“Why didn’t Uncle Reggie leave a note for us at the other school, where we met Madame Curie?” I asked Mr. Scant.
“Perhaps he knew to come here directly but didn’t see fit to share the information,” said Mr. Scant. He began to open the letter, but the young man was still standing expectantly. Mr. Scant paused, then with only a very slight pursing of his lips, pulled out a few coins and gave them to the young man. “For the Cause,” he said.
“For the Cause,” the young man answered, and walked away satisfied, tossing his francs in the air and catching them.
“What did Uncle Reggie say?” I asked, as Mr. Scant read the note, a frown on his face.
“He says the records show Elspeth graduated over a year ago and hasn’t been seen since. But apparently a young man Reggie describes as, I quote, ‘a little toff,’ told him he’d better stay away from a private gallery not far from here. So he’s gone to investigate.”
“What should we do?”
“What do you think we should do, Master Oliver?”
“Oh yes,” I said, remembering Mr. Scant wanted me to take the initiative. I thought for a moment. “Honestly, I think Uncle Reggie is getting himself into trouble again. And if someone took him aside, it sounds as though we’re expected here, so we may well be walking into a trap. If we follow Uncle Reggie to the gallery, we’ll probably be playing into their hands as well. But on the other hand, our only alternative is to leave and hope Uncle Reggie is alright. I’d rather go and make sure, so we’ll have to go carefully.”
Mr. Scant nodded. “Good. You’re beginning to think well. The gallery is this way.”
It was less than ten minutes’ walk. We first made a circuit of the private gallery, which was a large building that had probably started life as a rich person’s townhouse and had a sort of courtyard garden of its own. But high walls surrounded it, and the iron gates of the gallery entrance had been closed and chained.
“No sign of Uncle Reggie,” I said. Mr. Scant grunted.
We gained entry to the premises the simplest way we could: we found the quietest part of the periphery, where Mr. Scant let me step up onto his hands so that I could reach the top of the wall and then pull him up. As soon as I could see over the wall, though, I dropped back down. Mr. Scant caught and steadied me awkwardly.
“What is it?” he said.
“There are men at the door with guns,” I replied.
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. But one of them was really big. The men, I mean, not the gun. Actually, the gun w—”
I didn’t get any further than that, because Mr. Scant held up a hand to stop me, as if he had heard something strange.
“What is it?” I said, after a pause.
“We were followed,” he growled, and before I could so much as register what he had said, he took off toward the nearest corner like a dog after a pigeon.
I sighed and brushed myself off before running after him. As I approached the corner, I saw Mr. Scant had stopped immediately after rounding it. He was looming over the small street child from earlier that day, the one to whom I had bequeathed my chocolate eggs from Mr. Jackdaw. In fact, some of that chocolate was still visible across the boy’s face—smeared across his cheeks, presumably during an attempt to clean himself up. A tear was crossing the smudge now, as the boy blinked up at the gargoyle looming over him.
“It’s you!” I said, mostly to encourage Mr. Scant to put his fangs away. When the boy saw me, his terrified face crumpled. He let out a cry that I doubted would have made any more sense if I were fluent in French, and buried his face in my chest. I cringed as I imagined what was being wiped onto my shirt, but as he began to bawl, I patted him comfortingly on the cleanest patch of his hat.
Once the boy had calmed down enough to speak coherently, I knelt down until I was below his eye level, something that my schoolmate Chudley had taught me was good for calming down his little sister. Mr. Scant looked as though he wanted to stalk away, but I needed him to translate the boy’s French, so I beckoned him over. Mr. Scant listened with a disdainful look on his face as the boy spoke. I could identify a word here and there but not the sense of what he was saying. Still, I could understand that the boy kept repeating a name—Julien.
After a time, Mr. Scant stood up. From the fact that he had listened so long to a little orphan boy without interruption, I knew that the boy must have mentioned something of interest. “What did he say?” I asked.
