Rosie Thomas - The Illusionists

When Carlo leaned over him Devil shielded his head with his hands, but his rival did not strike him. Instead he picked up the black basket and held it high in the air. More smoke coiled from the interior.

Carlo tipped the basket. There was no broken sword. Instead, a stream of golden coins cascaded over the evil philosopher’s body.

‘Here is your black heart’s desire,’ the good philosopher called. ‘You shall have no happiness from it.’

The curtain fell as clapping and whistling surged through the Palmyra.

Devil scrambled to his feet and embraced the sweating Carlo. His blood jigged in the euphoria of a successful performance.

‘You did well, my friend.’

Carlo swung an extended leg. ‘I did better than that. I am a hero. Let me see you fastening on stilts and then climbing a ladder into your costume, all in the space of two seconds.’

‘Yes, that was excellent. And I performed the sleights to the same standard.’

‘You were adequate.’

The curtain swept up, they took their bow and it fell again.

The stagehands ran on to collect the props. Devil and Carlo shook hands, although even this much appreciation was awkward. They hurried offstage together. Jacko Grady picked a shred of tobacco off his thick tongue and cleared his throat.

‘Too long,’ he growled. ‘They were restless out there. Make it faster tomorrow.’

‘How many seats sold?’ Devil pleasantly enquired.

‘One hundred and seven paid for.’

The capacity of the theatre was two hundred and fifty.

‘You should give us more stage time, not less. Word travels fast, Mr Grady. Tomorrow everyone will be talking about Boldoni and Wix.’

Figures relating to percentages danced between them. They stood on opposite sides of this barrier of numbers until Grady waved Devil and Carlo aside. The Swiss engineer Heinrich Bayer moved out on to the stage with the beautiful Lucie on his arm. The violinist began to play and the couple danced, Lucie’s shining hair curling over her white shoulders and Bayer bending his head as if to breathe in her perfume. Their timing was mechanically perfect, but Lucie’s smile was fixed and sadness drifted from her creator like mist rising from water.

A voice called from the back of the gallery.

‘What else does the lady do?’

Laughter broke out, interspersed with catcalls and coarse observations. Heinrich gave no sign of having heard them and Lucie continued to smile and rotate her head. The waltz ended and the band began to play a polka. Lucie danced the polka with just the same degree of elegant detachment.

The show concluded with a sentimental soprano. The audience had thinned out, the rump of it was growing ever more unruly, and when the final curtain came down it was to nobody’s particular regret. In his narrow cubbyhole of an office Jacko Grady took his seat behind a card table with a cash box set on it. Devil and Carlo waited at the midpoint of the queue of performers, having been engrossed in a card game with the comedy tenor and the male half of the acrobat duo. Carlo had won a shilling. The acrobat’s partner looked through her eyelashes at Devil as the press of performers nudged them together.

Miss Eliza Dunlop was also waiting. Her married sister Faith Shaw and Jasper Button were talking together, in the manner of people who did not know each other very well but who are concerned to be pleasant. At the end of the show Jasper had asked her, ‘Would you care to meet the good and evil philosophers in person, Eliza? You enjoyed their performance, I think.’

‘It was very gory,’ Faith shuddered.

‘It was the best act in the programme,’ Eliza said in her composed way.

‘It was, but that is not to say a very great deal,’ Jasper laughed.

‘And I am sure you know perfectly well that your wax head was the best thing about the best act,’ Eliza told him.

In fact, she had been astonished by the brio of the little playlet. The confident speed of it, and the smoke and flashing lights and drum rolls had been thrilling, and somehow affecting. It had also been macabre and not a little vulgar, of course, but still the illusion – however it had been achieved – was impressive.

‘Thank you,’ Jasper said, with evident pleasure.

Eliza liked Jasper reasonably well.

Faith’s husband Matthew Shaw was the manager at the Baker Street waxworks gallery, and one afternoon when the sisters had called on him there he had introduced the talented modeller to his wife’s younger sister. A little time later Eliza had been happy enough to accept Jasper’s invitation to accompany him to the opening of the new theatre of varieties, and Mrs Shaw made up the party while Matty stayed at home with their two small boys.

‘I am in no need of chaperoning, Faith,’ Eliza had protested. ‘I am a modern woman.’

‘You are indeed,’ Faith agreed, but she had come along just the same.

This threesome lingered for a few moments in the Palmyra’s foyer as a mob of overheated young men surged in the entrance, shouting to each other about where and how to continue their evening’s pleasures. Two of them took sudden offence and they squared up, swaying and jabbing until the theatre’s doorman bundled them out into the street. He was seeking to secure the premises, so along with the rougher elements of the audience Jasper’s party found themselves outside in the noise and glare of the Strand.

‘I think we shall make our way to the stage door and wait there for my friends,’ Jasper said quickly. He shepherded the two women a few steps to the alleyway that ran down the side of the theatre.

Eliza was not afraid of a pair of brawling inebriates, but she allowed Jasper to guide her. As soon as they turned the corner they were buffeted by a sharp wind that funnelled up from the river, carrying with it the stink of mud and horse manure and wet straw. The cobbles were greasy with the damp of a November evening, and they reflected the glimmer of a single torch burning in a holder next to the unmarked stage entrance. Jasper was about to knock when the door was suddenly flung open. A line of people emerged, but before she could distinguish them she became aware of more footsteps skidding down the slippery cobbles. Someone fell and loudly cursed, and another voice jeered, ‘Get up, Makins. See here, it’s the philosopher. Looking to cut off another couple of heads, are you?’

‘Whoa, and the dancer with the pretty doll. Where is she? In the box? Care to loan her, would you? I’ll teach her a different dance.’

‘Ha ha.’

Eliza saw a man in a threadbare coat throw himself across a trunk on a porter’s wooden cart. Two toughs wrenched his arms behind his back and tried to haul the trunk from underneath him.

More figures scuffled down the alley to reinforce the assailants and seconds later a proper fight erupted.

‘Get inside the door,’ Jasper called hoarsely to the two women. Faith did as she was told but Eliza stood her ground. She saw how Jasper pitched straight in alongside the man she recognised as the evil philosopher, as if they had both done this sort of work before. They made a useful pair of combatants. The ringleader staggered backwards from a punch delivered by the philosopher, and Jasper followed up with a series of jabs which obliged two others to abandon their attempt to wrestle open the trunk. Seemingly oblivious to the fighting, the man in the overcoat knelt to secure the catches, his pale hands shaking.

Eliza became aware that a considerable force was operating at a secondary level. She looked down and saw a miniature man, hardly more than three feet tall. He launched himself between the legs of the attackers, pummelling and kicking until one of them stopped short. This man swiped his coat-sleeve across his moustache, gasping in derision.