Magician's Fire

by Simon Nicholson

  Even though it was a dead end.

  “You won’t get out that way, kid!”

  Harry saw Wesley and Arnold, their faces grinning as they closed in on the doorway. He heard Billie scrabbling about in the props-crammed room. Caught in a trap. But who was? Billie or them?

  “Ready, Harry?”

  “Ready!”

  A rope was pulled tight across the doorway, level with Arnold’s and Wesley’s knees. Harry held one end, while Arthur gripped the other on the opposite side. The two men slammed onto the props room floor, and Billie skipped over them, not particularly seeming to mind as she trod on Wesley’s hat, squashing it pancake flat, and on Arnold’s hand, producing a high-pitched yell. She was out of the room. Still clutching either end of the rope, Arthur and Harry slammed and locked the door.

  “All went rather smoothly,” Arthur said.

  “Nice work,” Billie agreed.

  “Ready for the next part, Artie?” said Harry.

  “I’ll just finish off a few rewrites,” Artie muttered, flipping over the sheet of paper and jotting some more as they hurried back toward the stage. Applause roared as Herbie completed the first part of his act. Harry could see him out there, his frail arms holding up the glittering knives that had been magically hurled at him, his face staring sadly as the audience howled. A miserable sight.

  But with a jab of his pencil, Arthur was ready, and Harry unhooked the rope that held the curtain, sending it thundering down. The audience gasped with dismay, and Arthur and Billie marched onto the stage, leaving Harry waiting in the backstage darkness.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make!” This was Arthur’s big moment, and Harry watched him leap to the front, the sheet of paper fluttering in his hand. “Fear not, Herbie’s act is not over! Indeed, it has only just begun. Never in your life will you have witnessed…”

  “Who are you?”

  “Get off the stage!”

  “Kids! What’re two kids doing up there?”

  A tricky start, thought Harry. But his friends had expected that. And it wasn’t as if anyone was actually going to stop them, was it? From his position in the wings, Harry glanced around and saw the other performers standing there, too astonished to do anything, while all that could be heard of Arnold and Wesley was some faraway hammering on a door. Meanwhile, out on the stage, Billie was nudging Artie, keeping him going.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for the shock of your lives! You will not be seeing Herbie’s usual tricks. No poisonous spiders and flowers! No bicycling over deadly spikes! No, what you are about to witness is more startling by far! For you are about to see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears…” Arthur yelled the last few words at the very top of his voice. “The truth behind the disappearance of Herbie Lemster! A tale of trickery, malice, and attempted murder!”

  Silence. Nicely timed, Harry thought, and he saw that Arthur looked pleased too, folding his speech up and sliding it into his pocket with a tap. A few more seconds went by and still not a sound from the crowd. Even before the show, they had been obsessed with rumors of Herbie’s vanishing. That’ll be nothing compared to now, Harry decided, and darted through a doorway, running up a corridor that ran parallel to the auditorium.

  “If you want to find out more, follow us!” Billie’s voice echoed through the theater. Passing a doorway, Harry glanced back through it and saw his friends leaping from the stage. Another doorway, and he saw the two of them running up the aisle through the audience, who seemed trapped in silence, gaping at them. But then Harry heard a seat thudding up, followed by another and another. Behind his friends, he saw members of the audience, all around the auditorium, stumbling toward the aisle.

  “The secret of Herbie’s disappearance? Tell us!”

  “What is it? I demand to know!”

  “Is it dark magic? Like everyone says it is?”

  “Follow them! Don’t let them get away!”

  Harry took off again. He slammed into the foyer and flung open the door that led up to Wesley’s office. Racing upstairs, he heard Billie and Arthur’s voices echoing behind him, along with hundreds of other voices, a thundering wall of shouts and gasps and demands for information. They won’t be disappointed, he thought, as he flew along a final corridor, slammed into the office, rummaged under the mantelpiece shelf, and sent the marble bulk lurching to the side.

