The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  Rémy stared at her bread, the idea turning her mouth dry. Yannick was right. Claudette had always been different. “She can’t be the Lost Comtesse,” she muttered, as much to herself as to him. “She’d have told me.”

  “If she is the one, she probably doesn’t know,” Yannick pointed out. “If she did, she wouldn’t be lost, would she? Who in their right mind would carry on scraping a living in the circus when they’re heir to that fortune?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” murmured Rémy. “But still . . .”

  “You haven’t ever noticed a birthmark? The Lost Comtesse is supposed to have one isn’t she?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. A dark mark that looks like a sea serpent, isn’t that right? Well, there you go then,” Rémy said, her relief taking her by surprise. “Claudette has no such mark.”

  “No?” Yannick asked. “You’re sure? It was supposed to be on the child’s back, wasn’t it? Would you have definitely seen it?”

  “Well — yes,” said Rémy, frowning, although now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen her friend’s back properly. Now that she thought about it, Claudette had a habit of keeping a long garment on, even when swimming. It was to protect her arms from cold, she said, and Rémy had never questioned it. “I mean — I must have. At some time . . .”

  “Ah well — I suppose when we get to the Jamboree and you find the Circus of Secrets, you can ask her, eh?”

  “I don’t think Claudette will take the Circus of Secrets to the Jamboree this year,” said Rémy as she shooed away a gull that was a little too interested in their breakfast.

  Yannick sat up with a frown. “Oh? Why not?”

  “She never really liked it,” said Rémy. “Claudette was always reluctant to go with Le Cirque de la Lune, and when it was on, she usually stayed in her caravan or at least didn’t stray far from it. I’m surprised you don’t remember. I asked her why once, and she said she didn’t see the point of swapping tricks. What makes people want to see a circus is originality, she said, so why dilute that with ideas they may have seen somewhere else? I can see her point, I suppose. And now that she’s the circus master, and Le Cirque des Secrets is such a new company . . . I think she’d probably want to stay away. Besides, I’ve been looking at the postmarks of the towns these were sent from. Claudette seemed to be working her way south, away from Paris, not toward it as she would have done if she were planning on joining the Jamboree.”

  Yannick brushed the crumbs from his fingers before reaching for the letters. “May I?”

  Rémy passed them over, and he went through them one by one, studying the stamps and marks. “Which was the last one you received? This one?” He held one up.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was posted from Moulidars.”

  The magician nodded with a smile. “Well then,” he declared, “that is where we shall start, Little Bird. We’ll go there, and then follow the trail until we find the Circus of Secrets. We’ll catch up with them in no time!”

  “But — I thought you’d want to go to the Jamboree,” said Rémy. “Don’t you want to find a place with a new circus?”

  “Yes,” said Yannick, “although to tell the truth, Rémy, I’m hoping that my new circus might turn out to be my old one.” He grinned at her raised eyebrows. “Wouldn’t it be great if I could join the Circus of Secrets? It’d be just like old times. Just like when we were children.”

  Rémy laughed. “Except that we’re much older. And wiser,” she added.

  “Yes,” agreed Yannick, watching the hopeful gulls still darting into the boat’s wake. “Yes, that we are.”

  {Chapter 9}

  A RUDE AWAKENING

  Thaddeus had finally reached his bed as the clock was touching one in the morning and so was asleep when J arrived at his lodgings a few short hours later. The first he knew about the visit was a distant banging disturbing his dreams. Then a loud, poisonous voice invaded too, and the bubble of sleep was broken. He opened his eyes to see the door to his room vibrating on its hinges as Mrs. Carmichael pounded at it, yelling at him to “wake up, damn you!”

  Thaddeus dragged himself blearily out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown before opening the door to his landlady.

  “For goodness’ sake, Mr. Rec,” she snarled, her coarse gray hair beginning to escape the hairnet with which she nightly tried to subdue it. “I will not be having these goings on in this respectable establishment! I simply will not!”

