The Tiger's Egg (22 page)

Before Little could repeat the question, the rat let out a flurry of frightened squeaks.

“He says the Treat Man put them in there,” she said. The rat squeaked some more.

“The Treat Man teaches them to find shiny things and bring them back to exchange for treats. Then he teaches them to open the little door in the clock, but only when it's dark. Once they've got the hang of that he puts two of them in each clock and sends them out. They leave the clock every night to see what they can find, and they fill it up until the bells stop singing. After that they wait and wait, then the Treat Man opens the door and they get a day off and as many treats as they can eat. He empties out the shiny things from the clock and then they go back out on a new mission.”

Sergeant Bramley put down the mallet, but did not let go of the rat's tail. “Can the suspect give us a description of this Treat Man?” he said.

“The Treat Man smells like the mushy stuff under the washing machine,” Little translated. “His fingernails are dirty.”

“That's Fowler Pinchbucket all right,” said Miles.

The sergeant released the rat and handed the mallet back to Constable Flap. “Good work, Constable,” he said. “And you, Miss Little. You can hold on to that badge for the time being. I may need you to testify in court, once I've decided if these here rodents are suspects, witnesses or evidence.”

“Whichever they are,” said Lady Partridge, “they've certainly ratted poor Fowler Pinchbucket up a treat,” and she dissolved into helpless laughter.

S
ergeant Bramley, sweaty-faced and silver-buttoned, raised his fist and hammered on the door of the Canny Rat. “Open in the name of the law,” he bellowed. Constable Flap had suggested that they make use of the element of surprise, but the sergeant did not get many opportunities to shout anything in the name of the law, and he was not about to miss one when it fell into his lap. Windows opened in several neighboring houses at the sound of his command, and the heads of the people of Larde leaned out into the narrow alley. The sergeant raised his fist to knock again, but the door swung open before he had the chance. Mrs.
Pinchbucket emerged from the gloom, a smile pasted on her sour features. “Good morning, Sergeant,” she said. “And there's young Miles and his . . . sister. How nice of you all to drop by.”

“I have a warrant to search these here premises,” said Sergeant Bramley, skipping the formalities. He produced a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it in front of Mrs. Pinchbucket's nose. If she had taken the trouble to read the tiny writing Mrs. Pinchbucket would have discovered that it was just the guarantee on a new sofa that the sergeant had bought the weekend before. The sergeant disliked applying for warrants, which involved driving to Shallowford and climbing the steep driveway of the district judge's house while his suspects generally made good their escape. He found that people tended to believe in official documents without reading them at all, which made it seem doubly foolish to go to all that trouble.

Mrs. Pinchbucket was no exception. She paled slightly, and opened the door wider. “By all means,” she said. “There's nothing illegal here. It's a perfectly respectable establishment, and if there was anything illegal here, which there isn't, it wouldn't be ours, and we would know nothing about it.
Fowler!
” she called over her shoulder. “Come up and
close that cellar door behind you. There's a terrible draft.”

“No can do,” came Fowler Pinchbucket's thick voice from somewhere below. “I'm counting the loot. There can't be a draft anyhow, woman. There's no window down here.”

Mrs. Pinchbucket's face turned even paler, and her smile more brittle. “Such a hoot, my husband,” she said. “We have
visitors,
Fowler,” she called in a voice like broken glass.

“No need for introductions, ma'am,” said Sergeant Bramley. He marched past Mrs. Pinchbucket in the direction of the cellar door, followed by Miles and Little. Constable Flap closed the front door of the tavern and stood in front of it with his arms folded, leaving the anxious landlady no choice but to follow the sergeant and his companions.

If you have ever been visited by an officer of the law when your cellar is stuffed with stolen goods you have probably found yourself wishing, as Mrs. Pinchbucket did, that something would happen in the nick of time to save you from a long stretch in prison. A husband who can hide things very quickly. A sudden earthquake. A fully grown Bengal tiger who is on your side. None of these things came to Mrs. Pinchbucket's aid, however. When Miles, Little
and the sergeant descended the cellar steps they found Fowler Pinchbucket sitting in the center of an enormous pile of coins, silverware, jewelry and trinkets that must have amounted to half the total wealth of Larde, and certainly cleared up any doubts about the mysterious burglaries that had been sweeping the town. Behind him on a long trestle table were a dozen or so of the ugly black clocks, and behind them an entire wall of wire-fronted cages. Some of the cages were empty, and in others Miles could see pairs of white rats, stuffing themselves with nuts or curled up asleep in nests made of shredded paper.

“Well, well, well,” said Sergeant Bramley. “What have we here?”

