Mariah Mundi (5 page)

A large guzzling of bright white steam blew through the
pipes and into the bath like the smokestack of a steam train in full speed. It gave a deep, loud roar as it rushed into the air, hitting the ceiling and blasting across the room.

Sacha panicked and hit the switch again. This time the Galvanised Bathing Machine trembled violently as the spider pipes rattled and twisted. Then with a sudden and desperate moan it began to spew forth a torrent of bright green salt water that sprayed the inside of the bath, filling it to the brim and spurting from the leather neck-hole and showering into the room.

‘Stop it!’ shouted Mariah as he leapt out of the way of a violent charge of spray that missed him by inches. ‘It’ll drown us!’

Sacha hit the handle again. The seawater ebbed back, sucked down the sluice with the force of a spring tide, glugging and globbing as it quickly disappeared down the automatic plughole.

‘Don’t!’ cried Mariah hopelessly as he saw her move the handle again and heard the blasting of the hot water pipe as it rattled its welcome to the world. ‘No!’

His scream came too late. A torrent of boiling hot water filled the machine like a swirling vortex. The Galvanised Bathing Machine shook upon its clawed metal feet, shuddering and shooping, nearly knocking Sacha to the floor as she gripped the handle, vainly attempting to stop whatever would happen next.

‘Run!’ Mariah shouted as he scarpered to the door, leaving Sacha hanging on to the machine as the stinking vapour darkened the room. ‘Let it go and get out!’ he hollered above the sound of the steam. Mariah turned and saw Sacha being pulled back and forth by the intense vibrations of the machine that appeared to have risen from the dead and developed a life of its own, intent on destruction.

‘Mariah!’ Sacha screamed as the handle began to glow with the conducted heat from the steam bubble. ‘I’m stuck!’

He saw that she was fastened to the handle by the sleeve of her coat. Mariah ran to her, avoiding the frothing of the machine and holding his breath against the growing pungency of the stench as bubbles of dirty brown lather oozed from the leather neck-hole. Quickly he grabbed her sleeve, tearing material from the cuff as he pulled her free. ‘Now run,’ he said as he dragged her to the door, not attempting to stop the Bathing Machine and leaving it to rumble on discontentedly. ‘If we get caught now that’ll be the end of us both, Mister Luger would see to that.’

‘He’d understand,’ Sacha pleaded as she skidded through a large puddle of
Kuck
that had been spat from the machine and now covered the tile floor in large pools.

‘He’d kill us, feed us to the seagulls at least – sack us if we were lucky,’ Mariah moaned as he pulled her through the tiny door and into the shade of the tropical palms, quietly closing the door behind him and looking out across the spa from the cover of the undergrowth.

Quickly and quietly they crawled through the palms that lined the side of the spa, keeping to the shadows in the hope that they would not be discovered. Within the minute they had reached the large wooden doors that opened out on to the long corridor leading back to the staircase. Mariah panted, regretting he had ever said yes to her requests to come and see the Galvanised Bathing Machine. He looked at her, his lips thin and eyes tight, hoping she would see his irritation. Sacha smiled back with her bright eyes, a wicked smile breaking the side of her mouth.

‘Was it fun?’ she asked in her brogue.

Mariah was about to reply when the door swung slowly open. A thin white hand clawed across the wood and a head covered in long greasy hair peered into the room. In two paces a man stepped into the spa dressed in a long white bathrobe
that trailed along the floor. He walked cautiously across the tiles, his bare feet squeaking with each step as he inspected every inch of the wall as if he looked for something hidden.

Together they watched as he stopped, looked around and waited, then turned away. Mariah and Sacha cowered deeper into the undergrowth, not wanting to be discovered and hoping that the man would not hear the sound of the Galvanised Bathing Machine groaning in the bathroom beyond the door.

It was then that Mariah saw his face. ‘
Isambard Black!
’ he gasped under his breath, the sound escaping his lips like a short squeal.

Black jerked his head as he heard the sound. Then he dived to a chaise longue by the side of the pool and sprawled upon it as if he had been there for some time. As he did so, he slyly slipped the white towel from the back of the sofa and put it over his head. He began to grunt like a pig, as if feigning sleep.

Mariah seized the moment, grabbing Sacha by the arm and dragging her from the cover of the palms. He pulled the door open and pushed her through into the passage. He looked back; Isambard Black snatched the towel from his face and sat bolt upright as the door to the spa swung shut.