  “I apologize, Mrs. Carmichael,” Thaddeus said, automatically. “May I ask to which goings on you are referring?”

  “There is . . . there is a . . . a street urchin,” the woman said, her lips curling around the word as if it were filth itself sticking between her crooked teeth. “He’s downstairs. I tried to shoo him away, but he won’t go. I even threatened to call the police, but the little monster still won’t budge.”

  Thaddeus stepped into the shabby hallway outside his room. “Perhaps because I am, in fact, the police, Mrs. Carmichael?” he suggested mildly. “I think I know the boy you mean. He must have good reason to call at,” he looked at the clock, surprised to find the hour barely touching five, “such a disagreeable time.”

  His landlady followed him down the stairs. “It’s not on, Mr. Rec,” she said. “It’s just not on. I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, all this so-called police work that puts honest, decent folk into such hassles.”

  Thaddeus stopped on the bottom step and turned to her. “I could find other lodgings, Mrs. Carmichael. If that would suit better?” He raised an eyebrow, though he already knew her response. Whatever her gripes, Mrs. Carmichael had by far the most respectable tenant she could hope for in Thaddeus.

  “Less of your lip, if you please. I’m the owner of this house, not a washerwoman or such.” She pushed him out of the way and headed back to her own room, grumbling.

  “Oh, Thaddeus,” said a breathless J, as soon as Thaddeus opened the door. “Something right awful’s happened! Something right awful!”

  “It’s all right, J — whatever it is, we can sort it out. Tell me.”

  “It’s Rémy. She’s gone!”

  Something like a millstone thumped into Thaddeus’s stomach and rested there. He said nothing for a moment and then nodded once. “J, I’m going to get dressed. Give me two minutes. Then we’ll go and get breakfast.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, they were seated in the murky bow window of The Grapes, each with a plate of ham and eggs and a pint of strong, hot tea in front of them. Neither of them, however, seemed to have much of an appetite.

  “They must’ve left last night,” J said miserably. “I didn’t hear ’em go. They must ’ave got back from the theater early, like, when I was still working, and just — upped and went.”

  Thaddeus stared at the brief note, written in Rémy’s haphazard handwriting.

  I’ll miss you, J. I’m sorry not to say goodbye in person, but I don’t think I can stay in England any longer. I will remember you always. Take care of yourself and be good.

  Rémy

  There was no mention of Thaddeus at all. He wondered for a moment if she might have left him his own note, at the police station perhaps, but dismissed that notion as soon as it arose. He already knew she hadn’t. Why would she, when he was what she was running from?

  “This was all they left?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Nearly, but not quite,” J said, thrusting a hand into his bag to pull out a crumpled roll of paper. “They forgot to take this with ’em.”

  Thaddeus took the sorry scroll and unfurled it. It was a poster, proclaiming in large red and yellow letters that something called a Jamboree was about to happen. The images depicted all manner of circus performers, from high-wire walkers to elephant riders.

  “It’s some big circus event that’s going on in Paris right now,” J said eage
rly.

  “Right,” said Thaddeus heavily, letting the scroll roll back into itself and dropping it onto the table.

  “Don’t you see?” J asked. “It’s where they’ll be going. It’s where we’ll find ’em!”

  Thaddeus picked up his mug of tea and stared into it. “We won’t be going to find them, J.”

  “Why not? It’ll be easy! Piece o’ cake, that’s what it’ll be. They’re two circus folks, heading back to the circus. Where else would they go?”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “That may be so, but there’s the little thing of getting there. I don’t have any money. Do you? Certainly not enough for the train and then the boat that we’d need to take, not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t even know how to buy a ticket for the train we’d need once we got to France. And say we do get there — say we do find them. Then what? What do we do then?”

  J stared at Thaddeus as if the policeman had lost his mind. “We get her back, Thaddeus.” he said slowly, as if he were talking to a simpleton. “You get her back.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “I don’t see why she’d be willing to listen to me, J,” he said. “She never has before.”

