Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms (7 page)
“What was the Well of Wishes?” asked Stuart. Jeannie gave a little jump. “And why would you want to know that?” she asked, leaning over so that her face was rather too close to Stuart’s.
He took a step back. “Just curious, I suppose,” he said.
“So, you’re the curious type, are you? Always wanting to find things out, and root around and search and probe and question and discover?”
There was a pause while Stuart tried to think of an answer. “-ish,” he said.
Jeannie straightened up again. “The Well of Wishes was an illusion that was destroyed in the Horten factory fire before it was ever seen on stage. Do you know about the fire?”
Stuart nodded.
“Your great-uncle’s workshop was in that factory,” continued Jeannie. “It was where he developed and perfected his tricks, and after the fire there was nothing left of it except white-hot ash and clots of molten metal.”
There was a sudden movement behind them, and Stuart looked around to see Leonora crouched over her dog, fondling its ears, her face hidden.
“And then he disappeared?” asked Stuart.
“Not until four years later. Although you could say he disappeared from public view, except for occasional performances. When he
did
give a show it was brilliant. Breathtaking. My father took me to see one when I was a very little girl, and I’ve never forgotten it. The Pharaoh’s Cabinet. The Reappearing Rose Bower. The Book of Peril.”
Her eyes were shining, her hard face somehow softened. “It was marvelous.
Marvelous
.”
“And then what happened?” asked Stuart.
She shrugged. “He left. One day your uncle was in Beeton and then the next he wasn’t. He walked out of his house and no one ever saw him again.”
“So what happened to all those stage tricks—the cabinet and the book and the rose bower?”
“They must still be in his workshop. The one he used after the factory burned.”
“And where is that workshop?”
Jeannie was very still, and when she spoke her voice was clear and quiet. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s never been found. Somewhere in Beeton there is a hidden room full of original and beautifully engineered illusions and I would give a great deal to find it. A great deal. I’ve searched, but I feel I’m missing … how can I put it? I’m missing a
key
of some kind.”
She looked very hard at Stuart. “So, you’ve known nothing of this before? No little family stories, no bedtime tales about Great-Uncle Tony and the secret workshop?”
He shook his head. His father’s last bedtime tale had been about Samuel Johnson and the compilation of the first English dictionary.
“Has anyone looked in the—” he began, and then there was a violent thud on the office ceiling directly above his head.
The lightbulb jiggled on its wire, and Stuart cringed, expecting the ceiling to give way.
“
What
is going on?” asked Jeannie. She strode to the door and pulled it open. As she did so, there was a rattle of wings and the white dove fluttered past the office, landing on top of one of the forklift trucks parked a few feet away.
A second later, Clifford fell past the office window. “I’m fine,” he called, scrambling to his feet and then wincing dramatically and clutching one leg. “Followed it onto the office roof,” he gasped. “Very nearly got it. I was wondering if you’d count catching a dove as a grade-two skill. Ow.”
He sat down on the floor again and Jeannie, looking extremely irritated, went out to help him.
“Stuart,” said Leonora.
He turned to look at her.
“What else is in the cabinet, dear?”
“Um …” He went over and stood on tiptoe. “Besides the photograph, there’s a little cage with a fake bird in it and there’s a metal tube with Chinese letters all over it, and a—oh.”
It was a cylindrical tin box, painted with red and blue interlocking circles. The word
MONEY
was visible, printed upside down and back to front.
“A money box,” Stuart told her rather breathlessly. It was exactly like his father’s, which he’d found the threepences in.
“Will you bring the items to me?” asked Leonora. The cabinet wasn’t locked, so Stuart gathered up the bits and pieces and brought them over to her. She took them eagerly and arranged them on the desk beside her.
“These were some of the first tricks your uncle ever engineered,” she said. “He was terribly proud of them.”
“You
knew
him?” asked Stuart.
“Tremendously well. He was engaged to my elder sister, Lily—she was his assistant, you saw her in the photograph. Now take a look at this.”
Confidently, she picked up the little birdcage. It was made of silvery metal, and the white bird within was of folded paper. Leonora moved her hands very slightly—and suddenly the cage was gone. Gone completely.
Stuart stared.
“It’s here,” said Leonora, pulling what looked like an umbrella spoke from her sleeve. She placed a finger at either end and pushed gently. The birdcage unfolded, the little paper bird spun on his perch and Leonora laughed. “I’ll bet you’re looking startled,” she said in her pleasant, husky voice.
“And this is the Fiendish Finger Trap,” she said, laying a hand on the slender silver tube. “The more you try to free yourself, the firmer you stick. Next to it is the Magical Money Box.” It rattled as she turned it upside down.
“You unscrew the bottom counterclockwise,” said Stuart quickly, and Leonora smiled.
“You must have seen one before. I know that the factory sold thousands.” She twisted off the base and a penny coin fell out. “But have you seen the other trick to it?” she added.
Stupidly, he shook his head before remembering that she was blind. “No,” he said.
