The Empress of India

by Michael Kurland

  He snatched another object out of the air, and then another and another, tossing each into the pot with a great clinking sound. He came to the edge of the stage and reached out over the audience, and grabbed. A gold coin appeared in his hand. He twisted it around and through his fingers, and bent down to show it to the mother of the two eight-year-old children sitting in the front row. He handed it to her and indicated that she should examine it, which she did, that she should try to bend it and flex it to make sure it was solid, which she did. That she should bite it, which she declined to do. She handed it back to him and he tossed it in the pot. Chunk.

  And another. Clink. And another. Clink. You could see the gold coins appearing in his hand, appearing out of empty air, and hear them as they were thrown into the pot. Chunk. And then rapidly, one after the other, as fast as he could grab: clink, clink, clink, chunk, clink. And then he put the pot on the stage in front of him and reached up with both hands and a cascade of shiny gold coins rained into the pot.

  Then he smiled and shrugged, as if to say it was nothing, any master of the mantic arts could have done the same. He picked up the pot and held it over the front row and poured—and nothing came out. The pot was once more as empty as it had been. The gold coins vanishing into air, into thin air.

  He bowed for his applause. It came.

  Mamarum then clapped his hands thrice, and an assistant—a young Indian lad clad in an oversized dhoti—came out carrying a rolled-up rug perhaps six feet wide and ten feet long, which he proceeded to unroll in the middle of the stage. He then raced offstage to return with a wicker basket about large enough to hold a small goat if it lay down and curled up, which he carefully centered on the rug.

  Mamarum pulled the top off the basket with a flourish and pointed the opening toward the audience so they could see inside. It was an empty wicker basket. Putting it back down with yet another flourish, he reached into it and pulled out a long red scarf. There was a slight gasp of surprise, but not a large one. After all, it was only a scarf—easy to conceal—we didn’t look that closely in the basket, did we?

  Waving the scarf gently, so that it rippled in front of him as he walked, Mamarum left the stage. He came down the central aisle, looking to the left and right, peering into the audience, considering, until about halfway down he stopped by the side of an attractive though stern-faced young lady. He offered her the end of the scarf. She took it tentatively. He pulled on it, urging her to stand up and come along. She let go of the scarf and shook her head.

  Mamarum shook his head questioningly and shrugged. Smiling that it was all right, he continued down the aisle to the last row and offered the end of the scarf to Lady Priscilla. She shrank from it. He nodded encouragingly. She took the end delicately, unsurely. He nodded his encouragement again and pulled gently. She stood up as one hypnotized and, clutching the scarf, followed him back up the aisle until they reached the stage.

  Lieutenant Welles was not happy. He glowered at Mamarum. “Why the bloody hell she agreed to this is more than I know,” he muttered.

  The lieutenant, Margaret decided, was jealous. Not a good trait in a suitor.

  Mamarum the Great took Lady Priscilla’s scarf hand and kissed it in a proper, respectful, and genteel manner and led her by the hand onto the stage. In the back row, unnoticed, Lieutenant Welles growled.

  With gestures and silent encouragement, Mamarum had Lady Priscilla step into the wicker basket and lie down, smoothing her outer garments and curling up until she was out of sight within the basket. Mamarum picked up the lid and, with a swift, practiced motion, set it on the basket. A few in the audience saw that he had allowed an apparently unnoticed few inches of the fold of Lady Priscilla’s dress to stick out at the join of lid and basket.

  The assistant now returned to the stage, wheeling out a rack holding about a dozen long, sharp swords with bejeweled handles. Mamarum and the assistant pushed the rack to the front of the stage and allowed several people in the front row to examine the swords and feel their points and edges. Mamarum then pointed to various people farther from the stage and silently invited them to come forward and examine the weapons. Several did at first and then, impelled by curiosity and a desire to be one of the knowledgeable few, a sizable number left their seats and came to the edge of the stage to see and feel for themselves that the swords were, indeed, swords. Several were actually invited onstage where, for the edification of the rest of the audience, they pulled, pushed, and prodded the various swords to demonstrate that they were real, solid, and sharp.

