The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter (12 page)

“It’s gone.”

“It could be restored.”

“No.”

“Nine thousand guineas would pay Northampton and clear the expenses of the court. Your life returned.”

“No!”

“We’re both victims, Elizabeth. But your misfortune may be reversed. Mine also with your help.”

“My father died. That can’t ever be undone!”

“I’m begging you,” she said, her voice cracking. “Please help.”

Slowly, I turned. She stood a pace from me, her face creased with pain. I hadn’t noticed insincerity in any of her expressions. Yet seeing her now, I understood that everything before had been affectation by comparison.

“Nine thousand guineas would pay for a hundred gatherers of intelligence,” I said.

“Only a fool would take gold and risk their life. Yet a fool couldn’t find my brother.”

And there it was: the real reason this woman had selected me. Not because of my fine reputation as a gatherer of intelligence, though that had been a pleasant fiction. Not even for my childhood background in a travelling show.

How long had she expected the investigation to last before the Patent Office intervened? One week? Two perhaps? And when that happened, she knew I would drop her commission and run, as would any of the legion of intelligence men she could have approached.

Desperation was the quality that made me uniquely fit for her needs. She had gambled on the proposition that I, or my brother, would risk a death sentence in the Patent Office Court in exchange for the chance of return to our home in the Kingdom.

“Money and life are not the same,” I said.

“They are for me, Elizabeth. For you also. We’re of one kind. Tragedy has made fools of us both.”

I watched as she stepped to the trapdoor and swung it closed, cutting us off from the world below.

“What did you see in the Darkside Coffee House?” I asked

“I saw you half revealed.”

“You researched the records of my birth? My history?”

“I needed to know who I was commissioning.”

“And you didn’t think to blackmail me?”

“Would you have succumbed?”

I did not answer. For a moment we each seemed to be waiting for the other to blink. Then she said: “It seems I chose wisely.”

“You would pay nine thousand guineas?”

“For his safe return, yes.”

I shook my head. “I won’t face certain death for any money.”

“Nothing is certain. Please hear my story.”

We sat in the corner of the room, the Duchess rigidly upright, her back against the wall, feet stretched out in front of her. I kept my legs crossed under my skirts.

“He is beautiful,” she said, speaking of her brother.

“Not handsome then?”

“He has a delicate masculinity. A sculpted face. You’ll understand when you find him.”

“If I find him. Are there no pictures?”

“There was one. A small portrait. Very fine. The frame alone would be worth a fortune. The Patent Officers took it – for their investigation, they said.”

The injustice of her story rang true. The very people who had chased him from his home also stole the last reminder of his face. Yet I had been taken in by the Duchess’s stories before and did not trust the way her story resonated with my own.

“I think you miss the picture more than you miss him,” I said.

The flush of anger rose quickly in her cheeks. “Withdraw that!”

“Why? You spoke of the fine frame with more passion than you did your brother’s face. Perhaps you loved him once.”

“You push too far!”

“Why did you leave him then?”

“I didn’t leave him!”

“You married the Duke of Bletchley. You joined his household and left your brother.”

“Those with wealth or title have no choice in marriage,” she said.

“Then you don’t love your husband?”

For a moment neither of us spoke. I had learned one thing in the exchange. Her outrage had been real, so too must her love be.

“Why do you treat me so?” she asked.

“To find the truth.”

Tiredness seemed to overtake her. Her shoulders slumped.

“Tell me how he disappeared?” I said.

“There are workshops in the grounds – a ramshackle collection of buildings. The Duke wished to convert them into stables, as I believe they may have been in the past. Yet they were stacked with obscure artefacts. Believing there might be something of value hidden among the dust and cobwebs, the Duke employed my brother to sort and catalogue the hoard.”

“Whose was the workshop?” I asked. “Originally, I mean.”

“An uncle of the Duke, dead some twenty years. The man had a fascination for exotic science.”

“He was an inventor?”

She shook her head. “A collector. They were bought from private sales, though none had a patent mark. My brother has a way with devices. Retorts and chemicals that would be a mystery to others, he could perceive the uses of.

“I used to sit with him as he puzzled over clockwork machines and steam devices and obscure arrangements of lenses. The Duke’s uncle had a hoarder’s instinct. But he was no librarian. He left no catalogue and little by way of written explanation. Three months my brother worked and not a tenth of the task completed.”

As the Duchess spoke, I thought of the nine thousand guineas she had offered. Everything in me wanted to go blindly forward and take it. I wanted to retract my impertinence. I wanted to grovel and receive my old life back in return. But if her story proved untrue, all she promised would be illusion. I became aware that I had been holding my breath.

“It’s almost dark,” I said. “We should go soon. They’ll be shutting up shop below.”

She put her hand on my arm, stopping me getting to my feet. “First let me tell you of Harry Timpson. All my troubles began when he came to Buckinghamshire.”

“Timpson is a Republican,” I said. “He’d never take his show across the border.”

“Yet so he did. His Laboratory of Arcane Science pitched its tents not half an hour distant from the Hall. The Duke paid for everyone to see the show – guests, servants and all down to the least parlour maid. My brother seemed galvanised by the prospect.

“Indeed, the show proved exceptional, though my brother couldn’t settle through it. He sat there fidgeting – to the embarrassment of all. At the intermission the men went off to smoke and drink. I took refreshment with the rest of the womenfolk.

“But my brother didn’t return for the second half. Nor when the show was done and the carriages lined up to carry us home. When he was still missing the following morning, the Duke sent out men to search. They found Harry Timpson’s big top had disappeared in the night. A week later we received word that the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders had crossed back into the Republic at a border post just east of Leicester. My brother had passed beyond my reach.”

