by Edith Nesbit
Gerald went up to the woman.
“Taken much?” he asked, and was told, but not harshly, to go away with his impudence.
“I’m in business myself,” said Gerald, “I’m a conjurer, from India.”
“Not you!” said the woman; “you ain’t no conjurer. Why, the backs of yer ears is all white.”
“Are they?” said Gerald. “How clever of you to see that!” He rubbed them with his hands. “That better?”
“That’s all right. What’s your little game?”
“Conjuring, really and truly,” said Gerald. “There’s smaller boys than me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about my ears. If you like to run the show for me I’ll go shares. Let me have your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at the door.”
“Lor’ love you! I can’t do no patter. And you’re getting at me. Let’s see you do a bit of conjuring, since you’re so clever an’ all.”
“Right you are,” said Gerald firmly. “You see this apple? Well, I’ll make it move slowly through the air, and then when I say ‘Go!’ it’ll vanish.”
“Yes—into your mouth! Get away with your nonsense.”
“You’re too clever to be so unbelieving,” said Gerald. “Look here! ”
He held out one of the little apples, and the woman saw it move slowly and unsupported along the air.
“Now—go!” cried Gerald, to the apple, and it went. “How’s that?” he asked, in tones of triumph.
The woman was glowing with excitement, and her eyes shone. “The best I ever see!” she whispered. “I’m on, mate, if you know any more tricks like that.”
“You’re getting at me”
“Heaps,” said Gerald confidently; “hold out your hand.” The woman held it out; and from nowhere, as it seemed, the apple appeared and was laid on her hand. The apple was rather damp.
She looked at it a moment, and then whispered: “Come on! there’s to be no one in it but just us two. But not in the tent. You take a pitch here, ’longside the tent. It’s worth twice the money in the open air.”
“But people won’t pay if they can see it all for nothing.”
“Not for the first turn, but they will after—you see. And you’ll have to do the patter.”
“Will you lend me your shawl?” Gerald asked. She unpinned it—it was a red and black plaid—and he spread it on the ground as he had seen Indian conjurers do, and seated himself cross-legged behind it.
“I mustn’t have anyone behind me, that’s all,” he said; and the woman hastily screened off a little enclosure for him by hanging old sacks to two of the guy-ropes of the tent. “Now I’m ready,” he said. The woman got a drum from the inside of the tent and beat it. Quite soon a little crowd had collected.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Gerald, “I come from India, and I can do a conjuring entertainment the like of which you’ve never seen. When I see two shillings on the shawl I’ll begin.”
“I dare say you will!” said a bystander; and there were several short, disagreeable laughs.
“Of course,” said Gerald, “if you can’t afford two shillings between you”—there were about thirty people in the crowd by now—“I say no more.”
Two or three pennies fell on the shawl, then a few more, then the fall of copper ceased.
“Ninepence,” said Gerald. “Well, I’ve got a generous nature. You’ll get such a ninepennyworth as you’ve never had before. I don’t wish to deceive you—I have an accomplice, but my accomplice is invisible.”
The crowd snorted.
“By the aid of that accomplice,” Gerald went on, “I will read any letter that any of you may have in your pocket. If one of you will just step over the rope and stand beside me, my invisible accomplice will read that letter over his shoulder.”
A man stepped forward, a ruddy-faced, horsy-looking person. He pulled a letter from his pocket and stood plain in the sight of all, in a place where everyone saw that no one could see over his shoulder.
“Now!” said Gerald. There was a moment’s pause. Then from quite the other side of the enclosure came a faint, faraway, sing-song voice. It said:
“ ‘SIR,—Yours of the fifteenth duly to hand. With regard to the mortgage on your land, we regret our inability—’ ”
“Stow it!” cried the man, turning threateningly on Gerald.
“Stow it!” cried the man
He stepped out of the enclosure explaining that there was nothing of that sort in his letter; but nobody believed him, and a buzz of interested chatter began in the crowd, ceasing abruptly when Gerald began to speak.
