Читать книгу: «The Illusionists», страница 2

Herr Bayer recoiled. ‘If you please. Her name is Lucie.’

‘What else does your Lucie do?’

Bayer guided her to a seat across the circle from the fat man. She moved in a stately glide, her head turning slightly on her slender neck as if to acknowledge her admirers. He dusted the chair seat with his handkerchief and she folded at the hip and the knee to adopt a sitting position. Bayer lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it.

‘As you see, Lucie stands and sits, walks and dances.’

‘I hear Mr Hoffman has a mechanical creature who plays chess. It will take on any opponent, and it usually wins.’

‘Hoffman’s Geraldo is hardly bigger than a child’s toy.’ Bayer swung on his heel and pointed at Carlo. This was the first acknowledgement from either man of their arrival. ‘And there is a person like him concealed in a box just behind its shoulder, directing the movement of the pieces.’

‘Davenport’s latest invention tells fortunes and reads minds.’

‘He uses a clumsy puppet, a scarecrow, hardly more than that. And the act is a common memory game. Pure trickery.’ Bayer almost spat. His Swiss-German accent grew heavier.

The fat man sighed. ‘It is all trickery. This is what we do.’

‘No.’

Bayer leapt to Lucie’s side. He put one arm round her smooth shoulder as if to defend her from insult. ‘This is no trick. She is what she is, a work of art. A miracle of precision, perfect in every movement. Look at her face, her hair, even her clothing.’

Devil strolled across the circle. ‘May I?’ He reached out to stroke Lucie’s head. The hair was human, but it felt lifeless under his hand. The automaton’s dress was lace and silks and velvet, but there was no breathing warmth within its rich folds. The face was exquisitely moulded and painted and utterly unmoving. He stepped back, faintly disgusted by the doll’s parody of womanhood.

Bayer said, ‘She is lovely, you see? Mr Grady, you will not find a better or more ambitious model to delight your audiences.’

The man smiled but an imploring note had entered his voice. Lucie might be dressed in the latest finery, Devil saw, but her partner’s clothes were worn and mended. The man was another itinerant performer, hungrily searching for a paying audience, just like Carlo and – indeed – himself. For a moment Devil was depressed to think how many such hopefuls there were in London, let alone elsewhere, but he didn’t allow the anxiety to take hold. He would succeed, because he would do anything and everything necessary to ensure that success. And the rest of them could go to hell. He returned to his contemplation of the theatre’s lovely ruin.

Grady put aside the musical box and wrote in a notebook.

‘Very well. Come back here in two weeks. We’ll be ready to open by then. I’ll try you out for a few performances, see whether the crowd takes to you.’

Bayer’s face brightened. He bowed to Grady and nodded to Carlo and Devil, but his proper attention was for Lucie. He wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head before bringing forward a brass-cornered trunk and undoing the clasps. The interior was padded with red plush and shaped to accommodate a female form. Bayer lifted the automaton in his arms and gently folded the doll into captivity. Then he hoisted the locked trunk on to a wheeled frame like a market porter’s, bowed again to Grady and took up the handles of the frame.

‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ he said from the doorway as he trundled Lucie away.

No one spoke for a moment. Then the fat man looked at his pocket watch.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ he said to Carlo. ‘What’s your name again?’

‘I told you. Carlo Boldoni,’ the dwarf replied, unblinking. ‘And as I said, direct from performing before the finest drawing-room audiences in Rome. And Paris.’

‘The finest taphouses in Macclesfield and Oldham, more like. Real name?’

‘In our world of magic and illusion what is real, Mr Grady?’

‘Pounds, shillings and pence,’ the fat man snapped, not greatly to Devil’s surprise. Grady looked like a man who would count all three most carefully. What were his plans, and what was the story of this ruined theatre?

Devil considered the possibilities, and the potential for himself, but said nothing.

‘Call yourself whatever you like,’ Grady went on. ‘I haven’t got all day to listen to you. Show me what you’ve got. And who is this?’ He pointed at Devil.

‘He is my assistant.’

Devil opened his mouth and closed it again. There was a time and place.

