by Jon Berkeley
Silverpoint tried a different tack. “We’re on your side. They are the hypnotists. You will be safe with us.” But without the height of the throne he was just one of a gaggle of clowns trying to shout one another down.
Cortado’s henchmen had picked themselves up, and extinguished their wigs and trousers. “Get them,” they shouted to the crowd. “Hold them down! String ’em up!”
“He’s one of them,” shrieked a woman in the audience. Several men, and a little old woman with a sharp green umbrella, had left their seats and were climbing into the ring.
Silverpoint stepped back from the advancing clowns and the irate audience. “What now, plan man?” he muttered to Miles. “And where’s Little?”
“She’s hiding,” said Miles.
“Where?” hissed Silverpoint, but Miles was saved from having to answer. At that moment the main double doors at the back of the theater burst open and a loud voice said, “That’s ENOUGH!”
The audience, the clowns and the saboteurs turned as one and stared up at the double doors. Even Genghis, the unlucky winner of the second vial of plain water, twisted his head and gazed up through streaming eyes from where he sat in the aisle, giggling like a large, fat hyena.
Lady Partridge stood framed in the doorway, her hands on her hips and the red dragons flaming in her coal-black dressing gown. “SETTLE DOWN, ALL OF YOU,” she boomed, and she began to march down the sloping aisle toward the ring, stepping over Genghis as though he were a bag of rubbish. A stream of cats followed in her wake.
The big clown with the carrot nose stepped in front of her as she approached the end of the aisle. “Authorized personnel only,” he said, raising his palm like a policeman stopping a truck.
Lady Partridge paused and stepped to one side. “Gulliver!” she said, and to Miles’s astonishment Baltinglass of Araby popped out from behind Lady Partridge’s large silhouette. His woolly hat was still on his head, and several days’ white stubble bristled from his chin.
“That’s no way to speak to a lady,” he barked at the clown, and dealt him a sharp crack on the shin with his cane. The clown let out a yelp and hopped backward.
“Who on earth are they?” said Silverpoint.
“It’s okay,” beamed Miles. “They’re friends of mine.” He had never been so pleased to see anyone in his life. Lady Partridge swept toward him across the ring like a monument on wheels. Baltinglass followed in the path that her long dressing gown made through the sawdust. Bobogeek, the only one who wasn’t glued to the spot by this unexpected interruption, hop-clunked toward them on the one crutch he had managed to retrieve. Baltinglass of Araby stopped and turned toward the sound.
“You got a wooden leg, lad?”
“No, ye blind fossil,” sneered Bobogeek.
“Would you like one?” shouted Baltinglass, and he whipped a sword stick from the center of his cane. Bobogeek stepped backward sharply.
Baltinglass wrinkled his nose. “What happened, did you slip on the soap?”
There was a howl of laughter from the aisle. “That’s exactly what I said,” spluttered Genghis, and he collapsed into giggles again.
The audience had given up trying to make heads or tails of what was going on. They slumped back in their seats with their jaws hanging open, some of them still breaking into fits of laughter.
“Hello, Miles dear,” said Lady Partridge as she reached the foot of the throne, and she gave him a wink that only he could see. She looked over at the Bolsillo brothers and their elephant. “Well don’t just stand there, boys,” she said. “Ask Jumbo to lift me up on this thing.” She waved up at the empty throne, as though it had been raised specifically for her arrival.
“The name’s Tembo, ma’am.”
“Well, Tembo, ask your elephant to give me a lift.”
“Tembo’s the elephant, ma’am. He’s Gila. Hup!”
“Lucky she’s been in training,” said Gila.
“Manners, Gila,” said Fabio, pulling Gila’s hat down over his eyes.
Tembo curled her trunk and Lady Partridge stepped onto it. The elephant raised her high into the air. “Hup,” said Gila again, and Tembo stood on her hind legs. Lady Partridge wobbled slightly, but if she was nervous she didn’t show it. She stepped onto the platform and sat herself on the throne, her untidy pile of gray hair obscuring the manic clown’s face painted on its high back.
