House of Many Doors

by Ian Richards

  She smiled. ‘As crystal, Mr. Martell.’

  By now Tony had taken as much mystery as he could stand. He set the invitation back on the desk and shot Martell a look.

  ‘All right, Martell. What’s going on? What’s a midnight auction? Why have I never heard of them before?’

  The old man remained silent for a long moment, brooding on the best way to answer. Miss Maidstone watched him with a scholarly interest, curious as to how he would phrase his reply.

  ‘Midnight auctions,’ Martell said eventually, ‘take place once a year on Halloween night. They’re not advertised in newspapers and they’re not discussed in public. This is because they specialize in auctioning off items that are best hidden from the public eye.’

  ‘You mean stolen goods.’

  Martell paused. ‘Sometimes, my boy, sometimes. But mostly items from the darker side of history. Knives used by murderers. Nooses used to hang notorious criminals. Things like that.’

  The rain was pounding on the roof several floors above them. Combined with the dingy light of the office its faraway drumming made the room feel like the inside of a grotesque wooden heart. A clogged, terrified heart, pounding its way towards seizure.

  ‘We’ve got a little something that would do well there,’ Martell continued. ‘An antique I picked up only recently and wouldn’t be able to sell anywhere else. It could do very well indeed. It could even make us rich if the right people are in attendance.’

  Tony was listening intently, hanging on every word. Rich. Even the thought of it seemed absurd.

  ‘But,’ Martell continued, ‘there’s a catch.’ He licked his lips nervously. ‘For one midnight auctions are illegal. They take place in secret and outside the boundaries of the law. If someone screws you there, you’ve got to accept it. You can’t get a lawyer, you can’t go to the police. You’re done.’

  Tony looked at Miss Maidstone. She didn’t move to contradict this.

  ‘Then there are the other attendees,’ Martell went on. ‘Most are harmless. Plenty will be everyday sellers like you and me looking to make an honest sale and earn themselves a bit of money. But there will be others who won’t be so upstanding. Crooks. Conmen. Criminals. There will be some people looking to swindle us the minute we step through the door. England hasn’t seen as much trouble as some of the auctions on the European scene but—’

  At this point Miss Maidstone interjected. ‘I think you’re being unfair, Mr. Martell. The house prides itself on its reputation.’

  ‘Reputation,’ he snorted. ‘I know all about the house’s reputation, my love, don’t you worry about that.’

  She said nothing. The sound of pouring rain filled the room, louder now, angrier.

  Throughout this exchange Tony had remained silent, building up a picture in his mind of what such a place must be like. A midnight auction. The idea intrigued him. He had been to plenty of regular auctions and enjoyed them tremendously. But this—this was something else. Adventure, intrigue, danger. His heart pounded with excitement: bam, bam, bam. It was as if midnight auctions had been created specially for him, Tony Lott, twelve year old assistant antiques seller at Martell’s Antiques.

  But a question remained.

  ‘Do we really have something that we could sell there, Martell? Something … dark?’ Because he couldn’t imagine any of the antiques in the shop belonging at a midnight auction. They had a few decent pieces here and there but nothing that would fetch a lot of money, and certainly nothing dastardly enough to sit alongside murder weapons and hands of glory and goodness knows what else.

  ‘Yes,’ Martell said. ‘We do.’

  ‘And you think it’ll make us a lot of money?’

  He nodded. ‘Thousands, I should think. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands perhaps.’

  Tony looked at him in disbelief. Hundreds of thousands. He couldn’t be serious.

  Martell met his gaze. ‘You don’t believe me?’ For the first time since Miss Maidstone had arrived a small smile played on his lips. ‘Very well. I’ll show you.’ Rising to his feet, the old man brushed the creases from his suit and turned to the wardrobe by the wall. Tony felt the breath catch in his throat. In all his life he had never known this wardrobe to be anything other than locked tight. That Martell could finally be about to open it was astonishing.