Carlo hurried into the shadows, then staggered into view once more bearing a pile of boxes and cloths.

‘Here,’ he muttered to Devil. Obligingly he unfolded the legs of a small table as Carlo shook out a green cloth covering. On the cloth he placed an opera hat and a wicker birdcage. He stood in front of his table and made a deep bow to Grady, then whipped a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow as if the effort of setting up his stall had brought on a sweat.

‘I haven’t got all day,’ the fat man scowled.

Carlo fanned himself with the handkerchief. His expression was so comical that Devil smiled. Then Carlo clapped his hands and the handkerchief vanished.

‘Dear me. Where has that gone? Can you tell me, sir?’

‘No,’ yawned Grady.

‘Then I will show you.’

Carlo produced the handkerchief from his pocket and clapped his hands. Once more it vanished, to be extracted from the pocket again a moment later.

‘You see, sir, how useful this is? Especially for a gentleman like you whose time is so valuable. You have only to take out your handkerchief, and never trouble yourself to put it away again.’

Devil knew how this old trick was done, because it was the first he had learned. But he had to acknowledge that it would have taken plenty of practice as well as natural skill to perform it so adroitly.

‘Continue, please,’ said Grady.

Carlo tipped the hat to show that it was empty but for the smooth lining, then pulled from it a knotted string of coloured silks. He whirled these round his head, drew a pair of scissors from the hat and snipped the silks into bright confetti that drifted to his feet. He scooped these fragments into his tiny fists, balled them up and threw them into the air, where they became whole handkerchiefs again. Devil was impressed. Improvising his role he snatched up the hat, bowed over it to Grady and gestured elaborately to acknowledge Carlo’s mastery. This gave him the opportunity to examine the hat, ingeniously constructed with a double interior.

Carlo lifted the birdcage and his sad, long-chinned face peered through the struts at Grady.

‘I have a sweet trick with the doves but I couldn’t leave my birds here with the rest of my old props, sir, could I? All I have to show you is their pretty cage.’

He wafted his fingers inside to demonstrate its emptiness and latched its door, dropped a cloth over the cage, marched twice around the table and snatched the cloth away again. Inside the cage was a crystal ball. Carlo extracted the ball and peered into the clear interior, rubbing his chin and muttering.

‘What have we here? Ah, this is a vision worth seeing, Mr Grady. We have a packed theatre, ladies and gentlemen applauding until their hands are ready to drop off, a heap of guineas, and handbills announcing the Great Carlo Boldoni in letters as high as himself.’

Grady stuck out his slab of a hand. Turning a little to one side Carlo blew on the ball and gave it a polish with his sleeve before handing it over. Inside the glass an orange now glowed.

‘Doesn’t look to me like even one guinea,’ Grady scowled.

‘You need magician’s eyesight, perhaps.’ Carlo retrieved his crystal ball, replaced it in the birdcage and covered it once again with the cloth. He settled the hat on his head and began to gather up his boxes. Almost as an afterthought he whipped off the cloth to reveal that the cage was empty once more.

Carlo tipped the comical hat to one side and thoughtfully scratched his cranium. Then he darted over to Grady, dipped a hand into the man’s coat pocket and brought out the orange. From the opposite pocket came a knife.

‘You look hungry,’ he said, slicing the orange into neat quarters and offering it to Grady.

‘Can’t you do a beefsteak?’ was the reply.

‘Not for a farthing less than five shillings a show.’

Grady gave a sour laugh. ‘For you and Her Majesty singing a duet, will that be?’

Carlo sucked one of the orange slices.

‘I have plenty more tricks. And some new ones, all my own, never performed on stage. You need Carlo Boldoni for your theatre opening, Mr Grady. What do you say?’

Devil returned to studying the graceful pillars and the sinuous curve of the gallery. He longed for a brighter light so he could see more.

Grady puffed. ‘I’ll think about it. You heard what I said to the fellow with the doll. The Palmyra will be ready to open in two weeks.’ He gestured to the gallery. ‘Go right through it, we will, get rid of all this old rubbish. Make it look like something.’

