Barnum’s battered face was two inches from hers on the cold floor, and his blank stare motivated her to keep moving in spite of the pain in her shoulder.
Find the knife, she urged herself. Find Julia.
It was not far away, jutting from between the floorboards, like Excalibur from the stone. Embedded where Barnum had dropped it.
Another stroke of luck, Chevie thought.
She wriggled like a snake toward the knife.
Come on, Julia. I hope you’re sharp.
She was. Once Chevie got a palm on either side of the knife, it took seconds to saw through the rope securing her wrists and, with her hands free, the rest of her bonds could be sliced off easily.
Overhead was regimented chaos. Chevie could hear the battle roar of a dozen troops as they stampeded through the house, searching for Charismo. Their tread knocked dust from the fractured ceiling, and one gas jet on the wall seemed to catch fire spontaneously, shooting a blue flame across the kitchen.
We need to get out of here, thought Chevie.
She heard footsteps split off from the others and descend the steps to the kitchen.
Chevie grabbed Barnum’s gun from the sink and squashed herself inside the dumbwaiter next to Riley, back into the oppressive heat and stale food stink, closing the hatch behind her.
Through a crack she saw a soldier’s black boots and pants push through the door. He strode briskly around the room, turning quickly as he looked behind the table and chairs. He paused over Barnum’s corpse, checking that the giant had indeed passed on.
Riley moaned in his half-conscious state, and Chevie stuffed her knee in his mouth, stifling whatever noise he might make next.
Luckily for the concealed pair, the soldier was still a little battle-deaf from the cannon’s roar, and he missed the muffled sound.
“Big,” he said, loudly, nudging Barnum’s corpse with his toe. “Big, big.” Then he snapped to and exited the room.
Chevie waited till the sound of the soldier’s footsteps had faded, then she yanked the leather strap, opening the hatch, and backed herself out into the kitchen.
Riley was moaning when she tugged him out of the tiny space, but also smiling.
“Agent Pretty,” he said. “A kiss from pretty Annie Birch.”
Boys are the same down through the years, thought Chevie, then punched Riley in the stomach.
“Sorry, kid,” she said as Riley doubled over, retching. “One more should do it.”
She punched him again and stood clear as the boy vomited a stream of half-digested macarons and, she hoped, deadly nightshade onto the floorboards.
“Okay,” she said, to herself mostly. “Okay. He should make it now. I hope.”
Chevie swabbed Riley’s face as best she could with a damp cloth from the sink, then she helped the boy stagger to the kitchen door, which led conveniently to the back of the house.
We gotta get out of here, thought Chevie again, grabbing an overcoat from a hook by the door. But I wish I could stay long enough to see the look on Charismo’s face. I bet the spirits didn’t warn him about this.
The look on Charismo’s face was a blend of disbelief and petulant terror, an unusual cocktail of emotions for a set of features to display. The result was that Tibor appeared to be sucking on an invisible bottle when Colonel Jeffers of the Knightsbridge Barracks strode into his office, flanked by two privates and a doctor.
Once they were certain that Charismo was unarmed and alone, the soldiers relaxed a fraction, though the barrels of the privates’ Lee-Enfield repeater rifles were rock steady and aimed squarely at Charismo’s torso.
Charismo fluttered his kerchief, as though that could deflect bullets from their course.
“Am I in danger, Captain?” he enquired querulously. “Has the duke sent you to protect me? Is there a credible threat?”
“There is a threat, sir,” replied Jeffers. “Indeed there is, and I have the misfortune to be staring directly at it.”
Charismo’s hanky fluttered like a hummingbird’s wing. “Right at it? I am the threat? Tibor Charismo threatens? And whom does he threaten, Captain? Answer me that.”
Jeffers did not answer, but he followed a cable on the floor until his eyes lighted on the Farspeak, which lay where Riley had tipped it.
“Somebody wishes to speak to you, sir,” he said, picking up the device and holding it out to Charismo.
