Mask of the Verdoy (53 page)

The stagehand opened the hatch and moved aside to allow Harley a better view.

Immediately ahead was a narrow walkway, suspended from the theatre ceiling by a series of metal cables. This walkway spanned a huge open space, thirty feet or so above the heads of the audience, as busy with ropes and pulleys as a ship’s rigging.

‘I can just see the cage,’ said Harley. ‘But I don’t see how I can get to it from here.’

‘You can’t,’ said Smith, poking his head through the hatchway and pointing up to higher catwalk running parallel to the one ahead of them. ‘You’ve got to get up there. You get to the higher catwalk by climbing a ladder at the end of this one. Come on, I’ll show you, if you like.’

Harley put a hand out to restrain the rigger.

‘Listen, Smith—you do realize we’ve got ourselves a proper situation here, don’t you? You could be putting yourself at risk going out there. He may be just a kid, but he’s bound to be armed.’

Smith adopted a serious look.

‘I know what I’m getting into …’ he said, poking his head back through the doorway. ‘He’s up there—I can see him. Looks scared stiff to me … And I tell you what, if he’s a rigger then I’m a monkey’s uncle: he’s tied a line round his waist and attached himself to the catwalk with it—no pro’s ever gonna do that. No, I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about with this joker. Come on, pal—out we go!’

***

Meanwhile, further down in the theatre, Pearson, Rosen and O’Toole had made it to the backstage area.

‘Blimey,’ said Rosen, as they walked past a line of Tiller girls being put through their paces by a male choreographer. ‘Nice work if you can get it! … Look over there!’

‘What?’ said Pearson spinning round, reaching inside his jacket for his revolver. ‘Is it Girardi?’

‘No—over there! That’s Bud Flanagan, ain’t it?’

‘Listen, Solly,’ said the policeman, with a sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m not quite sure you understand the seriousness of the situation here.’ He pulled in close and lowered his voice. ‘We don’t know how long we’ve got before these maniacs blow this place sky-high. And as Harley pointed out—at the moment we’re the only ones that can stop
them. Don’t you think you should be concentrating just a little harder on the matter in hand?’

‘Nah … See, it’s a technique I used to use in my fighting days,’ said Rosen, with a dismissive sniff. ‘Little trick I was taught by a trainer once to conquer the old pre-fight nerves. I could be minutes away from the biggest bout of my life right now, but in my head I’m strolling down Petticoat Lane eyeing up the skirt. The secret is to keep yer brain on the everyday thoughts, cool as a cucumber—got it? As long as you’ve put in the hours with your training, you’ll be swell. Pre-fight nerves—finished many a good boxer … ’Course, he’s one of ours, you know?’

‘Who?’

‘Bud Flanagan. Good Jewish boy—born Hymie Weintrop, out of Whitechapel.’

Pearson shook his head and carried on, following O’Toole past a ventriloquist sitting on a tea chest, happily munching on a sandwich whilst his dummy made crude observations regarding the Tiller girls.

‘Right,’ whispered O’Toole, turning to them with a look of apprehension on his face. ‘Here we are then—this is the crossover, where we get to the wings. Stage left, you’ve got the big fella at the lighting board, stage right will lead you to within spitting distance of the little Italian.’

***

‘Thank you, my dear ladies and gentlemen! You really are too kind,’ announced The Great Medini, moving downstage to address his audience. ‘And now we come to the grand finale of the performance!’

He stole a quick glance at Girardi. The Italian was poised upstage to his right, arms akimbo, still playing the part of the faithful slave.

To most people in the auditorium Medini’s face was the perfect mask of demonic mystery—the pointed beard and heavily made up eyes giving him a Mephistophelean aura in the eerie green light of the stage. However, to those in the front rows of the stalls it was plain to see the beads of sweat pushing their way through the greasepaint and the slight tremor in the willowy, outstretched fingers. But any that did notice these small signs of disquiet merely put them down to the passion and energy of the performance.

Medini closed his eyes and allowed the applause to fade. His mind dwelt for a moment on the vision of a terrified old woman, gagged and bound to a chair in a suburban shed … He took a deep breath and continued with his patter.