‘The Palmyra?’ Devil interrupted.

No, he was thinking. You won’t destroy this place and turn it into some penny gaff for vulgar music hall, not if I have anything to do with it.

Grady ignored him. To Carlo he said, ‘Your assistant doesn’t do a lot to earn his keep, does he? It was named the Palmyra, yes. That’s a town in Arabia, you know. Something like Babylon. What a name, eh? What’s wrong with the Gaiety, or the Palace of Varieties, a label with a bit of a promise in it? Built sixty years ago as a concert hall, it was. Never did any business, though, and the debts piled up until the poor devil who owned it went under. He died or he topped himself, one or the other, and there were decades of family disputes after that. In the end all the money went to chancery and they had to sell up.’

Grady tapped the side of his nose and Devil almost laughed out loud. The man was absurd. ‘The price was keen, I can tell you. Shall we just say that Jacko Grady is now the proud possessor? And under his management the old Palmyra will be the finest music hall in London.’

‘Don’t change the name,’ Devil said.

‘What?’

‘If I’d been clever enough to buy an opportunity like this, I’d keep the name. It’s different. It’s got class. More than you could say for the Gaiety.’

‘If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it. Which is about as likely as our friend here hitting his head on the Euston Arch.’ The fat man wheezed with pleasure at himself. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘I am Devil Wix.’

The dwarf hovered in Devil’s line of sight, gesturing to him to shut up.

‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

‘Why not? You are an impresario and I am a stage magician.’

Carlo gestured more urgently. Jacko Grady displayed no sign of interest and Devil thought, Six months. That’s about as long as you’ll last as the manager of your Palmyra. Money is the only thing that interests you.

Devil strolled to Carlo’s table and picked up the opera hat. He showed the empty interior to Grady, made a pass and extracted the dwarf’s scissors from their concealed place. Then he reached into his coat pocket and took out his own forcing pack of cards. He flexed his fingers, expertly shuffling so the cards danced and poured through his hands. He fanned them and offered the pack to Grady.

‘Any card. Memorise it and put it back.’

Grady yawned again, but did so. Devil shuffled again and then spun in a tight circle. He flung the cards in the air, brandished Carlo’s scissors and snipped clean through a card as it fell. Then he dropped to his knees and retrieved the cut halves. He held them up.

‘Ten of diamonds?’

Grady nodded. Devil gathered up the fallen cards and placed the cut card in the middle. He shuffled once more and held out the fanned pack. Grady’s thick forefinger hesitated, withdrew, hovered and then pointed. The card he chose was the ten of diamonds, made whole again.

The only sound that greeted this was Grady’s chair creaking under his weight.

Devil coaxed him, ‘We have some time between other engagements, Mr Boldoni and I. Try us out, Mr Grady, and we’ll put our new box trick on for your customers before anyone else in England sees it.’

Carlo’s signals grew more imperative but he held still as soon as Grady turned his glare on them.

‘What’s this new box trick?’

Devil improvised rapidly. ‘Ah, the Sphinx and the Pyramid? Mystery, comedy and Arabian glamour all in one playlet. Don’t tell me that’s not made for the Palmyra. There’s a lot of interest from other theatres. You’ll regret it if you let another management snitch us from under your very nose …’

Grady still spoke to Carlo. ‘All right. If I don’t see anyone better in the meantime I’ll put your act on when we open. Half a crown a performance, and you’ll play when I tell you to whether it suits you or not. That’s for you and your assistant, Satan or whatever he calls himself.’

Carlo ran forward and stood in front of Grady’s chair, legs apart and fists on his hips.

‘Five bob.’

Grady spat out a laugh that turned into a phlegmy cough. Carlo’s face turned livid with anger.

‘I said five bob. I won’t do it for less.’

Grady finished his coughing into a handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘Then don’t do it at all. It’s no trouble to me, I assure you.’

Devil smoothly interposed himself, dropping a reassuring hand on Carlo’s shoulder.

‘I am Mr Baldano’s manager as well as his assistant.’

