Stuart looked around to check that Leonora and the dog were following. They were, Leonora moving slowly but confidently, one hand gripping the dog’s harness. Above them, the white dove flew in lazy circles.
“For goodness’ sakes, catch it, Clifford!” shouted Jeannie over her shoulder, striding past the tip-up seats toward a door at the back. She opened it and Stuart stepped through into daylight, and gasped. They were in a huge greenhouse with a mosaic floor and a glass ceiling that extended all the way from the roof of number seventy-nine to the roof of a warehouse directly behind. There was a fountain in the center, palm trees that reached almost to the glass above, and large green copper sculptures of lizards and butterflies. But there was also a row of buckets on the floor to catch drips from the ceiling, the fountain was a feeble trickle, and the mosaic floor was chipped and grimy.
“It’s enormous,” said Stuart.
“There used to be hummingbirds here,” said Leonora. “I’d put sugar in my palms and hold them up, and I could hear the whir of their wings as they came to eat.”
“Yes, it’s not what it was,” replied Jeannie bitterly. “We built it to entertain clients, but cheap foreign imports have cut our business right in half. Nobody wants quality magic any more. And the overheads are appalling.” She steered Stuart past a peeling wrought-iron bench, toward a huge set of doors in the warehouse wall.
Across them, in curly script, was painted:
Tricks of the Trade
There was a smaller door cut into one of the large doors. Leonora opened it and marched Stuart through. If he’d thought the greenhouse was big—well, this warehouse was on a different scale altogether. He could hardly see to the other end. Row after row of shelves stretched away into the distance, but most of them were empty. Three forklift trucks were parked off to one side; there was only one in use, slowly ferrying a box labeled MAGIC CABINET along one of the aisles.
At the far end was a workshop. Stuart could see the flash of a welding torch and hear the distant tunk-tunkity-tunk of hammer on metal.
“This used to be so busy,” said Leonora, her voice echoing in the vastness.
“Yes, all right, all right, Leonora,” Jeannie snapped irritably. “There’s no need to rub it in.” She headed for a small, glass-walled office in one corner. Once they had all filed in, she closed the door, and the noise of hammering was muffled.
Leonora felt her way to a straight-backed chair and sat down, and the dog collapsed onto the floor beside her, looking instantly like a discarded rug.
The room was furnished simply, with desks and chairs and, in one corner, something that looked like a museum cabinet.
“Come and see your uncle,” said Jeannie, tapping her long nails on the glass.
Stuart went over. By standing on tiptoe, he could just see a photograph. It showed a smartly dressed, very short young man grinning keenly outside a theater. Next to him was a young woman in a glittery costume, and she was smiling and pointing to a sign that read:
“What was the Well of Wishes?” asked Stuart. Jeannie gave a little jump. “And why would you want to know that?” she asked, leaning over so that her face was rather too close to Stuart’s.
He took a step back. “Just curious, I suppose,” he said.
“So, you’re the curious type, are you? Always wanting to find things out, and root around and search and probe and question and discover?”
There was a pause while Stuart tried to think of an answer. “-ish,” he said.
Jeannie straightened up again. “The Well of Wishes was an illusion that was destroyed in the Horten factory fire before it was ever seen on stage. Do you know about the fire?”
Stuart nodded.
“Your great-uncle’s workshop was in that factory,” continued Jeannie. “It was where he developed and perfected his tricks, and after the fire there was nothing left of it except white-hot ash and clots of molten metal.”
There was a sudden movement behind them, and Stuart looked around to see Leonora crouched over her dog, fondling its ears, her face hidden.
“And then he disappeared?” asked Stuart.
“Not until four years later. Although you could say he disappeared from public view, except for occasional performances. When he did give a show it was brilliant. Breathtaking. My father took me to see one when I was a very little girl, and I’ve never forgotten it. The Pharaoh’s Cabinet. The Reappearing Rose Bower. The Book of Peril.”
Her eyes were shining, her hard face somehow softened. “It was marvelous. Marvelous.”
“And then what happened?” asked Stuart.
She shrugged. “He left. One day your uncle was in Beeton and then the next he wasn’t. He walked out of his house and no one ever saw him again.”
“So what happened to all those stage tricks—the cabinet and the book and the rose bower?”
“They must still be in his workshop. The one he used after the factory burned.”
“And where is that workshop?”
Jeannie was very still, and when she spoke her voice was clear and quiet. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s never been found. Somewhere in Beeton there is a hidden room full of original and beautifully engineered illusions and I would give a great deal to find it. A great deal. I’ve searched, but I feel I’m missing … how can I put it? I’m missing a key of some kind.”
She looked very hard at Stuart. “So, you’ve known nothing of this before? No little family stories, no bedtime tales about Great-Uncle Tony and the secret workshop?”
He shook his head. His father’s last bedtime tale had been about Samuel Johnson and the compilation of the first English dictionary.
“Has anyone looked in the—” he began, and then there was a violent thud on the office ceiling directly above his head.