‘The great Harry Houdini first performed his legendary
Chinese Water Torture
illusion in nineteen-eleven. As many of you will be aware, Mr. Houdini’s radiant light was snuffed out far too soon, some six years ago now; but rest assured that his legend lives on in the memory of his fellow prestidigitators and in all of those fortunate individuals who ever witnessed the great man perform.’

The magician hesitated—something had caught his eye, high up above the heads of the crowd, moving about amongst the rigging. But the stage lights were far too bright for him to make out any detail, and he now found his glance wondering to the golden cage suspended before the Royal box … and then past it, to the bearded countenance of His Royal Highness, George V. And although he had never met his King in the flesh before, that Victorian era moustache and those bagged, melancholic eyes, were as familiar to him as the face of a close friend—features that he’d handled in his nimble conjurer’s fingers thousands of times before, forcing them to dance across his knuckles, disappear into thin air, materialize in the ears of children …

He risked a brief glance back at his wife Gladys, who stood upstage just a few feet from the brutish hands of the murderous gorilla, Boyd. The terrified woman wore a forced show business grin on her heavily made-up face, but her eyes glimmered with fear behind the fronds of her thick false lashes.

Medini steeled himself, fixed his stare to the middle distance and soldiered on.

‘And so it is in honour of that legendary artist—and of course, of our majestic audience …’ A small bow now in the direction of the Royal box. ‘… that I present to you—for the first time since Houdini’s death—the world famous
Chinese Water Torture
 … with, naturally, a little elaborate twist of my own … Maestro, please!’

As the orchestra slipped into “In the Hall of the Mountain King” Medini moved swiftly to a wide satin ribbon hanging above the stage. He gave the ribbon a tug, thus unveiling a large glass-panelled water tank, above which was suspended a giant sized clock.

Now the conductor brought the orchestra to
pianissimo
as the performer stepped forward to address his audience once more.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. It has long been the custom for a man’s mortality to be measured by the sands of Death’s hourglass. But tonight we break with tradition a little, for the clock you see before you may indeed be the measure of the last four minutes of my life. As you can see, there is but one hand, and the face of the clock is divided into four one-minute portions.

Four minutes
—that doesn’t sound very long now, does it, ladies and gentlemen? But, alas, that is all I shall be afforded to escape from a
straitjacket, shackles and handcuffs whilst immersed, head-first, in two hundred and fifty gallons of water!’

A murmur of delight rippled through the auditorium.

‘Watch the clock carefully, I implore you! For, if we approach that fourth minute and I have yet to escape from the tank … well, then my trusted assistant, Sulaiman, will attempt to smash the glass with a hatchet in order to release me. Even then there will be but a slim chance of survival—four minutes is at the very limit of the period a man can hold his breath for whilst exerting himself underwater. So, my good friends—wish me luck! My fate lies in the hands of the gods!’

***

Red-faced and breathless, General Swales bowled into the Palladium’s foyer accompanied by a phalanx of SIS agents, Special Branch officers and uniformed bobbies.

‘You there!’ he barked at Potterton. ‘Take me to His Majesty’s box—immediately!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the manager, holding an index finger up as an introduction to his important announcement. ‘Only first, I must just deliver—’

‘Not now man! There’s no time. Come on—move! Up those stairs!’

Potterton began to splutter an objection but found himself being swept along with the unstoppable tide of policemen. It was only when they had paused to enter the auditorium that he managed to grab the General’s attention.

‘Commissioner, sir—I have an important message for you.’

‘A message?’

‘From Harley, Commissioner.’

‘Harley? Well why the blazes didn’t you say something sooner, man? What is it?
Come on, out with it!
This is a matter of state security!’

‘Well, as I was trying to tell you—Harley says that … that he’s still not sure about the details of the plot.’

‘
Is that it?
That’s the message?’

‘That’s what he said, sir.’

‘And where is Harley now?’

‘I’m not too sure, Commissioner—he ran off somewhere with the other two gentlemen.’

‘Very well. Gentlemen, we can’t take any chances with this one—I suggest we prepare to evacuate the building … Chesterton, take half a dozen men and man the exits.’

‘Yes, sir!’ said the SIS agent, quickly selecting a group of officers and disappearing down the stairs.

‘Is an evacuation really necessary, Commissioner?’ asked Potterton, sheepishly. ‘After all, we are only ten minutes or so away from the final curtain, and—’

‘And it will be the final curtain for you, sir, if you do not stop your interruptions! What is your name?’

