Other People's Baggage (14 page)

FOOL'S GOLD: TWO

  

As I ran toward the flaming barrel, the doors of the cabinet flew open. A hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, its fingers digging into my flesh.

Sanjay whirled me around, stopping me before I reached the fire. We watched from a few yards away as the flames exploded through the top of the whisky barrel. The planks fell flat, revealing only emptiness. The fire was gone.

“How could you not be inside there?” I asked, shaking free of Sanjay's grip. “I saw the space between the barrel and the stage. There's no way for you to have gotten out.”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Sanjay said. A look of self-satisfaction spread across his face.

“You didn't do that escape in your show at home.” I felt my voice shaking as I spoke. I'd been so sure he was burning alive inside that barrel, and he was happy about it. Men.

“It's new,” Sanjay said. “I thought a whisky barrel would be a good escape for a performance in Scotland. I've performed in England before, but not here.”

“That wasn't funny,” I grumbled.

“It's Ewan's fault!” Sanjay insisted. “He knew I wasn't still inside. It's supposed to be even more dramatic, with the effect drawn out. Just like Houdini did. But I had to cut it short since you ran onto the stage. What were you planning to do? Throw yourself on the flames?”

I glared at Sanjay. He took a step back.

“You could have told me what you were doing,” I said. My voice was close to a growl.

“I had to make sure you wouldn't know what was supposed to happen,” he said, his eyes pleading. “That's the whole point of having you watch, to see if you saw what you weren't supposed to see. I know you like to throw yourself into things, but I didn't think you'd do it so literally here.”

“You were right,” I said. “I shouldn't have volunteered to help. This is supposed to be a
relaxing
vacation.”

“Why don't you throw yourself into having a relaxing day today. Do some sightseeing and I'll meet up with you later before my show.”

“I have other things on my mind.”

“Right.” Sanjay pursed his lips and a dark expression came over his face. “What with you getting over that breakup and all.”

I hadn't actually been thinking about my breakup.
Thanks, Sanjay
. I'd been thinking about whether I had time to buy myself some new clothes before meeting Daniella for the picnic lunch she was having to celebrate the start of her festival show,
Fool's Gold
.

Sanjay shook his head. “Anyway,” he said, “the flames in this illusion weren't strong. But it was still very sweet of you to try to save me.”

  

I know I should have left the theater right then, but curiosity about Sanjay's illusion made me decide to watch the trick again. Just one more time.

After I watched Sanjay escape from the empty whisky barrel a fourth time, I still hadn't figured out how it was done.

Each time, Sanjay took the whisky barrel backstage and reconstructed it within minutes, which gave me my first—and only—clue to the illusion. It had been specially constructed to come apart and reassemble easily, and to withstand flames without catching fire. It didn't tell me much. Only that Sanjay was a cruel friend for refusing to tell me how it was done.

The second member of Sanjay's crew arrived as Sanjay stepped out of the cabinet a fourth time and took a bow with his bowler hat in one hand and opened handcuffs and two pieces of rope in his other hand—one of the many variations I'd tried. Though I was tempted to stay even longer, I'd already stuck around longer than I intended. Glancing at the clock on my phone, I knew I was going to be unfashionably late to meet Daniella.

I replayed Sanjay's act in my mind as I left the theater. I had yet to figure out a single one of Sanjay's illusions. Even once I knew that Sanjay would materialize in the cabinet on the other side of the stage after squeezing himself into the whisky barrel with his wrists bound, I had no idea how he pulled off the switch.

I paused outside the theater to listen to a new voicemail message and give my eyes a moment to adjust. Dark storm clouds hung low in the distance, but the sun shone brightly above me. It had been darker in the theater than I'd realized. Perhaps that was related to how Sanjay had pulled off his illusion….

My focus shifted when I heard the contents of the voicemail.

“I'm so sorry, Jaya.” It was Daniella. “Late to my own party…a problem has come up…I'll be there as soon as I—” The message cut off abruptly.

I frowned at the phone. It wasn't the words she'd spoken that worried me. If anything, it was a relief to hear I had a little extra time. But I didn't feel relieved. Daniella's voice was shaking.

