The Society of Thirteen Read online

‘My question is what do you want?’ replied the man. ‘And once we have established that we must, as inhabitants of a mercurial world, ask how much you will pay for it?’

  ‘You were in the theatre?’ Lord Ringmore sighed.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand two things about me. Firstly, I do not suffer fools gladly. Secondly, I possess a stick, with which you run a severe risk of being beaten unless you come to the point presently.’

  It was not the first time someone had learnt of Lord Ringmore’s interest and set out to take advantage of it.

  ‘You seek the truth,’ said the man. ‘The truth about magic.’

  ‘I swear, if you pull a pack of cards from your pocket you will not sit down comfortably for a week,’ replied Lord Ringmore.

  ‘I am no magician,’ said the man.

  ‘Then what, pray, are you?’

  ‘I was a shop owner until my shop was burnt to the ground, with everything in it.’

  ‘So you are a salesman with nothing to sell.’

  ‘I do have one thing to sell. It is an object that I believe will be of great interest to you.’ The man lowered his voice. ‘It is a magical object.’

  ‘What kind of magical object?’

  ‘A book.’

  ‘I see. You are not a magician and yet you have a magic book. Allow me to guess. Would it be a book of spells?’

  ‘I do not know, for it is written in a language that I cannot read, if it is a language at all.’

  ‘And how much are you asking for this incomprehensible book?’

  ‘I will lend you the book for one night and if you are not satisfied by morning that it is the genuine article then I will take it from you and ask no payment.’

  Lord Ringmore was intrigued. If this was trickery then it was, at least, an original trick. ‘Let me see this object,’ he said.

  The man pulled out a small black book. On the back, drawn in white, was a circle within a triangle within a circle. On the front, embossed in faded gold, was the number thirteen. Lord Ringmore took it and ran his fingers over the cover. He opened it and looked at a page. The rough paper was covered in patterns similar to those on the back cover.

  ‘What use is an unreadable book?’ asked Lord Ringmore.

  ‘It will not be the reading of it that proves its authenticity,’ replied the man. ‘I will name my price tomorrow. You can decide then whether you are willing to pay for it.’

  Lord Ringmore pocketed the book and felt a familiar fluttering of his heart. In the theatre he had used the word ‘cynic’, but that was inaccurate. A cynic would never feel such hope. Lord Ringmore was often disappointed by a cynical world, but he was, at heart, a romantic. He was a believer.

  Chapter 3

  Orphans

  A close observer would have noticed a bounce in Lord Ringmore’s purposeful stride as he crossed Golden Square. He was excited. He was enjoying the rhythmical click of his walking stick as he approached his club. He would dine there alone tonight. He was not yet ready for company. He needed to decide on a course of action before he spoke to anyone else.

  ‘Excuse me, mister.’

  The child’s voice, though quiet, was loud enough to snap him out of his thoughts. He turned to see a young boy who seemed no older than twelve or thirteen years, although malnourishment and hard living made it difficult to tell with street children. His dark hair was unwashed and matted. His clothes were ragged.

  Lord Ringmore raised his stick. ‘I will give you a moment to consider whether your begging will be worth the beating I am about to administer.’

  ‘Sorry, mister. I ain’t no beggar though. It’s just I think you dropped this.’

  In his grubby hand, the boy held a shilling. Lord Ringmore tapped his pockets.

  ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just standing there, sir, by that bench when I saw something fall from your coat. I raced over and found this shilling, so I’m as sure as I can be.’

  Lord Ringmore took the shilling from the boy’s hand. ‘A very honest young lad you are,’ he said, pocketing the coin.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the boy.

  ‘But if you are expecting some reward for doing your honest duty as a citizen I’m afraid you are in for severe disappointment,’ said Lord Ringmore.

  ‘Good acts are their own reward,’ said the boy. ‘That’s what the nuns taught us at the orphanage.’

