“Very nice,” Bert, the stage manager, lied at the conclusion of the family’s performance. What were they called? Bert consulted his clipboard. The Pomegrantos. Real oilcans, duds. And the show hardly needed another set of jugglers! Their costumes weren’t bad; eye-catching even, with that bright trim and lacing. No matter. If it were up to him, he’d send them packing. But Mr. Houdini asked for them special. And Bert did enjoy getting paid on a regular basis. He’d be pink-slipped for certain if he didn’t do as Mr. Houdini asked.

“I think we’ve got room for you.” Bert was practically convincing. “Real nice spot, too. Next-to-closing.” He had a feeling these greenhorns would have no idea they’d just been given the worst spot.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you!” The funny little slip of a girl with the wild auburn curls grabbed hands with her “sisters” and they all did a little jig.

Bert chewed on the unlit cigar in his mouth. The father or brother or whoever he was should consider going out as a single—he was the only one of the act who could juggle worth beans, though the littlest girl wasn’t bad. The gal with the glasses was completely hopeless. And what gave with all those strings tied around her fingers? Absolutely off-putting. Bert made a note on his clipboard to have mops ready. The Pomegrantos were likely to be on the receiving end of some rotten tomatoes during the rowdier matinees. “Come with me to my office,” he said to Cypher. “I’ll write up your contract.”

“Wait here,” Cypher instructed the girls.

“We wouldn’t dream of going elsewhere,” Theo replied. She was completely bewitched by the ropes and pulleys backstage and found the perfect spot in the wings from which to watch the grips at work. “Fascinating,” she muttered, reaching for her notebook. She was soon sketching away, filling page after page.

The younger girls watched the remainder of the rehearsal, especially enjoying a tumbling team from England and a trained seal act; they were not as enamored of the opera singer.

Audie covered her ears as the diva hit a high C.

“When do you think Mr. Houdini will arrive?” she asked. The first run-through for the Vanishing Elephant illusion was set for that very afternoon. There were only three days till it debuted in front of thousands.

“Look there.” Bimmy tapped Audie’s shoulder. “Isn’t that him?”

The girls turned, mesmerized. The world-famous magician swooped onto the enormous stage. In his wake trotted a small terrier wearing a proud expression. Though Mr. Houdini was not much taller than Theo, he carried himself as if he matched height with Abe Lincoln. He strode, chin up, chest out, shoulders back, like royalty. And indeed he was. Royalty in the world of magicians. Mr. Will Rogers had called Houdini the greatest showman of the times.

Audie thrilled to see him in person and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to tell the Waywards all about it. She determined to write a postcard that very evening. Audie put on her warmest smile, anticipating his passing their way, speaking to Theo, though the girl scientist was completely distracted with those backstage gizmos. Perhaps Theo would introduce her “sisters” to the great man. Audie rehearsed what she might say: “It is a sincere pleasure to meet you, sir.” Would a curtsy be out of order? He was royalty, after all.

Audie cleared away her dreamy thoughts. Mr. Houdini could not acknowledge Theo! That would be folly. No one must suspect their connection. That would not only put the illusion at risk, but Theo as well.

Of course, Mr. Houdini did not stride backstage to greet Theo, and thus Audie was not formally introduced to the world-famous magician. He talked for some time and in a rather loud voice to one of the stagehands. Something about sugar cubes and wagon wheels and sufficient men to pull an elephant. Then, with a flourish, he spun away, his red-satin-lined cape swirling dramatically about him. “I’ll be in my dressing room,” he was heard to say.

Theo smoothed her skirt after tucking her notebook into a hidden pocket in the right side seam. “That’s my cue,” she said to Audie, in a low tone. “In ten minutes, I am to pretend I am delivering a note—” She pulled one such from the left skirt pocket. “And then, in the privacy of his dressing room, we will go over the latest revisions to—”

Bimmy leapt into action, landing hard on the toe of Theo’s boot. From Audie’s perspective, it appeared that Bimmy had intentionally engaged in this unkind act.

“Bimmy, dear!” Theo exclaimed, hopping on the uninjured appendage, while rubbing the smited one. “Do watch where you step!”