She turned the money box the right way up again and opened the hinged lid at the top. “I wonder whether the penny coin will work,” she said. “This old model was actually designed for threepenny bits.”
She inserted the edge of the coin into a slit just below the hinge, and gave a little push and a twist. There was a springy click. With the lid still open, she turned the tin upside down again and gave it a shake, and a metal disk clattered onto the table.
“A false bottom,” said Leonora. “Is there anything beneath it?”
Stuart peered into the money box.
“A circle of cardboard with the word
surprise!
written on it,” he told her.
Leonora laughed, and then leaned toward him. “What’s Jeannie doing?” she asked under her breath.
Stuart looked around. “She’s fetched a first-aid kit and she’s put a sort of elastic sock on Clifford’s foot. He’s trying to stand up.”
“We don’t have long to talk, then,” said Leonora. “And I’d love to know how you tracked me down. I’m sorry I lied to Jeannie about inviting you here, but I could sense you were struggling for an answer.”
“I was a bit.” Stuart paused. “I’m not sure you’ll believe it when I tell you,” he said.
“I think you’d be surprised what I’d believe,” said Leonora quietly. “Could you meet me the day after tomorrow? Eleven o’clock in the Gala Bingo Hall on Fitch Street? I go there every Thursday morning.”
Stuart did the nodding thing again, before remembering to speak. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sure my dad will let—” and then he realized suddenly that he had left his house
ages
ago, and that his father would be coming back from his walk to find Stuart gone and no note of explanation. “I’d better go,” he said. “I’ll be there on Thursday. I promise.”
He hurried out of the office and nearly bumped into Jeannie. “I’ve got to get home,” he said.
“Not before you tell me what you were going to say before Clifford decided to jump without a parachute. We were talking about your great-uncle’s workshop and you said, ‘Has anyone looked in the—’” She raised an eyebrow.
“I was going to say,
the burned-out factory
,” said Stuart. “Maybe he rebuilt it in the ruins of Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms.”
There was silence, apart from the dove crooning from the rafters high above, and then Jeannie laughed. “No, he absolutely, definitely didn’t do that,” she said. “Something else was rebuilt from the ruins of the factory.”
“What?” asked Stuart.
“This place.” Jeannie spread her arms to indicate the enormous warehouse. “We’re standing on the very spot. But in case you come up with any better ideas, let me give you this.” She took a little silver card from her pocket. “My number’s on it,” she added. “And, Stuart”—she crouched to talk to him, in a way that made him feel like a toddler—“I really am the very first person you should speak to if you find out anything useful. Come straight to me. There might even be a lovely reward for you.”
She smiled widely, but her eyes were like chips of glass. She showed Stuart out the back way, through the yard and the pair of metal gates that he’d seen on his first day in Beeton. After they’d clicked shut behind him, he glanced up at the lettering on the arch.
He thought of a fire so fierce that it left nothing but molten scraps, and then he set off at a run for home.
He felt as if he’d been away for hours, but when he got back to Beech Road, he saw his father walking just ahead of him.
“Hi,” said Stuart, breathlessly catching up to him.
“Oh, hello,” said his father, looking pleased. “Been on an excursion yourself, have you? Are you ready for your repast? I shall be preparing a Neapolitan speciality, with fungal and
caseous addenda
.”
“No
caseous addenda
on mine, thanks,” said Stuart. And while his father got on with making a mushroom and cheese pizza (no cheese for Stuart), he hurried upstairs to his room, grabbed the money box, unscrewed the base, and tipped out the six remaining threepenny bits onto his bed. Flipping open the lid at the top, he inserted one of the coins into the slit beneath the hinge and gave it a push. There was an immediate twanging noise. He turned the tin upside down again, and the false bottom fell onto the bed. Then he turned it the right way and peered in. And read the words:
TO MY NEPHEW
For a moment Stuart seemed to stop breathing. Then he reached into the tin with shaking fingers and pried out a piece of yellowed card; it had been cut to exactly the right size, so it fitted snugly. On the other side of it was a message, written in penciled capitals. Stuart recognized the handwriting; he had seen it before, on the library request slip.
I have to go away, and I may not be able to get back. If I don’t return, then my workshop and all it contains is yours if you can find it—and if you can find it, then you’re the right sort of boy to have it.
Affectionately,
Your uncle Tony
P.S. Start in the telephone booth on Main Street.
Stuart sat on the bed and listened to the noises from the kitchen: the tap of the knife on the chopping board, the swish of the dishwasher, the drone of a radio program on the history of public libraries in England.
And as he listened, he suddenly realized something: the tin of threepenny bits, the secret message, this entire adventure had actually been meant for his
father
, but his father hadn’t been the right sort of boy. His father hadn’t been interested in dashing about having adventures, and the only clues he’d ever been good at were crossword clues. So for nearly fifty years Uncle Tony’s trail had gone cold, until Stuart had stumbled across the phone booth, and then the weighing machine, and now it was
his
journey. And perhaps Uncle Tony wouldn’t mind too much, just as long as the right sort of boy found the workshop in the end.