THE RESURRECTION BOX

1

Porteous Merriman arrives at the Gypsy and signs a document to his disadvantage

He hadn’t expected the gargoyle.

It leered from above the stage door, a grotesque face with a water spout protruding from its mouth, eyes mere slits, long dog-like ears out wide. Porteous stared at it. Such a monstrous thing to lurk over the door of a theatre. A drip of slime hung from the thing’s mouth, beaded at the end with a drop of water. Disgusting.

What on Earth did were the owners thinking?

Perhaps it was the wrong door…but no, theatre posters had been stuck on the brick walls on either side and a rusted sign beside it read Gypsy staff only.

He took a firm hold of the door-knocker and gave the door three hard raps.

Cold seeped under the fur-lined collar of his overcoat and ran icy fingers down his spine. He waited a full minute, then grasped the door-knocker again. As soon as he did it opened.

A girl’s face peered out into the evening gloom. A red face, puffy cheeks, a straggle of black hair leaking from under a cloth cap such as a workman might wear, eyes that needed sleep. On a good day she might have looked about twenty years old; for the time being a few years had been added.

“Yes?”

Automatically he removed his hat at the sight of a female, then put it back on, reached into his coat pocket and extracted a card.

“Porteous Merriman, conjuror and illusionist,” he said. “Mr Foxwood is expecting me.”

The girl didn’t look at the card, just stared at his face. She sniffed loudly and drew back so he could enter.

He indicated the wooden chest at his feet. “Find someone to bring that in, would you?”

The girl bent to grasp the chest’s handles and pulled upwards, lifting it easily. Only after seeing the feat did Porteous recall he himself always struggled with the weight of the thing.

“Are you all right with that?” he asked, remembering his manners.

The girl said nothing, just shoved past him into the room beyond.

As Porteous stepped under the gargoyle the drop of water on the end of the slime coming from the spout in its mouth rapped hard on his hat brim.

“Stop that,” said the girl.

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“You said…never mind. Is Mr Foxwood in?”

“Wait here.”

She put the chest down and disappeared through another door.

The stage door entrance consisted of a short but high corridor, flanked on one side with a small office behind a glass partition. Other the other side could be seen a desk, a chair, and in the chair an old man, presumably the doorman. Why hadn’t he answered the door instead of the girl? The other wall was almost totally covered in pictures and playbills of various acts that had been presented at the Gypsy. Half-clad dancing girls, acrobats, one woman almost totally covered in feathers sitting on an ottoman, musicians, and other magic acts. Porteous looked at the last carefully to see if he recognised any rival illusionists. He didn’t.

“Quite a history,” he muttered aloud, and the old man behind the glass partition grunted.

“Shut the door,” he said.

Porteous looked at the man, who didn’t move in the chair, just regarded him with black eyes, the short stub of a pipe protruding from his mouth. He might have been eighty. The chair had extra-long legs to make up for the man’s diminutive height.

“I beg your pardon?”

Out came the pipe and he thrust it towards the open stage door.

“Shut the door. You could have done it when you came in, you idiot. Mags never remembers and it’s bleeding cold.”

Porteous felt the old man to be the laziest, and most insulting, doorman he’d ever encountered in twenty years on the boards. Surely the man’s job held few challenges. Opening and closing doors seemed to an obvious part of the job. Insulting visitors not so. But he sighed loud enough for the old man to hear and shut the stage door.

At least the gargoyle remained outside.

He turned his attention back to the photographs, wondering if the old man would utter any thanks for doing his job for him. No, nothing on that front.

One picture caught his eye: one of the magicians, posing with a female assistant. The man wore the traditional white tie and tails, a red-lined cloak thrown across his shoulders. He held his top hat in one hand and was drawing a rabbit out of it. Porteous thrust out his lower lip—his act contained far better and mysterious illusions than that old classic. The assistant paraded her assets in a garment far more revealing, but that wasn’t what had caught Porteous’ attention. Something seemed wrong about the assistant, something he couldn’t quite…

The inner door opened and the girl Mags reappeared.

“This way, if you please.”

He glanced down at his chest.