Charismo understood then, and his curled mustache quivered. “I do not wish to converse at present,” he said, almost childishly.
“I advise you to take it,” said Jeffers firmly, and Charismo correctly inferred that to refuse again would have dire consequences. He accepted the Farspeak with trembling hands and pressed the transmitter close to his mouth.
“Hello? Your Grace?”
On the other end was the rattling breathing of a pipe smoker, then: “I am dreadfully disappointed, Tibor. Dreadfully.”
Charismo tried to talk his way out of it. “Your Grace, I can only imagine what you must have thought. Sometimes when I am in the grip of the spirits, my words are not as I would choose.”
“Silence!” thundered the Duke of Westminster. “I am to die! The queen is to die. The rheumatic queen, for whom you do not care a fig! The end of the house of Hanover.”
“Perhaps I overstepped the mark,” admitted Charismo.
“Overstepped the mark? You plan to aid the Germans in a war against Britannia! Germany is our friend. This is high treason, nothing less.”
“It was idle chatter. A passing notion.”
“Imagine the scandal. Imagine the heartache this would inflict on Her Majesty, at her age. Her own spiritualist conspiring against her. My blasted spiritualist. We trusted you, Tibor. Damn you, sir.”
Charismo thought fast. “A trial would cause considerable scandal.”
The duke chuckled, the laugh of a harsh man. “There will be no trial, sir. I have declared you insane and, while you languish inside Bethlehem Lunatic Asylum, I shall systematically erase you from history. Your works will be unofficially banned, your books burned, your songs will never again be heard on the music-hall stage. We shall see which of us survives to see the new century.” A loud click from the earpiece signaled that the conversation was over.
“No!” Charismo protested to Jeffers. “No, I will not stand for it. I am Tibor Charismo.”
Jeffers drew himself to attention. “You are a traitor, sir, possibly foreign to boot. The madhouse is too good for you.”
“This is all a mistake, Captain. If you search downstairs in the kitchen, you will find my manservant. He is the real criminal here.”
“We found your manservant. He, at least, died with honor.”
Reality finally dropped on Charismo like an anvil from the sky. “Barnum dead? I am lost.”
Jeffers stepped close. “There is an option, sir, but I would be amazed if you availed yourself of it. You may accept my challenge and we can end this affair right now.” The captain took off his left glove and struck Charismo across the cheek, causing his mask to fly off.
Jeffers stepped back in momentary horror, but his stiff upper lip quickly reasserted itself.
“My God, man. You are an animal.”
The left side of Tibor’s face was covered with green and brown reptilian scales, which seemed to change color as he moved.
“It was the wormhole!” he howled. “Quantum mutation. The professor swore it would not happen to me.”
Jeffers clicked his fingers. “Take him. I will not fight an animal.”
Tibor continued his rant, even as the privates dragged him from the room to the ambulance outside.
“Make sure he is locked away from the other inmates,” said Jeffers, stamping on the Farspeak until the casing gave up its entrails of wires and fuses. “And send up some squaddies. I want everything taken from this house and burned.” Charismo’s cries echoed through the ruins of his devastated hallway and set the ambulance horses a-whinnying in distress.
Albert Ga
rrick watched events unfold, leaning forward on the park bench in rapt attention. One minute all was quiet on Grosvenor Square, and the next a squad of Her Majesty’s finest had double-timed it to the front door with an honest-to-God cannon in tow, followed by a black carriage.
“Well, blimey,” he said, forgetting his carefully cultivated accent for a moment. “This is a right royal turnup.”
Whatever maneuver was about to be employed would certainly not go off half-cocked. There were enough troops here to fight the Boxers.
The soldiers expertly swiveled their cannon and blew the door in, sending a flock of starlings soaring into the sky.
A battle in London town. How extraordinary!
It occurred to Garrick that the presence of all these soldiers would hamper his efforts to cancel Charismo’s contract with the Rams.