For Andrew Cartmel,
who came up with the name in the first place.

I’m crazy about this city.

Toni Morrison, Jazz

1

As I have often opined, what good does it do a fellow to be a master of the mystic arts if he’s not allowed to do a bally thing with said mastery? And while I’ll admit that knocking the toppers off one’s fellow practitioners at Goodwood might have been a tad childish, it hardly, to my mind, constituted a hanging offence. Alas, the old sticks at the Folly didn’t see eye to eye with me on this, so I decided that perhaps it would be wise to remove myself somewhere out of their censorious gaze until the blissful waters of Lethe bathed their cares away. Or something.

Since I’m not at all partial to the joys of the rustic, I took a fast liner to New York where the Folly, so I thought, never ventures. (Wrongly, as it happens, but we shall get to that later.)

I found a very pleasant flat – or apartment, as they call it over there – overlooking Washington Square and engaged a valet to handle all the day-to-day necessaries.

In fact, a word about my valet Beauregard is probably in order at this point of the story, before all the Sturm und Drang and other Furies have a chance to intrude. I had arrived at my new apartment in Washington Square and was standing trunkless in an empty hallway when the doorbell rang. Hoping that it might be my luggage, I threw the door open to reveal a tall coloured gentlemen with a long, serious face and a sympathetic manner. When he spoke, it was with one of those cultured southern American accents that rolls around you in a soothing fashion. And I was in need of soothing, being adrift in a foreign city without furniture, or even my baggage.

‘My name is Maximillian Beauregard,’ he said. ‘I believe sir is in need of a valet.’

‘Gosh,’ I said, and because I had to even yet make inquiries, ‘How on earth did you know?’

‘You mentioned your need to the elevator operator, sir, and knowing I was looking for a position, he contacted me immediately.’

‘I say, that’s dashed efficient.’

‘Thank you for noticing, sir.’

‘You’d better come in,’ I said, and the man floated in as if on a cushion of air.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know where my trunks have got to?’ I asked.

‘In fact, I encountered them downstairs in the foyer, sir, and took the liberty of engaging some porters to bring them up.’

‘Jolly good,’ I said. ‘And furniture?’

‘I’m sure Macy’s would be delighted to send over a man with a catalogue, sir.’

‘Food?’

‘This is New York, sir,’ said Beauregard, with just a touch of hauteur. ‘Food will not be a problem.’

‘You’re engaged,’ I said.

‘Very good, sir.’

An English gentleman of means can live very pleasantly in New York if he’s sensible and doesn’t upset the natives. Even the local constabulary, who appear to be Fenians to a man, are, with the exception of the odious Sergeant Bracknel, perfectly respectful if you’re polite and don’t get in their way. There are some very passable restaurants, art galleries and concert halls if high culture is persona grata, as it were. But where New York has it over London in spades is modern music, and for the best of that one must venture above 110th Street to the neighbourhood they call Harlem.

There a gentleman can seek out the company of like-minded gentlemen while listening to the best jazz in the world.

So, as you can imagine, as I lay in bed one bright May morning sipping my first reviving cup of coffee, proper tea being beyond my man Beauregard’s otherwise extensive capabilities, I was taken aback when the man himself knocked on my door and announced that I had a visitor.

‘He’s an English gentleman, sir,’ said he.

Now all my acquaintances, both English and American, know better than to bother old Augustus before the noon bell, so I did rather wonder who this might be. An unaccountable ripple of apprehension passed over the normally placid surface of my morning routine, but I manfully rose above such turbulence. English visitors are not unheard of, and the steamers did have a habit of docking at an ungodly hour, and so the poor blighter, a stranger in a strange land, might be in need of succour.

And let it never be said of Augustus Berrycloth-Young that he did not rise to the occasion when it came time to cross the street and offer help. Once I was suitably bathed and fortified, that is.

Had I known the truth of it, I would have immediately hidden under my bed and instructed Beauregard to inform my visitor that I had been struck down by the plague during the night.

Instead, I took another sip of the blessed dark fruit of the bean.

‘Does this gentleman have a name?’ I asked.

‘A Mr. Thomas Nightingale,’ said Beauregard.

Now, readers of what I suppose I might call my oeuvre might already be familiar with magic, the demi-monde and the Folly, but for those of you who have unaccountably hitherto avoided the outpourings of my pen, I shall briefly explain.

