“Find anything?” asked Ty when Charlie got back downstairs.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah,” he said, reaching into his backpack. “Wait till you see —”

“Tyler!” yelled Annie. “It’s about to start.”

The three of them were standing inside the booth that controlled the lighting for the Abracadabra Theatre.

The booth was on the rear wall of the theater, opposite the stage, and high above the audience. Charlie could see the tops of five hundred heads, facing the stage and waiting for the entrance of David Dragonstone.

“Here goes,” said Ty, sliding a lever on the huge control panel.

Bright lights lit up the stage and a roar of applause shook the walls. David Dragonstone — tall, thin, with piercing eyes — walked out onto the stage and waved.

“That guy’s the magician?” said Ty. “He looks like a kid.”

He has red hair, thought Charlie.

The boys and Annie watched the entire show, which lasted an hour. Tyler kept busy reading the light cues from sheets on a clipboard.

Then came the final trick of the performance.

On the stage far below, bathed in brilliant light, several assistants strapped Dragonstone into a straitjacket. A chain was wrapped around his ankles. Then a hook was attached to the chain and the young, redheaded magician was hoisted into the air.

The audience gasped. Dragonstone rose higher and higher. He came to rest, thirty feet above the stage, upside down. Then, without warning, a strange man climbed onto the stage.

The stranger wore a flowing black robe. He had dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a black mustache and pointed beard. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the man in a commanding voice. “Behold, the amazing Dragonstone, in his final act of the evening.”

He gestured to the young magician twisting high above him. “Dragonstone has amazed audiences throughout the world. It is my humble duty and great pleasure, as the Wizard DeVille, to announce this final feat of illusion and legerdemain.”

“Leger what?” asked Ty.

“It means trickery,” said Annie. “Like a trick that a magician can do with his hands.”

Dragonstone can’t use his hands, strapped in that jacket, thought Charlie. There’s no way out of it.

“Behold!” cried the wizard. “And tremble with fear!”

The hook holding David Dragonstone snapped open. The magician plunged headfirst, still straitjacketed, toward the stage, thirty feet below.

The straitjacket hit the stage. But instead of a thud, it made hardly a sound.

The wizard, DeVille, ran over to the lifeless form. He lifted it up easily with one hand. It was only the straitjacket, and it was empty. Dragonstone had fallen toward the stage, but he never reached it. The redheaded magician had disappeared.

“Dragonstone has disappeared,” shouted DeVille.

A member of the audience began clapping. Then another. And another. Soon everyone in the audience was cheering and shouting.

“What a trick!” said Annie.

“But who is that guy?” said Ty.

The magician named DeVille bugged Charlie, too. Something was not right. Now two magicians were missing.