When at last she reached the floor, she was enveloped from head to toe in a cool blue flame. Amid the fire, she disappeared, only to emerge from a huge pagoda-shaped box at stage right. Now she was dressed in a gown of purest white, a black choker at her throat, her arms encased in sheer silk. She twirled about twice, not with the abandon of an Arabian princess but the grace and élan of a prima ballerina.
“My lords, ladies and gentlemen: I take the greatest of pleasure in introducing to you a young lady who is sure to ignite the imagination and quicken the heart with her beauty and daring! She has worked like a Trojan since the very hour of her predecessor’s disappearance, all so that she might please you in some small way. Judging by the wonders you have all just witnessed, I believe that she will.”
The beautiful redhead bowed to the audience. They rose as one person, clapping and stomping even longer and louder than they had for the “princess.” Alexander crossed to where she stood and took her hand.
“My lords, ladies and gentlemen—please join me in greeting Adelaide—Queen of Magic!”
She curtsied this time—and as she rose, doves as white as her dress flew from her hands. The men in the top balcony whistled and threw their hats at the stage. Women wept onto their pearls.
The remainder of the show went off perfectly.
Adelaide performed all of Noor’s duties to the letter. She carried Alexander’s cards and props, was beheaded, sawed in half, burned alive, and, in a new illusion entitled “After the Ball,” vanished while standing before a huge mirror. In performance, she was everything her predecessor was not. Where the princess had been brazen and provocative, Adelaide was fluid and angelic; if Princess Noor-Al-Haya had been the she-devil of magic, Adelaide Scarcez was its angel.
High above the stage in the left flies, Julius Meyer smiled bitterly. He had made all of these lies possible.
He had kidnapped Lady-Jane. He had ordered her drugged and imprisoned. Of course, there was no doubt this was required; with the Red Rose loose in England, it was likely they would all be dead in short order. By now she was in the center of the ocean, screaming in her little room. There she would remain until Prophet John and Wind Whistler made sight of land. Then they would drug her again, douse her with alcohol, and get her past customs—exactly the same way they they had smuggled her aboard.
Yes, it had all been necessary; but as Julius looked down to see his cousin dazzle his admirers, he wondered just how much of his crime had been committed in the service of love and chivalry, and how much for the benefit of the World’s Greatest Magician. He heard himself curse in a dozen languages.
The bulk of the act complete, Alexander walked to the apron of the stage, bowed, and once again begged for quiet.
“My good friends, I cannot tell you what this evening has meant to me. To find that the princess, so dear to me, is safe! To present to you a matchless new performer in the person of Adelaide, Queen of Magic! And to hear your enjoyment and appreciation of our work, I am overwhelmed.”
Alexander shot his cuffs in the air and produced a gilt-edged handkerchief as big as a tablecloth. He feigned tears and comically blew his nose in the enormous tissue. The audience laughed and clapped.
“But, magnanimous as you are, I also know that you have come here tonight to witness something never attempted before: a variation on the most deadly and dangerous of all illusions—a trick that, using only one bullet, has caused the unfortunate deaths of nearly fifty of my esteemed colleagues. Gentlemen?”
Alexander gestured stage left, and six men in military uniforms marched onto the stage. Each one carried a gleaming musket.
Julius watched as Alexander introduced the firing squad, extolling each man’s qualifications: this shooting medal, that military honor. He leaned against the iron balustrade as the magician called six members of the audience onstage and had each of them mark a musket ball with their initials.
Then, something else caught his eye.
In the backstage half-light, he saw a dark figure dressed in a monk’s robe and a facemask of inky black—the uniform of his cousin’s backstage assistants. At first, this seemed a normal function of the show. In the past hour, other black-garbed helpers had come and gone, aiding with various illusions. But at this moment, all of them—five young men now dressed in tie and tails—were assisting the audience members in the marking of their bullets.
In a flash, Julius realized that there should be no sixth man; and then saw that that man was not alone.
