The Young Unicorns Read online

  She, in turn, concentrated so poorly that before the lesson was done she and Dave were at odds with each other.

  Finally Dave threw down the book. “We’re not getting anything done. Get Vicky to read the rest to you before you go to bed.” He got up and stalked to Dr. Austin’s study and knocked on the door.

  “Come in, Dave, make yourself at home,” the Doctor said, trying not to show his surprise. This was the first time Dave had voluntarily come to speak to him about anything. “Sit down for a moment while I finish this bit I’m working on.”

  Mr. Rochester was lying near the wicker rocker, and Dave sat down and bent over to stroke the dog, fondling his head and ears with a tenderness he was seldom willing to reveal.

  But when the Doctor had finished with the problem he was working on and said, “Okay, what’s on our mind?” the face Dave raised had lost its softness and was the familiar wary, slightly surly face with which the boy protected himself.

  “I want to know about the laser.”

  “What about it?”

  “What do you do with it?”

  “I don’t really do anything with it myself. What I do is work on a small instrument that will make it a more efficient tool for surgeons like Dr. Hyde.”

  “What’s different about it from the laser beam that’s been used up to now?”

  “The coherent radiation is more efficiently controlled.”

  “So that means what?”

  “It means that now the ray can penetrate deep into an organ, for instance the brain, without burning any of the tissue except where the surgeon wants it to. And the intensity of the ray can be controlled, too. It can be as light as a feather or as powerful as a hydrogen bomb.”

  “Is this sort of what Dr. Shen-shu and Dr. Shasti were working on, too? A whatchamacallit?”

  “A Micro-Ray. Yes. Did they talk to you about it?”

  “No. I didn’t know them. Remember, I only came to Emily after they’d gone to Liverpool. How much does Emily know about it? This Micro-Ray, I mean?”

  Dr. Austin pulled a pencil out of his little pencil jug; he could always concentrate better with a pencil or pen in his fingers. “The way I tried to explain it to Emily once is that Dr. Shasti and Dr. Shen-shu and I are only the makers of the musical instrument; someone else has to play the instrument before there is music. We try to build the most sensitive piano possible, so that the music can come out as true and pure as the musician can make it.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “Okay. I think I see that. You don’t use this Micro-Ray gimmick at all yourself, then?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Dr. Austin.” Then, totally unaware of his ineptitude as a detective, he asked, “Uh—what do you think about the Bishop?”

  Dr. Austin looked a little baffled at this apparent non sequitur. “I don’t know him, Dave. From what I hear, he’s a fine man. But I gather his health is poor. Whenever we’ve gone to the Cathedral he hasn’t been functioning. He’s one of Hyde’s patients.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” Dave said again. “See you tomorrow.” He bent to give Rochester one more caress, got up from the rocker and left, running down the marble stairs and out of the house.

  He headed for the nearest phone booth, found a dime in his pockets and called Mr. Theo’s number. He had to talk to someone and Mr. Theo would, as always, let him talk without saying any more than he wanted to say, would not ask questions he couldn’t answer. He had reached the point where he had to talk to someone, and there was nothing he could tell the Dean or Canon Tallis without breaking his oath to the Bishop.

  The old man’s studio and home were connected by phone. The bell rang endlessly. No answer. Dave’s reaction was inordinate anger that Mr. Theo should not be in either of the predictable places, that he be unavailable when needed.

  The boy pushed out of the phone booth, glaring at an innocent old woman waiting to get in, and headed for the Cathedral; it was very possible that Mr. Theo might be there.

  He ran up the front steps, pushed against the heavy glass doors that let him into the rear of the nave. Rolling down the Cathedral came the brilliant notes of the organ rising up to the great arched vault in a curving wave of sound. He stopped to listen. Something of Telemann’s, he thought. Directly above his head the state trumpets gave forth their golden notes. Who was at the organ? He stood, feeling the music as it swept through the Cathedral, meeting and blending with the light, red, blue, yellow, counterpoint of sound and color.

  Yes: Mr. Theo. Nobody else played in quite that way, melody rising into the immeasurable air, becoming part of the glory of the Octagon, of the surrounding sky, embracing the Cathedral and all within it. The music, like the Octagon, gradually rose, strong and beautiful, on a sea of air.

