The Tiger's Egg
Page 19
“Where do you believe the suspect to be?” he asked Doctor Tau-Tau.
“The beast will be in the churchyard,” said Tau-Tau.
“How can you be sure it’s there?” asked Miles.
“Because my second sight tells me so,” said Tau-Tau, “and anyway, if it can’t get to you it’s bound to end up here.”
“But why?” asked Miles. A sudden thought came to him. “Is this . . . where my mother is buried?” he asked.
“It’s the most likely place,” said Doctor Tau-Tau. “I’ve never been here myself. Except,” he added, “in my travels of the mind, you understand.”
“Never mind all that,” said Sergeant Bramley. “Which way is the churchyard?”
“That way,” said Constable Flap before Doctor Tau-Tau could reply. The constable had done a course in orienteering in Modern Constable magazine and knew that the churchyard was sure to be a stone’s throw from the spire that rose above the trees ahead of them.
“Lead the way then, Flap,” said Sergeant Bramley. The search party set off along a narrow path that wound through the trees. At the front were Constable Flap, carrying the rolled-up net, and Constable Wigge, who was quaking with fear. Sergeant Bramley followed with Miles and Little, and Doctor Tau-Tau brought up the rear. The fortune-teller carried a long black case and glanced about him nervously. They came to the edge of the trees and Constable Flap motioned them to stop, using internationally recognized hand signals. Ahead of them was a church of dark stone, its narrow steeple rising from a green copper roof. The shadow of the steeple lay like an exclamation mark across the churchyard, ending in a circle of deep shade under an enormous yew tree.
“It’s there, all right,” whispered Constable Flap, pointing at the yew tree. At first Miles could not make out anything unusual among the crooked gravestones in the tree’s shadow, then all at once he noticed that one of the silhouettes was considerably shaggier than the others. When he shaded his eyes he could make out the shape of The Null, hunched and motionless by the mighty trunk. Miles could not tell if the beast had seen them or not. It seemed to be looking straight at him, but it neither moved nor uttered a sound. Miles began to creep forward, but Constable Flap reached out and gripped his elbow. At least, thought Miles, it was a step up from the Special Ear Pinch Arrest Method.
“Not so fast, lad,” whispered Sergeant Bramley from behind him. “The suspect didn’t seem too pleased to see you before, and what’s more it was last seen in the company of a dangerous and probably unlicensed feline.”
“A Panthera tigris, in fact,” added Constable Flap.
“I won’t get too close,” said Miles. “Anyway,” he lied, “I think it’s asleep.”
Sergeant Bramley cleared his throat. “Very well. Flap, Wigge, accompany the boy with the net extended.”
Miles stepped out into the sunlight. The grass was dry and scrubby beneath his feet, and somewhere high above him a skylark sang. He walked slowly toward the yew tree, and the closer he got the more certain he was that The Null was watching him. He expected at any moment to hear its insane cackle, or to see the beast unfold from the shadows and charge toward him, but The Null did not move a muscle. Miles risked a glance over his shoulder. Constable Flap seemed to be trying to keep abreast of him, but Constable Wigge, white-faced and gripping the other end of the net, was acting as a brake. From the edge of the trees Sergeant Bramley watched them with a frown, his whistle clamped between his fleshy lips, while Doctor Tau-Tau knelt on the ground, fumbling with the long black case he had brought. Little sat in the low branches of a tree, like a white bird among the dark green foliage.
Miles reached the low stone wall that surrounded the churchyard. He could see The Null clearly now. It sat hunched on an overgrown grave, brooding and black, and staring straight at Miles with its red-rimmed eyes.
“Hello,” said Miles quietly. “Do you remember me?” He forced himself to meet The Null’s eyes. It was as though the creature were hollow, containing nothing but all the empty space in the universe. Miles felt as he had when he looked into the mouth of hell, deep in the caves of the Fir Bolg. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, yet at the same time he was sure somehow that The Null was listening to him.