  “Yeah, she has,” said J, staring at Thaddeus intently. “That time you told her you loved her. I was there, ’member? She listened to you then, didn’t she?”

  The policeman felt his cheeks go red at J’s words. “That was . . . those were extreme circumstances, J. It’s not —”

  “It ain’t what? It ain’t true?” J made a disgusted sound in his throat. “Poppycock. You ain’t pulling that one, Thaddeus. I know you love ’er. Just like I know she loves you, even if she ain’t smart enough to sort that out in her own head yet. I don’t know what you two’ve been playing at over the past few months, honest I don’t. I thought, once you’d found her again, you’d be happy — both o’ yer. But yer’ve been dancing around each other like two fish in the net.”

  “J —” Thaddeus began, uncomfortable.

  “Don’t you ‘J’ me,” said the boy, warming to his theme. “You’s both as pig-headed as the other. And then this Yannick bloke comes along and catches you napping, and now he’s carried ’er off and you’re just going to let ’im get away wif it?”

  Thaddeus laughed at the notion of anyone carrying Rémy off. “J, you know as well as I do that Rémy never does anything she doesn’t want to. If she’s gone back to France, it’s because it’s where she wants to be, and if she’s gone with Yannick, it’s because she wants to be with him. I’m not sure what you think I can do about that.”

  “Sumfin’!” J exclaimed, thumping his hand on the table and causing his uneaten fried eggs to wobble wildly on the plate. “Sumfin’, instead of nuffin’! How can you just let her go, especially with him? He’s as dodgy as the pope’s cloak is long, and what’s more, I think you know it. Don’t yer?”

  Thaddeus grimaced. “Yes, J, I think he might be.”

  “And yet you’re going to let the girl you love go off into the night wiv him, just like that?”

  “I don’t have any proof, J!” Thaddeus exclaimed. “All I’ve got are theories and a hunch. I told her I didn’t trust him, and she took no notice of me. What else can I do?”

  “Why don’t you trust him?” J asked. “What is it you fink ’e’s done?”

  Thaddeus glanced out the window at the busy high road. “There hasn’t been time to investigate properly. And now I can’t.”

  “Come on,” J insisted. “Out wiv it. No other beggar’s going to listen to yer, are they?”

  Thaddeus laughed, though there wasn’t much mirth in it. “All right, then. These robberies — there’ve been two of them now. Impossible thievery, right through locked doors. Tell me, J, how do you do the impossible? How do you steal something through several locked doors when the key holder swears the keys never left his sight?”

  J shrugged. “Can’t see how you would do it, to tell you the truth. I surely wouldn’t try, that’s for sure.”

  “Exactly. Because it’s impossible. And yet it happened. So what does that tell us?”

  “Yer’ve got me there. What?”

  Thaddeus leaned back, his breakfast forgotten. “You don’t do it, J. You don’t.”

  J stared at the policeman for a moment, and then blinked. “Have I missed something? Cos —”

  “J, the only way those jewels got out of those strongboxes and through those locked doors is if the key holders either never put them in there in the first place, or they took them out themselves. Nothing else makes sense. You can’t do the impossible; therefore, what happened wasn’t impossible, and the two explanations I’ve just given are the only logical answers.”

  J stabbed a piece of burnt toast with the point of his knife and shoved it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “You saying these rich fellers stole their own baubles? For the insurance or sumfin’? Cos I can’t see that theory going down too well.”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “No. No, I think whatever they did, they did without realizing, and willingly. That’s why there’s no sign of a break-in in either case — because there wasn’t one.”

  J looked perplexed. “You’re talking too smart for me. I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “Well, anyway, it’s irrelevant. It’s just a theory, and I don’t have any way to prove it.”

  “But you fink it was Mr. Fancy-Pants magician, right? Yannick, you fink ’e was behind it?”

