The Shadow in the North (7 page)

Charles and Frederick stood by the entrance to the ballroom and took glasses of champagne from a waiter.

"Which is Lady Harborough?" said Frederick. "I suppose I ought to know who she is."

"The old trout with the lorgnette," said Charles. "Over there by the fireplace, talking to Lady Wytham. I wonder if her daughters here? She's a stunner."

"Whose daughter?"

"Wytham s. That's Lord Wytham talking to Sir Ashley Hayward—the racing man."

"Ah, y^. I know Hayward. By sight, that is. I won a tenner on his horse Grandee last year. So that's Lord Wytham, is it? The cabinet minister?"

Lord Wytham was a tall, gray-haired man with a strangely nervous look; his eyes flicked this way and that, he chewed his lip, and from time to time he lifted a hand to his mouth and gnawed at a finger like a hungry dog.

Near Lady Harborough, still and silent, sat a girl who Charles told him was Lady Mary Wytham. A couple of young men were talking loudly in the group around her, and she smiled politely every so often, but for most of the time she sat with her eyes cast down and her hands folded in her lap. As Charles had said, she

was beautiful—though Frederick thought, as he felt the breath catch in his throat at his first glimpse of her, that beautiful wasn't quite the word. The girl was astound-ingly lovely, with a grace and shyness and delicate coral coloring that made him want to reach for his camera— except that nothing, surely, could catch the bloom on her cheeks or the nervous animal tension in the line of her neck and shoulders.

Well, perhaps Webster could. Or Charles.

But it must be a strange family, he thought, for the father and daughter to share this controlled desperation. Lady Wytham, too, had a haunted air: she was handsome rather than beautiful like her daughter, but her eyes were dark and preoccupied in the same tragic way.

"Tell me about Wytham," he said to Charles.

"Well, now: seventh earl, seat on the Scottish borders somewhere. President of the Board of Trade—at least he was, but I gather Disraeli s moved him out of the Cabinet. Lady Marys his only child; don't know much about her people. In fact, that's about all I do know. He's not the only politician here—^look, there's Hart-ington as well..."

Charles mentioned half a dozen other names, any of which, Frederick supposed, could have belonged to Mackinnon's pursuer. But he found his eyes drawn back again and again to the slim, still figure of Lady Mary Wytham on the sofa by the fire in her white evening dress.

They had time for another glass of champagne, and then the main entertainment was announced. The double doors into the ballroom were thrown open to reveal a wide curve of chairs, several deep, which had been laid out facing a little stage. A velvet curtain was hung across the back of it, and the front was lined with ferns and little palms.

The orchestra had gone, but a pianist was waiting by the instrument that stood below the stage. The audience took five minutes or so to settle themselves; Frederick made sure that he and Charles were sitting close enough to the stage for Mackinnon to see them clearly, and with a clear run to the door if they should need it. He explained this to Charles, who laughed.

"You're making it sound like one of Jim's yarns," he said. "We'll have Spring-Heeled Jack leaping in next, or Deadwood Dick holding us all up and demanding our money. What are you actually expecting?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Frederick. "Nor's Mackinnon, and that's half the problem. Look—there's our hostess."

Lady Harborough, assured by her staff that all the guests were ready, was on the platform, making a short speech in which she described the valuable work her hospital fund was doing. It seemed to consist largely of rescuing unmarried mothers from poverty and subjecting them to slavery instead, with the additional disadvantage of being preached at daily by evangelical clergymen.

However, the speech didn't last long. Lady Harbor-ough was helped down from the stage; the pianist took his place, unfolded his music, and played a sinister series of arpeggios in the bass; and then the curtain was drawn aside, and Mackinnon appeared.

He was transformed. Jim had described it, but Frederick hadnt really believed him; now he blinked in amazement to see the furtive, shadowy figure he knew become so dominating and powerfijl. He was wearing his chalk-white makeup—bizarre at first sight, but in fact a brilliant stroke, because it allowed him to be at various times sinister and comic and appealing—a skull, or a clown, or a Pierrot.