Fowler Pinchbucket stared at the policeman with his mouth open, his brain struggling to come up with a brilliant idea, or indeed any idea, to explain away the incriminating evidence that surrounded him. “It's a research project,” said Mrs. Pinchbucket's flinty voice from the cellar steps. “For insurance purposes. We're employed by a foreign gentleman to survey the town's valuables. All these items will be valued and returned. They're simply on loan, you might say.”

“That's right,” said Fowler, who hadn't quite fol
lowed his wife's explanation but knew it would be wise to back it up.

“Valued, eh?” said the sergeant, his pencil poised over a notebook he could barely see in the dim light. “And who might this foreign gentleman be?”

“We don't know, exactly,” said Fowler. “He comes by every week or two. Never gives us notice. He looks through all the loot—the borrowed stuff, every last item—then he goes away again. He says we can keep what we want.”

“No he doesn't,” said Mrs. Pinchbucket frostily. “He asks us to kindly catalog all the items and return them to their rightful owners.”

“Exactly what I meant,” said Fowler. He got to his feet and wiped his sweating hands on his trousers.

“It doesn't look very cataloged to me,” said Miles. “And how are you going to give it all back? Are the rats trained to replace the stuff where they found it?”

Fowler glowered at Miles. “The Wednesday boy, eh?” he said. “How did you know about my rats?”

“You were ratted up a treat,” said Sergeant Bramley, trying out Lady Partridge's joke. Fowler looked at him blankly, and the sergeant made a mental note not to try humor on desperate criminals. Especially not Lady Partridge's humor. He
cleared his throat. “I'm afraid I'll have to arrest you both on suspicion of rat-assisted theft. You have the right to remain silent, and for that matter I'd prefer it that way. Run up those steps, Master Miles, and tell Flap to get down here with those extra secure handcuffs he got on mail order.”

When Miles, Little and the two policemen emerged with the handcuffed Pinchbuckets the neighbors were still leaning out of their windows. They had been waiting for a little drama to liven up the morning, and the arrest of the Pinchbuckets was just the sort of thing they had in mind, although some felt that a few shots and a scream or two might have made things more exciting. As Mrs. Pinchbucket passed by the window of a balding man in a vest, she called up to him: “You owe us two shillings since last Tuesday, and don't think I've forgotten.”

M
iles Wednesday, circus-savvy and almost twelve, headed for the long field where the Circus Bolsillo would be preparing for the last show of the season. The Pinchbuckets had been locked up in the small cell at the back of the police station, and the Canny Rat had been secured until someone could be appointed to sort out the stolen goods and return them to their owners. Meanwhile there was a big top to raise and there were animals to be tended, and the thought of the familiar work put a spring in his step.

He arrived to find the twin peaks of the big top already hoisted, and sections of canvas being laced
into place to make the walls of the tent. Tembo and Mamba, who seemed to enjoy the work at least as much as their performance in the ring, trumpeted loudly as Umor walked them back to their enclosure, their part of the job completed. Miles ducked into the huge cool oval of the empty tent and looked upward. As he expected, Fabio and Gila were perched on the crossbar that joined the two main tent poles, checking the rigging and the trapezes and setting up the colored spotlights. “Master Miles!” called Gila. “Where have you been?”

“Nowhere much,” said Miles.

“Then get up here to somewhere much and give us a hand,” called Fabio.

“We don't have all day,” said Gila.

Miles started up the tent pole toward the distant ceiling. He did not have Little's confidence with heights, and chose his footholds with care, but there was no place in the circus he loved more than to be perched up high under the striped sky of the big top. Up there in the rigging was an oasis of peace from which he could look down on the bustle below as he tightened bolts and checked pulleys, and the nervous thrill in his stomach only added to the attraction.

“Well, Master Miles,” said Fabio as he reached the
platform at one end of the crossbar. “Last show of the season tonight.”

“Back to your schooling after that,” said Gila, handing Miles a wrench with a long handle.

“No more being sawn in half,” said Fabio.

“Though you can still come and shovel elephant dung for us.”

“Tembo and Mamba would miss you if you didn't.”

“And so would your shovel.”

Miles set to work tightening the tension on the steel cables that held the rigging in place. He had a question he wanted to ask the Bolsillo brothers, but the thought of it made his stomach tighten like the cables with each twist of the wrench. He decided to ask an easier question first. “Where did Barty Fumble's Big Top spend the winters?” he said.

“All over the place, in the early years,” said Gila.

“But later we used to winter just outside Fuera,” said Fabio, tapping a fat bolt into place with a lump hammer.

“Your father loved Fuera, Master Miles.”

“He called it the heartbeat of the world.”

“No he didn't, he called it the cocktail of the continents.”