“Why don’t you come home?” he asked the creature. The Null gave an immense sigh, and turned its massive head slowly away. At that moment there came a sound from behind Miles that sounded like a cork being drawn softly from a bottle. He felt something whistle past his right ear, and a small yellow dart appeared as if by magic in The Null’s neck. The beast stiffened and let out a deafening howl. Its clawed hand scrabbled in the thick hair on its neck, but before it could find the dart it keeled slowly over and lay still among the weeds.
Miles gasped with shock. He turned sharply to the two policemen behind him, but they were staring openmouthed at the slumped figure of The Null, looking as surprised as Miles himself. Over Constable Wigge’s shoulder he spotted Doctor Tau-Tau emerging from the trees with a long blowpipe in his hand and a smug look on his face.
“Is the monster out?” shouted the beaming fortune-teller. A wave of anger flooded through Miles, mixed with a terrible disappointment. Doctor Tau-Tau approached cautiously. “Just as I thought,” he said, peering into the yew tree’s shadow. “You’re safe now, boy. Nothing on earth can withstand my full-strength sleepwater, especially when it’s administered properly. When administered properly,” he repeated, “my sleepwater is overwhelming.”
Miles’s knees felt suddenly weak. He could see Little drop from the branch where she perched and run across the grass toward him, and he sat back heavily on the stone wall. “What did you do that for?” he said to Tau-Tau.
The fortune-teller gave him a puzzled look. “What did I . . . ? The beast would have torn you limb from limb, boy. What do you think I did it for?”
Miles shook his head. “No it wouldn’t. It’s the first time it’s ever let me get close. I don’t know what it was going to do, and I’ll probably never know now, thanks to you!”
Doctor Tau-Tau’s face turned a darker red. “Nonsense, boy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. If I hadn’t subdued the beast you’d be hanging from a tree at this moment, or worse. The creature is clearly deranged. When you get over the shock of being menaced you’ll thank me for my prompt action, don’t you worry.”
“Not if I live to be a thousand,” hissed Miles. “That creature used to be my father, and if it hung you in a tree it was no more than you deserved.” At that moment Sergeant Bramley arrived from the far side of the clearing, his notebook in his hand and his pencil retrieved from its perch behind his ear. “Mr. Tau-Tau,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you for possession of an offensive blowpipe.”
“Arrest me?” spluttered Doctor Tau-Tau. “For saving the boy?”
“Constable Wigge,” said the sergeant, “you will relieve the oddball of his weapon, conduct him back to the police vehicle and lock him in the back, then you will drive the van back here so we can load the suspe . . . The Null onboard before it comes around.”
Constable Wigge needed no further urging to put some distance between himself and The Null, sleepwater or no sleepwater. He took the blowpipe from the rapidly purpling fortune-teller and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, then he grasped him by the elbow and steered him back the way they had come.
Doctor Tau-Tau shook himself free of Constable Wigge’s grip for a moment and turned to Miles. “Boy,” he said in a trembling voice, “you will regret your ingratitude. I have seen death stalk you through the cards, and only I know how close it is.” Constable Wigge gripped his elbow again, more firmly this time, and marched him toward the trees. “Your death I have seen,” shouted Doctor Tau-Tau over his shoulder, “and it is not far behind you, boy.”
Miles Wednesday, dust-caked and sleepwater-thwarted, knelt in the weeds by the inert monster that had once been his father. Despite its size The Null looked helpless, its mouth hanging open loosely and its sightl
ess eyes half closed. He leaned forward and looked closely at the creature’s hairy face, trying to make out any trace of the man in the bleached-out photograph that he kept in his inside pocket.
“Do you think you will get your father back?” said Little quietly, making him jump.
Miles shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s anything of him left in there,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know either,” said Little. “I never saw a thing without a name in the One Song before. But the name of Barty Fumble must be somewhere, because it has not ceased to exist.”
