three

 

 

THE MOOD IN our cart was only slightly warmer than the outdoors, but I think that was more on account of the fire than anything else. We quietly set to our task of sorting out the rest of the mail. When every envelope had been put into a pile, I tied each of them up with a bit of twine and grabbed my coat off the hook by the door.

Crash shrugged into his moth-eaten coat and threw the scarf around his neck again. “I’ll take this half, you take the other.”

I doffed my longshoreman in his direction. “Aye, Cap.”

He shook his head at me, expression still grim, then barreled out into the cold. As I trekked from tent to wagon, I praised the strong backs that had carved out the paths through the snow. The drifts were knee-deep in some places and if I’d had to gimp my way through them... well, the whole Wonder Show would’ve seen a one-legged man freezing his ass off while he flailed about in the powder. Would’ve made for one helluva snow angel, but I prefer living to dying of hypothermia.

Anyhow, I got the letters to their folks and trudged along the slush toward Mrs. Hudson’s cart. Right about the same time, Crash trundled up with the Professor and his driver.

Said driver was much smaller on the ground than when manning the horse. I guessed him to be about four and a half feet tall. And that was about all I could say on the matter. He was still wrapped head to foot in heavy black clothes, a massively long scarf, and a fedora. He took tiny, brisk steps to keep up with the others.

The Professor still wore his purple tail coat, but had chosen to leave his top hat behind. Snowflakes clung to his handlebar moustache, and a red tinge kissed his nose and bare chin. Getting a better look at him, I judged him to be hungry. Oh, sure he kept his dark hair and moustache immaculate, the nails on his hands clipped to precision. But with cheekbones that could slice a man’s throat, and a sallow complexion, the Professor looked about as starved as a hyena in Heaven. I wagered that if I pulled back that coat I’d see the man’s ribs.

Crash’s expression was surlier than it had been before we set out on our deliveries.

“Breakfast,” he grunted, the word billowing out of him on a cloud of mist.

“Oh, vittles do sound good. Don’t they, Maeve?” The Professor looked to the black shadow behind him, but didn’t bother waiting for a response. “I don’t know that we’ve had a hot meal this week at all, since someone can’t seem to keep a fire lit.”

He spat something through his teeth as he pulled off the driver’s hat and snatched off the scarf. While the Professor wound the muffler around his own face, the driver was revealed to be a young waif with dishwater-grey hair and skin like a new pearl. She turned her grey eyes to the ground as she bundled into herself for more warmth.

“Sorry, Mr. McGann,” she murmured.

“Sylvestri!” He shouted. “I’ve told you a thousand times, girl, when we’re out of the wagon, it’s Professor Sylvestri.”

“Sorry, sir.”

He didn’t hear her second apology. Instead, he’d turned on the charm and fixed me with a gleaming smile. “Ah yes, you are Crash’s friend. We weren’t properly introduced earlier. I’m Professor William Patricius Johann Petroff Christobol Sylvestri. Man of the world, harbinger of fortune, and proprietor of elixirs and restorative tonics.”

He offered his hand, but I didn’t take it. Crash thrust a pile of letters into my palm. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you neglected to take Mrs. Hudson’s mail. Now turn around, Dandy, and give the woman what she wants.”

Haus gripped me by the shoulders, spun me around and shoved me toward the crum car, where the ample Mrs. Hudson waited for us, her customers.

“Good morning, good lookin’,” she hollered at me. Her plump face spread into a smile that could melt the iciest of winters.

“Good day to you, too, Mrs. Hudson.”

That smile of hers faded only slightly, but the joy in her expression doubled. “Darlin’, how many times am I going to have to tell you to call me Martha?”

Before I could stop the words from comin’ out of me, I said, “Maybe I just like callin’ you missus.”

Lily white skin blushed the color of summer peonies, and the freckles splattered over her nose burned. Hers could never be mistaken for typical beauty. Small of height, but round of virtue, Mrs. Hudson had more curves than a spring has coils. Dark, redder than wine, the curls of her hair whispered against the softness of her chin.