In his grasp was another dark figure. Across his mouth was a cloth to keep him silent, and girding his wrists were a pair of Alexander’s handcuffs. Beneath the gag, Julius could see the slash of a pointed black beard, and above it, clear blue eyes opened wide in panic. Without a sound, the black-robed man pushed his victim against the metal post used for the “Donkey’s Tail” illusion. Producing a length of rope from beneath his robe, the dark man proceeded to bind his prisoner to the stake. Now only the backdrop curtain stood between him and the muskets’ line of fire.
Julius leaned further forward until nearly half his body was over the iron railing. Then he nearly fell to the stage with the shock of recognition.
The man bound so securely was Compars Herrmann.
His mission completed, the black-robed figure vanished into the darkness backstage. Julius shouted for help, but the music of the orchestra and the laughter and applause of the audience drowned his voice. He looked to the stage and saw that Alexander was instructing his marksmen to load their guns.
As if shot from a cannon, Julius ran along the slender catwalk toward a cluster of thick ropes. He pulled on one and it came away in his hands, falling beneath the backstage eaves. He tugged on another and was met by the strong resistance of a sandbag at its end.
Desperate now, he yanked the third rope and felt it hold fast, its knot attached to a large curtain flap above him. He clambered to the top of the railing, gave the rope one more pull and launched himself at his target.
He flew into the darkness, the hemp knots hard against his hands. He crossed his legs around the rope for speed and then splayed them wide to brace his landing. His heels against the boards were like pistol shots, and caused a nervous titter to go up in the audience. Letting go of the rope, Julius raced at Compars and felt for the handcuffs, hoping that the black-robed man had not secured them around the post.
He had.
On stage, Alexander dismissed the audience participants, admonishing them to return to their seats for the sake of their safety.
“And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, these fine shootists will aim their muskets straight at your humble servant. I shall then attempt to catch all six musket balls in my mouth and present them to you on this fine English sterling platter. If all goes as planned, you shall have been witnesses to the most death-defying feat in the history of the dark arts; if they don’t, you will nonetheless have seen another historic event, the like of which, I daresay, occurs only once.”
Alexander turned toward the marksmen.
“Firing squad!” he shouted. “Are you ready?”
The men raised the muskets to their shoulders.
Behind the curtain, Julius pushed on the metal stake with all his strength, hoping to break the floorboards where its bolts had been attached. Through the gag, he could hear Compars moans of fear. Both of them knew that if the sixth assistant had placed him here, in the line of fire, then at least one or two—or perhaps even all of Alexander’s sugar bullets had been replaced by the genuine article.
“Aim!”
Julius now pushed against Compars, adding the magician’s weight to his own. With a strong shove, he heard a floorboard crack as one of the bolts gave way. He pushed again and the metal groaned, sending a second bolt skittering across the stage floor.
“Fire!”
The Great Herrmann puffed out his chest and stood stock-still. The cries and shouts of the ladies in the audience rose like a wave, and half the audience covered their ears. The sharp repo
rt of the six muskets was earsplitting. The stage of Egyptian Hall turned a smoky blue as their powder exploded.
39
THE LONGER BlLLY ROBINSON WORKED FOR ALEXANDER Herrmann, the more he was convinced the boss controlled forces other than the natural.
As one of his assistants, Billy knew how all the illusions worked. Some were highly complex, others deceptively simple; but it was Alexander’s ability to manipulate the physical world around him—its accepted truths and perceptions of reality—that truly amazed the boy. If the Great Herrmann said an Indian was an Arabian, the world believed him. If he pronounced a girl whose parents still lived an orphan, his truth prevailed.
But Billy still had trouble working out why the events of the previous evening had not become the scandal of London and the nation. Treachery had gone undetected and murder narrowly averted; it was just the sort of thing reporters lived on.
