Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms Read online

  The number on the door of the house was 79. Beside the door were two bells, the top one labeled TRICKS OF THE TRADE and the other FLAT E.

  GRAVEST FLATE was actually 79 GRAVE ST. FLAT E.

  Slowly, very slowly, Stuart reached out his hand and pressed the bottom bell.

  CHAPTER 8

  He heard nothing from within the house: no ringing, no footsteps. After thirty seconds Stuart pressed the bell a second time and nothing happened again. He pondered for a moment and then tried the other bell. This time there was a very loud bing-bong. Still no one came. He rang it a couple more times and was just about to turn away when he heard hurrying footsteps.

  The door crashed open to reveal a plump man in a nasty, shiny purple suit and silver shoes. He had a face like an eager hamster, and he was smiling widely.

  “I’m sorry to keep you—oh.” The smile dropped as he looked down at Stuart. “I thought you’d be a client,” he said. “You’re not, are you?” he added.

  Stuart shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. Bit young. So, er … what do you want?”

  “I’m visiting someone in Flat E. But the bell doesn’t seem to work.”

  “Oh, doesn’t it?” The man peered closely at the button and gave it a couple of jabs with his finger. “Well, I don’t think many people visit Leonora, so she probably hasn’t realized—I’ll have to have a go at mending it. Come on in anyway. I’ll give her a shout.”

  Stuart followed the man into the hallway. It was dark and thickly carpeted, and there were two closed doors at the end. The man banged on the left-hand door, called out, “Someone to see you, Leonora!” and then waited for a while, whistling an idle tune, one foot tapping in a relaxed sort of way.

  “No reply,” he said to Stuart, as if Stuart hadn’t noticed. “She’s probably harnessing the dog,” he added, mystifyingly.

  All of a sudden, a woman spoke from behind the other door. She said only one word— “Clifford!” and she didn’t say it all that loudly, but the man leaped as if he’d been poked with a fork.

  “Sorry, Jeannie, sorry sorry sorry—forgot what I was doing,” he wailed, wrenching open the door and disappearing into a blaze of light.

  Cautiously Stuart followed and found himself standing in the shadows at the back of a small stage. A couple of feet in front of him, in a pool of brilliant light, stood two little carts on wheels. Across them lay a long box, a bit like a coffin but dark blue and decorated with silver mathematical symbols. At one end of it, a woman’s head— belonging to Jeannie, presumably—was sticking out of a hole, her long hair almost touching the floor, and at the other end there were two more holes through which her feet, in silver slippers, protruded. They were wiggling slightly, as if she were uncomfortable in the box.

  “So, who was it?” asked Jeannie.

  “Nobody,” said Clifford.

  “Nobody?”

  “Just a boy visiting the downstairs flat. Shall I carry on with the trick? Are you ready?”

  “Not quite,” said Jeannie. “Just give me five minutes to finish icing this cake.”

  “What?”

  “Of course I’m ready, Clifford. I’ve been lying in this box for fifteen minutes. Your audience would be gnawing off their own arms with boredom by now.”

  “All right then. Sorry.” Clifford stooped and picked up two square pieces of metal the size of tea trays, each with a handle at the top. “And now,” he shouted in the direction of the audience, “a demonstration of mathematics. I take these twin blades of the finest tempered steel”—he clashed them together—“each of them sharpened to a deadly … Ooh, there it is again!” He looked up anxiously as a white dove swooped across the stage.

  “Concentrate!” shouted Jeannie from the box. “You can worry about catching that bird later.”

  “Sorry. Okay.” Clifford raised his voice again. “As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen, each of these blades is sharpened to a deadly degree of sharpness.” He drew a finger along one of the edges and then held it up to the light. Stuart could see a thin line of blood on the skin.

  “So, let us begin our arithmetical journey. Long division!” shouted Clifford. He fitted one of the blades into a slit that ran across the center of the box, just where Jeannie’s waist would be, and with a huge effort he slammed it downward.

  “Addition!” shouted Clifford. He fitted the second blade just beside the first and shoved that down too.

  “Subtraction!” He gripped the blade handles, one in each hand, and then with a sudden, dramatic gesture pulled the two halves of the box apart. The little carts rolled across the stage in opposite directions. Stuart gasped.

  “And finally, we have multi—”

  “Clifford!” screamed Jeannie. “My feet, get my feet!”

  The cart containing her bottom half had started to roll down the gently sloping stage toward the audience. Clifford ran after it, made a dive, and just managed to grab one of the wheels. The cart jerked to a halt, and the box slid off the end, hitting the floor with a huge crash. Jeannie’s feet, now pointing straight at the ceiling, carried on wiggling. Clifford buried his face in his hands.

  “House lights on,” said Jeannie, her voice like an icy blast.

  Clifford trudged to the side of the stage and there was a thud and a click. The white spotlight dimmed, and suddenly Stuart could see the audience. Except that there wasn’t one, only three rows of empty tip-up seats in a mini-auditorium, the red plush upholstery looking rather shabby and tired.

  “Shall I get you out?” asked Clifford.

  “No, please,” said Jeannie. “I’m having the most tremendous fun. Come back in a couple of hours.”

  Clifford walked over to her. He pulled out the blade from the end of the box and lifted the lid. She wasn’t cut in half at all, but was lying curled up, her knees bent to one side, her feet tucked up under her body.

  Startled, Stuart looked back at the still-moving feet sticking out of the other end of the box. Battery-powered fakes, he thought. Simple, but clever.