“Now,” said he, laying the nine pennies down on the shawl, “you keep your eyes on those pennies, and one by one you’ll see them disappear.”
And of course they did. Then one by one they were laid down again by the invisible hand of Mabel. The crowd clapped loudly. “Bravo!” “That’s something like!” “Show us another!” cried the people in the front rank. And those behind pushed forward.
“Now,” said Gerald, “you’ve seen what I can do, but I don’t do any more till I see five shillings on this carpet.”
And in two minutes seven-and-threepence lay there and Gerald did a little more conjuring.
When the people in front didn’t want to give any more money, Gerald asked them to stand back and let the others have a look in. I wish I had time to tell you of all the tricks he did—the grass round his enclosure was absolutely trampled off by the feet of the people who thronged to look at him. There is really hardly any limit to the wonders you can do if you have an invisible accomplice. All sorts of things were made to move about, apparently by themselves, and even to vanish—into the folds of Mabel’s clothing. The woman stood by, looking more and more pleasant as she saw the money come tumbling in, and beating her shabby drum every time Gerald stopped conjuring.
The news of the conjurer had spread all over the fair. The crowd was frantic with admiration. The man who ran the coconut shies begged Gerald to throw in his lot with him; the owner of the rifle gallery offered him free board and lodging and go shares; and a brisk, broad lady, in stiff black silk and a violet bonnet, tried to engage him for the forthcoming Bazaar for Reformed Bandsmen.
And all this time the others mingled with the crowd—quite unobserved, for who could have eyes for anyone but Gerald? It was getting quite late, long past tea-time, and Gerald, who was getting very tired indeed, and was quite satisfied with his share of the money, was racking his brains for a way to get out of it.
“How are we to hook it?” he murmured, as Mabel made his cap disappear from his head by the simple process of taking it off and putting it in her pocket. “They’ll never let us get away. I didn’t think of that before.”
“Let me think!” whispered Mabel; and next moment she said, close to his ear: “Divide the money, and give her something for the shawl. Put the money on it and say ...” She told him what to say.
Gerald’s pitch was in the shade of the tent; otherwise, of course, everyone would have seen the shadow of the invisible Mabel as she moved about making things vanish.
Gerald told the woman to divide the money, which she did honestly enough.
“Now,” he said, while the impatient crowd pressed closer and closer, “I’ll give you five bob for your shawl.”
“Seven-and-six,” said the woman mechanically.
“Righto!” said Gerald, putting his heavy share of the money in his trouser pocket.
“This shawl will now disappear,” he said, picking it up. He handed it to Mabel, who put it on; and, of course, it disappeared. A roar of applause went up from the audience.
“Now,” he said, “I come to the last trick of all. I shall take three steps backwards and vanish.” He took three steps backwards, Mabel wrapped the invisible shawl round him, and—he did not vanish. The shawl, being invisible, did not conceal him in the least.
“Yah!” cried a boy’s voice in the crowd. “Look at ‘im! ’E knows ’e can’t do it.”
“I wish I could put you in my pocket,” said Mabel. The crowd was crowding closer. At any moment they might touch Mabel, and then anything might happen—simply anything. Gerald took hold of his hair with both hands, as his way was when he was anxious or discouraged. Mabel, in invisibility, wrung her hands, as people are said to do in books; that is, she clasped them and squeezed very tight.
“Oh!” she whispered suddenly, “it’s loose. I can get it off.”
“Not—”
“Yes—the ring.”
“Come on, young master. Give us summat for our money,” a farm labourer shouted.
“I will,” said Gerald. “This time I really will vanish. Slip round into the tent,” he whispered to Mabel. “Push the ring under the canvas. Then slip out at the back and join the others. When I see you with them I’ll disappear. Go slow, and I’ll catch you up.”
“It’s me,” said a pale and obvious Mabel in the ear of Kathleen. “He’s got the ring; come on, before the crowd begins to scatter.”
As they went out of the gate they heard a roar of surprise and annoyance rise from the crowd, and knew that this time Gerald really had disappeared.