And yet the morning’s papers carried no news of the debacle save for the surprising information that Compars had failed to appear for his performance. For the past week, the press had made much of the competition between the two siblings and how each had promised the public a trick so astounding that stage magic, if not all the show business, would forever be altered. With Compars a no-show, a firestorm of criticism and scorn was unleashed on the elder Herrmann. Fellow magicians gathered in Hyde Park to denounce him, and there was a stampede for refunds at the Comique’s box office.
Alexander meanwhile basked in the glow of splendid reviews, the writers describing the details of a show that had seemingly gone off without a hitch.
Billy Robinson knew better.
On the night in question he had been standing backstage left, getting ready to move a large box for Alexander’s denouement—a trifle with doves and cards—his adieu to the audience—when he saw Alexander’s cousin, Mr. Julius Meyer, take off from the catwalk railing.
For a moment, Billy thought the action almost comic: the dapper American, in full tie and tails, his shining topper still on his head, taking a flyer by rope. By the time the boy could gather his thoughts, Julius was struggling with someone or something just left of center stage. Billy stepped forward to offer what aid he could. Julius hissed at him as loudly as he dared.
“Push with me, Mr. Robinson! Push!”
Out in the house, the orchestra swelled to a pinnacle of suspense; Billy heard Alexander’s instructions to the firing squad.
“Ready … aim …”
At the word “fire,” Billy and Julius crumpled to the floor. The boy could hear the muskets fire and smell the clouds of smoke pouring from their locks. There was a sharp crack as a lead ball tore through the curtain and the airspace where Compars had been. The patrons went silent and the orchestra stopped playing. Then, one by one, Alexander spat the musket balls onto the silver platter. With the appearance of each ball, the applause rose, until the audience reached a frenzy. Behind the curtain the three men lay prone on the boards, panting from exertion and shock; it wasn’t until the Great Herrmann invited the volunteers back on stage to identify their bullets that they scrambled further into the backstage darkness.
Exhausted, the three leaned against the wall by the chorus dressing room. Julius removed the victim’s gag. At first, he thought that Alexander himself had somehow managed to rush backstage, so much did the man look like the boss. But as he drew nearer, he saw that this man was older; and in his eyes was an expression of panic he could never imagine in Alexander.
“Back to your knitting, boyo.”
Seamus Dowie appeared from the gloom and placed a huge paw on Billy’s chest. “This here’s a business of adults. You go on about your own. And Billy boy—if ya so much as whisper a word about what happened here to friend or foe, you’ll find yerself with no tongue, jugglin’ for dimes in Times Square.”
Billy nodded and returned to his station just in time for the final trifle. He opened a cage filled with white doves and handed them off to a runner in black, who passed them through the curtain. Onstage, the birds appeared to emerge from packs of cards secreted about the magician’s coat. As they flew into the audience, Alexander bowed, pleaded with the Almighty to bless his audience, and bade them good night.
In the gloom beneath the stage, Compars Herrmann smiled bitterly at his brother.
“Well, Sasha, I see you’ve brought the Angel of Death with you.”
Julius frowned. Once Compars had realized he wasn’t dead, it had taken him no time to return to his former arrogance.
“Our cousin saved your worthless hide tonight,” Alexander said. “And if by chance you think this is my doing, you’ve underestimated me. I am the man who successfully disappeared the most notorious woman in civilization and gained the love of a spy you planted. Believe me, brother, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
Compars slumped in his chair. “Well, whoever did this to me may as well have killed me off. I failed my audience—promised them the spectacular and then turned up missing. From tonight, I am finished. My congratulations.”
Julius’ face flushed red. “Deceit, treachery, theft, blackmail and now—my god—self-pity. I imagine we shall never discover the identity of your attacker, cousin, as it would take the remainder of our lives simply to sift through the suspects.”
Alexander paced in front of one of the long workbenches. He picked up a small wrench and shifted it from hand to hand.
