Maddie Hatter and the Timely Taffeta

by Jayne Barnard

  She turned to make sure they still had the shark, and saw her friend’s shocked face peering out through the gaping jaws. She pulled the tow rope in, bringing the shark up to the stern.

  “I thought we’d been taken in tow by the kidnappers,” said Serephene. “What happened? Where are we?”

  “Fanto saved us,” said Maddie. “He jumped onto the enemy’s boat to fight them off while we got away. If they knocked him overboard . . .” She hesitated, and finally spoke the fear that had been growing upon her during their wild ride. “He might drown.”

  “Not him.” Zaneta crawled up to stand on the gondola’s seat for a good peer around the nearest shoreline. “His legs, they are less heavy than the looks. A good swimmer is Fanto. He’ll be cold, that’s the worst.”

  “Well, that’s good to know.” Serephene looked over the silvery lagoon. “Why are we way out here? I thought we were going to Madame Frangetti’s.”

  “I missed the corner on the Grand Canal. Too fast for turning around until now.” Maddie straightened up and wiggled her shoulders. “Zaneta, do you know where we are? I mean, how far to the Rio di Noale?”

  The seamstress shrugged. “I know it’s that way, but how far around?”

  “I can take a turn at the oar.” Serephene crawled further out of the shark’s mouth. “Hold the rope so I can come across.” This was accomplished with only a bit of wobbling. Serephene stood up and stretched. “It’s a bit cramped in there. Give me that oar. You sit down and rest.”

  “I wish we could get Scottie out and leave that shark behind.” Maddie paid out the rope and watched the creature settle in behind the gondola once more. “In this moonlight, it’s a shining beacon to those blasted Russians. I’m sure they’ll have found another boat soon and then where will we be?”

  “Keep your eyes on the canal mouths,” said Serephene, swinging the oar through the water in clumsy imitation of a gondolier. “If we see another boat we’ll have to think of something.”

  “Camouflage.” Maddie stood up again and unclasped her cloak. “Pull the shark up here. We’ll drape this cloak over its back to change its profile on the water. Old trick I learned from the Navy. It won’t fool anyone coming up close, but just watching from the shore . . .” She held the cloak by its shoulder and flung the skirts out over the silvery back. The wool spread out and settled in a lovely drape, its lowermost corners almost meeting the waves. Good. The weight of wet corners would help keep it in place.

  While she was tying the chin-strings under the shark’s nose, the black fabric hunched up near the tail. Something, or someone, was creeping along the shark toward her. She lifted her hands away. Serephene raised the oar, ready to smack away whatever popped out from beneath the flattened hood.

  It was, once more, the automaton rat. Sitting up on the nose, its haunches pooled in black wool, it sniffed the night air. Then it hopped into the jaws and went inside. Of course, it would. It was tasked to find Scottie, and presumably now it would guard him until Henry showed up. Serephene leaned in after it.

  “Oh, leave it,” said Maddie. “It’s got a homing beacon that ought to guide that dratted Englishman to us any time now. Henry’s more of a sneaky rat than a good Cricket, but he should be gentleman enough to tow us to safety, if only so he can talk to Scottie.”

  Zaneta lifted her hand. “Would this English have the large boat?”

  “I have no idea. Why?” Maddie looked along the outstretched arm. Creeping out from the shore was a fat, dark hull. “By the Cog, not another fight. How did they find us so fast?”

  As it came into the moonlight, the bigger boat was seen to have a gibbet in place of a mast, from which a man’s body dangled. Another body, its white shirt stark against the black hull, drooped over the side. Serephene, incongruously, laughed.

  “It’s the French battle float from the parade.” She went back to her attempts to propel the gondola. Maddie kept an eye on the other boat. It seemed to be paralleling the shoreline, but their course was bringing them closer to it. Soon snatches of song trailed across the water. Then came a shout. Someone stood in the bow, waving at them and calling out in drunken Italian.

  “They want to know,” said Zaneta, “if we’ll come on their boat for a drink.”

