OLD BAILEY'S BIRDS AND INFORMATION 4 page

Old Bailey nodded, sagely. "What, the big white buggers? They're down there. I had a friend lost a head to one of them." A moment of silence. Old Bailey handed the statue back to the marquis. Then he raised his hand and snapped it, like a crocodile head, at de Carabas. "It was okay," gurned Old Bailey with a grin that was most terrible to behold. "He had another."

The marquis sniffed, uncertain whether or not Old Bailey was pulling his leg. He made the statue of the Beast vanish inside his coat once more.

"Hang on," said Old Bailey. He went back inside his brown tent and returned holding the ornate silver box the marquis had given him on their previous meeting. He held it out to the marquis. "How about this then?" he asked. "Are you ready to take it back? It fair gives me the creepy shivers, having it around."

The marquis walked to the edge of the roof, dropped the eight feet to the next building. "I'll take it back, when all this is over," he called. "Let us hope that you don't have to use it."

Old Bailey leaned over. "How will I know if I do?"

"You'll know," called the marquis. "And the rats will tell you what to do with it." And with that he was over the side of the building, slipping down, using drainpipes and ledges as handholds.

"Hope I never finds out, that's all I can say," said Old Bailey to himself. Then a thought struck him. "Hoy," he called out to the night and the City. "Don't forget the shoeses and the gloveses!"

The advertisements on the walls were for refreshing and health-giving malted drinks, for two-shilling day excursions by train to the seaside, for kippered herrings, moustache wax and bootblack. They were smoke-blackened relics of the late twenties or the early thirties. Richard stared at them in disbelief. It seemed completely abandoned: a forgotten place. "It is British Museum Station," admitted Richard. "But… but there never was a British Museum Station. This is all wrong."

"It was closed down in about 1933, and sealed off," said Door.

"How bizarre," said Richard. It was like walking through history. He could hear trains echoing through tunnels nearby, felt the push of air as they passed. "Are there many stations like this?"

"About fifty," said Hunter. "They aren't all accessible, though. Not even to us."

There was a movement in the shadows at the edge of the platform. "Hello," said Door. "How are you?" She went down into a crouch. A brown rat stepped out into the light. It sniffed at Door's hand.

"Thank you!" said Door, cheerfully. "I'm glad you aren't dead, too."

Richard edged over. "Um, Door. Could you tell the rat something for me?"

The rat turned its head toward him. "Miss Whiskers says that if there's anything you've got to say to her, you can tell it to her yourself," said Door.

"Miss Whiskers?"

Door shrugged. "It's a literal translation," she said. "It sounds better in rat."

Richard did not doubt it. "Um. Hello… Miss Whiskers… Look, there was one of your rat-speaker people, a girl named Anaesthesia. She was taking me to the market. We were crossing this bridge in the dark, and she just never made it across."

The rat interrupted him, with a sharp squee. Door began to talk, hesitantly, like a simultaneous translator. "She says… that the rats do not blame you for the loss. Your guide was… mm… taken by the night… as tribute."

"But-"

The rat squeaked again. "Sometimes they come back… " said Door. "She has taken note of your concern… and thanks you for it." The rat nodded to Richard, blinked her bead-black eyes, then leapt to the floor and scurried back into the dark. "Nice rat," said Door. Her disposition seemed to have improved remarkably, now that she had the scroll. "Up there," she said, indicating an archway effectively blocked by an iron door.

They walked over to it. Richard pushed against the metal, but it was locked from the other side. "Looks like it's been sealed up," said Richard. "We'll need special tools."

Door smiled, suddenly; her face seemed to be illuminated. For a moment, her elfin face became beautiful. "Richard," she said. "My family. We're openers. It's, our Talent. Look… " She reached out a grubby hand, touched the door. For a long moment nothing happened, then there was a loud crash from the other side of the door, and a chunk from their side. Door pushed against the door and, with a fierce squeal from the rusted hinges, it opened. Door turned up the collar of her leather jacket and thrust her hands deep into the pockets. Hunter shone her flashlight into the blackness beyond the doorway: a flight of stone steps, going up, into the dark. "Hunter. Can you take the rear?" asked Door. "I'll go on in front. Richard can take the middle."

