The House of Hidden Wonders

by Sharon Gosling

  “OK,” Zinnie said. “I suppose I asked for that.” She was still trying to take in the fact that Aelfine had managed to come up with this plan and put it into motion with only one small monkey to help her. And she’d all but cleared out Mary King’s Close in the process. “Tell me again how you learned to do this. It was at the circus, you said?”

  Aelfine nodded. “There was a magician. He had his own tent, with a stage. The Magnificent Marko. I wasn’t supposed to go in there but I did. I hid. I watched.”

  Zinnie shook her head, still amazed. “Did your mother know that you could do this? Did MacDuff?”

  A shadow settled in Aelfine’s eyes at the mention of MacDuff’s name. “I never told him anything. He’s a bad man.”

  Zinnie placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and squeezed. “I know he is. But we’re going to make him pay, Aelfine. I promise. We’re going to hold a seance right here, where everyone will be able to see your ghost. And the ghost is going to tell everyone where to find your mother, all right? You do remember, don’t you? You remember where he hid her … after … he did what he did?”

  Tears filled Aelfine’s eyes and she squeezed them shut, sobbing in a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” Zinnie said softly. “I know it’s horrible. But in a little while I’ll need you to tell me exactly how to find her. I have to know everything to make this work. When it’s done, I promise you and Ruby will be safe from MacDuff. Forever.”

  Ruby began to babble. At first Zinnie thought the monkey was just agreeing with her but then the cries grew more frantic, sharp little yips of warning as the monkey stood by the door to the main room, looking out over the void.

  “Someone’s out there,” Aelfine said. “Someone’s coming.”

  Zinnie was instantly on alert. “Shh, Ruby,” she hushed, straining to listen through the darkness. Footsteps echoed in the distance – at least two pairs, heavy and lumbering, and with them came voices, moving closer. “Aelfine, blow out the candle!”

  Aelfine did as she was told and the three of them sat in darkness, straining to hear.

  “Thought I heard something,” said one of the voices, muffled by distance. “Down here it was.”

  “There’s naught down here,” said another. “Naught but the unnatural spirit. The ghost.”

  “There’s no ghost,” scoffed the first voice, and Zinnie felt a jolt of fear as she recognized it. Talbot! “Just a bunch of lackwits yakking to each other.”

  “I’ve heard it with my very own earholes,” said the first voice. “Screeching like the devil it was, like something straight out of hell. There’s nothing in this life that can make a sound like that.”

  “Is that right?” Talbot drawled, louder now, growing ever nearer. “You’ve heard every strange creature that walks this earth, have you, Galbraith? You’ve been to every country and catalogued them all in that tiny mind of yours, like a scholar?”

  Zinnie held her breath as the footsteps reached the room without a floor.

  “There’s not a thing alive that could make a living down here, boss,” said Galbraith. “I say let’s go back.”

  “Just you wait a minute,” said Talbot, his voice low, calm and dangerous in a way that made Zinnie’s skin crawl and her heart leap into her throat. “You’re not afraid, are you? Big, strong feller like you? You ain’t afraid of the dark?”

  “Course not.”

  “You won’t mind going a little deeper then, will you? Wonder what’s on the other side of that nasty hole. Never been this far down before. Always did have a taste for new things, me…”

  Ruby, who had been sitting huddled beside Aelfine, suddenly became a blur of movement. She leaped up and skittered across the floor on all fours, disappearing out of the empty doorway before either Aelfine or Zinnie could react. A split second later, the haunting screech that had so terrified the inhabitants of the closes echoed down from above.

  “Oh no,” Zinnie whispered. “Ruby, no. Not now!”

  “She’s scaring them off,” Aelfine whispered. “That’s all. They’ll think it’s the ghost. They’ll go away.”

  “They won’t,” Zinnie said. “Not this time. Talbot won’t.” Even as she said it, Zinnie realized how true her words were. Talbot was as evil as MacDuff. He was also fearless and very, very clever. That’s what made him so dangerous. MacDuff was paying him to look for two things – a girl and a monkey. Talbot would have wanted to know everything about what the monkey looked and sounded like. And when he’d heard tell of strange noises way down at the bottom of the close… That’s why he was down here. It had to be.