“Oh, hello!” Bimmy’s voice was loud and fraught with tension. She mouthed an apology to Theo all the while twitching her head backstage. Bimmy had spent much of her young life in the circus, absorbing enough to know that, in show business, large ears lurked everywhere. And Theo’s recent conversation was not for public consumption.

“How are you today?” Bimmy continued to speak to the heavy curtain.

The rumpled man emerged from behind thick velvet, blinking in the transition from dark to light. “Do I know you?” There was an undercurrent of suspicion and irritation to his question.

Bimmy froze. On her reply hinged much.

“We know your reputation,” she answered smoothly. Her glibness continued to be an inspiration to Audie. “And we’re on the bill here. Next to last.”

“Humph.” The Great Oberon could not be bothered with kid acts. And certainly not kid acts holding the least desirable spot on the bill. He fussed with his moustache in irritation.

Audie’s ear buzz caused her to recall a similar sensation on the train. A sensation she had dismissed due to railway noise. Perhaps she had been too hasty in her conclusion.

“Sisters,” Bimmy said with forced enthusiasm. “Isn’t it an honor to be in the same room with the Great Oberon?”

Theo set her injured foot down. “Oh my, yes, sister.”

“It is a genuine pleasure, sir.” Audie dipped into a curtsy, grateful for their stage makeup and garish costumes; she did not think it would be in their best interest if “Mr. Oberon” recognized them from either the train or hotel.

“Where is Bert?” was Mr. Oberon’s only reply. “We were to have an audition! Find him!”

Bimmy and Audie scurried away to obey the command, leaving Theo to limp off to her assignation with Mr. Houdini. The younger girls met Bert as he and Cypher returned from the business office where the performance contract had been signed. Bert was blowing his nose and rubbing red-rimmed eyes. Cypher wore a bewildered expression, which Audie could not read. She could not know that he was puzzling over Bert’s advice not to send their laundry out. Cypher had thanked him, of course, for the wise words, completely unaware that Bert was telling him, in vaudevillian lingo, that he didn’t think the act would even go the full week.

“Mr. Oberon is requesting an audience with you,” Audie informed the stage manager. “For the audition.”

Bert sneezed again. He knew he was allergic to cats, but was he also allergic to magicians? Why else would he be sneezing so? “Where is he?” he asked.

“Over—” Audie turned, then stopped. “Well, he was right there.” She gently shook her head. It seemed perhaps that the buzzing was dying down.

“He’ll find me.” Bert put his thumbs under his suspenders. “Don’t worry.”

“Do tell him we delivered his message.” Audie did not want any bad blood with Mr. Oberon, or whoever he was.

“He was most insistent,” Bimmy added.

Bert sneezed again and made a mental note to buy another bottle of Dr. Leo’s Breathene syrup. Those magicians: Give them a top hat, cape, and magic wand and they thought they ruled the world. “Be here for rehearsals in the morning,” he told Cypher, stifling a sneeze. “It’s a five-dollar fine if you’re late.”

“Five dollars!” Cyper exclaimed. It was becoming increasingly clear that vaudeville was a racket. Five-dollar late fees. Two-dollar union fees. Fifty cents for the stagehand memorial fund. How did a person make a living in this world? He was about to launch into a well-thought-out but pointed tirade when Audie stopped him with a tug on the arm.

“Come meet Herring.” She and Bimmy led him backstage. They passed a young man in a battered cap as he put something in his jacket pocket. Audie paused and he caught her gaze. She tugged on Cypher’s arm. Even though her ear was not buzzing, something about the young man didn’t add up. The minute she made that move, the young man was gone.

“Was there something you needed?” Cypher asked.

Audie glanced left and right. Had she really seen the lad? “No,” she said slowly. “Nothing.” She brightened. “Except for you to say hello to Herring!”

Cypher pinched his nose by way of introduction. Seals are rather aromatic creatures, what with all the fish they consume. To the girls’ delight, Herring’s trainer allowed them to serve his lunch. The seal was especially fond of herring, thus his name.

“Wayuh is Deo?” Cypher’s query through his pinched nose made him sound as if he were speaking underwater.

Bimmy’s head tilted toward the dressing rooms.

“With you-know-who.” Audie wiped a bit of herring guts from her fingers. “I’m sure she’ll be along directly.”

