The Illusionists. Rosie Thomas
knew I’d have one, once I’d shown him what I can do. I’m good. I’m the best. Compared with Carlo Boldoni you are just a tradesman.’
It was true. The Crystal Ball and the Orange had been something special, even though Jacko Grady was too stupid and too venal to have appreciated it.
‘So I’ll be your apprentice, as well as your manager.’
‘Boldoni and bloody Wix? What d’you mean by that? And all the gammon about ten per cent of nothing, which is nothing? I want five bob to go onstage. I don’t need you to manage me, thank you kindly.’
A lady and gentleman were lingering to watch the comedy of a dwarf squaring up to a full-grown man.
Devil stooped to bring his face closer to Carlo’s. He said gently, ‘You do need me. And you will have to trust me because I am putting my trust in you. That is how we shall have to do business from now on, my friend.’
‘I am not your friend, nor are you mine,’ the dwarf retorted.
Devil good-humouredly persisted. ‘I’ve also got a roof over my head, even though it’s not Buckingham Palace. You can come back there with me now. I’ve got bread and cheese, we’ll have a glass or two of stout, and we can start work on the box trick in the morning.’
Carlo’s fury faded. Devil could see that under his bravado the little man was exhausted, and had battled alone for long enough.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed.
Carlo said nothing. But after a moment he hoisted his boxes and began to trudge northwards, at Devil’s side.
Later that night Devil sat at the three-legged table in the corner of his attic room, an empty ale mug at his elbow. Apart from chests and boxes of props the only other furniture was a cupboard, two chairs, his bed and a row of wooden pegs for his clothes. It was cold and not too clean, but by the standards of this corner of London it wasn’t a bad lodging. The landlady was inclined to favour Devil, and he took full advantage of her partiality.
Devil was watching the dwarf as he slept, rolled up on the floor in a blanket with one of his prop bags for a pillow. He twitched like a dog in his dreams.
Devil wasn’t ready for sleep. He thought long and hard, tapping his thumbnail against his teeth as his mind worked.
The workshop belonged to a coffin maker. Coils of wood shavings had been roughly swept aside and the air was fugged with glue and varnish. Carlo stuck his hands on his hips and scowled about him.
‘Gives me the creeps, this place does.’
Devil raised his eyebrows. ‘We can’t be choosy, my friend. And contrary to your dainty feelings it strikes me as perfect for working up a box trick. Shall we begin?’
‘Don’t try to tell me we haven’t got all night,’ Carlo grumbled. The workshop’s owner had gone off at seven o’clock, warning them that he would be back again first thing in the morning by which time they were to be cleared out, and not to disturb any of his handiwork in the meantime. ‘I’m going to eat a bite first.’
With this he settled himself on the coffin maker’s bench, unwrapped a square of cloth, and tore into a hunk of bread laid with cold mutton. With difficulty, Devil held his tongue. After just two days of Carlo’s company he knew not only that the dwarf’s small body could absorb surprising quantities of food, but that he was always to be the one who paid for it. The end would be worth the outlay, he reassured himself. If the intimations he had already picked up about Carlo’s box trick turned out to be correct.
Jacko Grady was not so stupid as not to have an inkling of the potential too, because without overmuch protest he had signed two copies of the contract prepared by Devil. Ten per cent of box office returns, on every house of more than eighty per cent capacity.
The arithmetic ran in Devil’s head like a ribbon of gold.
Once the dwarf had finished his meal, they turned to the collection of materials assembled to Carlo’s precise instructions and eventual approval. As well as the borrowing of a handcart and the negotiating with sawyers and metal smiths, the procuring of everything had obliged Devil to use almost the last of the sovereigns he kept hidden under the floorboards and in various other niches in his lodgings. The bribe to the coffin maker for night-time use of his premises had taken most of what was left.
‘This had better be a dazzler,’ he muttered.
To answer him Carlo rummaged in one of his bags and produced an armful of metal. This he assembled to make a knife with a blade as long as himself. He whipped the air with it, then drove the point into the rough floorboards before leaning on the handle to demonstrate the weapon’s strength and flexibility.
‘In my costume as whoever you please, Pharaoh perhaps, or the Medusa, or Milor’ the Frenchie Duke – it don’t matter – I will stand, so,’ said the dwarf, taking up his position in what might be the centre of the stage. ‘For whatever reason it is, you will cut off my head. It will drop into a basket, most like, and my body will fall to the ground.’
‘Good,’ Devil replied. ‘Is that all?’
Carlo glared. ‘Wait, can’t you? My headless torso remains. Onstage with us we’ll have the cabinet, ornate as you like, on four legs.’
‘Or on what appears to be four sturdy legs?’
‘Yes, yes. You know what the mirrors are for.’
‘And what I paid for them,’ Devil added.
‘Don’t you ever shut up? You will cross the stage to open the cabinet and within it will appear …’
‘Your severed head. Floating in mid-air, I assume?’
‘Aye. So we talk. There’ll likely be some pact, and your end of the bargain will be to put my head back.’
‘So I close the cabinet doors.’
‘You do. There’s the mumbo jumbo and the lights flash. In an eye-blink there is my living, speaking head secure on my neck again.’
‘I hold the basket up, empty except for the horrible bloodstains.’
The dwarf yawned. Devil tapped his teeth with his thumbnail.
‘No, wait … I’ve got it. A river of gold pours out of the basket. It’s alchemy, that’s what the trick is. It’s all about the philosopher’s secret.’
‘Theatricals are your department,’ Carlo shrugged.
The two men eyed each other. Devil had been optimistic in his first definition of their relationship. In fact their mutual mistrust was not much diminished by the two days and a night they had been obliged to spend together, nor even by the strange liking that crept up between them. Neither would have cared to admit to this last. Carlo stuck his jaw out while Devil pondered the mechanics.
‘It’s not a new illusion. Monsieur Robin has something similar.’
‘It’s still a sweet trick, and it can be as new as tomorrow if we choose to make it that way.’
This was true. Devil well knew that apart from endless practice it was audacity, force of personality and the glamour of the stage itself that created magic out of mere mechanics. His thoughts ran ahead.
‘As it happens, I know a wax modeller who is employed by the Baker Street Bazaar.’ He strode across to their cache of materials and held up two short ends of deal planking. ‘Show me,’ he ordered.
Carlo returned to a squatting position on the coffin maker’s bench and indicated that Devil was to hold the boards up to his neck. The little man’s head protruded between them as he settled on his muscular haunches. Then he folded his limbs. His knees splayed to the sides and his ankles crossed as he brought his feet towards his chin.