The Last Illusion

He shook his head. “Can’t say that I’ve seen such a thing, and the boss had us cleaning up the stage after the tragedy. I can tell you it’s not easy cleaning up that much blood. Scrubbing until all hours, we were.”


“How awful for you. I’m sure it was a most horrid task,” I said.

“Not your favorite either, was it Ernest?” the stagehand called to another fellow who was apparently watching us from the shadows. The first stagehand turned back to me with a smirk on his face. “Gives himself airs and graces that one. Thinks he’s too good for the menial tasks. I told him why doesn’t he go back to the old country if it doesn’t suit him here?”

Ernest gave us a look of contempt. “I just didn’t like touching blood,” he said. “It’s bad luck where I come from if someone dies in the theater.”

He spoke with a slight accent, not unlike Houdini’s. “What does the young lady want?” he asked.

“She’s looking for a stole she left here,” the first stagehand said.

“Something was stolen?” Ernest asked, frowning.

The first stagehand and I exchanged a laugh and I saw his demeanor change toward me. “A stole,” he said. “You know a wrap, a shawl.”

“Ah. This I have not seen.”

I gave a shy, sideways glance toward the one who wasn’t Ernest. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll just take one last look around, just in case it’s been discarded in a corner, then I’ll be off.”

“All right, miss.” The first one was now looking at me as if he’d just noticed I was a woman. “Just don’t go near that stuff belonging to the illusionists. It would be more than my job’s worth if they caught anyone poking around it.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t go near it, I promise,” I said.

He nodded and went back to work putting a coat of paint on a pillar. Ernest gave me a long questioning stare and disappeared into the shadows again.

I started peering into corners, then I turned back to my friend. “That contraption for sawing the lady in half,” I said. “Did Scarpelli keep it locked up under one of those tarpaulins?”

“He did.”

I gave a dramatic shudder. “I saw the whole thing. It was horrible, wasn’t it? I still feel faint when I think about it. It’s not still there, is it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t see how it could be. It went in the ambulance with the girl on it. I helped carry her out.”

“Did you? And if it was all locked up with chains like that, then I don’t see how anyone could have tampered with it ahead of time, do you?”

“Beats me,” he said in disinterested fashion. “Unless you were Houdini. Those locks would be a piece of cake to him. But I can’t see Houdini tampering with another fellow’s act. He’s the big star, isn’t he?”

“And if anyone came in from the outside?” I suggested. “What chance would they have?”

“At tampering with the illusionists’ equipment?” He put down his paintbrush and looked up at me, as if he was really taking in what I had said for the first time. “Here, what are you getting at? You’re one of those newspaper reporters, aren’t you? Slipping in here on some flimsy pretext and then asking questions.”

He got to his feet, towering over me.

“Oh, no.” I backed away. “I promise you I’m not a reporter. I suppose it’s just morbid curiosity. I was up onstage, you see, covering up that girl with my wrap, and I heard Mr. Scarpelli say that someone must have tampered with his equipment, so I just wondered how anyone could have done that.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he said bluntly.

“I know. My mother was always telling me that I ask too many questions. It’s a failing of mine, and I’m taking up your time. I should be going. Thank you again.”

I turned away.

“I don’t see how anyone could have tampered with Scarpelli’s table,” he said. “How are they going to get in, to start with? They’d have to get past Ted at the stage door.”

“Can’t you get to the stage from the front of the theater?”

“Nah. We only open the doors an hour before the performance and then there’s always something going on backstage. We’re all here, aren’t we? The illusionists are getting ready. We’d spot an outsider in a second.”

“Of course you would. You spotted me right away, didn’t you?”

“And if any stage door Johnny slips in, well, he’d be tossed out on his ear.”

“I really have taken enough of your time,” I said hastily. “I should be going. Nice talking to you, Mr. . . .”

“Reg,” he said. “Just plain Reg.”

“Nice talking to you, Reg.”

“And you too, miss.” I saw that he was now eyeing me with interest. Perhaps he thought I’d been flirting with him. “So you’re not in the theater yourself then?”

“I have been,” I said, stretching the truth only a little. “At this moment I’m not working.”

“Happens to the best of performers,” he said. “Say, if you’d like to go for a malt sometime?”

“That’s kind of you, but I have a very jealous boyfriend,” I said.

I beat a hasty retreat then and made my way back to Ted at the stage door.