  “I wouldn’t turn down a hot cup of tea,” said Maddie. “But I doubt that’s what they’re offering. See if they’ll give us a tow, if they’re going past the Rio di Noale’s harbour.”

  The bigger boat came alongside. Zaneta conducted a repetitive conversation with three distinctly inebriated men in the remnants of their French uniforms, refusing many iterations of offers to bring the lovely and unexpected ladies onto their deck. The gondola’s bow line was attached, and, for added disguise, Maddie brought the shark up beside it. Now the silvery body would be mostly concealed from any watchers on shore.

  The cavalcade set off, with the two men who could most reliably stand up serenading them and the third man propping himself up against the rudder-post to blow kisses at Serephene, at least until gravity got the better of him. But they were making good time. The outer rim of the Cannaregio floated past at a steady pace, its buildings mostly dark and its northeast seawall quiet. No other boats were moving this far out or, indeed, further in.

  Some of the tension seeped from Maddie’s shoulders. But not all. Twice before she’d thought they were clear of the kidnappers, and both times they’d been attacked. Surely, now, even angry Russians would think twice before attacking a boatload of drunken “Frenchmen” who might be happy to extend their evening’s battle practice. Having missed the previous struggle, Serephene would probably be only too happy to swing an oar, or even stab somebody. Too bad Fanto’s winding handle was no longer with them. Getting away without the clockwork motor could be a big problem.

  “Keep your eyes open for any other boats following us,” Maddie said, in a firm voice only slightly undermined by the nervous gurgle of her stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE REST OF their trip passed without incident. Far off on the other side of the city, the sky had acquired that early tinge of green that presages sunrise. As they reached the squared-off harbour north of their rio, Serephene pointed inland.

  “Scottie’s lab is still there.”

  The little airship was where it had always been, quietly moored atop the fashion house. Maddie remembered standing on that rooftop in the afternoon sunlight, looking at boat masts above the mist, thinking she’d like to be floating around the lagoon to see Venice from the water. Now that she’d succeeded, she had to concede she’d rather not have had to. She studied the little airship, and as much of the building below it as could be seen. No lights showed in the few windows that faced the sea. “We’ll have to get a lot closer before we’ll know if it’s really deserted.”

  Zaneta quietly slipped the gondola’s line loose and took over at the oar. Poling silently past the boat-moorings, she brought them to within a few buildings of Frangetti’s. The faux-Frenchmen carried on, still singing, unaware their audience had left them.

  Serephene eyed the deserted paving. “Should someone look around first, in case we are waited for?”

  “Let’s go around to that water-gate. It might be too narrow to fit the shark and this gondola, but we’ll be under cover before it’s any lighter out here.” Maddie tried to find the narrow canal’s entrance, but nothing seemed familiar from this side. Of course, she’d been under the water when the submersible came out this way. “Do you know where that skinny canal is from this end, Zaneta?”

  “Assi.”

  Twenty minutes later they were creeping along the little back-water lane. High overhead, the narrow strip of sky was streaking pink, primrose, and orange. They were missing a fabulous Venetian sunrise. After the events of the night, it would have felt wonderful to sit still, bobbing on the greening waves, while the firmament shed its midnight robes for the graceful hues of day. But they were more visible by day. The Russians might be searching from the sky. If they were indeed c
onnected to the Consulate, as seemed likely by the length of that water-tunnel, they might have all the resources of the Tsar’s intelligence services behind them.

  That was what Maddie feared most of all: capture by the Tsar’s men. Scottie and Serephene might be forced to serve Russia for a time, which would certainly be unpleasant for them. But if Maddie fell into the clutches of the Russian Bear, her false identity would soon be penetrated. Then all the secrets of industry and Admiralty reposing in her father, Britain’s Third Steamlord, would be weighed against her very life. It would be a grave situation for her, but an even worse one for Lord Main-Bearing.

  The water-gate’s pedestrian plank was raised. She scrambled onto the strip of walkway and tiptoed toward the gap. The grill, when she pushed, lifted silently to let her touch the muffling curtain that hung, dark and dank-smelling, over the entrance. She listened, but no sound disturbed the silence. Was it safe to enter? Could she send TD in first, and wait for images?