This was a woman who regularly performed on stage in front of hundreds, even thousands, of people. I'd never seen her nervous, and never heard her voice tremble like that.

Daniella Stuart had been an actress for years, and this Fringe Festival show was the first play she'd also written. She moved from her native Edinburgh to London to be an actress when she was a teenager, and had become moderately successful on the London stage. But after celebrating her fortieth birthday, Daniella wanted more. I met her the previous year at the British Library, where I was doing research on the British East India Company to finish my dissertation. She was at the library researching historical chess pieces for the two-person play she was writing. Even though she was over a decade older than I was, her carefree spirit made her a welcome break from my research in the library's reading rooms.

Whatever was making her that worried, it wasn't good.

FOOL'S GOLD: THREE

  

I replayed the voicemail message. The only new thing I noticed was that she gave a slight, nervous laugh after saying she'd be late to her own party. What was going on?

Daniella's play,
Fool's Gold
, was scheduled to begin the following night, so today's picnic was a party her friends were throwing for her. It would have been a dinner except there was a big festival gala happening that evening she planned to attend.

I tried to shake off the bad feeling creeping up the back of my neck. It was probably nothing. I was jetlagged, starving, and dressed like a neon sign. Needless to say, I wasn't at my best. There must have been an innocent explanation. Daniella probably felt bad that I'd flown in from San Francisco and she was running late. Surely that was all there was to it.

I tucked my phone back into my messenger bag and hurried down a street lined with colorful shops at street level and faded stone facades above. The broad sidewalks were full of people watching street performers in town for the festival. I eased my way past a band of fiddlers surrounded by an enthusiastically clapping crowd, and around a teenage comedian who was making small children laugh as he pulled out colorful silk scarves from behind their ears. The energy of the crowd was contagious, and I found myself pushing my worries aside and smiling along with the kids.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was an eclectic combination of performances. It had grown into the largest performing arts festival in the world because they didn't keep anyone out. There were no applications. No juries to approve performances. Actors, comedians, dancers, musical theater troupes, and other performance artists needed to find financing to put on their shows, but there were shoestring budget street performances next to expensive productions. There was room for everyone.

Since Daniella was running late, I had time to stop by my hotel to take a quick shower. I said a silent thanks when I found my laundered clothes waiting for me. I wouldn't have to look like a florescent pink fashion victim when meeting up with Daniella and her friends.

After taking a three-minute shower, I changed clothes and towel-dried my hair while on hold with the airline. A harried call center employee regretfully informed me they had no idea where my bag was.
Great
. My jeans and sweater would do fine for today—as long as the looming storm held off—but my high heels wouldn't do for the scenic jogging routes or hiking I'd planned. I eyed the stranger's suitcase that looked so much like my own. I never imagined anyone besides me would have a vintage Wedgwood suitcase in blue with white trim. It was one of the things my dad had saved from is childhood in the 1950s, and I'd found it in the back of a closet at his house when I moved out of the house at age sixteen. I made a mental note to never again fail to pack an extra set of clothes in my carry-on bag.

I would also never again pack anything important in a checked bag. Earlier that summer I'd found a faded old letter about a chess game tucked into the pages of a book at a used bookstore in San Francisco, and I packed it to show Daniella, thinking she'd get a kick out of it. I wouldn't be arriving at the picnic with a fun conversation piece.

The hotel wasn't far from the Princes Street Gardens, where the picnic was taking place. As I entered the gardens, Edinburgh Castle loomed above me, the dark stone enclosure sitting on a mound of volcanic rock high above the center of the city.

The gardens were crowded with people attending the festival, but I was able to find Daniella's group thanks to a bright yellow poster board with hand-drawn black lettering that spelled out
Fool's Gold
. Two women sat on a picnic blanket next to the sign. In spite of the crisp wind, they were both dressed as if it was summer in southern California. They were drinking from plastic champagne flutes and speaking animatedly with each other in thick Scottish accents. Though it had taken me almost half an hour to arrive after receiving the voicemail message, there was no sign of Daniella.