Back in the age of enormous wigs, Sir Isaac Newton took time off between inventing gravity and hanging counterfeiters to discover magic. He entrusted this knowledge to a fine upstanding body of gentlemen who formed the Society of the Wise, known to all those in the know as … the Folly. From the famous poem, because our illustrious forebears liked a joke as much as the next man. As was the vogue in those days, they founded a school to pass their wisdom on to the next generation, and it was to this prestigious institution that young Augustus was entrusted in the summer of 1914. It’s become fashionable to bemoan one’s schooldays, to dwell upon the canings, the cold and the loneliness, but I must say I had a jolly time at school, made some very good chums and, most importantly of all, learnt magic.

You may be thinking, ‘Magic, Gussie? My dear boy, there’s no such thing!’ And that would be because as a respectable graduate of Casterbrook and a member in good standing with the Folly, I am duty-bound to keep the existence of magic hush-hush, sub rosa, and on, as they might say here in New York, the down low.

Magic in the wrong hands, or even in no hands at all, can be a dangerous thing, and it was the Folly who was charged with keeping the peace, maintaining order and ensuring the nation’s horses went unaffrighted.

This solemn task had made the old sticks at the Folly a grim and humourless bunch who tended to look askance whenever a young wizard, in a moment of exuberance, applied his mighty art to the task of de-helmeting the local constabulary, crockering troublesome strangers or acquiring refreshments at Cheltenham by levitating bottles of champagne away from their coolers. As I mentioned at the beginning, it was to avoid their opprobrium for such a similar trifling matter that I crossed the Atlantic in the first place.

Therefore you can imagine my trepidation upon being informed that the Folly’s chief bruno, the man they send forth into the world to solve problems and shoot trouble, one Thomas Nightingale Esquire, was even now loitering at my door.

Still, we graduates of Casterbrook are bywords for fortitude, and rather than fleeing down the fire escape I instead bade Beauregard to show the Nightingale, for that is how he was often styled, into the living room and offer refreshments while I quickly bathed and dressed.

Beauregard, ever an optimist with regards to the weather, had laid out one of my recently acquired linen suits in dove grey and cut in the ‘jazz style’, which close acquaintances agreed suited my figure very well. Then, suitably togged up, I stuck my courage to the sticking post and advanced with as much insouciance as I could manage upon the living room.

‘What ho, Thomas!’ I cried as I entered.

Now, I have often said that the principal difference between the musical offerings of Sissle and Blake, Gershwin and Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and those of the likes of Verdi, Tosca and some other bally Italian I have forgotten the name of, is that one might take one’s seat for the former with no fear that one will leave the theatre none the wiser with regards to the story. Whereas on those occasions when I have been dragged bodily to the opera, I have spent the entire show trying to work out why Man A is singing angrily at Man B while Woman C trills sadly in the corner. And to rub salt into the wound, as it were, I have the strongest feeling that everybody else in the theatre but me knows exactly what is going on. My friend Lucy, who is an aficionado, tells me that if only I were to read the libretto beforehand then I might stop worrying about the plot and concentrate on the music, which is the main concern of the piece.

It is in this spirit that I feel I should introduce Thomas Nightingale before we, figuratively, meet him on that fateful spring morning so that you, the reader, may have a better understanding of the plot, and in consequence have a heightened appreciation of the music. Otherwise the story might stray into those overlong digressions that are the bane of the modern novel.

He was a tall cove with a chiselled jaw, grey eyes and brown hair that, while cut short at the sides, had a tendency towards unruly behaviour up top. That, and a smooth chin, meant that while he was a good four years older than I, he could, when the mood took him, look younger. He could appear as languid and as carefree as the next young blade. But I had it on good authority that he had dealt with some pretty dicey situations both at home and abroad. Looking at him taking his ease at my window seat and perusing my copy of the New York Herald Tribune, I knew trouble. Even when it was wearing a rather fine tweed travelling suit.

‘Gussie,’ he cried, leaping to his feet and seizing my hand. ‘Good to see you. I wonder, if it’s not too much trouble, if I may impose upon your hospitality for a couple of nights.’

‘Of course,’ I cried, while thinking of the many splendid hotels, especially along Broadway, that would be even more ecstatic to receive him as a guest. ‘What brings you to New York? Business or pleasure?’

‘Business, of course,’ he said, and my heart sank, because whereas many members of the Society of the Wise had professional or business interests outside the Folly, Thomas Nightingale was not one of them. If he were in New York on business, it could only be of a magical nature.

