The Thief's Apprentice Page 10

  While the odd angle and the scarf obscuring Mr. Scant’s mouth would make him hard to identify, protecting us from immediate discovery, he cut a peculiar figure. He had lowered his chin into his scarf while looking up into the camera through his bushy eyebrows, making his expression positively demonic.

  And then there was me, in the background. Looking for all the world like I had walked straight into the Claw and had been photographed as I toppled over. Although Mr. Scant blocked my face, my collar and one hand were clearly visible. My jacket was indistinct and grubby with soot but nevertheless, there I stood. On the cover of the Herald. The bottom of the page even featured a little section in bold about a “mystery child accomplice.” The story continued inside the paper, and Father may well have been perusing it as I sat there. I could barely stand it.

  “Father, what does it say about the Ruminating Claw’s accomplice?” I blurted out. I stole a look at Mr. Scant, whose eyes widened a fraction.

  Father folded down the corner of the newspaper and gave me a quizzical look. “You can read it afterwards.”

  “I wonder what it would be like to do such things,” I said. “I expect you would have to be brave.”

  “Bravery has nothing to do with it, son,” Father said, straightening the paper again. “Crime is the coward’s way.”

  I knew not to push him any further than that.

  Later in the day, as I went up to my room, Meg told me that Mr. Ibberts was indisposed. That gave me a momentary sense of elation, especially because a cancelled tutoring session increased my chances to speak with Mr. Scant in the Ice House. But Father’s valet remained staunchly at his side the entire evening. So I busied myself learning more about Sir Isaac Newton, who—according to Mr. Scant—had secretly written as much on alchemy as on laws of motion and suchlike.

  It was not until the next day that I spoke with Mr. Scant again. As I arrived home from school, Meg told me he had asked for a moment of my time in the library. My tutoring session would take place there in any case, so I agreed, but grew curious as I went upstairs to the library door. Inside, I could hear Mr. Scant and Mr. Ibberts talking together, which struck me as strange. Unable to make out their conversation and deciding there was nothing else for it, I went in.

  Upon seeing me, Mr. Scant clasped and unclasped his hands. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he appeared nervous.

  “Master Oliver, please sit down.”

  Glancing between the two men, I took my usual seat.

  “There is something we need to discuss,” Mr. Scant said. I could not fathom why, whatever he wanted to say, he wanted to say it with Mr. Ibberts beside him. They took seats on the far side of the desk, looking at me as though I were made of glass. As though I might shatter from their very gazes.

  “The time has come for the truth,” said Mr. Scant. “This can go no further. Regretfully, Master Oliver, everything I have told you these last few weeks, everything about my being the . . . Ruminating Claw—all of it was an invention. A fabrication of ours.”

  After a few moments’ contemplation, I came up with the best answer I could manage: “How do you mean?”

  “A few weeks ago, Mr. Ibberts came to me, concerned that you were falling behind in your studies. He said he felt unable to engage you with the world, so . . . we came up with a little ruse. Well, I did.”

  “No, no,” I said. “You can’t honestly—”

  “The Ruminating Claw is not me and never has been. I have no notion of his identity, truth be told. Your tutor and I had hoped that I could use my past as a performing artist to convince you that . . . that I and the Claw were one and the same. So Mr. Ibberts’s son dressed up as an assassin, a friend in the props department of a local theater made me a convincing claw, and we had our play-fight.”

  Apologetically, Mr. Ibberts produced the dueling sword that the mystery man had wielded that fateful night and placed it on the desk between us.

  “The truth is,” Mr. Ibberts said in his tremulous voice, “this seemed the best way to inspire you to study.”

  Mr. Scant nodded. “Never before did you show such interest in your schooling or come so close to fulfilling your true potential.”

  “But this is ridiculous,” I said. “The museums, we . . . How could we . . . ?”

