Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

Stage Struck by Marilyn Todd

“When I wrote ‘The Great Rivorsky’ (EQMM 8/01), I fully intended him to be a one-off,” Marilyn Todd told us. “But that’s the trouble when you write about a magician. You just can’t make him disappear! So here he is again... still with an eye for the ladies.” Ms. Todd is also the author of the Claudia Sefarius series. See Widow’s Pique (’04).

It can be a terrible strain at times, being The Great Rivorsky. You would not believe, madam, the burden it puts on a man, and I do not say this merely on account of that unfortunate incident back in Montmartre. In all honesty, who could have predicted that our volunteer from the audience had only recently been released from an institution? Indeed, it wasn’t until he threw off his clothes and began braying like a donkey that I had so much as an inkling.

Of course, much of the problem lies in the word “Great.” You have no idea of the responsibilities that are heaped upon my shoulders because of that one tiny word! And when the expectations of the audience are already raised to the highest level, you will appreciate that any failure to carry through is apt to induce missile-throwing of an accuracy that Wild Bill Hickok’s Indian show would be proud of.

Not that the fault was ours, I might add. This was Salzburg, and I swear the wires for the levitation act in that little fleapit were used by Noah for winching up elephants onto the Ark and could not have seen a single sliver of grease on them since. This is the problem when travelling performances book their venues six months in advance. Theatres change hands, so you never know what you might get, and in Salzburg, Pepe, our resident dwarf, was forever having to shin up those wires to release Mimi while I entertained the crowds with anecdotes of our travels and pretended that lengthy levitation was part of the act. But that night — the night the wire snapped and pinged poor Mimi into the wings — those Austrians really showed their skills in the throwing department. No doubt their dexterity is honed from generations of hurling objects across deep Alpine valleys (hams, cows, cheeses — who knows?), but all the same, six stitches in a dwarf is no laughing matter.

Flawed translation doesn’t help, either. With your breeding and education you will naturally be aware that the German for great is grosse. Imagine my horror, then, when we arrived in Lyon to find that some inept Frog had used my Berlin posters as the basis for his translation, stupidly putting an “a” in place of the “o” and thus urging the crowds to flock to The FAT Rivorsky. Alas, it was only under the first deluge of distressed fruit that the matter was brought to my notice, but frankly I blame the French for paying to gawp at grotesque overweight freaks. In fact, had it not been for my assistant, Inga, being hit square in the eye with an overripe greengage, I would have said it served those Lyonnaises right.

Yes, yes, of course I comforted poor little Inga. Under the circumstances, it was only natural to loosen her corset, and can I help it if she later took it upon herself to show me more than just her appreciation? She has a magnificent... constitution, does Inga, and as you know from experience, ma chere comtesse, I do have an eye for the ladies.

Ah, you are admiring the photograph of the dear departed, I see. Beautiful, was she not? Such hair! Such cheekbones! Such embonpoint! Dead, madam? No, no, my dear wife isn’t dead, she merely departed. Somewhere between Stockholm and Vienna, if I remember correctly, and my, how I miss her. My wife was the best contortionist this side of the Urals, and no woman before or after could fold herself up inside that little box you see in the corner and have me walk offstage with her tucked under my arm.

Now, then, Contessa, my deepest apologies, since we seem to have digressed, but as always with good conversation, one topic tends to roll into another, does it not? Where were we? Of course.

It started with your coming backstage to compliment me on my magic show, discussing the complexities of making elephants disappear over the champagne and the dangers of catching bullets in the teeth over the caviar (and here I must both thank and compliment you on your extreme generosity). Then, if my memory serves me correctly, the talk switched to my skills as a mesmerist before moving on to my mind-reading act, sawing the lady in half, thrusting swords into the basket in which my assistant is crouching, until finally the focus turned to the somewhat unusual subject of poison.

For — and forgive me if I have this wrong, madam — but you did come here this evening to kill me, did you not?

Smelling salts! Quick, quick, someone fetch smelling salts! Not me, Pepe, you imbecile! It’s la comtesse italienne who has swooned — but look, she’s coming round. Would you mind fetching some water?

Ah, you would prefer something stronger, Contessa? I quite understand, and as luck would have it, I happen to have a bottle of vodka right here in my trunk, because, in this business, one never knows when liquid fortification might come in useful, and frankly, I think I will join you.