  She shook her head at her own foolishness. TD couldn’t possibly print out images in an open gondola, especially without either paper or ink. What would Serephene make of her friend’s decorative little bird suddenly turning out to have all these capabilities? Who might the talkative Zaneta tell?

  She pushed aside the curtain and slid through into the gloom. Signs of hurried flight were everywhere: a fabric table on its side, a stack of empty crates piled haphazardly up one wall, her lost headdress trampled on the stone floor. The room was deserted, and it was quiet, and her eyes welcomed the dim. She held aside the curtain.

  “Safe to come in, I think. There’s barely room for the two boats.” Getting both the gondola and the shark in took far longer than it should have, but they managed. Maddie set the table upright and perched on a corner, examining her much-abused hands. “Good thing my mother can’t see these. She’d make me wear lemon-oil gloves to bed for a month. Honestly, as lovely as Venice is, I’ve had about enough of boats for a while.”

  Serephene nodded. She was on her knees by the shark, raising its side. “He’s still sleeping, poor lamb. Do we need to do anything else right away? Or can we just rest up and then figure out the best course of action?”

  “You rest here,” Zaneta said. “I bring food and news.”

  Food? Maddie’s stomach burbled its excitement. She said, “You won’t tell anyone where we are, right? Except Fanto. Naturally he’ll want to know what we did to his gondola.”

  With Zaneta away about her errand, Maddie lowered the grill and cranked down the walkway. Nobody should have reason to suppose the missing inventor, the AcquaTiempe heiress, and a nobody of a fashion reporter were all hiding in the cellar of an abandoned fashion house. What an ending for Knott’s investigation. Except, of course, that it wasn’t truly over. The French spy had escaped with all her Cats save the two in the submersible. The Russian Foxes would not give up hunting for Scottie in Venice. Serephene’s Papa would be raising the alarm about his missing daughter any moment now. An Anglo-Italian Steamlord would not be so readily dismissed by Commissario Bruciato. The hunt would be up.

  Whether or not Serephene’s papa persisted in having Maddie charged for leading his innocent daughter astray, the police were as likely as anyone else to penetrate Maddie’s false identity. If that happened, not even the mighty power of the Marquis of Main-Bearing would keep all those gossipy Venetian tongues from wagging about the noble English girl who had spied on a fashion house while disguised as a widowed chaperone. No, Maddie had nothing to gain, and much to lose, by being found by the Venetian police.

  This tangle didn’t take into account the role of the Cricket, Henry Wellesley. However he intended to dispose of Madame F’s bolts of the time-twisting silks, he wouldn’t balk at taking their inventor along with him. Would the automaton rat sneak off to find him, and bring him down on them, or just go quietly to sleep until Maddie sent it back to Madame with a warning that it was compromised? Maybe it had gone already, and she hadn’t noticed.

  She crept over to the shark and peered in. Scottie was snoring slightly, stretched along the traghetto’s bottom with his head on a thwart. Serephene was curled up at his side with her head on his stomach, deeply asleep, teal strands of hair tumbling over the brown Pinocchio jacket. The rat sat by Scottie’s head, gazing at nothing in particular. It did not seem to need power pellets the way TD did. TD! Maddie put her hand up to her hat. The clockwork sparrow was gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  MADDIE WHISTLED. THE cellar walls answered but no reply came from TD. He must have run out of power entirely and fallen from her hat. On hands and knees, she crept around the floor. He was not there. She searched the gondola, in case he’d fallen off while they were moving the boats in. He was not there. She lay on the stone surround and peered into the dark water. Would he float, like the little post-at airships? Would he sink? Why had she never tested his water response? How could she get him back if he was down there in the murk and the muck?

  She was wondering where one hired divers in Venice when the sparrow hopped in under the entrance curtain, warbling a greeting. Not bothering to stand up, she scrambled over to him, getting her skirts caught under first a knee, then a boot, and all but taking a header into the frigid water herself. He walked up her arm, twittering happily. She sat up and stared into his bright, beady eyes. They should be, at best, milky with exhaustion.