  He leaped through into the dark. Flying down the spiral stairs, he splashed into the icy water. Over by the wall, he tugged at a lever, making the water swirl, and then he waded toward the cage. He slid the door open and slammed it shut behind himself. A flick of his wrist sent the key flying from the lock, plopping into the water, far away. Harry felt his heart throb with the memory of his last experience with this terrible device but ignored it. He grabbed the end of a rope that he had positioned earlier, running all the way over to the lever by the stairs, and tugged it. The lever clanked to the left and the cage began grinding down into the swirling black water again.

  “Behold, we are in the office of Wesley Jones himself!” Harry heard Billie’s voice, close now. “The respectable theater manager. But all is not as it seems!”

  “Out of our way!”

  The crowd was clattering down the stairs, the darkness echoing with their cries. Mouths fell open, eyes bulged, and a lady near the front fainted but was picked up and carried along. The entire staircase groaned as more than a hundred people peered around the gloomy place, with its throbbing pipes, swirling water, and single flickering candle.

  “What is this place?”

  “Look at the speed of that water!”

  “Who would build something like this?”

  “In a theater of all places!”

  “What’s that over there? It’s…a cage!”

  “It’s moving!”

  “Sinking, you mean!”

  “And there’s someone in it!”

  “A boy!”

  The darkness shuddered with their screams. The crowd was in the water, surrounding the cage, yelling at it, pulling at its bars. Harry spotted Billie and Arthur in the water too, screaming loudest of all, all part of the plan to create the most panicked atmosphere possible. Harry saw the rigid faces, the screaming mouths. The cage kept grinding down. The water was up to his neck, but hidden beneath its surface his fingers were reaching for that snapped-off arm of the Princess Moldo spectacles…

  “Save him! Save him!”

  “Stop the machine!”

  “Who put him in there? Who would do such a thing?”

  “What about the theater owner? It was his office up there, wasn’t it?”

  “Just get the boy out!”

  “I can’t! It’s locked!”

  “Stop it sinking someone! Stop it!”

  “Look!”

  The cage door slammed open. Harry shot up through the foaming water, gasping for air. Two more ladies fainted, collapsing on the stairs, but no one noticed, too astounded at the sight of Harry clambering out of the water and onto the top of the cage. They also seemed astounded by the words that raced out of his dripping mouth.

  “It’s time for you to know the truth…about Wesley Jones!”

  Again, the story flew out of him. The last time he had told it, he had been recovering in the cobweb-strewn dressing room, and it had been a bit of a muddle. But the words racing out of him now were far clearer. Carefully, precisely, he had been prepared by Arthur, who had jotted down exactly what he should say so the whole affair would be presented in the easiest way possible. Harry had memorized every word and, from the look of the audience’s faces as he reached the speech’s end, those words were having the desired effect.

  “And so, Wesley Jones imprisoned me. He left me here to die! But I escaped! I escaped, and here I am now to tell the truth of Herbie Lemster’s disappearance…and of the Cruel Theater of W
esley Jones!”

  “Wesley Jones! Stage Manager Arnold! Find them!”

  The water churned, and the iron stairs shuddered as the crowd raced out of the dungeon. Harry jumped off the cage and was swept along by the jostling bodies. He saw that the same thing was happening to his friends. Together, they hurtled along with the furious crowd as it poured out into Wesley’s office and surged back into the theater, all the way to the props room, where, as Harry’s speech had made clear, Wesley and Arnold had been so cleverly imprisoned.

  “They’ve gone!”

  “Smashed their way out!”

  “Used a palm tree as a battering ram!”

  The door hung off its hinges, and one of the larger props, a fake tropical plant, lay nearby, snapped in half. Standing around were the various performers—Bruno the Strongman, the Cossack dancers, the juggling acrobats, the man who told jokes—looking confused. But most confused of all was the small, frail figure standing with them.