‘I thought he said Boldoni.’

‘… And we are prepared to work for half a crown a show, with just one small stipulation.’

‘What might that be?’

‘For every show we appear in that plays to more than eighty per cent capacity, Boldoni and Wix take a percentage of the box office.’

‘What percentage?’

Devil hastily ran figures through his head. Bargaining against calculations of this sort had previously only taken place in his wilder fantasies, but his fertile imagination meant that was fully prepared.

‘Ten.’

Jacko Grady looked cunning. Clearly he thought that the likelihood of playing regularly to houses more than eighty per cent full, against all the competition from taverns and music halls in the nearby streets, was sufficiently remote as not to be worrisome.

‘All right.’

Carlo and Wix presented their hands and the fat man ungraciously shook.

‘I’ll bring a paper for you to sign. Just to be businesslike,’ Devil said. Grady only swore and told them to get out of his sight.

Darkness had fallen. Carlo and Devil stood with Carlo’s stage props and boxes in their arms as the tides of vehicles and pedestrians swept past along the Strand.

Carlo was boiling with fury. Devil thought the dwarf might be about to kick him and he tried not to laugh out loud.

The dwarf spluttered, ‘The Sphinx and the Pyramid? What blooming rubbish. What’s Grady going to say? We haven’t got any Arabian box trick.’

‘Then we’d better get one. You talk about your new trick, all your own work. We can dress that up, whatever it is, with a few frills. We’ll start tomorrow. Where’s your workshop?’

‘I haven’t got a damned workshop. You had to buy me my dinner. I haven’t even got anywhere to sleep tonight.’

Devil looked down at him. The dwarf was defiant.

‘You told me you had a job already, starting tomorrow?’

‘I 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.

TWO

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. His short spine telescoped further, his shoulders rose towards his ears as his arms wrapped round his torso. Devil had to lower the boards, and lower them again as Carlo shrank into a ball of muscle.

‘That’s good. That’s really very good,’ he said. He was impressed. The dwarf had compressed his body into a space that seemed hardly more than a foot square.

‘Watch me,’ Carlo snapped. He breathed in deeply, exhaled, and reduced himself by another inch in all directions.

‘Stop,’ Devil laughed. ‘I am afraid that you will vanish altogether. Can you still speak and move your head?’

‘Of course.’

The dwarf’s head, which was not undersized, rotated freely above the boards. There was no sign of physical strain in his face and his voice was as smooth as cream.

The ribbon of gold in Devil’s head looped and tied itself off into a giant bow.

He put the boards aside and silently admired the way that Carlo unfolded his limbs before stretching his little body upright again.

‘There is just one detail.’

Carlo tipped his head. ‘What’s that?’

‘Your size.’

‘What? My size is our money.’

‘It will provide a significant contribution to our funds, I agree. I acknowledge that. My skills as an actor, as the master magician who will conjure your smallness, will be another invaluable element. I am also our financial negotiator, as you know.’

‘Hah,’ sniffed Carlo.

‘And all my experience dictates that your stature should be our stage secret.’

‘What do you mean by that? I am not ashamed. I want the world to know who I am, Carlo Boldoni, straight from performing before the crowned heads of …’

‘Quite,’ Devil said. ‘I am only suggesting that to reveal your stature to the public would be to take away some of the intrigue of the illusion.’

There was a silence. Carlo’s personal vanity and ambition strained visibly.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘For this trick, to appear onstage as a full-sized man. Is there perhaps a way you can do that?’

‘Hah,’ Carlo sniffed again. He made a return to his baggage and this time brought out a pair of wooden struts with shaped foot-pieces at either end. Devil watched with interest as he sank to fit these stilts to his boots, then used Devil’s long leg as a prop to haul himself upright again. Their eyes met almost on a level.

‘Walk,’ Devil ordered.

The stilt-walk was well practised, tinged with swagger, like everything Carlo did.

‘That’s good. Very good,’ Devil said again. ‘You could use those to step out in the world like a normal man, couldn’t you?’

