The Custodian of Marvels (3 page)

“If none’s to be poorer, who’ll you be stealing from?”

“That’s the part you’ll like the best,” he said. “You’ll be stealing from the International Patent Office.”

Until then I’d thought him foolhardy. But as I heard this, I knew that he was mad. To steal from the Patent Office was certain death.

As he’d been speaking, I’d inched my hand under the pillow. Now I snatched the pistol and had it cocked before he could reach for his.

“Elizabeth?”

“Don’t you know the risk you put me in – coming here and saying such things?”

“No one’s listening!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“The Patent Office ruined your life,” he said. “I’m offering a way to get even.”

“You’re offering a noose and I want you gone! I’ll give you this choice – I can pull the trigger here and now or you can promise to never come here again.”

CHAPTER 3

September 2009

There is no better way to hide one truth than with another.

The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

Two weeks after that unexpected meeting with Fabulo, I was sitting in Professor Ferdinand’s office in the university. From the floorboards to the wall panels, the room seemed to glow in the late afternoon light. A century of beeswax and polishing might be needed to turn oak to such a colour. The desk had it too, on which lay my copy of
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
and the tea things, long cold.

I was trying to absorb the professor’s revelation – that this gnarled volume of obscure aphorisms, which I had been carrying in secret through months of near poverty, might itself be priceless.

“Would you buy it then?” I asked.

The suggestion had a remarkable effect on the professor. His face flushed. He picked up a sheaf of papers and began to fan himself. For a moment he seemed overcome.

“The college is not so wealthy,” he said. “Besides, a priceless thing cannot logically be bought.”

“Then I’ll offer it for what you can afford!”

“Why would you do such a thing? It would bring dishonour in the eyes of your people.”

“I have no people.”

“But your ancestors must have–”

“I need the money!”

He blinked rapidly on hearing my crude statement. Republicans like to believe their comfort comes from virtue. Reminding them of its true source is akin to mentioning bodily functions. He took a moment to compose himself.

“Are you not interested?” I asked.

He puffed out his cheeks. “I am tempted,” he said. “Indubitably tempted. But there are steps that would need to be taken. Its sale would require the permission of the International Patent Office.”

“It’s a book,” I said. “Not a machine.”

“Have you not read it? It describes the construction of devices to be used in stage magic. Some of the entries are vague, to be sure. Yet others contain detail. The same laws cover this book as would cover the blueprints to an engine. If you would sell it, the Patent Office must first judge whether it’s conducive to the wellbeing of the common man. As with any machine, they must pronounce it seemly before it can be sold. But once it has a patent mark – then I could consult the faculty. I would make the case but it’s they who’d provide the funds.”

At the name of the Patent Office, my stomach had twisted. Its agents were already searching for the book, though I couldn’t admit that to the professor. One of their agents had shown particular interest. That was John Farthing – a man who always confused my emotions. He had traced it from its previous owner, but had not managed to prove that I’d received it. I didn’t understand the nature of his interest, but had lied to keep it from him nonetheless.

My turmoil must have shown because the professor regarded me with new focus and said, “I fancy there’s more you have to tell.”

“I can’t abide the Patent Office,” I said, offering one part of the truth to hide another.

His frown smoothed. “Don’t worry, my dear. I’m aware of the antipathy felt by your people for agents of the law.” He leafed back through the vellum pages to the beginning of the book and read: “
There was once a line marked out by God through which were divided heaven and hell. The devil created lawyers to make amends. They argued the thickness of that line until there was room within it for all the sins of men to fit
…”

“…
and all the sins of women too
,” I said, completing the quote from memory.

“There,” he said. “We are like two old bullet-catchers meeting at the crossroads. I started the quote and you completed it, proving we’re related. But only distantly because lines similar to these are found in every known version. It’s the most ancient part of the text.”

He sipped from his teacup, pulling a face that suggested he’d expected it still to be warm.

My purpose in seeking out the professor had been to sell the book. But now it seemed that avenue was being closed to me.

“How old is it?” I asked.

“This copy?” He stroked the gnarled leather of the back cover. “If I had to guess, I’d put it around 1810.”

“But that was before the time of the Patent Office! Why would they be interested?”

“Are they?”

“You said as much.”

After a pause long enough to make me feel uneasy he said, “Perhaps I did. But it’s not my part to talk politics.”

The frustration had been rising in me through our interview. Unable to contain the feeling any longer, I stood and paced away from him. There was a daybill framed on the wall, bearing Harry Timpson’s famous profile. I wondered what that old rascal would have done in my place. For all his knowledge, the professor had given me little. He seemed to be leading me on a meandering path through the fog. From what he said, the book could not be sold. But somewhere in this landscape of confusion might be knowledge that could help me. I sensed as much. A tingling intuition whispered that it was near. I took one more look at Timpson’s picture then turned.

“Perhaps I could lend you the book,” I said. “The Patent Office wouldn’t need to give permission for that.”

He tilted his head. If his brain had been powered by cogs, I fancy I might have heard them whirring.

“Would you like to study it?” I asked.

“I would like that very much.”

“You could hold it secure for me?”

“Yes, indeed!” His enthusiasm was growing with each exchange. At last I had something to bargain with. “I have a safe,” he said. “It could be locked away. I would take the greatest care. I would–”

“But if not money,” I said, cutting him short, “what then would you give me in return?”

“You said you would lend it.”

“I merely raised the possibility. You might like to think of an incentive to offer. You would get a period of time in which to study the book. I would get, what? Some knowledge of yours, perhaps?”

“What kind of knowledge?”

“You said it’s not your part to talk politics. That means you have something to say but are holding it back. If you’d just tell me what it is, I might be persuaded to let you borrow the book. For a few days. And afterwards – you’d tell me what your studies had revealed.”