  Herbie Lemster. His eyes were wide, taking in the scene before him. He was staring at the smashed-down door. He was staring at the crowd. His legs were weak, but his fellow performers kept him upright. When he spoke, it was clear he could hardly believe what he was saying.

  “They have fled!” the old magician gasped. “Just a minute ago. None of us knew what was happening! They smashed through the door and raced up toward Mr. Jones’s office—but they came racing down again when they heard you coming.” Bewildered, he pointed at the stage door, which was still rocking on its hinges. “Ran off into the night! None of us could make head or tail of it…”

  “Catch them! Bring them back!”

  A section of the crowd broke away and swept out through the stage door. But Harry paid no attention to that. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Herbie. He was still unsteady on his feet, his face was still wearily wrinkled, and yet it seemed, from what he was saying, that he was finally starting to understand what had just happened.

  “You mean to say…we’re free?” Tears trickled down his face. “Free from our dreaded owner and his terrible trapeze artist stage manager? Free of the Cruel Theater of Wesley Jones? It’s not possible. And yet…it is! Thanks to…”

  The crowd gasped. Herbie had lifted a trembling hand, and for a moment it seemed as if he was about to perform some magical act. But instead, Herbie just extended a finger. Tears flooding, he faced the crowd, pointing in the direction of Harry and his friends.

  “Thanks to these remarkable young people here! This boy. His friends too. They’ve set us performers free, ladies and gentlemen! Free!”

  The crowd was out of control. Hands gripped Harry, and he rose into the air. Glancing across, he saw Billie being held aloft too, and Arthur. Then the throwing began, the hands beneath Harry and his friends powering them up into the air and catching them again, while the whole theater throbbed with cheers. Heroes, all three of us, thought Harry, as the crowd threw them higher and higher. And Billie and Arthur’s twists and turns in midair, he noticed, were every bit as spectacular as his own.

  “We did it!” Billie waved at him as she flew upward again.

  “We really did!” shouted Arthur, his tie flying wildly around him.

  “The Rescue of Herbie Lemster!” Harry yelled back. “It really is our most spectacular trick yet!”

  He gazed around at the crowd’s faces, whooping, cheering. And he noticed one face toward the back. White hair, white eyebrows, a pair of staring eyes. Harry thought nothing of it, but found himself looking at the face a second time, and a third time too.

  I’ve seen him before.

  He looked more closely. The man wore a pale, neatly tailored suit, and his hair was perfectly white. Otherwise, there was no reason to pick him out. But Harry kept staring, as he flew up and down.

  The tightrope walk at the Hotel Crosby. He had glimpsed the man then. A flash of paleness in the windowpane, a face, white hair, a piercing stare. Harry couldn’t be absolutely sure, but the longer he looked, the surer he became. It was the same man—but what was he doing here in the crowd at the Wesley Jones Theater? The Hotel Crosby was on the other side of town. Why would he be in both places, with just a few hours in between? As if this wasn’t odd enough, why was the pale-suited man making notes? He was scribbling in a leather notebook, which appeared to have some sort of white bird on the cover. Even more strangely, wisps of white mist seemed to be rising from the pages…

  Harry tried to look closer. But the crowd cheered even louder and threw him so high in the air that he spun around. When he landed, he was facing in the other direction.

  And when he looked back, the man in the pale suit was gone.

  Chapter 23

  The man slid out through the stage door and hurried down the dark Manhattan street.

  His pale suit fluttered as his long legs carried him along at high speed. His steps were perfectly regular, and the soles of his polished shoes hit the sidewalk noiselessly, neatly.

  The street was dark apart from a gas lamp’s flickers. But the man’s eyes tracked every one of those flickers, studying the complicated shapes of every shadow they threw. His eyes swiveled about, checking the reflective surfaces of windows, metal railings, puddles on the sidewalk, for any information they might provide. The man was walking even faster now, but those eyes simply sped up, monitoring the surroundings flying past with even greater care.