“How do you know, if you can’t find it?” asked Miles.
“I can’t find its place in the One Song,” said Little, “but if it was not there, the name Barty Fumble would sound more . . . hollow. It would not have a color. It’s difficult to explain.”
“What if I do get him back,” said Miles, “and I don’t like him? What if he wasn’t as nice as everyone says?”
Little thought about this for a minute. “I never had a father or a mother,” she said, “so I don’t really know much about it. But I don’t suppose everyone would have liked him so much unless there was a good reason.”
“Tau-Tau didn’t like him at all,” said Miles.
“Doctor Tau-Tau likes himself a lot,” laughed Little. “I don’t think there’s much room left in his heart for anyone else.”
Little’s laughter seemed to sweep some of the gloom away, and Miles felt himself smile. He sat back on his heels and looked around him. The Null showed no sign of awaking from its stupor, and Sergeant Bramley and Constable Flap had found a comfortable seat on a stone vault a little distance away. The constable was showing the sergeant a deadly choke hold that he had learned from Modern Constable magazine. As he thought it unwise to lay deadly hands on the sergeant, he was demonstrating the hold on himself. Sergeant Bramley, who did not want to appear too interested, was taking his time lighting a cigarette as his constable turned slowly blue. Somewhere in the distance a motor roared to life and buzzed for a while before fading into the autumn air.
Miles and Little sat by The Null, as though they were babysitting an enormous hairy infant. It lay at the foot of a simple granite headstone that was half obscured by tangled weeds, and it was some time before Miles noticed a name carved into the stone in plain, unpainted letters. He reached across The Null and pulled the weeds apart. The inscription read:
Celeste Mahnoosh Elham
What time has stolen
Let it be
Miles read the inscription several times over. So this is my family, he thought, together at last. My mother deep underground, my father no more than a shadow, hollowed out and covered in hair, and a four-hundred-year-old sister whom my parents never knew. He supposed this odd family reunion should seem strange to him, but it did not. He had never known any other life, so what was there to compare it to?
“There’s just you and me, really,” he said to Little. He felt Tangerine scrambling around in his pocket, and his grubby orange head poked out into the afternoon air. He looked at the sleeping monster, and quickly disappeared back into the safety of his pocket. “And Tangerine, of course,” said Miles.
Little smiled at him. “We’ve done okay so far, haven’t we?” she said.
“I suppose so,” said Miles.
The sound of the police van came from the direction of the road, and a moment later it jerked into view. The van chugged and bounced along beside the green and pulled into the gravel driveway of the church, where the engine promptly died. Miles watched in surprise as Lady Partridge squeezed herself from the driving seat and stepped down into the gravel. “I’m afraid I’m rather out of practice with driving, but I got tired of waiting,” she called. “Did you find any trace of The Null?”
“We found more than a trace, Lady P.,” said Sergeant Bramley. “We have in fact located and subdued the entire suspect. Didn’t Constable Wigge fill you in on the details?”
“Constable Wigge?” said Lady Partridge. “I thought he was with you.”
“I sent the constable back to the van some time ago,” said the sergeant, pulling out his notebook without even noticing, “to place the oddball with the red hat under lock and key. Do you mean to tell me they never showed up?”
“Not a sign of them,” said Lady Partridge. “We had better search for them right away.”
Sergeant Bramley flipped open his notebook. “Constable Flap and I will form a search party,” he said, as he wrote in fat round letters: Missing persons, 2.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE LIE DETECTOR
Miles Wednesday, egged, baconed and armed with a screwdriver, sat in the dining room of Partridge Manor with Lady Partridge’s black Pinchbucket clock on the table in front of him. The breakfast things had been cleared away and Lady Partridge had asked Miles to see if he could repair the clock, which had not chimed for several days. She said she was tired of calling on Fowler Pinchbucket, but in truth she knew that Miles liked to tinker with anything mechanical, and she was looking for something to take his mind off the events of the day before.