Yes, yes, thank you, Pepe, you may go now — although if you wouldn’t mind closing the door as you leave, the lady and I would like a little privacy — oh, and Pepe: Before you slope off to that tavern off the Boulevard de la Reine (and don’t think I don’t know about you and that strumpet from the Comedie — just make sure you don’t get her pregnant like you did those Siamese twins in Milan), would you mind frisking the footlights boy before he leaves?

Five nights in succession, Contessa, that boy walked out into the rain, snug inside his long flowing cape. Indeed, it wasn’t until I searched for our missing rabbit that I discovered the scoundrel had been robbing me blind of my capes. Silk linings, too. Personally, I would have fired the rogue on the spot, but the theatre manager insists footlight skills are hard to find here in Marseille, and who knows? Perhaps working with gas all day affects the boy’s brains.

There. A cushion under your feet will soon ease the nausea, and maybe another vodka will settle the—? My, my, it’s not every day one sees countesses swigging straight from the bottle, but I think we both agree that attempted murder counts as exceptional circumstances. But rest assured, madam, your enthusiastic thirst-quenching will remain our little secret. Ah, yes. Discretion... I see from your sudden upraising of eyebrows that you thought I was about to elaborate on the subject of secrets, and so I shall, madam, so I shall. But not yet. For like all good magicians, the knack comes from laying the groundwork, a principle I instill in every young person wishing to study the art of illusion. The more solid the foundations, the stronger the act — and the stronger the act, the more breathtaking the denouement. The Great Rivorsky would be merely Rivorsky, were it not for the long hours spent on detailed observation, rehearsal, and training, and without the “Great,” how could I have hoped to perform before the court of the Russian Tsar, give private shows to Bertie, Prince of Wales, or entertain the very cream of European aristocracy?

Which, of course, brings us back to discretion. I have, as I say, rubbed shoulders with the best of them (and that Austrian archduke, Francis Ferdinand, will go far, mark my words, for I doubt we’ve heard the last of that gentleman). But as I was saying, it is because I have a certain rapport with the ladies — it is my life’s mission to make people happy, after all — it would not be a lie to say that more than one blue-blooded filly has twiddled my moustache during the course of my tours.

I cannot deny that this was often a cause of friction between myself and the dear departed, especially since I am egalitarian when it comes to romance and do not differentiate between patrician blood and plebeian. However, it was the circus that separated me from my wife, in particular the lure of a certain lion tamer from Stamboul, but that is irrelevant.

The point is, I am well used to duchesses, countesses, princesses, and the like coming backstage to compliment me on my show, and not all of them were as charming and attractive as you. (By no means.) But you were the first, madam, to make overtures without the slightest twinkle in your eye. Indeed, I have seen generals draw up battle campaigns with more humour and flair, although none, I admit, with quite such dogged determination.

And only a fool would not stop to ask himself why.

At this stage, I think we need to backtrack. Perhaps, though, when you have paused with the bottle, you might allow me a snifter before I continue? After all, it is not every day a man meets his own killer...

Ah, that’s better. Please don’t think I didn’t appreciate the champagne you brought earlier, but the thing about vodka is that it goes smack! to where it is needed. Straight to the point, as it were — unlike me. But then, as a magician of certain renown, I do have to be aware of my own shortcomings, just as I am aware of my strengths.

Which brings us back to the matter of observation.

I cannot (obviously!) read minds. What I can read are reactions, and over the years I have trained myself to observe the tiniest changes in facial muscles, eye responses, body language, and human behaviour. From this, I have honed an act in which I can “predict” all manner of things, ranging from what people have in their pockets to the words they have already written on a board I have not seen. None of the volunteers suspects that subliminal messages have already been planted both on the stage and inside their heads, and my mind-reading act both reinforces The Great Rivorsky’s invincibility and serves as an interlude between what are, quite frankly, some very dangerous stunts.

I am not sure whether your eyes are glazing over due to the vodka or what you perceive to be another digression, but I merely wish to stress that, as a matter of course, I miss nothing. Everything that passes before me is absorbed, filed away in a corner of my professional mind, and some of it will be used though most of it will not, but nothing is ever discarded.

Take that scene at the train station.