  Ruby’s screech came again.

  “Can you tell her to stop?” Zinnie whispered, panicked. “Without shouting? Is there a signal—”

  Aelfine raised her fingers to her lips and whistled through them, a short, piercing ring of sound that made Zinnie wince, for it would surely be as recognizable as a voice for anyone listening closely. Ruby’s screech died instantly.

  “That’s it!” Galbraith was crying. “That’s the ghost! This place is haunted, Talbot. I’m telling you! I’m off—”

  There came the sound of running feet but Zinnie only counted one pair. She held her breath, clutching Aelfine’s hand.

  “Was it now?” came Talbot’s thoughtful voice, from the darkness, and Zinnie’s skin crawled anew. “So that’s what one of them sounds like, is it? Well, I suppose now I know.”

  Then Ruby’s cries began again. They began to move away, getting quieter as they moved up the close. The sound of her shrieks rose and dipped before rising again, as if she were ducking in and out of rooms. Zinnie strained to hear Talbot’s movements. For long moments he seemed to be standing entirely still. Then there was the crunch of footsteps as he left the room and made his way back up Mary King’s Close.

  “He’s going after Ruby!” Zinnie realized.

  “Yes,” Aelfine said proudly. “She’s leading him away.”

  “But what if he catches her?”

  “Don’t worry,” Aelfine whispered. “She’s faster than he is. And she knows how to hide. Come on. I’ll show you the other way out.”

  “Where are they now?” Sadie asked the next morning, when Zinnie had gone to the clinic to tell her what had happened. “You didn’t leave them there?”

  “It’s the safest place for them,” Zinnie said. They were sitting in the corner of Nell’s room while the little girl slumbered. “No one can get across that hole in the floor without Ruby and Aelfine to guide them.”

  Sadie shivered. “I bet Talbot could.”

  “Even if he did, Ruby would hear him coming, which gives them enough time to escape. Don’t worry,” Zinnie said with more confidence than she felt. “MacDuff will be behind bars soon enough.”

  “You can’t mean to go ahead with the seance?” Sadie said, horrified. “You can’t, not now. Talbot will tell MacDuff that he suspects Aelfine and Ruby are down there and MacDuff will realize it’s all a trick!”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?” Sadie cried, her voice rising. “How could it possibly not matter? He’s a murderer, Zinnie, and you know what Talbot’s like. They’re both too dangerous to play games with!”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Zinnie said. “We can’t go to the police and, even if we could, no one’s going to take our word over MacDuff’s. The seance will expose him for what he is, Sadie, in a way that no one can argue with. The ghost will tell them where to find the body. Then he’ll be finished.”

  “You think that will be enough? Finding the body?”

  A sudden finger of doubt probed Zinnie’s heart. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “What if it still doesn’t prove what happened?” Sadie asked, biting her lip. “Zinnie, if this doesn’t work, we’re all going to be in terrible trouble.”

  “Who’s in terrible trouble?”

  The voice came from the doorway behind them. It was Doctor Jex-Blake, standing there with a slight smile on her face and both eyebrow
s raised in question.

  “No one now,” Zinnie said, as quick as a flash, with a bright smile. “But Nell would have been if we hadn’t had you to help us. Thank you, Doctor.”

  Jex-Blake entered the room, still smiling. “It was my pleasure. Anyway, Sadie has done a lot of the work. She really is a natural, you know.”

  Zinnie glanced at her sister, who was looking at her toes with an embarrassed smile. “Nell won’t need to be here much longer, will she?”

  The doctor smiled again. “I hope not, although there’s no rush for her to leave. The clinic beds are quiet at present and she’s such a sweet child to have around. Besides, we still have things to discuss about her future. Don’t we?”

  Zinnie ignored the tremor in her heart. “Let’s leave it until after tomorrow,” she said. “Then we’ll talk about it. All right?”

  “After tomorrow?” the doctor repeated. “Do you mean this seance that’s being held in Mary King’s Close? I must confess, it sounds very strange to me, although Lady Sarah is all abuzz with excitement over it. You’ve got something to do with it, haven’t you, Zinnie? Was it your idea?”

