He counted to twenty—in a particularly challenging dialect of Portuguese—and blew out a sigh. “There is one possibility,” he said, his gaze resting on the sole pavilion we had not yet visited. “Come along.”
He strode off and I trotted to keep up as he led the way to the tent, this one pitched in a far less prominent location. The canvas had possibly been white once. Now it was begrimed by age and the vagaries of theroad, and a threadbare banner hung over the flap.MADAME ARACHNE, THE HUMAN SPIDERwas painted in sprawling letters embellished to resemble spider’s legs. A few webs had been daubed in the corners. Outside, a small boy stood assessing us with a narrow gaze. “Come to see Madame Arachne, have you? She is the greatest marvel of the modern world, alive and living for all to see!”
“ ‘Alive’ and ‘living’ are synonyms,” I told him.
“And it’s tuppence to see her, missus,” he replied, putting out his hand.
Stoker put a pound coin into the grimy palm. “Here. Put that in your pocket and keep anyone else from coming in until we leave. We shall only be a moment.”
The boy looked down at the coin and gave an exclamation. “That’s a bit of flummery, that is,” he accused.
“I assure you it is not counterfeit,” Stoker replied.
The boy bit the coin before giving us a grudging nod. “Feels right enough to the tooth. But if I find you’ve palmed me off with a gimmick, I’ll have my brothers on you, I will,” he said fiercely.
Stoker’s nod was grave. “I am duly fearful.”
“Mind you are,” the urchin said, slipping the coin into his pocket and waving us on.
There was no point in remonstrating with Stoker over the amount he had just bestowed upon the child. It was not the first time I had watched him hand out the equivalent of a year’s earnings to a boy on the street, and I had little doubt it would not be the last.
He pushed onwards through the dirty tent flap and I followed, pausing a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dim light. All of the tents had poor illumination, for the tricks and sleights of the various hucksters would never bear the scrutiny of proper daylight. But this was murkier than most, no doubt to heighten the atmosphere of creepinghorror. Two large poles, stout as Scottish cabers, had been planted in the middle of the tent. Between them, ropes of black silk had been woven into a web as complex and beautiful as that of the most skilled Araneidae. In the centre of the web perched a being unlike any I had ever seen with the head of a beautiful, dark-haired woman, and the body of a spider, black and menacing. Where the body met the head, a neat ruff of black velvet framed the face, and as we approached the narrow legs jerked, making a horrible chattering sound and causing the web to ripple. I stared in fascination as the red-lipped mouth curved into a smile.
“Stoker! It has been a long time,” the woman said, her voice low and as melodious as an angel’s.
“It has.”
She turned her dark gaze to me. “I do not know you, but I think you must be Miss Speedwell.”
“You are very well informed, madame,” I replied.
She inclined her head gracefully, causing the web to shiver. “In my business, it is good to know things.”
“So either you are the professor’s confidante or informant,” I suggested.
She gave a full-throated laugh. “Both. Neither. You spent time here a little while past. You must have seen how precarious our lives are. We exist on the fringes of society, my dear. We must seize whatever advantages we can.”
“You were not here when I was with the show,” I pointed out.
She tipped her head with a little smile. “I find the work taxing. I take a little time each year to sit by the seaside and stretch my limbs.” She flexed the velvet spider legs for emphasis.
I took a step nearer, surveying the silken web and the array of legs with the human head settled in the midst. Only with the closest scrutinycould one detect the mechanics of the illusion. A large box had been constructed and painted to imitate the canvas walls of the tent. With the silken web laid over the top, the box completely disappeared from view. The velvet ruff hid the neat hole which provided a place for her head to emerge whilst the box concealed the rest of her body. An elaborate arrangement of almost invisible filaments had been attached at one end to the spider’s legs, then disappeared into the box.
“Ah, so that is how it is done,” I murmured. “You manipulate the legs with the filaments. Clever.”
She smiled. “You are more observant than most. The box is in plain sight to any who care to see, but most prefer the illusion of Madame Arachne, the Human Spider!”
“But I can see why you enjoy a seaside holiday,” I continued. “It must be devilishly cramped in that box.”
“I was a contortionist as a younger woman. I am no longer what I once was, but I am still able to manage the box,” she admitted. “At least for a few months at a time. Then it is a nice rest beside the sea.”
“Brighton? Bournemouth? Blackpool?”
She grinned. “I prefer Deauville or Trouville. I have a fondness for French cuisine.”
“And for a little flutter in the casino in Monte Carlo,” Stoker put in dryly. “Hence madame’s practice of trafficking in information.”
“You are clearly a lady of unconventional thought and resourceful thinking,” I told her.