20

The Young Magicians stared at each other as a pot of porridge bubbled away in the corner of the tree house, filling the cosy space with the smell of oats and milk or – if you didn’t like porridge – the precise smell of SICK!

‘OK, so who wants to report on their findings first?’ said Sophie. She looked around the room and then at Zack’s leg, which bounced up and down like he was attached to a washing machine on the highest spin cycle. ‘Zack, perhaps you have something you’d like to share with us,’ she added sarcastically.

‘OK,’ he said, leg still twitching. ‘So, hear me out on this one …’

‘Naturally!’ said Sophie.

‘What if the Crown Jewels aren’t actually kept in the Tower of London?’

‘Uh-oh, here we go again.’ Jonny raised his eyebrows while spooning out the thick, steaming porridge.

‘I’m being serious! You said it yourself, Sophie – they’re a bit showy. But what if that’s the whole point? What if it’s all for show?’ said Zack. ‘What better way to protect the Crown Jewels than pretend they’re in a place where they’re not?’

‘OK, hang on …’ said Sophie thoughtfully as Jonny refilled her bowl, spilling a splodge of porridge on to the tree-house floor, which slowly leaked through the cracks of the boards before descending miles down to the ground below, smothering some dawdler in a particularly intense and boiling bird poo. ‘So you’re saying we’re looking … in the wrong place again?’ Sophie felt both excited and confused.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying!’ Zack grinned at her.

Sophie chewed on her hot dollop of porridge pensively, her mouth glued shut by the sweet honey she’d squeezed generously over the white pulp, her eyes half closed as she considered this.

‘But everyone knows the Crown Jewels are kept in the Tower of London,’ protested Alex, quietly nibbling at the porridge – which was not his favourite. ‘We saw them for ourselves!’

‘Exactly!’ Zack looked at them all in turn. ‘What a great piece of misdirection! It’s been going on for hundreds of years.’

‘So you’re saying the Crown Jewels have never been kept in the Tower of London?’ asked Jonny, eyes wide. ‘Whoa!’

‘That’s precisely what I’m saying!’

‘What better way of keeping them safe!’ Sophie exclaimed as it all clicked into place. ‘So the ones you go and see – the ones we saw yesterday, protected by a million lasers and Perspex, are –’

‘Fakes!’ interrupted Zack.

‘Oh, Jeez – of course, it makes perfect sense!’ hooted Jonny, slapping Zack on the back with the porridge ladle and covering his friend’s pullover in smatterings of slimy grey paste. ‘Whoops – sorry, mate!’

‘So … So does that mean the thieves are heading for the wrong place too?’ asked Alex tentatively.

‘It sure does,’ answered Zack. ‘I’ve no idea how they plan on getting into the Jewel House, but whether they do or they don’t, it doesn’t really matter – because the jewels on display there are fakes!’

‘So where do you think the real Crown Jewels are kept?’ Sophie put down her bowl and shook her head, infinitely impressed by Zack’s powers of deduction once more.

‘Ooh, I think I know where,’ said Jonny suddenly, opening up the skylight so that they had a perfect view of Buckingham Palace, dressed finely in a pale coating of light fog. ‘If I was Queen – or King, for that matter – I wouldn’t let the Crown Jewels out of my sight!’

The others gazed out across Green Park. ‘It’s one almighty bluff …’ whispered Sophie.

‘I bet they’re not even locked away,’ said Zack. ‘What better way to not draw attention to them than by making a big show of precisely where they’re not!’

‘OK, but we still need to tell someone about this,’ said Zack, pulling the ceiling closed a fraction, the morning air a bit too crisp at this altitude for his liking. ‘After all, the Crown Jewels may be safe, but the thieves still need to be caught.’

‘We’re not going to DI Caulfield with this again, surely,’ said Sophie, wincing.

‘What about your granddad, Jonny? Would he be up for helping us out again?’

‘I just worry that he’s getting a bit … well, too old for all this.’

‘And there’s his reputation to think of too,’ said Zack. Ernest had already defended them once this week. ‘What if we’re way off the mark?’

‘One thing we could do –’ Jonny gave a mischievous grin – ‘is go straight to the top. Why not go and see Her Majesty herself?’ He gestured casually towards the building across the park.

‘You’re kidding!’ Sophie wafted her hand in front of his eyes to check she hadn’t accidentally put him into a trance.

‘Nope!’ he said, pretending to bite her hand off.

‘Well, she’s not in now.’ Zack squinted at the bare flagpole.

‘Yes, but maybe she will be tonight,’ said Jonny excitedly. ‘Why not tell her ourselves, and trap the thieves together? Let’s face it, we can’t trust anyone at the Magic Circle, our parents will just think we’re making the whole thing up, and the last time we took this to the police, they took all the credit! But if we tell her that we know where the Crown Jewels are really kept, then perhaps she’ll listen to us …’

‘Only if my thinking is correct,’ said Zack.

