Mystery Mile (2 page)

He peered at the platform with childlike interest.

Several enthusiastic amateurs, aided by an electrician, were engaged in setting up the magician's apparatus on the small stage. The piano had to be moved to make way for the great ‘disappearing' cabinet, and the audience watched curiously while the cables were connected and the various gaily-coloured cupboards and boxes were set in position.

The magician himself was directing operations from behind a screen, and at length, when the last scene-shifter had departed, he came forward and bowed ceremoniously.

He was tall for a Japanese, and dark-skinned, with a clever face much too small for him.

Mr Barber nudged the young man at his side.

‘Old Lobbett doesn't let his troubles damp his interest, does he?' he rumbled, as he glanced across the room to where the man who had been the subject of so much speculation sat forward in his chair. His keenness and excitement were almost childlike, and after a moment or two, dissatisfied with his view of the stage, he left his seat and walked up to the front row, where he stood watching. Mr Barber's companion made no comment. He appeared to be engrossed in his small pet mouse, which he held up, apparently with the idea of allowing the little animal to watch the performance.

The magician began with one or two sleight-of-hand tricks, presenting each illusion with a topical patter.

‘Very clever. Very clever,' murmured Mr Barber in his stentorian undertone. ‘They say those tricks are handed down from generation to generation. I think it's all done with mirrors myself.'

His acquaintance did not reply. He was sitting bolt upright, staring at the stage through his heavy glasses.

Satsuma produced ducks, goldfish, pigeons, and even a couple of Japanese ladies, with amazing dexterity, and the distressing Mr Barber beat his fat hands together delightedly, while far across the room old Lobbett also was clearly enchanted.

Eventually the magician came forward to the front of the tiny stage and made the announcement which always preceded his most famous trick.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he began, ‘it has only been by the kind co-operation of the electrical staff on board that I am now able to show you this most remarkable trick – the greatest I have ever performed.'

He stepped back a pace or two and tapped the huge disappearing cabinet which had taken up the greater part of the stage during his entire act. He touched a button hidden in the moulding, and immediately the cabinet was illuminated until it glowed all over in a series of diagonal designs of light.

The Japanese beamed upon his audience.

‘By the aid of this cabinet,' he said, ‘I will make to disappear not just one of my assistants, but any one of you who will come
up and help me.' He paused to let his full meaning sink in upon his audience. ‘I will make them to disappear and to reappear,' he went on. ‘And if, after the experience, any one of them can explain how the miracle was performed, then' – with a great gesture of solemnity – ‘I throw myself into the sea.'

He waited until the polite laughter had subsided, and then went on briskly.

‘Who will come first? You, sir, you?' he added, pointing out Mr Barber, who was by far the most conspicuous person before him.

The Turk shook his head and laughed.

‘Ah! no, my boy. No. I am too old for these adventures.'

The Japanese smiled and passed on. The pale young man in the spectacles jumped up, however.

‘I'll disappear,' he said, in his somewhat foolish voice. ‘I think Haig would like to,' he murmured to the Oriental by way of explanation.

He went forward eagerly, but paused, as there was some commotion across the room. Judge Lobbett, in spite of his son's obvious disapproval, was already halfway up the steps to the stage. He also paused as the young man appeared, and the two men stood irresolute until the magician, coming forward, beckoned them both on to the stage.

‘One after the other,' he said easily. ‘The first to come, the first to be served.'

He helped the judge up as he spoke, and the pale young man leaped up beside them.

‘I say,' he said nervously, ‘would you mind if my pet went first?'

He held up the white mouse as he spoke, while the audience, thinking it was some intentional comic relief, tittered complacently.

Satsuma smiled also, but his English was not equal to the situation, and, ignoring the young man, he led Judge Lobbett over to the cabinet.

‘Haig,' announced the foolish-looking young man in a loud voice, ‘will be more than disappointed if he's not allowed to go first. This is his birthday and he's been promised the best and
the first of everything. Surely, sir,' he went on, turning to the old man, ‘you wouldn't deprive my young friend of his birthday thrill?'