‘Quickly,’ Mariah pleaded. ‘We mustn’t be caught …’

Together they set off at a pace towards the staircase, running along the crown-encrusted carpet as fast as they could. Mariah knew that Black would be close behind; they had to reach the stairway before they were discovered. It was then that a dark thought flashed into his wits. Mariah knew there was something more to Black than taking the waters; he had seen it in his eyes on the train and now in the spa.

They raced to the door, Sacha grabbing the handle and diving into the darkness of the stairwell. Mariah carefully and slowly allowed the door to almost close, keeping a finger’s breadth open through which to peek into the long passageway.

Isambard Black peered out of the spa door. He looked back and forth to see who had escaped, his eyes devouring all that he saw as his withered lips twisted into a foul grin.

O
TTO Luger sat like a smouldering old crow in his large office, clad in gold leaf, on the ground floor of the Prince Regent. In his hand he rolled an old quill pen as he attempted to perch his monocular spectacle in his left eye. The gold-rimmed glass was held precariously in place by a sagging wrinkle, squashing his eye so that it resembled the deep fold of a bull elephant’s skin. His breath seethed in and out through his fine white teeth, which were tipped in several obvious places with gold caps. The whiskers of his thick and unnaturally black moustache twitched angrily as he began to roll the bald tip of the once elegant writing tool inside his nostril.

‘It’s not that bad, Mister Luger,’ the Great Bizmillah said as he stepped back towards the door, trying to escape before Luger exploded in front of him. ‘Whatever you want, is what you will get … She
can
stay, but all I ask is that you don’t allow her to throw knives at the audience again. They were only laughing, when she fell over they thought it was part of the act, that’s why they laughed.’

‘No one laughs at Monica,’ Luger screamed as he got to his feet. ‘Not even the guests. If they laughed, then they deserved
it. Monica is an
artiste
, a creative genius. Believe me, Bizmillah, the name of Monica Momzer will be known throughout the world. Understand?’

‘Indeed, Mister Luger, we all understand and I will do everything in my power to –’ Bizmillah stopped speaking as he saw the look on Luger’s face.

‘I’m glad you see it my way, because that is the only way there is around here,’ he said in his sharp Texan drawl. ‘I came here penniless and everything you see belongs to me. Monica stays in the act or you don’t stay in the hotel, understand?’ Luger raised one eyebrow and his monocle fell to the desk. ‘If Monica’s happy, then I’m happy, and if I’m happy that means you get paid. Understand?’

Bizmillah didn’t reply. He bowed his head and looked to the floor as his hand rummaged for the door handle behind him. Several beads of sweat trickled across the top of his bald head and down among the tufts of hair that spiralled over his fine, pointed ears.

‘One more thing,’ Luger said as he again sat at his desk. ‘The boys … Any questions being asked as to why they keep disappearing?’

‘Not that I’ve heard, Mister Luger, not that I’ve …’ He thought for a moment, his mouth poised as if he had been suddenly silenced. ‘There … there is one problem,’ Bizmillah went on, stumbling for his words.

‘Speak, man.’ Luger motioned with his hand as he waggled his thick moustache from side to side.

‘Professor Bilton at the Colonial School said this would be the last boy. He asked where they had all gone, five in a year, and I told him we had lost them and he thought that
rather
clumsy. He said for the price we gave him, he couldn’t give us any more and Mariah Mundi would be the last.’

‘Mariah Mundi?’ Luger said as he looked up at the enormous
castle-shaped clock that hung above the door, its axe-head pendulum swinging menacingly back and forth as it ticked the seconds with every sharp swipe. ‘I was supposed to see the boy an hour ago. The last one … Mariah Mundi … Understand?’ Luger seemed confused; his hand ruffled the papers on the desk as if he looked for something important, something lost in the depths of his memory that he tried to find in the reality of the cluttered world before him. ‘That’s it,’ he exclaimed as he grabbed a piece of paper. ‘She wrote it here, a note for me … from Monica. She wants to cut him in half … in the matinee on Sunday. Said you do it every week and now it’s her turn and I had to ask you.’ Luger stopped and looked at Bizmillah as he joggled the tiny scrap of paper before him like a small fan. ‘It will be fine, won’t it? I don’t want to upset Monica, do I?’

Bizmillah ruffled in his green silk China suit, grabbing the billowing cuffs and wrapping them around his wrists anxiously. He clenched his teeth together, attempting to hold back the words that sat uncontrollably on his wan tongue. ‘Fine.’ He grimaced as the rage subsided enough for him to open his eyes and stare at Luger once more. ‘Whatever Mister Luger requires.’