“Now,” she boomed, “would someone please tell me what is going on here? You all look like you’ve spent a month in the asylum.”
“Who are you?” shouted Bobogeek, trying to shake a cat from his leg without falling over. “And why should we tell you anything?”
Lady Partridge glared down at the smelly man. “A gentleman would wait his turn,” she said. “However, since you ask, I am Lady Partridge of Larde. In fact, you could say that I’m now a Partridge in a Bare Tree.” Some of the audience groaned at Lady Partridge’s terrible joke, and even Genghis stopped laughing for a moment.
“Well?” said Lady Partridge, looking down at Miles.
“This man is the Great Cortado,” said Miles, pointing at the crumpled heap with his head in an oil can. “He’s devised a way of hypnotizing people with laughter, so he can get them hooked on a tonic that only he knows how to produce. He plans to gain control over the whole country.”
“Is that so?” said Lady Partridge. She sat straight-backed on the throne and swept the audience with a stern gaze, like a schoolmistress with a class full of naughty pupils. “You were about to let this half-pint with a tin can on his head take over the country?” She gave a healthy guffaw that seemed to sweep the remnants of stale laughter from the air. “Tin can’t, more like,” she boomed.
The audience groaned. Lady Partridge’s awful sense of humor was swiftly taking the edge off their hysteria, and only Genghis, who like Cortado had suffered from a massive overdose of Palace of Laughter performances, chuckled on helplessly.
“Well well,” said Lady Partridge, searching the gloom beyond the ring. “Hilda Scratch, is that you? Your mascara has all run down to your chin, girl. You look like a badger. And Spivey, your wife has fallen off her chair. Pick her up for goodness’ sake, man. What on earth’s the matter with you all? One day trip and you go completely gaga. You all plainly need to get out more.”
As she spoke, some of Cortado’s clowns began to sneak out of the spotlit ring and up through the dumbstruck audience toward the exit doors. It seemed as though the tables had well and truly turned on their leader. They did not know what kind of treatment this formidable woman would have in mind for them, and they did not want to stay around and find out.
“They’re getting away,” whispered Miles to Baltinglass.
“No they’re not, Master Miles,” Baltinglass whispered back. “My nephew Radovan and his constabulary have the place surrounded. At least thirty pairs of good boots I heard, and a great deal of whistle blowing, although that had to be stopped when we got near the place. Had to take the whistles off a couple of the younger lads. Excitable chaps, but keen.”
“Taking over the country indeed!” continued Lady Partridge from her throne. “I can scarcely believe you could all fall for this mind-control mumbo jumbo. You should be ashamed of yourselves! I don’t doubt that you could all do with cheering up, but there are better ways to brighten your lives than the sort of quackery that these charlatans are trying to sell you. You could start by not cheating your customers out of their change, Piven. Everyone knows they come out of your shop a little light in the pocket. And you, Lily Green, why don’t you set up a town newspaper so everyone can read your gossip in black and white, and with the same details to boot? You could get that sister of yours to run the florist shop for you.”
She scanned the faces in the gloom, and their owners began to straighten themselves up, as though waking from a bad dream. Many were dimly aware that they had seen this lady in the dressing gown somewhere before. They took out handkerchiefs and wiped their chins. They straightened their hair and their ties
in case they were next in line to be singled out.
“And you, Father Soutane,” said Lady Partridge, “you should be running a choir in that church of yours, instead of cranking out the same dismal tunes week after week from that wheezy old organ. From the sound of the braying I heard on my way in here, you’d have plenty of strong voices to choose from. Maybe if you all got together three times a week to sing a few stirring songs, you wouldn’t get so overexcited when you do get out for a day trip.”
The Great Cortado began to stir in the shadow of the throne. Miles caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and watched him closely. He sat up shakily and reached his hand up to feel his head. His fingers walked around the slippery outside of the oil can, then knocked on it once or twice. “Anyone home?” came a muffled voice from inside the can. “Nope,” replied the same voice after a pause. “Got a new head then,” said the Not-So-Great Cortado to himself, and he began to laugh in a muffled, metallic way.