Carlo’s face went dark. ‘I am a normal man. My body is the same as yours, bar its length. My feelings are the same as yours and all, except I’m too mannerly to tell you that you’re an ignorant numpty. Until you force me to do so, that is.’

Devil kept a straight face. ‘I am very sorry, and you are quite right. I was rude and tactless. Will you forgive me?’

He held out his hand and after only a moment’s hesitation the dwarf extended his own and they shook. This was a significant moment and they both chose to ignore it.

‘So I get a costume?’ Carlo persisted.

‘Allow me time to work out the details of our drama, and we will have the finest costume in London sewn for you.’

Then Devil unbuttoned his waistcoat and put it aside before rolling up his shirtsleeves. From the heap of timbers he selected and held up one pair of cheap chair legs, roughly turned and bristling with splinters. He was no master carpenter, but he had built plenty of stage devices in the past. This one would have to be the best of them.

‘Let’s get to work,’ he said.

The lantern light threw up their shadows, large and small, against the dirty wall. For the rest of the night the coffin maker’s workshop was as loud with the sounds of sawing and hammering as during the daylight hours.

Dawn was breaking when the two men finally emerged into the street. Carlo was grey with fatigue, rubbing his face and stretching to ease his aching body. Devil looked as alert and handsome as he had done before their night’s work started.

‘I will need a coffin myself if I don’t get some rest,’ Carlo grumbled. ‘I’m going back to your place for a sleep.’

‘I shall see you later,’ Devil replied.

He walked through the tiny alleys and the crowded courts of the area that housed timber merchants, furniture makers, metalworkers, printers and block makers, and emerged into Clerkenwell Road. The sky lightened from grey to pearl and the cobbles underfoot glistened with damp. Birdsong rose from the eaves of the houses and the trees in St John’s Square, competing with the rumble of carters’ wheels. Devil walked slowly, savouring the bite of the chill air and the smell of frying kidneys that drifted from an open window. In Farringdon Road the omnibuses were already crowded and a steady stream of black-coated clerks flowed out of the railway station. Devil was washed along in the tide of men, passing under the florid ironwork of the new viaduct and on down to Ludgate Circus. When he glanced up Ludgate Hill he saw that the dome of St Paul’s was rinsed in the glowing light of the rising sun. He stopped to admire the view. It didn’t often occur to him that the city was beautiful. In general he thought it was the opposite but today, with the satisfaction of a good night’s work completed and the gold ribbon decorating his dreams, he saw its richness and promise reflected in all the domes and roofs and sun-gilded windows.

He was whistling with satisfaction as he paced along the Strand and reached the Palmyra theatre at last.

The frontage looked the same, still boarded up and whiskered with buddleia stalks. Down the side alley, however, there was a change. A heavy new door had been fitted, secured with iron hinges and locks. For good measure a padlock and chain were attached to a massive bolt. That was all good. The threshold and step were spread with sawdust. Devil stooped down and rubbed the damp grains between his fingers. There was work being undertaken here, just as there was at the coffin maker’s. Then, not hoping for anything, he put his shoulder to the door and pushed. It didn’t yield even by a fraction. He resorted to thumping on the door panels but no response came except from a knot of urchins looking out for trouble at the street corner.

‘Ain’t nobody in, mister,’ they jeered. ‘Forgot yer key, did yer?’

They raced away as soon as Devil headed for them. He walked along the flank of the building, running his fingertips over the flaking paint and crumbling stonework. The old theatre seemed to breathe in response to his touch.

‘Here I am,’ he muttered to it. ‘And we’ll see what we shall see, eh?’

Recalling the dim interior, he wanted nothing more than to explore the place properly, in daylight, and without the vulgar insistence of Jacko Grady at his shoulder. For one thing, the box trick he and Carlo had in mind would require trapdoors, and other installations beneath whatever kind of stage would replace the ruined one. He needed to inspect the whole area and take measurements for the construction of his cabinet. Clearly, though, this wasn’t going to happen today. He bestowed a last touch on one of the fluted pilasters flanking the ruined front doors, and looked upwards to the little cupola surmounting the building. He touched the brim of his bowler.