The Wonderful Tricks of Benadar the Marvelous - Scribble 1

I stumbled upon this story beginning I wrote a few years ago—one of my few efforts to expand the VICTORIA! setting beyond the two main characters of Montgomery Renaud and Bradley Barrow. Introduced here are the green shoots of Thomas Morvell’s backstory, who appears in Hat Trick, which may or may not eventually see the light of day.

The Wonderful Tricks of Benadar the Marvelous

All stories by Peter R. Heaton

Chapter One: Pret Allez

“I think, uh, you can see, sir,” Mr. Barkley riposted in a boring bluster, stray white hairs from his mutton-chops framing each word, “that, well, the facts, they do, certainly, speak for themselves.”

I stared at the man, blinking my way through his stuttering.  Being half-drunk didn’t help. Barkley cared more about how he sounded than he looked.  Anxiously, I stole a glance at the suitcase--some obsessive part of me wanting to put a pause to the whole situation so I could finish the last latch.

“Mr. Graysmith,” the other gentlemen harrumphed from his side of the card table, demanding my attention. Colonel Henry Grain--rather, the Colonel when one was to address him, or, the Pigeon Colonel when one spoke of him beyond earshot--shifted in his seat impatiently.  “This is all nonsense, and there is not a thing that we gentlemen are more familiar with than nonsense.” And if there is one thing all you fellows from the club care for more than anything else it is hearing yourselves speak, I thought with a hidden snarl.

The Colonel certainly looked the part--brawny like a soldier, scowl like a sergeant--but he was, as the English say, daft.  Some said constant cannon fire had driven him deaf and he really had been sharp as a tack.

“Well,” I said, pausing for a breath, my eyes searching for my flask.  Mr. Barkley traced my eyes, and finding the flask first, lifted it a few feet further away from me. I muttered some curse, leaning over, nearly tipping my chair, to take the drink from the table’s far corner.

“A waste of time this is,” the Colonel snarled at me.  “It’s no wonder a man like you is in the red.”  With his thrust landed, he leaned back and lit a cigarette.  

He isn’t wrong, I thought and paused briefly, considering the flask.  No, I decided, this would be much worse sober.  Funny thing, that, I thought and took a quick swig.  

“Don’t go spinnin’ this bit so we stray from the original mark,” Mr. Barkley snatched back at the Colonel, “it is you who stands accused here,” a finger thrusting downward to accentuate the point.

My eyes darted back to the suitcase.  That damn latch.  If my fingers hadn’t been so clumsy (drunk?) I’d--my mind paused for a moment considering it.  I’d be long gone from here, mask discarded and all.

“Yes, yes, the cards,” the Colonel huffed, accompanied by a dramatic wave of his cigarette. The forgotten deck, belonging to the Colonel, sat near the middle of a table.  Next to it was a bowl of fruit holding a single, overripe pear.  I took another sip.

“You said it,” Mr. Barkley insisted, his hands animatedly motioning at me,  “this kind of thing--well you remember, Colonel, don’t you? Red-faced and still breathing with his gills, Mr. Graysmith was, Hah! and well, what was it you kept saying Graysmith?  Drowsy...dowsy...dousing,” fingers snapping with each guess, “well, jesus, son, just take the damned stopwatch out and do your trick!”

Instinctively my right hand reached for the object tucked away in the inside pocket of my coat.  “Of course, Mr. Barkley,” I replied, retrieving the pear; pausing--first, to curse my stupidity and second, to consider the best angle which, obviously, was the one that ended with the highest number.  Or the lowest, I supposed, depending on which way you looked at the math. And the Colonel was right. I was definitely in the red. I removed the watch but then caught the eye of the two visitors: “There are...terms to be settled, of course.”

The Colonel cleared his throat: “Oh,” his lips making a very round shape.  “I’m sure you’ll want us to cover existing debts at the club?”

“Well, wait here--” Mr. Barkley stammered.

“Yes, Colonel, that is exactly the ticket--now the cards.”  I drew out the stopwatch; the power for my cantrips: three, in all.  It was a simple, silver thing in appearance: its only decorations flowing initials, a frame gilded in gold and a latch to keep it closed, which easily un-snared but never slipped open when kept out of sight.  It hung from a chain of silver which ended in a metal loop from which the body of the watch hung.

“Surely, Mr. Barkley, you didn’t think you would receive my services for free?”

“Well, I thought--it’s in your best interest, too, son.  Haven’t you lost a fair number of hands to our fine hero here,” Barkley replied, jabbing a thumb towards the soldier.

“Have some honor, man,” the Colonel scolded.