They had gone a mile before they heard footsteps on the road, and looked back. No one was to be seen.
Next moment Gerald’s voice spoke out of clear, empty-looking space.
“Halloa!” it said gloomily.
“How horrid!” cried Mabel; “you did make me jump! Take the ring off; it makes me feel quite creepy, you being nothing but a voice.”
“So did you us,” said Jimmy.
“Don’t take it off yet,” said Kathleen, who was really rather thoughtful for her age, “because you’re still blackleaded,da I suppose, and you might be recognized, and eloped with by gipsies, so that you should go on doing conjuring for ever and ever.”
“I should take it off,” said Jimmy; “it’s no use going about invisible, and people seeing us with Mabel and saying we’ve eloped with her.”
“Yes,” said Mabel impatiently, “that would be simply silly. And, besides, I want my ring.”
“It’s not yours any more than ours, anyhow,” said Jimmy.
“Yes, it is,” said Mabel.
“Oh, stow it!” said the weary voice of Gerald beside her. “What’s the use of jawing?”
“I want the ring,” said Mabel, rather mulishly.
“Want”—the words came out of the still evening air—“want must be your master. You can’t have the ring. I can’t get it off!”
CHAPTER IV
The difficulty was not only that Gerald had got the ring on and couldn’t get it off, and was therefore invisible, but that Mabel, who had been invisible and therefore possible to be smuggled into the house, was now plain to be seen and impossible for smuggling purposes.
The children would have not only to account for the apparent absence of one of themselves, but for the obvious presence of a perfect stranger.
“I can’t go back to aunt. I can’t and I won’t,” said Mabel firmly, “not if I was visible twenty times over.”
“She’d smell a rat if you did,” Gerald owned—“about the motor-car, I mean, and the adopting lady. And what we’re to say to Mademoiselle about you—!” He tugged at the ring.
“Suppose you told the truth,” said Mabel meaningly.
“She wouldn’t believe it,” said Cathy; “or, if she did, she’d go stark, staring, raving mad.”
“No,” said Gerald’s voice, “we daren’t tell her. But she’s really rather decent. Let’s ask her to let you stay the night because it’s too late for you to get home.”
“That’s all right,” said Jimmy, “but what about you?”
“I shall go to bed,” said Gerald, “with a bad headache. Oh, that’s not a lie! I’ve got one right enough. It’s the sun, I think. I know blacklead attracts the concentration of the sun.”
“More likely the pears and the gingerbread,” said Jimmy unkindly. “Well, let’s get along. I wish it was me was invisible. I’d do something different from going to bed with a silly headache, I know that.”
“What would you do?” asked the voice of Gerald just behind him.
“Do keep in one place, you silly cuckoo!” said Jimmy. “You make me feel all jumpy.” He had indeed jumped rather violently. “Here, walk between Cathy and me.”
“What would you do?” repeated Gerald, from that apparently unoccupied position.
“I’d be a burglar,” said Jimmy
Cathy and Mabel in one breath reminded him how wrong burgling was, and Jimmy replied:
“Well, then—a detective.”
“There’s got to be something to detect before you can begin detectiving,” said Mabel.
“Detectives don’t always detect things,” said Jimmy, very truly. “If I couldn’t be any other kind I’d be a baffled detective. You could be one all right, and have no end of larks just the same. Why don’t you do it?”
“It’s exactly what I am going to do,” said Gerald. “We’ll go round by the police-station and see what they’ve got in the way of crimes.”
They did, and read the notices on the board outside. Two dogs had been lost, a purse, and a portfolio of papers “of no value to any but the owner.” Also Houghton Grange had been broken into and a quantity of silver plate stolen. “Twenty pounds reward offered for any information that may lead to the recovery of the missing property.”
“That burglary’s my lay,”db said Gerald; “I’ll detect that. Here comes Johnson,” he added; “he’s going off duty. Ask him about it. The fell detective, being invisible, was unable to pump the constable, but the young brother of our hero made the inquiries in quite a creditable manner. Be creditable, Jimmy.”