  Dave moved through the music down the nave and up the steps to the ambulatory. St. James chapel lay ahead of him, dark now, settling into the shadows for the night. Bishop Potter’s great white marble sarcophagus caught a pale glimmer of light; the cross above the altar at the crossing glinted gold. Dave looked along the dim crescent of the ambulatory, past St. James, around towards St. Ambrose, St. Martin of Tours, St. Saviour, St. Columba, St. Boniface, St. Ansgar …

  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John guard the bed that I lie on, Rob had sung.

  —I wish, Dave thought, that I were like Rob and Mr. Theo, that I believed in guardian angels. We need them now.

  But it was Mr. Theo himself who had always been, as it were, Dave’s guardian angel. The boy turned away from St. James chapel and tried the door to the organ loft. It was locked, so he took out his keys and let himself in quietly, pulling the door to behind him. He tiptoed up the steps.

  The music dropped, sighed to a conclusion.

  “Well, Josiah?” asked Mr. Theo.

  Dave climbed the last few steps and stood beside the old man. He looked over the side of the organ loft to the choir. From where he stood he could see only the Cantoris side; his own place in Decani was hidden from view. “How did you know who it was?” he asked.

  “I’ve known your step for a good many years,” Mr. Theo said mildly. “This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to sneak up and surprise me. Do you remember once, your first year in choir, you tiptoed up and yelled BOO, and I pulled out all the stops and blared out full volume at you and frightened you nearly out of your wits?”

  “I wasn’t going to say BOO today. I phoned you and you didn’t answer, so I came looking for you.”

  “That,” Mr. Theo said, “is a switch.”

  —I need you, Dave thought loudly.—I want you to know all about the tunnel and the subway and the Bishop and tell me what gives.

  But he said, “You’ll have to speak to Emily. She’s not concentrating on her schoolwork. She’s going to flunk a couple of courses if she keeps this up and they won’t let her stay at the school and she’ll have to go to one of those blind places.” He pulled up a small folding chair near the console and sat down. Simply to be here, in the old familiar position, made the burdens of secrecy rest less heavily on his shoulders.

  “Why isn’t she concentrating?”

  “I suppose it has something to do with that idiotic genie.”

  But the genie was no longer quite so idiotic now that Dave himself had seen him. “Listen, Mr. Theo, the night the kids were talking about the genie at the table you seemed very interested in the Englishman who had no eyebrows.”

  “It is an interesting phenomenon.” Mr. Theo looked not at Dave but at the complicated keyboards and myriad stops of the organ. “Sometimes prolonged danger and exhaustion can cause such a loss of hair. I myself have a friend who withstood torture without breaking and—”

  Dave cut him off, “And whose name is Canon Tallis and who’s staying with the Dean here at the Cathedral.”

  Mr. Theo looked fiercely from under his bushy eyebrows. “You know this how?”

  “Because I met him last week right after the kids saw the genie, and I had tea with him and the Dean.”

  �
��And why have you seen fit to wait so long to tax me with this?”

  Dave had, indeed, avoided Mr. Theo when he had come to give Emily her lesson. He sighed. “Because the whole thing’s such a mess, and I didn’t see much point in blabbermouthing about it and pulling you in until I knew more.”

  “But if you and Emily are in it, then so am I.”

  Dave leaned over the organ loft and looked up the length of the nave to the great rose window and the state trumpets beneath it. “Mr. Theo, I thought when I learned that I couldn’t trust people that I couldn’t ever be surprised again by anything anybody did.”

  “That was very young of you,” Mr. Theo said. “The unpredictability of the predictable keeps life interesting when all else fails. As for me, I find many people trustworthy, but I am no longer surprised when they behave in ways that do not seem in accordance with their characters.”

  “Some of them have gone too far.” He turned back to the old man. “I suppose in spite of everything I’ve always kept the childish illusion that there’s some kind of order in the universe.”

  “Is it an illusion?”

  “There sure isn’t any order.”

