by David Marcum
I tensed. If she somehow escaped while the material was covering her up then I would have to rely on Wiggins to catch her if she headed out of the stage door. I would have to run to the front of the theatre and watch for her there if she made her escape that way. There were, however, only two ways out of the theatre, according to Holmes, and I seriously doubted that she could run in those heels.
In the event, I didn’t have to move. As soon as the bottom of the circular drape touched the platform, the top was released by some hidden mechanism. The material fluttered to the ground, covering the platform and the steps. Our quarry was still there, thank the Lord. Her face and hair were instantly recognisable, but I was amazed to see that she was now wearing a white silk gown and she seemed to have grown a pair of feathered wings that reached above her head and behind her as if she was an angel from some inspirational religious painting.
The audience gasped and applauded wildly, but that wasn’t the end of it. The woman gazed upwards, face illuminated from below in glowing colours and hands clasped in front of her. I watched in amazement as the wings that appeared to have grown out of her back now spread out to either side. I could hear the rustling of the white feathers even above the tumultuous clapping of the audience. Incredibly she rose slowly into the air, clear space visible between her feet and the platform. She bought her hands out to her sides in a supplicatory gesture, still staring up towards heaven. Her body was bowed forward, like a diver leaving a diving board, her bosom jutting forwards towards the audience.
If she flew away now, I thought desperately, then explaining to Mycroft Holmes what had transpired would prove an interesting experience. I was glad that my friend was also watching - while Mycroft might not believe me, he would surely believe his own brother.
I glanced quickly over my shoulder. Thankfully, four of Holmes’s former Irregulars had arrived and were lined up along the back of the theatre, covering the exits. They were sharing their attention between me and what was happening on the stage. I caught the eye of Greyson, who I still remembered as a small, rat-toothed child with thinning hair. I believe he has three children of his own now. I pointed at the exit, then made a sweeping gesture with my hand, trying to indicate that he should leave and go around to the back of the theatre to join Wiggins. Greyson frowned and mouthed “What?” at me. It took two more mimes, during which I nearly knocked the hat off the woman sitting beside me, before he got the message and left.
We had me plus two others here in front of the stage covering the main exit, and two - Wiggins and Greyson - covering the stage door. That, I considered, should be enough to stop her from sneaking out - wings or no wings.
I turned my attention back to the stage where, instead of rising all the way into the darkness above the stage, the woman was drifting forwards. Her hands now trailed back behind her and her wings had opened even wider, occupying almost the full extent of the stage. The conjurer beckoned her down, looking strangely like a man trying to attract a dove with birdseed. Slowly she descended, getting closer and closer to the stage, until her feet touched the boards. She lowered her face so that she was staring downwards demurely. Her wings gradually folded around in front of her until she was entirely hidden by the profusion of white feathers from the top of her head to her feet.
To one side, the conjurer extended a silk-sleeved arm towards the delicate and beautiful figure. “Behold, ladies and gentlemen, as this innocent creature has been transformed into the most angelic of forms!” He walked behind her, crossing from stage left to stage right, lowering one arm and raising the other so that he was still directing attention towards my magical subject. “So beautiful, so pure is she that I cannot resist her charms! What do you say - shall I steal a kiss from this minister of grace?”
Some of the bolder members of the audience called out in response. Some answered “Yes!”, others “No!” Interestingly, it seemed primarily to be the male audience members who were saying the former and the female ones the latter.
The conjurer walked behind the woman. His hands were raised as if to embrace her. “But she is so demure! Surely an angel such as this would not begrudge a humble sinner a quick embrace!”
The cries of the audience grew louder as the conjurer stoked them up with lascivious gestures and comments. He stroked his extravagantly long moustache with his right hand, one eyebrow raised as he asked the audience again whether he should take the angel into his arms. When he put his hands on her shoulders - or rather, where I assumed her shoulders would be behind the covering wings - half the audience started booing while the other half started cheering.
“I shall!” he cried, raising his arms up towards Heaven. “I dare to embrace this angel as I would any normal woman, for she is the very soul of purity and grace and I cannot resist her charms!”
He was standing to one side of her now, and he turned towards her, hands extended like claws. He stepped forwards, his gown-covered right leg coming between her and the audience. His arms came together in a carnal embrace around the woman, the angel, the quarry. The audience gasped as one.
And she disappeared.
One moment she was there; the next she was gone. The audience went wild as the conjurer staggered forwards off-balance. White feathers fluttered past him, falling to the boards. He looked around, astonished, his hands held out in mute appeal. “She has been taken up into Heaven!” he cried. “Alas, I am undone!” He turned to the audience and held his arms out as they applauded the incredible, unbelievable trick.
I glanced up at Holmes. He was still leaning forward, but instead of the expression of surprise that I had been expecting, he had a half-smile on his face.
He glanced at me, and raised his hand to his ear. That was the signal we had previously agreed, while we had been waiting in Hoxton, for use if anything unexpected happened.