I sat down once more. But no sooner were we eye to eye than he was out of his chair, pacing as I had done. He came to a stop facing Harry Timpson’s picture.

“Well?” I asked.

“You never told me your name,” he said. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Martha.” It was the first name that came to mind. “Martha Morris.”

“In certain cultures they believe that to know someone’s name is to have magical power over them. What do you think of that, Martha Morris?”

“Fascinating.”

“It must be their true name, of course.”

His words hung in the air. I couldn’t decide whether they were an innocent observation or if he was accusing me.

“It would be an honest exchange,” I said.

He considered this. “It does seem that we each have something that the other desires. But I’d need two months with your book.”

“How about ten days?”

He nodded readily, leaving me with the thought that I could have offered less.

“I accept your terms,” he said.

“And the agreement will be a secret between us?”

“That suits me well.”

“Then I’ll leave my book in your care.”

I found myself holding his gaze. The small intimacy of the trade had changed the nature of our relationship. It took a moment to adjust.

“What I have to tell you is… delicate. I must insist that you not speak of it. Not beyond this interview.” He waited for my nod before continuing: “As an anthropologist, I’m interested in the development of culture. Not just from other parts of the world. Thus my research has taken me through the vast collections of books in the libraries of our own nation. I have counted them. I have made lists of numbers and dates. I’ve drawn charts in which a curious phenomenon is revealed. The number of books published each year over the centuries has inexorably risen. This with one exception. In the years 1810 to 1821 the trend was reversed. In particular, no one seemed to be writing about history and technology.”

He was standing at the door now. I saw him turn the key and heard the lock click. He hardly seemed to notice himself doing it. Then he returned to the desk and sat once more.

“It was the Age of Revolution,” I said. “I thought it was in times of change that histories were written.”

“We might believe that now. From the Long Quiet we look back and think of them thus. But what did they think? Perhaps they were so immersed in history that they had no time to write?”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Nevertheless, these are the facts.”

“But you said my book was from that time.”

“Precisely!” He patted his hands together in an imitation of applause. “You are certainly attentive. I sometimes wonder what would happen to our universities if we followed the way of the Kingdom and admitted women as students. My colleagues hold that such a change would overturn all seemliness and order. But a little revolution isn’t always a bad thing, don’t you think? Within the bounds of moderation.”

He opened the book and held it for me to see, as if I’d not already studied each page in fine detail.

“Your manuscript concerns technology and comes from the beginning of that period. What’s more, it’s been invisible from the record until now. We could regard it as having been untouched by the hand of the great censor. As such, it is doubly rare.

“It offers an intriguing possibility. In comparing this manuscript with versions that have been examined and passed as seemly, we may catch a unique glimpse of the mind of the Patent Office itself. And that in relation to the period of its establishment, when the founding fathers were still alive.

“Of course, this is only done to satisfy our curiosity. The results could no more be published than could any of the unseemly things the Patent Office chooses to expunge. And we must keep our voices to a whisper when we discuss it.”

“Are you spied on?” I asked.

He spread his hands as if to encompass the university beyond his oak-panelled walls. “To listen, to remember and to repeat. Isn’t that the very meaning of education?”

I leaned forwards and lowered my voice.

“What if we discovered bad thoughts in the mind of the Patent Office?”

The professor’s laughter was a fraction too loud and a shade too forced. “Very good,” he said. “A judicious joke from time to time is no bad thing.”

“Like a little revolution?”

“Just so. I believe you would have made an excellent student, Miss Morris. It is your willingness to consider the unthinkable.”

It did not seem unthinkable to me.

He stood and lifted a picture from its hanger on the wall behind his desk, revealing a safe, gunmetal grey. Positioning himself between me and the combination dial, he made some delicate manipulations and then hefted the door open. A stack of documents lay within. Lifting
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
, he showed it to me, as if to prove there was no trickery. Then he placed it on top of the pile.

“A little joke. A little revolution. Everything within the bounds of moderation. Curiosity does no harm among the educated classes, Miss Morris. Despite your dress, that is how I’d describe you. Moderate curiosity. What we discover will never be published, remember that. We will know it. That will be enough. I trust you understand, my dear, that anything the Patent Office does or has done – it is for our own good.”

I was not so accomplished a liar as to completely hide the feelings that washed through me on hearing those words. A corrupt Patent Office agent had ruined my family. Another agent, John Farthing, had spied on me, lied to me and, worse, stirred me into a strange turbulence of feelings.

“The Patent Office,” I said, echoing the name and tasting its familiar bitterness. But I also detected the flavour of a new possibility.

The first inkling of an idea tickled my mind. No – not an idea. That would suggest something more fully formed. This was but a spark, still hidden in the heart of the kindling. Two weeks before, Fabulo had asked that I league with him against the Patent Office. I’d believed him insane. Only a madman attacks the invincible. I’d sent him away with no good grace. The image of his disappointment flashed into my mind, for no reason that I could understand.

“We should meet somewhere away from the university,” said the professor. “In view of the delicacy of the subject, it should be discreet. Perhaps you know Revolution Park?”

I nodded.

“Excellent,” he said. “Let us meet there. Under the statue of Ned Ludd – that would seem most appropriate.”

CHAPTER 4

August 2009

The eye is drawn to a thing if it is in the wrong place. But where it seems to belong, it may become invisible.

The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

On the morning after Fabulo’s midnight visit, I awoke to find Tinker vanished from the small cabin and the hatchway unlocked. It was not unusual. The boy would disappear for days at a time and then return as if no explanation were needed. It would not have surprised me if I’d learned that he lived on other boats as well, taking meals wherever a family would feed him.