“Mail for you, Ma’am,” I said quietly, passing her the stack of envelopes.

She accepted them, but tossed them to a chair behind her. “What can I get for you today, my dear, darling Dandy?”

Taking out my wallet, I held out a couple of dull coins. “Toast, bangers and coffee, if you please.”

“Mrs. Hudson!” The Professor chimed in as he barged up to the rear of the Missus’s cart. “Have you really stayed with this rabble since Haus took over?”

Martha’s comely face darkened with disdain. “McGann.”

“Sylvestri, madame.”

“Your name’s McGann, and I’ll have none of your arsing about. What do you want?”

“What is the soup of the day, good lady?”

“Whiskey. And if you flash me an extra ace I won’t piss in it first.”

“Mrs. Hudson, you spoil me,” he said, thumbing through a tattered billfold. He gave the dwarf two crisp bills and ordered up a plate nearly identical to mine. When Mrs. Hudson served up our food, though, I’d received two sausages more, and my toast dripped with butter. My coffee was piping hot, while McGann’s idled without a wisp of steam.

Crash and I took ourselves to one of the benches over by the fire pit. McGann soon straddled the bench next to us, leaving his young shadow to stand in the cold looking for something to do besides shiver.

“Just like old times, eh, McGann?” Crash asked, his tone smug.

The Professor straightened his tie. “Clearly, the lady is having a discomfiting morning.” I cocked my head and listened as he spoke, his accent wavering. “Why, she’s probably suffering from her monthly courses and is so overwhelmed by the joy of seeing me after so long an absence that she has no clue how to respond.”

So as to not have to look at the git’s gaunt face, I let my gaze drift to his shadow. The girl stood staring at the snow, her expression distant. A fact not lost on Crash.

“Maeve, is it?”

She looked to the Professor as if seeking approval. When he didn’t take his attention away from his breakfast, she gave Crash a meek nod.

“Won’t you sit down? And where is your breakfast? Surely you’re hungry, too.”

Maeve remained silent as snowfall, her grey, haunted eyes darting about for a response.

“Mrs. Hudson!” Crash called out. When the dwarf’s curls bobbed into sight, Haus held up two fingers. She nodded and disappeared back into her crum car.

“Now!” the Professor said jovially. “Haus, my good man, shall I tell you all about these mysterious events?”

“How old are you, Maeve?” Crash asked.

She burrowed deeper into her overlarge coat and murmured, “T-t-twelve, sir.”

“And how did you come to be in the company of Mr. McGann, here?”

“Haus,” the Professor interrupted, “I’ll have you not encourage poor behavior in my ward, here. She already has the unfortunate habit of using my Christian name in public, and I’m trying to break her of it.

“And if you must know,” he added indignantly, “I caught her trying to steal food from my wagon. She’d taken to some of the more hospitable hobo trails, but had not learned that there is a code of ethics among their ilk. So I, being the kind soul I am, took in the waif, gave her a hot meal and the promise of an honest wage.”

The more he talked, the more I thought of the soldiers I fought beside over in the war. Boys from England crying themselves to sleep in the trenches, telling me tales of their sweethearts back home. Or sisters. Some were only old enough to have loved a mother.

And this Professor’s voice rankled. It scraped against the memories I had of those lads and chafed me raw. I don’t know that I’d have liked him had we met at the gates of Heaven itself.

When he stuffed a sausage into his mouth, I noted, “Whereabouts are you from? At first I thought you might be out of London, but somehow a little bit of Newcastle slipped in.”

His eyes betrayed nothing. McGann smiled and his answer slithered out. “Ah, have you been to my island then?”

He brought his mug to his face, but his nose curled as he noticed something floating in the drink. He tossed the contents out into the smoldering embers of last night’s fire.

“I’ve been around the area a time or two,” I said obliquely. “Truth is you don’t sound like any Tommy I ever met.”

“Pardon?”