“Leave it,” the old man muttered. “I’ll make sure no one pinches it.” The pipe went back into his mouth.

Porteous followed Mags through the other door and into the backstage world of the Gypsy.

He breathed in automatically: the numerous smells of a theatre came heavy into his lungs. Turpentine, always turpentine. Dust and lime. The clay-smell of make-up. Oil. Sweat. The must of old clothing. A dim world, lit only by a single flaring gas jet over the stage-manager’s desk in one corner, experienced through scent rather than sight. Objects loomed as shadowy forms, not real, not definite. Even the form of Mags in front assumed nothing more than a silhouette as she approached the stage.

The house was dark. No performances tonight, being Sunday. The curtain was up so as they crossed the raked boards of the stage Porteous glanced out into the auditorium. Rows of empty seats, a few tables scattered among them. The orchestra pit fitted with chairs and music stands, an old piano to one side, the conductor’s podium hard against the first row of tables and chairs. The place could seat perhaps four hundred when packed. Behind the pit seats rose the upper circle, with two closed-off boxes near the stage. Both had been boarded up. Why were they unused? He’d been told the Gypsy packed them in most nights. Perhaps the clientele didn’t favour them.

Odd.

They left the stage and passed through the other wing-space. Mags opened one more door, a heavy one that sealed out all light and sound from the backstage area. A corridor with doors leading off to dressing rooms. At the end, a flight of steps.

“Mr Foxwood is up there,” she said, sniffing. “Knock once only, mind.”

He glanced up the stairs. A green door at the top. When he turned back to Mags she’d gone. Neatly, soundlessly, almost like one of his own vanishing tricks. Maybe she’d make a good assistant, if he ever found the need for one. But no… she didn’t have the right figure. Audiences wanted to see svelte ladies with long legs and other attractive assets; Mags reminded him more of the girl in the playbill.

But the playbill was at least ten years old.

He climbed the stairs and raised his knuckles to knock.

Once, she said.

Just once. What would happen if he knocked twice, or thrice? Would Mr Foxwood refuse to answer the door?

After a second’s pause, he knocked once.

“Come in, Mr Merriman.”

Mr Foxwood’s office had its own mix of smells: ink, paper, tobacco: all odours anyone might expect in a man’s office. But another scent overlaid these: cheap cologne, perhaps, something like flowers.

The most prominent feature in the room was not Mr Foxwood but a large oaken desk on which perched an animal skull, perhaps that of a cat or dog. A large one. Behind the desk, book-filled shelves arranged around a framed photograph of Mr Foxwood posing with Queen Victoria. The room had a window overlooking the street, but night had fallen and the curtains pulled. A fire helped the two flaring gas jets to illuminate the space.

As for Cyrus Foxwood himself, he seemed barely visible. Porteous remembered him from his previous interview, which had not been held here but at Mr Foxwood’s “club”, as he termed it, actually just the shady pub next door, the Drum and Fiddle. With shady customers to match. On that occasion he’d noted Mr Foxwood’s extraordinary thinness. Seen here, behind the massive desk next to the towering shelf of books, the manager of the Gypsy seemed almost overwhelmed by his surroundings. Tall, certainly, but with a cadaverous slenderness which revealed all sorts of bones Porteous never knew people had. The narrow skull held two large, liquid eyes and a thin mouth. Almost no hair on the high crown. And the arms: long, spindly, the wrists jutting from the sleeves of his black coat like two white sticks, almost no flesh on them at all. Both blue-veined hands were presently clasped in front of him.

The man didn’t stand up.

“Hello,” he said in a voice as thin as the rest of him. “Please be seated. I’m glad to see you accepted my offer.”

Porteous almost held his hand out in greeting, but stopped himself. Like knocking only once on the door, Foxwood played by his rules. All right, Porteous could accept that. He needed the work. He sat down in a deal chair in front of the desk.

“Hello, Mr Foxwood.”

“Please, my name is Cyrus. We are all informal here at the Gypsy. May I call you Porteous?”

“Yes, of course.”