  Thaddeus stared into his rapidly cooling tea. “I don’t know what I think, J. I’m pretty sure that he’s been in town longer than he let us assume. I spoke to two theater owners who each say they’ve employed a hypnotizing magician with a French accent over the past month. Both of them had different names, but they fit Yannick’s description and both burglary victims visited those theaters on the nights their crimes were committed. I was planning to prove my hunch one way or another, but now I won’t know if there wasn’t another burglary because Yannick’s not my man, or because he left town before he could complete the third. None of that proves anything, anyway. Maybe I just want it to be him. Maybe me suspecting The Magnificent Yannick has nothing to do with police instinct and everything to do with me being . . .” he trailed off.

  “Jealous?” J prompted shrewdly. When Thaddeus didn’t reply, he went on, “Well, what about the Frenchie coppers? Can’t you check in with them, tell them about your worries and what-not, find out a bit more about ’im? If he’s got form on that side o’ the water too, stands to reason they’d know about it. If they’ve got gripes as well, they might give us a bit of help tracking him and Rémy down, like. You won’t even have to go yourself. Problem solved.”

  Thaddeus looked at J seriously. “Yes J, they might help . . . you’re right there.”

  “There we go then! Sorted! What are we waiting for?” J, raring to go, made to stand up, but Thaddeus stopped him.

  “What about Rémy, J?”

  “What about Rémy? This is perfect — the police’ll go looking for Yannick and lead us straight to her.”

  “Exactly. Come on, be smart. Rémy’s hardly what you’d call a clean character, is she? I know for a fact that the police here have told them they want her for the Tower of London theft, not to mention for breaking out of custody. She’s a wanted woman, J, most likely in every country in Europe. And you want to send the gendarme after her?”

  J sat down again, his face glum. “That’s a good point.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “There’s something else, too,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Desai came to visit me yesterday.”

  J’s eyebrows shot up at the sound of his mentor’s name. “Oh? Why? More trouble?”

  Thaddeus sighed. “You could say that.” He quietly outlined what their friend had told him about the list of names, adding a description of his late-night visit into the bowels of the city and Thaddeus’s realizati
on that the Comte de Cantal was both the buyer and one of the names on Desai’s list. J’s face paled as Thaddeus went on, the boy’s fingers gripping his knife and fork until they turned white.

  “Blimey,” J muttered when Thaddeus was done. “That’s not good. That’s not good at all.”

  “The thing is, J,” Thaddeus added. “You remember when I first met Yannick, and I asked him if we’d met before? Well, when I saw him last night, on stage in his top hat and tails, I realized where I’d seen him. He was the man who brought the Comte a message during Sir Henry’s dinner. He was talking to the Comte as I left.”

  “’Ang about,” hissed J. “You’re telling me that rotter Yannick is mixed up with Abernathy’s lot?”

  “I don’t know that exactly, but . . .”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said J. “Go back a mo. You mentioned this Comte feller, that he needs money, right? And you reckon Yannick’s in league wiv ’im, on top o’ which, you fink Yannick’s the one’s been nicking all these jewels and such. See where I’m going ’ere? What if that’s what the connection is? This bloke the Comte has gone and got himself a way of picking up all the money he wants — he just gets his tame hypnotist to nick him a new bauble to flog every time he needs the cash, right?”

  “Right,” said Thaddeus. “That does make sense, because otherwise it’d be Yannick who was living it up like a prince, instead of bunking down with you and Rémy at the docks.”

  “Yeah,” said J, raising his eyebrows. “Unless there was a partic-alar reason ’e was looking for the greatest jewel thief in Europe. Come on, Thaddeus, don’t be a fool. Rémy doesn’t have an inklin’ what Yannick’s like. She got away from that Gustave bloke, but I bet there are loads out there just like him who’d kill to have a pet jewel thief as good as she is. How much money do you fink it’d take for Yannick to be willing to hand her over to one o’ them, eh? Like this feller, the Comte?”

  Thaddeus stared at him, the cogs whirring around in his mind. “The Comte told the seller of Abernathy’s submarine that he’d have five thousand pounds for him within a month.”