  “Ah. The first was a clever bit of stagecraft, you see. Good friends of mine had already constructed most of the set for a project they had worked upon. It was actually not very accurate. And it was nowhere near the Trafalgar Square you were so keen to see. More recently, I made the mistake of having a fellow I know, a conservationist at the British Museum, help us arrange the jape in the basement. I’m afraid it got a little out of hand when the man with the camera appeared—the wrong place at the wrong time, as they say. Now our picture is on the front of the paper, and things have gone rather too far.”

  “You’re saying that you made the whole thing up?”

  “Everything, Master Oliver. And I don’t really want to know what the real criminal will make of it when he sees my picture.”

  “You . . . We . . . could have died.”

  “Yes—we could have. Without a sense of danger, you would never have believed it. But we had much assistance, and we were well-prepared for anything that might have gone wrong. I can honestly say you were in no more genuine danger than you are crossing a road or taking a ferry across the Channel.”

  “It . . . It makes no sense,” I said, shaking my head. For some foolish reason, a lump was forming in my throat. “I met your brother—Reginald. He told me about you when you were young.”

  “Ah yes. Mr. Bristow is his real name. A very gifted actor. I think he is performing this year in the pantomime at Great Yarmouth.”

  “Why?” I said. “Why such a lie?”

  “To . . . bring some stimulation into your life. We thought it would enrich your time at school, which we both know can be difficult. But . . . well, we should have exercised restraint, Master Oliver. And I am terribly ashamed.”

  I shook my head. “Stop lying to me.”

  “That is my intention. I will never lie to you again. I can only beg your forgiveness.”

  “No! This lie. This lie. Stop it. You are Hector Scant, the Ruminating Claw, and I know it.”

  Mr. Scant smiled ruefully, the first time I had seen him smile at all. “‘Hector’ is not my name. I know this is a terrible thing to learn. But take solace in what a model student you have become.”

  “For a lie!” I yelled. And with that, something in me changed. I realized I had to believe one of two things. Either I had been apprentice to a master criminal, or I had been deceived by my father’s valet. Put like this, the confession no longer seemed so absurd. “All that for the sake of school?”

  “For the sake of your future,” said Mr. Scant.

  I banged both fists on Mr. Ibberts’s desk, rattling the pens in his pots. When that didn’t change the world, I stormed out of the room.

  Mr. Scant’s admission had stunned me into white-hot anger. I went to my room and tore up the book on Mr. Newton. Finding no satisfaction from that, I attacked my pillow with my fists and teeth and fingernails until I was exhausted. I lay on my bed, panting, thinking those same thoughts I used to have when I threw tantrums at five years old: would they be sorry if I suffocated myself? Would they understand me if I went downstairs covered in cuts and bruises? Should I run away and never come back?

  Then came the less absurd questions. What if I went to the papers to identify the man in the photograph? What would the real Claw do if that happened? Should I tell Father what Mr. Scant had done, what he had made me do? Would Father give him the sack? Or, more likely, would Father call me a fool and laugh?

  As I often did when upset, I sought solace with Mother. I found her in the lounge and hurried over to her, laying my head on her lap and ignoring all her soothing questions. I knew she didn’t mind my silence. “Could it be the girl he was courting didn’t return his affections?” Mother cooed to her old maid,
Mrs. Winton, who knew she wasn’t expected to answer. “He grows up so fast, I hardly know what to do with him,” she went on, stroking my hair. And there, in that safest and most familiar of places, I let myself drift into a troubled sleep.

  I woke up hours later on the chaise longue. Mother was gone, but she must have laid me down gently enough not to wake me. I didn’t know the time, but nobody had put me to bed, so it could not have been very late. Darkness had set in, but in November the sun went down early.

  Seized by a new determination, I stormed down the main staircase and to the front door, where Penny spotted me. She called out my name, but this only inspired me to start running. I darted down the steps to the drive, and then onto the road and on, and still on.

  All the way to the town center I ran, not caring where I was going. If I ran far and hard enough, I thought, I might be able to escape from myself. Was I being a spoilt crybaby? No matter. I would return home before my absence troubled Mother, and most likely Penny would give me an hour or two before saying anything. Perhaps she would mention my leaving to Mr. Scant, but what would he do? He was just an ordinary man.

