The Bone Magician

by F. E. Higgins

  ‘For better or worse,’ concluded Aluph, ‘I think we should pass this information on to Constable Coggley. I have an appointment tonight, but I shall pay a visit to our good constable on my return.’

  I bade Aluph goodnight after that and left in quite a quiver of excitement. I went straight to Juno’s room – I had to tell her what I had seen and learned – but there was no answer so I returned to my room hoping she might be back before I went out again.

  The evening passed slowly. I sat deep in thought in front of the fire and considered the events of the past few days. My fateful encounter with the Silver Apple Killer was still at the forefront of my mind, but even though I shuddered at the memory, at least one good thing had come of it: I knew now for certain that the Silver Apple Killer was not my father. Apart from the fact that it would be unthinkable for my father to try to kill me, his only son, there was also the matter of his height; the Silver Apple Killer was at least eight inches too short! Not surprisingly, I was also thinking about my foray into Juno’s trunk and the disturbing effect her potion had on me. I resolved there and then never to sniff any of her bottles again.

  In the warm room my eyes began to close and I drifted off helplessly into a dream filled with grinning skulls and deep snow and graves and bottles and canes with wheels.

  I woke with a start. How long had I been asleep? From the odour drifting up to my room I knew straight away that Juno was back. I took my coat and hat and went down to see her.

  ‘Juno,’ I hissed, tapping at the door, ‘I know you’re in there. Let me in. It’s important.’

  There was a long silence, but then the door opened slowly and Juno looked out sleepily.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ She stepped back and I entered. The room was filled with a thick fog and I was reminded sharply about what I had done earlier. But this was not the time for confessions.

  ‘Fiends! What’s going on in here?’ I asked, coughing and waving my arms about. ‘I can hardly see.’ I went straight to the window and pushed it open. The cold air rushed in and the thick smoke streamed out into the night.

  ‘This can’t be good for you,’ I warned.

  ‘I have such terrible trouble sleeping,’ muttered Juno. When I turned around her upper lip glistened and I knew she had just smeared it with her unguent. Instantly her eyes brightened and her cheeks coloured. She shivered and shut the window. ‘What did you want anyway? It’s late.’ Now she bristled with efficiency, as if nothing had happened, and it struck me immediately that the application of the unguent had something to do with her sudden revival. And if that was the case, I thought wryly, I could have done with some earlier.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you, about the Silver Apple Killer. He uses a Friction Stick.’

  A Friction Stick?’‘

  ‘It generates power, enough to burn you and to knock you over.’ I was bursting to tell her everything, but the clock was striking the hour outside.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I can’t talk now. I have to go to the Cella Moribundi.’

  ‘Then I’ll come with you,’ said Juno simply. ‘I’ll keep you company,’ and she wrapped her cloak around her and left the room, expecting me, as usual, to follow.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Bumps in the Night

  Aluph Buncombe quickened his pace and cursed the rawness of the cold. It was very dark, with only one street lamp the whole length of the road, and although he couldn’t see them, he knew there were people watching him from shadowy doorways. A little further down the street a tavern door was thrown open and two men spilled out to continue their altercation in the gutter. Aluph hesitated. He was already regretting that he had accepted this particular head-reading invitation. He much preferred to go over the river. Whatever he really thought of the northerners, at least he was always in luxurious surroundings.

  But Aluph was a man who kept his promises. He had sent word that he was on his way; it was too late to turn back. So he braced himself and strode on with false confidence until he came to Number 15. He rapped on the door and waited. A minute or so later it opened slowly and Aluph flashed his best smile for the crone who stood there.

  ‘Yes?’ she croaked.

  Aluph composed himself as best he could and stated that he was ‘Here to see Mr Snoad’.

  ‘Eh?’ she croaked.

  ‘Mr Snoad.’

  ‘Wassat?’

  ‘Mr Snoad!’ he said finally, only inches away from her waxy ears.

  ‘Top floor.’