  When the audience members, satisfied that there was no trickery at least in the edged weapon part of the illusion, returned to their seats, Mamarum picked up one of the swords, slapped the flat edge against his open palm to reemphasize the hard-steel reality of the blade, and then thrust it quickly and roughly through the wicker basket until its point protruded through the other side.

  Rapidly, and with a smooth economy of motion, Mamarum circled the basket, thrusting swords through the wicker high and low, until the basket was crisscrossed with swords, and it was clear that nobody inside could have escaped being pierced by at least one of the blades, and probably a good half dozen.

  The audience knew they were being fooled, but they were caught up in the spectacle, and in the story of what was supposed to be happening, and they waited breathlessly to see how it came out. Then, as Mamarum placed the last sword, there was a murmur from some of those watching, an excited whisper, a gasp here, a sharp intake of breath there. For what Mamarum seemed not to have noticed as he danced around the basket was the trickle of blood coming through the side of the basket, staining the wicker, dripping onto the carefully placed rug.

  That was too much for Lieutenant Welles, who suddenly jumped to his feet. “Damn you,” he bellowed, “you bloody wog, can’t you see what you’re doing? Get her out of that thing!”

  Startled, Mamarum stopped circling the basket to peer out into the audience. “Beg pardon?” he said calmly. Only the fact that he had spoken at all showed the intense emotion the taunt must have provoked in him.

  The spell was broken. The magician had spoken.

  “The girl—you’ve cut her,” someone yelled.

  “There’s blood all over the place,” contributed someone else.

  An angry woman’s voice trebled, “My God, my God! What a tragedy!”

  A surge of anger and panic swept the audience and some jumped to their feet, some pushed themselves up heavily from their chairs. Most remained frozen in their seats, but there was no telling how long their hesitation would last.

  Mamarum threw up his hands in despair. “Patience, my friends,” he said in a surprisingly loud and powerful voice. “The illusion was to end otherwise, with a drawing out of the swords and much ceremony. But you would have it thus.” And with that he tilted the basket toward the audience and pulled off the lid.

  The nested swords gleamed and sparkled in the spotlight’s beam, and Lady Priscilla . . .

  . . . was not there.

  The swords pierced empty air, the rag that had seemed part of Lady Priscilla’s dress was just a small silk rag, and the blood on the basket’s side had come from nowhere, as far as anyone could see.

  “You see?” Mamarum’s voice carried through the room. “No unnecessary spilling of blood. No one injured. Only a disappearing lady, the very essence of magic, the heart of the mystery. Where is she? I leave that to you to solve!” And with that Mamarum turned and walked slowly and deliberately off the stage.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” said the Artful Codger. “I seen her climb into that there basket, and I had my eye on it the whole time since, and she sure ain’t in it now.”

  “It’s all done with mirrors,” said Cooley the Pup with the air of a man who’s in the know.

  Pin turned to Cooley. “Really?” he asked. “And just where were these mirrors placed?”

  “Maybe there was a trick bottom in the basket,” offered the Codger. “And she dropped through a trap in th
e stage.”

  “That’s what I said,” the Pup agreed, nodding. “Mirrors.”

  “Notice the lovely Kasham rug that the magician thoughtfully placed under the basket,” Pin said with just a trace of irony in his voice. “Perhaps there’s a trapdoor in it, also.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed the Codger, who was invincible to irony.

  The audience was still balanced in their seats, unsure whether to go forward or back, when someone in the back of the room started to applaud. And then someone else took up the clapping, and another, and another, and the applause became general and anger and apprehension were forgotten and everyone sat back down in their seats and relished the way they had been fooled.

  “You’re so clever,” Margaret said, touching Peter’s arm.

