There we lay, nicely tucked up. I had my usual glass of hot milk and rum, Liesl had a balloon glass of cognac, and Magnus, always eccentric, had the glass of warm water and lemon juice without which he thought he could not sleep. I am sure we looked charmingly domestic, but my frame of mind was that of the historian on a strong scent and eager for the kill. If ever I was to get the confession that would complete my document — the document which would in future enable researchers to write “Ramsay says. . .” with authority — it would be before we slept. If Magnus would not tell me what I wanted to know, surely I might get it from Liesl?
“Consider the circumstances,” she said. “It was the final Saturday night of our two weeks’ engagement at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto; we had never taken the Soiree of Illusions there before and we were a huge success. By far our most effective illusion was The Brazen Head of Friar Bacon, second to last on the programme.
“Consider how it worked, Ramsay: the big pretend-brass Head hung in the middle of the stage, and after it had identified a number of objects of which nobody but the owners could have had knowledge, it gave three pieces of advice. That was always the thing that took most planning; the Head would say, ‘I am speaking to Mademoiselle Such-A-One, who is sitting in Row F, number 32.’ (We always called members of the audience Madame and Monsieur and so forth because it gave a tiny bit of elegance to the occasion in an English-speaking place.) Then I would give Mademoiselle Such-A-One a few words that would make everybody prick up their ears, and might even make Mademoiselle squeal with surprise. Of course we picked up the gossip around town, through an advance agent, or the company manager might get a hint of it in the foyer, or even by doing a little snooping in handbags and pocket-books — he was a very clever old dip we valued for this talent. I was the Voice of the Head, because I have a talent for making a small piece of information go a long way.
“We had, in the beginning, decided never to ask for questions from the audience. Too dangerous. Too hard to answer effectively. But on that Saturday night somebody shouted from the gallery — we know who it was, it was Staunton’s son David, who was drunk as a fiddler’s bitch and almost out of his mind about his father’s death — ‘Who killed Boy Staunton?’
“Ramsay, what would you have done? What would you expect me to do? You know me; am I one to shy away from a challenge? And there it was: a very great challenge. In an instant I had what seemed to me an inspiration — just right in terms of the Brazen Head, that’s to say; just right in terms of the best magic show in the world. Magnus had been talking to me about the Staunton thing all week; he had told me everything Staunton had said to him. Was I to pass up that chance? Ramsay, use your imagination.
“I signalled to the electrician to bring up the warm lights on the Head, to make it glow, and I spoke into the microphone, giving it everything I could of mystery and oracle, and I said — you remember what I said — He was killed by the usual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the woman he knew; by the woman he did not know; by the man who granted his inmost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone. You remember how well it went.”
“Went well! Liesl, is that what you call going well?”
“Of course; the audience went wild. There was greater excitement in that theatre than the Soiree had ever known. It took a long time to calm them down and finish the evening with The Vision of Dr. Faustus. Magnus wanted to bring the curtain down then and there. He had cold feet –”
“And with reason,” said Magnus; “I thought the cops would be down on us at once. I was never so relieved in my life as when we got on the plane to Copenhagen the following morning.”
“You call yourself a showman; It was a triumph!”
“A triumph for you, perhaps. Do you remember what happened to me?”
“Poor Ramsay, you had your heart attack, there in the theatre. Right-hand upper stage box, where you had been lurking. I saw you fall forward through the curtains and sent someone to take care of you at once. But would you grudge that in the light of the triumph for the Soiree? It wasn’t much of a heart attack, now, was it? Just a wee warning that you should be careful about excitement. And were you the only one? Staunton’s son took it very badly. And Staunton’s wife! As soon as she heard about it — which she did within an hour — she forgot her role as grieving widow and was after us with all the police support she could muster, which lucidly wasn’t enthusiastic. After all, what could they charge us with? Not even fortune-telling, which is always the thing one has to keep clear of. But any triumph is bound to bring about a few casualties. Don’t be small, Ramsay.”
I took a pull at my rum and milk, and reflected on the consuming vanity of performers: Magnus, a monster of vanity, which he said he had learned from Sir John Tresize; and Liesl, not one whit less vain, to whom a possible murder, a near-riot in a theatre, an outraged family, and my heart attack — mine — were mere sparks from the anvil on which she had hammered out her great triumph. How does one cope with such people?
One doesn’t; one thanks God they exist. Liesl was right; I mustn’t be small. But if I was allowed my own egoism, I must have the answers I wanted. This was by no means the first time the matter of the death of Boy Staunton had come up among the three of us. On earlier occasions Magnus had put me aside with jokes and evasions, and when Liesl was present she stood by him in doing so; they both knew that I was deeply convinced that somehow Magnus had sent Staunton to his death, and they loved to keep me in doubt. Liesl said it was good for me not to have an answer to every question I asked, and my burning historian’s desire to gather and record facts she pretended to regard as mere nosiness.
It was now or never. Magnus had opened up to the filmmakers as he had never done to anyone — Liesl knew a little, I presume, but certainly her knowledge of his past was far from complete — and I wanted my answers while the confessional mood was still strong in him. Press on, Ramsay: even if they hate you for it now, they’ll get cool in the same skins they got hot in.
One way of getting right answers is to venture a few wrong answers yourself. “Let me have a try at identifying the group you called ‘the usual cabal’,” I said. “He was killed by himself, because it was he who drove his car off the dock; the woman he did not know, I should say, was his first wife, whom I think I knew quite well, and certainly he did not know her nearly so well; the woman he did know was certainly his second wife; he came to know her uncomfortably well, and if ever a man stuck his foot in a bear-trap when he thought he was putting it into a flower-bed, it was Boy Staunton when he married Denyse Hornick; the man who granted his inmost wish I suppose must have been you, Magnus, and I am sure you know what is in my mind — you hypnotized poor Boy, stuck that stone in his mouth, and headed him for death. How’s that?”
“I’m surprised by the crudeness of your suspicions, Dunny. ‘I am become as a bottle in the smoke: yet do I fear thy statutes.’ One of those statutes forbids murder. Why would I kill Staunton?”
“Vengeance, Magnus, vengeance.”
“Vengeance for what?”
“For what? Can you ask that after what you have told us about your life? Vengeance for your premature birth and your mother’s madness. For your servitude to Willard and Abdullah and all those wretched years with the World of Wonders. Vengeance for the deprivation that made you the shadow of Sir John Tresize. Vengeance for a wrench of fate that cut you off from ordinary love, and made you an oddity. A notable oddity, I admit, but certainly an oddity.”