Page 23 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

So, the circus had come to Thistlewick Tye and brought chaos in its wake.

These had been bad people, stealing from the locals and attacking innocent young women – godless drunkards, disrupting village life.

Edward had encountered travelling folk himself and come off badly, even though in many ways he identified strongly with people such as these.

They were often outsiders, like himself, and they relied on illusion as much as he to earn their crust. Even P.

T. Barnum, the circus showman, had embraced his moniker as the Prince of Humbug.

He claimed his trickery was harmless and purely to amuse, as he exhibited Joice Heth – a woman reportedly one hundred and sixty-one years old – or the taxidermied body of the Feejee Mermaid.

But Edward also knew that what old Mrs Cleyford had said was true; wherever outsiders went, trouble followed.

Travellers of all descriptions generally, were people who lived by their own rules, and so would naturally clash with those who lived differently.

Miss Cleyford announced the tea had brewed and Edward took the opportunity to take his leave.

As she opened the front door to show him out, she took a piece of paper from her apron, standing so that her back obscured her actions from her mother.

It was a faded handbill, he realised, advertising Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles, and Edward took out his glasses to focus on the line she was pointing to.

Watch aghast as the Daredevil Zella walks the tightrope…

She slid the leaflet back into her pocket and hastily ushered him out the door, but not before he’d noticed that, several lines below, the Russian Madame Katerina was also listed – a fortune teller.

‘Everyone says the circus was run out of town, but I think otherwise,’ she whispered.

‘Jacob Palmer has a small dilapidated barn behind the Sailmaker’s.

Some of the boys at Sunday school confided in me recently that they’d been hiding in it and had made a curious discovery.

Don’t let anyone catch you, but take a look inside. ’

And with that mysterious instruction, she returned to tend to her mother, who was grumbling about the tea being stewed.

* * *

With his heart beating wildly in his chest, Edward made for the Sailmaker’s. He knew it would be infinitely more sensible to return to Thistlewick House and wait for Carl to do the snooping, but the poor man could be bed-bound for days, if not weeks, and he wanted to seize the moment.

What on earth could be in Jacob’s barn? And could it be connected to the handbill Miss Cleyford had just shown him?

Of all his wild guesses, the idea that the bones might belong to a circus troupe certainly hadn’t occurred to him.

But with the name Zella on the handbill and the dates fitting with what he’d discovered on the beach, it was now a strong possibility.

There weren’t many people out and about in the village, maybe because it was lunchtime, but he still took care not to be seen.

He crept up to the barn and found it padlocked, but took his pocketknife from his coat and quickly picked the lock – a skill the unscrupulous Carl had taught him.

He slipped through the door, and gaps in the boarding allowed the filtered light to illuminate shapes in the dark.

It was dim inside and it took his weak eyes a few moments to adjust, but before him were a couple of empty barrels, a rusted Sailmaker’s Arms pub sign and some broken benches awaiting repair.

He pushed his way to the back and found a rolled oilcloth propped up against a wall.

It was six feet high, and he could smell the linseed oil and see the sturdy metal grommets at the corners.

As he began to unroll it, he realised that it was a hand-painted advertising banner, and the large ornate letters across the top started to reveal ‘Samson’s Circus of… ’

The space inside the shed was small, but on the unwound section he could see colourful illustrations of various circus acts dotted across the cloth, with details of who they were beneath.

The Daredevil Zella under a slender girl walking the tightrope; Samson the Strongman with a muscular, bald-headed man balancing a woman on each arm; The Giraffe Woman showing an Oriental-looking lady with a long neck of gold rings…

There were half a dozen dusty tea chests in the corner and Edward peered inside.

He pulled out some of the items: a crystal sphere wrapped in a square of velvet with a tarot deck, the tatty remnants of elaborate sequinned costumes, now chewed by rats and reduced to shredded rags, a set of wooden juggling clubs, a cracked leather saddle with curious handles on the side…

He tidied the items away and slid out of the shed, returning the padlock and ensuring he wasn’t seen.

And as he walked back down Copperpenny Lane to his cousin’s house, one thought kept circling around his bewildered head: if the troupe had moved on, as Mrs Cleyford had claimed, why had they left a barn full of their equipment behind?