Three of the Pomegrantos spent the next half hour getting acquainted with their fellow performers. Bimmy was especially taken with one young English acrobat named Archibald Leach, who gave her a toffee in exchange for a tumbling lesson.

The three partners were so engaged in conversation—trade talk, if you will—that there was no comment when Mr. Houdini passed by them again, that charming fox terrier at his heel. Sans cape, Mr. Houdini was less theatrical, but still Audie felt honored to be in his presence.

The great magician stood at the fringes of the gathered group, apparently too proud to join in with the lesser performers. He caught Cypher’s eye and motioned him near. Cypher complied. Audie and Bimmy followed at a discreet distance so as not to call attention.

“It’s half past two,” the great magician observed.

“Yes.” Cypher nodded. “Nearly time for the first run-through of the illusion.” He patted his pockets. Full of sugar cubes as Mr. Houdini had requested. Jennie the elephant was evidently inordinately fond of sugar.

“You seem remarkably unconcerned.” Houdini rocked back and forth on his well-polished shoes.

Cypher’s face folded into a question mark. “Unconcerned?”

Though actors and stagehands and hangers-on were milling about, causing sufficient commotion to cover the conversation, Houdini lowered his voice. “The object that was to be delivered an hour ago,” he said, eyebrow raised, as if offering a clue.

Still Cypher wore a confused expression.

Audie racked her brain to decipher the magician’s comments. Object. An hour ago. “Oh!” she gasped. “But it was delivered!”

Bimmy’s confusion now matched Cypher’s.

“Our sister.” Audie rolled her hands as if to stir her colleagues’ memories. From the corner of her eye she caught the young man, the one in the cap, again. Where had he gone? And why was he now watching them with such interest?

“Sister?” Bimmy’s curls jangled as her head shifted back and forth.

“Sister!” Cypher’s glance darted around backstage, the implication of Audie’s message finally sinking in.

Houdini’s head tilted back, as if watching a bird escape from his silk top hat. “Speak plainly. This is giving me a migraine.”

Cypher leaned in. Audie could barely hear what he was saying. “She went to your dressing room. As planned.”

“We saw her,” Audie added. Bimmy nodded agreement, curls bouncing with wild abandon.

The scraggly young man in the cap now moved stealthily and intently toward that set of stairs in the back. Why was he being so secretive? Perhaps he had seen Theo. Perhaps he was involved in her absence. Audie made a note to pursue this further.

“It’s rather public here,” she pointed out. “Difficult for frank conversations.”

Houdini followed her gaze, then did a double take as if only then noticing the laboring hordes. Nodded. “Come.” He spun on his heel and led them to a door, adorned with a gold star, under which were emblazoned the words HARRY HOUDINI. He turned the doorknob. “We can speak freely in here.”

Audie took Bimmy’s hand as together they passed into the dressing room of arguably the most famous man in the entire world.

Each wall was plastered with placards shouting out amazing feats: HOUDINI: HANDCUFF KING. HOUDINI: THE JAIL BREAKER. HOUDINI: KING OF CARDS. Each poster featured the man himself, in chains or handcuffs or being lowered into some contraption from which he must escape. Each successive image made Audie’s heart race faster.

Bimmy’s reaction was not as worshipful. Her circus life had shown her that there was very little magical to magic. But she was polite all the same. Mr. Houdini had, after all, captured the imagination of the world. And no one could deny his escapist skills. Bimmy shuddered to think of the agonies he must endure to break free from those chains and handcuffs and milk cans: dislocated shoulders, broken ribs, slashes, and burns. All for the sake of being called the best.

Cypher was neither admiring nor polite in the midst of Mr. Houdini’s gallery of achievements. He was livid. “Where is she?” Cypher lifted up capes and costumes, tossing them to and fro. “She came to you at the appointed time.” He had given his word to keep Theodora Quinn safe. She had trusted him. And now she had apparently disappeared! If Houdini had clued Theodora in to Cypher’s role, who else had the magician told? Did the man have any idea of how he had compromised everything? Cypher pushed that threatening note from his mind. Surely Theo hadn’t been kidnapped right from under his nose.

