CHAPTER SEVEN

Philidor
1810
Paris
June

THE ORCHESTRA was playing in the pit, the smoke from the braziers wafted through the theatre, and the gaslights burned low in collusion with the shadows. It was, all in all, quite an impressive opening for the Parisian show of his rival: The Great Pinetti, Professor of Natural Magic. Coming to watch again had been a risk, but Philidor had prudently worn a disguise; it would ruin everything if he was recognised.

Like himself, Pinetti practised simple magic tricks but claimed to specialise in raising ghosts and necromantic rituals when it suited him. Yes, Pinetti was his rival, but the man had no idea of the magnitude of such a claim. For Philidor had a plan and, if it went well, Pinetti would be ruined before the year was out – better still, his name mocked instead of talked about in those despicable reverent tones.

Even from the middle row, Philidor could see Pinetti’s moustache gleam with the expensive oily wax he preferred. Pinetti had dark eyes, a straight nose with nostrils slightly flared, and a tall, broad- shouldered physique; Philidor was short and forgivably rotund, had a bumpy nose, and had been blessed with a predilection to sweat.

His appearance didn’t inspire awe, appreciation – or anything, really. He was unremarkable except in two regards: he possessed the superior stage voice and cunning.

Philidor knew he had to make the most of his attributes, and tonight would be the beginning of the plan. If it all transpired smoothly and he took possession of Pinetti’s secret, then the next stage would commence. But one thing at a time, as it didn’t pay to get ahead of oneself.

The velvet curtain dropped, with some movement behind, then lifted to at last reveal the main attraction: the automaton peacock that ate and drank. It beggared belief. This gold-plated bird was the secret to Pinetti’s fortune, and the key to Philidor’s future fortune. He watched the performance with less interest than he felt, his fingers drumming impatiently on the armrest so that he received a disapproving stare from the gentleman on his left. A foolish mistake – he must not draw attention to himself.

The curtain rippled as it fell, and the audience stood to applaud. Philidor rose in seeming adulation, clapping ardently, a smile nailed to his face and his eyes almost squeezed shut with the force of his detestation for this charlatan. The crowd began to move. He smiled benignly at those around him while waiting for the slow gathering of purses and gloves, followed by the shuffling out through the interior double doors held open by attendants in suits with gold peacock buttons.

As Philidor passed through the doors, he smelt the sickly breath of perfume and whisky as the crowd congealed in the entrance hallway. Straight down the front steps of the theatre, the carriages lined up waiting for their owners, the drivers in puddles of tobacco smoke, beards and caps pulled low, muttering about their betters.

Philidor turned right and walked away from the crowd, then turned a sharp right up into a small laneway that provided the cover of darkness to put on his mask. Pinetti would soon depart in his carriage from the front steps of the theatre, turn left, left again, and on to Walpole Street, which stretched out over the far mouth of the lane Philidor was currently walking down. At this opening the carriage would stop (thanks to crossing the driver’s hand with coin which also guaranteed no questions were asked), Philidor would alight, and a sharp jolt up with the steel handle of his cane would rupture the lock and open the door. He would then reach in and steal the small chest that contained Pinetti’s designs for the automaton peacock. He couldn’t trust anyone else to steal, and besides, he didn’t want anyone else to know. Secrets could be bought, as had been proven tonight and many times over in that damned Revolution.

Philidor could hear, from the far end of the lane, the increased volume of the rabble. He imagined Pinetti descending the steps, pausing to press ladies’ hands, gaudy tassels dangling from his shoulders. Philidor’s stomach curdled. He would bring damnation upon the peacock this very night. He adjusted the silk eye-mask that he’d used at a masquerade ball last year, which still smelt of stale cigar smoke and the salt of his sweat.

The minutes ticked by. He waited a step back from the corner and watched as a stream of carriages came trotting passed. Then two headlamps approached; he heard the regular staccato beat of the hooves begin to slow and stop. It had to be this one.

He stepped out, flicked the latch for the passenger step, alighted and wedged his cane’s handle under the doorhandle, pushed, then leant back as the door swung open. Out wafted the thick scent of bear wax and cloves from Pinetti’s pomade, followed by the appearance of his face, covered in a half-moon of shadow as he leant forwards, mouth open in a stutter of surprise that suffocated the moment he saw Philidor’s mask.

The chest lay on the carriage seat next to Pinetti, but the man didn’t reach for it. Instead he promptly sat on his hands, looking ridiculous while also drawing attention to the fact that his rings were worth more money than anything else in sight. But it was a long game that Philidor was playing, so he smiled, nodded, and calmly reached down and picked up the chest. Pinetti’s lips closed below narrowed eyes. Still he said nothing. Neither did Philidor. The whole adventure couldn’t have been easier.

Philidor shut the door and jumped from the step as the carriage pulled away. He slid back along the laneway, the mask stashed inside his breast pocket. His carriage awaited him, and they left quickly, the crowd already thinned as the performer had departed.

Now to the next part of his plan: the woman.