And his appearance was an important part of the total effect. He didn't just perform tricks: he turned flowers into goldfish bowls, plucked cards from the empty air, and made solid silver candlesticks disappear just as ordinary magicians did. But the tricks weren't the end of his performance—they were the means. The end was the creation of a world. It was a world in which nothing was fixed, everything was changeable; in which identities merged and dissolved, qualities such as hard and soft and up and down and sorrow and joy changed into their opposites in the twinkling of an eye and became meaningless; and in which the only reliable guide was suspicion, the only constant theme mistrust.

It was a world, thought Frederick, that was more than a little devilish. For there was no delight in Mac-kinnon's performance, no sense of innocent play. He

scorned the thought as he felt it—^was he getting superstitious now?—but there it was: Mackinnon had summoned up shadows, even if one could laugh at them in the light.

Then came a trick in which Mackinnon needed to borrow a watch from someone in the audience. As he announced this, he looked direcdy at Frederick, and his dark eyes flashed; and Frederick, understanding at once, unhooked his own watch chain from his waistcoat and held it up. Half a dozen other hands were up, but Mackinnon leaped down gracefully and was at Frederick's side in a moment.

"Thank you, sir," he said loudly. "Here's a gentleman with faith in the benevolence of the world of wonders! Does he know what terrible transformations will befall his timepiece? No! Will it come back to him as a chrysanthemum, perhaps? Or as a kippered herring? Or as a pile of tangled springs and cogs? Stranger things have happened!" And then, almost before Frederick was aware of it, he heard a whisper: "Beside the door. Just come in."

A moment later Mackinnon was on the stage again, wrapping the watch up in the folds of a silk handkerchief with many flourishes and declamations. Did Frederick imagine it, or was there a hysterical edge to Mackinnon's voice now? He seemed to be speaking more quickly, his gestures seemed more exaggerated, less controlled. ... As soon as he could manage it, Frederick turned around unobtrusively to look where Mackinnon had indicated.

On the chair nearest to the double doors sat a large, powerfully built man with smooth blond hair. He was watching the stage with impassive, wide-set eyes; one arm lay along the back of the empty chair next to him, and his whole aspect was one of watchfulness and command. Despite his faultless evening dress there was something brutal about him. No, thought Frederick, not brutal, because that meant animal; and this man was mechanical.

Now why did he think that?

He found himself staring and turned back to the stage. Mackinnon was completing some intricate piece of business with the watch, but his mind wasn't on it. Frederick saw his hand shake as he passed the handkerchief to and fro over the litde table he was working on, and saw, too, that his eyes kept flicking up to look at the man by the door.

Frederick turned himself sideways in the chair, crossing his legs, as if he were looking for a more comfortable position. He could just keep Mackinnon and the man by the door in his field of vision, and as he watched, the blond man beckoned with a discreet finger to a servant. The footman bent to listen, and the visitor looked up at Mackinnon again and seemed to be saying something about him—or asking—at any rate. Frederick saw that Mackinnon had seen it, saw the servant nod and leave the room, and saw Mackinnon falter. Now there were only three people in the whole ballroom who mattered, it seemed: the blond man, and

Mackinnon, and Frederick watching their strange duel of wills.

But the audience was aware now that something was wrong. Mackinnons patter had dried, the handkerchief hung loosely in his hand, and his face looked ghasdy; and then he dropped the handkerchief altogether and staggered backward.

The music stopped. The pianist looked up hesitantly. Mackinnon stood clutching the curtain in the electric silence and managed to say:

"Beg pardon—indisposed—must leave the stage—"

And then he twitched the curtain aside and vanished behind it.

The audience was too well bred to react with excitement, but there was certainly a stir of comment. The pianist, using his initiative, began to play some bland waltz or other, and Lady Harborough got up from her seat at the front and held a whispered consultation with an elderly man, possibly her husband.

Frederick tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, and then made up his mind.

"Charlie," he said quiedy. "That fellow by the door—fair hair, big build. Find out who he is, could you? Name, rank, number, everything you can."

Charles nodded. "But what are you—"

"I'm going detecting," said Frederick.