I sprang to my feet. The conjurer was taking bows while the orchestra had struck up a jaunty tune. I snatched a whistle from my pocket and raised it to my lips. I blew, and a shrill tone cut through the hubbub, the music, and the applause.
Behind me, up by the entrance to the theatre, other whistles started up, blown by the former Irregulars. Hopefully the noise would alert Wiggins and Greyson to the fact that something was up. They were good and trustworthy men: if she tried to get out that way they would catch her. Outside, the police should have been informed by Mycroft Holmes not to interfere.
The audience was staring at me now. So was the conjurer on stage. The orchestra were trailing off into discord and looking around to see what had gone wrong.
“Please,” I shouted, “everyone, stay in your seats.” I could not in all honesty claim to be a policeman, but I did add the rider that Holmes and I had agreed on: “I am a doctor, and I believe that woman has been infected by Tapanuli Fever. I was with the British Army in Afghanistan, and I recognise the symptoms!”
There was, predictably, a sudden hubbub amongst the audience members. I was trusting to their shock and concern to stop them from wondering why I had waited until the woman had disappeared to make my dramatic interruption. I sprinted up the aisle, avoiding various evening dress-clad men who tried to grab my arm to remonstrate with me. When I got to the back of the theatre, I caught two of the former Irregulars and said quickly: “Check each person when they leave. If you find a red-haired woman in a green dress, stop her and call me. It’s possible she might be disguised in a coat, or something. Check the women for wigs as well as they go past. Say you’re looking for signs of infection.”
“What if they won’t let me?” one of them protested.
“Don’t take no for an answer. Just grab a handful of hair and pull.” I thought for a second. “Tell them that hair loss is one of the key symptoms.”
As the two men moved away, I grabbed a third one. “Go around to the back of the theatre - check with Wiggins and Greyson. Tell them the woman has made a run for it.” I paused, thinki
ng frantically. “Then find your way up to the roof and see if there’s any way she could get across to another building.”
The fourth man looked at me. “You want me to go down beneath the stage, see if she’s there?” he guessed.
“Exactly.” I paused, actually seeing his face rather than just my uniform. “What’s your name?”
“Mellor, Doctor Watson. Ryan Mellor.” He smiled shyly. “You gave me an orange once. I remember.”
“I’ll give you an entire crate of them if you find her for us.”
Mellor nodded, smiled, and moved away. I walked back down the sloping aisle towards the stage, where the gas lamps were coming up.
“You there!” I called to the performer, who appeared to be descending off towards stage left. “Stay where you are. I want to talk to you!”
I sprang up the steps, past the orchestra who were packing up their instruments with phlegmatic calm. I didn’t care if they left - it was the woman I wanted. As I got to the stage I looked up at Holmes again. His face still had that half-smile on it. He nodded at me approvingly. I seemed to be doing all the things that he would have done, had he been able.
I strode across the feather-strewn stage towards the performer. As I went, I looked down at the boards, searching for the outline of a trapdoor. The boards had been sawn and replaced so many times that the entire thing could have been a mosaic of trapdoors, but in my heart I knew that the trick was too incredible, too impossible, to depend on something so simple. No matter how fast a trapdoor could have been opened, or a platform pulled downwards, the audience would have seen something. Usually theatres depended on some kind of distraction when they had pantomime Demon Kings appearing up out of trapdoors, like bursts of smoke or swirling materials. Here the woman had been in plain sight, behind her covering of feathered wings. The conjurer hadn’t hidden her with his body or his robes to allow her to be transported downwards, and there had been no hint of her being carried away beneath the stage. Even if she had fallen straight down, to be saved by a pile of mattresses beneath, the movement would have been apparent. The trouble was that it hadn’t been apparent at all.
“How was the trick done?” I said firmly to the conjurer. Up close I could see fat beads of sweat rolling down through the caked and cracking makeup. “Tell me now - where is the woman?”
“She’s vanished,” the man said in a distinctly Cockney tone. “Transmogrified, like I said. Taken up into the ‘eavens.”
“Don’t give me that rubbish. It’s a trick, and I want to know how it was done.” I grabbed the conjurer and shook him, tearing the man’s thin robes.
“I signed a non-disclosure agreement,” the man whined. I twisted in my grip. “I swear - if I let out how the trick’s done, I’ll be sued. They’ll ruin me!”
“Who will ruin you?”
“The Russian cove who designs these tricks, and the theatre manager. I’m just the ‘ired ‘elp, making it look good on stage.”
“And the woman - was she an innocent member of the audience, or was she hired help too? Or did she hire you to help her escape?”
The man’s gaze slid sideways, looking for a means of escape. “I swear, I can’t say anything!”
“Then I’ll have you arrested you and the truth beaten out of you.” It was a bluff, of course - I could not countenance such violence, even in the service of the Crown - but he did not know that.
“No need for that,” a voice said loudly. It was Holmes calling from his box. “A surprisingly simple trick, when you analyse it. Rather insultingly simple, in fact. This is why I avoid shows of magic and illusion, Watson.”