  The wardrobe was big and bulky. Its wood had the dark shine of a millpond at midnight. Martell removed a key from his pocket, slipped it into the lock and after two twists let the doors creak open. They sounded like cemetery gates caught in the wind. Tony held his breath. What happened next seemed to last an eternity. After a momentary pause—a split-second of doubt perhaps—Martell crouched down and removed something from the cobwebbed darkness. At first, for a terrible moment, Tony thought it was a coffin—a coffin built for a tiny child. But then he realized. It was a shoebox. A dull brown shoebox with a dented side and a frosting of dust on its lid. Martell rested it carefully on his desk.

  ‘Go on, my boy,’ he said. ‘Open it.’

  Tony looked around. At Martell, at Miss Maidstone, and then, finally, at the box. It was so ordinary. So innocuous. And yet as his fingertips found the edges of the lid he couldn’t help but think there was something terrible inside. Something that would haunt him for the rest of his days. For a moment he paused, as if unwilling to go any further. Then, with a sudden burst of determination, he pulled the lid away.

  In front of him, resting on a bed of scrunched-up newspaper, was a doll.

  2 - Anastasia’s Doll

  Later, once Miss Maidstone had returned to the rain, Tony sat in Martell’s office and tried to process what had just happened. It all seemed so absurd. At the beginning of the day he had woken up to another quiet Saturday morning in his uncle’s shop. Business had been slow, the weather had been bad, and he had passed most of the time reading old history books with Pushkin asleep on his lap.

  Now, in the space of thirty minutes, everything had changed.

  He felt as if he had stumbled into another world, as if none of this could really be happening. Mysterious visitors, illegal auctions. A doll that was supposedly worth more money than every other antique in the shop combined. He felt disorientated, dizzy, afraid, delighted. The hammering of his heart reminded him of riding the Waltzer at the Stepney Green funfair a few years earlier. He felt the same giddy excitement he had experienced then as he swooped and soared through a night made of shimmering lights, colored lanterns and whistling stars.

  Somewhere above him, Martell was in the process of locking up for the night. Tony could hear him walking around upstairs, keys jangling like a jailer. Was he moving more slowly than usual? Taking his time because he knew that once the doors were secure he would have no option but to return to his office and the myriad of questions awaiting him? Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. It was hard to tell what Martell was thinking at the best of times. His uncle was a quiet, modest man. He enjoyed playing chess, reading books, and listening to late-night radio phone-ins on the crackling wireless he kept by his bed. That he could keep any secret from him, let alone one so big, seemed ridiculous. How did he know about midnight auctions in the first place? Why had he never mentioned any of this before?

  He puffed out his cheeks and returned his attention to the doll, who remained still and silent in her shoebox-coffin. She was a beautiful piece, there was no denying that. Late nineteenth century in design, blonde curls, a white dress. She had a haunted, glacial expression on her face and bright blue eyes, the color of deep oceans on sunny days.

  But hundreds of thousands of pounds? He couldn’t see that, no matter what Martell said. No sensible buyer could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a doll.

  But midnight auctions weren’t designed for sensible buyers, were they? They were made for lunatics, criminals, gamblers, monsters. Maybe there’s a reason Martell thinks the doll will play well with that kind of audience? Maybe there’s more to this than you think?

  Yes, there had to be something
special about the doll he wasn’t seeing. Maybe she wasn’t really a doll at all. Maybe she was a device used by smugglers to transport stolen jewelry without arousing suspicion. Maybe if he were to shake her he would hear a rattling noise from deep inside. Maybe if he were to slit her open with his pocket-knife a cascade of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds would spill forth—a sparkling rainbow that would pool on the tabletop and fall to the floor and—

  No. He was letting his imagination run away with him.

  But what then? What was her secret? What wasn’t he seeing?

  He looked again at the doll. Closer this time.

  That porcelain-smooth skin.

  Those twinkling blue eyes.

  ‘All done.’ The sound of Martell’s voice made him start. The old man tossed his keys onto the table and reached for the desk-lamp. A flare of murky light rose up, casting flickering shadows across the walls. The doll’s eyes shimmered in the glow. ‘I should begin with an apology, Tony. This must be very confusing for you. No doubt your head is spinning.’ Martell sank back into his chair. The wood creaked sharply beneath him. ‘Where to begin, where to begin …?’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let me start at the beginning. Up until now I’ve given you a good introduction to the antiques trade. You’re a natural. You know your history, you’re a good talker, and you’ve clocked up plenty of sales. But there’s still a lot you don’t know. And what I’m going to tell you now will change the way you look at the business forever. There’s a lot at stake here. More than you can possibly imagine.’