He left his seat and made his way to Lady Harborough. She was standing by the piano with the elderly man at her side, and she looked as if she was about to

summon a servant. The rest of the audience—most of them—^were poHtely looking the other way and talking to each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"My lady?" Frederick said. "I don't like to interrupt, but I'm a doctor, and if Mr. Mackinnon's indisposed, it might be helpful if I saw him."

"Oh! What a relief!" she said. "I was about to send out for a physician. Do go with the footman, Doctor . . ."

"Garland," said Frederick.

A stiff footman, hair powdered white, calves bulging in his white stockings, blinked impassively and gave a slight bow. As Frederick followed him out of the ballroom, he heard Lady Harborough give orders for the orchestra to be brought back in, and he saw Charles Bertram in conversation with someone in the row behind.

The footman led Frederick through the hall and along a corridor to a door near the library.

"Mr. Mackinnon was using this as a dressing room, sir," he said.

He knocked at the door, but there was no reply. Frederick stepped past him and turned the handle. The room was empty.

"Wasn't there a footman in the hall?" said Frederick.

"Yes, sir."

"Would you go and ask him if he saw Mr. Mackinnon coming out of the ballroom?"

"Certainly, sir. But he wouldn't have come that way, if you don't mind me pointing it out, sir. He'd've more likely gone through the drawing room, coming out the back of the stage like what he did, sir."

"Yes, I see. But if Mr. Mackinnon wanted to step outside for a breath of air, he'd have gone through the hall, wouldn't he?"

"I daresay he would, sir, yes. Should I go and ask?"

"Yes, do."

While the footman was out of sight, Frederick quickly glanced through the room. It was a small sitting room of some kind, with one gaslight glowing by the mantelpiece, and Mackinnon's cloak and hat flung over the back of an armchair near the fire. There was a wicker case standing open by the table, and a tin of grease paints next to a small hand mirror—but there was no Mackinnon.

After a minute or so, the footman knocked at the door behind Frederick.

"Seems as if you were right, sir," he said. "Mr. Mackinnon ran to the front door and went straight out."

"I daresay he'll be back when he feels better," said Frederick. "Well, there's nothing to be done here. Could you show me the way back?"

In the ballroom, the servants were removing the chairs while the orchestra reassembled on the stage. Footmen were passing through the crowd with more champagne; it was as if time had jumped backward an

hour and Mackinnon had never started his performance.

Frederick looked around for the blond man, but he was nowhere in sight. Nor was Charles. Frederick took a glass from the nearest footman and wandered through the room, watching the faces of the guests. Pretty insipid lot, by the look of 'em, he thought. Smooth and bland and superior ... He wondered what the time was and then remembered that Mackinnon had his watch. If it still was a watch, and not a rabbit or a cricket bat, he thought morosely.

Then he saw Lady Mary Wytham and stopped to look at her. She was sitting not far from the piano, and her mother was beside her, and they were both smiling politely at someone Frederick couldn't quite see; there was a potted palm in the way. He moved to one side, then looked again, casually, and saw the blond man.

He was sitting opposite them, with his back to Frederick, talking easily. Frederick couldn't quite hear him, but didn't want to move any closer; he felt exposed enough as it was. With a pretense of nodding his head in time to the music, he watched Lady Mary closely. There was a shadow of that same desperation he'd noticed earlier in her eyes, and she didn't speak at all: when there was a remark to be made in reply, her mother made it. Lady Mary was listening, but dutifully, and from time to time she would glance around quickly and then look back. Frederick wondered how young she was; at times she looked about fifteen.

Then the blond man stood up. He bowed to the women and took the hand which Lady Mary unsurely moved toward him and kissed it. She flushed but smiled politely as he turned and left.

As the man went past him, Frederick had an impression of great physical force, of smooth power like a huge volume of water sliding through a sluice, of pale hair and prominent gray-blue eyes, and then the man was gone.

Frederick thought of following him but dismissed the idea at once; the man was bound to have a carriage, and by the time Frederick found a cab he'd be out of sight. In any case, Charles Bertram was coming toward him.

"Did you find Mackinnon?" said Charles.

"No. He's the original will-o'-the-wisp," said Frederick. "He'll turn up again. He'd better, damn it; I want my watch back. What about the fellow with the fair hair? He's just been flirting with Lady Mary Wytham."