by Paul Gallico
The rows of lights surrounding the wall-sized, make-up mirror showed him a different Adam from the one to which he was accustomed and he was not pleased with what he saw. He had shed the skin of his old, familiar costume of soft, deer’s leather and climbed into the full dress suit of the stage magician, clad for a gala—white tie, tails and top hat.
The clothes fitted him faultlessly, as though they had been made for him and with his long nose, strangely colored eyes and fiery hair, he was handsomer and rather more like a faun than ever. But to Adam the person who peered back at him from the mirror looked out of place.
He recalled the lightness of heart with which he had set forth for Mageia with the purpose of developing and improving and, perhaps, even handing on this strange gift of magic that was his and which he wished to share with others.
But from the moment he had passed through the gates it had all turned out so differently from what he had expected. He smiled to himself as he thought that really the only nice thing that had happened since he had come there had been Jane, and the trust, belief and love he had gained from the child.
And what about Mopsy’s warning of danger? He smiled again, but sadly, as he remembered the tingling feelings that Mopsy kept saying he had between the end of his spine and the beginning of his tail. And now, when he needed him most, his friend had vanished.
From without came the constant running of feet in the corridor onto which all the dressing rooms opened, voices and smothered laughter, and cries of greeting as the magicians arrived to prepare for the event just about to begin.
Adam asked himself whether perhaps he had not been too sharp with the little dog, and whether Mopsy might be sulking. But he was certain this couldn’t be, for it wasn’t his character. He had a degree of independence and outspokenness, but he bore no grudges and by and large was obedient.
When, after a half hour, Mopsy had not returned, Adam had thought that he must just have forgotten the time, or got onto the scent of something interesting, and wouldn’t be far away. He had gone out to look for him, calling, “Mopsy, Mopsy, where are you?” There had been no reply, even after he had given the high, piercing whistle which was their signal and which usually reached Mopsy’s ears no matter how far afield he had strayed. When there had been no patter of feet racing back to him, Adam had returned puzzled and troubled to prepare to leave for the theater.
What could have happened? One comfort: there was no wheeled traffic in Mageia to endanger him. Might he have got lost? Or fallen asleep? The one thing that never dawned upon Adam was the truth.
The Stage Manager had knocked at his door to check once more with Adam. The Orchestra Leader had appeared to ask for the sheets of his music and to inquire what tempo he wished it played during his performance. They had been sent away together quite bewildered.
“That must be some act,” said the Stage Manager outside the door. “He doesn’t want any set at all. Okay, so we’ll give him a bare stage.”
“And no music,” added the Orchestra Leader. “All right. I can let my boys have a rest while he’s on,” and they had gone off.
Left alone again, Adam called upon his store of courage, which had never failed him before. He reflected that Mopsy was clever and accustomed to using his brains, as he had demonstrated many times in the past. He would probably turn up after the show rather ashamed of himself. And as for his own desire to become a member of the Guild of Master Magicians, well, he had come this far and might as well go on. He realized at this point that he had not yet really given a thought to what he would do for the final test. Something spectacular, The Great Robert had advised. He supposed he would get an idea, but for the moment his heart wasn’t in it.
For he always came back to the worry— Where was Mopsy? What had happened to him? And supposing he was in trouble? Unless Adam knew exactly where Mopsy was, he could not direct his magic to help him.
There came a knock on the door. Adam cried, “Come in!” It was the Robert family with Jane in tow. She was looking unusually pretty in a brand new, spangled costume of pink and blue silk with flashing sequins, and a smart, short cape to match in the same colors hung from her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She was happier than she had ever been before. Only a few days ago she had been weeping miserably, locked in a room, the butt of the family.
On the other hand, her brother Peter, his face slightly less lumpy now, was subdued. Of course he was jealous of his sister and the prominence into which she had suddenly been thrust, but there it was. Even his father and mother were making a fuss over her, which was a novel experience for him.
