The Mule

by David Quantick

  Frant rang a large and noisy bell. After a few minutes, a very old and very small fat man appeared behind the ironwork. ‘We have an appointment,’ Frant said. ‘Monsieur Frant.’ The man turned round and nodded to an unseen accomplice, and the iron doors swung open. Frant and I followed the man into the courtyard, where Frant almost tripped over a particularly knobbly flagstone, and into the building itself.

  There a second man awaited us. Tall, shaven-headed and wearing rimless spectacles like a German dentist, he was obviously Monsieur Derringer. Frant introduced himself and, amazingly, me, and presented his credentials. Derringer looked at them and nodded.

  ‘Welcome to the institute,’ he said. ‘We are honoured that you have travelled so far to see the Von Fremdenplatz documents.’

  ‘We’ve only come on the train,’ I said.

  Frant shot me an angry look. ‘Among other, equally tiring modes of travel,’ he said to Derringer, and I suddenly realised that Frant had got us in here by lying through his teeth. He must have told Derringer’s people that we had travelled across the world, possibly from far Cathay, to see the documents; he’d probably also lied about who we were. I didn’t really care, I just wanted to get in and get this over with.

  Frant was waffling away to Derringer about how it was even more of an honour for us to be here and so forth, and this seemed to smooth over any confusion I’d caused, because now Derringer was rooting about in an old bureau for our passes, which were not the usual rectangular folders of Perspex containing printed scraps of paper, but proper blue enamel badges with the institute’s logo embossed on them in gold. We pinned them to our lapels as requested, and without another word Derringer set off at a pace.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said at last, after we had walked down several identical wood-panelled corridors, each lined with portraits of people in wigs. We were outside a smallish oak door whose only distinguishing feature was the number

  106.

  ‘Room 106,’ said Derringer, perhaps unnecessarily, and took out a key. The key was large and ornate, and seemed a bit too fussy for its simple job of being a key. All it lacked was a big gold tassel; I was beginning to think that the institute was a touch too showy for an academic workplace. Frant, however, was lapping it up. I could tell by his almost salivating expression that he had thrown himself into the role of Important Visiting Professor.

  ‘The moment of truth,’ he said, before he could stop himself. Derringer raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, soon we shall see the documents and all will be revealed.’

  ‘Really?’ said Derringer, ‘For most people who come to see the documents, now is generally the moment before nothing is revealed.’

  ‘It’s just an expression,’ said Frant.

  Derringer all but shrugged and put the key in the lock.

  The door swung back and Derringer turned on the lights. The room was quite large, with more portraits of people in wigs on the walls. One or two busts in the Romanesque style stood on pillars between the portraits. In the middle of the room was an old-fashioned display case, the kind with glass doors that open upwards at an angle. Derringer walked over to the case and we followed him. He flicked a switch in the side of the case and some more lights came on.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I give you the Von Fremdenplatz

  documents.’

  We looked into the case, which contained six leather-bound volumes, each open at a page of illustrated text. The volumes were of different thicknesses, but in each the paper was of the same size and age, and there was no doubt that each of these books was somehow part of a larger, unified whole. The text, though incomprehensible, was exquisitely printed, while the illustrations were beautifully reproduced as if with the latest computer technology. I knew this to be impossible, as the documents had been discovered many years ago, but it was hard to escape the feeling that we were looking at something brand new.

  I said as much to Derringer, who nodded. ‘For printed matter of this age to look so pristine must have involved the very highest standards,’ he said. ‘We have examined every aspect of the documents, however, from the ink and paper to the glue used to bind the pages together, but we are unable to determine anything about the process. A private printer must have been used at every stage. If you look at the edging—’

  Frant, who was virtually hopping from foot to foot at this point, interrupted. ‘Would it be possible to examine the volumes?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ Derringer said, a touch irritably. ‘I was getting to that.’

  ‘My apologies,’ said Frant. ‘I am a trifle edgy. You see, this is the greatest day of my life.’

  ‘I see,’ Derringer said. He seemed to be thinking about something.

  I wondered if Frant’s effusiveness had set off any alarm bells. After all, experts in the field of counter-factual linguistics or whatever it was Frant claimed to be probably didn’t go round saying things like, ‘This is the greatest day of my life.’ Or maybe they did. I don’t know.

  Nor, it appeared, did Derringer, as after a moment’s hesitation he took out another, much smaller key and opened the display case.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, and produced from a drawer three pairs of white cotton gloves. We all put them on, and Derringer removed one of the smaller volumes from the case. He closed the glass door again and carefully laid the volume on top of it.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Frant, and for once he wasn’t wrong. The small volume was even more gorgeous close up. The typeface was not one I recognised, although, to be fair, I am no expert on typefaces and have never seen the point of those books that end with epilogues describing the history and origins of Pendalo Garibaldi or whatever font was used. It also made each letter look somehow elegant and effective. The quality of paper was almost ridiculous. It would have looked excessive in a medieval manuscript, let alone a twentieth-century printed book. And the illustrations … well, if they had looked good in a computer print-out, then on the pages of an actual book they were simply extraordinary. On this page, a mythical beast with the body of a lion and the face of a man – reproduced in glowing autumnal colours from some medieval map or calendar – was placed incongruously next to a photograph of an old man in Edwardian dress, his lined face etched vividly in black and white. On the opposite page, simple line drawings of men and women, full-lipped and wearing biblical dress, illustrated a piece of writing laid out like either a poem or a shopping list. It was impossible to tell what anything was meant to be, but it was all, as Frant said, quite beautiful.

