Wild Boy Page 6

  Mary Everett used her torch to light a cigar. She took a long drag and blew smoke through the bars. “No, you listen to me, freak. You were seen running from the Professor’s van. And you got blood on your hands.”

  Wild Boy had never been so scared. He thought of Clarissa — she knew about the letter, she could tell them why he was in the Professor’s van. But he feared her mother was crazy enough to put her on trial too. Clarissa was no friend of his, but he wouldn’t snitch on her.

  Besides, these people didn’t care what he said. They just wanted to punish a freak. He had to stay tough, look for any chance to escape. “It ain’t true,” he said. “You got no evidence.”

  A grin cracked across Mary Everett’s powdered face. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to say that. “Show him,” she said.

  Two of the porters came forward. They took hold of the cart that held the cage and began to push it over the mud. The rest of the crew marched behind, flags of flame fluttering through the night.

  Wild Boy slammed his shoulder against the side of the cage, swearing and spitting at the circus crew. “Let me out!” he yelled. “I ain’t done nothing!”

  But again the porters just laughed. “Haw-haw! The monkey’s hungry. Throw him a nut!”

  They steered the cart into the long stable hut. Horses whinnied behind stall doors and whips dangled from wooden rafters. One of the porters closed the doors and stood guard. The others crowded around Wild Boy’s cage — drunken, leering faces.

  Too scared to fight, Wild Boy curled up in the center of the cage and pulled his knees to his chest.

  “Enough!” Mary Everett called.

  The group of men parted as she came forward.

  “Let the freak see,” she said.

  Wild Boy rose, brushing hairs from his eyes. What he saw made him gasp. “Professor Wollstonecraft!” he said.

  The old scientist’s body lay in a heap against the stable wall. His arms were flopped by his sides and his mouth gaped open in a silent scream. A crow pecked at his rigid fingers, and Wild Boy noticed that his golden ring was missing.

  Mary Everett kicked the crow away. “You say we got no evidence,” she said. “Well, how about this?”

  With the end of her crutch, she flicked away some straw beside the body. Written in the mud were two words.

  A gust of wind sent an eerie howl through the stable.

  Wild Boy tried to whisper It wasn’t me, but the words got stuck with the fear in his throat.

  Now Mary Everett used her crutch to turn one of the Professor’s hands. There, on the middle finger, was a streak of mud. But there was something else too. Gripped in the corpse’s stiff fingers was a clump of long brown hair.

  The ringmaster looked at Wild Boy. “That yours?”

  A trapdoor opened in Wild Boy’s stomach, plunging panic. “No,” he said. “No, I didn’t do it. The hooded man set me up.”

  “Bloody liar!” one of the porters said.

  “Shut your head!” Wild Boy yelled. “This is murder! The killer dumped the Professor’s body here and set me up. Ain’t it obvious?”

  “How’s that, then?”

  “Look,” Wild Boy said. “See the mud on his finger? It’s on his middle finger.”

  “So?”

  “He wouldn’t write with that finger, he’d use this one. And what about that hair? Look at it – it’s horse hair, not mine. And what about them horses too, and all their noise tonight?”

  “The horses didn’t make any noise tonight,” one of the porters said.

  “But they would’ve if there was a murder done here, wouldn’t they?”

  Before Wild Boy knew it, his big eyes were scouring the ground for more clues. Among all the footprints, he spotted strange round impressions in the mud. They looked like marks from a walking cane, only wider and deeper.

  “There!” he said. “See them marks? They go right up to the body. And look how deep they are. It was someone leaning on a cane or a stick. Remember, I told you the killer walked funny! And look! The Professor’s ring is gone. He was wearing a ring when I last saw him, a gold ring with the letter G. The killer must’ve pinched it. But I ain’t got it, do I? Search me, go on!”

  A few of the porters peered at the Professor’s hand curiously, but Mary Everett waved them back with her crutch.

  The ringmaster puffed her cigar. “I know a few things too, freak. Know about everyone on this traveling fair. I know you stole that coat from my band, for instance. I know you hide up on the vans, spying on folk. And I’m told you can see things no one else can. Ha!”