“Well, my boy,” The Great Robert said heartily, “here’s your little assistant. We’ve all come to wish you luck.”
“Oh yes,” agreed Mrs. Robert, “we hope that Jane does well.”
“Why Jane,” said Adam, “how sweet you look! I am proud to have you . . .”
But Jane made no reply. She had been glancing about the room and some of the color had gone from her cheeks.
“By Jove,” Robert said, “my suit fits you perfectly—like a glove.” He went to Adam, passed his hand over his shoulders and back and then patted his sides. “No pigeons, eh?” he chuckled. “Ha, ha, ha! We’ll be up in the stage box watching, and I’m sure you’ll have something extraordinary to show us all.” Then he added, “And afterwards—ha, ha—there’ll be something to eat at our house, of course and—ah—that little demonstration you promised. Well, come on everyone, Adam probably wants to go through his routine with Jane.” He and his wife and Peter trooped out, shutting the door behind them.
“Where’s Mopsy?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know,” Adam replied. “He’s disappeared.”
Jane gave a cry of anguish, “Disappeared? How? Where? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I let him out late this afternoon and he didn’t come back. I thought perhaps he was just being naughty, for we’d had a little quarrel before.”
“Oh no,” said Jane. “Mopsy wouldn’t do that.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Adam agreed. “It isn’t like him.”
Jane was quite pale now and on the verge of tears, for Mopsy had grown dear to her. “Do you suppose anything dreadful could have happened to him? Poor Mopsy! I can’t bear it, I love him so. Perhaps he ate poison and is sick or dying. Oh, Adam, can’t you do something?”
The young magician replied, “Not unless I know where he is.”
“But your magic box!” cried Jane. “Can’t you use that? You told me . . .”
“. . . that you can use it for imagining. I’ve tried thinking where he might be and sending out magic waves in the hope that he might be there. But he wasn’t.”
“We must try again,” said Jane. “Oh please, do! Perhaps he’s back at the house by now.”
Adam tried.
“Or down by the city gates?”
There was no result.
“Or maybe for some reason he’s gone to the picnic grounds.”
Nothing worked. It was like throwing out radar waves into an empty sea. None of Adam’s magic came back to him to tell him it had found Mopsy. For, of course, it never occurred to them to think of, or even imagine the one place where he was helplessly locked up in Mageia’s Museum of Magic in the basement of the Town Hall, across the Square.
They were unaware that the dressing-room door had been opening silently, until someone went, “Psst!”
They turned and saw that it was Ninian. Adam said, “Hello, come in.” For a moment he thought and hoped that the magician might have heard something of Mopsy’s whereabouts.
“Psst!” hissed Ninian again, and then, “Shsh!” as he slipped inside the door. “Nobody must know I’m here—not a soul!”
“Why, Ninian,” Jane asked, “what’s the matter? You’re in a state.”
Which was indeed true. He appeared to be in a complete twitter and so frightened, worried and nervous his cheeks were shaking as well as his limbs. “Shsh
! Not so loud!” He shut the door quickly and hissed some more with his finger to his lips, then whispered, “I’ve come to warn you. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll flee at once. They’re after you.”
“After me?” said Adam. “Whatever for? And who are ‘They?’ ”
Adam having spoken in his normal voice, Ninian went into a perfect frenzy of “pssts” and “shshs” and then croaked, “Malvolio and his crowd. They think you’re a magician.”
“But aren’t we all?” asked Adam, wishing that Ninian would be more sensible, for he could see that it was frightening Jane who was already upset by Mopsy’s absence.
“No, no, no,” breathed Ninian, “Can’t you see? Not that kind. You’re different from us. That’s why they hate you. They’re out to get you.”
Adam wondered why he had made enemies without meaning to do so. Mopsy, clever little Mopsy, had divined it from the very first and had tried to caution him.
“How do you know?” he said to Ninian. “Have you told anyone about the birdcage and the goldfish bowl and how it happened?”