She walked up a couple of steps. Hunter stayed where she was. "Lady?" said Hunter. "You are going to London Above?"

"That's right," said Door. "We're going to the British Museum."

Hunter bit her lower lip. Then she shook her head. "I must stay in London Below," she said. There was a tremble in her voice. Richard realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Hunter display any emotion other than effortless competence or, occasionally, tolerant amusement.

"Hunter," said Door, bewildered. "You're my bodyguard."

Hunter looked ill at ease. "I am your bodyguard in London Below," she said. "I cannot go with you to London Above."

"But you have to."

"My lady. I cannot. I thought you understood. The marquis knows." Hunter will look after you as long as you stay in London Below, thought Richard. Yes.

"No," said Door, her pointed chin pushed out and up, her odd-colored eyes narrowed. "I don't understand. What is it?" she added, scornfully. "Some kind of curse or something?" Hunter hesitated, licked her lips, then nodded. It was as if she were admitting to having some socially embarrassing disease.

"Look, Hunter," Richard heard his own voice saying, "don't be silly." For a moment he thought she was about to hit him, which would have been bad, or even to start crying, which would have been much, much worse. Then she took a deep breath, and said, in measured tones, "I will walk by your side when you are in London Below, my lady, and I shall guard your body from all harm that might befall you. But do not ask me to follow you to London Above. I cannot." She folded her arms beneath her breasts, planted her legs a little apart, and looked for all the underworld like a statue of a woman not going anywhere, cast in brass and in bronze and in burnt caramel.

"Right," said Door. "Come on, Richard." And she set off up the steps.

"Look," said Richard. "Why don't we stay down here? We can find the marquis, and then all set off together, and-" Door was disappearing into the darkness above him. Hunter was planted at the foot of the stairs.

"I shall wait here until she returns," Hunter told him. "You may go, or stay, as you will."

Richard chased up the steps, as fast as he could, in the dark. Soon he saw Door's lamp-light above him. "Wait," he panted. "Please." She stopped, and waited for him to catch up. And then, when he had caught up, and was standing next to her on a claustrophobically small landing, she waited for him to catch his breath. "You can't just go running off like that," said Richard. Door said nothing; the line of her lips became slightly more compressed; the angle of her chin was ever-so-slightly raised. "She's your bodyguard," he pointed out.

Door began to walk up the next flight of steps. Richard followed her. "Well, we'll be back soon enough," said Door. "She can start guarding me again then."

The air was close, dank and oppressive. Richard wondered how you could tell if the air was bad, in the absence of a canary, and he contented himself with hoping that it wasn't. "I think the marquis probably did know. About her curse, or whatever it is," he said.

"Yes," she said. "I expect he did."

"He… " Richard began. "The marquis. Well, you know, to be honest, he seems a little bit dodgy to me."

Door stopped. The steps dead-ended in a rough brick wall. "Mm," she agreed. "He's a little bit dodgy in the same way that rats are a little bit covered in fur."

"Then why go to him for help? Wasn't there someone else who could have helped you?"

"We'll talk about it later." She opened the scroll the earl had given her, glanced over the spidery handwriting, then rolled it back up. "We'll be fine," she said, decisively. "It's all in here. We've just got to get into the British Museum. We find the Angelus, we get out. Easy. Nothing to it. Close your eyes."

Richard closed his eyes, obediently. "Nothing to it," he repeated. "When people say that on films, it always means that something awful is going to happen."

He felt a breeze against his face. Something in the quality of the darkness beyond his closed eyelids changed. "So what's your point?" asked Door. The acoustics had altered as well: they were in a bigger room. "You can open your eyes now."