“That’s a’cause he’s not,” Mrs. Hudson said brashly as she waddled through the snow. She presented Maeve with a steaming mug that smelled suspiciously like the chocolate the good lady kept in her own private stash. Along with it was a plate full of food. Twice as much as Crash and I ate.

She swatted at McGann to get him to make room on his bench, then urged Maeve to sit. The girl did as she was told and then stared at the food, eyes wide as saucers.

Mrs. Hudson crunched through the snow to stand beside me. “This one’s puttin’ on airs to make ’imself seem more legitimate.”

“So I’ll ask again,” I said. “Whereabouts are you from, Mr. McGann?”

He rolled his eyes and something seemed to slough away, like he’d shed a skin of sorts. His shoulders dropped, and his long, sharp angles seemed to relax. But he didn’t look comfortable. Not in the slightest.

“Good ear on this one, Haus,” he admitted, his accent shifting to something from the Scottish highlands. Reaching out and taking Maeve’s mug, he added. “Hope you’ve got him workin’ a bally.”

Mrs. Hudson fumed. And she couldn’t have been more threatening if she’d been fifty feet tall and breathing fire. She stalked over, retrieved Maeve’s mug and placed it in the girl’s fist. Then she scooped up grey, muddy snow from the ground with McGann’s cup and thrust it back at him. Without a word, she returned to my side. I gladly made a little more room for her on the bench.

Crash’s smile was one of keen amusement. “Go on, then, McGann. Tell me all about these ruffians and their cryptic messages. Spare no details.”

For the next hour or more, the Professor regaled us with florid tales of vandalism and terror. Like a true showman, his spiel was loud, bringing out the bleary-eyed occupants of the Wonder Show’s campground. Mrs. Hudson tended to their feeding while McGann took it upon himself to entertain the growing mass of carnies with his most curious story.

Apparently, sometime round about the Fourth of July, persons unknown burgled his wagon. They broke the windows, left gouge marks in the walls and floor, but took nothing. As the Professor told it, he needed no further persuading to vacate town quickly and moved himself along. A few weeks later, however, he returned to the wagon to find Maeve in hysterics and fresh paint marring his beloved wagon.

“And what did it look like?” Crash asked, his fingers steepled beneath his chin as he listened intently.

“Yellow,” the Professor said. “And why should it matter?”

“Not the color, dolt, but the shape of it. Did someone merely splatter a can of paint on your vardo or did they leave a message?”

McGann’s eyes twinkled and he hunched toward Crash conspiratorially. “There’s the rub. It seems I’d offended a pack of hobos. They painted stick figure signs on my beloved home, besmirching it with their simplistic sigils.”

“Stick figures?” Crash murmured.

“Indeed. Symbols that appear to indicate a dancing man. Or,” he said, stealing another sip from Maeve’s hot chocolate, “when viewed upside down, they are quite sad and confused flowers.”

“And is that all, McGann?”

“How do you mean?”

“Two separate occasions a handful of months ago; are these your only interactions? For if they are, I still don’t understand why you’d come running here.”

“Not at all, Crash. Not at all. They’ve kept a close watch on my travels. The brigands broke in again and destroyed more of my property with the same symbols. That was after the wedding in Birmingham, wasn’t it, Maeve?”

She nodded sheepishly. “As you say, Mr. McGann—Sylvestri!” she added quickly.

The Professor waved off her gaffe and went on, luxuriating in the sound of his own voice. “The most recent occasion was the worst, Crash. Just last week I woke to the terrible noise of my horse shrieking in agony. I staggered out to find the poor beast flailing in a pile of its own blood, the strange stick figure man dancing a macabre jig on its flank.”

I shuddered at the thought, remembering all too well what it felt like to be cut without the luxury of anesthetic or a good shot of rotgut. Crash, however, stared into the middle distance, pondering the problem before him.

“And the gouges in the floor and walls of your wagon. They are the same symbols?”

“Aye,” McGann said. “All of them different, and each one carved like a sinister warning to do harm upon my person.”

Crash unfolded from the bench and fixed the professor with a hard expression.

“Show me.”