  Peter turned to her. “What?”

  “Starting to clap like that. You may have prevented a riot.”

  “Sheer genius,” Peter admitted modestly.

  Lieutenant Welles was still standing, and looking around the room like a marksman seeking a target. “Where is she?” he asked the room. “If the wog’s so bloody smart, what has he done with her?”

  It seemed like a good question, and was about to be answered. The wog in question had returned to the stage and was peering out into the audience. “Lady Priscilla!” he called. “Come forth now, please!” When he got no response, he jumped down from the stage, looking puzzled. “She should be at the back of the room,” he said.

  “How’d she get there, then?” called someone.

  “Perhaps we should wonder about that later,” Mamarum replied. “For now, let’s see where she, indeed, is at this moment.”

  The lights came up in the room, and everyone looked around. Lady Priscilla was nowhere to be seen.

  “She should have come back in through that door,” Mamarum said, pointing to a door on the right side rear of the large room.

  “How’d she get back there?” the man demanded again.

  Mamarum struggled for an answer. A magician never reveals his secrets. “Later,” he said finally.

  “Well, she’s not here. So where is she?” Lieutenant Welles demanded.

  Mamarum shrugged. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Perhaps you frightened her away.”

  Welles took two steps toward Mamarum, and then reconsidered and stopped. “I’ll settle with you later,” he said. “We have to find Priscilla!” He trotted toward the indicated door, an invincible force in his blue and white Lancers’ uniform.

  From somewhere on the ship, outside the room, came the distant sound of a sharp explosion. A shot? A firecracker? People in the audience stood up and murmured to each other, but none seemed to have any clear idea of what to do.

  Welles reached the door and pushed. Nothing happened. He jiggled the handle and pushed again. Nothing happened.

  “Who locked the door?” Welles demanded sharply. “What the bloody hell is going on here?”

  “Please, sir,” an elderly man in a frock coat admonished him. “Watch your language! There are ladies present.”

  Welles stopped and turned. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I do apologize for my profanity, but as we seem to be locked in here, for no discernible reason, and with one of our group missing, I thought it proper for me to express my concern.” His voice had started low and intense, but it grew louder as he went on, ending in a bull roar. “If this is some sort of joke, it’s no longer funny. I’d suggest that whoever locked this door get over here right now and unlock it!”

  More sharp cracking sounds from outside, these seeming to come from a different direction.

  Audience members headed for all the exits. There were eight of them. They were all blocked. The ballroom was right next to the promenade deck on “B” level, and six large windows fronted the deck. The metal weather shutters had been drawn over the windows to keep light out during the show. One of the ship’s officers broke the central window to get at the shutter. It had somehow been locked from the outside and would not budge. The hysteria mounted, and passengers broke out the other windows with the same result.

  “There’s something wrong,” Margaret said with heroic understatement, rising to her feet. “I think I’d better go find my father.”

  “There’s a lot wrong, if I’m any judge,” Peter told her. “I think your father’s going to be quite busy for the next little while. I’d suggest, if you don’t consider it too much of an imposition, that you stay with me.” He took her arm and pulled her back to the rear wall. “We’ll be out of the way here,” he said. “Which might be a good thing. Until we can figure a way out of this room.”

  Margaret turned to face him and saw that he had produced from somewhere a short, two-barreled pistol, which he held casually in his left hand, pointed at the floor. Her eyes widened, but she decided not to say anything about it now. Not now. “What do you think is happening?” she asked.

  “I’d say someone’s making a try for the gold,” he told her.

  “Blast!” said Pin. “I should have seen this coming.”

  Cooley the Pup pulled at a string fastened around his neck under his shirt, and a long, wicked-looking knife slid from its mooring up his sleeve and fell into his hand. He pulled off the thin leather sheath and discarded it. “You think this is it?” he asked.

  “They’ve got most of the passengers and crew in here,” Pin said, flexing his shoulders angrily. “What better moment to go after the gold?”