‘Jolly good,’ I said, for want of anything more sensible. I glanced at the clock and saw, with an inward shudder, that it was but a quarter past the hour of ten. Not only an uncivilised hour to be up and awake, but also far too early for lunch. ‘Can I offer you some elevenses?’

‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘but your man here has already provided me with coffee.’ He glanced at Beauregard, who was floating attentively nearby. ‘However, I do need to talk to you in confidence.’

I can take a hint, so after Beauregard had provided me with another blessed and much-needed cup of the bean, I dispatched him off to undertake various errands with the strong intimation that he need not return until after lunch.

Nightingale watched him go and turned to me.

‘Sound fellow?’ he asked.

‘I’ve always found him so,’ I said. ‘So what is this dashed business that brings you here? I can assure you I have been as circumspect as a vicar at a christening.’

Nightingale smiled and raised his hand in a most bishop-like beneficence.

‘I’m here on quite another matter,’ he said. ‘One that, given your familiarity with the terrain, I expect you can assist me with.’

‘Oh yes?’ I said, somewhat guardedly.

‘I wish to locate the point of manufacture of a saxophone,’ he said.

‘A saxophone?’ I cried – boggled.

‘An enchanted saxophone.’

‘What on earth would anyone enchant a saxophone to do?’

‘In the first instance,’ said Nightingale, ‘it can impart a greater level of skill to the player. In the second instance, when played correctly, this one can talk.’

I was agog.

‘What does it say?’ I asked.

‘That depends on the musician,’ said Nightingale. ‘The chap who owned it had learnt how to play “hallo”, “yes” and “no”. But as far as the boffins could determine, the instrument had no will of its own. It said, or rather sang, what its owner played.’

The owner, in this case, was one Laurence Ellwood, a Jamaican chap who had arrived in London by way of New York.

‘Have you ever heard of him?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Can’t say I have,’ I said, although I knew Lucy would know. Lucy had a mind like one of those bally card catalogues they have in libraries. If you have ever puckered, plucked, bowed or sung in New York, then Lucy will have your details. It can be uncanny, and would have been dashed useful had I any intention of introducing Lucy to the Nightingale, or vice versa. But I have learnt from bitter experience to keep certain parts of my world separate from the others.

‘No matter,’ said Nightingale. ‘Mr. Ellwood was quite co-operative when it became clear that we were willing to replace the instrument with one of an equal but unenchanted quality. Plus a finder’s fee, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

Mr. Ellwood did furnish Nightingale with the name and address of the pawn shop from whence he had acquired the instrument. I’d never been there myself, but one of the benefits of the American obsession of laying out their towns in grids is that addresses are easy to find.

This one was on West 47th Street, close to the corner with Tenth Avenue, deep inside the neighbourhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. A well-deserved name for an area with a terrible reputation for criminality and danger. Lucy had cautioned me against setting foot in the place, so of course Nightingale was all for heading out there on the instant.

Well, it seemed like a rum thing, but we wizards have a code and never let it be said that Augustus Berrycloth-Young shirked his duty as a keeper of the secret flame. Not that I have the faintest idea where the secret flame might possibly be, although I assume that’s because it is a secret.

In any case, I rose to the occasion and we hailed a rather fetching green and red taxicab and set forth for 47th Street.

The shop itself was a sort of cluttered Aladdin’s cave with two glass counters. There was a cornucopia of watches, rings and silver cutlery under glass in the counters, and ranks of musical instruments, barometers and rifles along the walls. A line of trumpets hung from hooks like skinned rabbits next to what I am sure was a bally balalaika, or possibly a lute.

Stacked in the gaps were teetering piles of steamer trunks and suitcases showing, I presumed, a great deal of confidence amongst newly arrived travellers that New York was their final destination. A sign above a back counter proclaimed LOAN DEPARTMENT and DIAMONDS APPRAISED.

I was assailed by a hundred types of vestigium – have I explained vestigia yet? No? For trained practitioners, it’s easy to forget that most people don’t recognise a vestigium when they encounter it. Quite simply, magic, even the magic of the everyday, leaves behind a trace which old Isaac called a vestigium. You probably encounter it every day, but dismiss it as a random sound or smell or a passing fancy. It is as insubstantial as a daydream and most often, even to the magically trained, as useful.

In any case, locations such as pawn shops, libraries and lost property stores accumulate a great many of these whispers and fancies, and so I ignored them now as irrelevant.