  Zinnie shrugged. “You ladies seemed so keen to know why the ghost was there. Just made sense. That’s all.”

  Doctor Jex-Blake gave her a shrewd look. “This isn’t … something else that Arthur Conan Doyle has put you up to, for some purpose of his own, like that pocket watch that so nearly got you into trouble?”

  “No, Doctor. It’s nothing to do with Mr Conan Doyle.” That isn’t a lie, either, is it? Zinnie thought to herself. Not really.

  “You’re sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me about it?”

  Zinnie resisted the urge to look at Sadie. “Only that you should come, Doctor. It might be … interesting … for you.”

  “Yes,” the doctor said, in a tone of voice that made Zinnie a little nervous. “No doubt it will.”

  Sadie’s words about the body stayed with Zinnie as she left the clinic and walked back towards home. The seance would be hard enough to manage as it was – if it ended badly, with MacDuff still at large and Aelfine still in danger, then all was lost. Zinnie thought hard as she made her way along Morrison Street, the morning early enough for the office clerks to still be making their way to their day’s billets.

  By the time she’d reached the crossing of Lothian Road, she’d decided what she must do. She had to go back to the House of Wonders and find something that would prove beyond all doubt that it was MacDuff who had murdered Aelfine’s mother. It was risky and she would never be able to tell anyone what she had done, but if it meant making sure that MacDuff ended up behind bars, and that Aelfine and Ruby were safe from him, it would be worth it.

  Going back to Mary King’s Close, she picked up the bag that Lady Sarah’s butler had given her the night of the seance and stuffed the maid’s outfit that she had yet to return into it before slinging it over her shoulder. Then, checking around her to see that she wasn’t being watched, she slipped back down to Aelfine’s hiding place.

  The alternative route that the girl and the monkey had shown her was difficult to find, especially from the other direction and without a guide. It involved scrambling up and over a partially collapsed wall and down on to a pile of rubble that looked as if it couldn’t possibly lead anywhere. It took Zinnie some time to find her way, and she did it without the help of a candle for fear of drawing attention. It was slow-going, but she didn’t mind – that meant it was unlikely Talbot would find his way here, not without someone showing him first. Besides, despite the danger, Zinnie just found it exciting to explore somewhere new.

  When all this is over, she told herself, I’m going see what other places like this are down here. After all, maybe there was a better place for the sisters to establish a home.

  “Aelfine,” Zinnie called softly, once she’d made it into the hidden room. “It’s me.”

  Aelfine made her jump by appearing out of the shadows as quietly as a cat. The two girls hugged.

  “Are you all right?” Zinnie asked.

  “Yes,” said Aelfine. “No one has come since you left.”

  “Good. Now I need to ask you something. It’s about your ma.”

  Aelfine nodded, biting her lip. Zinnie squeezed her hand.

  “Can you think of something that she owned that no one else would have had?” Zinnie asked. “Something that, if you or anyone else saw it, you’d know it was hers straight away? A necklace maybe? Earrings? It needs to be small.”

  Aelfine looked away, a frown on her face as she thought. “Her ball,” she said. “Only Ma has the ball.”

  For a moment Zinnie was confused. “A ball?”

  Aelfine made a circle shape with both hands. “She used it to see things. To tell fortunes.”

  “Ah!” Zinnie suddenly saw what Aelfine meant. “A crystal ball! Of course!”

  Aelfine nodded. “It’s only little, but it cost a lot of money and she couldn’t afford a bigger one. She said once it was the most expensive thing she owned. She always wrapped it in her shawls when she’d finished working. To keep it safe.”

  Zinnie’s heart soared. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”

  She went to move away again, and then had another thought and turned back. “And … what about MacDuff?”

  Aelfine shrugged. “His hat?”

  Zinnie chewed her lip, thinking. “I’ll never get hold of that.” She thought about when she’d first seen him, at the seance, dressed up in his finery, and snapped her fingers. “His handkerchiefs! He has his name embroidered on his handkerchiefs!”