  ‘Much obliged,’ said Aluph, tipping his hat, and he stepped in and closed the door behind him. Instantly he was filled with regret and fear and nausea. The smell in the narrow corridor was as far from the delicious smells at Mrs Hoadswood’s as was possible. The walls that he brushed against were sticky and the floor seemed soft underfoot, but he dared not look down. He didn’t want to know what he was standing on.

  ‘Evenin’,’ said a shifty-looking fellow emerging from a room on the left. He squeezed past and Aluph instinctively held on tightly to his purse. And rightly so for he could feel the man’s fingers all over his jacket as he went by. The sly chap gave a little laugh and slipped out on to the street and Aluph began to breathe again.

  ‘This is the first and last time I’m doing this,’ he vowed to himself as he began to climb the stairs. ‘Over the Foedus or not at all.’ He had only accepted because he was hoping that Deodonatus would like what he heard – indeed he was going to make sure that he did, and then he might put in a good word for him in the Chronicle. But he hadn’t thought Snoad would live in such a dreadful part of the City. Aluph always maintained that there was no such thing as bad publicity. Now he just wondered if he would survive long enough to enjoy it.

  He took the stairs one at a time, his pace decreasing as he approached the top. Halfway along the corridor he came to the door, but before he could rap upon it with his knuckles it opened slowly.

  ‘Mr Buncombe, I presume.’

  ‘At your service,’ replied Aluph, peering into the gloom. ‘Would you be Mr Snoad?’

  ‘I am,’ came the reply and the door opened a little wider. ‘Come in.’

  The voice was gruff, muffled almost and, thought Aluph, neither northern nor southern. The room was very badly lit: two short candles on the wall and the glow of the fire. He stood where he was for some seconds as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The room was spacious and surprisingly neat, apart from a large table that was strewn with news journals and paper and empty ink pots.

  A voice came from over in the corner, to the right of the window, by the fire.

  ‘Well, come on then. Do your stuff.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Snoad. Now what had you in mind?’

  ‘I hear you can tell the future from my bumps,’ he said brusquely. ‘I want to know what’s ahead of me in this miserable life.’

  ‘Well,’ said Aluph, ‘I am not quite a fortune teller—’

  ‘What are you then?’ interrupted Deodonatus. ‘If you don’t tell the future what do you do?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t tell the future,’ said Aluph carefully. After all, if that’s what Deodonatus wanted he could certainly have a decent stab at it. ‘It’s simply that with proper cranial analysis you can be more certain of the path that is ahead of you.’

  ‘That sounds like what I want,’ said Deodonatus. ‘Get on with it then.’

  ‘Hmm,’ thought Aluph. This was not quite what he expected. He would have to play this carefully. He doubted Deodonatus Snoad was one for flattery. He was too sharp for that.

  ‘Perhaps we could have some more light?’

  ‘No,’ was the curt reply.

  Aluph felt distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Ehem,’ he said, and could scarcely believe his nerve. ‘It is customary to receive a portion of the fee up front.’

  ‘On the table,’ said Deodonatus. ‘Take it now but don’t cheat on me. I know what’s there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even think of it, Mr Snoad,’ said Aluph. ‘For sure, it wou
ld be all over the Chronicle in the morning.’

  Aluph went to the table and felt around for the money. These certainly were not the sort of conditions he was used to working in. His fumbling hands closed at last around a pile of coins. Shillings by the feel of them. He dropped them in his pocket and all the while he was conscious of a pair of eyes on him.

  ‘Hurry up,’ growled Deodonatus. ‘I haven’t got all night.’

  Aluph went over to the chair where Deodonatus was sitting. There was something sticky on his fingers and he wiped them surreptitiously down his trouser leg. At that moment the moon came out and, for a few seconds only, Aluph could see Deodonatus silhouetted in the pale light. It was an extraordinary sight. That protruding brow, the bulbous nose, the knobbly chin that rested on his chest. His breath caught in his throat, but he managed to stay calm.

  ‘Perhaps you could sit forward a little,’ he said and he realized that his voice had risen somewhat in pitch. Deodonatus obliged and Aluph began.

  He laid his hands on Deodonatus’s head. ‘What a fine head of hair you have,’ he began. He could swear there were things crawling in it.