Innocuous enough. As The Great Rivorsky’s entourage disembarks, so a file of chained prisoners shuffles along on the adjacent platform. Even without the presence of a heavily armed guard, it was obvious that these were not petty criminals on the move, but dangerous men bound for transportation, and a dirtier, smellier, uglier bunch of fellows I have not seen in my life. Perhaps it was the effect of the steam swirling from the locomotives, but to my mind it was as though their hideous crimes formed one vast aura of menace around them, and as they shambled along, rage and bitterness etched on their faces, one realised that, if by some sudden chance they broke free from their shackles, they would happily jump the nearest individual to demand money with menaces and place no value whatsoever on human life.

Except one.

The one at the end.

He stood out, not because he was smaller or taller than the rest, or any the less ugly — there is nothing attractive about a scar bisecting a man’s eye — but because of his expression. There was none of the others’ surliness distorting his features, no feral glint in his eye, none of the constantly watching for opportunities for the chance to escape. Instead, there was an air of resignation about him that was lacking among the other convicts, an air of what one might almost call calmness.

All of this, as I say, was absorbed whilst supervising the discharging of assistants, trunks, animals, and boxed scenery — tasks I frankly cannot afford to delegate, since this wouldn’t be the first time poor Pepe’s been left behind on a train. Being small, he snuggles into the luggage rack quite compactly and, being Spanish, it takes nothing short of an explosion to wake him. Nevertheless, as two of the guards passed us, I could not fail to catch the words “Devil’s Island,” and I confess, madam, a cold shiver ran down my back.

Devil’s Island! That abomination of a penal settlement in that godforsaken corner of the Atlantic Ocean where only the most hardened of criminals is despatched and where the combination of noxious climate, brutal conditions, and hard labour has claimed the lives of hundreds of prisoners over the years. With its reputation as a place from which escape is impossible, the island is aptly named. Few who are sent to Devil’s Island ever return.

But as our little group disembarked at the station, there was no time to dwell on the fate of those wretches who had condemned themselves to Hell through their own crimes. That clumsy oaf of a station porter had dropped the properties box on its head, so that swords, knives, and pistols were bouncing over the platform like raindrops. With so many women and small children in the vicinity, it was imperative we gather the weapons up fast, because The Great Rivorsky never pushes blunt swords into the basket in which his assistant is crouched, and to prove their deadliness I always slice a melon in half before we start. I repeat, some of my acts are extremely dangerous.

So there we were, in total chaos, when suddenly there was a shout.

“Look out!” a voice cried. “Look out behind you!”

Without doubt, madam, that warning saved lives. The first chain of convicts had seen the box drop and in the blink of an eye were charging down on the weapons. There is no doubt in my mind that those devils would have used the knives to hold innocent civilians hostage, killing us if their demands were not met, for these are men with nothing to lose and everything to fight for — except, of course, the salvation of their souls, where the battle is already lost.

But at the warning, I spun round and, realising immediately the danger that was unfolding, began kicking the weapons under the wheels of the train, out of harm’s way. But the prisoners were gaining faster than I could scatter the blades and the guards were only beginning to shoulder their rifles. Thank the Lord, bloodshed was averted when a judicious dwarf lunged for their collectively bound ankles, collapsing the criminal chain in one pounce.

Pepe and I made the headlines. Unfortunately for him, poor little chap, you cannot always see Pepe on account of the fact that editors tend to crop photographs to fit the available space, but the point is, The Great Rivorsky made the front page. Exactly how advantageous this was I cannot stress too strongly, although full houses and additional performances were not a foregone conclusion until the following day, when I was back in the headlines (sans dwarf this time) for correcting a miscarriage of justice.

You see, Contessa, the first thing I did once the convicts had been subdued was to let the captain of the guard know who was responsible for saving our lives. After all, one doesn’t wish to think about what torments lay in store for the prisoner who betrayed his own kind, especially when he is isolated on a place like Devil’s Island! So I asked the captain if there was any way of compensating the Hungarian prisoner.

What? I didn’t mention that the warning was given in Hungarian? Apologies, madame, but so much was happening, even in my mind as I relived those terrible moments, that one tends to overlook certain details in the telling. But it was purely because the shout came in my native tongue that I spun round.