  The porters chuckled with their boss.

  Mary Everett blew another cloud of smoke through the bars. “He was a clever man, the Professor,” she continued. “A learned man. That’s why you hated him, ain’t it? Because you’re just a freak and can’t never be nothing else.”

  “No, you’re wrong. . . .”

  “We heard you were seen attacking someone last night with a knife.”

  “What? No! He attacked us. He had the knife.”

  “Us? So you do have a partner. Which of the freaks is it? Tell me and maybe I’ll change your sentence.”

  “Sentence? I ain’t done nothing!”

  “You ran from the Professor’s van. You’re covered in his blood.”

  “No —”

  “He wrote your name.”

  “It ain’t true —”

  “You’re the only monster here.”

  “I AIN’T NO KILLER!”

  Wild Boy’s cry rang around the stable. He stared at the Professor’s body through watery eyes. He knew he could find more clues to prove his innocence, but what was the point? The hatred in Mary Everett’s eyes was clear. And these porters wouldn’t help him — they relied on her for their jobs.

  But he wasn’t giving up either. He reached between the cage bars to the cart’s wooden floor, dug out a loose nail and gripped its end with trembling fingers. If any of these men opened the cage he would stab them with it, and try to get past. He’d spotted a hole in the stable wall that looked big enough to squeeze through.

  Mary Everett turned to the porters. “One of our own has been killed,” she said. “We don’t need no busybody coppers around here. We take care of our own business, punish them what needs punishing. That’s Showman’s Law. That way everything stays right.”

  She looked at Wild Boy and for a moment her eyes softened. He thought he saw something like sadness under that white powder. It was almost as if she didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to be the person she was being. But a second later that person was back, and the ringmaster’s eyes hardened.

  “This is murder,” she said. “Only one sentence for that. Jack, get the rope. Sam and Isaac, grab the freak.”

  One of the porters threw a rope around a rafter and tied the end in a noose. The others circled the cage, fire torches blazing.

  Wild Boy gripped the nail, but his hands shook so hard that it slipped from his fingers. He scrambled back, feeling for the weapon. “Get away!” he warned. “Get away or you’ll all be sorry!”

  The porters stepped closer. And then — whoosh — a rush of wind extinguished their torches. The stable fell into darkness.

  “Who opened the doors?” Mary Everett roared. “Joe? I said no one else comes in!”

  “I am sorry,” a voice replied from the dark. “It seems that Joe was remiss in his duties.”

  A lantern flickered to life and bobbed closer.

  Wild Boy’s heart surged. Had someone come to rescue him? All he could see over the porters’ heads was the gleaming crown of a top hat. He dropped low and glimpsed polished black shoes and the silver tip of a cane prodding the ground. Beyond them, the porter that had guarded the stable door lay unconscious over a bale of straw.

  “Who the hell are you?” Mary Everett demanded.

  Finally Wild Boy saw the figure — a tall, immaculately dressed man, who leaned on his cane in a way that suggested the stick was more than an accessory to his
finely cut coat. As he came closer, a flash of gold shone from under the shadow of his top hat.

  Slowly, calmly, the man removed the hat. The lantern light caught his face, and Wild Boy glimpsed a streak of silver and another gleam of gold. The silver was the man’s hair, slicked back and perfectly parted at the side. But the gold . . . It was the man’s eye. He had a golden eyeball.

  The metal globe bulged in his thin, angular face as he looked down at the corpse of Professor Wollstonecraft. Wild Boy noticed a ring glint on the man’s finger — it was just like the one the Professor had once worn, inscribed with the letter G.

  The man spoke. His voice was calm and measured. “Gentlemen. You will all leave this place.”

  Mary Everett scoffed. “You all stay right where you are,” she ordered.

  Wild Boy saw her hand shake, just a little, as she lit another cigar. Very few people made Mary Everett nervous.

  “You’re a copper,” the ringmaster said. “You ain’t wanted here. Ain’t that so, fellas? Coppers don’t know nothing about our world.”

