by Tom Becker
At the centre of this cacophonous pandemonium was Xavier himself, who scuttled up and down the aisles in a frenzy, a thick cane in his hands, exhorting his workforce to work faster and beating those unfortunates who were unable to comply. Whilst endeavouring to keep out of sight of Xavier, the reporter tried to speak to several urchins. Most were too weak from hunger and privation to form anything bar the most pitiful of complaints, or to utter the plaintive cry of “Help”. Some were dumb with shock. One child was lying unconscious in the aisle, an ugly bruise on his forehead; none of his friends could break from their work to come to his aid.
When pressed to comment upon this foul spectacle of inhumanity, Mr Xavier refused to talk to our reporter. The Whitechapel Gazette urges the police to act swiftly in saving these unfortunate children, and displaying to Mr Cornelius Xavier the uncompromising and unimpeachable principles of the British justice system.
“It appears that our Mr Xavier was not a pleasant man,” Alain said mildly. “Anyway, according to a later piece in the book, this article incensed the local population so much that they burned down Xavier’s factory and drove him out of the area, but not before he had vowed to go to a place where his work would be appreciated.”
“And I think we all know where that is,” Mountebank added. “Darksiders tend to be a little less squeamish about working conditions.”
Jonathan couldn’t believe it. The Cornelius Xavier in this book certainly sounded like the vicious man he had seen through the gate of the Kensington mansion, but the article had been written over a hundred years ago!
“But this can’t be the same guy as the one I saw,” Jonathan protested. “He’d be ancient!”
Mountebank smiled faintly. “Well, as you should know by now, Jonathan, things work a little bit differently in Darkside. This is Xavier, all right.”
“Well, OK,” Jonathan continued, “it’s good that you found something on him, but . . . it doesn’t really help us, does it?”
Alain’s face fell. “Well, this is just the start,” he said, a little wounded. “From here I can cross-reference to other works – we’re bound to turn up something you can use.”
The three of them dove into the books with renewed enthusiasm, leafing through dried-out pages of old journals and diaries. But after two hours, all Jonathan seemed to have picked up was eyestrain. He rubbed his face wearily.
The door to the study flew open, and Correlli burst into the room, a grim look on his face. Mountebank took a hasty step back behind a table.
“We’ve got a problem,” the fire-eater reported.
“What is it now?” Jonathan asked. “Are the twins fighting again?”
“It’s worse than that. Raquella’s gone. And I think I know where.”
16
In the end, it had been surprisingly easy. Raquella had taken advantage of a particularly tumultuous argument between Fray and Nettle to slip out of the house and catch a bus down to Kensington. Though she may have been touchy about the subject around Jonathan, Raquella had spent more than enough time on Lightside to get around without any problems.
Within an hour she was walking briskly along Slavia Avenue, her footsteps echoing down the deserted road. Although the light was fading and she was alone, Raquella wasn’t scared. She had walked the horrific rooms and hallways of Vendetta Heights. It would take more than a quiet street to unsettle her. Maybe she should have felt more nervous – after all, there were no guarantees that what she was planning to do would succeed. But Raquella was certain she was doing the right thing; she had heard what Correlli had said back at the house, that the Troupe desperately needed to know what lay within Xavier’s mansion. And she knew that only one person stood a chance of getting in through the front door: her.
But, if she was being honest with herself, Raquella had to admit that there was more to it than that. She was still fuming that Correlli had refused to allow her to take part in the robbery, despite the fact that she had survived Slattern Gardens and the Sepia Rooms in the past five days alone. The fire-eater clearly thought that she couldn’t take care of herself.
In the past, maybe this wouldn’t have rankled, but things had changed. For years Raquella had worked under the cruel whim of Vendetta, constantly reminded of the fact that her life hung by a thread. Well, now he had tossed her to one side like a broken toy, and she would be damned if she was going to sit on the sidelines while Jonathan and the rest of the Troupe decided her future. This was her choice; now she was in control of events. At the very least, her reconnaissance would give the Troupe a better chance of completing their mission. And who knew – if the opportunity presented itself, maybe she could steal the Crimson Stone herself. Raquella allowed herself a little smile at that thought.