  Mr. Theo looked up towards the music open before him on the organ. He played the theme of Emily’s fugue with one finger. “I’ve based my life on order and reason in the universe, Josiah, and a power of love behind that order and reason. I’ve had many a narrow shave in my day, but I don’t believe in the victory of chaos.” He switched off the organ. “Come. Let us go over to Cathedral House and see if the Dean and Tom Tallis are there. And tell me, Josiah: how do you happen to have a key to the organ loft in your posession?”

  “My father works here, remember? I have keys for the whole place.”

  “That is not your right,” Mr. Theo said.

  Dave gave the old man his most stubborn look. “You never know when they’ll come in handy.”

  Mr. Theo did not respond. He put his music away, carefully, turned off the organ light, and led the way down the steep stairs, moving slowly, sidewise, in his slightly arthritic way. He opened the door into the ambulatory, then switched off the loft lights. Dave followed him down the steps outside St. James chapel.

  “If you have your keys,” Mr. Theo flung over his shoulder as they passed the Dean’s Garden, shrouded in darkness and shadow, “you can let us in.”

  They went through the stone gateposts and Dave took Mr. Theo’s arm to help him down the stone steps leading to Cathedral House. He had not touched Mr. Theo for a long time and he was not prepared for the fragility of the old man’s arm, or his need of assistance. Even after Mr. Theo had retired, it had never really occurred to Dave or any of the choristers that Mr. Theo could change. One had to retire, because there was a rule about it, but Mr. Theo would always be around, would always be the same …

  Now, as Dave felt Mr. Theo’s bones, brittle as a bird’s under his fingers, for the first time it occurred to him that Mr. Theo might not always be in his world. The thought made him violently angry, and he dropped the old man’s arm as they reached the bottom of the steps as though it had burned him. He pulled his key ring out of his pocket and jingled the keys until he found the right one.

  “More stairs,” Mr. Theo said as they went in. “I don’t know what they’d do if they had an elderly dean or one with an invalid wife or … I get out of breath nowadays. Playing the organ, too. My legs aren’t what they once were. I can manage the harpsichord or the piano better. Even in the days of my youth and vigor my legs were always just a shade short for the pedals. This evening they seemed even shorter; I’m afraid this gander’s about to be cooked.”

  The choristers had laughed among themselves at Mr. Theo’s legs on the organ pedals, stretched to their full extent, moving with extraordinary rapidity and absolute accuracy. They had laughed, and they had been proud of their organist and teacher, and pride and admiration always outweighed the laughter.

  Canon Tallis stood at the open door to the Dean’s apartment, silhouetted against the light, a dark figure except for the pallor of the bald head. “Theo!” he said, in pleased greeting, then saw Dave. “Hello, there.”

  “A fire in the fireplace,” Mr. Theo ordered. “My marrow is cold. And tea. Strong tea.”

  “At your service, Theo,” the Canon said. “The fire is already blazing and I can manage the tea in short order.”

  Mr. Theo went into the library and stood with his back to the fire, rotating himself slightly to the warmth. “It is time that we leveled upon each other,” he announced.

  “Warm yourself first,” Canon Tallis said, “and I’ll go make tea. Come with me, Dave.”

  “Where’s Juan?” Mr. Theo called after them.

  “In Puerto Rico. He promised last summer to do a few days’ lecturing at the Seminary, and he’s tooling around the rest of the island preaching. He’ll be back Monday night.” Canon Tallis went into the large kitchen, took the kettle and splashed water into it. As he set the kettle down on the gas he looked quizzically at Dave.

  “How much does Mr. Theo know?” Dave asked.

  “Just what he’s guessed. I want him out of it. But Theo’s no fool.” The Canon took a large tray and started laying out the tea things, cups and saucers, spoons, earthenware teapot and homely chintz cozy, plates. He poked around in various cupboards until he produced an assortment of cookies and a slightly stale sponge cake. “Theo knows the Dean sent for me, that I am not here just on a social or preaching visit. Because we’re old friends and trust each other he’s asked me no questions. And I don’t want him involved in danger unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Mr. Theo said if Emily and I are in it, he’s in it.”