  “But look,” the Artful Codger objected. “There’s your pal the professor up there. If his men were taking the gold, wouldn’t he be with them?”

  Pin looked up at the stage, and saw Moriarty and Mummer Tolliver standing together at the left side, looking out at the auditorium, as though they were just as puzzled at what was happening as everybody else.

  “Clever!” Pin said. “I’ll give him that.”

  The Artful Codger had taken off his tie and slipped a pair of brass knuckle dusters on each hand. “We’d better get a move on,” he said. “The question is, where to and how?”

  Colonel Sebastian Moran made his way through the restive audience over to where Moriarty and the mummer were standing. “Well, Professor, you said someone would make a try for the gold before the trip was done, and it looks like you were right. I can’t think of anything else that could be happening, unless it’s the natives on the crew mutinying because their curry isn’t hot enough. But, if it is the gold, the question is who’s doing it, and how are they planning to manage it?”

  “I think we’d better do our best to put a stop to the attempt,” Moriarty told him.

  “Ah!” said Moran. “Then I’d best go see which of our companions in involuntary incarceration has devised the best chance of getting us out of here. I’ll be back in a trice.” He sprinted off toward the front, where several men were already pounding at the locked door.

  Moriarty looked thoughtful. “Perhaps we can turn the hueing and crying to our advantage, that is if we succeed in beating off these attackers.”

  “How so?” asked his small companion.

  “Mummer, I have a job for you.”

  “You mean I has to miss the fighting?” the mummer stamped his foot in irritation. “We short people never have any fun.”

  “You might find this exciting enough to satisfy you for a while,” Moriarty told him. “Here’s what I want you to do. . . .” And for the next two minutes he explained what had to be done.

  Moran returned a few minutes later. “It’s going to take them a while,” he said. “Perhaps we can find a quicker way out of here.”

  Another gunshot sounded in the distance.

  “Perhaps we’d better,” said Moriarty.

  TWENTY-TWO

  HUGGER-MUGGER

  If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

  But make allowance for their doubting too . . .

  —Rudyard Kipling

&
nbsp; At first it was not clear just who was trying to do what, and with what, and to whom. Captain Iskansen entered the Lancers officers’ dayroom at five after seven. “Not going to the big show, I see,” he said. General St. Yves and the two junior officers with him looked up from the oversized table strewn with documents.

  “Paperwork,” St. Yves said. “The bane of the military. Everything written down, signed, and filed, never to be looked at again. Not that the idea of watching dowagers sing or juveniles play the piano is that compelling. What can I do for you, Captain?”

  “I thought the question was what I can do for you,” Iskansen said. “I was informed that you wished to see me. What do you need?”

  St. Yves pushed his chair away from the desk. “I wanted to see you? Who said so?”

  “Why, one of the stewards told the first officer, who told me.” Captain Iskansen frowned. “Is this some sort of joke?”

  “Not on my part,” St. Yves assured him, rising to his feet. “We’d better get to the bottom of this.” He turned to the two subalterns. “Lieutenant McPride, take over in here. See to the changing of the guard if I’m not back in time. Lieutenant Pinton, come with me.”

  A pair of white-coated stewards appeared in the doorway holding pewter trays under their arms and Webley service revolvers, which were pointed toward the officers, in their hands. “Pliz, I beg of you, remain quiet and stay contentedly where you are,” one of the stewards said firmly. “We would not like to have the shooting of you.”

  St. Yves sat slowly back down. No point in charging a man with a Webley. Good revolver, the Webley. Great stopping power. “What do you blighters want?” he demanded, trying to put a veneer of nonchalance over what was actually more anger than fear.

  “Only just for you to remain where it is you are,” the steward told him. “All of you. Pliz.”

  Lieutenant McPride, a beefy, red-faced young man with that lack of fear and common sense so useful in junior officers, started forward. “Damn you! You can’t just—”