This was the question that Ninian had been dreading. Nevertheless, his treason made him feel so guilty that he had to try to warn Adam. For an instant he experienced an almost overwhelming desire to throw himself upon Adam’s mercy and confess everything, namely that he had been a traitor and a coward who had sold him out to save his own neck. But now, caught up in the direct gaze of Adam’s strange eyes, he could not bring himself to do it. “No, no, of course not,” he lied, “I haven’t told anybody anything. I—I just sort of heard.”
“Then maybe you’re just fancying things, Ninian, and I shouldn’t worry too much,” said Adam. Then he added, “You haven’t seen Mopsy, have you? He’s missing.”
“Mopsy missing? Oh dear, how terrible! No, I haven’t seen him at all. I can’t imagine where he might be.”
And here again he was unable to look Adam straight in the eye, for it was only a half truth. While he had not seen Mopsy, he could guess what might have occurred to him—snatched and in the power of Malvolio. But he didn’t dare to say so. All he could do was wring his hands and mumble, “Oh dear, then you won’t take my advice?”
“No,” Adam said quietly.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! If you must go on, won’t you do something very simple, please? Like the cups and balls, cigarettes, or a routine with cards? I’ve got a nice little trick in my dressing room I could let you have that doesn’t work for me—the Coin and the Bottle. Very effective. The trouble is, I can get it in, but I can never manage to get it out.”
“Perhaps you could if I helped you,” Adam offered.
And this suggestion threw Ninian into an absolute panic. “Help me? Oh no, no, I beg of you! You mustn’t. You mustn’t come near me. I shan’t be needing any help. I promised them . . . I mean, I shall be all right.” Now all he wanted was to escape from Adam’s eyes and before any more questions could be asked of him. So once again putting his finger to his lips, he whispered, “Shsh! I must be going. Don’t let on to anyone I’ve been here.” And he nipped out the door.
“Now what do you imagine that was all about?” Adam said.
“And why do you think Ninian’s being so silly about letting you help him?” asked Jane. “He wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for you. He’ll never pass the way he is.” A troubled look came into her eyes. “Do you suppose there’s any truth in what he was saying? And are you going to do special magic?”
Outside in the corridor a call boy passed shouting, “First act, five minutes!”
“I can’t think what’s got into poor old Ninian,” he smiled, “but your father rather gave me an idea for what might be a very pretty number.”
“One of Daddy’s tricks?” cried Jane, strangely feeling half relieved and simultaneously disappointed.
Adam smiled again. “Well, not exactly,” he said. “Shall we say a development? Something that might fill a stage. Would you like to hear about it?”
“Oh yes, please!” cried Jane, once more excited. “Oh hurry, please.”
“There’s plenty of time,” said Adam. “We’re not on until last, right after Ninian.” He looked about the dressing room. “Aha!” he said, “this will do famously.” He went over to a movable clothes rack on rollers, a pole with two crosspieces on which to hang coats. “Now then,” Adam continued, “the first thing we do is this,” and he began to show her.
The Magic Museum of Mageia was not precisely the most comforting place to be locked away in at night and particularly for a small dog with no hope of getting out.
Although the main lights were extinguished, there were a few “EXIT” and emergency bulbs burning, just sufficient to throw shadows and cause the dozens of silent figures and automata to loom up even more menacingly.
Mopsy had had a trot around of inspection, trying to find some means of escape, and what he had been able to discern in the semigloom was not exactly encouraging. There were many long cases full of magical apparatus, both modern and dating back many hundreds of years, but the main attraction of the Museum was its reproduction of the effects achieved by the priests of the ancient temples of the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Assyrians and facsimiles of these had been constructed with some rather horrible-looking gods sitting on thrones.
A whole section was devoted to lay figures which had been created by inventive magicians of the past: a giant, a dwarf, a warrior in armor, a Gypsy fortuneteller, a Turk at a chessboard, a devil in red at a card table, skeletons, clowns, a mechanical horse, a Chinese dragon and what not, all silent and motionless in the semidarkness.