The Xavier mansion was eerily resplendent in darkness, shadows settling comfortably on every twisted surface. The wind rustled conspiratorially through the trees. Raquella marched up to the front gate and buzzed the intercom. There was a lengthy pause, and then a voice crackled out through the speakers.
“What?”
“Please, sir, I have brought a message for Mr Cornelius Xavier.”
“Mr Xavier isn’t interested. Go away.”
“But, sir,” Raquella protested. “This is a very important message. From my master, Vendetta.”
She waited, holding her breath. Then there came another buzzing noise, and the gate clicked open. Raquella stepped carefully up the driveway and knocked on the front door, adopting the dutiful, eyes-down demeanour of a maidservant.
A tall man in a black suit opened the door.
“You from Vendetta?” he asked brusquely.
“Yes, sir. Is Mr Xavier at home?”
“Mr Xavier is always at home.”
The butler pushed the door open wider and beckoned her to come inside. Keeping her head respectfully lowered, Raquella passed into the Xavier mansion. The butler led her through a darkened reception area and down a long corridor. She looked around in the hope of spotting any secret security devices, but heavy blinds were drawn across the window, and it took her eyes time to acclimatize to the darkness. At the end of the corridor, a crack of light peeked through a door standing ajar.
“Mr Xavier is in the drawing room,” the man announced.
Raquella cautiously moved past him and into the drawing room. A single gas lamp illuminated the silk merchant, who was stretched out on a divan, his eyes closed. His skin was a leathery map of the depressions and canyons of extreme old age. His bulky, misshapen frame was covered by a luxurious purple dressing gown.
Raquella coughed politely.
“I wondered when Vendetta would try and wheedle the Stone from me,” Xavier wheezed. “I have to say, I thought he would send bigger messengers. With guns.”
The silk merchant still hadn’t opened his eyes, and yet it seemed he knew exactly who he was dealing with. Raquella curtsied to disguise her confusion.
“My master bade me to pass on his congratulations on your recent purchase. As you know, it is an item that is very dear to him and he would dearly love to gain possession of it. . .”
“‘Love’? Vendetta?” Xavier snorted. “I hardly think so. If you haven’t come to attack me, then make your offer, girl. You are starting to bore me.”
Raquella took a deep breath. “My master will pay double the price you paid at auction.”
Xavier tapped his fingers together, and then rose awkwardly from the divan. Standing up, he was little taller than the maid. He shuffled closer towards her. Raquella stifled the urge not to take a step back.
“Double my price, you say? What a very generous offer. Sadly, I shall have to decline. The Stone has a certain . . . sentimental value for me.”
Something about the way the man moved unnerved Raquella. He slowly looked her up and down, as a predator would size up its prey.
“Then there is nothing my master could offer t
o change your mind?” she tried, a little desperately.
Xavier didn’t even bother to respond this time. He ran a furry white tongue over his cracked lips, still inspecting Raquella. The maid was seized by the urge to get out of the study, and fast.
“Well,” she said hurriedly, “if your mind is set, sir, I shall have to convey that to my master.”
Xavier tutted, and stroked her arm with a leathery hand.
“No, no, no,” he wheezed. “You’re going to stay here, where I can keep an eye on you.”
Raquella tried to back out of the door, but Xavier’s grip was tight on her arm. He smiled as she began to wrestle in his grasp. Then there was a loud clicking sound, and as Raquella looked up with horror at Xavier’s face, she realized just what his special defence was, and how foolish she had been to come here, but by then it was far, far too late. . .
“I don’t believe it!” Correlli raged. “Of all the stupid, harebrained ideas! What the hell does she think she’s going to achieve – aside from putting the entire job in jeopardy?”
