The Phenomenals: A Tangle of Traitors by F E Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

Eventually, concentrating hard, he achieved a sort of synchronized gait with the nimble pedestrians. He even began to touch his
left shoulder intermittently, in order to blend in further.
    Chicanery Lane was reached via a series of ever-narrowing streets leading off a main road that ran south from Mercator Square. Kamptulicon’s shop was situated about halfway down the lane,
indicated by a sign in the shape of a lantern projecting from the wall.

    The street was not well lit, the lamp posts were spaced far apart and the light cast was too poor to properly illuminate the lane. The acrid smell that pervaded the city was
stronger here. And of course there was still that constant wailing.
    ‘I suppose that’ll be our friendly Lurids,’ Vincent said to himself, laughing.
    The area was grimly unattractive and the ongoing festival was not much in evidence. Here and there people had made half-hearted attempts to hang bunting between the lights, but already it was
trailing on the ground. Vincent saw that each lamp post had a large oval badge screwed to it, stamped with the letters ‘LDTC’ – Leucer d’Avidus Tar Company, he guessed.
    Vincent peered cautiously through one side of the shop’s bow window. On a tiered display within was an assortment of lights of all sizes and shapes – brass lamps, glass lamps,
hurricane lamps, candles, candle holders, candle snuffers, rope wicks and plaited wicks, glass globes, frosted globes and etched shades. On the highest tier of the display there were cans of tar,
varying in price according to size and quality, but all stamped with the increasingly familiar LDTC logo.
    The display was dusty. Cobwebs stretched from handle to handle to spout to wick and back again, like a collection of little hammocks.
    Perhaps Kamptulicon has other pursuits to keep him busy, wondered Vincent presciently. The blind was down, the sign turned to ‘closed’. The interior was unlit and when he tried the
door it was locked. Leopold Kamptulicon was not expecting customers.
    Vincent knocked and waited. Neither sound nor movement came from within the shop. He stepped on to the window ledge and reached up to the semicircular fanlight above the door. Sometimes these
windows were neglected and came loose, but this was tightly shut. Undeterred, he set about examining the door. There were three locks.
    ‘Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,’ he mused. ‘What can this Mr Kamptulicon have to hide that requires such cautious security? Shame he didn’t reckon on Vincent Verdigris
coming to town.’
    Vincent opened the pouch of treen on his belt and pulled out two long, narrow pins. He knelt in the shelter of the porch, inserted the pins into each lock and listened with satisfaction as they
released one by one. Once inside the shop he locked the door behind him, but unhooked the window arm above, leaving it just loose enough to open from the outside. He noticed a three-legged frog
over the door.
    ‘Another believer,’ he murmured. ‘Now, Leopold, show me your secrets.’
    By the glow of his smitelight Vincent could see no reason to think he was in anything other than a light shop. The counter was tidy, if dusty, with a stack of wrapping paper held down by a
chunky paperweight. Scattered about the counter were small tins of Fulger’s Firestrikes – ignitable sticklets used for lighting fires – and on a shelf behind the counter were more
cans of tar. Vincent oathed softly. He wasn’t used to coming away from a place empty-handed. He pocketed a couple of tins of firestrikes, just because they were there, and rounded the counter
to take some tar. In doing so he tripped on the dog-eared corner of a rug. The rug folded over on itself, exposing a metal trapdoor.
    Much heartened by the discovery, Vincent pulled on the ring handle but the trapdoor didn’t budge. He looked for hinges – they could be unscrewed – or a padlock, but there was
neither, only an irregular-shaped shallow hole stamped into the