She opened the door. Heavens above! The stories were true – the woman was mad. He could see it in her eyes. Was she in there alone? The boys were rumoured to be in the care, when not at boarding school, of the husband: a philanderer (and a civil engineer by trade?) who had apparently abandoned her when the madness set in. It looked, from the window display and what he could see of the hall, as though no one had been inside for years. Perhaps she was too far gone to be of use.

She was staring at him, her hair still unruly despite some attempt to pin it in a knot. The stench from inside tunnelled down upon his nostrils – dust, decay, darkness and her, smelling of sweat and garments that had aged on her unwashed skin.

His French was tolerable, but he would address her in English and see how they fared. ‘Excuse me, madame, but I’m looking for Marie Tussaud?’

‘You have found her,’ she replied in English, as her hand inched its way up to her throat. Her dress had been good once; now it was tattered at the lace collar, her fingers twiddling with the frayed threads.

‘Forgive my intrusion.’ He made a bow. ‘But I wonder if I may be so bold as to —’

‘You’ve not come to take me?’

‘Take you? Whatever do you mean?’

She looked up and down the street. ‘I changed the window display. I put them all away, but is it enough? I can change it again if it’s not right. Not many come past anymore, but I can …’

It was clear she spoke English easily, although with a heavy French accent. Even after many years and many elocution lessons, he was still conscious not to betray any hint of his origins in his speech, yet she did not appear to make any effort to disguise hers.

‘Madame, is it the Revolution of which you speak?’

‘The Revolution … yes. The cries, the crowds, the footsteps and hammering on my door …’

‘That finished ten years ago.’

‘Ten?’ She took a step back into the shadows. ‘Has it been that long?’

Philidor smiled, while his mind quickened. She was mad, there was no doubt of that. And it made her vulnerable; he could use that to his advantage. ‘It’s all finished now,’ he reassured her, moving up over the final step to be level with her in the doorway. ‘No need to hide anymore. You can have whatever or whomever you want in your windows again, Madame Tussaud.’

‘My windows,’ she repeated, looking through him to the street. ‘I don’t think they’d like my windows. They don’t like being stared at anymore, you see.’

‘They?’ Philidor enquired, stepping over the threshold as she retreated further inside.

‘My heads. They talk to me.’ She moved so that her face was only an inch away. She smelt of lavender.

‘Can I see them?’ asked Philidor.

She stilled. ‘You want to see them?’

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, madame, than to see what you have been working on all these years. You are a highly regarded artiste. Whatever it is that’s occupied you is surely worthy of my attention.’ He saw now how thin she was, her petite frame bony with neglect. How had she existed like this?

‘Heads,’ she whispered, her eyes still on him. ‘The basket held the heads. Some of them warm, others cold, the blood dried like necklaces. I had to dig into the scalp and grab a handful of hair to get them out, the smell stuck on my hands. Women, men, children … so many heads …’ She was turning away from him and walking so slowly down the hallway it was almost like a waltz. ‘So much good luck.’

He shadowed her closely, shutting the front door behind him. Good luck? What was she talking about?

‘And they wanted them turned into death masks to use in their street parades,’ she muttered. ‘Like flags of their triumph. But they didn’t have to do it all, you see – they didn’t have to be in a room full of real heads and a room full of wax heads. I had to live with them all in my home. Here.’ She stopped, her hands outstretched either side of her as if to steady herself on the crumbling plaster walls.

‘Madame,’ he said, bobbing under her arm to stand in front of her. ‘I must introduce myself before we go any further. I am Philidor, and I also converse with the dead. Some think the dead have no voice, but I know better. They simply have no mouthpiece left to speak through.’

She looked at him and waited.

‘You are not mad, madame, you are just sensitive to the other world. You are gifted, as you are with your hands. Show me what you have done.’

She reached up and began to pull at handfuls of her hair. Philidor watched in silence, both fascinated and repelled by what he saw. Here was a woman, a skilled artiste, who had been reduced to pitiful circumstance by the voices of madness. Her shop was once a mecca for the fashionable, one that showed all of Paris what royalty, aristocracy and politicians looked like, with such wonderfully detailed costumes that as a younger man a thrill of strangeness had crept over him as he’d tried to convince himself that these creatures were man-made, not flesh and blood encased in a tomb of glass. And that to stare at them was not going to offend, and to fail to bow was not going to result in arrest.

Her window was a sort of theatre. All that was lacking was to bring the figures movement and life, which is what he intended to offer her – if she still had any sense left. He needed the best. But if she still was the best, well, she could kiss this nest of murk goodbye. Her hands dropped to her sides as she made a decision. Her eyes rested on his with intensity, as if seeing through to his bones.He held her gaze, knowing in this moment that she was deciding whether to trust him or not.

He would use his greatest physical asset. ‘Marie, if I may be so bold as to address you by your first name, you can trust me.’ He made sure his voice flowed over her like warm water, and the lines around her eyes and mouth softened as it worked its magic. ‘I intend you no harm. I just want to help you. And I need you to help me. I have a business proposition for you. But first, I need to see these … heads. And I promise you, no harm will come to you or them, whatever you decide.’

She nodded slightly, as if spellbound, then walked a few steps down the hallway. ‘First I will tell the children they can come out, and then I will show you my companions of ten years,’ she said. ‘If you promise not to scream.’