It had been two hours since Raquella had disappeared, leaving behind only a pointed note explaining exactly where she had gone. Carnegie had wanted to go after her, but it was clear that the maid had enjoyed too great a head start to be caught. Feeling helpless, the Troupe had congregated around a garden table in the fading light outside the back of the Starling house. Even Verv had emerged from the garage, and was murmuring sadly to himself.
“That’s my friend you’re talking about,” Jonathan said quietly. “She put herself in danger to try and help us. There are more important things than this ‘job’.”
Mountebank shook his head sadly. The magician was cutting and shuffling a pack of cards, his hands a dextrous blur. “Jonathan’s right. She was only doing what she thought was right. Poor girl.”
Correlli gave him a venomous look. “I’d stay quiet if I were you, conjuror. Maybe you made her disappear.”
“Hey!” Nettle exclaimed. “That’s not fair! Don’t you dare try and blame him!”
Fray pushed her twin roughly in the side. “Stay out of it, Nettle.”
As the atmosphere around the table took on a dangerous edge, Mountebank glanced up sharply at the fire-eater. “If there’s something you’d like to get off your chest, maybe now’s the time.”
Correlli drew a dagger from his belt and moved menacingly towards the magician. Panicking, Jonathan leapt up and stepped in between the two men.
“Hey, hey, hey! Enough! We’re meant to be on the same side! What is it with you two?”
There was a long pause as the two men stared at one another. Then Mountebank shrugged.
“He’s one of us now. Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”
The fire-eater sheathed his knife and slumped back down into his chair. “When you asked me about the Troupe the other day, Jonathan, I didn’t tell you the whole truth. There was another member of the team. Ariel. She was Mountebank’s assistant back at Spinoza’s Fairground, an extraordinary girl.” Correlli smiled, shaking his head slightly. “What a thief! We could never have got the Baskerville Emerald without her. Only a contortionist could have squeezed through that tiny air vent and got into the strongroom. Only Ariel could have got out again.”
“After the robbery, we went out to celebrate. I remember sitting in The Last Supper thinking that anything was possible, that we were more powerful than even the Ripper himself! I should have known it couldn’t last.”
“After dinner we returned to the safe house. I knew something was wrong as soon as I entered my room. I had locked the emerald in a safe in the wall, but someone had blown the door and the window was open. I raced up on to the rooftops to see Ariel struggling with a man over the emerald – the Troupe’s very own safe-cracker. . .”
Correlli’s voice was drenched with bitterness, and for the first time since he started speaking, he stared directly at Mountebank.
“I ran forward to help her, but it was too late. She screamed, and then she was gone. Good old Mountebank managed to keep hold of the emerald, though. I would have thrown it away in a heartbeat, if it meant keeping her alive. I would have thrown everything away.”
The fire-eater looked down at the ground. Silence hung heavy in the air. When the magician replied, it was barely more than a whisper.
“Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought back to that moment and wished that I had managed to pull her back from the edge. But, Antonio, I swore to you then and I swear to you today: I didn’t blow the safe, and I didn’t steal the emerald. You’re right – Ariel was an incredible thief. So good she couldn’t stop. That night I caught her climbing out of the window with the emerald in her hand. I was trying to stop her.”
“You liar!” Correlli sprang to his feet, fists clenched. “Ariel would never have betrayed us! She would never have betrayed me!”
“I didn’t want to believe it either,” Mountebank replied calmly. “She was my assistant. We had worked together for years, before the Troupe even existed. But you saw her with the stone in her hands. Believe your eyes, if not me.”
The fire-eater pressed his face close to the magician’s. “I will never believe you. One last job, conjuror, and then you’d better hope you never see me again.”
Correlli stalked back into the house, kicking his chair over as he went. Fray went after him, staring daggers at her twin. Mountebank dabbed at his face with his pink handkerchief, giving Jonathan a wry smile.