  The clocks had not yet struck nine, so life and activity still filled the town, though a distressed-looking schoolboy with no chaperone drew a few concerned looks. I made my way to the High Street and pressed on until almost the end of the road, and then stopped, out of breath. Looking up, I saw I stood under a spectacular arrangement of glass and light high up above me. It was the fashionable Nevill Café, up above Godkin’s Chemists, its glass facade outshining the moon.

  As I peered up at the people laughing and drinking there, a young man only a few years older than me came jogging up with a deferential expression. He was dressed like a waiter, so no doubt worked in one of the nearby restaurants, though his trousers ran a little too short and I could see his socks. He tugged on my sleeve to get my attention: “Sir, the gentlemen are asking for you.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I said.

  “Mr. Binns—he asked that I fetch you.”

  Mr. Binns, Father’s business associate, was joint owner of Beards and Binns Financial Services and Dirigibles Ltd. It would have been rude to refuse him after he sent the waiter to fetch me, so in something of a daze I nodded, and the young man led me into the very café I had been gazing up at. Various men milled about the place, rather than sitting and dining as I would have expected. The proprietors had provided an area close to the windows for the gentlemen to smoke, and I met Mr. Binns in the thick of the haze. He was contributing to the cloud with a thin cigar, and gestured at me with a stout brandy glass. “It is you. Sandleforth’s boy! I knew it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Hello, Mr. Binns, sir.”

  “Now, none of that,” Mr. Binns said, putting his fingers around the back of my neck in what he must have thought was an affectionate manner. “No need to call me sir. I’m not your teacher. Call me Roland.”

  I could think of few things that would make me more uncomfortable that didn’t involve spiders, so I said nothing.

  “Now, I know Sandleforth and Edwina have raised you well. They keep a good eye on you.”

  “I hope so, sir,” I said.

  Mr. Binns rolled his eyes, but the smile returned in an instant. “How about ‘Rolly,’ if that’s easier? Hmm? Think of me as one of your chums. Your father is always talking about you, his worries about how you’re turning out.”

  “He does? I mean, he is?”

  “Oh, yes. So tell me—what is the young Diplexito scallywag doing out on the High Street in a daze when good children are home getting tucked into bed, hmm? Should I be concerned?”

  “No, Si— . . . No, Mr. Rolly.”

  “I have a son a few years older than you,” he said, accidentally breathing smoke in my face as he turned to face me. “His name is Aurelian—that was his mother’s idea. He’s away at boarding school, but we get on very well. And the reason for that? I ask him to think of me more as a chum than his father. And I’d like you to think of me as a chum too.”

  “Er . . .”

  “Strange as it may seem to you, Oliver, I was your age once, not so long ago. And I remember wanting so much to become a man. To leave behind boyhood and run wild in the night! Wild with ambition! Oh yes. So I can tell there’s something on your mind. Perhaps I can help.”

  Mr. Binns smiled, a smile that looked as though it had been practiced in the mirror: it was polished to a gleam, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  This is a clever businessman, I reminded myself. He’s probably ten or fifteen years younger than Father—so he will still be around after Father retires. But that smile said he knew that even if Father passed away, his son might still be around.

  None of this would have occurred to me only a few weeks ago. Bitterly, I reflected that Mr. Scant’s efforts had only made me a cynic. “It’s nothing, really,” I said. “I’m just having a difficult time at school.”

  “Oh, I had a hard time in school too,” said Mr. Binns, shaking his head. “But look at me now! School is for mathematics and Latin and not looking like a complete fool—the rest is nous.” To emphasize this, he tapped his forehead.

  “Sometimes I worry I don’t live up to Father’s expectations,” I confided. “I’m afraid he thinks I’m . . . not brave enough. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  “Ah, well, I wouldn’t trouble myself too much if I were you. That’s just Sandleforth. Sandleforth . . . he’s from the old days, you know? The glory days, where men were taught never to look at themselves, never to feel guilty about a thing. And don’t I envy that? But who amongst us, who among the living, could match the expectations of a man like that? Don’t you trouble yourself, my dear boy.”