“If you ask me,” said Umor, running up the rigging
like a monkey in overalls, “it was the temptation of the taverns.”

Miles took a deep breath and tried to make his voice as casual as possible. “Why didn't you tell me The Null used to be my father?”

Fabio's tapping stopped instantly. Gila continued fiddling with the cables at the back of a spotlight as though he had gone suddenly deaf, but his shoulders hunched. Umor, who always climbed the rigging barefoot, stared at his toes and said nothing.

“Who told you that?” said Fabio, staring at Miles with his hard black eyes.

“Doctor Tau-Tau,” said Miles.

Fabio spat over the edge of the rigging, without looking to see if anyone was below. “Tau-Tau has a head full of wind,” he said.

“Maybe,” said Miles, “but I'm sure he's telling the truth. He told us the whole story at breakfast the other day. Lady Partridge was there too.”

“What did he tell you?” said Fabio quietly.

“He said that he made Barty Fumble into The Null by mistake. The Great Cortado threatened to kill him if he didn't bring my father back to his senses, and he tried to make a cure from Celeste's diaries, but he made a mess of it.”

“Then it's true!” said Gila to his spotlight.

“Poor Barty,” said Umor.

“You mean you didn't
know
?” said Miles. “How could you not guess, when The Null arrived on the night Barty disappeared?”

“There's not much of a resemblance,” said Gila.

“And everyone said that Barty had left,” said Umor.

Miles looked from one to the other of the three little men, searching for clues in their faces. It was hard to believe that they had never questioned the strange events of that night, never searched for their friend Barty Fumble, or asked themselves how such a large man could have disappeared so completely.

“I knew,” said Fabio quietly. “To tell the truth, we all did.”

Gila opened his mouth to speak, but Fabio threw him a dark glance and he closed it again quickly.

“In the back of our minds, I think we all knew that The Null was what was left of your father,” said Fabio. “We just didn't want to admit it.”

“Those were dangerous days, Master Miles,” said Umor.

“The Great Cortado was a frightening man.”

“Even on his deathbed.”

“We were afraid he would come back.”

“And he did.”

“It wasn't just that,” said Fabio. “The Null is not Barty Fumble. Not anymore.”

“There's nothing in there,” agreed Umor.

“How do you know?” asked Miles. “Why has nobody ever tried to reach him?”

Umor stared at his wiggling toes, suspended over the tent boys who were assembling the banked seats far below. “He's too far gone,” he said.

“You couldn't put The Null on the couch,” said Fabio.

“It would eat any doctor in four minutes.”

“And pick its teeth with his stethoscope.”

“Maybe I can reach him with the help of the Tiger's Egg. You said that it was the Egg that gave Celeste some of her healing powers.”

Umor and Fabio shook their heads in unison. “Don't ever fool with that thing,” said Umor, showing his pointed teeth in a nervous grin.

“It takes great skill to handle a Tiger's Egg,” said Fabio.

“And years of practice.”

“There's no one alive now who could master it.”

“Then it does exist,” said Miles. “Is it really inside me, like Doctor Tau-Tau says?”

Gila looked over his shoulder at Fabio, his eye
brows climbing into his curly hair. Fabio looked at Umor, then all three unexpectedly burst into laughter.

“That man has a deep well of foolishness at his disposal!”

“And no holes in his bucket.”

Miles felt a hot prickling on his skin. He felt as though he were left out of some great joke, and he didn't know whether to be offended or to laugh along.

“The Egg is not inside you, Master Miles,” said Umor.

“You are its owner,” said Fabio.

“But you might never be its master.”

“But if I'm its owner,” said Miles, “how come I've never seen it in my life?”

Fabio glanced at his two brothers and sighed deeply.

“I will tell you the whole story,” he said, “though you will think less of us afterward.”

Umor cleared his throat loudly and shook his head. He looked like a small boy caught near a broken window with a large catapult.

“He has a right to know,” said Fabio. “And the secret has weighed on us too long.”

“Tell him, so,” said Gila. Umor stayed silent, but he would not meet Miles's eye.

“It was not by chance that we first met your mother, Master Miles,” said Fabio.

“We were sent to keep an eye on her.”

“On her and the Tiger's Egg.”

“Who sent you?” asked Miles.

“Our father's people sent us,” said Fabio.

“Our father was of the Fir Bolg.”

“His name was Fathach of the Nine Toes.”

Miles looked at the three little men as though seeing them for the first time. It was true that they were not quite as hairy as the Fir Bolg he had met, but their small pointed teeth and their glittering black eyes were so like those of the little cavemen it was a wonder it had not been obvious to him before. “Our father was not typical of his people,” said Umor.

“He had itchy feet.”