  Aelfine looked puzzled. Zinnie hugged her. “Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s just something I need to do. I’ll be back soon, all right?”

  Once Zinnie had crept out of Mary King’s Close again, she headed straight for George Street.

  The House of Wonders was closed, its gaudy painted advertising still proclaiming what curiosities would soon be seen within. Zinnie made for the backstreet again, hoping that the rear entrance would be open as before, but it seemed her luck would not hold, not today. The double doors were bolted shut. She tried them carefully but the lock was unassailable, at least without a set of bolt cutters.

  Zinnie looked for another way in, checking every now and then that none of the passing traffic was paying her any note. That was how she spotted him, standing in the shadows at the mouth of another alley opposite. A tall man with a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low on one side of his head. He was watching MacDuff’s place. She ducked away from the door, hoping that the flurry of people passing between them had concealed her own interest. She moved a little way down the street, where she could still make him out without fear of being seen herself.

  It was the man she’d bumped into in the dark in Writers’ Court, Zinnie was sure of it – the one who had been following Talbot. It was the same hat pulled down in the same unusual way, the same glinting earring, the same stern eyes.

  Zinnie crept a little closer, dodging between the discarded crates and boxes that lined the narrow alleyway. The man’s gaze seemed fixed on MacDuff’s place, as if he were waiting for something. Or someone.

  He turned abruptly at the sound of a noise behind him, and as he did so Zinnie saw exactly why his hat was at such an obscure angle.

  He only had one ear.

  For a split second she froze. Then she turned and fled. Zinnie ran all the way to Picardy Place and only stopped ringing the bell at Arthur Conan Doyle’s house when his butler threw open the door with a disgruntled look on his face.

  “I’ve found him,” she gasped through the open door, her words meant for the figure descending the stairs behind his butler. “I’ve found the other Queensland King.”

  “But that is not possible,” said Arthur Conan Doyle. “He’s dead.”

  “Look here, you see?” said Conan Doyle, opening his notebook and laying it flat on his desk, pointing to a new sketch. “The cadaver arrived at the hospital just yesterday afternoon, found in the Leit
h below Warriston Cemetery. Rawton,” he said to the butler, as Zinnie bent over the sketch. “Bring us both coffee, would you? Quick as you can.”

  The picture Conan Doyle had drawn showed the head, torso and upper arms of a large, thick-necked man with short dark hair and lips that seemed to be twisted into a permanent sneer. An old scar ran down one cheek, starting so close to his right eye that Zinnie thought he’d probably been lucky not to lose it. More notable, though, was the lack of both his ears and the burn marks that curved over his chest, as if he had been trying to remove a large tattoo once inked there.

  “He looks very much like our first three unfortunates, does he not?” said Conan Doyle.

  “Yes,” Zinnie said. “But if he was the fourth man, and MacDuff is the fifth, then who’s the man with only one ear I just saw? He can’t be part of the gang – he must be someone else. And why would anyone else be sending MacDuff the ears of his old friends?”

  “Perhaps we have this backwards,” Conan Doyle said carefully. “Perhaps MacDuff is as much a victim here as a criminal, after all.”

  “No!” Zinnie snapped. “He’s a murderer, I know it. He killed the fortune-teller and he’ll kill again to stop anyone finding out about it if he has the chance!”

  “The fortune-teller?” Conan Doyle was looking at Zinnie with interest. “You’ve mentioned this before. I thought the woman had just left his company.”

  “No. He killed her, and if he can find her he’ll kill…” Zinnie pulled herself up just in time, but Conan Doyle still noticed.

  “He’ll kill whom?” he said, his face taking on a look of concern. “Miss Zinnie, what’s going on? What haven’t you told me?”

  Rawton chose that moment to arrive with the coffee, which gave Zinnie time to collect her thoughts.

  “Listen to me,” Conan Doyle said, once the butler had gone again. “If you have evidence that MacDuff has done something terrible, or is planning to do so, then we must go to the police at once.”

  “I don’t,” Zinnie said. “But I will. After the seance.”

  “The seance?” he repeated, puzzled. “What do you mean? What are you planning, Miss Zinnie? I must know!”