Lady Partridge peered down at him. “Help him up, there’s a good fellow,” she said to Silverpoint. The Great Cortado’s legs buckled under him a couple of times, but eventually Miles and Silverpoint succeeded in getting him to his feet. The tinny laughter that echoed from inside the can was answered by fits of giggling from Genghis, slumped in the darkness of the aisle. As he lay there helplessly, a small figure with a topknot slipped out unnoticed from behind the seats and rifled through his pockets before disappearing through the double doors at the back of the theater.
“Take a good look at these two fellows,” said Lady Partridge to the people of Larde. “I think we can safely say that they’re out of the World Domination business for the foreseeable future. Now perhaps we can all forget about this nonsense, and make our way back home.” She looked down at Baltinglass of Araby. “Gulliver, please lead these people back to the Station Hotel, where they can have a good night’s rest before making the journey home. Tell the landlord that the Circus Oscuro will be footing the bill.”
And so the people of Larde began to gather themselves—butcher and baker, horse doctor and seamstress and librarian and priest, like a crowd of revelers waking from a party that had gone on for far too long. They helped one another into their coats, picked up their neighbors who were still wobbly on their feet, and made their way to the exit doors, herded by the blind explorer, who was not above dishing out the odd rap with his stick to keep things moving at a brisk pace.
At a word from Gila, Tembo lifted Lady Partridge down from the Great Cortado’s throne, and with the help of the elephant the Bolsillo brothers joined Baltinglass in rounding up the stragglers and leading them out of the theater. As the last few Lardespeople left, Sergeant Bramley made his way into the theater. His uniform was rumpled and he had lost his hat, but he looked pleased with himself.
“Thirty-four assorted villains and one huge tattooed lady apprehended, Lady P,” he reported as he marched down toward the ring. “The suspects have been placed under arrest and an agreement has been reached with the city constabulary. Cheeky bleeders, begging your pardon, ma’am, wanted to take credit for the whole operation, but we settled on taking the ringleaders back to Larde to be tried by the district judge, while the lower-ranking scoundrels get locked up here in Smelt North Central.”
“Congratulations, Sergeant Bramley,” said Lady Partridge. “An excellent day’s policing without a doubt.”
“Nice of you to say so, Lady P,” said the sergeant. “I take it this here is the criminal mastermind?” he added a little doubtfully, eyeing the Great Cortado with his tin-can head.
“He’s called the Great Cortado,” said Miles. “He’s been hypnotizing the whole country, bit by bit.”
“Is that so?” said Sergeant Bramley, wondering where he had seen this boy with the strange hairstyle before. “Well he won’t be doing no more hypnotizing once we’ve got him under lock and key.” He took the disoriented Cortado by the arm. “You’re under arrest,” he said for the tenth time that evening. He had smashed his previous arrest record, which was two vagrants in the same summer, and he was very pleased with himself. “Now,” he said, addressing Lady Partridge, “if you wouldn’t mind taking these two young lads and vacating these here premises, I’ll send in my boys to seal them off for further investigation.”
“You go on ahead,” said Lady Partridge. “We’ll be leaving shortly, and we’ll make sure to seal off after us.”
“Well…,” said Sergeant Bramley, but Lady Partridge fixed him with a hard stare, and he said no more. He marched the Great Giggling Cortado up the aisle to where Genghis lay in a sniggering heap. With the practiced use of his truncheon, the sergeant managed to prod him to his feet and arrest him too, and out through the double doors he went, an archvillain in each hand and a beam of satisfaction on his doughy face.
“Well indeed,” said Lady Partridge when he had gone. “I’m delighted to see you safe and sound, Miles, but where is Little, and who is this young man?”
“This is Silverpoint,” said Miles. “And I left Little hiding in the laboratory, down in the basement.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Silverpoint,” said Lady Partridge. “And now we had better fetch Little at once. She must be frightened down there on her own.”
“Genghis has the key,” said Miles, suddenly remembering the locked iron door to the basement.
“Which one is Genghis?” asked Lady Partridge.