As I walked up to the two women, they fell silent. They stared at me, wide-eyed. I was no longer wearing the bright pink gift-shop attire, so I wasn't sure what was so shocking about my appearance. I smoothed my hair, making sure I hadn't accidentally left a comb sticking out of it or some other silly thing I might have done in my sleep-deprived state. When I reached them, I realized it wasn't me they were staring at.

A middle-aged man came up from behind and stopped next to me. Now this was someone with an unforgettable appearance. He was dressed as if he was living in another era. He wore a perfectly tailored tweed jacket, glasses with thick gold-colored frames, a bright green ascot around his neck, riding boots over jodhpurs, and to top it all off: a deer stalker hat over his salt-and-pepper hair, a la Sherlock Holmes.

“This is Daniella's party?” he said in a posh English accent.

The two women murmured in unison that it was, scrambling to stand up.

“I hope I'm not intruding,” he added.

“Not at all,” the taller woman said. “It's great to have you. Daniella should be here soon.”

“Champagne?” the second woman offered, swinging a bottle in one hand and lifting a platter of cheese and sliced baguette in the other. “Or Brie?” The open bottle swayed in her hand precariously. Clearly she'd had too much champagne and not enough cheese.

“I'd love some cheese,” I said. The woman holding the cheese platter looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“Sorry!” she said. “You must be Daniella's American friend. She mentioned you were coming.”

The women introduced themselves, but I immediately forgot their names. Between worrying about Daniella and wondering about the man in the outrageous outfit, I was far too distracted for multitasking.

“American, eh?” Sherlock said to me with an overstated wink as he accepted the glass from Daniella's eager friend.

“Guilty,” I mumbled through a mouthful of bread and cheese. Travel had left me famished.

“Clayton Barnes,” he said, extending his hand.

“Jaya Jones.”

Clayton Barnes had one of the most enthusiastic handshakes I'd ever encountered. If his over-the-top attire and handshake were indicators, he was having a lot of fun with life.

The women smiled at him and told him to help himself to anything before giggling and sitting back down on the picnic blanket. They must have been pretty drunk to be giggling so much.

“Here for the festival?” Clayton asked me.

“Daniella and another friend of mine are performing.”

“Have you attended before?”

I shook my head as I chewed and wondered if he was consciously trying to look like Sherlock Holmes.
Of course! The festival.
He was in costume.

“You're in for a treat,” he said. “I've lived here for over ten years, and come to the festival each summer. But this one is special.”

“That's why you're dressed up.”

He looked at me blankly for a second while I froze, a sinking feeling in my stomach. I might as well have taken off my shoe and stuck my foot in my mouth along with the cheese.

But a moment later he broke into a large grin. “You mean my clothing for a midday picnic,” he said with a smile. “I'm a bit old fashioned, I know. It's because of my avocation. You see, I'm an alchemist—”

“An
alchemist
?” I interrupted.

“Yes.” Clayton beamed at me, rocking back and forth in his riding boots. “An alchemist.”

“You mean you study the history of alchemy?” I asked, holding out hope.

“Oh, no. I'm a practicing alchemist.” He took a small sip from his glass, the cheap plastic looking entirely out of place in his hand. “Changing base metals into gold. It's how I made my fortune, you see.”

Great. Daniella was late to her own party, possibly because something was horribly wrong, and I was stuck talking to the crazy guy who thought he was in a comic book.

“Uh huh,” I said. I glanced over at Daniella's friends, wondering if I could join their conversation on the blanket.

“It's not as glamorous as it sounds,” Clayton said. “It took over a decade of rigorous study before I was able to perfect the process. Now I'm connected to the elements to such a degree that I can sense the presence of gold. That's why I was intrigued by Daniella's show and why this year's festival is special. There's a gold and silver chess set—”

“The centerpiece of her show,” I said. I'd heard about the idea from Daniella. Antiques dealer Feisal Khattabi was sponsoring Daniella's play at the festival, including the loan of an antique chess set made of gold and silver to be used in the show. It was a replica of the famous Lewis Chessmen. Feisal's gold and silver chess set had been commissioned by an eccentric Scottish laird who'd lost his bid to purchase the original Lewis Chessmen after they were unearthed in a remote region of Scotland in the 1800s.

“It's brilliant,” Clayton said.