Before I could respond, I heard my name being called from the auditorium. I turned to see one of the two former Irregulars who had been given the task of checking the audience as they left coming down the aisle.
“Doctor Watson, sir - no sign of that woman leaving the theatre. We checked everyone, just like you said.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“She was a stunner, sir. Couldn’t mistake her if we saw her.” He jerked his head, indicating the top of the aisle. “I left Brewster up there to watch the door in case she tries to sneak out. What do you want me to do?”
“Check with Wiggins and Greyson at the back, then with Mellor down under the stage. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Aldiss, sir.”
“Good work, Aldiss. We’ll find her.”
“Yes sir.” He moved back up the aisle towards the exit.
I stood there on the stage, trying to work out exactly what had gone wrong. How could a simple woman evade all of us?
Holmes, being Holmes, knew exactly what I was thinking. “The wings and the robe were hidden in the descending curtain material that was hanging from the hoop, Watson,” he called, “along with a harness - that much must be obvious, even to you. The robe slid down over her, and while she was still hidden by the white curtain she strapped the wings to her body.”
“She was in on the trick, then?”
“Don’t be obtuse,” he said. “The wings were already connected to wires that ran up into the space above the stage, where several stagehands used them to spread them and then raise her up off the podium and fly her down to the stage where you are standing. It is a commonplace trick, rendered impressive only by the skill and artistry with which it was done in this instance.”
“I didn’t see any wires.”
“You weren’t meant to. They were painted black to avoid reflection of the light, and to blend in with the backdrop. She was flown down to the stage, where the wires from above were used by the puppeteers above her to bring the wings together in front of her.” He fixed me with his gimlet gaze. “Why did they do that?”
My immediate reaction was to say “Because it looked artistic,” but something inside told me that it was the wrong answer, and would be scorned by Holmes. My thoughts raced. Why would I organise something like those closing wings? What possible use could they –
“To hide something going on behind them,” I said triumphantly.
“Try to disguise your pleasure at hitting the correct answer. Yes - to hide something going on behind them. In particular, they were disguising the fact that the woman was unclipping the wires and unbuckling the harness, having first fastened the wings in front of her with hidden catches.”
“Thus separating herself from the wings!” I said. I was replaying the performance in my head as I spoke, and I could see it all now - the things that were going on behind the distractions of the wings and the conjurer’s gesticulations. “So it was done with a trapdoor!”
“Indeed - having given a signal by tapping her foot she was slowly dropped down into the below-stage area by more stagehands using a movable platform. Her descent was hidden by the wings which stayed there on stage, held up by a structure of hidden rods.”
A thought struck me. “But what about when the conjurer made a grab for her - or, rather, for the wings? How did they disappear?”
“Look down at your feet. Can you see a small, round piece of wood in one of the planks of the stage?”
I knelt down and looked. Amongst the various joins between planks and saw marks I could see a circular wooden plug about five inches across. It looked like it could be covering the end of a drainpipe.
“Yes,” I said.
“That plug was removed from below and a long rod fed upwards, inside the ambit of the wings. The conjurer, during his various gesticulations and grabs at the lady, surreptitiously fastened the wings to the rod using wires and hooks that were ready hanging down inside the costume. When he made his final lunge, several stagehands below pulled suddenly on the rod. The wings folded up and were pulled down the hole, which was then plugged as you see.” He frowned. “If it had been me I would, perhaps, have used a spring apparatus rather than the muscles of the stagehands. It would gi
ve more speed and more certainty.”
“But...” I thought for a moment, trying to follow through what Holmes was saying. “But the wings were made of feathers. I can see how a costume made of silk could be perhaps pulled swiftly through a hole in the stage, but feathers?”
“There were no feathers. The wings were made of some material which looked like feathers, but which could be scrunched up for an easy passage through the hole.”
I picked up a white feather from where it lay on the stage. It was impressively large, and definitely a real feather. I was about to point this out to Holmes when I caught sight of the conjurer, standing in the wings and listening to what was being said. His billowing silk sleeves hung down, hiding his hands.
“The conjurer!” I said, standing upright and pointing with the feather. “He scattered them across the stage. They were hidden in his robes.”
The conjurer’s face was grey, even under my greasepaint. “I’m ruined,” he wailed. He pointed up at Holmes’s box. “You heard ‘im!” he cried, staring at me imploringly. “‘E worked it out for ‘imself - I didn’t tell ‘im or you anything!”
“Misdirection from all directions,” Holmes called. “You now know everything, Watson, including just how many people it takes to perform an apparently seamlessly smooth magical trick. It is almost an industry.”
“So she’s in the under-stage area,” I said, “waiting until the hullabaloo has died down before she sneaks out.”
Holmes shrugged. “That, I am afraid, you will have to establish for me. I am not in a position to go down and check. I would, however, appreciate it if you would pop down there and bring her up. Theory is all very well, but at some stage it has to be translated into actual evidence.”