  “I’ve failed Grade Two Basic Magic Skills again, haven’t I?” asked Clifford gloomily.

  “Yes,” said Jeannie. “But you can retake the course for the usual fee.” She had climbed out of the box and was grimacing and rubbing her calves. “Why is there a small child watching us?” she asked.

  “He’s the one who came to see Leonora,” said Clifford.

  “Hello,” Stuart called politely.

  Jeannie ignored him. “Tidy up the stage then,” she instructed Clifford.

  As Stuart stood there rather awkwardly, wondering what to do, he felt a nudge on the back of his leg. He turned to see an old lady and a guide dog. The lady had pure white hair, drawn back into a bun, and a gentle, rather humorous face, and the dog was black and extremely hairy. Its nose was sniffing Stuart’s knees with some interest—at least, he hoped it was the nose.

  “Is somebody looking for me?” asked the lady.

  “Yes,” said Stuart, a bit uncomfortably. He had never talked to a blind person before. “I am, I think.’”

  She shifted her gaze downward. “That’s the voice of a very young man indeed,” she said, holding out her hand to shake. “I’m Leonora Vickers.”

  “And I’m Stuart Horten.”

  “Did you say Horten?” asked Leonora.

  “Did you say Horten?” repeated another, sharper, voice. It was Jeannie, rapidly crossing the stage toward him. “Horten, as in Tony Horten?” she asked. “As in Teeny-Tiny Tony Horten?”

  “Yes,” Stuart confirmed. “He was my great-uncle.”

  Jeannie stared down at him. Her expression was very strange: curiosity, and a sort of hunger. “I didn’t know Tony had any family left in Beeton,” she said.

  “We’ve only just moved back here,” said Stuart.

  “And what do you know about your great-uncle?”

  “Nothing, really.” Jeannie’s gaze made him uncomfortable. “Just that he was a magician. I’ve never even seen a picture of
him.”

  “Oh, haven’t you?” asked Jeannie. “My goodness, we must do something about that. Come along with me and have a chat.”

  It sounded more like an order than a request, but Stuart hesitated, glancing at Leonora. The writing on the weighing machine had said FLAT E.

  “But I came to talk to this lady,” he said.

  “Did you?” Jeannie cocked her head curiously. “Why? How?”

  Stuart opened his mouth and then closed it again. His mind was blank. He couldn’t think of a convincing lie, and he wasn’t about to tell the truth.

  It was actually Leonora who spoke next. “Because I invited him,” she said. “I heard from a friend that the Horten family had come back to Beeton, and I thought it would be very nice to meet one of them.”

  Jeannie looked suspiciously from Stuart to Leonora and back again. “All right then,” she said, “let’s all go for a chat together.” And placing her hand on Stuart’s shoulder, she marched him across to the front of the stage and down some steps to the auditorium.

  CHAPTER 9

  Stuart looked around to check that Leonora and the dog were following. They were, Leonora moving slowly but confidently, one hand gripping the dog’s harness. Above them, the white dove flew in lazy circles.

  “For goodness’ sakes, catch it, Clifford!” shouted Jeannie over her shoulder, striding past the tip-up seats toward a door at the back. She opened it and Stuart stepped through into daylight, and gasped. They were in a huge greenhouse with a mosaic floor and a glass ceiling that extended all the way from the roof of number seventy-nine to the roof of a warehouse directly behind. There was a fountain in the center, palm trees that reached almost to the glass above, and large green copper sculptures of lizards and butterflies. But there was also a row of buckets on the floor to catch drips from the ceiling, the fountain was a feeble trickle, and the mosaic floor was chipped and grimy.

  “It’s enormous,” said Stuart.

  “There used to be hummingbirds here,” said Leonora. “I’d put sugar in my palms and hold them up, and I could hear the whir of their wings as they came to eat.”

  “Yes, it’s not what it was,” replied Jeannie bitterly. “We built it to entertain clients, but cheap foreign imports have cut our business right in half. Nobody wants quality magic any more. And the overheads are appalling.” She steered Stuart past a peeling wrought-iron bench, toward a huge set of doors in the warehouse wall.

  Across them, in curly script, was painted:

  Tricks of the Trade

  There was a smaller door cut into one of the large doors. Leonora opened it and marched Stuart through. If he’d thought the greenhouse was big—well, this warehouse was on a different scale altogether. He could hardly see to the other end. Row after row of shelves stretched away into the distance, but most of them were empty. Three forklift trucks were parked off to one side; there was only one in use, slowly ferrying a box labeled MAGIC CABINET along one of the aisles.

  At the far end was a workshop. Stuart could see the flash of a welding torch and hear the distant tunk-tunkity-tunk of hammer on metal.

  “This used to be so busy,” said Leonora, her voice echoing in the vastness.

  “Yes, all right, all right, Leonora,” Jeannie snapped irritably. “There’s no need to rub it in.” She headed for a small, glass-walled office in one corner. Once they had all filed in, she closed the door, and the noise of hammering was muffled.

  Leonora felt her way to a straight-backed chair and sat down, and the dog collapsed onto the floor beside her, looking instantly like a discarded rug.

  The room was furnished simply, with desks and chairs and, in one corner, something that looked like a museum cabinet.

  “Come and see your uncle,” said Jeannie, tapping her long nails on the glass.

  Stuart went over. By standing on tiptoe, he could just see a photograph. It showed a smartly dressed, very short young man grinning keenly outside a theater. Next to him was a young woman in a glittery costume, and she was smiling and pointing to a sign that read:

  “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.

  CHAPTER 10

  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.”