by John Gaspard
“When we were out at Highgate Cemetery,” I said. “We got to talking about whether we each wanted to be buried or cremated.”
“I’ll say this for you, Eli,” he said. “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl.”
“Anyway, I was making the case for cremation. Looks like I’ll be getting my wish.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Harry said. I could hear him shifting his position, probably trying to get more comfortable. “Since we’re on the third floor, and they’re likely starting the fire in the basement, we can take some relief in the fact we’ll probably die of smoke inhalation and not actually be burned alive.” When this got no reaction from me, he offered a quick addendum. “Or no relief at all, I suppose.”
A few more long moments of silence. I sniffed the air, sure I was beginning to smell smoke, although it easily could have been my imagination.
“Lucky thing for De Vries,” Harry said out of the blue.
“How do you figure?”
“He’s already out. By the time he wakes up, we’ll all be dead.”
I wasn’t fully tracking on that logic, but I turned my head in the other direction to see if De Vries might be coming around. From my limited angle, he looked just as unconscious as he had when we walked in.
“Too bad for the old guy,” I said. “He never got to see the debut of the Catherine Wheel.”
“The Davis De Vries’ Catherine Wheel,” Harry corrected.
“Yes, of course,” I said. And then a thought occurred to me. This might be, I began to think, one of those rare moments where I figured out the solution before the disaster, as opposed to in the midst of it. Although, to be fair, we were sort of in the thick of it already.
“Harry, remember that speech you used to give to young magicians about how there are all kinds of rooms in the house of magic?”
“I do indeed. I borrowed the concept from Eugene Burger.”
“And you’d say something like, ‘It’s okay to spend most of your time in your own room, but you should also get out from time to time, in order to have some idea of what’s going on in the rest of the house.’”
“I think I was more elegant in my phraseology, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Even as a kid, I remember how it always drove you crazy when magicians would only focus on one area of magic, like cards or coins, and be completely ignorant about everything else.”
“Well, when I was starting out,” he said, “a magician was a generalist. It was required. You had to have a close-up show, a walk-around show, a cabaret show, a kid’s show, a big-box illusion show. Otherwise you’d starve.”
“That’s not the case today, is it?”
“Kids today, they have no idea,” he grumbled, starting to warm to the topic, and then he stopped. “Is this really the time to get into that old argument, Eli? Or are you just trying to take my mind off our imminent fate?”
“A little of both,” I admitted. “It just occurred to me, in the short conversations I had with Angelika and Liam, they both seemed quite well-versed in their own area of magic. But they also seemed woefully unaware of anything outside their small sphere.”
“Well, if they happen to wander back in, be sure to hit them with that,” Harry said. “They will likely buckle under your biting observation and free us with their deepest apologies.”
“The point is, when they shackled us to the Catherine Wheel—”
“The Davis De Vries’ Catherine Wheel.”
“Will you let me finish?” I snapped.
“Sorry, I’m getting a bit punchy. You were saying?”
“When they shackled us to this illusion, they thought they were binding us to a huge, solidly built metal device. An impenetrable fortress. When in reality...” I let my words hang in the air, but Harry finished my thought for me.
“But in reality, it was designed to be set up or taken down in twenty minutes. And packed away in two cases.”
“And, as De Vries was so fond of reminding everyone,” I continued. “It goes together and comes apart without any tools.”
“Without any tools,” Harry repeated slowly.
I turned, as far as the cuffs would let me, and started to examine the spokes of the large wheel. I could hear Harry doing the same thing at the base of the illusion.
“Hard to be sure,” I said, “but it looks like the spokes might break down into maybe three pieces each. I can see the seams between the joints.”
The method Liam had used to bind me to the machine provided me with very little movement of my hands. However, the clanging and scraping I heard coming from Harry’s area suggested not only did he have more freedom of movement, but he had also started to make some progress.
“What do you think?” I asked, unable to see what, if any, advancement he was making.
“Well,” he said, the strain of reaching around the spokes apparent in his voice, “I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep. But, we may get out of this contraption faster than my tortoise-like assistant was able to maneuver out of the trunk, lo those many years ago.”
There was more scraping of metal on metal, more grunting, and then a sound that made me smile with relief. It was Harry, and all he said was one word.
“Bingo!”
Chapter 22
Turns out, when you’re in London, you don’t dial 911 for emergency services. You dial 999. This was something I learned the hard way in the first few seconds after we released ourselves from the Catherine Wheel.
Thankfully, Harry was aware of this key difference and set me straight when the first attempts on my cell phone produced only an annoying buzzing sound on the other end.
The blaze, such as it was, was handled quickly and professionally by the London firefighters. Much to the relief of Laurence Baxter, they were able to squash the fire in The Magic Circle library, while causing very minimal water damage to the rest of the building.
“They tell me we’ll be back up and running as early as tomorrow,” Baxter announced to all of us later that day.