He opened his eyes. They were on the other side of the wall, he assumed, in what appeared to be a junk room. Not just any old junk room, though: there was something rather strange and special about the quality of this junk. It was the kind of magnificent, rare, strange, and expensive junk one would only expect to see somewhere like… "Are we in the British Museum?" he asked. She frowned, and seemed to be thinking, or listening. "Not exactly. We're very near. I think this must be some kind of storage space or something." She reached up to touch the fabric of a suit of antique clothing, displayed on a wax dummy.

"I wish we'd stayed back with the bodyguard" said Richard.

Door tipped her head on one side and looked at him gravely. "And what do you need guarding from, Richard Mayhew?"

"Nothing," he admitted. And then they turned the corner, and he said, "Well… maybe them," and, at the same time, Door said, "Shit." Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were standing on plinths on each side of the aisle down which they walked.

They reminded Richard horridly of an exhibition of contemporary art Jessica had once taken him to: an exciting young artist had announced that he would break down all the Taboos of Art, and to this end, had embarked on a campaign of systematic grave robbery, displaying the thirty most interesting results of his depredations in glass cases. The exhibit was closed after the artist sold Stolen Cadaver Number 25 to an advertising agency for a six-figure sum, and the relatives of Stolen Cadaver Number 25, seeing a photo of the sculpture in the Sun, had sued both for a share of the proceeds and to change the name of the art piece to Edgar Fospring, 1919-1987 Loving Husband, Father and Uncle. Rest in Peace, Daddy. Richard had stared at the glass-bound corpses in their stained suits and damaged dresses with horror: he hated himself for looking, but he had not been able to turn away.

Mr. Croup smiled like a snake with a crescent moon stuck in its mouth, and his resemblance to Stolen Cadavers Numbers 1 to 30 was, if anything, increased by this. "What?" said the smiling Mr. Croup. "No Mister 'I'm So Clever and Know Everything' Marquis? No 'Oh, didn't I tell you? Whoops! I can't go upstairs?' Hunter?" He paused, for dramatic effect. "So paint me gray and call me a dire wolf if it isn't two little lost lambs, out on their own, after dark."

"You could call me a wolf, too, Mister Croup," said Mr. Vandemar, helpfully.

Mr. Croup clambered down from his plinth. "A gentle word in your woolly ears, little lambkins," he said. Richard looked around them. There had to be somewhere they could run. He reached down, clasped Door's hand, and looked around, desperately.

"No, please. Stay just where you are," said Mr. Croup. "We like you like that. And we don't want to have to hurt you."

"We do," said Mr. Vandemar.

"Well, yes, Mister Vandemar, once you put it like that. We want to hurt you both. We want to hurt you a lot. But that's not why we're here right now. We're here to make things more interesting. You see, when things get dull, my partner and I become restive and, hard as you may find this to believe, we lose our sunny and delightful dispositions."

Mr. Vandemar showed them his teeth, demonstrating his sunny and delightful disposition. It was unquestionably the most horrible thing that Richard had ever seen.

"Leave us alone," said Door. Her voice was clear and steady. Richard squeezed her hand. If she could be brave, so could he. "If you want to hurt her," he said, "you'll have to kill me first."

Mr. Vandemar seemed genuinely pleased by this. "All right," he said. "Thanks."

"And we'll hurt you, too," said Mr. Croup.

"Not yet, though," said Mr. Vandemar.

"You see," explained Mr. Croup, in a voice like rancid butter, "right now, we're just here to worry you."

Mr. Vandemar's voice was a night wind blowing over a desert of bones. "Make you suffer," he said. "Spoil your day."

Mr. Croup sat down at the base of Mr. Vandemar's plinth. "You visited Earl's Court today," he said, in what Richard suspected he fondly imagined were light and conversational tones.

"So?" said Door. She was edging away from them, now.

Mr. Croup smiled. "How did we know that? How did we know where to find you now?"

"Can get to you any time at all," said Mr. Vandemar, almost in a whisper.

"You've been sold out, little ladybird," said Mr. Croup to Door-and, Richard realized, to Door alone. "There's a traitor in your nest. A cuckoo."