‘Potterton, Commissioner.’

‘Well, Mr. Potterton, you will stand there and keep quiet! That man—Bristow, isn’t it?

‘That’s right, General. What do you need, sir?’ said the Detective Sergeant, pushing his way through to Swales.

‘You’ll be in charge of co-ordinating the evacuation. Distribute your men around the various floors of the auditorium and wait for the signal—three short blasts of the whistle. Do not make a move before that signal—we need to assess the situation first. We can’t afford to spook the enemy into detonating that bomb prematurely. And make sure your men are calm at all times—we don’t want a stampede on our hands. Understood?’

‘Understood, sir!’ said Bristow.

‘Commander Taylor, choose two of your best men and come with me. Our priority will be to rescue His Majesty.’

***

High above the audience Harley and the stagehand had now made it across to the narrow ladder at the far end of the lower of the two catwalks.

‘Well, Smith,’ whispered Harley, peering up into the darkness at the bogus rigger—Saint Clair’s cousin, Hugo Carstairs. ‘I don’t reckon the lad could have seen us—he doesn’t seem to have budged an inch since we last looked.’

‘Yeah,’ replied Smith, close to Harley’s ear. ‘It was a stroke of luck the orchestra starting up like that—kept him distracted.’

‘He does seem kind of transfixed with what’s going on down below. D’you think he’s waiting for a cue?’

‘I doubt it. My guess is that his bottle’s gone with the height; I reckon he’s frozen to the spot. I’ve seen it a fair few times before.’

‘Yeah, but if he’s got a shooter he can still stop us getting to that cage, can’t he? Regardless of how milky he is about the drop.’ Harley placed a hand on the rigger’s shoulder. ‘Listen, Smith, I’ve been thinking—I can’t have you climbing up there with me, it’s too dangerous … we’ll be sitting ducks.’

‘What? You expect me to stay down ’ere like a lemon and watch you try to do it all on yer tod?
Get out of it!
Besides, I wasn’t planning on climbing that ladder.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, what rigger needs a ladder when there’s all these lines about?’ said Smith, pointing to the ropes criss-crossing through the gloom. ‘I reckon if we get our timing right I can shin up one of these behind matey-boy just as you appear at the end of his catwalk. You distract him with that gun of yours and I make a swing at him … What d’you reckon?’

‘Well, Smith—you’re a game one alright, ain’t yer? … Well, if you’re really up for it I reckon it sounds like a plan to me.’

‘Alright, guv’nor, on my lead then,’ said the stagehand, making his way back along the catwalk and hoisting himself monkey-like up one of the ropes.

***

Down on the stage the music ramped up a notch in volume and tempo as Girardi started to pull on a rope and tackle to hoist The Great Medini upside down above the tank of water. The magician was left suspended for a moment, swinging gently in the eerie green light, as Girardi nimbly mounted a ladder to secure a hood over his head.

Those members of the audience close enough to the stage would have noticed that the Italian seemed to take extra care in fastening the leather strap around the neck.

Then the former acrobat, warming now to his new role, dismounted the podium with an accomplished back-flip, grasped the rope in two hands and sent the trussed up Medini plunging with a splash into the water below.

Following proceedings from the wings Boyd took this as a cue to flick a switch on the control board. Above the stage the giant clock began its countdown as a curtain was raised to veil the secrets of the tank from the audience.

***

‘Look—there’s the big lummox, there,’ whispered Rosen, pointing at Boyd through a gap in the curtains between the crossover and the wings.

‘Why don’t I just take a shot at him now?’ asked Pearson. ‘Put a round in his thigh—take him down where he stands.’

‘Because, Albert,’ replied Rosen, ‘you couldn’t guarantee that he
would
go down. Not straight away, anyway … not before flicking one of those switches on that contraption in front of him. Then—
boom!
We all go up in smoke.’

‘What? From this range? I couldn’t miss.’

‘Probably not. But that’s not what I’m saying. He’s not called “Iron” Billy for nothing, you know—hard as nails, that one. Even if you do put one in him, he may not go down. Not unless you’re prepared to shoot him in the nut, of course—but, then again, with our Billy that’s probably the toughest part.’