  ‘May I?’ said Frant, gesturing at the book with a gloved hand, and Derringer nodded. Frant carefully lifted first one page, then another, and began to leaf slowly through the volume, exclaiming from time to time at each new illustration or block of text.

  Then I noticed he was making faces at me. Frant appeared to be signalling with his eyebrows, which he kept hurling upwards in the direction of Derringer. I realised that for some reason he wanted me to distract Derringer, and when Frant pulled out the corner of the Alice document, I understood. He obviously didn’t want the man to see his Rosetta Stone.

  ‘I imagine the Von Fremdenplatz is the centrepiece of your collection,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Derringer. ‘We have many valuable books and documents from all periods of history. And, while this is a marvellous piece of work, it lacks the historical importance of some of our, shall we say, more real acquisitions.’ He permitted himself a small chuckle.

  Frant frowned and, forgetting that he had wanted me to distract Derringer, said, ‘What do you mean, more real? The Von Fremdenplatz is one of the most important documents of the modern era!’ His eyebrows were wobbling alarmingly as he said it, and I could tell that he was quite agitated.

  Derringer sighed. ‘I realise that to someone of your background,’ he said, sending Frant’s eyebrows reeling, ‘these documents are something of a Holy Grail, but to more historically inclined academics they are a cul-de-sac. They have no provenance, no connection to any other aspect of Wes
tern culture, and they exist entirely in a vacuum. They may be beautiful and enigmatic, but they are nothing more than curios. Unless, that is, you believe they are gifts from aliens.’

  For a moment I thought Frant was going to say that yes, he did believe they were gifts from aliens, but he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘If the Von Fremdenplatz documents have no connection to Western culture,’ he said, ‘then how do you explain this?’ and thrust the pages from the translated Alice under Derringer’s nose.

  Derringer took them. ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  ‘Evidence!’ shouted Frant. ‘A direct link between the documents and the so-called real world!’

  Derringer must have put Frant’s suggestion that this world was not a real one down to the heat of the moment, because he laid the Alice pages down on the cabinet next to the open volume of the Von Fremdenplatz and started to look at them.

  ‘This is fascinating,’ he said. ‘Where did you get this?’

  I gave the same edited explanation that I had given Frant.

  ‘Ugh,’ said Derringer suddenly, and fell forward onto me. He was unconscious. I moved backward under the weight of his inert form, which gave me a view of Frant putting down a bust of a French philosopher.

  ‘Did you just hit him?’ I said, pushing Derringer towards a chair.

  ‘No time to explain,’ said Frant, stuffing the translated Alice into his man-bag. ‘Here.’ And he pushed the bound volume into my hands. I took it more in confusion than anything else, and watched in bafflement as Frant grabbed the other volumes from the display cabinet.

  An alarm sounded. I looked up and saw a small surveillance camera winking down at me.

  ‘Run!’ said Frant, and bolted from the room.

  I don’t know what you would have done in the circumstances, but I was shocked and confused and I think I would have obeyed any direction right then, no matter how absurd or counter-intuitive. In short, I ran.

  * * *

  The corridors of the institute were dark and winding and it took us a few minutes to find our way out. There were no clattering feet or shouts of command following us, which suggested that security was minimal. Indeed, we made it to the front door without seeing another person. Frant pressed a switch beside the wrought-iron gate and it opened outwards into the street. ‘Hurry!’ he said, shoving the bound volumes deeper into his coat, and he ran into the road. Still nobody pursued us, and I wondered why no police cars were arriving. But I had no time to speculate as Frant was scurrying up the street and if I had any chance of understanding what the hell was going on, I figured I had to follow him.

  Finally, he stopped running after he had ducked into a back alley behind a restaurant. I stopped beside him and we both took a few seconds to get our wind back. There were still no police sirens.

  When I had sufficient breath to speak, I said, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Frant. ‘I wanted to acquire the Von Fremdenplatz documents and there was no way Derringer would have permitted that.’

  ‘So you hit him over the head? You could have killed him.’

  ‘I doubt he would have been susceptible to verbal persuasion. And besides, I am not a strong man. I was lucky to render him unconscious.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘Insane? You heard what he said. The institute regards those documents as insignificant pieces of trivia. They would have been quite happy to let them moulder under glass for decades. I had to liberate them.’

  ‘But he seemed quite interested in the Alice. I’m sure he would have let you come in whenever you liked and work on your translation.’

  ‘And taken all the credit for it. I know from bitter experience what these academics are like. Masters of infighting who’d murder their own aunts for sole credit on a paper. Think what glory might accrue to a nobody like Derringer.’

  ‘That was still no reason to hit him over the head!’