"Come on," she said, and she ran. Richard ran with her, through the hall filled with junk, toward a door. At Door's touch, it opened.

"Bid them farewell, Mister Vandemar," said Mr. Croup's voice, from behind them.

"Bye bye," said Mr. Vandemar.

"No-no," corrected Mr. Croup. "Au revoir." He made a noise then-the cuck-koo cuck-koo that a cuckoo might make, if it were five and a half feet high and had a weakness for human flesh-while Mr. Vandemar, truer to his nature, threw back his bullet head and howled like a wolf, ghostly and feral and mad.

They were outside, in the open air, at night, running down a pavement in Bloomsbury's Russell Street. Richard thought his heart would pound its way through his chest. A large black car went by. The British Museum was on the other side of some high, black-painted railings. Discreet concealed lights illuminated the outside of the high white Victorian building, the huge pillars of the facade, the steps up to the front door. This was the repository of so many of the world's treasures, looted and found and rescued and donated over hundreds of years.

They reached a gate in the railings. Door grabbed it with both hands and pushed against it. Nothing happened. "Can't you make it open?" asked Richard.

"What does it look like I'm trying to do?" she snapped back, an unfamiliar edge to her voice. A few hundred feet down the pavement, at the main gate, large cars were drawing up, couples in smart clothes were climbing out, walking along the drive toward the museum.

"Down there," said Richard. "The main gate."

Door nodded. She looked behind them. "Those two don't seem to be following us," she said. They hurried toward the main gate.

"Are you all right?" asked Richard. "What happened just then?"

Door hunched deep into her leather jacket. She was looking paler than usual, which was extremely pale indeed, and there were dark semicircles beneath her eyes. "I'm tired," she said, flatly. "Opened too many doors today. Takes a lot out of me, each time. I need a little time to recover. Something to eat, and I'll be fine."

There was a guard on the gate, minutely examining the engraved invitations that each of the well-shaven men in dinner jackets and the fragrant women in evening dresses needed to present, then ticking their names off on a list, before allowing them through. A uniformed policeman beside him surveyed the guests implacably. Richard and Door walked through the gate, and no one glanced at them twice. There was a line of people standing on the stone steps that led up to the museum doors, and Richard and Door joined the line. A white-haired man, accompanied by a woman bravely wearing a mink coat, joined the line immediately and neatly behind them. A thought struck Richard. "Can they see us?" he asked.

Door turned to the gentleman behind them in the line. She stared up at him. "Hello," she said.

The man looked around, a puzzled expression on his face, as if he was unsure what had attracted his attention. Then he caught sight of Door, standing just in front of him. "Hello…?" he said.

"I'm Door," she told him. "This is Richard."

"Oh… " said the man. Then he fumbled in an inner pocket, pulled out a cigar case, and forgot all about them. "There. See?" said Door.

"I think so," he replied. They said nothing for some time, as the line moved slowly toward the single open glass door at the museum's main entrance. Door looked at the writing on her scroll, as if she needed to reassure herself of something. Then Richard said, "A traitor?"

"They were just winding us up," said Door. "Trying to upset us."

"Doing a bloody good job of it, too," said Richard. And they walked through the open door, and then they were in the British Museum.

Mr. Vandemar was hungry, so they walked back through Trafalgar Square.

"Scare her," muttered Mr. Croup, disgustedly. "Scare her. That we should be brought to this."

Mr. Vandemar had found half a shrimp and lettuce sandwich in a garbage can, and was gently tearing it into small pieces, which he was tossing down onto the flagstones in front of him, attracting a small flock of hungry late-night pigeons. "Should have followed my idea," said Mr. Vandemar. "Would have scared her lots more if I'd pulled his head off while she wasn't looking, then put my hand up through his throat and wiggled my fingers about. They always scream," he confided, "when the eyeballs fall out." He demonstrated with his right hand.

Mr. Croup was having none of it. "Why get so squeamish at this stage in the game?" he asked.