  Tony’s stomach quivered. There was a seriousness about his uncle that was new and unpleasant. There were none of the jokes or stories he had come to expect when they sat down together after hours. For the first time he felt uneasy in Martell’s company, afraid for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate. The giddy excitement he had felt only moments before disappeared.

  ‘Several months ago,’ Martell said, ‘I attended a church fete in the grounds of St. Mark’s. There I happened upon a young woman with red hair and roses tattooed around her wrist. Her great-grandmother had died recently and she was selling off the old woman’s possessions. The doll was one such item. How it came to be in the hands of the old woman in the first place I have no idea, but I was able to snap it up for next to nothing. It was luck, Tony. A stroke of good fortune and nothing more.’

  Tony nodded. This seemed straight-forward enough. The business was full of stories in which expensive antiques turned up in the unlikeliest of places: attics, basements, the bedrooms of distant relatives who had devoted their lives to hoarding all manner of useless tat. He turned again to the doll. In the murky lamplight she looked like a young girl who had been laid out on an altar. There was something vaguely sacrificial about the scene—something menacing that he didn’t particularly care for.

  ‘What’s her story then, Martell? Why is she worth so much?’

  In answer Martell reached into one of his drawers and pulled out an ancient hardback with a cover the color of dried blood. He set it on the desk with a thud. The title, printed on the front in dull gold lettering, sparkled eerily in the gloom.

  A Compendium Of Miscellaneous Treasures, Real & Imagined

  by Professor Henrik Humple

  ‘This book,’ Martell said, ‘is our starting point. It’s the greatest antiques directory ever written. My grandfather gave me a copy when I was a boy and I’ve read it so many times since I know the contents virtually by heart. It’s how I was able to recognize the doll. She has an entry in it all to herself.’

  Tony held out his hands for a closer look. The book was heavier than he thought it would be. It smelt strongly of bound leather. He opened it to the first page and read the inscription printed beneath the title.

  ‘Being an exploration of scholarly study into artifacts and antiques, real and imagined, from ancient times to the present day.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘What does ‘real and imagined’ mean?’

  ‘It means precisely that, my boy. Real and imagined. Professor Humple filled his book not just with real antiques, but with mythical ones, too—antiques that might not even exist, but would be worth a fortune if they did. There’s a chapter on Atlantean coinage. Another on lost Shakespearian plays. The list is enormous.’

  The pages Tony turned through confirmed this madness to be true. There were entries devoted to King Arthur’s Excalibur, the Holy Grail, the arrow that pierced Harold’s eye in 1066.

  ‘The Compendium isn’t supposed to be a historical document,’ Martell continued. ‘It’s a treasure map. The professor was more interested in possibilities than practicalities, you see.’

  ‘But why did the doll make the compendium? What makes it so special?’

  Here Martell dropped his voice to a whisper.

  ‘Tell me, my boy,’ he grinned. ‘What do you know about Anastasia Romanov?’

  Tony felt a tingle of apprehension. ‘Anastasia Romanov?’ He looked again at the doll. ‘I don’t know, the same as most people I suppose. She was the youngest daughter of the Tsar. Her family was killed during the Russian revolution. There were rumors she survived.’

  ‘Correct,’ Martell said, nodding with approval. ‘First rate knowledge, Tony, very good. Unlike the rest of her family, you see, Miss Romanov’s body was never found. She disappeared. Vanished into thin air. There were plenty of sightings in the years that followed, yes—one in Amsterdam—a few more in Paris. But nothing was ever proven. Rumor and innuendo ran rife. Was she smuggled out of the country? Did she start a new life under an assumed name? Of course, it’s almost certain she went the same way the rest of her family, but you know what people are like, Tony, why let evidence get in the way of a good story?’ Martell smiled at him. ‘Anastasia Romanov,’ he said, ‘is one of history’s greatest enigmas. A question mark in a discipline obsessed with full stops.’ He nodded towards the shoebox. ‘And this doll is hers.’