They had found Constable Wigge alone and face down in the bracken, not far from the churchyard. He had a large lump on the back of his head and was sleeping like a baby. There was no sign of a struggle, which seemed to indicate—in the sergeant’s expert opinion—that Constable Wigge had somehow managed to knock himself out and let the prisoner escape. A search of the vicinity had found no further sign of the fortune-teller, and no one had been keen to hang around until The Null woke from its slumber. They had backed the van up to the yew tree and loaded the creature, with great difficulty, into the back.
They had returned to Larde to find the Circus Bolsillo already setting up camp in the long field at the bottom of the hill. Constable Wigge had been placed under the care of Baumella, who was becoming an expert in looking after the comatose, and Little had been sent to the circus to enlist the help of K2 in lifting The Null back into its fortified home.
Miles had hardly slept during the night, and he had dressed himself quietly before sunrise and gone to the gazebo to look in on The Null. He found the beast still groggy from Doctor Tau-Tau’s powerful sedative, but he had sat in the old armchair beside the bars until breakfast time to keep it company. Now as he examined Lady Partridge’s clock he wondered if The Null’s life would ever consist of anything more than sullen brooding and fits of hysterical rage. He had no idea if it would be possible to retrieve his father and restore him to his former self, and indeed he seemed to be the only one who believed that Barty Fumble might still be lost somewhere in that hairy hulk.
The Bolsillo brothers had said that Celeste’s powers of healing were greatly enhanced by the Tiger’s Egg, and if that was true then the Egg held his only hope of bringing his father back. He was no closer to finding where it might be, however, and even if he found it he knew that the Great Cortado held the key to its use. He thought of the inscription on his mother’s headstone: “What time has stolen, let it be.” Had she chosen this epitaph herself? Was this a message for her son, that he should not waste his life searching for a father who was dead and gone, as Fabio Bolsillo had said?
“Have you figured out how to open it?” asked Little, sitting down beside him and examining the plain face of the clock.
Miles blinked his thoughts away, and turned the clock around so that it faced away from him. It was far heavier than he had expected, and he had needed all his strength just to lift it from the sideboard to the table. It sounded like all the insides had come loose and were sliding around inside the heavy black case. There was a small door of some sort in the back of the clock, but he could not see any lock or catch that would enable him to open it. Near the base of the clock were four large screws, two on either side, and a small brass plaque with the words QUALIFIED REPAIR PERSONNEL ONLY engraved on it. He removed the screws and placed them carefully to one side, then he stood up on his chair so that he could lift off the outer case more easily.
Miles stared at the white rats in astonishment. Little laughed, and the music of her laughter set the chimes dancing within the intricate mechanism of the clock. “Hello!” she said to the rats. She squeaked a question at them, and the two rats looked at each other. Their whiskers twitched, and the smaller of the two turned to Little and squeaked something back. Miles placed the case down as gently as he could, but the rats seemed in no hurry to go anywhere, as though their natural habitat were a pile of coins and assorted silverware. Little squeaked at them again, and they made a great show of curling up and closing their eyes, though Miles distinctly saw the larger rat was peeking.
“What did he say?” Miles asked.
“He said that it was nice and dark in the clock, and they were just resting.”
“Ask them how they got in there,” said Miles. With the case lying on its side he could see that the little door in the back had a simple catch on the inside, which struck him as odd. Little squeaked at them again, but they made no answer, and one of them gave a tiny snort that sounded a little like a snore.
At that moment Lady Partridge sailed in through the door on a tide of cats. “Miles?” she said. “Sergeant Bramley would like . . .” The sight of the small pile of spilled treasure stopped her in midsentence. “What on earth . . . ?” she said, and she moved forward for a closer look. “Why, that’s Dartforth’s cigarette case . . . and my pearl earrings. I’ve searched everywhere for those. There’s my locket. What is all this stuff doing here?”