  Deodonatus merely grunted.

  ‘Very well,’ nodded Aluph, relieved at not having to keep up a stream of mundane chatter. Slowly he moved his fingertips through the matted hair and took a curious pleasure in the knowledge that he was also wiping his fingers clean at the same time.

  ‘You have an enlarged sub-nape lobe.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Deodonatus.

  ‘Well,’ said Aluph carefully, ‘it’s a good thing really. It means you have a talent for . . . for . . . information, for communicating ideas. Do you find that people listen to you when you speak?’

  Deodonatus grunted. ‘I don’t speak to that many folk these days. Whenever I have in the past, I found they had little to say. They preferred to look.’

  ‘Like the Gluttonous Beast,’ said Aluph, without thinking. ‘What a spectacle that is. I take it you have paid a vis—’

  He stopped in mid-sentence and groaned inwardly. What was he doing? He had virtually told Mr Snoad that he looked like a creature that was renowned for its ugliness and foul eating habits.

  The sneer on Deodonatus’s face curled even further up his cheek until his lip almost touched his nostril – not as difficult as it might sound bearing in mind the proximity of the two features on his extraordinary visage.

  ‘The Gluttonous Beast,’ he muttered. ‘Aye, I have seen him and smelt him.’ He turned his head to cock a watery eye at Aluph who, when he caught sight of the face that fronted the head he was feeling, couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath. Deodonatus harrumphed nastily.

  ‘I suppose you think it is right for men to be able to gaze upon those less fortunate than themselves?’

  ‘It’s not that I think it is right,’ said Aluph carefully, as he kneaded the top of Deodonatus’s head. He was beginning to wonder where this was leading. ‘But it is most entertaining and er . . . well . . . there is a need in people to be entertained,’ he finished weakly.

  Now Deodonatus’s face was creased into a frown.

  ‘So, it’s entertainment, is it? To stare at beasts who are in cages by virtue of the fact that those on one side of the bars are deemed normal and those on the other unacceptable.’

  ‘Well, of course when you look at it that way, it seems less acceptable, that is not to be doubted.’ Quickly Aluph tried to change the subject. ‘But what of the Bone Magician?’

  Deodonatus was not to be swayed. ‘Bah,’ he exclaimed. ‘Nothing but trickery. He’s good, I’ll give the man that, old Benedict Pantagus. But what about the Beast? Does he not deserve our sympathy?’

  Just then Aluph came across an unusually large bump and when he probed it Deodonatus let out a screech that would have woken the dead. He howled like a wounded animal and leaped out of the chair. Aluph’s heart went into convulsions.

  ‘Mr Snoad,’ he said shrinking back across the room. ‘Please accept my apologies. Such an unusual bump, it must mean something.’

  ‘It – is – very – painful,’ snarled Deodonatus through gritted teeth as he sat back down. ‘Perhaps you could be so kind as to not poke it again?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Aluph. ‘This particular spot, so abnormally swollen as it is, denotes that you are a man of extreme sensitivity to the human condition.’

  ‘Hah,’ snorted Deodonatus, by now in a thoroughly bad temper. ‘Sensitive to the human condition? Me? What a fickle world this is! There’s not a soul out there who is sensitive to my condition. Do you know what they called me when I was a child?’

  ‘No,’ said Aluph, wishing with all his heart that he could leave this miserable place and get back to Mrs Hoadswood’s.

  ‘They called me Toad Boy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think, you fool? Because I look like a toad.’

  ‘Maybe all you need is a kiss,’ said Aluph, ‘from, er, a princess.’ Fear had scrambled his brain like a plate of Mrs Hoadswood’s eggs. In reply Deodonatus employed the full force of his sarcasm.

  ‘And may I ask, Mr Buncombe, what princess exists out there who might consent to kissing one such as I?’ At which point he jumped up, took a candle from the wall and held it aloft. Aluph gulped and stepped back. Never in his life had he seen such a dreadful sight as Deodonatus Snoad’s distorted face.

  ‘By Jove and the Olympian Gods,’ he said classically. ‘But you are more wretched than the Gluttonous Beast.’

