The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “What do you suppose those letters and numbers mean?” he asked. “Location reference: IPC XI XXVI III DXIV?” He recited the code from memory.

  “A filing system?” I asked.

  “It’s Harry that saw the obvious. IPC must be…”

  With thoughts of the building still fresh in my mind, the answer came easily. “The International Patent Court.”

  Fabulo nodded. “That told us there was an archive in the building. The Roman numbers that follow – a storage code. So we started to ask questions, looking for anyone who might know the layout of the building inside. That’s how we came to find Jeremiah.”

  On hearing his name the big man nodded slowly. “The storerooms are under the building, like I said. Each has a Roman number above the door. I was to service the locks from ten through to sixteen.”

  “That’s X through to XVI,” said Fabulo. “Jeremiah worked on the door of room XI, which is where your machine is stored.”

  “It’s not my machine,” I said.

  Jeremiah was staring into the distance, as if remembering. “If I’d reached a higher level in the guild, I’d have been working further in,” he said. “But there was a door beyond which I couldn’t go. I tell you now, I could open any of the doors to that point. I’ve seen the locks inside and out. And I’ve had the keys in my hands. But then we get to that last door that my rank wouldn’t let me through. Whatever lies beyond it, I never got to see. Maybe I could open some of them. But I never had the chance to try.”

  All the time Jeremiah had been speaking, my mind had been snagged on what Fabulo had just said. “You still want the machine?” I made no attempt to hide the disgust in my voice. “After all you saw? After all that happened? How many lives must that thing cost before someone sees fit to smash it?”

  “I don’t want it,” said the dwarf. “I need it.”

  “It drove Timpson mad,” I said. “All because of what he believed it could do. For once I do think the Patent Office had it right. That machine brought nothing but misery.”

  Fabulo had folded his arms while I gave vent to my incredulity and disdain. When I had finished he stepped up to my chair. With me seated and him standing our eyes were on a level. He held up his hand, palm towards me, stubby fingers spread. I knew the machine had damaged his hand. But I’d never seen the injury so clearly displayed. A neat hole had been drilled in the skin between his thumb and first finger – perfectly circular, almost big enough to slip a pencil through. The beam of light had cut it and cauterised it in the same instant. I had also seen the place where its beam had cut a hole through a cast iron gatepost.

  “I know it’s a thing of devilry,” Fabulo said. “But we’ll be leaving it there in the International Patent Court. We only need to use it once or twice. Jeremiah’s lockpicking may only take us so far. But that machine – it can melt through any lock. Once we’ve got it in our hands, we can go into their storerooms as deep as we like. Think of it – all the machines they’ve taken in a century and a half.”

  He put his damaged hand on mine. He leaned forwards, fixing my eyes with his. “All the documents of the International Patent Office. That means the records of the court case that ruined your family. Everything is there if we can get through those doors.”

  “But why do you need me?” I asked.

  “Because,” he said, “you’re the only person alive who knows how to use that cursed machine.”

  CHAPTER 16

  October 2nd

  The illusion must be one story hidden and one story shown. Without the first, there will be no trick. Without the second, they will discover the first. For no mind will accept a thing unless it sees a reason.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  The next morning I woke late and groggy to find Lara and Ellie gone. I felt no nausea, but the effort of climbing the stairs set my head thumping. They put out the boards for me and I crawled through the hole into the hidden attic room. The others had already assembled. The place smelled of body odour. Jeremiah was sitting upright on a tea chest, his hands lying on his lap.

  I sat on the floor next to Lara.

  “Too much wine,” she whispered, getting up to fetch me a cup of water.

  I sipped, pulling a face at the metallic taste, but finishing it all the same. She’d been right about the wine. I’d stayed late in the Crown and Dolphin, listening to the dwarf and the locksmith exchanging stories. They’d toasted each other and the enterprise. With each emptied glass they’d been better friends. But to judge by the faces in the attic room, the tension had returned.

  Fabulo coughed loudly. “Are you quite ready? May we continue?”

  There were nods around the circle.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “What are you discussing?”

  Fabulo radiated impatience. “We must borrow a key without it being known, so that Jeremiah may copy it. But the man who holds the key he’s met once before.”

  “Why not have someone else do the borrowing?”

  “It must all be done there and then,” explained Lara. “The key taken, pressed into wax and returned, all in a minute.”

  “Then could you teach one of us to do it?”

  “Perhaps I could,” said Jeremiah. “If you’ve seven years to spend on the learning of it.”

  “You’re making this harder than it is,” growled Fabulo.

  “Well, you should have planned better,” Jeremiah fired back.

  Fabulo folded his arms. “It’s simple enough. I know people who can disguise you. Theatre folk. I take you to them. They do their magic. You’ll be recognised by no one.”

  Jeremiah wagged his finger in Fabulo’s direction. “I told you already – it’s got to be a small crew. But every day you bring in more! It’s a shambles, is what it is.”

  “They won’t be part of the crew! They won’t know where we’re staying. Nor what we’re doing. You can tell them it’s a costume party, if you want. They get their money. They keep quiet.”