“He said, and I shall have to take some liberties with translation, that some unsavory gentlemen have taken his brother away and locked him in the gallery we were investigating. He thought you must be a very kind person because you gave him chocolates, so he was sure you were searching for his brother and the others who have been taken away. And he knows a good place to get over the wall.”
“Do you think this has anything to do with Miss Gaunt?”
“That I can’t say. Do you think we ought to investigate, Master Oliver?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”
And so it was that we found ourselves behind a gazebo in the courtyard of an art gallery, peering around a corner at two men with a big Hotchkiss gun. The place the boy had led us to did not, strictly speaking, provide easy entry into the gallery, but we at least seized the possibility. Two of the outer walls were lower at the corner where they met, and on the other side stood the gazebo, behind which we could hide. Mr. Scant had boosted me up again, and with all my strength, I had pulled him up after me. Once he had reached the top of the wall, he reached back for the little French boy, then dropped down on the other side to help us both down silently. And now Mr. Scant had run out to face the men with the big Hotchkiss.
When the great bark of gunfire sounded, the little boy jolted forward to see what had happened, but I held him back. When all was quiet, I peered around the gazebo again to see Mr. Scant propping the two unconscious men against the wall. He positioned them so that they leaned against one another, then fastidiously began to tie their legs together.
“Nasty business,” he said, loudly enough for me to hear, a clear signal that the coast was clear. “Thugs like these know what they’ve signed up for, so I don’t feel too much guilt about heavy blows to the head. We must hope I didn’t do them any lasting damage.”
The boy followed me out into the open and stood gaping at the Hotchkiss gun. I knocked his hand away when he reached out to touch it, before going to the doors to see if the lock needed picking. When I tried the handles, the gallery doors swung open with ease. I glanced around, but the hallway inside was empty. “The door’s open,” I said. “Are we ready to go in?”
“If you’re ready, then I am too.”
“What about the boy?”
Mr. Scant regarded the boy as though a rather ragged kitten had taken to following us. “He’s safer with us than here.”
“Come on,” I said to the child, holding out my hand and trying to remember the way to say it in French. “Erm . . . on y va?” I chanced, and whether it was the right thing to say or he was just going by my gesture, the boy hurried over and took my hand. He had a surprisingly tight grip.
Inside the private gallery, all was quiet. The rooms looked as though they hadn’t been used for a long time. Some paintings hung on the walls, and some sculptures and fine vases were displayed here and there, but mostly the gallery was full of large boxes and crates, standing empty. In one room, we found a suspicious curtain, but behind it was nothing but a canvas on which an artist had painted Napoleon III—well enough to be recognizable but badly enough that he also looked a bit like Mrs. Prigg, the wife of our games master at school. We found nothing more until the boy tugged on my arm and pointed to a door set in the side of a staircase. I thought it would be a storage cupboard, but when Mr. Scant opened it, another staircase was revealed, obviously not meant for the public. It led down into a basement of some sort.
The boy began to hug my arm as we descended. Mr. Scant struck a match once inside
the dark stairwell, and I found two dirty old oil lamps on top of another crate. Mr. Scant lit them both, leaving one where it was and taking the other with him.
My foot slipped a little, and I realized there was something wet on the floor, dark and a little viscous. I wasn’t certain, but it looked like blood. Feeling strangely comforted by the little street urchin’s grip, I stepped closer to Mr. Scant.
He had seen the blood too, and lowered the lamp for a closer look. There was a clear trail, almost as though some monstrous snail had made its way across the floor, but rather more like someone had dragged someone bleeding into another large crate up against the far wall.
We pressed closer to the crate until we could see its official-looking letters stamped on the side. They read, To Shanghai.
“Hold this,” said Mr. Scant, passing the lamp to me. He used his claw to work around the edges of the crate’s nearest side, and pulled once or twice, but had to detach the longest of claw’s blades and use it in the manner of a crowbar to pry the thing open. The whole of one side fell to the floor with a crash, sending up a cloud of dust. The little boy let out a yelp of surprise, but whether because of the sound or the sight within, I could not tell.