"I'm not squeamish, Mister Croup," said Mr. Vandemar. "I like it when the eyeballs fall out. Peepers and tarriwags." More gray pigeons strutted over to peck at the fragments of bread and shrimp, and to disregard the lettuce.

"Not you," said Mr. Croup. "The boss. Kill her, kidnap her, scare her. Why doesn't he make up his mind?"

Mr. Vandemar ran out of the sandwich he had been using as bait, and now he made a dash into the crowd of pigeons, who took to the wing with some clacking noises and the occasional grumbling coo. "Well caught, Mister Vandemar," said Mr. Croup, approvingly. Mr. Vandemar was holding a surprised and upset pigeon, which grumbled and fidgeted in his grasp and pecked ineffectively at his fingers.

Mr. Croup sighed, dramatically. "Well, anyway. We've certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons now," he said, with relish. Mr. Vandemar held the pigeon up to his face. There was a crunching noise, as he bit off its head and commenced to chew.

The security guards were directing the museum's guests to a hallway that seemed to be functioning as some kind of holding area. Door ignored the guards entirely and set off into the museum halls with Richard trailing along behind her. They went through the Egyptian rooms, up several flights of back stairs, and into a room marked Early English.

"According to this scroll," she said, "the Angelus is in this room somewhere." Then Door looked down at her scroll some more and looked around the hall, more carefully. She made a face. "Tch," she explained, and took off back down the stairs, the way they had come. Richard had an intense feeling of déjà vu, before realizing that, yes, of course this felt familiar: it was how he had spent his weekends in the Jessica days. Which were starting to seem, already, like things that had happened to someone else a long, long time ago.

"The Angelus wasn't in that room, then?" asked Richard.

"No, it wasn't there," said Door, a little more fiercely than Richard felt the question had actually warranted.

"Oh," he said. "I only wondered." They went into another room. Richard wondered if he were starting to hallucinate. "I can hear music," he said. It sounded like a string quartet.

"The party," said Door.

Right. The people in the dinner jackets they had lined up with. No, the Angelus didn't seem to be here either. Door walked into the next hall, and Richard trailed in her wake. He wished he could be of more use. "This Angelus," he said. "What does it look like?"

For a moment he thought she was going to reprimand him simply for asking. But she stopped, rubbed her forehead. "This just says it's got a picture of an angel on it. But it can't be that hard to find. After all," she added, hopefully, "how many things with angels on them are there here?"

NINE

Jessica was under a little pressure. She was worried, and nervous, and jittery. She had catalogued the collection, arranged with the British Museum to host the exhibition, organized the restoration of the prime exhibit, assisted in hanging and exhibiting the collection, and put together the list of invitees to the fabulous launch. It was just as well she didn't have a boyfriend, she would tell her friends. There'd be no time for one even if she had one. Still, it would be nice, she thought, when she got a moment: someone to go to galleries with on the weekends. Someone to…

No. She did not go to that place in her head. She could no more pin it down than she could put her finger on a bead of mercury, and she refocused on the exhibition. Even now, at the last minute, there were so many things that could go wrong. Many a horse had fallen at the final hurdle. Many an overconfident general had seen certain victory turn to defeat in the closing minutes of a battle. Jessica was simply going to ensure that nothing went wrong. She was wearing a green silk dress, an off-the-shoulder general marshalling her troops and stoically pretending that Mr. Stockton was not half an hour late.

Her troops consisted of a head waiter, a dozen serving staff, three women from the caterers, a string quartet, and her assistant, a young man named Clarence.

She inspected the drinks table. "We're fine for champagne? Yes?" The head waiter pointed to the crate of champagne beneath the table. "And sparkling mineral water?" Another nod. Another crate. Jessica pursed her lips. "What about plain mineral water? Bubbles aren't everybody's cup of tea, you know." They had plenty of plain mineral water. Good.