‘So glad, so glad,’ Luger said softly as he again looked at the swinging of the pendulum, lost in its motion, dreamily watching the axe go back and forth. As the hands came together at the pinnacle of the castle keep it gently struck the midday.

It was then that the front of the clock burst open and a fanfare of tiny figures leapt on fine silver rods with a blast of little trumpets. They appeared to dance about the parapets and along the fine etched castellation that surrounded the clock. There was a whooshing of steam as the chorus began to blast a reveille of miniature notes that shrilled loudly across the room with great brio, rattling the wine glass that balanced precariously
on Luger’s desk. A gaggle of horses and armoured knights leapt from a small door, suspended upon long fanned arms, and galloped in tune to the music as the clock chimed twelve long and doleful strikes.

Luger sat charmed as Bizmillah cowered, fearing what was to come. Over his head the pendulum suddenly dropped to the floor, the axe swinging close to the wooden boards, and he leapt out of the way. High above, the clock took on a life of its own as the castle keep was filled with minute figures that danced and swirled with every bugle note. Luger looked on, bewitched and enchanted by the spectacle that took place upon the high wall of his office, shining in gold leaf and powered by his steam generator. With the final stroke of midday, the tower door opened and a small, jewel-encrusted executioner slid out on a small brass stand to be met by a silver-plated king who buckled at the knee, bent towards him and met the axe across the back of his head.

‘Such a sight, such a sight, Bizmillah, and you missed it,’ Luger said excitedly. ‘Too busy looking at the dirt on your shoes. Come back tomorrow and sit here – you can sit at my desk and you can watch it again. Better still, come back at midnight and you will see something even more spectacular.’

‘The boy, Mariah Mundi?’ Bizmillah asked, hoping to remind him of who should be waiting outside the office and urgently desiring a reason to escape what appeared to be even more grotesque and insane ramblings.

‘Why should I want to see him?’ Luger asked as he waited for an encore from the gold clock.

‘You invited him. Every boy sees you on his first day – a tradition, all part of the process. You see him and then you send him to me in the theatre,’ Bizmillah said, reminding Luger of all that had gone before.

‘Yes, yes,’ Luger replied still distracted and far away. ‘Send
him in. And remember, Monica will cut the boy in half at the Sunday matinee.’

Bizmillah turned to the door, taking hold of the brass handle as he glanced upwards at the golden clock that hung high above him. It had been a strange journey that he had taken to this place, he thought. He remembered first stepping from the boat-train at Dover two years before, mumbling his intentions in broken English as he was questioned by the guard. He had amused him with card tricks and sleight of hand, twisting a living frog from his fingers and allowing it to spring upon the man, landing on his shoulder. From there he had gone to London, where he had spent a year in a small theatre, standing before the limelight and casting doves from his open hand to a crowd of sleepers huddled before him, escaping the cold.

One night all that had changed. Otto Luger had stepped into the darkness dressed like a fine London gentleman, a fat cigar bloating from his lip, fine silk gloves and a long black cane in his hand. He had sat by the door of the small theatre and laughed loudly, carousing with the singers, laughing at the jester and standing in awe, clapping frantically in appreciation of every single dove that Bizmillah had squeezed from the sleeve of his tail coat. Later, Mister Luger had forced him to sit at his table and offered him something that he could never refuse.

‘I like a man like you,’ Luger said as he sipped a bottle of fine brandy, clutching it by the neck with his thick hands. ‘I have always been fascinated with magic, but something that takes you beyond picking a pigeon from your coat sleeve or twisting a card from the back of your hand.’ He stared into Bizmillah’s eyes, holding his gaze. ‘I searched for something for many years, something that made me leave Texas and come to this cold, foggy and grubby city. I knew it was here and it cost me a fortune to find it.’

‘I too search for something,’ Bizmillah said as he flicked a card into the air and watched it vanish, the trick unseen by Luger who swigged on the bottle. ‘A pack of cards so daring, so amazing that to touch them would be all I could ever desire. In the right hands the cards know your very heart and like a beautiful stage filled with the finest artistes, play out your life in the dancing pictures.’

‘Dancing pictures, you say?’ Luger muttered through a mouthful of brandy that dribbled down his chin as he spoke. ‘Pretty ladies or ugly men?’

‘Whatever is in your life will come from the cards. They are not marked or tapered and have no trickery of any kind. It is as if they have a will of their own and an understanding of the human heart. There were once two such decks and now there is only one.’