“You didn’t see him again?”

“No.”

The Duchess lifted herself from the floor and stood, straightening her skirts for a moment. I got to my feet and faced her square. Being the same height, my eyes were level with hers. Despite the difference in status, we seemed to have reached a moment of equality. Dusk had entered the room and I could see only the half of her face illuminated by the thin light that filtered through the frosted window.

“When did the agents of the Patent Office arrive?” I asked.

“The very day that Timpson crossed back into the Kingdom. There were two of them only. One was old and somewhat gaunt. The other was much younger and spoke with an American accent. They presented their papers to the Duke. I recognised the younger man. He’d been in conversation with my brother the night before he disappeared. At the time I hadn’t known what he represented.”

“The agents removed something from the workshops?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I watched all day as they searched.”

“A small object perhaps? Something they could have concealed in a pocket?”

“To judge by their expressions, I’d say they didn’t find whatever they were searching for. They placed the seal of the Patent Office on the workshops and that’s been an end to it. None of us have crossed the threshold since.”

She held the purse of coins out towards me on her upturned palm.

There was a scuffing noise below the trapdoor. “We’ll be closing in five minutes.” called the shopkeeper.

I reached out and took the purse. “We’re just leaving,” I said.

Chapter 13

Never repeat a trick, for the same eyes may not be misdirected twice. And never return to the same pitch. Even should they think they want more.

– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

Three weeks had passed since Harry Timpson set out from Sleaford continuing the endless pilgrimage that is the inheritance of all travelling peoples. Enough time for his scouts to have found a pitch in a fresh town, to have wrung the population dry and then to have moved on again. If fortune smiled on me, I would find him soon enough. If not I might be wandering the lanes of Lincolnshire until snows made travelling impossible and Leon had seized my precious boat.

The gypsy I’d met in Sleaford had indicated that I should travel west. There being no better choice, I set out in that direction, hoping to hear word of Timpson’s passing in the villages around. Spending the Duchess’s gold with what felt like reckless abandon, I hired Alf’s cousin Joe and his steamcar taxi to transport me. He expressed his pleasure at the commission. Doubly so when I added extra coins to his fee, explaining that he would be bodyguard as well as driver.

Ten miles west of Sleaford we pulled over at a rest stop to let the engine cool. I sat in the passenger seat and watched Joe work the arm of a roadside pump. Having filled a tin bucket, he poured water into the car’s capacious tank, then went back and repeated the process. As he was thus engaged, a pony and trap clopped to a halt immediately in front of us. Joe and the trap’s driver stood for a moment in conversation, Joe mopping his brow with a green handkerchief whilst the other man jumped and jogged on the spot, as if wishing to loosen stiff joints after miles of travel.

Sliding out of the seat, I straightened my skirts and was about to approach the newcomer to ask if he had heard news of the Travelling Laboratory, when I noticed the gatepost nearest the pump. On its flat surface, positioned so that it would not be easily seen from the road, were three chalk lines, one horizontal, the other two crossing it vertically, the line on the right side having a small kink near its base.

I had not seen such a mark since my childhood. Yet there was no mistaking the sign of the broken-legged man – a symbol that used to be drawn by outriders of the Circus of Mysteries indicating that a good pitch lay close ahead.

From somewhere distant I seemed to hear a voice shouting my name. My father’s voice. It sounded so real that for a moment I wanted to call back to him.

I had thought the broken-legged man was part of a secret language known only in the Circus of Mysteries. Yet here it was on a gatepost in the Republic, the chalk still fresh. Such marks could last three weeks in dry weather. But at this time of year, with the dew heavy each morning, they would be unreadable in half that time.

Pulling the glove from my hand, I rubbed a thumb over the rough wood of the gatepost. Chalk dust crumbled away under my touch. An absurd idea began to take shape in my mind. Perhaps the Circus of Mysteries had somehow survived and my father with it.

“Miss Barnabus?”

Joe’s call pulled me back from my thoughts. Concern was written on his face. The emotions washing through me must have shown.

“Miss Barnabus?” he said again.

Making myself smile, I said: “Did the great Harry Timpson pitch his tent in Sleaford last month?”

The trap driver stepped towards me, touching a hand to the brim of his bowler hat. “So I hear,” he said.”

“It’s a shame I missed the chance. His show is famous. But he’ll be long gone by now.”

“Why miss, no. That is, I don’t mean to contradict. But you’ve most excellent luck. He came back.”

“He never does that.”

The man laughed and scratched the back of his head. “You’ll trust your own eyes I hope. Climb this rise and you’ll see his tents pitched in a field to the right of the lane.”

The car remaining too hot to drive, I walked the low hill. Joe, striding beside me, brought his hefty stick down on the road with a dull thud every other pace.

“Expect you’ll be wanting your money back,” he said, when we saw a flash of green and white striped canvas through the trees. “There’ll be expenses to take out first.”

“Harry Timpson never returns so soon,” I said, more to myself than to my driver.

“But that’s him sure enough.”

“You saw him before?”

“Aye. And worth the shilling it cost. Changed lead into gold, he did. That I’ll never forget.”

More of the canvas emerged as we started down the other side of the hill and the trees thinned. The big top itself had been pitched off-centre in the field. I counted fourteen wagons clustered near the rear hedge. Smaller tents and wagons stood near the gateway – the usual assortment of fortune telling booths, freak-show tents and animal exhibits. Three campfires burned in different parts of the field and I could smell the wood smoke on the air. Taken together I judged it to be twice the size of the Circus of Mysteries.