The Custodian of Marvels (17 page)

“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.

Jeremiah, I noted, had turned his back on the building, from which I guessed that he expected the key holder to soon appear.

In the distance I heard the Patent Court clock began to strike the hour. As if on cue, the doors of a coach parked nearby opened up and out climbed six soldiers in Turkish uniform. They straightened their tarboosh hats and formed themselves into a line. At the same moment, another group of six soldiers, identically dressed, began marching across the plaza within the railings. The two groups converged at the locked gate from opposite sides in perfect synchrony.

There passed a second in which nothing happened. Then, just as the chimes reached their end, I became aware of a small man wearing an unusually tall stovepipe hat. He had been strolling along next to the road. As he arrived at the gate, he paused to extract a key from inside his jacket. With this he unlocked the gate. The six Turkish soldiers behind the railings were now allowed through to the street. I was expecting to see the group outside marching in. But before they could do so, the small man – our key holder – had closed the gate and locked it once more. I watched as the six soldiers who had just come off their guard duty marched to the waiting coach and climbed aboard.

The key holder stood facing the foremost soldier. He clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels in time with the barrel organ. Then he began whistling along to the tune – lazily so – slurring from one note to the next like a schoolboy.

The soldiers did not move. Nor did they return his gaze, but continued to stand in rigid line.

Perhaps bored by their lack of reaction, he cast around, his eyes passing over our little band of circus folk and sweeping beyond us before snapping back towards where we stood just in front of the bear.

His whistling stopped. He stared, brazenly, drinking in the scene. I felt myself blushing on Lara and Ellie’s behalf. Fabulo had told me our target had a weakness, but I had not expected it to be so openly displayed.

Then, after he had remained unblinking for longer than I would have thought possible, he turned his attention back to the Turkish soldiers.

Even with his hat, he was shorter than them by perhaps half a foot. He resumed his whistling and started to stroll around the line, giving the impression of a general who had arrived to inspect the troops, still drunk from the night before. The soldiers stared towards the horizon over the top of his hat.

It came to me that I was looking at a performance. It was ritual humiliation delivered by a specialist. Here they were, these elite soldiers. And here was he – a small, round man keeping them waiting in his outrageous hat. Their movements had been crisp and military, his were casual and unwaveringly insolent.

Then other clocks began to chime the hour, close and far around the great city of London.

The key holder got out his key, which I now saw was attached to the inside of his jacket by a loop of thin chain. As the chimes rang out, he seemed to examine it. He scratched at it with a thumbnail, as if removing a speck of dirt. Then he blew on it and looked at it again. Only as the chimes were ending did he put it into the lock and turn. Nine minutes and twenty-one seconds must have elapsed since the chiming of the clock on the Patent Court.

The soldiers had played their part in the drama by remaining aloof. The lead soldier shouted something – in Turkish, I assumed. As one, they marched through the gate that was then relocked behind them.

“Now,” said Fabulo, and strode away along a path into the park, beckoning us to follow.

Yan was first to move, followed by the bear, Lara, Ellie and Jeremiah in that order. I brought up the rear, pushing the barrel organ.

I was thinking that Fabulo had made a mistake. Though the sight of Lara and Ellie, or rather their legs, had attracted him, I did not think that showgirls would be unknown in the metropolis. The key holder could not be relied on to follow. But then I heard his voice, calling from behind me.

“Hi! Good people!”

Fabulo continued to lead us further into the park, though he must have heard.

“Please wait!”

I listened to the slap of the small man’s feet on the path as he ran to catch up. At last he overtook me and I expected him to go straight to the women. But he overtook them also, circling Yan and the bear at a safe distance before coming to a stop in front of them.

“It is… a fine… bear,” he said, through gasps, for he was out of breath.

“Why, thank you,” said Yan, bowing.

“You like him then?” asked Fabulo, reaching up to give the key holder a friendly pat on the shoulder. When he withdrew his hand, I noticed a smear of syrupy liquid had been left behind.

“Indeed, yes,” enthused our target. “He is a black bear, I can see that. But from what part of the world?”

“Formosa,” said Fabulo.

“Formosa? How singular. Indeed, how very singular! How, may I ask, did he come to be brought back over the border into the Gas-Lit Empire?”

“I don’t rightly know,” said Fabulo. “But that’s what I was told when he came to me.”

Now, I am not an expert with animals. But it seemed to me that the bear was displaying more than a passing interest in the key holder. The two of them leaned towards each other, the bear held back by the chain and the man held back, presumably, by a sense of self-preservation.