  ‘Aaaahhhh,’ roared Deodonatus and Aluph felt the spittle on his cheeks. ‘Get out of here, you . . . you mindless charlatan. I might be ugly, but I’m not a fool. You couldn’t tell the future if it poked you in the eye!’

  Aluph needed no further persuading. He ran across the room, flung open the door and skidded into the corridor. As he took the steps three at a time he could hear Deodonatus inside still roaring and shouting and stamping about. Deodonatus watched from the window as Aluph sprinted down the street. Then he took the mirror out of the desk drawer and unwrapped it. Slowly he held it up to his face and looked. Seconds later he threw it to the floor where it smashed into a hundred pieces.

  ‘What a fool I am,’ he berated himself.

  His eyes alighted on the two sheets on the desk. He threw them on the fire. Then he sat down and took out a fresh sheet from the drawer and began to write. The quill scratched across the page, tearing at the paper, and all the time he muttered and mumbled to himself. Finally he rolled it up, tied it and rang for the boy. As soon as he was gone, Deodonatus – cloaked, scarfed and hatted – went out into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Under Cover

  As they hurried along the icy pavements towards Mr Gaufridus’s shop, Juno’s eyes widened as Pin recounted in detail what he had seen and heard in Aluph’s room.

  ‘And Aluph is going to tell Coggley about it all tonight,’ he finished with a flourish.

  ‘Coggley would benefit greatly from a poke with a Friction Stick!’ laughed Juno. ‘But how does any of this help find the Silver Apple Killer?’

  ‘Well,’ said Pin, ‘I’ve been thinking. If we can find out who bought these Friction Sticks, then we can track down the murderer.’

  Juno’s eyebrows raised. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘We could go down to the Chronicle,’ Pin suggested, ‘and ask who placed the advertisement.’

  Juno looked uncertain. ‘But the killer might not have bought it from the paper, but from someone who already had one. Or,’ she hesitated for a moment, ‘maybe Aluph is the killer!’

  Pin laughed and shook his head. ‘No, he’s definitely too tall.’

  They turned into Melancholy Lane and Juno slowed and tugged on Pin’s arm.

  ‘You’re sure Mr Gaufridus won’t be here?’

  ‘Certain,’ said Pin. ‘The only man in there tonight is a dead one!’ But he peered in at the undertaker’s window to make sure before he opened the door with his key. Then
the two of them slipped in, passing the polished coffins and marble headstones, and descended the stairs to the basement where Pin lit a lamp. Juno looked around the workshop, at the tools on the bench, at the half-finished coffins stacked one on top of the other or leaning against the wall. She went over to the black door of the Cella Moribundi, but she didn’t open it.

  ‘So, who’s in there?’

  ‘Albert,’ said Pin simply. ‘He’s quite a large fellow though. Look, here’s his coffin. I had to make it specially to fit him.’ He pointed in the direction of a coffin that was noticeably deeper and wider than the rest, standing almost upright against the wall.

  ‘Come on,’ said Pin, anxious to do the job he was paid for. ‘Let’s go in.’

  Juno followed, holding her candle up high.

  ‘Ooh, it’s cold,’ she shivered.

  ‘You get used to it.’ Pin lit the candles on the walls and the small room was suddenly alive with flickering shadows. Albert, a mountainous man, was lying on the table.

  Juno went up close for a look. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘His horse kicked him in the head,’ said Pin, ‘but you would never know. Mr Gaufridus has done a lovely job.’

  He had indeed and Mr Albert H. Hambley looked remarkably peaceful considering the agonies he had endured just before he died. Then Juno turned her attention to the cupboards and drawers, opening and closing them and pulling things out and asking Pin all sorts of questions, which he answered readily, as he followed behind putting it all carefully back in place.

  ‘So how are you getting on solving the mystery of the Bone Magician?’ she asked suddenly, brandishing a pair of iron pliers.

  Pin looked at her sideways as he rearranged a drawer of aptly named prodding needles in order of length and thickness. ‘I haven’t given up yet, you know. I’ll be coming with you, take my word for it.’