The string quartet was warming up. They were not quite loud enough to drown the noise coming from the hallway outside. It was the noise of a small but affluent crowd: the grumbling of ladies in mink coats, and men, who, were it not for the NO SMOKING signs on the walls-and perhaps the advice of their doctors-would be smoking cigars; the grumbling of journalists and celebrities who could smell the canapes, vol-au-vents, sundry nibbles, and free champagne.

Clarence was talking to someone on his portable phone, a slimline piece of fold-out engineering that made the Star Trek communicators look bulky and old-fashioned. He turned it off, pushed down the antenna, put it into the Armani pocket of his Armani suit, where it did not even make a bulge. He smiled, reassuringly. "Jessica, Mister Stockton's driver's phoned from the car. They're still running a couple of minutes late. Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about," echoed Jessica. Doomed. Doomed. The whole thing was going to be a disaster. Her disaster. She picked up a glass of champagne from the table, emptied it, and handed the empty glass to the wine waiter.

Clarence tipped his head on one side, listening to the grumbling reverberation from the hallway outside. The crowd wanted in. He looked at his watch, then looked at Jessica questioningly, a captain querying his general. Into the Valley of Death, then, boss? "Mister Stockton is on his way, Clarence," Jessica said, calmly. "He has requested a private viewing before the event begins."

"Shall I go out and see how they're doing?"

"No," she said, decisively. Then, just as decisively, "Yes." Food and drink dealt with, Jessica turned to the string quartet and asked them, for the third time that evening, exactly what they planned to play.

Clarence opened the double doors to check on the crowd. It was worse than he had thought: there had to be more than a hundred people in the hall. And they weren't just people. They were People. Some of them were even Personalities.

"Excuse me," said the chairman of the Arts Council. "The invitations said eight o'clock sharp. It's twenty past eight already."

"We'll just be a few more minutes," reassured Clarence, smoothly. "Security arrangements."

A woman in a hat bore down on him. Her voice was stentorian, bullying, and decidedly parliamentary. "Young man," she announced. "Do you know who I am?"

"Not really, no," lied Clarence, who knew exactly who all of them were. "Hold on-I'll see if anyone in here does." He shut the door behind him. "Jessica? They're going to riot."

"Don't exaggerate, Clarence." She was moving around the room like a green silk whirlwind, positioning her serving staff, with their trays of canapes or drinks, in strategic corners of the hall; checking the public-address system, the podium, the curtain, and the pull-rope. "I can see the headlines now," said Clarence, unfolding an imaginary newspaper. " 'Geritol Billionaires Crush Marketing Babe in Museum Canape Dash Horror.' "

Somebody began knocking at the door. The volume in the hallway began to increase. Somebody was saying, very loudly, "Excuse me. Um. Excuse me." Someone else was informing the crowd that it was a disgrace, quite simply a disgrace, no other word for it. "Executive decision," said Clarence, suddenly. "I'm letting them in."

Jessica shouted, "No! If you-"

But it was too late. The doors were open, and the horde was pushing its way into the hall. The expression on Jessica's face morphed from one of horror to one of charmed delight. She shimmered toward the door. "Baroness," she said, with a happy smile. "I can't tell you how delighted we are that you were able to come to our little exhibition this evening. Mister Stockton's been unavoidably delayed, but he'll be here momentarily. Please, have some canapes… " Over the baroness's mink-draped shoulder, Clarence winked at her, cheerfully. Jessica ran through all the bad words she knew in her head. As soon as the baroness had headed for the vol-au-vents, Jessica walked over to Clarence and, in a whisper, and still smiling, called him several of them.

Richard froze. A security guard was coming straight toward them, the beam of his flashlight flashing from side to side. Richard looked around for somewhere to hide.

Too late. Another guard was walking their way, past the huge statues of dead Greek gods, flashlight beam swinging. "All right?" called the first guard. The other guard kept coming, and stopped just beside Richard and Door.

"I suppose," she said. "I've already had to stop a couple of idiots in suits from carving their initials on the Rosetta stone. I hate these functions."

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 735