“I still don't understand the logic of using this chess set to drum up business for an antiques store,” I said. “Doesn't the risk outweigh whatever buzz it might create?”

“Hardly,” Clayton said. “Feisal has precautions in place. You said you haven't been to the festival before. There are tens of thousands of people here. Performers need to do something to stand out from the crowd. This chess set is great publicity for Feisal's antique business as well as Daniella's play. Here in Scotland, the Lewis Chessmen are a big deal. This gold and silver replica is almost as old—and perhaps even more valuable.”

I held my tongue. It still sounded like a terrible idea. Whatever precautions might be in place, flaunting a valuable set in front of thousands of theatergoers sounded like very bad news.

“Do you know the history of the Lewis Chessmen?” he asked, reading my expression.

“I've heard of them,” I said, “but don't know much about them. Aren't they in a collection at the British Library in London?”

“Don't remind the Scots,” Clayton said with a wink. “Yes, that's them. Some of the pieces are in England, but many of the best pieces from the set are here in Edinburgh, and Scotland wants to get the rest back from England. There's a great deal of national pride wrapped up in those pieces. A farmer and his cow discovered the walrus-ivory and whale-tooth carved pieces on his land on the Isle of Lewis in 1831—which is why they're called the Lewis Chessmen. Nobody can agree on where they originally came from, but they are truly works of art.”

“Aren't they supposed to be humorous in some way?” I asked.

“You know more than you said.” Clayton gave me a mischievous grin.

“It's the curse of a historian,” I said. “Whenever I know only a little bit of history about something, it's impossible to think I actually know anything about it.”

“That humor you mentioned is one of the reasons the set has fascinated people since their discovery. Aside from the pawns, all the pieces are human figures, and real characters. The artists who carved the pieces created humanity that resonates across time and culture. A scowling king, a shocked queen, a crazed berserker rook. This gold and silver replica doesn't capture the details of the original, but you can see why it's still something that would interest a lot of people.”

“All right,” I said. “Maybe it doesn't sound like a
terrible
idea. But it's still a stressful idea. I wouldn't want to be the security guard in charge of safekeeping.”

Clayton laughed heartily, but I didn't join in. I couldn't shake the memory of the usually confident Daniella's shaking voice on the phone.

“I wonder what's keeping Daniella,” I said.

“And Feisal,” Clayton said, his smile disappearing. “He wouldn't miss this celebration, either.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked past Clayton.

“Here she is,” I said, pointing at two approaching figures.

Daniella was with a tall, waif-like blond woman who must have been the other actress in
Fool's Gold
. She gave us all quick hugs and introduced Astrid, all the while with a forced smile. Daniella's short brown hair had always been a bit unruly, but in a stylish punky sort of way. Today it was lifeless and messy, and her face creased with worry.

“Sorry Astrid and I are late,” she said. “There was a security problem at the theater.”

The sirens of police cars drowned out our voices as they passed us and sped down Princes Street. My eyes followed the cars. They screeched to a halt a block past us.

“What kind of problem were you talking about?” Clayton asked. “Not the chess set, I hope.”

“A broken window,” Daniella said. “They think it was a drunken prank. The city is crazy right now. But….”

“But what?” Clayton asked, adjusting his Sherlock hat. “As you said, it's festival time.”

“It worried Feisal,” Daniella said. “And I didn't like the look of it either. He wanted to make sure the theater got it fixed right away.”

“Why did Feisal go?” Clayton asked. “That should be security's job.”

Astrid gave an un-lady-like snort, detracting from her stunning appearance. She stood six feet tall in ballet flats, a full foot taller than me, though her bone structure was as small as mine.

Daniella wasn't looking at either Clayton or Astrid. Her gaze was focused past all of us.

“The police cars,” she said. “That's our hotel.”

She was right. The police cars had stopped directly in front of the Old Town Hotel.

Without giving us a backward glance, Daniella marched away from the picnic, heading straight for the hotel. Clayton squinted at Daniella through his gold-rimmed glasses, his expression unreadable. Astrid's face was set in an angry glare. Nobody made a move to follow Daniella except for me. I hurried to catch up with her.