“But I shall save you, brother. I shall provide you with an alibi for your absence that your public will not only accept, but will lionize you as a hero and a patriot—and in return, you will accede to my terms.”
“Don’t fool yourself, Alex. I neither need nor want your help.”
“Oh, but you do. Of course, whoever wants you dead, that is your lookout. Personally, your life means little to me, as mine is much easier without it. But as long as you are alive, I need you working and out of mischief. I have seen what you get up to when ‘retired.’ So you shall do as I instruct, or tomorrow the world will learn how the ‘the original’ Great Herrmann got kidnapped like a rube and set up for a musket ball by a cabal of jealous husbands and a brother magician from whom he stole his latest illusion.”
“Jack Maskelyne would never agree to such a fiction.”
“I think Jack will jump at the chance to screw you and get his invention back. But even if he doesn’t take it, there is enough hatred among your fellow wizards to recruit a dozen magicians to make the claim. As for the husbands, that’s a matter of spreading around a few pounds. By the time the flies are done feeding on this pile of horseshit, you won’t be able to get booked in Bournemouth for a split week.”
Compars rose from the chair. He raised his fist above his shoulder and brought it down hard on a drill bench.
“I created you,” he screamed at Alexander. “I gave you everything.”
Alexander stood still and said nothing.
Compars brought both fists down on the table, harder this time. His eyes filled with tears of rage and frustration. The interior of his mouth tasted of iron. Swallowing hard, he straightened his back and faced his brother.
“The terms,” he said.
“You are never to return to the United States. That will be my territory, except for once a year when I shall play the Egyptian—a venue that will be forever off limits to you. You are to apologize to Miss Adelaide Scarcez and render to her the sum of ten thousand pounds. And you will return all rights to the Substitution Trunk to our good Maskelyne and relinquish all profitable interest in his remarkable toilet. What you tell the audience is a ‘Substitution Trunk’ is your problem. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
“I’m sure. Anything else?”
“This is not a demand, but I do suggest that you invest in a bodyguard—preferably one big and strong and who goes armed.”
“And my—what shall we call it—rehabilitation?”
“Fear not, Herr Docktor,” Alexander said. “Within a fortnight you shall be completely exonerated and more publicly wo
rshipped than ever before. It will of course, require your total and complete cooperation with my plans, beginning with a visit to one of our co-religionists. A remarkable fellow, really; an artiste with an eye for art and a hand for forgery.”
From the Daily Mail
18 October, 1883
MAGICIAN’S ABSENCE EXPLAINED!
PROFESSOR HERRMANN ON SECRET MISSION FOR
THE GOVERNMENTS OF BRITAIN, AMERICA
AMAZING DOCUMENTS FOUND!
HERRMANN EXONERATED!
“I AM NOT A HERO,” SAYS WORLD-FAMOUS WIZARD
A major scandal was laid to rest yesterday when magician Carl Herrmann, known throughout the world as the Great Herrmann, revealed the circumstances behind his absence from an opening night performance here in London on October the 6th.
On that evening, there was much consternation on the part of the public when Professor Herrmann failed to appear at the Opera Comique. For weeks preceding the opening, the magico had vowed to reveal a spectacular new illusion called the “Substitution Trunk.” After he had gone missing from the stage, there was much criticism of Prof. Herrmann in the press.
“I had to make the choice to do my civic duty or disappoint the British public,” Prof. Herrmann told reporters. “As much as it pained me to be unable to entertain my supporters, I knew that the governments of two nations were relying on me to bring a positive conclusion to a delicate affair, and I had faith that in the end all would be put right.”
Some of the details of Prof. Herrmann’s mission are confidential under the Official Secrets Act; but the magician was permitted to tell the Mail that his duties involved a meeting between a foreign spy and a member of Her Majesty’s government and the quick switching of one document for another. “They thought of me because of my experience,” Prof. Herrmann remarked. “I have been a practicing magician forty years and such a substitution is for me, a trifle.”
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