He preferred to be addressed as Mr Merriman, or, when in character for his act, by his stage name, The Miraculous Osiris. But once again he found himself agreeing to what Mr Foxwood—Cyrus—expected. A tight ship here at the Gypsy.

“I trust everything is in order for you to open tomorrow night?”

“Yes. My chest is downstairs. I have another cabinet and other equipment, tables and so on that I use in the act. I can arrange for them to be delivered tomorrow morning. The chest has my costume and make-up. Perhaps I could have a dressing room to leave my stuff in, or…”

“Or?”

On a performance night, there might be literally scores of people backstage. His equipment contained secrets, his magical illusions. And, of course, the Box. Guarding them remained a constant priority. At his previous engagement, at the Solitaire in Birmingham, he’d been assigned a locked strong room where his equipment could be left during the day away from prying eyes.

“Perhaps, for security purposes…”

“Don’t worry, Porteous, your secrets are safe here. We are…yes, we are family. A professional family. The acts here would no more dream of interfering with your trade secrets than you would theirs. You’ll have a dressing room which you must share with Messrs Riggs and Hankey— pleasant men, by all accounts, when sober. But you will have the privacy to prepare your act, of course.”

“All the same, sir—”

“Please, Cyrus.”

“All the same, Cyrus, as a professional man yourself, you must understand…”

“I understand, Porteous, that you will be paid for a three week engagement, following which your contract will be reviewed.”

Once again, Porteous hesitated to insist further.

Mr Foxwood rose and seemed even thinner as he stalked over to a set of cabinets. He pulled open a drawer and put a sheet of paper onto the desk in front of Porteous.

“Please peruse, and, if satisfied, sign on the line.”

The contract was typical of its kind. Two performances a night Monday to Friday, and an additional matinee show on Saturday. Billing at the bottom of the poster, to be elevated to the top if his act proved popular enough. Requirements to remain sober, to follow directions of the stage manager and other senior staff, to arrive at least one hour before his scheduled performance time and to keep his dressing room clean. Salary also typical for the industry, again to be reviewed after three weeks. Usual stuff.

He signed and added the date. 12th September 1851.

Foxwood pulled the sheet away and placed another in front of him, an identical to the first. “Sign this one too, please. One for you, one for me.”

As Porteous thrust the signed second copy into his pocket, he smiled. Another three weeks’ work at least. Birmingham had run dry of venues. Here in London there were more establishments, more call for his art, more chance to make a decent living. Magicians were passé unless there was something different, an “edge” they called it, to his act. He had one. Perhaps here in London it would prove more rewarding.

“Thank you,” said Foxwood. “I wish you a decent run.”

“What are audience numbers like?” Porteous asked, recalling but not mentioning the empty boxes in the auditorium.

“Fair for the moment. The Great Exhibition is still attracting many people. Have you seen it?”

“No. I arrived from Birmingham just last week.”

“A most impressive attraction. A little too attractive, perhaps. Another month to run, of course, but I’ll be glad when it’s done and our audiences start spending money with us again.”

The Great Exhibition out at Hampstead had been declared the wonder of the age. Perhaps he would go and see it, if only to find out what all the fuss was about.

Mr Foxwood sat down behind his desk once more. “That will be all, then Porteous. Mags will show you your dressing room.”

Porteous was half up before he stopped. “Um…my chest? It is a long way back to my accommodation. Perhaps it could be locked up somewhere safe? I mean, I don’t wish to persist, but…”

Foxwood stared at him. For a long moment the two men remained still, and Porteous thought the faintest shadow of a frown crossed Mr Foxwood’s face. Then the thin cadaver smiled.

“Of course. Remiss of me. Mags!”

The girl appeared so quickly Porteous thought she must have been listening outside the door. The lock of hair still hung down from the cap on her head.

“Yes?”

Not “Yes, Mr Foxwood?” Perhaps the two were related, father and daughter or uncle and niece.

“Mr Merriman is now engaged here. Show him to number two dressing room.”

The girl left but Porteous hung back for a moment.

“Something I’ve forgotten?”