Judge Lobbett contented himself by regarding the young man with a slow cold smile for some seconds, but the other appeared not in the least abashed.

Meanwhile, with a flourish from the orchestra, Satsuma touched the cabinet with his wand and the doors swung open, disclosing a safe-like metal-lined compartment whose grilled sides shone in the brilliant light.

‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,' said the magician, turning to his audience, ‘I shall invite this gentleman' – he indicated the older man – ‘to step in here. Then I shall close these doors. When I open them again he will be gone. You shall search the whole ship, ladies and gentlemen, the stage, under the stage – you shall not find him. Then I will shut the doors once more. Once more they will fly open, and this gentleman shall be back again as you see him now. Moreover, he will not be able to tell you where he has been hiding. Now, sir, if you please.'

‘What?' said the irrepressible young man, darting forward, consternation in his pale eyes. ‘Can't Haig go first? Are you going to disappoint him after all?'

The audience was becoming restive, and Lobbett turned upon the importunate one, mildly annoyed.

‘I don't know who you are, sir,' he said, in a low tone, ‘but you're making a darn nuisance of yourself. I'm genuinely interested in this experiment, and I think everyone else is. Go and play with your mouse on deck, sir.'

On the last word he turned and stepped towards the cabinet, the doors of which stood open to receive him. The man who, by this time, was regarded by everyone in the room as a source of embarrassment, seemed suddenly to lose all sense of decorum.

With an angry exclamation he elbowed the unsuspecting old man out of the way, and before the magician could stop him deliberately dropped the small white mouse upon the glittering floor of the cabinet.

Then he stepped back sharply.

There was a tiny hiss, only just loud enough to be heard among the audience: a sickening, terrifying sound.

For a moment everyone in the lounge held his breath. With a convulsive movement the mouse crumpled up on the polished steel grille, where it slowly blackened and shrivelled before their eyes.

There was an instant of complete stupefaction.

The significance of this extraordinary incident dawned slowly. The men upon the platform to whom the thing had been so near stiffened with horror as the explanation occurred to them.

Marlowe Lobbett was the first to move. He sprang on to the platform by his father's side and stood with him looking down at the charred spot on the cabinet floor.

It was at this moment that the pale young man with the spectacles, apparently grasping the situation for the first time, let out a howl of mingled grief and astonishment.

‘Oh! my poor Haig! What has happened to him? What has happened to him?' He bent forward to peer down into the cabinet.

‘Look out, you fool!' Judge Lobbett's voice was unrecognizable as he caught the incautious young man by his collar and jerked him backwards. ‘Can't you see!' His voice rose high and uncontrolled. ‘That cabinet is live! Your pet has been electrocuted!'

The words startled everyone.

An excited murmur followed a momentary silence. Then a woman screamed.

Concert officials and ship's officers hurried on to the platform. The noise became greater, and a startled, bewildered crowd swept up to the platform end of the room.

Judge Lobbett and his tall son were surrounded by an excited group of officials.

Satsuma chattered wildly in his own tongue.

The pale young man with the spectacles appeared to be on the verge of fainting with horror. Even the complacent Mr Barber was shaken out of his habitual affability. His heavy jaws sagged, his greasy eyes grew blank with astonishment.

All the time the cabinet remained glowing with a now evil radiance, bizarre and horrible, a toy that had become a thing of terror.

The arrival of the chief engineer roused the general stupor. He was a lank Belfast Irishman, yellow-haired, lantern-jawed, and deaf as a post. He gave his orders in the hollow bellow of a deaf man and soon reduced the affair to almost a commonplace.

‘McPherson, just clear the lounge, will you? I don't want anyone to remain but those intimately concerned. There's been a small accident here in the temporary fittings,' he explained soothingly to the bewildered crowd which was being gently but firmly persuaded out of the lounge by an energetic young Scotsman and his assistants.