  Frant sighed like a man who has been extremely patient with an idiot. ‘I have already explained that I had no other choice. I realise it was an act that closes down some options and makes others difficult—’

  ‘Options!’ I almost shouted. ‘I’m not sure you have any options! You just assaulted a man and stole a rare document! You’re a wanted man!’

  ‘No more than you,’ said Frant. For a moment I wondered if he was referring to my previous encounter with the police, and it took me a second to grasp his meaning.

  ‘I had nothing to do with this,’ I said.

  ‘Which is why you ran when I ran,’ said Frant. ‘Which is why you failed to raise the alarm. And which is why you have a stolen book in your coat.’

  He was right. There would be CCTV footage. And the French police, not noted for their kindness and liberalism, would be quick to connect me with the murder back home. Frant didn’t know it, but I was potentially in even more trouble than he was, and he was in a whole lot of trouble.

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Now what do we do?’

  ‘In the short term, we continue to flee,’ said Frant. ‘In the long term? The plan is simple. When I have completed my work, I will publish the results of my translation of the Von Fremdenplatz documents. I will of course acknowledge the small part that you played. I will achieve the recognition that I have always deserved for my work. You will also benefit in some measure, perhaps becoming more “in demand” in your job than you are now.’

  I felt like saying that as a man wanted for murder, assault and robbery in two different countries I could hardly be more in demand than I was right now, but I kept silent. It had just occurred to me that Euros Frant was stark, staring mad – not just in the annoying, rude way I was used to but in the way that crazy psycho killers are stark, staring mad – and the only way of extricating myself from this mess was to get as far away from him as possible and do some hard thinking. I was after all not actually guilty of murdering anyone (in fact, there was no evidence that the missing girl had been murdered) so there was a slim chance I would be able to make a case for my innocence. Running away never looks good, but I could tell them the truth, which was simply that I had panicked. The current situation was less good, admittedly, but again I had not actually assaulted anyone and I hoped the CCTV would pick up the shocked nuances of my face when Frant hit Derringer with the bust.

  In fact, the more I looked at things, the more I became convinced that the only sensible course of action for me to take, however reluctantly, was to turn myself in at the nearest French police station. It would mean answering a lot of questions, admitting that I had withheld evidence, and pleading guilty to one or two more minor charges, but I felt sure that this was my only way out. All I had to do now was get away from Frant. I had already calculated that he was unlikely to want to join me in my mission of expiation.

  ‘I think we should split up,’ I said. ‘The police will be looking for two people.’

  ‘No,’ said Frant. ‘We’re both in this. Our only chance lies in sticking together.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ I said. ‘Two men, looking suspicious, lurking in the back streets of Paris. They’ll be onto us like a shot. No, our only chance is to part company and make our own separate ways from here.’

  ‘That,’ said Frant, with a hint of exasperation in his voice, ‘is exactly what they will be expecting us to do.’

  ‘Well, let’s not disappoint them, then,’ I said tetchily.

  ‘Are you familiar with the tale of “The Purloined Letter”?’ said Frant.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, my heart sinking. Here we were, trying to evade capture by the French police and for all I knew Interpol, and Frant was about to deliver a lecture on crime fiction.

  ‘Then you should be aware of the concept of “hiding in plain sight”,’ he said. ‘In that story, in which the letter of the title is missing, it is discovered concealed in the most elegant hiding place imaginable, namely a letter rack.’

  ‘I am aware of it,’ I said, ‘and it’s different to t
his. A letter hidden in a letter rack is invisible, unless of course you’re a policeman with half a brain and it occurs to you to look in the letter rack anyway because what the hell? People put letters in letter racks. But we’re not letters, are we? We’re two foreigners with a rare book in your coat and we look sweaty and suspicious. If I was a cop, I’d arrest us just for looking guilty.’

  ‘This is not a time for flippancy,’ said Frant.

  ‘I’m not being flippant!’ I said. Then I gave in. Frant was so bonkers that anything I said would have no effect on him. And if I really wanted to turn myself in to the police then arguably the best way to do it was simply to hang around with him. Sooner or later we would be arrested and all this mess would be over. I was tired and I could barely think. I wanted it all to stop.

  ‘In that case,’ I said, exhausted, ‘if you really want to hide in plain sight, I know where we should go.’

  ‘Where?’ said Frant.

  ‘The hotel,’ I said. ‘According to your logic, they’ll never think of looking for us there.’

  Frant looked at me from under quizzical eyebrows. ‘That may be the first intelligent thing you have ever said,’ he said. ‘Let us go, then, you and I.’

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, I was surprised to discover that my plan seemed to be working. The lobby was not crawling with police, our rooms had not been turned over, and there weren’t even any messages for us.

  ‘The police will eventually work out that we are here,’ said Frant, ‘but we have a valuable breathing space.’

  ‘To do what?’ I said. ‘We still have to get out of here. And when we do, what next? Do we assume false identities for the rest of our lives?’

  ‘All this will blow over,’ said Frant. ‘When the reason for my actions is discovered, there will be great international sympathy and I will be excused. As my assistant, there will also be room in people’s hearts for you.’