The Cape Left at Eleven

The first paper rose fell out of the gentleman’s collar at five minutes to eleven.

Vesper saw it land beside the cloakroom. She was returning an empty glass when a second rose followed, then a third. The gentleman brushed them away, fastened his black cape and hurried toward the canal.

Behind him, the cloakroom attendant sneezed.

“New perfume?” Vesper asked.

“Paste.”

From the music room came three solemn chords and the announcement of a wonder beyond mortal comprehension.

The Velvet Lily had booked a conjurer.

He called himself the Astonishing Bellwether, though the painted case beside the stage still said BERT. His posters promised THE INEXHAUSTIBLE BOWER: one empty cape, one thousand roses, no possible explanation.

Vesper looked at the small white flower beside her foot.

“Oh,” she said. “I think we’ve explained some of it.”

Onstage, Bellwether spread his black cape, turned in a circle and invited the audience to observe that his wings were empty.

Rico, seated near the piano, observed that his glass was also empty. Neither condition seemed to warrant a drumroll.

Bellwether reached into his collar.

He found a wooden clothes peg.

There was a pause.

“For my next wonder,” he said, “I shall require a moment.”

The pianist supplied one. Then another.

At the cloakroom, Vesper found a brass ticket on the counter. It bore the number eighteen. Upside down, it bore the number eighty-one.

There were no marks to suggest which view the cloakroom preferred.

The attendant looked at the two empty hooks.

“I ordered the elegant tickets,” she said.

“Numbers do become difficult when they’re dressed for dinner.”

“The other gentleman was catching the eleven o’clock ferry.”

Through the open door, another paper rose drifted past.

Vesper checked the clock.

She could hear Bellwether attempting to make the clothes peg disappear. It snapped onto his bill.

She went to the stage, collected the ordinary cape and whispered what had happened.

“Stop the ferry,” he said.

“I was thinking of asking for your coat.”

“My whole performance is inside it.”

Rico looked up from his glass.

“That does explain the entrance.”

Vesper folded the borrowed cape over her wing and secured it with the clothes peg. “Can you keep them entertained for ten minutes?”

Bellwether looked appalled. “Without my equipment?”

“I was asking Rico.”

Rico sighed, set down his glass and stood.

Valentino, returning from seeing a guest to the door, caught the look on his mentor’s face.

“What have you agreed to?”

“Nothing yet. Remember this moment.”

Vesper left them beside the piano.

Outside, Plume City’s late traffic was squeezing along the boardwalk: a bread cart, two musicians, and a duck carrying a hat too wide to belong to anyone presently visible. Ahead, she glimpsed the black cape turning onto the ferry landing.

She called. A saxophonist chose that instant to prove his instrument worked.

By the time she reached the landing, the ferry’s gate was closed. The boat had begun to move.

The gentleman stood at its stern, gazing back at the city. White roses were gathering around his shoes.

Vesper held up the ordinary cape.

“You’ve taken the wrong one!”

He cupped a wing to his ear.

“The wrong cape!”

He looked down. Another flower popped from his collar.

“I did wonder!” he called.

The ferryman shook his head when Vesper pointed toward the landing. He had cleared the mooring and another boat was coming in behind him. He pointed instead toward the next stop, across the canal.

The footbridge was farther upstream than she could run in time.

Beside the landing, a gondolier was finishing a sandwich.

“How much to catch that ferry?” she asked.

He considered the departing boat, her teal jacket and the cape over her wing.

“Is this romantic?”

“Laundry.”

He named a considerably lower price.

Vesper stepped aboard.

Back at the music room, Rico had announced an exhibition of extraordinary perception.

“Valentino will now identify something about a person he has never met.”

Valentino looked out at the audience.

“The lady beside the pillar would like the gentleman in front of her to lower his hat.”

The lady applauded immediately.

“Uncanny,” said Rico.

Bellwether stood in the wings, trying to remember whether he knew any tricks that did not require pockets.

On the canal, the gondola drew alongside the ferry’s open stern. The gentleman had become the center of a modest botanical event.

Flowers crowded his shoulders. Every attempt to shake them free produced more. Several passengers were holding bouquets.

“Stop moving your left wing,” Vesper called.

He stopped.

The flowers stopped.

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“Your cape is here. That one belongs to a conjurer.”

The gentleman studied her.

“Is this part of the performance?”

“Only if it goes well.”

He explained that he had borrowed his brother’s cape for the evening. His brother collected unusual clothes. The flowers had seemed possible.

“He once bought shoes with bells.”

“That would make anyone cautious about asking.”

The gondolier kept a safe distance from the ferry, matching its slow progress. Vesper pointed to the next landing, now approaching.

“Get off there. We’ll exchange them on dry boards.”

“I’ll miss my boat.”

“Ask the ferryman to wait while you remove the garden.”

The gentleman looked toward the wheelhouse. He had not yet said a word to the ferryman about the growing pile of flowers.

He went to ask.

The ferryman agreed to half a minute. He would have agreed to considerably longer to stop paper roses getting into his bilge.

At the landing, the gentleman came down the gangplank holding both wings rigidly at his sides. Vesper set his brother’s cape on a bench.

“Undo the clasp.”

“There are two.”

“The silver one.”

He pulled it.

A striped silk streamer shot out of his sleeve.

They watched it fall between them.

“Apparently the other silver one,” said Vesper.

The gondolier put down his pole and helped gather the silk. It kept coming. A passenger started counting the stripes, then lost his place when a duck in the queue stepped on blue.

The ferryman rang his bell.

“Nearly,” Vesper called.

She found the plain fastening beneath the theatrical one and lifted the cape away. The gentleman put on his brother’s, tucked the clothes peg into its pocket and hurried back aboard.

“Why was there a peg?” Vesper asked.

“Keeps it shut in the wind!”

The ferry departed. A passenger at the stern waved a bouquet.

Vesper gathered the last streamer into a loose coil. She did not attempt to stuff it back up the sleeve.

“Same fare home?” she asked.

The gondolier examined his boat, now lined with roses.

“I’ll include the decorating.”

At the Velvet Lily, the audience was laughing.

Rico had invited guests to name the most suspicious item they carried. Valentino was guessing its innocent purpose. So far they had established that a miniature saw belonged to a model-boat builder and that six identical spoons belonged to a duck who had misunderstood the terms of a tasting menu.

The waiter had taken a particular interest in that answer.

Vesper entered carrying the cape over one wing and a yard-wide coil of striped silk over the other.

Bellwether rushed toward her.

“Don’t touch the clasp,” she said.

He stopped.

“And the sleeve is empty.”

He looked at the silk, the flowers on her jacket and the audience turning toward them.

His expression changed. He took the cape, mounted the stage and bowed.

“For the conclusion of tonight’s wonder, I sent my roses across the canal and caused them to return!”

The applause began uncertainly.

Vesper climbed the two steps behind him.

She laid the coil of silk in his wings, removed a rose from her collar and held out her palm.

“And the return fare,” she said.

The room applauded with conviction.

Bellwether paid. It was the first thing he had produced successfully all evening.

Later, the cloakroom attendant painted a small line beneath every number on the brass tickets. Rico sat down with a fresh glass. Valentino helped the waiter recover five spoons.

“What happened to the sixth?” Rico asked.

“Bellwether made it disappear.”

Rico looked toward the stage, where the conjurer was searching the lining of his cape.

“Has he any idea where it went?”

“Not yet.”

At the door, Vesper turned up the collar of her teal jacket.

One last paper rose dropped onto the floor.

She picked it up, placed it in Rico’s empty buttonhole and went home.