Uncle Reggie was a terrible sight, bloody-faced and motionless in the darkness.
IV
Buckets and Baguettes
Scant’s lips were pressed into a straight line as he knelt by his brother and listened for breathing.
“He’s alive,” Mr. Scant said. “Well, after all, there would be no sense in shipping a dead body to China.”
“They put food and water in there with him too,” I said, holding the lamp up to the small baguettes and apples by Uncle Reggie’s feet. There were also a number of uncorked wine bottles and a large bucket with a lid. Whoever put him inside clearly intended to stave off Uncle Reggie’s starvation—which also meant that the person, or persons, intended for Reggie to stay trapped for a considerable length of time. “Is he hurt badly?”
“He’s been given a good thrashing, that’s for sure. What is that child doing?”
The boy’s voice rang out clear as a bell, over and over. He was going to all the other crates in the room and knocking on them, calling out, “Julien?”
“He’s looking for his brother,” I said. “He must have disappeared like Uncle Reggie did.” Then I went over to the boy and shushed him. “Les hommes . . . dangereux,” I said, which I was fairly sure meant dangerous men.
But the boy wasn’t swayed. A stream of impassioned French flowed from his lips, and while I could guess he was talking about his missing brother, I couldn’t understand a word. The little boy turned instead to Mr. Scant. For his part, Mr. Scant listened, took another brief look at his brother, then went to the boy and hoisted him up onto the top of the open crate. From this vantage point, the boy could see the tops of all of the other crates, and his grubby face fell. Like the boy, I wasn’t tall enough to see, but I understood what his expression meant. None of the other crates had lids on. They were all open, because they were empty.
“Comprends-tu?” said Mr. Scant, and the boy nodded. He understood. His brother was not here. Nevertheless, he continued to search the room in case there was something else to find, this time without the calls for his brother.
Mr. Scant stomped on a plank of wood until it split, then used it as a makeshift splint for Uncle Reggie’s arm. The bone must have been broken. “Help me a moment,” he said, then set about getting his brother upright. I helped as carefully as I could, putting my hands where Mr. Scant’s were and heaving Uncle Reggie upright. Reggie was completely unconscious, so this was no easy task. Unbidden, I remembered how Mr. Scant often spoke about the dangers of knocking a man unconscious, how it often caused injuries that lasted a lifetime. It was small comfort to remember Dr. Mikolaitis’s grim smile as he had said, “True enough, but remember, even among pugilists knocked out for the count dozens of times, one or two of them can still remember how to spell their names.”
As we made our way to the stairs, the boy ran out in front of us with his fists clenched. “Mais Julien . . .”
“Julien n’est pas ici,” growled Mr. Scant. “Désolé.” Julien is not here. I’m sorry.
The boy’s lip trembled, but he turned away from us for one more circuit around the empty basement. Getting Uncle Reggie up the stairs was another ordeal, but we managed, mostly by Mr. Scant positing himself under his brother’s unbroken arm and half-lifting, half-dragging him. Once at the top of the stairs, it became easier to support him in a more dignified manner. Mr. Scant turned to me. “Go out and call a cab. Bring it here. We’ll have to pretend he’s drunk.”
I didn’t question the plan, only rushed to put it into motion. I was already passing through the doors when I realized the little boy was running alongside me. Thinking he would probably fare better with me than with Mr. Scant, I said nothing. Outside the doors lay the two guards, who were still down for the count. Looking back at them nervously a few times, I picked the lock on the iron gates so quickly I surprised myself. I glanced at the boy to see if he was impressed, but he seemed to think nothing of my feat.
Outside the gallery, the road was quiet, and I didn’t know which way I ought to go.
“Where can we get a hackney?” I asked the boy. “A cab? Car? Carriage?”
The boy scratched his nose in an endearing but unhelpful show of confusion.
“You know, a hackney cab? A growler?” I mimed a driver cracking his whip and then the horse rearing, which was perhaps a bit elaborate but seemed to work, because the boy’s face lit up. He said something in French, took my hand, and led me off down the road.