Jimmy hailed the constable.
“Halloa, Johnson!” he said.
And Johnson replied: “Halloa, young shaver!”dc
“Shaver yourself!” said Jimmy, but without malice.
“What are you doing this time of night?” the constable asked jocosely. “All the dicky birds is gone to their little nesteses.”
“We’ve been to the fair,” said Kathleen. “There was a conjurer there. I wish you could have seen him.”
“Heard about him,” said Johnson; “all fake, you know. The quickness of the ’and deceives the hi.”
“What’s that?” the policeman asked quickly
Such is fame. Gerald, standing in the shadow, jingled the loose money in his pocket to console himself
“What’s that?” the policeman asked quickly.
“Our money jingling,” said Jimmy, with perfect truth.
“It’s well to be some people,” Johnson remarked; “wish I’d got my pockets full to jingle with.”
“Well, why haven’t you?” asked Mabel. “Why don’t you get that twenty pounds reward?”
“I’ll tell you why I don’t. Because in this ’ere realm of liberty, and Britannia ruling the waves, you ain’t allowed to arrest a chap on suspicion, even if you know puffickly well who done the job.”
“What a shame!” said Jimmy warmly. “And who do you think did it?”
“I don’t think—I know” Johnson’s voice was ponderous as his boots. “It’s a man what’s known to the police on account of a heap o’ crimes he’s done, but we never can’t bring it ‘ome to ’im, nor yet get sufficient evidence to convict.”
“Well,” said Jimmy, “when I’ve left school I’ll come to you and be apprenticed, and be a detective. Just now I think we’d better get home and detect our supper. Good night!”
They watched the policeman’s broad form disappear through the swing door of the police-station; and as it settled itself into quiet again the voice of Gerald was heard complaining bitterly.
“You’ve no more brains than a halfpenny bun,” he said; “no details about how and when the silver was taken.”
“But he told us he knew,” Jimmy urged.
“Yes, that’s all you’ve got out of him. A silly policeman’s silly idea. Go home and detect yo
ur precious supper! It’s all you’re fit for.”
“What’ll you do about supper?” Mabel asked.
“Buns!” said Gerald, “halfpenny buns. They’ll make me think of my dear little brother and sister. Perhaps you’ve got enough sense to buy buns? I can’t go into a shop in this state.”
“Don’t you be so disagreeable,” said Mabel with spirit. “We did our best. If I were Cathy you should whistle for your nasty buns.”
“If you were Cathy the gallant young detective would have left home long ago. Better the cabin of a tramp steamer than the best family mansion that’s got a brawling sister in it,” said Gerald. “You’re a bit of an outsider at present, my gentle maiden. Jimmy and Cathy know well enough when their bold leader is chaffing and when he isn’t.”
“Not when we can’t see your face we don’t,” said Cathy, in tones of relief. “I really thought you were in a flaring wax, and so did Jimmy, didn’t you?”
“Oh, rot!” said Gerald. “Come on! This way to the bun shop.”
They went. And it was while Cathy and Jimmy were in the shop and the others were gazing through the glass at the jam tarts and Swiss rolls and Victoria sandwiches and Bath buns under the spread yellow muslin in the window, that Gerald discoursed in Mabel’s ear of the plans and hopes of one entering on a detective career.
“I shall keep my eyes open tonight, I can tell you,” he began. “I shall keep my eyes skinned, and no jolly error. The invisible detective may not only find out about the purse and the silver, but detect some crime that isn’t even done yet. And I shall hang about until I see some suspicious-looking characters leave the town, and follow them furtively and catch them red-handed, with their hands full of priceless jewels, and hand them over.”
“Oh!” cried Mabel, so sharply and suddenly that Gerald was roused from his dream to express sympathy.
“Pain?” he said quite kindly. “It’s the apples—they were rather hard.”
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Mabel very earnestly. “Oh, how awful! I never thought of that before.”