“As you can see, Antonio and I have singularly failed to resolve our old differences. He’ll never believe me, no matter what I say. He loved that girl. And she betrayed him. It’s much easier to blame the albino.” He puffed out his colourless cheeks and sat down.
“Great,” Jonathan replied bitterly. “Raquella’s gone and all you can do is fight amongst yourselves.”
Carnegie cleared his throat. “Well, everyone’s going to have to get along for the next few hours, because we’ve got a mansion to rob.”
Mountebank sat up in his chair, startled. “Tonight? But we planned for tomorrow night . . . we’re not ready!”
“Change of plan,” the wereman growled. “The boy’s right – Raquella’s a friend. I don’t know what trouble she’s got herself into in that place, but I’m not going to leave her there a second longer than necessary. If you or Correlli or anyone wants to argue with me on that point, you’re more than welcome. I’ve heard a lot about how good the Troupe is. It’s time for you to show me. We go tonight.”
17
8.15 p.m.
As the van slowly pulled up to the security booth at the end of Slavia Avenue, Jonathan could feel his insides churning. It wasn’t the instinctive adrenalin surge that danger had thrust upon him in the past but the cold, sickening tug of his nerves. So much could go wrong that it seemed almost impossible they could pull the robbery off. At the forefront of his mind was Raquella. Though he could have screamed at her for being so impetuous, Jonathan couldn’t bear the thought that she was in trouble, and that they might not be able to save her. He tried to ignore the thought that it might already be too late.
“Here – have one of these.”
Jonathan looked up to see Correlli passing him a piece of chewing gum.
“Gives your body something else to think about. And don’t forget to look hacked off, all right?”
With his flamboyant clothing hidden beneath work overalls and a bright orange vest, and a hard hat over his wiry hair, the fire-eater was almost unrecognizable. He had taken the news of the change of plan surprisingly calmly. His eyes were focused, and his demeanour alert – Correlli was at work now. He stopped the van by the booth, rolled down the window and hailed the guard inside.
“Evening, guv,” he said, adopting a thick Cockney accent. “Got an emergency call-out on this road.”
He lifted the identification card from the chain around his neck and
showed it to the guard. Aware that the tag was a doctored version of one of his old library cards, Jonathan was relieved when the guard barely glanced at it. Instead the man checked a clipboard, eyeing the two of them suspiciously.
“I’ve got no record of anything here.”
Correlli blew a great gust of air out of his cheeks. “Don’t mess me around, mate. Number 146. Electricity’s gone out. People round here don’t like to be kept waiting. I had to come here ASA bloody P. Had to bring my lad with me, and this isn’t his idea of a great Tuesday night either.”
“Like I say, there’s no record of it here,” the guard replied dubiously. “I’m going to have to make a phone call. . .”
“Nah, I tell you what,” Correlli said aggressively. “I’ll make a phone call. To Number 146. To the Israeli Ambassador, who’s got a video conference with the UN in an hour. I’ll tell him, sorry mate, I can’t get your power back on, cause some idiot at the gate won’t let me up the bleeding street! You’ll be out of a job by half-eight!”
The guard hurriedly waved his hands as Correlli picked up a mobile phone and pretended to dial. “No, wait . . . 146, did you say? I’m sure that’s in order. Why don’t you go on through?”
The fire-eater treated him to a beaming grin. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Thank you very much. We’ll be in and out in a jiffy.”
As Correlli pulled the van away, Jonathan realized he had been holding his breath. “That was a bit close, wasn’t it?”
Correlli shrugged. “Either he let us through or I brained him. It’s easier this way, though, I grant you.”
He manoeuvred the van down the broad avenue, which was shrouded in the late-evening gloom, and parked two houses down from Xavier’s mansion. Jonathan hurried out and began unloading cones and barriers from the back of the van. Within a couple of minutes, the two of them had cordoned off a small area of the pavement. After much deliberation, Correlli selected a hefty pick from their selection of tools and flexed his shoulder muscles. He was about to strike down on the pavement when Jonathan caught his arm.
