The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime - Michael Sims [82]
Tonight the talk was all Malvino—at the particular rubber where he chose to play. It was to be a rare occasion. True, they were to pay the magician roundly for the séance and had offered him, besides, a sporting proposition in the shape of a written permission to carry off all his fingers could lift, but they chose to interpret sport according to their own lights. Two centuries ago it was sport in merry England to tie a gamecock to a stump and shy brickbats at it. The game was conducted according to rules carefully worked out, and was popular with all concerned—except the gamecock.
Godahl at length, getting his fill, rose in disgust and passed out. At the corner the street lamp winked at him in its knowing way; and Godahl, forgetting the gorge that had risen in him, returned the wink, smiling.
Colwell, the master of ceremonies, was venturing to a chosen few that a certain faker would be ineligible for dates on a kerosene circuit in Arkansas before the evening was over, when the telephone boy brought him a message from the Victoria. Malvino had started, and was driving to avoid the inevitable crowd that dogged his steps.
The committee was giving a last touch to its properties—a camera and flashlight apparatus arranged behind a screen—when there came the familiar tap-tap-tapping of the cane on the marble steps. If the lilt of his gait were any criterion the mask was in fine fettle.
“So”—he was whispering—“three steps up from the street—two vestibules—and deep carpets. Deep carpets are bad!”
As he passed through the first vestibule this strange, impassive figure in dead black ran his fingers along the wall. There was the door, indeed, by which he would escape.
“Malvino the Magician!” cried a flunkey in gold lace as the inner doors swung open. Colwell was there, with extended hand. The hand of the other closed on it without hesitation, holding it for a moment.
“You speak no French? No? It is—most unfortunate. I speak things—and I am most awkward in your tongue. Is there the color blue here? I would touch it before I play.”
He waved his cane toward the entrance. “The corridor? It is empty—yes? It is so in the bond. Thus,” he cried, his teeth glowing at the circle of faces before him—“Thus am I to take away that which is mine—is it not?”
Colwell elevated a knowing eyebrow at his companions. Colwell had not been a plumber’s assistant for nothing in the days of his youth. He had plugged the keyslots with molten lead. Once closed it would require the aid of a carpenter, not a locksmith—not even a magical locksmith—to negotiate the doors of the cloakroom. Colwell did not begrudge his walletful of small change at auction bridge, but he was decidedly averse to letting it fall into the hands of this blind beggar.
They helped him out of his coat. “My cane too!” he said as he handed the cane to Colwell. It was of ebony, as thin as a baton and without ornament of any kind, save a platinum top. “It is—my faithful Achates! It is—a little brother to my poor senses. It is wonderful——” He swayed slightly and put out a hand to steady himself against Colwell. “But tonight, gentlemen, in your honor Malvino disarms himself, for the—how is it?—the fifty little millionaires—ha-ha!—who are so good as to receive me.”
“Am I,” he continued, “to have the honor of shaking the hands of the gentlemen? I do not know.” He paused as though embarrassed, shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly; and then, smiling: “Myself, as a person, is not present if you so desire—only my talents, which you buy and pay for. Ah, I am awkward in your tongue. Sometimes, gentlemen, I am the guest—sometimes I am only the monkey, with his tricks. You understand? I thank you, sir. Saunders, of Texas Union? Ah, of the landed gentry of this great country! I am indeed pleasured.”
A smile went the rounds.