Mr. Barkley continued unfazed:  “He never was good at cards--come, you must remember: this streak, what has it been?  Two weeks? When has he ever seen a run like that? Hurley and Burke, sure, but they’re the best of us! I mean, has he ever let us use an extra deck for whist?  And three points! One, definitely, two, yes, it can happen if the count goes wrong--but three points?  Only a savant could pull it off against such as us.” Again, he considered the Colonel. “Apologies, sir, but you are no savant.” He had intended for the last line to be the dagger against the Colonel’s throat.

I took another bite of my pear, sickly-sweet sugar kissing my lips.  

The Colonel’s hand danced dismissively through a cloud of smoke. “Three points? When, Barkley?”

“Oh don’t go lame now, Colonel. Were you prone to piss yourself when you heard the call of the trumpet?”

“Man, have you even ever fired a rifle?” The Colonel retorted.

“Yes, well, of course,” Mr. Barkley bristled.  

“He doesn’t mean at pigeons, Mr. Barkley,” I said, smiling to myself, proud of the double cut.  They both paused, their eyes on me, trying to figure who I’d intended to insult. And there was the moment: during their hesitation.  Their focus solely on me--my eyes, my lips, either would do.  The watch was out and hanging. All it needed was motion.

After all, they had come to the right man.

@@@

Some would say three tricks aren’t enough.  Let’s hope I don’t ever have to use number three.

@@@

I shifted their attention subtly toward the stopwatch; it hung in my left hand at the end of the chain, spinning back and forth about its center.  Keep it simple and clear, I reminded myself.

“Fact: We’re here to decide if the Colonel,” at the mention of his name the man shifted upright, puffing out his chest as if he had just been given a great honor, “has been using--” I paused not knowing what to call it. A mistake--though the Colonel did not break, Mr. Barkley screwed up his lips:

“Say, what are you--”

I snapped with my right hand, sharp above my head.  The one move I’d learned on my own, though it was one-use only.  I drew Barkley back in gently with my words and my free hand.

I restarted. “Fact: We’re here to decide if the Colonel has been using a trick deck.”

“Fact: I have, by my own admittance while in my cups, the power to prove this true or false.”

“Problem: We have to decide the price you’ll pay me.”

“Solution: You will each take on all debts under my name at the club, splitting the fee--less those incurred against the defendant, the Colonel Henry Grain-- by seventy-five to twenty-five for the accuser, Mr. Thomas Barkley if his claim proves true, and sixty to forty to the defendant if it proves false.”

“Sixty forty if I am proven innocent?” the Colonel asked.

“I am to pay if my claim is true?” Mr. Barkley reproached.

“A fair price to prove it--would you not pay fees to the barrister in the court of law?”

“Well, yes,” the Colonel agreed, nodding his head.

Mr. Barkley, eager to seem more reasonable than the Colonel responded in kind.  “As I am a man of sound judgment, I can certainly see a bargain--no matter the scales worn by the serpent which whispers it, Hah!, yes, this is an acceptable--what did you call it? Solution.  Yes.”

The stopwatch was still.  That had tied up something I’d feared leaving behind.  Hmmm, I pondered, another sip of stale ale struggling to cool my throat, is this coincidence proving to be a stroke of luck?

“Come then, man, we’ve all agreed--the showmanship has gone lame,” the Colonel urged me.  “I thought you only played cards slow.”

“Plays the artist in his mind, I’ve seen it too,” Mr. Barkley keen to add his own cut, “but his flourish is only the flailing of a drunkard.

Guilt? The question hovered: No, you know what kind of men these two are.  Another drink to forget it.  It was better than the last one, I decided.  If I wanted to feel guilty, I need look no further than there. Against a deep desire to further frustrate them, I addressed the issue direct.  I took the cards. Unable to resist, I gave them one shuffle and riffle, and placed them one foot in front of me on the table.

“Have either of you seen a dowsing before?”

“That was the word,” Mr. Barkley said.  “How complicated can it be?”

“Not at all, in truth.  I swing the watch back and forth while making contact with the cards.  If it stops, it is nothing but a simple deck. If it doesn’t…”

The Colonel narrowed his eyes, his bushy white eyebrows touching.  “Yes, but then what?”

“Then?”

“I mean, how long do we wait, man?”

“However long you want to wait.”

“It would be silly not to agree on something before hand,” Mr. Barkley interjected.

I held up a hand to stop them.  “Five minutes, though excessive, will answer the question.  We can agree?”

“A sound decision,” Mr. Barkley decided.

“If you think,” the Colonel agreed.

