him have it, aren’t I? Like the Professor said.’
‘Let him have it?’ Bufo said. ‘He just shoved it in his pocket and took off with it as far as I could see. There wasn’t anybody going to take it from him. Not from the Squire there wasn’t.’
Escargot, of course, purpled at the thought of his not being able to steal a glass ball from someone, especially from the Squire. Jonathan could see that. He suspected that, contrary to the Professor’s supposition, Escargot actually hadn’t any idea about the true nature of the globe. He decided that it was time to cut through ail the sideline talk. ‘Did you know when you gave it to him that it was a Balumnian door?’
Escargot, flying in the face of manners, plucked a chunk of steak out of his mouth that he’d just that moment shoved in. ‘It was a what?’
‘A Balumnian door.’
Escargot sat for a moment thinking about it. ‘No,’ he said finally, ‘but that makes some sense now that you mention it. It explains why that filthy Selznak stole it from me fifteen years ago after I got it in trade from a bunjo man. A Balumnian door,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Damn!’ He threw his fork down onto his plate in such a way that Jonathan was fairly sure he was telling the truth. ‘Where did you say the globe is now?’
Jonathan told him about the Squire’s disappearance and of the doings of Selznak the Dwarf and of some of their adventures since arriving in Balumnia.
Escargot seemed awfully interested in the whole affair. His attitude had changed to that of a man who was sympathetic – a man, perhaps, who was willing to make their troubles his own. ‘And you’re bound to find him, then?’
‘That’s right.’ Bufo had a look of determination on his face. ‘We’re going to find the Squire and then make Selznak a sorry case, that’s what.’
‘We’ll take him down a peg,’ Gump said.
Escargot shook his head. ‘Don’t be too impatient. There’s them that tried to take him somewhere before, and it landed them in a nation of trouble. Where do you figure the Squire is now? You say you got a lead on him here at Landsend?’
‘That’s right,’ Jonathan said. ‘He was seen four days ago in the company of a man named Sikorsky. Have you heard of him?’
‘Heard of him!’ Escargot cried, looking at Jonathan in surprise. ‘Of course I’ve heard of him. Everyone in the cafe knows who he is. Everyone except you lads.’
‘And one of these years we’ll find out,’ the Professor said. ‘Then we’ll know too.’
‘I’ll give you some clues,’ Escargot began. ‘He’s short. Tolerably short. About Gump’s size here. He wears a smash hat with a broad brim and carries a stick and has a patch over one eye. And he smokes a pipe that ain’t like these pipes you’re puffing on here. Not by a sight. Fifteen years ago he stole that filthy globe from me after I stole it from the bunjo man, and he stole it anyway from the Light Elves and didn’t know what it was. I thought I did. Fancy that. All these years the joke was on me.’
‘Selznak!’ Jonathan shouted, the truth flooding in upon him. ‘Sikorsky and Selznak are the same person!’
‘That’s a fact,’ Escargot said. ‘If a man lives in two worlds he can have two names. I’ve used more than one myself. Sometimes it’s necessary. Throws the hounds off the scent. Was it Sikorsky who blew up your ship?’
‘So we think,’ Jonathan said. ‘He was after Cap’n Binky’s coffee.’
‘If he wanted Cap’n Pinky’s coffee he’d take it.’
‘Binky,’ Gump corrected.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Binky, it is, not Pinky. Cap’n Binky.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Escargot said. ‘So you figure he wanted that coffee so bad he tried to blow it to bits? That’s something. What I think is that he’s leading you lads by the nose.’
17
Piedmont and Pinkum
‘We’ve got to tell Miles about this,’ Bufo said. ‘We’ve got to be on our way now that we know what’s going on.’
‘Where to?’ the Professor asked. ‘It doesn’t make much difference as far as I can see. We should have figured that all out days ago – the Dwarf in the fog up at Tweet Village, the old woman showing up on the riverboat that night. It was plain as day and none of us saw it. Not even Miles.’
‘She’s here too?’ Escargot apparently knew what old woman was being referred to.
‘Yes,’ Jonathan said. ‘She keeps popping up. But I’m not sure Miles hasn’t suspected. He’s onto something, that’s for sure. He’s known more than he’s let on all along.’