  ‘They are right,’ said Lord Ringmore. He reached into his pocket for a penny to throw the boy but, as he did so, he felt a slight tug on his coat. He spun around to find a girl with her hand deep in his other coat pocket. Quick as a flash, he grabbed her wrist. The boy made to escape but Lord Ringmore issued a sharp whack with his stick to the boy’s shins then let the stick fall to the ground and took hold of his skinny arm.

  ‘So that’s your game, is it?’ he snarled, dragging the two children around so that they both faced him. ‘A pair of thieves, eh?’

  ‘Let go!’ said the boy.

  ‘Please sir, it’s only hunger what made us do it,’ pleaded the girl. She looked the same age as the boy. They both had grubby faces but the girl had been blessed with light brown eyes that shone out like pennies in the dirt.

  ‘A neat little scheme you have going here,’ continued Lord Ringmore. ‘The boy plays the part of a good Samaritan, lowering your victim’s defences. While you engage the victim’s attention, this girl fleeces your mark for everything he’s got, including the shilling which you used to set up the scenario. But I’m afraid you picked the wrong target this evening.’ Noticing a policeman walking through the square, his hands behind his back, Lord Ringmore cried, ‘Officer! Your assistance, please.’

  The policeman raised a hand in acknowledgement and walked briskly to join them.

  ‘Please don’t,’ said the boy.

  ‘Yes, please, sir, our mother lies on her deathbed,’ said the girl. ‘We only take so that we can buy enough to keep her alive.’

  ‘Poor Ma,’ said the boy. ‘She would die of shame to see us thieving, but what else can we do?’

  Both children burst into tears and were sobbing uncontrollably when the policeman arrived.

  ‘These two urchins pickpocketing, were they?’ asked the officer. ‘Don’t you worry, sir, I know how to deal with filthy little thieving rats like them.’

  The commotion had also drawn the attention of a large woman carrying a small dog, who had raced over to join in the drama. ‘I saw the whole thing, officer,’ she said. ‘No one is safe while such guttersnipes plague our streets. They need to be locked up, punished.’

  ‘I’ll see to that,’ said the officer. ‘I can take it from here, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry, officer,’ said Lord Ringmore. ‘I’m afraid I have misled you. You see, these two work for me. They were misbehaving, so I called you over to scare them and bring them into line. As you can see, it has had the desired effect. They won’t play me up again, will you?’

  The two children shook their heads, still in tears.

  ‘But I saw the girl reach into your pocket … ’ stated the woman with the dog. ‘I saw her.’

  ‘While I thank you for your interest I can assure you these children are no more thieves than I am,’ said Lord Ringmore. ‘I’m very sorry to have wasted your time, officer, but I thank you for your quick assistance. You are doing a fine job. I, for one, feel heartened by the speed of your response.’

  ‘So long as you are absolutely certain,’ said the officer.

  ‘I couldn’t be more so.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I’ve never seen such behaviour,’ said the woman, but she and the policeman left Lord Ringmore and the two orphans.

  Once they had gone, both children stopped crying, sniffed and looked up at Lord Ringmore. ‘Thank you, sir. Our poor ma … ’

  ‘Orphans with a mother?’ said Lord Ringmore. ‘That is original. Please don’t insult me further by continuing with your dying mother story. It has even less credence than th
e dropped shilling scam.’

  Neither child spoke.

  ‘You have been spared the punishment of the law on one condition,’ said Lord Ringmore. ‘As I just told that officer, you work for me now.’

  ‘Work for you?’ said the girl.

  ‘Precisely. Now, please furnish me with your names.’

  ‘Tom and Esther,’ said the boy.

  ‘You are not brother and sister,’ said Lord Ringmore emphatically. ‘Can you read?’

  ‘They taught us our numbers and letters at the orphanage sir, but neither of us can read well,’ said the girl.

  ‘But you can read addresses? And you know London, yes?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Lord Ringmore released the children and retrieved his walking stick from the ground. ‘Now, before I give you the details of your duties and we find more suitable clothing for you –’

  ‘What’s wrong with our clothes?’ interrupted Tom.