Some of these were on the door, others suspended from the ceiling. The effect was eerie and disquieting. It gave Mopsy the feeling that he was being watched.
But the worst thing was that there was no way out. Mopsy, while not very large, if he stood on his hind legs would have been able with his paw to pull down a door handle and by leaning his weight against it, push it open. But, alas, these were all round, slippery knobs on which he could get no kind of purchase whatsoever, neither with his paws nor with his teeth.
He had heard the Town Hall clock strike nine and then ten and was close to giving way to despair. The moment was drawing nigh when Adam and Jane would be taking the stage and in his mind he saw the mob, whipped up to frenzy by Malvolio’s agitators, descending upon them to tear them to bits.
Then again panic would set in and he would run and leap at the doors, scrabbling at the knobs in a futile attempt to escape, which would end only in exhaustion and tears of frustration as he moaned, “Oh, if I only had some of Adam’s magic to help me.”
The Town Hall clock boomed the half hour.
Down in the subterranean passage of the Auditorium, the call boy was once more afoot outside the dressing rooms and this time his cry was, “Seventh act, five minutes! Ninian the Nonpareil! Ninian the Nonpareil, five minutes!”
Within Adam’s room, Jane made him a long, graceful curtsy.
“Splendid!” said Adam. “You’ve got it letter-perfect. Ninian’s on next. Shall we go and watch him?” He picked up the clothes rack, set the silk topper jauntily on the side of his head and taking Jane by the hand, they went out and upstairs into the wings of the theater.
XVIII
ONE FOR THE SHOW
A theater seen from where Jane and Adam stood in the wings, amid the tangle of ropes, wires, cables, props, nervous magicians and their assistants with stagehands rushing about, is quite different when viewed from a seat in the stalls.
Because of the foot and spotlights dazzling one’s eyes, the audience lurks in the darkness, felt rather than seen, like some great beast waiting to be placated with flattery, entertainment, distraction or diversion lest it burst forth into those most dreaded of all sounds—boos, hisses and catcalls. Conversely, when pleased it would overwhelm the performer with applause and loud cries of “Bravo!” and “Encore!”
Even though Jane came from a professional family, she shivered slightly as sh
e tried to look out behind the lights to that menacing “thing” hiding in the shadows, signalized only by the white shirt fronts in the first few rows. She thought she could make out the dark, sallow features of Malvolio and Mephisto with their heads together. Those people out there could make or break one. In fact this was the way the participants in these final trials for admission to the Guild of Master Magicians were judged, accepted by acclamation and ovation; rejected by bored or lukewarm reception.
At that moment they were not being overly enthusiastic about the magician holding the stage, even though his assistant was pretty enough, his repertoire of tricks and illusions smooth and well executed and his form could not be challenged. But it was obvious that the beast in the blackness wasn’t satisfied. It had already seen a number of acts. It craved something more novel, unusual and stimulating.
The conjurer finished his turn and made his exit to what was no more than a polite appreciation.
The audience settled down again, the Orchestra Leader tapped his baton preparatory to accompanying the next turn and the announcer, stepping to a microphone at the side of the stage said, “The next act, ladies and gentlemen—Ninian the Nonpareil!”
Jane whispered, “Adam, I’m holding my thumbs for him. Oh, I do wish him luck!”
“And I,” said Adam.
Out onto the stage from the opposite wings shambled Ninian, to stand miserably blinking in the pools of brilliance thrown by the spotlights. Because of all that had happened to him that day, he was in the throes of the worst attack of stage fright ever and he stood there helplessly, chewing his lips. His hair, his mustaches, even his eyebrows and his clothes drooped and one could literally see his knees knocking together.
The contrast between the pompous announcement, “Ninian the Nonpareil,” and the emaciated, terrified, bean pole of a man who had crept out into view was so pronounced that instead of the usual, courtesy patter of applause that greeted each newcomer, someone laughed.