‘And who has these all-dancing, all-seeing knights, knaves and queens?’ Luger asked.

‘They vanished many years ago, taken from Vienna. They have travelled across Europe and now they are somewhere in London. In every city I hear stories that they have been seen, that some great deception has been performed, and every time I am a month, a week or a day behind. Once, in Paris, I even knew the man who had found them. I went to his apartment and discovered he was dead and the cards were nowhere to be found.’

‘How much would I have to pay to get my hands on them?’

‘Priceless, totally priceless. The only way to get them would be to steal them,’ Bizmillah whispered as he looked over Luger’s shoulder and around the room to see if they were being overheard.

‘Then that’s what we’ll do, my friend. Nothing should keep a man from his desires, and if we have to steal them, so be it.’ Luger slapped Bizmillah heartily on the back, grabbed him by
the hand and squeezed it in a crushing handshake. ‘I have two men, detectives, Grimm and Grendel. They found something for me and I’m sure they could accommodate a little investigation into your poker deck.’

‘Poker?’ Bizmillah exclaimed as a look of disgust crossed his face. ‘Nothing so crude as that, they are the Panjandrum. The finest deck ever crafted, life breathed into them by their creator.’

‘Whatever,’ Luger replied as he sucked on the bottle. ‘One thing, Mister Bizmillah. I own a hotel, newly built and the grandest in Europe. Come and work for me and I will find your Mister Panjandrum and get you his cards. All I ask is that you help me …’

Now that seemed such a long time ago. Luger had never kept his promise and all talk of the Panjandrum had faded into a never-mentioned place. Every night of the week, Bizmillah had entertained the guests of the Prince Regent with an ever-decreasing supply of magical doves and disappearing frogs.

Luger had taken to inventing all manner of strange steam-powered devices to bring health to his clients. Deep in the depths of the hotel, where maids and porters would fear to walk alone, he had spent many days and nights in his laboratory, the sound of his pounding iron reverberating through the lift shaft to the very pinnacle of the hotel.

‘So you’ll send in the boy?’ Luger said as Bizmillah stepped from the room. ‘I have things to do, so don’t let him keep me waiting.’

Bizmillah smiled his submissive smile, rubbing his servile hands in complete humility. ‘Very well, Mister Luger, whatever you say.’

Mariah was seated on the chair outside the office in his new black suit, his feet pained by his new boots that pinched his toes into a sharp point. He had sat and watched the passing of
every guest, looking for Isambard Black. He had taken the time to go to the long oak desk and, taking a halfpenny from his pocket, had bought a picture postcard of the Prince Regent. Then he had taken a short stubby charcoal pencil from his pocket and scrawled the words
Perfidious Albion – Claridges
Hotel – London
as neatly as he could before placing the card in his inside pocket. He was waiting to be seen by Mister Luger at any moment.

That moment had come and gone several times as Mariah had paced the floor outside the room and looked out of the window to the busy marketplace that by day sprang up outside the hotel. He had watched the coming and going of several fine carriages, dropping their elegant guests who were swarmed upon by wasp-like porters in blue suits and yellow braid. They gathered up the suitcases and breezed in and out of the hotel through its grand, oversized revolving door that hissed like a snake as it went around.

Mariah had watched as fine gentlemen walked the wide sweeping staircase to the gaming room on the first floor, their ladies banished to look at views of the endless sea from the glass-topped veranda. No one paid notice to him as he sat waiting patiently, hoping that the muffled conversation inside would soon be over and he would be admitted to Mister Luger’s sanctuary.

‘Mariah Mundi,’ Bizmillah said as he stepped from the door, breaking his dream. Mariah sat upright and stared at the man. He was aghast at his China suit with its green embossed dragons and thick gold thread. Bizmillah the Great looked as if he was Italian. His sun-warmed skin and dark hair spiralled in eccentric wisps around his ears and to his shoulders. ‘Mister Luger will see you now, and later I will teach you how to be a magician …’

Mariah smiled, stood up, turned and walked into the room.
Luger sat at his cluttered desk pretending to write on a piece of paper, his pen going over the same three words. He never spoke; Mariah waited and waited, watching him trace the words again and again. From where he was standing, he couldn’t make out what was being written and rewritten, but Luger made him wait until the last morsel of ink had dried from the tip of his old quill pen.

‘Sit!’ he shouted, his eyes fixed on the piece of paper as he read the words to himself. ‘I am a busy man and not one to be kept waiting. I said first thing this morning and now it’s after midday. What’s your excuse?’