  “Where have you been? How do you have so much energy?” Of course, the little bird didn’t answer. Those weren’t commands he could obey. She took a deep breath, calming the panic that had gripped her. “Tweetle-D, speak to me.”

  Obie’s voice flooded her with relief so strong it made her shiver. “Maddie, I’m back. There’s a spy flap at the consulate and it’s all hands on deck round here. I don’t know when I’ll get over to see you. Stay out of trouble another day or two if you can. If you can’t, send word and I’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

  “Well, good news at last,” Maddie told TD. Her stomach murmured something about breakfast. “And I bet you found some biscuit crumbs in the break room upstairs, didn’t you? That’s why you’re powered up a bit. They must have left a window open. If I can find the way out of this cellar, we’ll go up together. I’ll find some food, and then we’ll go to the roof to send a message back to Obie. Because we are certainly not staying out of trouble here, and another set of strong arms would be very handy.” The bird warbled. She looked at him. “Oh yes, the lab rat. Poor creature. He must be even hungrier than I am. I hope he had the sense to hide when Madame’s Cats were stripping the place.”

  Since there was nobody awake to see, she let TD ride on her shoulder, chatting to him while she stared at the walls. The Cats and Madame had carried quite a lot of materials down here; they wouldn’t have gone outside and around the block with all that. Ergo, an entrance to the building there must be. But where? After a fruitless time, she folded back an edge of the black curtain, letting in some extremely bright morning light, and saw, in the slash of sunbeam, dust motes whirling toward the messy pile of empty crates.

  Moving toward meant airflow. She approached the pile, eyed it from several angles, and placed her scraped fingers on a wooden corner worn smooth by many previous hands. She pushed, then she pulled, and then she slid the whole stack neatly aside, revealing a doorway with a curtain hanging down its other side. She stepped through, wiggled past a rack of fabric lengths hung to dry, and found herself in one of the laundry rooms. A tap was dripping somewhere in the silence.

  Guessing at a direction, she hurried past dyers’ and finishers’ rooms. Coming to a door that seemed a familiar size and shape, she pushed that open. Now she knew where she was: in the workers’ entrance lobby. The stair to the break room was right over in that corner. Oh, she could almost smell pastry now. Her stomach wouldn’t care if the stuff was three days old. And coffee. She could make coffee. What bliss! She ran up the stairs as lightly as if she was coming from a full night’s sleep, and dashed into the break room.

 
Straight into Madame Frangetti and three small men in dark clothing.

  She jerked back, but they had her arms. She thrashed, but in the tiny room there was no space to manoeuvre. She managed to kick one of them backward over a chair. But all too soon she was subdued, immobilized and twisted round with lengths of very ordinary, but strong, cotton muslin. They had been drinking coffee, she noticed, and wasn’t at all sorry it had spilt over the table and the floor.

  Madame Frangetti loomed over the chair she was lashed to. “You! How did you escape? Where is my submersible? My taffeta?”

  “It’s not your taffeta,” said Maddie. “It’s Scottie’s.”

  “I paid him for it. It’s mine.”

  Well, she had a point there. Now what? Should Maddie accuse her of being a French military spy? Probably not. If TD were recording, it might be a useful conversation, but she hadn’t asked him to and he would have zipped away to a safe distance at the first sign of struggle. He would possibly now be sending a distress call. Thankfully, Obie was back in Venice to receive it.

  That knowledge gave Maddie the calm to sit quietly, not answering, while Madame F hurled increasingly more urgent questions at her about the submersible and its contents. She had no idea how she could get out of this one. Maybe Serephene and Scottie would wake up and find her missing, and come looking. That would even up the odds somewhat, three against four, if she could get out of this fabric. But then Madame would have Scottie in her sights again, and could use Serephene’s safety to coerce him to recreate his formulas. Hopefully none of the Cats would think to check the cellar, or they’d be discovered while they were asleep and vulnerable.