  At once a deathly stillness gripped the room. Tony froze, his body rigid but his heart pounding against his ribcage like a fist.

  Anastasia’s doll. It couldn’t be.

  ‘But Martell—’

  ‘I know, my boy. I know.’

  ‘But it must be worth—’

  He couldn’t believe it. Had this sad-looking doll with her sparkling blue eyes really once belonged to Anastasia Romanov? Had one of the most famous princesses of all time once been as close to it as he was now? He picked up the doll again, more carefully this time, letting the idea sink in. Yes, there was something special about her. He could sense it now. He could feel the history radiating from her. A succession of images flooded his mind. He saw imperial palaces, snow falling on frozen fields, a dark magician, nights charged with violence and passion.

  He struggled to compose himself. ‘Martell,’ he whispered. ‘Martell, this is unbelievable. How did you—?’

  ‘You’ll see now why we have no choice but to take her to a midnight auction. If we tried to sell her legitimately we’d be overrun with crooks claiming she was rightfully theirs. Russian noblemen, oligarchs, politicians ... We couldn’t compete with people like that, Tony, the lawsuits would bankrupt us in a heartbeat. As much as it pains me to say it, I’m afraid that the blackest of black markets is our only option.’

  Tony was still examining the doll. She was lighter than he thought she would be. She moved easily in his hands, a slow pirouette that revealed her to be surprisingly free of marks or blemishes. It was almost as if the past century hadn’t happened at all. She could have been snatched from the Winter Palace that very morning.

  ‘I don’t understand though, Martell. Isn’t this good news? If the doll is that special, we’re going to be rich. You’re going to be famous.’ He paused, suddenly realizing there had to be a catch. Martell had received his invitation to the auction with glum acceptance rather than any kind of enthusiasm. He had looked thoroughly miserable—as if he had been handed an overdue electricity bill rather than a winning lot
tery ticket. Then there was his mysterious comment earlier.

  There’s a lot at stake here. More than you can possibly imagine.

  His uncle remained seated at his desk, seemingly reluctant to say anything more on the matter. Behind him the wall swam with shadows, a seething darkness that heaved and pulsed around them. Tony sensed a threshold was about to be crossed. Once again he felt that familiar Stepney Green funfair rush. The rattling excitement. The accelerated heartbeat. He was afraid of what lay ahead, but excited, too.

  When Martell finally spoke he prefaced his words with the heaviest of sighs. ‘Tony, the reason I’m not jumping for joy is because I’ve been to plenty of midnight auctions in my time and I know just how risky they can be.’

  Tony’s stomach dipped. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, don’t look so shocked, my boy, it really isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. This was long before you were born. I wouldn’t be going back there now either if I hadn’t found the doll. She’s the only reason we’re going this weekend, Tony. We’re in no position to turn down the kind of money she’ll fetch. We’ve got bills to pay, just like everybody else.’

  Tony nodded. A sick feeling had risen inside him, and it wasn’t excitement this time. Since the invitation had arrived his world had been spinning. Now he realized that when it began to slow down it wasn’t ever going to return him to his old life. Oh no. It was going to return him to a world of darkness and mystery, a shadow world, where even his uncle, the man he knew better than anyone else, seemed strange and unfamiliar.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Are midnight auctions really that frightening then?’

  Martell paused before answering him. This was almost answer enough. ‘They’re different, Tony. There will be a few unsavory characters there and you’ll probably see a couple of things you won’t forget in a hurry. But we’ll be fine, believe me. I wouldn’t take you otherwise. The best thing you can do is just treat the auction like any other. Concentrate on the job at hand and don’t get sidetracked by distractions. That’s what happened the last time I went. The person I was there with let the experience overwhelm him completely. In the end we were lucky to escape with our lives.’ He paused then, perhaps realizing he had said too much. ‘But don’t worry about that. You’re not as reckless as he was. As long as you do as I say, you’ll be fine. If you can do that then once we’ve sold the doll I’ll be treating you to fish suppers every night of the week. In fact, we’ll be able to visit a different restaurant every night. The Golden Tamarin is supposed to be very good. I think we should go there first. And The Hong Kong Dragon, some nights the smells coming out of that place are just divine.’