  ‘If you are to work for me you will need to be smarter and less … aromatic. But before we begin, I think we should establish what I will call a contract of mistrust. Esther, if you would be so kind as to return my wallet that you snatched just then as I bent to pick up my stick.’

  Esther glanced at Tom then sulkily handed the wallet back to Lord Ringmore.

  ‘You have commendable sleight of hand,’ said Lord Ringmore. ‘Perhaps one day you will make better use of it but for now you’ll have to settle for a more mundane occupation.’

  ‘What occupation?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I need you both to act as my discreet messengers,’ said Lord Ringmore.

  Chapter 4

  Trust

  ‘I don’t like it. Not one bit,’ said Tom. ‘A top-hatted toff like that offering us work when he knows full well we tried to take from him? I don’t trust him.’

  ‘You don’t trust anyone,’ said Esther.

  ‘We can’t afford trust,’ said Tom.

  Tom and Esther were sitting in an upstairs room of a decrepit warehouse overlooking the river. Since abandoning St Clement’s Catholic School for Waifs and Strays in favour of life on the streets it was the closest thing they had to a home. They had found the place when on the run from a stall-owner at Rotherhithe market. The warehouse was in such a sorry state that there was no staircase inside, but Tom, the better climber of the two, had found a way up and round the outside to the room upstairs. It was a dangerous climb. One slip and they would end up in the Thames, but the difficulty made it a safer place to spend their nights.

  The warehouse was the orphans’ current favourite hide-spot but they knew it wouldn’t last for long. Sooner or later they would be discovered, or someone would come to knock down the building. It had happened before and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Esther had even come up with the idea of lighting a fire on the north bank of the river as a signal if one of them needed to warn the other that it was time to get out. Then they would move on to some other forgotten corner of London. There were always more places to hide.

  Esther emptied her pockets of the day’s takings onto her mattress. There wasn’t much and they were all objects that would need to be sold on. She sat down and looked out at the fast-flowing river.

  ‘If we don’t work for him he’ll have us sent down,’ she said.

  ‘London ain’t exactly a village,’ said Tom. ‘All we have to do is avoid being seen by him again. Ain’t so difficult. It’s not like we work that part of town much anyhow. I told you it was risky over there. Did you see how quickly that copper appeared?’

  ‘So we stay away from Piccadilly too now, do we?’ said Esther. ‘We’ll be avoiding half of the city at this rate. What if this Ringmore job means a chance to stop thieving?’

  ‘You really want to run messages for that old toff?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Who knows what else he’ll have us doing? He looks like the sort that’s wrong in the head if you ask me. What if he locks us in a cage and murders us?’

  Esther sighed. ‘He’s moneyed and he’s offering us honest work.’

  ‘How do you know it’s honest?’ asked Tom. ‘I mean, who in their right mind would want us working for them?’

  Esther laughed in spite of herself. ‘I agree that this ain’t what we’re used to, but what we’re used to ain’t exactly tea at the palace. All I’m saying is, who cares what he’s up to so long as we stand to gain from it?’

  ‘What we gaining?’ demanded Tom, picking up a piece of rubble from the floor and hurling it out of the broken window into the Thames. ‘A couple of coins that we could make in an afternoon? You should have been quicker emptying his pockets. I did my part well enough.’

  Esther stood up angrily. ‘I was quick. It’s more likely he saw through your act.’

  ‘He certainly didn’t fall for that poor dying ma business, that’s for sure.’

  ‘We’ll go back and see him tomorrow as we said,’ said Esther. ‘We’ll do this work for him. Maybe something will come of it. Maybe not. But there’s no harm in trying.’

  ‘I’d rather throw my lot in with Hardy than deliver messages for him,’ said Tom, sulkily.

  ‘We agreed we ain’t never working for Hardy,’ said Esther.

  ‘Come on, Est,’ said Tom, sitting back down. ‘You know the way things are going. We can’t keep running and hiding from him.’

  ‘What you saying, Tom?’

  ‘I’m saying maybe Hardy ain’t so bad. The others seem to be getting on all right. Maybe we should do a deal.’

  ‘No. You know how I feel about him,’ said Esther. ‘I’d rather die than work for that rogue.’