We were seated around his dining table for what was likely to be our last time as a group. Baxter sat at the head of his table, with Roy and Roxanne on his right and Megan and me on his left. McHugh sat next to me, with Harry seated at the foot of the table. Davis De Vries, who had spent the afternoon in the Emergency Room, was seated on Harry’s right. He was slowly sipping soup and seemed to have nearly completely recovered from that morning’s conk on the head.
“It took virtually no time to find Angelika and her son,” McHugh said, bringing us up to speed on the investigation. “And, unlike their closed-lipped mother, neither one of them has been the least bit reticent about offering up the salient details of the case.”
Gwendolyn entered silently, supervising a new, young maid in the proper manner of removing empty soup bowls from seated guests. In the absence of the spooky housekeeper, she had been promoted and was clearly enjoying her new role.
“Second Girl,” she whispered harshly. “Serve from the left, remove from the right. How many times must I repeat the simplest commands?” She continued to glare at the young lady as they headed back into the kitchen, and I realized that while Miss Hess was no longer haunting the house, her spirit lived on.
“It was quite the scheme,” Roy said, reaching for a bread roll, which Roxanne slapped out of his hand.
“Carbs,” was all she said as she did it.
Roy, undeterred, quickly faked with his left and grabbed a roll with his right. “International calories don’t count,” he said as he split the roll and began to lather it with butter.
Roxanne sighed and rolled her eyes. “Death wish,” she said. “Nothing but a death wish.”
“Hey, if Miss Hess couldn’t take me down, what chance does cholesterol have?” Roy said, taking a bite of the roll. He looked up suddenly, a perplexed expression on h
is face. “You know, I never did hear what her plan was for me. Which line in the suicide note was I supposed to bring to life? Or, actually, death.” He looked down the table at McHugh, who turned to Harry for help. Harry shook his head, so McHugh plowed ahead.
“The thing is, Mr. Templeton,” McHugh began, “in talking to Angelika Sutherland and her son, it quickly became apparent you were not, per se, a crucial figure in the overall conspiracy.”
“What do you mean?” he said, still chewing.
“I mean, to the best of our knowledge, there were no concrete tactics pertaining to your disposal.”
“I know it’s English, but you’re going to need to translate for me,” Roy said. “I only understood ‘there’ and ‘your.’”
McHugh turned back to Harry.
“He means you weren’t on her list, Roy,” Harry said gently. “They said, according to Angelika, that Miss Hess had no memory of you ever having any interaction with Archie Banks. She had no plans to kill you.”
This statement silenced the usually talkative Roy for a long moment.
“What the hell,” he said finally. “So what is it? I’m not good enough to be on her high and mighty kill list? I was in the thick of it with the rest of you clowns, I shunned that bastard Banks, I shunned him good. Let me tell you.”
Roxanne patted his hand, but he yanked it away.
“I was a Magi like the rest of you, or a Magus, or whatever the hell the right word is,” he snapped, holding up his left hand and pointing at where his ring should be. Roxanne indicated his other hand, which he quickly held up, now pointing at the actual ring. “I’ve got the ring. I’m in the club. I’m good enough to be killed, that’s all I’m saying. Jeez.”
He took another bite of his roll, still shaking his head and mumbling. Roxanne patted his hand warmly.
“It’s okay, honey. I want to kill you most days, and that’s gotta be good for something.”
This seemed to mollify him, if only a little. “Thanks, sweetie,” he said. “I can always count on you.”
“If I can divert our attention from this mini-drama for just a moment,” Harry said, clearing his throat as he stood up, “I’d like to propose a toast. Or two. Or more.”
He raised his glass and everyone at the table followed suit. He surveyed the group for several seconds before beginning his toast.
“First, to absent friends. They tell me Angus Bishop is showing good signs and the doctors feel he may come out of the coma in the next day or so. And, to add better news to good news, he will likely suffer no permanent damage.” Harry held up his glass a little higher. “To Angus.”
“To Angus,” we all repeated.
“And to our absent friends who were, sadly, not so fortunate. Oskar Korhonen, Borys, and Hector Hechizo. What can one say but we were lucky to tread this path with them. They will not be forgotten by those of us still on this journey called life, as we will carry them in our hearts. As I believe one of us said at our first Magi meeting, paraphrasing Shakespeare, ‘We are bound unto our souls with hoops of steel.’”
Davis De Vries said, “Hear, hear,” to this and we all repeated it, raising our glasses again.
“And to our host,” Harry continued, “who has provided food and lodging this past week, which are, simply, without equal. To the epitome of class and good taste, I give you Laurence Baxter! No, wait. Doctor Laurence Baxter!”
We all raised our glasses and said as one, “Doctor Laurence Baxter!” He nodded humbly and smiled.
“And, if I may be indulged,” Harry said, his voice dropping, “one final, personal toast.” He turned to me and held up his glass. “To my fine nephew, Eli Marks, whose quick thinking saved not only my life and the life of Davis De Vries but very likely The Magic Circle itself. To Eli!”
“To Eli!” the rest of the group responded, each holding their glasses high. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to make a short speech, but it didn’t matter, as Harry was moving forward.
“And, Eli, if I could ask of you one more favor,” he said, still standing and looking over at me, a wide smile across his face.