“He would leave the caves and travel for many weeks.”

“Always at night, of course.”

“He could no more stand the light than his kin, but to tell the truth he couldn't really stand them either.”

“He got work as a circus sideshow.”

“The Shrunken Man of Kathmandu, they called him.”

“It cost half a shilling to see him by a dim red light.”

“And for another half shilling he would play a tune on the pipes that could curl your hair and cure blisters.”

“He met our mother there, in Neptune Dangerfield's Three-ring Hoopla.”

“She was small, like he was, and a fine horsewoman, and old Fathach could play a woman's heart like the pipes under his arm.”

“Or so she told us.”

“She wasn't after his money, that's for sure.”

“He traveled with the Three-ring Hoopla on and off for several years, though he returned often to his people.”

“He always seemed to be off visiting whenever one of us was born.”

“I came a year after Fabio,” said Umor, “and Gila two years after me.”

“Our mother never allowed us to visit our father's people.”

“She was afraid she would never see us again.”

“Why did she think that?” asked Miles.

“Because it was true, Master Miles,” said Fabio. “Our father's eldest sister would have claimed us as
her own, and we would not have been allowed to leave.”

Miles tried to imagine how it would feel to be kept underground forever, between dim light and darkness on a diet of rabbit and marsh grass. The two days he had spent there with Doctor Tau-Tau had seemed like an eternity. Down below him the tent boys were arranging red-and-gold painted boxes in a broad circle to form the ring, while others filled it with a layer of fresh sawdust. They shouted and joked and whistled snatches of unidentifiable tunes, striped by the afternoon light that entered between the loosely anchored canvas walls. Now and then one of them would glance up toward the striped ceiling, wondering why Fabio was not yelling instructions at them as was his habit, but Fabio's eye was not on them today.

“If you never met the Fir Bolg, how did they send you to keep an eye on Celeste?” asked Miles.

“Our father took us to the Crinnew when we were old enough, and there we met his people.”

“What's a Crinnew?” asked Miles.

“It's a meeting that's held the first new moon after midsummer's day.”

“The elders of all the Fir Bolg tribes come to Hell's Teeth to attend the meeting.”

“The Fir Bolg at Hell's Teeth aren't the only ones?” asked Miles in surprise.

“There are seven tribes who send their people to the Crinnew,” said Umor.

“They have to travel at night, and keep hidden.”

“Why didn't they capture you once you went there?” asked Miles.

“We went under our father's protection.”

“Fathach's sister claimed us, but our father refused to give us up, and disputes that can't be talked out at the Crinnew must be settled by a fight.”

“Your father fought his sister?” asked Miles in surprise.

Gila laughed. “It never came to that, but the women of the Fir Bolg are fierce creatures.”

“Did you not notice that on your visit?”

“Our father's sister was like a stoat full of wasps.”

“But in the end a bargain was made that she would drop her claim on us, and we would look after the Tiger's Egg in return.”

Gila mopped his brow as if he still felt the relief.

“She was a fearsome crone, that one,” he said.

“And I would not have learned good cooking from her,” said Umor.

“We'd be eating half-boiled rabbits with the fur still on,” said Gila.

“We'd have had fewer dinner guests.”

“And less washing up,” said Umor.

“What about the Tiger's Egg?” asked Miles, who was beginning to think the Bolsillo brothers would never get to the point.

“The Tiger's Egg belonged to the Fir Bolg of Hell's Teeth,” said Fabio, scratching his stubbly chin. “How they came by it I don't know, but they had had it a lifetime or more.”

“They could not get much use from it,” said Umor.

“They didn't have the knowledge of it, and in any case a tiger will not venture underground.”

“They agreed to lend it to Celeste for twenty-one years.”

“She was to do something for them in return, at the end of that time,” said Umor.

“Though they would not tell us what that was.”

“They had not heard from Celeste in five years, and they were getting worried.”

“They wanted us to find her, and keep an eye on her and the Egg.”

“Because you could see in the light?” said Miles.

“Of course, Master Miles. And we would not stand out so much as a true Fir Bolg.”

“We searched for her for some time, and found
her in Barty Fumble's Big Top.”

“We found work there easily, and soon became friends of both Barty and Celeste.”

“They got married a couple of years later, and before long they were expecting you, Master Miles.”

“Barty had never looked happier.”

“But not Celeste,” said Fabio quietly, looking at Miles from under his bushy eyebrows. “Not Celeste.”

“She must have seen something bad was coming,” said Umor.

“But Doctor Tau-Tau says,” said Miles, “that a fortune-teller can't read her own future.”

“That's what Celeste always said,” agreed Umor.

“But she would have been able to read yours.”