  “It’s too many people!”

  “The theatre’s miles from here!” Fabulo’s voice had grown louder. “And it’s miles from the Patent Court. There’s nothing to connect us to anything!”

  “They’ll ask questions.”

  “Then we’ll tell them lies!”

  “They’ll see my face. I do not like it.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “If Jeremiah needs to be disguised, why don’t we do it ourselves?”

  “Because it’s got to be done right!” said Fabulo.

  Jeremiah nodded. It seemed there was something they agreed on, after all.

  “I can do it right,” I said.

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  “This isn’t a job for amateurs!” said Fabulo, sending a drop of spit flying. It landed on the boards between us.

  I got to my feet, somewhat shakily, then cleared my throat and announced, “An amateur, I am not!”

  Disguise was my father’s speciality, the key to his grand illusions. We played games with it from when I was very small, in which he would make me up to appear as someone else. Or sometimes he played it the other way around. The first time a stranger came up to me and spoke with his voice, I cried. Later I learned to enjoy his attempts to fool me, though he succeeded less and less.

  By the time I started appearing on stage, disguise had already become natural to me. By then I applied my own makeup. I came to do it better, he said, than he could have done.

  After I fled to the Kingdom, I discovered another use for my skill. Places that the Republic would not allow a woman to go, I could access if they thought me a young man. And legal documents were accepted when I signed in my brother’s name.

  I’d even used disguise to hide from Fabulo and the others in the circus, though they didn’t know it. Ignorant of this history, they would not at first accept my claim. Except for Tinker, who knew the secret of my other identity.

  “She’ll do it good,” the boy said, pride in his voice.

  Their doubts sof
tened when I wrote a small list of makeup supplies to be purchased.

  “Spirit gum, crepe hair, skin pigment,” read Lara. “You really have done this before.”

  “I have,” I said. “I once walked right past you and you didn’t know me from Eve.”

  “When?”

  “That’s my secret.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have fooled me,” said Yan.

  I smiled at him, remembering that on the day I’d fooled Lara once, I’d fooled him twice.

  With the supplies in hand, I set to demonstrating what could be achieved. The very blandness of Jeremiah’s face made him easy to work with. I darkened his chin, adding shadows that suggested the protrusion of cheekbones. Then I brushed on the adhesive and began working in the hair, building a beard from the bottom to the top.

  When the process had only just begun, Fabulo let out a snort and said, “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  This made Jeremiah twitch with embarrassment, which multiplied the trouble of my work.

  “Out!” I said, pointing to the hole in the wall.

  I made faster progress once they were gone and presently it was done to my satisfaction. I trimmed down the false beard to the cut known as a “doorknocker”. Then, for good measure, I painted a line of latex and pale pigment on his left cheek, forming the likeness of a scar.

  The change in his appearance was dramatic. But my main problem was his very stature. A tall man with broad shoulders will always draw the eye. So I set about teaching him to move like a different person. Since he had an upright stance, I told him to walk around the attic with a bent back and rolling gait. This he managed, so long as he was not distracted. But the moment I asked him a question, he would revert to his normal posture.

  Therefore I took a length of twine and tied it to his trousers front and back, so that it looped over his right shoulder.

  “It’s cutting into me!” he said, when he tried to stand tall.

  “Then hunch forwards.”

  This he did and the result was better than I could have hoped. Not only did the cruel twine change his posture, but when he walked around the attic it was with a pronounced limp.

  “Who is the man you’re hiding from?” I asked.

  “A key holder,” said Jeremiah. “Appointed by the Council of Aristocrats.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “Four years ago.”

  “Then he’ll not know you! Trust me. We shouldn’t even be worrying about this. You won’t be in his mind.”

  Jeremiah looked at the floorboards, seeming more miserable than ever. “I might be,” he said. “Three months back, I stopped going to the guild. I couldn’t face them since joining with this plan. There are duties for one of my rank, which I’ve left untended. A month ago the Guild Masters sent for me. I wrote back to say I was ill. I don’t know if they believed it. But if they’ve been asking around – this key holder might have been one of the people they spoke to.”

  This news alarmed me. “Then go to the guild!” I said. “You must allay their suspicions.”

  He shook his head. “They’d read trouble in my face. I’m not one who can hide such things.” He paused for a moment before adding, “There’s no need to mention this to the dwarf.”

  I found myself disquieted by the revelation, but continued with my work. We borrowed a jacket and flat cap to dress him and called the others back.

  “That’s a marvel,” said Ellie.

  “They’re my clothes!” said Yan.

  “It’ll do,” said Fabulo, though the way he regarded me afterwards gave me to believe that he’d been favourably impressed.

  Later, when the others had gone, he asked, “Why are you so quiet today?”

  “Just a headache,” I said.

  It takes money to be a successful beggar in London. Organised gangs control the best pitches. Their bosses may once have been beggars themselves. But having risen through the ranks to claim a busy street or a popular landmark, they live lives of luxury, idle but for intervals of violence when their authority is challenged.