“I’m yours,” I replied, not really tracking with the fact he hadn’t asked me for any earlier favors.
“It would involve extending your stay in London by a day or so.”
I glanced at Megan, who smiled at the idea.
“No problem. What can I do for you?” I said.
“It’s actually not for me,” he said. “It’s for a friend.”
“A friend of yours is a friend of mine,” I said as magnanimously as I could, but I was beginning to tire of the exchange. “Name it.”
Harry turned from me to glance at De Vries. The two men exchanged a look and then both pivoted back to me. It took longer than it should have to sink in. And then finally the other shoe dropped.
So that’s how, two days later, I once again found myself strapped to Davis De Vries’ Catherine Wheel.
Only this time, it was in front of a paying audience.
I didn’t throw up.
Although, that was never a foregone conclusion and it remained a viable option throughout. But in the end, I kept my wits—and my lunch—about me.
Rehearsals went well, and I quickly discovered just how ingenious De Vries’ device actually was.
“The principle behind it is sublime,” Harry said as we got ready for the first run through. “I mean, except for sporadic projectile vomiting, it really is brilliant.”
“Now that I see how it works,” I said, walking around the large obelisk and giving one of the spokes a quick, testing tug, “I’m surprised at how simple it is.”
“It takes a great mind to come up with something this simple,” Harry said as I stepped back to admire the whole contraption. “Coming up with complex solutions is easy. Making it simple is the hardest thing there is.”
“Just like in the mysteries you love?” I suggested.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“Well, let’s take this buggy for a spin and see how she does at performance speed.”
The rehearsal went well, and the show went even better.
Because the stage at The Magic Circle lacked a trapdoor, we opted to end the trick with one of the assistants being wrapped in the large silk and then unfurling it to reveal that the magician—no longer on the spinning and flaming Catherine Wheel—had now transformed into the assistant. It was a graceful conclusion to the illusion and one the audience greeted with a long and sincere standing ovation.
Instead of taking my bow, I gestured to the side of the stage, where Davis De Vries had been standing, watching the trick from the wings. He waved my gesture away, but Harry gave him a gentle shove, and soon De Vries was center stage, accepting the applause he so richly deserved.
He turned to me and smiled as the audience continued to applaud wildly. I had never seen him so happy.
Laurence Baxter had ordered champagne—of course he had, he was Laurence Baxter—and we all stood backstage for a short celebration after the show. Davis De Vries, still a bit giddy from the success of the trick, clapped me on the back, and I had to react quickly to keep from sloshing all the champagne out of my glass.
“Thank you again, Eli,” he said. “It was everything I imagined and more.”
“And, as a special bonus,” Roy Templeton added, “no puking.”
“While we’re all gathered here,” Baxter interjected, deftly changing the subject, “we are all here, aren’t we?” He did a quick head count—Harry, De Vries, the Templetons, Megan, and myself. Assured he had a quorum, he continued, digging into his suit coat pocket as he spoke.
“It has been many, many years since we presented one of these, but I believe in this instance it is well earned.” He removed a small black ring box from his pocket and turned to me. “Eli, I speak for all of us when I say it would be our very great pleasure if
you would consent to become one of the Magnificent Magi.” He popped open the box, revealing the familiar ring within—although, unlike the ones worn by all the other members, this one was brand new. The red ruby in the center actually sparkled under the stage lights.
I was speechless. Roy Templeton grabbed the box out of Baxter’s hand.
“Here, let me, before you prattle on and take all the drama out of it. You Brits have no sense of ceremony,” he said, pulling the ring out of the box and gesturing for me to put out my hand. I did as he requested, and he slid the ring into place.
“Eli,” he intoned, “I award you this ring for meritorious conduct, extraordinary valor, and conspicuous bravery against the wicked Miss Hess. You are now a member of the Magnificent Magi.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but isn’t that almost word for word what Oz said to the Cowardly Lion at the end of The Wizard of Oz?”
Roy feigned complete innocence. “Never seen it. They must have gotten it from me,” he said with a wink.
“Well, as long as gifts are being presented, this seems as good a time as any to present this to Harry,” De Vries said, picking up a large, flat box which had been leaning against a wall.
“A gift? For me? What in the world for?” Harry said, looking truly puzzled at the box De Vries handed to him.
“For your invaluable advice and counsel on the creation of the Catherine Wheel,” De Vries said.
“You mean the Davis De Vries’ Catherine Wheel, don’t you?” Roxanne asked and Roy gave her a quick, congratulatory high-five.
“Nice one, babe,” Roy said.
“Actually, if it weren’t for Harry, I would have gone with The Vitruvian Man as the name for it. Or the Ixion, God help me.”
Roy grimaced. “Whatever’s in the box, it’s not enough. You oughta write Harry a check as well.”
“So, what is in the box, anyway?” Megan asked impatiently as she helped Harry open the unwieldy carton. Once they were able to get one side of the box open, Harry slid out a large, purple velour bag. It was cinched shut with a gold braid. While Megan held the bag, Harry worked on untying the braid. Finally, he pulled out the items within.