  Wild Boy could barely believe what happened next. The golden-eyed man laughed — a great booming roar that filled the stable. Still without as much as a glance at Mary Everett, he turned and addressed one of the porters.

  “You,” he said, his voice now deadly serious. “Your name is Richard Carson. You are currently on parole from Newgate, where you served three years for burglary.” He turned to the rest of the crew and addressed them in turn. “You are Isaac Solomon, a deserter from the French Foreign Legion. Theodore Lent, you are a part-time fence. Samuel Swales, leader of a notorious gang of grave robbers. And who could forget Mr. Silas Cullen, escaped convict from the prison ship Defiance.”

  The men were speechless.

  The golden-eyed man turned to the ringmaster and plucked the cigar from her mouth. “And you, Mrs. Mary Louise Everett, are the holder of a circus licence that would certainly be revoked were someone to report your employees’ various indiscretions.”

  He shoved the cigar back into her mouth. “Now, I wish to speak with the boy.”

  Wild Boy was as stunned as the porters. These were rough fairgrounders, but this man spoke to them like they were children.

  Several of the men rushed from the stable. The others hesitated, glancing anxiously at Mary Everett.

  After a long moment, the ringmaster nodded. “You got five minutes,” she said as she led the remaining porters outside.

  The golden-eyed man closed the stable door behind them and slid the bolt. The moment the door sealed, he slammed a hand against the wooden wall. He gripped his cane and grimaced, fighting some terrible agony in his head.

  Wild Boy watched, astonished, as the man reached to his false eye and plucked it from his face. He gave the golden globe a shake, and then tipped some sort of liquid from inside onto his coat sleeve. He pressed the sleeve to his nose and inhaled deeply.

  His one good eye rolled upward. The other eye’s empty socket glistened in the light from his lantern as he turned and finally looked at Wild Boy. “At last,” he said, “we are alone.”

  The golden-eyed man came closer, drowning Wild Boy in his shadow. Calmly he slotted his false eyeball back into its socket and shook his head to settle it in place. He smoothed back his silver hair.

  “It is very important,” he said, “that you remain calm.”

  The last thing Wild Boy felt was calm. Lashing out a leg, he kicked the cage bars. “I dunno who you are but don’t you come no closer!” he warned. “I’m a monster! Ain’t you heard? It was me what done the Professor, and I’ll do you too if you come any closer!”

  A slight smile flashed across the man’s tight face. “No,” he said. “You will not. Because you are lying.”

  “I . . . Eh?”

  “I heard what you told the ringmaster about these marks in the mud, and the noise of the horses. It was . . . unexpected. You have quite the gift of observation. I wonder whether you could actually have convinced those men of your innocence had you not been so busy being angry.”

  Wild Boy’s shoulders pressed against the cold cage bars. “Who the hell are you?”

  “A man has been killed. I rode here as soon as I heard.”

  “Rode? You came by steamboat.”

  Again that flicker of a smile. “Interesting,” the man said. “Did you observe the patch of soot on my sleeve from the ship’s funnel? Or the ticket stub there in my pocket?”

  Wild Boy had seen both, as well as several other clues about the man. He could tell that he had recently become a bachelor after several years of marriage, and that he had lived in India but currently resided in London, somewhere near the river. He knew he had a pistol inside his coat, a knife in his shoe, and he was fairly sure there was a sword concealed inside his walking cane. But none of that told him who this person was.

  He said nothing.

  “Very well,” the man said. “Then I shall tell you what I know.” He brought out a slim black notebook from his coat and withdrew from it a crumpled sheet of paper. “You recognize this letter?” he asked.

  Wild Boy shook his head, but he did recognize it. It was the warning letter he’d left in the Professor’s van.

  “This letter was composed by a colleague of mine,” the man said. “He was relieved of it at this fair last night by a pair of thieves. When he informed me of this, he made a reference to a hand covered in hair, which seemed strange at the time.”

  “I ain’t no thief. And I ain’t never seen that letter.”

