strolled to Carlo’s table and picked up the opera hat. He showed the empty interior to Grady, made a pass and extracted the dwarf’s scissors from their concealed place. Then he reached into his coat pocket and took out his own forcing pack of cards. He flexed his fingers, expertly shuffling so the cards danced and poured through his hands. He fanned them and offered the pack to Grady.
‘Any card. Memorise it and put it back.’
Grady yawned again, but did so. Devil shuffled again and then spun in a tight circle. He flung the cards in the air, brandished Carlo’s scissors and snipped clean through a card as it fell. Then he dropped to his knees and retrieved the cut halves. He held them up.
‘Ten of diamonds?’
Grady nodded. Devil gathered up the fallen cards and placed the cut card in the middle. He shuffled once more and held out the fanned pack. Grady’s thick forefinger hesitated, withdrew, hovered and then pointed. The card he chose was the ten of diamonds, made whole again.
The only sound that greeted this was Grady’s chair creaking under his weight.
Devil coaxed him, ‘We have some time between other engagements, Mr Boldoni and I. Try us out, Mr Grady, and we’ll put our new box trick on for your customers before anyone else in England sees it.’
Carlo’s signals grew more imperative but he held still as soon as Grady turned his glare on them.
‘What’s this new box trick?’
Devil improvised rapidly. ‘Ah, the Sphinx and the Pyramid? Mystery, comedy and Arabian glamour all in one playlet. Don’t tell me that’s not made for the Palmyra. There’s a lot of interest from other theatres. You’ll regret it if you let another management snitch us from under your very nose …’
Grady still spoke to Carlo. ‘All right. If I don’t see anyone better in the meantime I’ll put your act on when we open. Half a crown a performance, and you’ll play when I tell you to whether it suits you or not. That’s for you and your assistant, Satan or whatever he calls himself.’
Carlo ran forward and stood in front of Grady’s chair, legs apart and fists on his hips.
‘Five bob.’
Grady spat out a laugh that turned into a phlegmy cough. Carlo’s face turned livid with anger.
‘I said five bob. I won’t do it for less.’
Grady finished his coughing into a handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘Then don’t do it at all. It’s no trouble to me, I assure you.’
Devil smoothly interposed himself, dropping a reassuring hand on Carlo’s shoulder.
‘I am Mr Baldano’s manager as well as his assistant.’
‘I thought he said Boldoni.’
‘… And we are prepared to work for half a crown a show, with just one small stipulation.’
‘What might that be?’
‘For every show we appear in that plays to more than eighty per cent capacity, Boldoni and Wix take a percentage of the box office.’
‘What percentage?’
Devil hastily ran figures through his head. Bargaining against calculations of this sort had previously only taken place in his wilder fantasies, but his fertile imagination meant that was fully prepared.
‘Ten.’
Jacko Grady looked cunning. Clearly he thought that the likelihood of playing regularly to houses more than eighty per cent full, against all the competition from taverns and music halls in the nearby streets, was sufficiently remote as not to be worrisome.
‘All right.’
Carlo and Wix presented their hands and the fat man ungraciously shook.
‘I’ll bring a paper for you to sign. Just to be businesslike,’ Devil said. Grady only swore and told them to get out of his sight.
Darkness had fallen. Carlo and Devil stood with Carlo’s stage props and boxes in their arms as the tides of vehicles and pedestrians swept past along the Strand.
Carlo was boiling with fury. Devil thought the dwarf might be about to kick him and he tried not to laugh out loud.
The dwarf spluttered, ‘The Sphinx and the Pyramid? What blooming rubbish. What’s Grady going to say? We haven’t got any Arabian box trick.’
‘Then we’d better get one. You talk about your new trick, all your own work. We can dress that up, whatever it is, with a few frills. We’ll start tomorrow. Where’s your workshop?’
‘I haven’t got a damned workshop. You had to buy me my dinner. I haven’t even got anywhere to sleep tonight.’
Devil looked down at him. The dwarf was defiant.
‘You told me you had a job already, starting tomorrow?’
‘I knew I’d have one, once I’d shown him what I can do. I’m good. I’m the best. Compared with Carlo Boldoni you are just a tradesman.’
It was true. The Crystal Ball and the Orange had been something special, even though Jacko Grady was too stupid and too venal to have appreciated it.
‘So I’ll be your apprentice, as well as your manager.’
‘Boldoni and bloody Wix? What d’you mean by that? And all the gammon about ten per cent of nothing, which is nothing? I want five bob to go onstage. I don’t need you to manage me, thank you kindly.’
A lady and gentleman were lingering to watch the comedy of a dwarf squaring up to a full-grown man.
Devil stooped to bring his face closer to Carlo’s. He said gently, ‘You do need me. And you will have to trust me because I am putting my trust in you. That is how we shall have to do business from now on, my friend.’
‘I am not your friend, nor are you mine,’ the dwarf retorted.
Devil good-humouredly persisted. ‘I’ve also got a roof over my head, even though it’s not Buckingham Palace. You can come back there with me now. I’ve got bread and cheese, we’ll have a glass or two of stout, and we can start work on the box trick in the morning.’
Carlo’s fury faded. Devil could see that under his bravado the little man was exhausted, and had battled alone for long enough.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed.
Carlo said nothing. But after a moment he hoisted his boxes and began to trudge northwards, at Devil’s side.
Later that night Devil sat at the three-legged table in the corner of his attic room, an empty ale mug at his elbow. Apart from chests and boxes of props the only other furniture was a cupboard, two chairs, his bed and a row of wooden pegs for his clothes. It was cold and not too clean, but by the standards of this corner of London it wasn’t a bad lodging. The landlady was inclined to favour Devil, and he took full advantage of her partiality.
Devil