‘Your thinking is always correct, mate!’ said Jonny, walloping Zack with the porridge ladle and smothering his jumper once more.

‘Oh man!’

‘OK, OK!’ Sophie stood up. ‘I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s just park that thought for now … But this brings us nicely to my findings.’ The three boys looked up at her attentively as Sophie continued to speak. ‘So whether we’re heading straight for the Tower or to Buckingham Palace, we have to find a way of being in two places at once. We don’t want President Pickle or anyone else inside the Magic Circle knowing what we’re up to. Nor do we want to jeopardize our auditions.’

A common garden thrush rustled nearby, confused by the smell of porridge coming from inside her tree. She flew off, causing a few leaves to dislodge ahead of schedule.

‘Go on, then,’ said Zack. ‘So how are we meant to be in two places at once?’

‘Yeah, put us out of our misery!’ exclaimed Jonny.

‘OK … So, yes, we do need to be in two places at once, but only for a certain length of time.’

‘Right,’ said Zack slowly. ‘And this helps how?’

‘Houdini,’ stated Sophie, like this single word held the answer to catching the thieves and whoever was colluding with them.

‘Oh, come on, Sophie, stop teasing us now. Out with it!’

‘OK. Are any of you aware of Houdini’s bank-safe escape?’ she asked, looking from one to the other. ‘It took place in 1924 at the Duchess Theatre in London,’ she added. ‘It’s the same safe that now resides in the council chamber beneath the Grand Theatre.’

Zack and Jonny looked blank, but Alex was nodding vigorously; he was familiar with Houdini’s work, having made a fair few daring escapes himself.

Sophie continued. ‘Like many of his escapes, it was all about the hype before and after the event and his ability to present himself as almost superhuman. He even got representatives from the Magic Circle to examine the safe to prove that it hadn’t been specially rigged.’

‘And so … was Houdini ever in two places at once?’ asked Jonny, still unsure where Sophie was heading with this.

‘No, not as far as I’m aware. But he could have been if he’d wanted to,’ Sophie answered cryptically.

Zack looked at Jonny and Alex, baffled.

‘Let me take you through it step by step.’ Sophie was clearly enjoying herself. ‘What made Houdini one of the most famous people in the world?’

‘He was good at escapology?’ offered Alex.

‘Partly. But also because of the publicity he generated. His escapes got more and more daring, more difficult; some – like the bank safe – were so tricky that it took him over two and half hours to get out!’

‘My dear, sweet Sophie,’ said Jonny. ‘As impressive as your vast knowledge of this area is, I still don’t see how this helps us.’

‘But don’t you see? That was the biggest illusion of all. The idea that Houdini found these escapes difficult. Who wants to see someone achieve something that’s easy? Where’s the fun in that? There’s no intrigue, no tension, no point! We want to see the greatest showman of all time truly taxed; maybe even meet his end.’

‘So you’re saying that Houdini never really performed any of those escapes?’ asked Zack.

‘No, quite the opposite,’ said Sophie. ‘I’m saying that he did all the things we know and love him for, but that they weren’t nearly as difficult as he made out.’

She sat down facing the others. ‘Houdini was really, really good at picking locks. He could do it in his sleep. But he knew that if he made it look too easy, audiences would start to lose interest.’

‘Oh, wow, I think I know where you’re going with this,’ said Zack suddenly, his leg starting to twitch again.

‘So when Houdini finally escapes from his bank safe, exhausted, half dead, then …’

‘It’s … It’s all an illusion!’ Alex’s eyes lit up.

‘Exactly!’ Sophie beamed. ‘Houdini was out of that safe in five minutes flat; the real trick was in making the audience wait!’

‘And so, if Houdini wanted to be in two places at once, he could simply nip off for a couple of hours or so while everyone thought he was still in the box!’ Zack had it.

‘Yup! Which is what he must have done on any number of occasions, I’m sure!’

Jonny looked at Sophie, smiling broadly. ‘Wowsers! And so you’re suggesting that we …?’

‘That we re-enact the bank-safe illusion in front of Council tonight. The safe is in the council chamber; I’m sure there’ll be some kind of screen we can use in the Grand Theatre to shield us from view – after all it’s what Houdini used to do. And, Alex, you can pick locks from the inside too, right?’

Alex held up the odd-looking implement he’d fashioned the previous night.

‘There, see! And then, once we’re out, we visit the Queen or whoever, catch the criminals, then return to the safe before bringing our act to a close and securing our place as future members of the Magic Circle … Or something like that!’ Sophie added, knowing all too well that – like a space-shuttle launch – there were still a million things that needed to happen perfectly for this to be a success. And that even if 99.9% of their plan worked out there were still exactly a thousand things that would go wrong. That was stats for you. Always the bearer of bad news!

But this was not bad going, Sophie. Not bad at all! It was a starting point at least …