  “Look closer,” the man said, and he tossed the letter into the cage.

  Wild Boy snatched it up and stuffed it in his pocket. If he somehow got out of here, that letter could help prove his innocence.

  He looked up, spotting something move along one of the stable rafters. At first he thought it was a cat. Then he saw a flash of red hair.

  Clarissa crouched high on the narrow rafter, silhouetted against the glare of the man’s lantern. She was watching.

  “You are lying to me,” the man said. “Let me tell you the truth. You stole that letter and you established to whom it was addressed. The burn marks, perhaps, provided the telling clue. You decided to deliver the message to Professor Wollstonecraft. It does, after all, warn of a threat upon his life. But you were too late.”

  He turned so that light from his lantern fell over the Professor’s body. “You saw poor Henry die.”

  Wild Boy felt cold at the memory. He looked up, but Clarissa was gone. “I . . . I dunno what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Then let me enlighten you.”

  The man turned a page of his notebook and held it open. “Look at this.”

  There was a drawing in the book, similar to the sketch that Wild Boy had seen in the Professor’s caravan. He edged fractionally forward, scared but curious. It was a diagram of the same scientific device — wheels and pipes and interconnecting cogs, all sickeningly connected to human heads.

  “What is that?” he said.

  The stable door shuddered as the porters pounded against it outside. “Your five minutes is up,” Mary Everett called. “Open this door!”

  The golden-eyed man tapped the drawing in his book. For the first time, a note of urgency crept into his voice. “There was a similar drawing hidden in the Professor’s caravan. Now there is not. It is imperative that I find out who stole it.”

  Wild Boy’s mind raced. The hooded man must have taken the drawing. That was why he’d dumped the body here in the stables, so he could search the Professor’s van without being seen.

  The porters banged harder on the stable door. Wild Boy had to take a chance.

  “All right, listen,” he said. “I did see the drawing. It was in the Professor’s van. I was only there to leave that letter, not to steal nothing. That was when I saw the killer, the hooded man.”

  The man’s jaw tightened. A silver hair fell in front of his false eye and he slicked it back. “The hooded man?”

  “That’s who ki
lled the Professor. He must’ve taken that drawing an’ all.”

  “Who was he?”

  “You think I’d be here if I knew that? I didn’t see his face, nor nothing else of the bloke. He walked funny, like he was hurt. And he wore a mask, like them ones what —”

  “Did he speak?”

  “I . . . Yeah, yeah, he spoke.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I dunno. . . . Something about some machine.”

  The hair slipped again over the man’s eyes but this time he let it hang. He looked back to Professor Wollstonecraft’s corpse. “Then it is true,” he said.

  “What’s true?” Wild Boy said. “Only thing that’s true is I’m about to get hung. I told you what I know, so get me out of here.”

  The man tucked his notebook away and brought out a slim leather pouch that was folded shut like an envelope. “It is imperative,” he said, “that I identify this hooded man.”

  “I told you everything I know.”

  “No. You told me everything you think you know.”

  The man opened the pouch. Something glinted inside. A syringe.

  “What’s that?” Wild Boy said. “What the hell’s that for?”

  “You are afraid,” the man said. “You are not thinking clearly. I suspect you saw more than you remember.”

  The syringe’s bronze tip reflected in his golden eye, and pale liquid dripped from the needle point. “This drug will make you remember.”

  If Wild Boy hadn’t been so scared he might have laughed. There was no way he was letting anyone stick him with a needle. He scrambled back, kicking again at the bars. “Get back! Don’t you touch me with that thing!”

  “It will be less painful if it enters your arm,” the man said. “But it does not have to.”

  Another thump shook the stable doors. “Give us the boy!” one of the porters yelled. “Showman’s Law for him!”

  Wild Boy turned in the cage, searching desperately for the floorboard nail he’d dropped. He saw it on the straw outside the cage, but it was too far to reach. Only one other plan came to mind.

  Shifting around, he slid his coat down to offer the man a hairy, trembling shoulder. “All right,” he said. “Use your needle. But stick it in my arm like you said.”