Houdini shook his head. “She was to come at half past one. But something came up.” He indicated Bobby, now sleeping soundly on a fluffy rug. “My dog needed fresh air, if you catch my drift.”

Cypher exhaled so forcefully Audie felt as if she might be blown out of the room. “You were not here at the appointed time?” he asked.

Houdini flapped his hand. “I was gone mere minutes. Perhaps ten at the most.” It might have been longer; he had stopped to buy a sour pickle from a street urchin. It was nearly as delicious as those his mother used to make. But he didn’t see the need in explaining that. Not to someone who was working for him.

Audie’s hand went to her left ear. “Cypher—”

“Don’t move.” Cypher’s command required complete obedience; even Houdini complied. “Let me examine the room for clues.” Cypher shut his eyes, reaching out his hands, palms down. He seemed to be led by his hands, as if they were divining rods, to the far corner of the room. Behind a huge trunk.

“My ear is buzzing like anything,” Audie said.

Cypher had had only one experience with the predictive powers of Audie’s ear, but one experience was sufficient. “We must stay calm.” Outwardly, he was a rock. Inwardly, he was the cream with which Beatrice stuffed her éclairs.

Audie nodded, but her stomach snarled itself into knots like a balky ball of yarn.

“Your ear?” Houdini asked.

“If it’s the ear,” Bimmy pronounced solemnly, “it’s very bad.” She said a silent prayer for Theo’s safety.

Houdini fell into a leather armchair. “I am completely perplexed by you people.” He rubbed his temples. “And profoundly disappointed. You assured me you would keep Theo quiet—” He cut a look at the girls. “I mean, safe.” He pounded a fist on his thigh. “Good heavens, man. I open the act in mere days! What am I to do?” Curse that Theodora Quinn for being such a pill about giving him all the information he needed for the illusion. She had insisted on reeling it out in bits and pieces; thought it would be safer that way. And now look where that strategy had gotten them.

Cypher shifted a large vase and stopped. He bent down, reaching for an item on the floor.

“Theo’s spectacles!” Audie gasped.

“She’s been here.” Cypher folded the spectacles with care and placed them in his pocket. “That much we know.”

The three Pomegrantos sat in silence. There seemed no good answer to the great magician’s question at that moment. Audie stole a glance at Cypher. She had never seen him look so defeated. She rubbed at her ear. Was it losing its powers? After all, it had buzzed around the Great Oberon, too. Maybe there was something about magicians that set it off. Or confused it.

Bimmy chewed at a ragged bit of skin on her thumb, making herself recall every detail of the afternoon, once their own audition had been completed. This mental mapping was something Mama had taught her. It meant the difference between life and death on the high wire, Mama insisted. “Take photographs with your mind, my darling, that’s the sure way to avoid mistakes.” Clinging to her mother’s advice, Bimmy flipped through her mind-photographs of the entire afternoon.

After a few moments, she jolted to her feet. “What did you say?” Then she added, “Sir?”

“What?” Houdini pressed his fingertips to his forehead.

“Please, Mr. Houdini,” Bimmy begged. “Repeat what you just said.”

Houdini looked over at Cypher, who nodded encouragement. “Well, I said something along the lines of, ‘I open the act on Friday night. What am I to do?’ ”

“ ‘What am I to do?’ That’s what the Great Oberon said.” Bimmy held her arms above her head in a classic prizefighter’s pose. “In the lobby of the hotel. Those words exactly.”

“You are so right!” Audie remembered it now, too. “And the intonation was much like Mr. Houdini’s, was it not?”

Bimmy nodded. She clasped her hands under her chin.

It was Houdini’s turn to appear confused, but Cypher quickly caught up to the girls’ thinking.

“You are supposing that, among his many other talents, Oberon, or rather our Oberon imposter, may be a mimic. He could have watched you leave the dressing room, slipped in, and greeted Theo, copying your voice.” Cypher frowned, deep in thought. “But let us remember, we have no proof of this.” This jumping to conclusions was going to be the death of him.

“We did catch him eavesdropping on our conversation,” Audie said. “Though we were ever so careful not to say too much.”

“Whatever you said”—Houdini morosely stroked Bobby over and over again—“it was clearly too much.”