studied the dancers. Carlo swung on to a stool to give himself a better view.
The woman was very young, with long glossy hair that fell almost to her narrow waist. Her profile was serene, her lips slightly parted in a faint smile. Her partner was an attentive man of middle age, his face partly shielded by steel-rimmed spectacles. He danced with great concentration, his head bent so close to hers that his lips almost brushed the lustrous hair. The precision of his steps and his protective bearing suggested that she needed guidance in some manoeuvre more complicated or demanding than a waltz before an audience of one. Devil saw that the man’s shoes were rimmed with the mud of London streets, but the woman’s were pale satin and unmarked. She hadn’t walked here, or anywhere else, in those slippers.
The music stopped and the fat man turned the handle once again. Devil nodded to himself. The oddness of the scene, the dim light, the abundant hair had all momentarily confused him but now he knew what was happening here. He let his attention slide away.
They were in a derelict little theatre. As his eyes acclimatised he saw that it had been partly burned out. The space where the stage would once have been was a mess of charred wood and fallen beams, and the delicately painted walls of the auditorium had been spoiled with smoke. The ruins of seating had been thrown into the corners, and every surface, except for a circle in the centre that had been roughly swept for the dancers, was layered with soot. Yet even in its decayed state Devil could see that this was a harmonious space. A gallery extended its arms almost to the stage, from which it was separated only by two levels of little boxes with apron fronts that had once been lavishly gilded. The gallery was supported by slim pillars, blackened too but still intact. When he looked upwards he glimpsed the ruins of a once-magnificent plaster ceiling.
The last tinkling notes of the mechanical waltz died away, yet seemed to be still echoing in the intimate sounding-box of the hall.
Devil listened, all his senses heightened as a pulse ticked in his neck. What was this place?
‘Thank you, Herr Bayer.’ The fat man was barely smothering a yawn.
The dancers stopped but the man’s right hand still clasped his partner’s, and the fingers of his left rested lightly at her waist. Then he bowed to her and took one step back. As soon as she was released her white arms gracefully descended to her sides. She stood motionless, her eyes glittering. Her faint smile now seemed too fixed.
Devil had seen already that this was not a woman but an automaton.
A well-made thing, but still a thing.
‘She is beautiful, yes?’ Herr Bayer said.
The other shrugged.
Herr Bayer’s voice rose. ‘We have toured in France and Austria as well as in Switzerland. In Berlin we danced for a niece of the Empress.’
The fat man’s chins looked like warm wax melting into his scarf. ‘Tell me, what else does the doll do?’
Herr Bayer recoiled. ‘If you please. Her name is Lucie.’
‘What else does your Lucie do?’
Bayer guided her to a seat across the circle from the fat man. She moved in a stately glide, her head turning slightly on her slender neck as if to acknowledge her admirers. He dusted the chair seat with his handkerchief and she folded at the hip and the knee to adopt a sitting position. Bayer lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it.
‘As you see, Lucie stands and sits, walks and dances.’
‘I hear Mr Hoffman has a mechanical creature who plays chess. It will take on any opponent, and it usually wins.’
‘Hoffman’s Geraldo is hardly bigger than a child’s toy.’ Bayer swung on his heel and pointed at Carlo. This was the first acknowledgement from either man of their arrival. ‘And there is a person like him concealed in a box just behind its shoulder, directing the movement of the pieces.’
‘Davenport’s latest invention tells fortunes and reads minds.’
‘He uses a clumsy puppet, a scarecrow, hardly more than that. And the act is a common memory game. Pure trickery.’ Bayer almost spat. His Swiss-German accent grew heavier.
The fat man sighed. ‘It is all trickery. This is what we do.’
‘No.’
Bayer leapt to Lucie’s side. He put one arm round her smooth shoulder as if to defend her from insult. ‘This is no trick. She is what she is, a work of art. A miracle of precision, perfect in every movement. Look at her face, her hair, even her clothing.’
Devil strolled across the circle. ‘May I?’ He reached out to stroke Lucie’s head. The hair was human, but it felt lifeless under his hand. The automaton’s dress was lace and silks and velvet, but there was no breathing warmth within its rich folds. The face was exquisitely moulded and painted and utterly unmoving. He stepped back, faintly disgusted by the doll’s parody of womanhood.
Bayer said, ‘She is lovely, you see? Mr Grady, you will not find a better or more ambitious model to delight your audiences.’
The man smiled but an imploring note had entered his voice. Lucie might be dressed in the latest finery, Devil saw, but her partner’s clothes were worn and mended. The man was another itinerant performer, hungrily searching for a paying audience, just like Carlo and – indeed – himself. For a moment Devil was depressed to think how many such hopefuls there were in London, let alone elsewhere, but he didn’t allow the anxiety to take hold. He would succeed, because he would do anything and everything necessary to ensure that success. And the rest of them could go to hell. He returned to his contemplation of the theatre’s lovely ruin.
Grady put aside the musical box and wrote in a notebook.
‘Very well. Come back here in two weeks. We’ll be ready to open by then. I’ll try you out for a few performances, see whether the crowd takes to you.’
Bayer’s face brightened. He bowed to Grady and nodded to Carlo and Devil, but his proper attention was for Lucie. He wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head before bringing forward a brass-cornered trunk and undoing the clasps. The interior was padded with red plush and shaped to accommodate a female form. Bayer lifted the automaton in his arms and gently folded the doll into captivity. Then he hoisted the locked trunk on to a wheeled frame like a market porter’s, bowed again to Grady and took up the handles of the frame.
‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ he said from the doorway as he trundled Lucie away.
No one spoke for a moment. Then the fat man looked at his pocket watch.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ he said to Carlo. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘I told you. Carlo Boldoni,’ the dwarf replied, unblinking. ‘And as I said, direct from performing before the finest drawing-room audiences in Rome. And Paris.’
‘The finest taphouses in Macclesfield and Oldham, more like. Real name?’
‘In our world of magic and illusion what is real, Mr Grady?’
‘Pounds, shillings and pence,’ the fat man snapped, not greatly to Devil’s surprise. Grady looked like a man who would count all three most