  “Quite. That’s Theo. Tell me, Dave, why did you go to him this afternoon?”

  Dave spoke reluctantly. “Sort of out of habit. He’s always been the one person I could go to and not have to tell him what’s on my mind. The way you said: he doesn’t ask questions. He waits for you to tell him, and if you never do, he still doesn’t push you. Even if he has a tantrum I end up feeling better. Canon Tallis, things are getting out of hand.”

  “Out of hand, how?” The Canon opened the refrigerator door. “No. Let’s not bother with eggs today.”

  “Emily knows something’s up, something weird, and Mr. Theo’s guessed it from her playing. I think he’s right. We’ve got to level with each other, or put all our cards in one stable, as Mr. Theo would say.”

  The kettle began to whistle. “What have you learned since last week?”

  “Nothing, really.” Dave felt the palm of his hand prickle as though it still carried the touch of the golden Bible. He could not break his oath. “I do know that something’s troubling Dr. Austin, but I don’t know what or why. I’d guess it has something to do with this Micro-Ray gadget he makes. But I don’t see how it could possibly have anything to do with the Alphabats. And this genie guy: he’s got to be somebody, doesn’t he? But I haven’t a glimmer. He’s big. So lots of people are big. Dr. Austin’s big. The Dean’s big. The genie wears smoky green robes, and the Dean wears a smoky black one. It’s all so nuts he might as well be the Dean as far as guessing goes.”

  The Canon poured hot water into the teapot, swished it around thoughtfully, then emptied it into the sink. He took some Earl Gray tea from the cupboard over the stove and spooned it carefully into the pot, then poured boiling water over it. He was whistling softly.

  “Canon Tallis, do you think the Bats or some gang are getting ready for a big riot? Things have been hell enough in this city when it’s been hot, but if the gangs really tried to take it over—”

  “Do you think they could?” Canon Tallis asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It could make the barbarians taking over Rome look like a Sunday School picnic.”

  The Canon nodded. “Carry the tray, will you please, Dave?”

  When Dave put the tray down on the marble table, Canon Tallis, sitting before it to pour tea, asked, “Theo, what is bothering Emily?”


  Mr. Theo had now turned to face the fire, his hands stretched out to the blaze. He gave an annoyed growl. “Sleuthing is your department. If Juan de Henares sends for you so summarily that you have no time to let me know beforehand, I know that you are being called as trouble-shooter, not priest. Tom, you cannot hint that Emily is in danger and drop me like a hot banana.”

  “Calm down.” Canon Tallis was unruffled. “Sit down and I’ll pour you some tea.” The old man lowered himself into a chair, and the Canon gave Dave a cup to take to him.

  “FIVE sugar,” Mr. Theo said. “Put it in for me, Josiah. And lemon.”

  Canon Tallis looked at the pitcher of milk. “I forgot lemon. Dave—”

  “NO!” Mr. Theo bellowed. “Forget it. As I am ignored, insulted, inconsulted in every way.”

  Dave put the cup of tea on the small table beside him.

  “Pass him some cake to sweeten him up,” Canon Tallis said.

  “No cake. I do not eat between meals. I am getting a bulge in my midriffle.”

  The Canon’s lips twitched slightly as he poured for Dave. “You needn’t hold back, Dave. Help yourself to the repast, such as it is.”

  Dave took several pieces of the crumbly cake and a handful of cookies. Thinking of the fragility of Mr. Theo’s arm, he would have liked to remark that Mr. Theo could do with something to eat, but one could go so far with Mr. Theo and no further. He sat on a chair between the old man and the Canon and waited.

  “All right, Dave,” Canon Tallis said. “Suppose you tell Mr. Theo what you know. Everything.”

  “Chronologically,” Mr. Theo ordered. “I do not wish to be confused more than necessary.”

  “Beginning with when?”

  “With the—the genie.”

  Mr. Theo stirred the sugar in his tea, noisily, while Dave told him what he could. But the visit to the Bishop made an enormous dark hole in his telling.

  When the boy stopped, Mr. Theo sipped his tea distastefully. “This tastes like stewed cigarette butts. You have told me everything, Josiah?”