The Custodian of Marvels (16 page)

Jeremiah moved the bottle around again. Though we were becoming unsteady, he didn’t let one drop spill. “To locks that open for us and confound our enemies,” he said.

We echoed the toast. They both looked at me. My head was swimming – partly from the wine and partly from the enormity of what I’d agreed to do.

“To being alive,” I said, raising my glass.

“And death to all agents of the Patent Office,” said Fabulo.

I watched them drink, then found myself sitting back down with a bump.

“She’s had too much,” said Jeremiah.

“You didn’t answer his question,” I said.

“What question?” asked Fabulo.

“She’s right,” said Jeremiah. “You were going to tell me how Elizabeth can help us in our endeavour. What’s her special skill?”

Fabulo climbed down from his chair. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a document which he then unfolded on the table.

“There was a case heard in the Patent Court this year,” he said. “It was the confiscation of a machine that created ‘a light of marvellous intensity’. It was the machine you used, Elizabeth, when you blinded the great Harry Timpson. We both lost something that day, so we’re square. I’m not raking up old dirt. But we have to talk about it now. This…” he slid the paper across the table, “…is the judgement of the court from that case.”

I looked at the paper. Jeremiah moved closer to read it over my shoulder. It had been written in an immaculate copperplate.

“How did you get it?” I asked.

Fabulo waved his hand in the air, as if dismissing the matter as trivial. “Harry’s lawyers did it. They asked it be sequestered as part of his defence – though we never got that far as it turned out. It was a capital case, so they had no option but to supply it. Go on – read.”

Case number: KESW 157,319

Date: January 28th 2009

Category: Arcane technology

Subject: The late Duke of Bletchley

Description: An investigation was initiated in August 2008 following reports from informant
REDACTED
. The existence was suspected of a machine for the production of a beam of light, perfectly focused and of marvellous intensity. Paperwork subsequently acquired has linked formal ownership to the late Duke of Bletchley. Since leaving his collection, the machine is thought to have passed through the hands of several individuals. These include:
REDACTED
,
REDACTED
and Harry Timpson.

The machine came into the hands of the International Patent Office on the night of
REDACTED
. It was on that evening that the aforementioned Harry Timpson was blinded as a result of contact with the machine.

A supply of chemicals designed to fuel the machine was subsequently discovered following information given by
REDACTED
.

Judgement: The machine is judged likely to be detrimental to the wellbeing of the common man. The machine and chemicals will therefore be confiscated by officers of the International Patent Office.

Action: Completed.

Location reference: IPC XI XXVI III DXIV

Signed: John Farthing

Reading John Farthing’s name so disturbed my thoughts that I had to go through the document a second time to absorb its meaning. I became aware that Fabulo was watching me intently.

“We can guess that final redacted name,” he said. “I wasn’t of a mind to think about it at the time. But I took it you’d been thrown into whatever pit the Patent Office holds for renegades like us. But then you turned up again, alive and well in the Republic. And with money enough to buy that hulk of a canal boat.

“Harry may have been in prison, but we still had spies abroad. I watched and wondered. Then this came to my hand.”

He took back the document and folded it away in his pocket.

“You cut a deal, Elizabeth. That agent John Farthing seemed like a bright young man. With initiative, I’d say. You told him where to find the chemicals if he’d let you go.”

It hadn’t happened that way. But I nodded, not knowing how to explain to a man who hated the Patent Office as much as I did that Farthing had let me go of his own accord. And that I had, afterwards, told him where the chemicals could be found. As to why I’d given the information without inducement, I was now at a loss to explain. At the time it had seemed to me that, for the good of all, the chemicals should be put beyond use. If there had been more to it – an attraction to John Farthing, perhaps – that now seemed like a cruel joke.

“I don’t blame you,” said Fabulo. “I might have done the same myself. Even though it was dealing with the enemy. But now… what you did has become pure providence.”

I stared at him, confused, trying to read meaning from the smile that grew on his face. Way back at the start of this, when he’d stolen onto my boat in the middle of the night and kept me at bay with his pistols, he’d asked if I remembered the machine. At the time I’d thought he was blaming me for the damage it did, but now I began to see a different significance in the question.

“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 softened 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.