“The big man with the yellow socks, who sergeant Bramley just arrested.”
“Then we shall go outside at once and have the sergeant search his pockets for the keys, and while we’re about it I shall persuade him to lend us a van and a driver so we can all repair to Gulliver Baltinglass’s house for the night, as soon as we have rescued Little. I can’t wait to hear how you managed to storm the Palace of Laughter and tin the Great Cortado all by yourselves.”
“I’m staying here,” said Miles as a wave of tiredness swept over him. “I can’t leave until I’ve found Tangerine.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
STRING
String the ex-Halfhead, revenge-bent and armed with a reclaimed bone and a dozen keys, crept through the deserted corridors deep below the rapidly emptying theater. He had sneaked into the Palace of Laughter with the crowd of peasants, wrinkling his nose at the unfamiliar smells they wore, which he imagined must be the smells of cows and sheep and other country things that he had never seen. He had hidden himself behind a pillar in the entrance hall as the audience filed into the theater. From his hiding place he had watched as Genghis appeared, dragging Miles by the elbow. He saw them meet the man with the broken leg, and overheard enough of their conversation to guess that the winged girl was still hidden somewhere. He had seen Genghis take the creaking elevator to a lower floor, and after a while he had seen him reappear, his face as black as thunder, tucking into his pocket a large ring of keys as he entered the auditorium.
It was clear to String what he had to do. He would sneak into the theater itself and steal the big man’s keys while his attention was distracted by the show. He was no stranger to picking pockets, and he felt confident that the hysterical laughter and crazy music he could hear through the doors would provide him with good cover. The real problem lay in getting to the double doors that led into the theater in the first place. The entrance hall was deserted except for String himself, a giant tattooed lady, and a number of tall pillars. He could dart from one pillar to another if the giantess would just look away, but she sat on her chair against the huge wooden doors, and stared straight ahead of herself until he began to think she might be a statue that had been placed there while he wasn’t looking. He was about to risk a quick dash to the theater doors right under her very nose, when there came a hammering on the main door, and muffled shouts from outside. The giantess stood slowly, and lifted her heavy chair aside as though it were doll’s house furniture.
When she swung the great doors open she was confronted by a woman as impressively large in width as she was in height. The woman was b
acked by a number of police, and String instinctively pulled back farther into the shadows. “Kindly let us in,” said the broad woman in a stern voice.
The giantess shook her head. “No admission without a ticket,” she said. The two large women stared at each other, hands on their hips.
A policeman with a pasty white face stepped up beside the broad woman. “Open in the name of the law,” he said.
The giantess answered without even looking at him. “No admission without a warrant,” she said.
Suddenly a cat appeared at her feet—a large ginger cat who strolled into the Palace of Laughter with neither ticket nor warrant, followed by a black cat with white patches, and a white cat with black patches. The giantess, caught off guard, stared down at them in surprise, and a moment later she was surrounded by disheveled-looking police with misbuttoned tunics and stubbly chins—and one even wearing pajama bottoms—like an eagle being harried by starlings. They overpowered the giantess by sheer weight of numbers and dragged her outside, while the large lady and a wrinkly old man with a white stick marched on into the theater, leaving the doors wide-open and unguarded behind them.
Stealing the keys had been easier than he had expected. There was chaos of some kind going on in the big ring at the center of the theater. The entire audience seemed to be drunk, and the big man with the keys was lying right in the middle of the aisle, laughing like a loon, and did not even notice being relieved of his property.
String had taken the elevator down to the lowest level, and was now opening each door in turn and searching the rooms for the winged girl. He needed to find her as quickly as possible so that he could make her show him the way out through the clown’s ear, since the main entrance was crawling with police. All the doors he had found so far were unlocked, and he chuckled to himself at the stupidity of their occupants. It was true that there wasn’t a great deal of value to be stolen, but his pockets had been steadily filling with a fair haul of loose change nonetheless, and a couple of pocket watches to boot. He had found no trace of the girl, however, and he was just beginning to worry that he would not find her in time, when he came to a heavy wooden door and found it locked.