  “How did you get permission to work here?” I asked Fabulo, as we surveyed the grassy square of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

  It might not have been as busy as the Strand or Fleet Street on the other side of the International Patent Court, but wealth flowed through those leafy paths. Lawyers crossed it to move between the chambers of the Inns of Court, also those wealthy enough to afford their services.

  “I sold some more of those watches,” said Fabulo, stony-faced. “Paid for one day on the park and on the road bounding it. Just to present the show. We’ll not be driven off.”

  “But where did you get a bear and a barrel organ?” I asked, voicing the question that had been on my mind all afternoon.

  “I know a man who knows a man…”

  “And were we to need a giraffe, would you know a man for that also?”

  “We don’t need a giraffe.”

  I’d given the bear a wide berth since Yan arrived, holding its chain. In truth, the Dutchman was the taller of the two, even when the creature reared on its hind legs. And fiercer looking. But for sheer bulk I judged the bear could have taken him easily enough, had it a mind to.

  Yan had cared for the lions of the travelling show. They’d been like kittens to him. I hoped the bear would be as biddable.

  Following behind the bear, I took turns with Lara and Ellie, pushing the barrel organ, or turning its handle to work the bellows and make the music sound. Its narrow wheels ran smoothly enough over paving slabs but quickly bogged down when we cut a corner and tried to cross a stretch of grass.

  Jeremiah did not offer to help. Rather, he trailed behind, limping along with an entirely un-circus like expression of misery on his face. I reflected that I had perhaps cut the twine a trifle too short.

  “How are you going to get the key?” I asked Fabulo as we walked.

  He winked at me. “The key holder has a certain weakness.”

  I glanced back at Lara and Ellie who followed behind. On catching my eye, they waved.

  “Only two kinds of people can be conned,” recited Fabulo. “Those with vices and those without.”

  “And which one is the key holder?”

  He winked at me. “Getting the key off him – that’s the easy part. The problem is, soon as it’s gone missing, the lock gets changed and they double the guard. We end up worse off than we started.”

  “And a bear helps how?”

  “Be patient. You’ll see.”

  I had worked to disguise the locksmith but not myself. Thus I felt exposed walking in the open with Fabulo beside me. The raid on the rookery could have been aimed at us. That would mean the duke’s spies had found some scent of us in the capital. After the humiliation we’d meted out to him, I didn’t even like to think how he might respond. Or the resources he’d dedicate to our capture.

  Few passersby paid us attention, however. All eyes were drawn to Ellie and Laura, who were dressed in their showgirl costumes from the circus. Their skirts hung to a respectable length at the back. But at the front, the hemlines climbed to reveal the high reaches of their thighs. To each man who stopped to stare, Lara would wave and Ellie would blow a kiss. Indeed, the bear seemed superfluous, though Yan was enjoying its company.

  We first set up our pitch on the northeast corner of the square. I turned the handle of the barrel organ, causing it to play a tune of breathy notes. Yan lifted his hand, on which signal the bear reared up and shuffled on its back feet as if dancing. Lara and Ellie encouraged passing lawyers to come closer, whereupon Fabulo approached them, offering his upturned hat, into which more often than not they dropped money.

  From time to time one or other of our benefactors came close enough to whisper some proposition in the ear of whichever woman had caught his fancy. But in every case Lara and Ellie skilfully evaded, even when the men got out their wallets.

  Fabulo was all smiles as he approached the public. But whenever he turned away
I saw a frown of concentration return to his face. Often he consulted a brass pocket watch, which I recognised from the shagreen box.

  All the while, Jeremiah loitered in our midst.

  As the afternoon progressed we relocated further south along the edge of the park. Then, at a quarter before five o’clock we moved again, setting up on the edge of the park facing the rear of the International Patent Court.

  Immediately on the other side of the road from us, a wall surmounted by iron railings formed a barrier, controlling access to a plaza. Beyond that rose the grey masonry of the patent court itself, doubly austere on this, the rear of the building.

  Fabulo drew close. I bent low so he could whisper in my ear.

  “See them railings? They were made by the Kingdom.” He nodded towards a heraldic device woven into the ironwork. I didn’t recognise it, though it was surely not the work of the Patent Office.

  “I thought the Kingdom could have nothing to do with guarding the Patent Court,” I said.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You remember that line of yellow bricks at the front? This wall, these railings, it’s just outside that line. Kingdom soldiers can’t go beyond it. But they can make themselves awkward – which is what this wall is here for. Whichever soldiers come to guard the Patent Court, they must first be allowed through by permission of the Kingdom.”

  Lara and Ellie had drawn closer to listen, though Yan was obliged to keep back by at least the length of the chain on which he held the bear. I noticed him dip into his pocket before stroking the bear on the muzzle. Each time he did this, the bear licked his hand.

  “Time to move,” said Fabulo, loud enough for passersby to hear.

  I stopped turning the handle of the organ and wheeled it once more. This time I did not have far to push. Fabulo clapped his hands and we stopped to resume our show. Immediately opposite us was a gate in the wall and railings. Were it unlocked, one might access the rear plaza of the Patent Court.