But Augustus, the reader might cry, if this vestig—whatnot is irrelevant, what was the point of that whole paragraph? To which I can only counsel patience, dear reader; vestigia will become relevant soon enough.

A stout man with a square face, a savage moustache and an inappropriately snazzy homburg hat graced us with a nod and a minatory gaze.

‘How may I help you, gentlemen?’ he said in a manner that suggested that in truth he would rather not provide any such help.

‘A friend of mine purchased a musical instrument from this shop last year,’ said Nightingale.

‘No refunds,’ said the homburg.

‘A refund will not be necessary,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’re merely looking for some information.’

‘Are you cops?’

‘No,’ said Nightingale.

‘You a Seamus?’ The man pronounced ‘you’ as if it had a z at the end.

Nightingale glanced at me and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

‘Private detective,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Nightingale, turning back to the man with the ferocious moustache. ‘A friend of ours bought a musical instrument here and we’d merely like to establish who originally pledged it.’

Nightingale showed the man the receipt, but the man looked unimpressed or, just possibly, uncomprehending.

Nightingale was about to repeat his explanation when the man shook his head.

‘Sorry, mac,’ he said. ‘Can’t help you.’

‘I’m willing to make it worth your while,’ said Nightingale.

This caught the man’s immediate attention, and he indicated that he was desirous to see the colour of our money. It was at this point that Nightingale revealed that he was indeed fatally short of American currency, and asked me to step in and shoulder the financial burden. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little put out at having my ear bitten in so cavalier a fashion. But I could hardly say this in front of the moustache, and so I rustled up the rhino. And if Nightingale proved a little overgenerous in his estimation of how much this moustache’s time was worth, then I did not feel that just then was the appropriate moment to mention it.

Things took a turn for the rummy when the moustache asked to examine the receipt again, but when Nightingale unwisely handed the thing over, he stuffed it into the maw that, rather alarmingly, opened under his bristling lip hedge. Then he chewed thoughtfully for a moment or two before swallowing.

They say that ignorance is bliss, and in fact that is the unofficial motto of the Folly, but had our moustachioed friend had any inkling of who he was dealing with, what followed might not have come as such a surprise.

He certainly wouldn’t have given Nightingale that challenging ‘And what are you going to do about it?’ look. Not if he, like me, had ever watched Nightingale play indoor tennis.

‘I see,’ said Nightingale. ‘I thought it was a very fair bribe. Wouldn’t you say so, Gussie?’

‘Generous,’ I said and, because I was still stung by the expense, ‘More than generous, in fact.’

‘I’m going to count to five,’ said Nightingale, ‘and before I reach the end you will provide us with the information we seek, or,’ he glanced over his shoulder to flash a grin at me, ‘return my friend’s investment.’

Moustache bristled, neither option being to his taste.

Even as Nightingale reached the number two, he opened that fearsome sub-mustachio maw and bellowed, ‘Jake! Get your ass out here!’

Then the poor deluded fool gave Nightingale the sort of smug look your rival gives you when you slice your ball into a bunker on the first hole, thinking the match is all over bar the counting out of winnings. In response, Nightingale stopped counting and waited for Jake.

Jake, another stout man in a homburg, but this time mercifully clean-shaven, arrived a full ten seconds later, bursting through a door at the back and brandishing a shotgun. Before he could take aim, Nightingale, without taking his eyes off the moustache, made a small gesture with his left hand. As if by invisible hands, the shotgun was wrenched from Jake’s grasp and sent skidding across the floor to stop at my feet. Simultaneously, the poor man was pitched forward and slammed into the ground. There was a crack and a pained grunt.

‘Gussie,’ said Nightingale. ‘Keep an eye on him for me, old boy.’

I would be lying if I said I didn’t relish the chance to have a bit of a magical tussle, although it did seem a bit unsporting to inflict spells upon unsuspecting shopkeepers. I’m all for snatching off a policeman’s helmet or pulling a prank upstairs at the Folly or the Bliss, but this seemed a mite more serious. That worried me.

The moustache reached under the counter, no doubt seeking a weapon of his own, but froze when something bright and metallic flashed past his face. One of a myriad drawers behind him had opened and a dozen or so table knives had floated out to orbit his head.

Judging correctly that any sudden moves would be unwise, the man straightened slowly until he was staring at Nightingale with his eyes bulging in surprise. They flicked back and forth, vainly trying to track the knives as they flashed past his face.

‘Now,’ said Nightingale, ‘let us start our conversation again.’