Escargot nodded. ‘You lads need a hand, Miles or no Miles. I’ve got a little business to attend to here in town, but it shouldn’t take me long. If I could be of any service –’
‘Don’t go out of your way,’ the Professor put in, who, Jonathan knew, suspected Escargot’s motives. Jonathan, however, was hoping that Escargot would do exactly that, whatever his motives. One Escargot, especially an Escargot with a submarine, seemed to him to be worth a half-dozen of almost anyone else.
‘Dooly lad,’ Escargot said, ‘run down to the ship, if you will, and pull out those boxes of clocks and that tub of eyeballs. And bring the you-know-what.’
Dooly began winking and nodding and carrying on as if he had a twitch in his eye. He made a circle out of the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and gave Escargot the high-sign, winking once again before dashing off.
‘What in the world was that business?’ Gump asked, puzzled over Dooly’s histrionics. Jonathan wondered the same thing. Apparently Dooly was, in his way, being very secretive, and Jonathan knew it was bad form to press the issue.
‘Lad must have the shakes,’ Escargot said in answer to Gump’s question.
Most of the early afternoon was taken up going about town with Escargot, lugging his strange wares. They visited Dr Chan again, this time to deliver a dozen of Escargot’s unlikely but oddly accurate squid clocks and no end of floating octopi and eyeballs and ocean herbs and fish skeletons. To hurry matters along, Escargot had Gump and Bufo and Dooly dashing back to the ship for fresh supplies, then meeting up with him at some agreed-upon spot.
After the visit to Dr Chan’s, Jonathan and the Professor excused themselves and set out in search of Miles, who had, as Jonathan suspected, been into the curiosity shop that morning, seriously buying a quantity of potions, herbs, and dried bats, and quizzing the doctor about Sikorsky. The, news rather took the hurry out of their finding Miles, since his conversation with Dr Chan would certainly have alerted him to Sikorsky’s identity. But Jonathan and the Professor were both stricken with a new sense of alarm, and since Miles was, in a way, their general, they were anxious for new orders. They both realized, though, as the Professor had first pointed out back at the cafe, that while a great deal had been revealed, they had little or no more direction as a result of it.
They couldn’t find Miles. He’d been to the post office and, according to the clerk, had picked up a number of responses and then had left a note. ‘Am running errands,’ it said, ‘and may not return until tomorrow. Be patient. Squire seen day before yesterday. Be ready to travel tomorrow P.M.’
The note satisfied the two of them only because it seemed to imply that Miles was finally making real progress. The news of the Squire having been seen was decidedly good. If he was in town four days ago, and then again two days ago, it was entirely possible, even likely, that he was still in town, maybe having a late lunch that very moment at a cafe on Stickley Street or in a tavern on High Street.
That possibility sent the two of them up and down streets and avenues for another three hours, poking into taverns, showing the handbill around, quizzing people. At about five o’clock they made one last stop at the post office and found nothing.
When they dragged
themselves back to the inn a half hour later, Escargot was in high spirits. He’d had a successful day of it and had even managed to give Gump, Bufo, and Dooly a bit of money for their troubles. To celebrate, he bought Jonathan and the Professor a pint of ale. All of them sat down to dinner shortly thereafter, and for the space of ten minutes there was no conversation at all, only the clinking of silverware against plates and an occasional, ‘Pass the potatoes.’
The Professor was the lightest eater of them all, being aware of his weight for health reasons. As soon as he finished, he once again drew out the worthless treasure map as if convinced that they had overlooked something in it, something that would make sense of the muddled and missing street names.
When he held up the map, Dooly choked on a bite of pudding, and Bufo had to whack him on the back a few times. ‘Is that a map, your honor?’ Dooly was very respectful when he talked and had a fine imagination when it came to people’s names.
‘It pretends to be,’ the Professor said.
‘It looks like one to me,’ said Dooly, craning over it to get a better look. ‘I’ve seen a few such maps, I have. Had it all explained to me. There’s two kinds of maps, you see – if I might go into detail, sir – that a person might care to own. The one, you see, is for going about town if you don’t know where you are. The other one is for finding treasures.’ Dooly waited politely for a response.
‘That certainly seems accurate,’ the Professor said.
‘This one here, if you’ll pardon my carrying on, is a treasure map on account of the X right there.’ And Dooly pointed a finger at the uninformative X. It seemed as if Escargot had become aware of the conversation for the first time. As he forked up a mouthful of food, he took a look across the table to see what Dooly was chattering about, and in the process stabbed himself in the cheek, losing most of the food onto his shirt.
The Disappearing Dwarf Page 20
