Crafto cooed. “Are you quite comfortable?”
“Roped up like this?” Vera demanded. “Hardly! But all for the love of art! I know how I got into this cage, ladies and gentlemen, but do any of you?”
The response to this was a thunderous round of applause in which Whittaker joined. He was so carried away by the brilliance of the illusion that he had forgotten his real task.... But the end was not yet. Crafto, at the side of the cage, surveyed the bound girl in the midst of the bars, then he waved his wand mysteriously towards her—again and again. The reason for this became apparent after a moment or two.
Here, surely, was the ultimate in stage illusions, for without any covering over the cage, with only Crafto near her, with the cage suspended on its chain two feet above the floor, Vera actually began to fade! She smeared mysteriously, vanished in dim vapours, and at length had gone entirely. The bars that had been behind her were in view again, but of she herself there was no trace or sign.
“First class!” roared Sidney Laycock, jumping up and leading the clapping. “What a pity you can’t do that with all women, Crafto! Fade ’em out when they get a damned nuisance, eh?”
“That ape talks to much,” Kestrel growled. “One of these days I’ll kick him out of the damned house. Can’t think what Vera sees in him.”
“And now,” Crafto murmured, bowing and smiling “we bring the little lady back to you, safe and sound, and devoid of her ropes.”
He held out his hand dramatically towards the left wings and waited. Vera did not appear. Crafto frowned very slightly and held out his hand again.... Silence, and a tension that seemed as though it would make a distinct bang when it broke.
“Vera!” Crafto called anxiously. “Vera! Come on!”
He was no longer a clever illusionist: he was a much-worried ordinary man. He moved quickly towards the wings, then the chorine who had brought him the cage cloth came in view. Her words came distinctly to the audience.
“She’s not back here, Mr. Crafto. We haven’t seen her.”
“But—but you must have!” Crafto gasped. “Here, let me take a look.”
He dashed into the wings, and in that moment Whittaker was on his feet, cursing himself for his lapse in surveillance. The tycoon jumped up beside him, biting hard on his cigar.
“What blasted monkey business are they up to with my girl?” he barked. “I’ll soon settle this....”
He led the way to the stage, gaining it by climbing the four steps at the side. Whittaker, Sidney Laycock, and a whole host of guests were right behind him.
“Crafto!” Kestrel boomed. “Where are you? Come here!”
For the moment Whittaker was not vitally interested in Crafto; he was looking at the hanging cage, standing now right beside it. The limelights were extinguished now, but he could see the cage details clearly enough, and there certainly did not seem to be anything odd about it. It was metal all right and, at first glance, there were no signs of traps, movable bars, or anything of a magical nature.
Then Crafto reappeared, pulling off his wizard’s hat. There were beads of perspiration coursing down his forehead as he faced the smolderingly angry tycoon.
“Where’s my daughter?” Kestrel demanded.
“I just don’t know, Mr. Kestrel—”
“Don’t know! Stop talking like an idiot! You performed this trick and you must know where she is!”
“But I don’t!” Crafto insisted. “She should have been in the wings, ready to come out when I called her. But she isn’t. She’s utterly disappeared.”
“I think,” Whittaker put in, with heavy calm, “that I had better take over from here.”
Kestrel glanced at him. “Yes, maybe you had.”
Crafto waited, still glancing around him. Whittaker studied him, quite satisfied that the man was genuinely flustered. No actor, no matter how good, could have faked this anxiety of mind.
“Just what is the procedure of this illusion?” Whittaker questioned. “When we know that, we may have a better idea of how to act.”
“Why should I give away a cherished secret to a complete stranger?” Crafto snapped. “Who are you anyway?”
Whittaker held out his warrant-card, which plainly took the magician by surprise. Just the same his mouth was still stubborn.
“Your being a police officer naturally makes a difference,” he admitted, “but I’m not giving away the secret of this illusion, even to you. I will tell you what should have happened in regard to Miss Kestrel, though. Following her disappearance from the cage, performed by a means which is my secret—and hers too—Miss Kestrel should have been able to reappear in the wings there and then come on the stage.”
“How would she get into the wings?” Kestrel demanded. “That is what we wish to know.”
“There is a passage under this stage which leads to a trap-door in the wings. In fact there is one both sides. Let it suffice that she should have passed along that tunnel to the wings—only she didn’t, and she isn’t anywhere in the tunnel below stage either. I’ve just looked.”
“Then it’s time we looked,” the magnate decided. “Follow me, the rest of you.”
Crafto himself showed no hesitancy over revealing the position of the wing trapdoor, which was still open from his own emergence therefrom. Light was gleaming below and he led the way quickly down the steps into the narrow passage that went directly under the stage. Crafto pointed above his head to the outline of a closed trap set in the stage floor itself.
“That’s where she should have come through,” he explained. “Never mind how, but that’s the truth.”
“Half a story is no damned good to us!” Kestrel declared, his eyes hard. “My daughter’s gone and I want this whole idiotic illusion explained! Out with the facts, Crafto!”
“No,” the magician replied stubbornly. “I flatly refuse. This trick is worth a fortune on the halls to me and with the secret gone I’ll be nowhere.”
“Since Vera knows the trick already I don’t see what you’re so cautious about,” Sidney Laycock remarked cynically. “Whoever heard of a woman able to keep her mouth shut?”
Whittaker was not taking much notice of the conversation. He was looking back and forth along the corridor, putting into practice the powers of observation in which he was trained. Not that he saw anything very interesting. The passage was a normal one of rough brick, and at either end of it were the bases of the two imitation granite pillars that stood at either end of the proscenium. Down here, though, they were no longer surfaced with imitation granite: they were plain brick-built in cylindrical style after the fashion of a factory chimney.
“Well, all right,” came Kestrel’s growling voice. “Since you see fit to be obstinate about this business, Crafto, we’d better finish our journey along this passage to the other side of the stage. Maybe she took the wrong direction and lost herself in the opposite wings,