‘There's something very wrong with the insulation of your cupboard,' he went on, addressing the Japanese severely. ‘It's evidently a very dangerous thing. Have you not had trouble with it before?'

Satsuma protested violently, but his birdlike twittering English would have been unintelligible to the engineer even had he been able to hear it.

Meanwhile a small army of mechanics was at work. The chief entered into an incomprehensible technical discussion with them, and their growing astonishment and consternation told more plainly than anything else could have done the terrible tragedy that had only just been averted by the timely sacrifice of the unfortunate Haig.

It was impossible not to be sorry for the Japanese. There could be no doubt of the sincerity of his wretchedness. He hovered round the electricians, half terrified of the consequences of what had happened and half fearful for the safety of his precious apparatus.

Marlowe Lobbett, whose patience had been slowly ebbing, stepped up to the chief and shouted in his ear.

‘I don't know if you've heard,' he began, ‘but back in New York there have been several unsuccessful attempts upon my father's life. This affair looks very like another. I should be very glad if you could make certain where the responsibility lies.'

The chief turned upon him.

‘My dear sir,' he said, ‘there's no question of responsibility. The whole thing's an extraordinary coincidence. You see that cable on the floor there?' He pointed to the exposed part of a cable resting upon the parquet floor of the platform. ‘If, in shifting the piano, the cabinet hadn't been moved a little so that the one place where the insulation had worn off the cabinet made a connection with it, the affair could never have happened. At the same time, if it hadn't been for the second purely accidental short, the other contact could not have been made.' He indicated a dark stain on the polished grille of the cabinet. ‘But,' he went on, fixing the young American with a vivid blue eye, ‘you're not suggesting that someone fixed the whole thing up on the very slender chance of getting your father in there, are you?' The chief was considerably more puzzled than he dared to admit. But since no harm had been done he was not anxious to go into the matter too thoroughly for the ship's sake.

Old Judge Lobbett laid his hand on his son's arm.

‘This isn't quite the time to discuss this, my boy,' he said. ‘Someone knew I couldn't resist a conjuror. But I don't think we'll discuss it here.'

He glanced round as he spoke, and the chief, following the direction of his eyes, suddenly caught sight of the pale young man with the horn-rimmed spectacles who was still standing foolishly by the dismantled cabinet. The officer frowned.

‘I thought I gave orders for the lounge to be cleared,' he said. ‘May I ask, sir, what you've got to do with this affair?'

The young man started and coloured uncomfortably.

‘Well, it was my mouse,' he said.

It was some time before the chief could be made to understand what he was saying, but when at last he did he was hardly sympathetic.

‘All the same, I think we can manage without you,' he said bluntly.

The dismissal was unmistakable, and the pale young man smiled nervously and apologized with a certain amount of confusion. Then he crept off the platform like his own mouse,
and had almost reached the door before young Marlowe Lobbett overtook him.

The young American had left his father and sister on the platform and came up eagerly. His dark-skinned face and piercing eyes gave him almost a fierce expression, and the pale young man in the spectacles had an impression of someone abounding in energy that was not solely physical.

‘I'd like to thank you,' he said, holding out his hand. ‘And,' he added bluntly, ‘I'd like to talk to you. I'm greatly indebted to you, but I don't see quite where you come in on this. What's your game? Who are you?'

The pale young man looked, if possible, even more foolish than before.

‘My game?' he said. ‘I don't quite know what you mean. I toss a few cabers, and tiddle a wink occasionally, and I'm a very fair hand at shove-halfpenny.'

He paused.

Marlowe Lobbett was looking at him steadily.

‘This is more serious for me than it is for you,' he said slowly.

The pale young man grew suddenly very red and uncomfortable.

‘I've got a card here somewhere.' He took a handful of miscellaneous odds and ends out of his coat pocket, and selecting a visiting card handed it gravely to Marlowe.

‘My trade card,' he said, ‘if there's anything I can do for you, ring me up. I don't suppose we shall meet again on board. We bus conductors feel dreadfully out of place here.'