His gaze hung for a moment on the skull on the desk. It seemed to have shifted slightly, or had there been a gleam from the empty eye sockets? Nonsense, of course…such things were not possible, and yet…Or maybe the shadows in the room had changed. The fire burned a little lower. Yes, that was it: the shadows. A simple illusion. Nothing more. How remiss of him not to see the trick immediately.

“Er…no. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No, not me you won’t. I don’t come in on Mondays. Mags will show you want you need to know.”

Foxwood sat down behind his desk, placed his skinny hands in front of him on the desk and didn’t bother looking at Porteous anymore.

On the stairs outside, Mags waited.

“This way,” she said, and he followed her down the stairs.

From the room behind, Porteous thought he heard a low, long chuckle.

At the bottom of the stairs Mags went past the stage entrance turned left, up a few concrete steps.

“Dressing room number two,” she said. “Gas is sixpence extra after the house is dark.”

The room was cold and more than a little damp, but Porteous didn’t mind. In his profession he had yet to find a dressing room that wasn’t cold and damp to some degree. He gazed at the make-up table, the three wooden chairs, the wardrobe for clothing, the ceramic sink in the corner served by two bronze taps. It would do, although it lacked any privacy to set up his act.

“Mr Foxwood mentioned something about a space for my chest and equipment,” he said.

Mags sniffed and shifted the lock of hair off her face. It immediately fell back to its original position. She didn’t try to shift it again.

“There may be something back here. What are you again?”

He almost hauled his card out. “I told you at the door. An illusionist.”

“Oh.” She could not have sounded less impressed.

He followed her further along the line of dressing rooms—another corridor, damper and darker this time, but at the end a door that creaked when opened and inside a storage space. Through the gloom of the unlit room he could see shelves burdened with the uncategorised dross and cast-offs of a theatre. Props, canvas flats, pipes and tubing for lime-lights, piles of old paper. But room enough for Porteous to store his equipment and prepare the act.

“It will do,” he said. “Does the door lock?”

“Yes.” Dust stuck to a finger that Mags rubbed along a shelf.

“Is there a key?”

“Don’t know. You could ask the stage manager for one. Mr Simms.”

“Is he here?”

A short bark from Mags and, for the first time since he’d met her, as brief smile that came and went like a sunny morning in winter: warm, but doomed from the beginning. “It’s Sunday. He’ll be drunk somewhere losing at cards.”

Not a good sign. Every other stage manager Porteous had ever met so far would have taken Sunday as a good chance to catch up on the myriad and unending tasks that involved running a busy metropolitan theatre. He wondered if this Mr Simms might be trusted, and determined to arrive promptly tomorrow and meet the stage manager to make his requirements known.

Mags shut the door and led the way back to the stage door. The old man still sat behind the glass partition. He seemed to have barely breathed. His chest blocked the path to the door.

“I need that locked up somewhere,” he said. “I’d hoped to get a private dressing room, you see. One with a key.”

The old man removed the pipe and leaned against the glass to peer down at the chest as if seeing it for the first time. “It’ll be safe. Unless you think I’m going to steal it.”

The alternative was to lug it all the way back to his hotel, and in reality it would be no safer there. Theatre people surely would understand his wishes?

“Can we put it in the store room at least?”

Mags shrugged and bent down to heft the chest up again. This time Porteous went to grab one handle to help the girl.

“No,” she said, and clumped away on heavy feet. Porteous scampered after her, making sure she didn’t knock the chest against anything and shoved it into a dark place between two shelves carrying rolls of cloth.

“Good enough?” she asked.

“Yes. Thank you. You didn’t have to…it was heavy.”

She shrugged and went back to the stage door. Porteous shivered a little as she opened it and the evening chill rolled in, with a faint wisp of fog. The black shape of the gargoyle, with another drop of water at the end of its spout, loomed darkly.

“Well, I’ll be back tomorrow then,” said Porteous, pulling gloves from his overcoat pocket and donning them. “Eight o’clock. Will the stage manager be here by then?”

“Perhaps,” said Mags and the old man chuckled.

Porteous stepped out into the darkness. A single drop of water fell from the gargoyle’s mouth onto the brim of his hat.

“I said stop it,” said Mags.