  ‘That might be the choice we’ve got.’

  ‘Please Tom. Give this a chance. Perhaps Hardy will lay off us if he sees we’ve got a job … a real job, I mean, working for a gentleman like Ringmore.’

  Tom pulled a bruised apple from his pocket. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. He sunk his teeth into the apple.

  ‘I don’t think we can carry on like this forever,’ said Esther.

  ‘Who cares about forever?’ asked Tom. ‘It’s what we do now that matters.’

  ‘And I say that we try this out now. At least we’ll get some new clothes out of it.’

  ‘New clothes don’t matter if you’re murdered and locked in a cage,’ said Tom.

  ‘Being locked in a cage don’t matter if you’re murdered.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Oh, all right – but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Chapter 5

  Politics

  As far as the Right Honourable Sir Augustus Tyrrell MP was concerned there was very little more irksome than having to spend time with one’s constituents. Now he was a prominent member of the cabinet he didn’t have time for such things, but even with his safe Tory seat, it was sometimes advisable to show his face at these public forums. There was a groundswell of worryingly liberal ideas that required quashing. The natural order of things was in jeopardy. The Labour movement and the trade unions were bad enough, but votes for women? It was clearly a joke, and yet the levity with which he had tackled the subject had incensed the woman in the front row of this draughty town hall.

  ‘My dear lady,’ Sir Tyrrell said. ‘You have had your say. Now, please allow me mine.’

  ‘You have had your say for over two thousand years,’ replied the woman.

  ‘Do I really look that old?’ he replied, raising his eyebrows and playing the crowd.

  Laughter was an MP’s greatest ally in a public forum. Get them laughing and you have them on your side.

  ‘You know full well that I am talking about men,’ said the woman, undeterred.

  ‘Forgive me, I thought we were discussing precisely the opposite,’ he said, soaking up yet more approving mirth. He wondered if this woman’s poor husband knew she was here making a fool of herself.

  ‘Increasing numbers of women have jobs,’ said the woman. ‘They mother their children and, more often than not, their husbands. Why should th
ey not have a say in who rules them?’

  Sir Tyrrell smiled. ‘You think running a household is the same as running the country?’

  ‘I don’t think it so very different,’ she replied. ‘One must balance the books, hire and fire staff, ensure the well-being of the household.’

  ‘And because you women are burdened with such things, why not leave the complex business of politics and economics to your husbands? It seems to me a perfect way to share the load of life.’

  ‘I believe you are frightened, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Frightened of women?’ said Sir Tyrrell, gaining not quite as much of a laugh as he had hoped. Perhaps the audience could tell from his tone that there was some truth in her assertion. The most prominent female figures in his life had been his mother and his nanny, both utterly ferocious women. Apart from that, his only experience of the so-called fairer sex was a small army of sour-faced aunts who had plagued his youth by trying and failing to find him a suitable partner. As his waistline and complexion revealed, Sir Tyrrell had more of a taste for fine dining and expensive brandy than for matters of the heart. ‘I’m afraid it’s precisely this kind of hysterical outburst which proves my point,’ he pronounced.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ cried various male voices.

  ‘Leave it to the men,’ shouted one.

  ‘Sit down, woman. You’re embarrassing yourself,’ added another.

  Sir Tyrrell continued. ‘Women do not have access to the clear logic and rational thought required for important decision making.’

  The round of applause was music to his ears.

  ‘I do not need a lecture on rationality from a man who spends his time delving into the occult,’ said the tenacious woman.

  ‘It sounds to me as though that is exactly what you need,’ said Sir Tyrrell, standing up and adopting his most statesman-like pose, with his thumbs resting in his waistcoat. ‘I have never hidden my interest in the occult. I am not ashamed of it. It is born entirely out of rationality. There are, in this world, things beyond the explanation of man … or woman, for that matter,’ he added for good measure. ‘The desire to understand these things is entirely rational. Now, I think you’ve had quite enough time. Please, madam, I beg of you, sit down and let us continue with this debate.’