The men went silent.  The Colonel, disinterested--a soldier’s confidence--leaned back in his chair and lit another cigarette. Mr. Barkley crossed his arms.  Tiny, gray-blue eyes peering out at the watch through sunken sockets.  “Well, here goes,” I said awkwardly, my ritual out of sync without the normal, flowery-worded approach.  Already hanging still, I gave it a gentle prodding and it began swinging back and forth.

It only took a few seconds for Mr. Barkley to lean forward.  “You see there, Colonel, if you really earned so much honor, you could still save some bit of yours by admitting now--and where you got such a...trinket…” his words taken from him as he tried to measure the watch’s swing.  

The Colonel took a deep pull from his cigarette and his eyes had only one point of focus.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Barkley’s thoughts abruptly restarting, “what do you think, Everette?”

I shrugged, waiting for all of this to be over.  One way or the other, I’ll leave even.  Always the best way to leave it.  I’ve learned that.

Realizing that I wouldn’t reply, and emboldened by the continued strength of the swing, he continued: “I’ll have the man’s name soiled.  Perhaps, even, this thug of yours should be made known to the Met!” The watch went on, forty-five seconds I guessed, and smiled to myself how everyone always assumed I was counting time.  

The Colonel leaned forward, cigarette forgotten, frowning.  “Well, then, is that not your fingers moving?” he asked me.

I shifted my hand so they could see that I was barely holding chain, a contortion of my thumb to pinch it against my palm, an elbow resting against the table to relieve the pressure.  “You would see my hand moving, and if not that, my arm swaying.”

“Hmm.”

“What is it Colonel? Come, truth can still save you.  The name of the devil’s fence, if you will!” Mr. Barkley demanded.

“My daughter, if it concerns you,” the Colonel said quietly.

That was a line Mr. Barkley did not have the courage to cross.  “Yes, well, perhaps none of that, but still, this will be a black mark against your name at the club, that is certain!” The watch began to struggle, losing speed slowly.  “How long?” Mr. Barkley urged.  “Is this not long enough?”

A natural, he’d told me.  Not a tremor in that hand, I thought, studying my arm, the pinched grip, all still as a stone.  About ten seconds later, the Colonel was smiling and reached out to shake my hand.

“I had no doubt, you could prove this miscreant false.  Well worth our arrangement, yes. Perhaps, there were one or two misplaced thoughts I’ve had, regarding you.”

“You will let Ernie know so he can mark it in the books?”

“Of course,” the man said, wounded, “I would not break my bond and I need not prove that I’ve the strength to keep Thomas to his.”

Mr. Barkley moaned, and stood up angrily.  He glanced down at me, fuming, singeing the unruly whiskers that strayed from his overgrown mutton-chops.  Finally, he looked at the Colonel. “No need, I shall return to the club to-night to have them make an accounting.”

“The proper thing for you to do, of course.”

I shepherded them out the front door with some difficulty.  I rushed over to the suitcase, wrestled with the latch until it finally surrendered, and then decided I ought to finish my ale. That done, I gathered my suitcase and started for the door, beginning, with some strange pleasure, to decide who my next mask would be. There were two loud raps on the door.  I froze--my brain refusing to believe the sound was real.  Again, a bit louder. I turned around, my brain scattered--analyzing places I could hide until my visitor gave up and went away.  The cards lay forgotten on the table.

All that, and he’s left his cards.

“Please,” the voice called from outside.  A pause, and then the real magic words: “I’m desperate.”

I could almost feel the blank bank note in my hand.  I looked down at the suitcase. It was dangerous, but I could stay a few days longer as Lawrence Graysmith.  I’d only managed to come out even and it would be a dangerous thing if either man caught on to it.

Then again, there was a reason why they’d been my mark.  “One moment,” I called, tucking my briefcase into the nearby cabinet.  Besides, there was always the chance I could make it quick.

I opened the door.

“Please,” the woman started instantly, pressing my own advert at me, “you must help me.”  Our eyes met; mine gray and worn, her’s dark, brooding--I felt myself being dragged along sand toward crashing waves; the grains here smoothed by the rising tide, my back sliding easily across, though it was slimy tentacles which dared drag me into the deep.

The moment left and she had passed by me and into my kitchen.  “I’ll put some tea on.”

“Don’t bother,” I groaned, shaken from the vision.   “You won’t find any--can’t stand the stuff.” I stood in the doorway, standing where I was when she had touched me, looking at the place, feeling the appendage that had touched me--a momentary thing but still it ran up my spine as if an icicle had been pressed briefly against my soul.  

I cursed my luck as my eyes shot to the cabinet door.  I had read of things like this--a few moments stolen in Dr. Providence’s library: it was a certain sign she was cursed.