  “The problem’s that I’m not as clever as him,” I said. “I never know when people are lying. Father never has that problem.”

  “Hmmm—no, you’re right, there. He’s got a knack for that. Something I wouldn’t mind having myself. Here, this will help. Have a nip of this.”

  “I don’t like brandy, thank you.”

  “Ah! He already knows his tastes. A man of the world. But have you tried this brandy?”

  Our conversation had started to remind me of a visit from one of my great uncles. They found it hilarious to give me aperitifs and watch me cough and splutter too. If having a sip was the only way to make Mr. Binns drop this idea, I would have to go through with it. Reluctantly, I took the glass.

  “Ahoy, look there!” Mr. Binns exclaimed. He spun me around a quarter-turn and stepped in beside me. A flash blinded me, in a sudden recreation of what had happened with Mr. Scant. Only this time, my face wasn’t hidden at all. Somebody had taken a photograph of us—a camera sat atop a tripod, and the chap behind looked very pleased with himself. I frowned at Mr. Binns.

  “Why would you want a photograph?” It would be a picture of the two of us, Mr. Binns with a cigar and me with brandy, no doubt posed like the best of friends.

  “Oh, it’s a little service they have here. Don’t you worry—they go around to everyone. All good fun.”

  I found it hard to believe him. Did he want to blackmail me, threatening to show this photograph to Father? Or would he use it later, to show some boardroom what great friends we had been since I was young? “I think I need to get home,” I said, pushing his brandy back into his hands. “It’s late, and I’m not meant to be here.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. Shall I walk back with you?”

  “No, thank you. I’m quite capable.”

  He chuckled. “If you say so. If you ever want to come back, I’m here every Wednesday and Friday! Hiding from the wife, don’t you know? Next time, we can do the rounds with some introductions.”

  I smiled and gave a half-nod, half-bow that I hoped committed me to nothing. Then I slipped away, watched closely by the young waiter. Hurrying back home, I soon began to feel incredibly tired. Everyone thought me to be a gullible child, to be lied to and made into a laughingstock. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up befor
e any of the debacle with Mr. Scant had happened. But that was no more possible than rubbing away the stench of tobacco that had followed me home like a hungry puppy. I already envisioned Meg collecting my clothes while I bathed and smelling the smoke on them. A few days later, Mother would take me aside and have a talk about the dangers of making friends with the wrong sorts of boys.

  When I was in the bath, the frustrations of the day slowly melted away and I began to feel better. Perhaps, I thought as I dipped my head under the water, I would tell Mother that Mr. Scant had given me tobacco and that he ought to be fired. But I didn’t suppose she would believe that—it simply wasn’t what a gentleman would do. After the bath, wrapped in towels, I stared at myself in the mirror. And the boy who stared back at me looked so infuriatingly ordinary, dull, boring, mundane, and uninteresting that he disgusted me. I picked up the brass soap dish, and—inviting the interesting life that seven years of bad luck could bring—threw it as hard as I could at my reflected self. The shards fell crashing and tinkling onto the tiled floor. I waited until every last one had fallen before replacing the soap dish, stepping out of the bathroom door, and yelling for Mr. Scant.

  XI

  A Gray World

  he broken mirror changed nothing. Mr. Scant called for the twins, and they dutifully cleaned up the mess. Mr. Scant remained aloof the whole time, and the vague story about slipping and hitting the mirror with my elbow raised no suspicions with Mother and Father. This only irritated me further; I had hoped, at least in part, that they would question me until the truth came out. But they didn’t, and it didn’t, and I was left with only a resentful numbness.

  After my brief visit into a false but spectacularly colorful world, I had lapsed back to my unremarkable life. Everything returned to gray, devoid of warmth or excitement.

  To make my mood worse, I continued to see Mr. Scant every day in his role as Father’s valet and the household butler. At mealtimes, I daydreamed of being able to expose and embarrass the Counterfeit Claw. I even began to drop hints to Father that the coal bunker concealed a large underground space he knew nothing about. However, in order to understand my hints, Father would first have to consider that I could know something he did not.