Two corners later, we came to a road large enough for a number of cabs and motorcars to be making their way up and down it. I waved at one driver, who slowed his carriage but then noticed the boy standing with me and drove away again, pointedly sticking his nose up in the air. The boy pulled his cap over his face in shame. Annoyed, I took his hand and stepped forward with him as I waved down the next driver, who stopped and eyed us suspiciously.
“Musée de . . . ” I began, trying in vain to recall the name of the gallery where we had found Uncle Reggie. I looked to the boy. “Quoi?”
“Ah!” The boy named the gallery—Musée Holland, I thought I heard—to the driver. The boy then explained in French that two men were waiting for us there. I couldn’t have repeated what he said in his little chirruping voice but could at least follow the meaning. The coachman seemed to accept that the little ragamuffin was acting as an interpreter on my behalf, probably for a few centimes, so he nodded and gestured for us to get in.
We rode the cab the short distance to the gallery, me sitting inside while the boy simply clung to the exterior. When Mr. Scant and Uncle Reggie came into view, Mr. Scant had draped his coat over Uncle Reggie’s broken arm and was moving him in such a way that Uncle Reggie appeared to be swaying like a drunkard. Mr. Scant had also strategically placed one of the crate’s wine bottles just behind them, which struck me as a clever touch.
After Mr. Scant heaved Uncle Reggie into the cab, I settled him into the seat, propping him against the side of the carriage so he wouldn’t slip down. I heard an angry yelp, and to my surprise saw Mr. Scant deposit the little boy into the carriage with us. The boy was objecting, gesturing to the gallery and saying something about his brother Julien again, but Mr. Scant said something low and menacing to him. I was once again amazed by how wide the boy’s eyes could open when he was shocked. A moment later, the child scrambled to the window to look at the road ahead of us.
“What did you tell him?” I asked Mr. Scant.
“The truth,” Mr. Scant answered. “That we are being watched, and that the moment we leave him alone, he will be snatched up just like his brother was.”
“We’re being followed?” I repeated, peering out of the window, but Mr. Scant was speaking to the driver and we were in motion. Standing in the road was a solitary figure in a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat and a l
ong black coat that appeared very expensive and well-tailored. It hung down almost to the man’s shoes, a pair of well-shined oxfords that were the only clear indication whether this figure was male or female. “Do we need to fight?”
“Not if we can avoid it, with Reggie injured and the child here.”
The carriage rolled on, conveying us toward the figure. The man lifted his head as we passed him, so I met his eye. He was young, with his dark hair worn long and his eyebrows thick and angry-looking, but that was all I could perceive as he pulled up his scarf. As he adjusted it, I noticed he wore a ring set with a gemstone, the blue of lapis lazuli, not so large as to be vulgar but noticeable even in such a brief moment. The man continued to hold my gaze as we passed, until the carriage left him behind and we turned a corner.
Realizing I had been holding my breath all the while, I exhaled.
The girl at the hotel reception looked as though she had heard the last trumpet for Judgment Day when she saw us bring in Uncle Reggie and the unkempt street boy. She gaped at us but said nothing as we tipped our hats and made our way to our rooms.
As we eased Uncle Reggie down onto his bed, I let out a sigh. “First Dr. Mikolaitis, now Uncle Reggie . . .”
“Our allies are dwindling,” said Mr. Scant.
“We have a new one, though.” I looked at the boy and felt embarrassed that I didn’t know his name. But that was one thing I knew how to ask in French. “Comment t’appelles-tu?”
“Victor,” said the boy, in a small voice.
“J’espère que . . . tu trouveras ton frère,” I said, hoping that meant I hoped he would find his brother. I could never remember how the future tense worked in French.
“ ’Ci,” Victor said, looking away.
Mr. Scant had gone to fill a bucket with warm water before cleaning his brother’s wounds. The bruises on Uncle Reggie’s face looked raw and painful, darkening the crow’s-feet around his eyes into strange black veins.
The Shanghai Incident Page 4