  He swung to the left. He marched up some steps and pushed through a heavy, gleaming door. Those polished shoes snapped over a marble floor, a chandelier glittering above. The man spiraled up a mahogany staircase, his palm just touching the balustrade, skimming beside him. He reached the top, opened another door, and walked to a desk on which a telephone stood.

  His hand lifted the receiver. On the underside of his wrist, a pulse twitched. As the receiver rose past the man’s neck, a further pulse could be seen twitching just above his collar. The telephone crackled to life.

  “A candidate,” he said. “Three of them, I now believe. I have been conducting my research with care.”

  More crackling. The man listened and spoke.

  “I quite agree. Clearly, we need to test them. That is critical. We need to select an investigation suitable to their skills without delay and…”

  The crackling went on for quite some time. Complicated pops and buzzes interwove, and the pale-suited man’s eyes narrowed, as if he was deciphering complex code. But at last the crackling ceased, and he spoke again.

  “Very well. I shall begin the preparations.”

  Chapter 24

  Time to escape from Wesley Jones’s deadly device once again.

  Harry stood before the cage. Hands tore through his clothes, removed his boots, explored his mouth, searching for the tiniest hint of anything that might assist him. The hands hoisted him up and dropped him into the cage. The lid clanged down, and the key soared into the gloom. Harry saw faces in the darkness, hundreds of them, distorted with fear, thrill, and glee. But he concentrated on Billie’s face, pushing up to the bars.

  “Ready?”

  “Like always.”

  A rope hoisted the cage upward. Arthur stood at the front of the stage, his arms swirling as he addressed the crowd. Swinging around to the small cluster of invited audience members, he politely asked if the search they had just conducted had revealed anything suspicious. Heads shook. Arthur flung out an arm, and the cage, a little smaller than Wesley’s original, swung over a water-filled vat. Harry tightened his grip on the bars. The audience bayed, but then their noise vanished as the cage plunged into the vat. Water engulfed Harry, the cage’s locked lid solid over his head.

  Concentrate.

  His fingers flexed. His left foot rose. The earring was lodged between two of his toes. Billie had let it fall from her ear as their faces grew close, and the toes of Harry’s left foot, stripped of sock and boot, had gathered it up. It was in his hands now, bending i
nto shape, diving into the lock. Too bad about the Princess Moldo spectacles, but the metal arms had weakened too much, and anyway, the earring was much smaller and easier to pass. As the lock sprang loose, he clanged open the lid. Clambering out, he dropped onto the stage and lowered himself in the usual bow, while Billie and Arthur ran to join him.

  “Behold! He has escaped once more!” Arthur finished off his speech. “Doomed to a watery grave! Yet he has survived to tell the truth about Wesley Jones!”

  The new trick. The idea for it had hit all three of them at the same time. The whole of New York was talking about the amazing rescue of Herbie Lemster, so why not let them see it unfold, night after night? As the applause roared, Harry took in the stage. To the left loomed a painted flat of Herbie’s dressing-room window, from which the disappearance itself was staged with a puff of purple smoke. Forty feet high, a rope spanned the stage, on which Harry reenacted the walk into Hotel Crosby, and then there was the cage and water-filled vat, a practical way of staging the investigation’s climax in Wesley Jones’s deadly chamber. Best of all, there were Billie and Arthur, who helped him with every aspect of this dazzling show, Billie managing the tricks and Arthur narrating from his own script. Regarding Arthur, there was something else too, something that had only been added to the show in the last couple of performances, but which was going down very well indeed.

  “Behold the latest escape…” Arthur was shouting it out as grandly as he could. “Of Harry Houdini!”

  The new name. It had been suggested by that conversation with Arthur, which felt like such a long time ago. An invented name to catch attention: half-borrowed from a famous French magician of the past, with a touch of Hungarian. Harry liked it, and so did his friends. Most importantly, the audience seemed to like it too.