Yes, yes, yes, I realise that Rivorsky is a Russian name, but this is the fault of that Harry Houdini. To use my own name would suggest I am nothing but a cheap mimic, cashing in on the world-famous escape artist and magician, when this is far from the case. Rivorsky is Great in his own right, and one day I shall be as famous as my countryman, mark my words, but to return to the railway station—

“Hungarian?” sneers the captain. “We have no Hungarians here.”

“I am referring to the fellow at the end of the line,” I explain patiently, because, dammit, I know my own language when I hear it. “The one with the scar bisecting his left eye.”

The captain of the guard smiles at me with a mix of compassion (owed to a man who has been in a life-threatening situation) and condescension (because the bumbling fool is obviously flustered). “You mean the Italian, monsieur. The one with the jagged scar on his right cheek.”

Contessa, The Great Rivorsky is NEVER flustered.

“No,” I tell him firmly. “I mean the Hungarian with the smooth scar through his left eye.”

And to prove my point, I make him accompany me to the prisoner in question, and since this is no short walk, the men having been removed from the terrified public to be contained in a small waiting room some distance from the platforms, the captain starts chatting. Telling me how incredible that such a criminal should have attracted the attention of no less than two illustrious figures in the course of a very short time.

“Why, the Countess of Perugia paid him a visit only yesterday,” he prattles happily.

But I am not interested in the Countess of Perugia.

At least not then!

At that stage, I am concerned only with the man who saved my life and that of any members of the public who might have got in the way of those evil men, and how unsurprising that the prisoner is neither Italian nor has a jagged scar down his right cheek as his files record! It turns out that he is indeed of Hungarian extraction and has, as I observed, the smoothest of scars bisecting his left eye. Furthermore, his name is not that of the man listed for transportation, either. Well, well, well.

But with the ship due to sail on the next tide, there is little time (and even less inclination) for the authorities to conduct an investigation. All they are concerned about is avoiding awkward questions, and to have The Great Rivorsky hailed as the hero neatly deflects attention from their ineptitude.

Ah, but I am not The Great Rivorsky for nothing. When I see Harry Houdini handcuffed and bound, then locked in a trunk secured with steel wire and thrown in the lake, I ask myself... how? How does he bounce to the surface in fifty-nine seconds?

Thus, it is the illusionist in me that wants to know how one prisoner turns into another — although it is the man in me who wants to know why. Why one prisoner willingly takes the place of another, accepting his fate with calmness and resignation.

And the more I ponder these issues, the more my thoughts return to the mysterious Countess of Perugia. Why, I ask myself, would the Italian aristocracy travel all the way to Marseille to visit a thug in jail?

I think you had better take another swig of the vodka, madame.

You see, it was pure bad luck, at least from your point of view, that the exchange was a countryman of mine, although the odds are not as long as you might think. There are a good many migrant workers in Europe these days, and be they Italian, Croatian, Polish, or Hungarian, they all share one common trait. They are poor. To feed their families, these men must leave their homelands for years at a time, to toil on the new railroads that are being built all over this continent. I am sure that, for a Hungarian peasant, the money you offered must have seemed like a fortune; indeed, in return for serving someone else’s four-year sentence, he was probably grateful to you.

One wonders when the poor wretch would have discovered that the sentence of the man whose place he was taking was three times that length. When it would dawn on him that he was to be transported, not incarcerated. And whether he had ever heard of the notorious penal settlement in French Guiana known as the Place of No Return.

To continue my tale, though, the Hungarian flees the instant he is freed, no doubt halfway to Budapest before the authorities have finished the paperwork, because he could not trust you not to come after him. But it did not take The Great Rivorsky long to work out how the beautiful and charming Countess of Perugia persuaded a gullible prison guard to unshackle the Italian with the jagged scar in a simple humanitarian gesture, that he might make what was possibly his final confession in his own language. While the guard’s back was turned, the “priest” and the convict swapped places, knowing that, in the frantic scramble of transit, a scarred prisoner is a scarred prisoner and, likewise, who looks beyond holy vestments to the priest as he leaves? Especially when it is so much easier to rest one’s eyes on the stunning Italian contessa!

You almost got away with it, until some interfering showman makes headline news with his keen eye, and what do you do? Retreat silently? Go about your normal business, in the hope that the furor will quickly die down? Those would have been the sensible options, surely. Instead, you determine to kill me.

Oh, I fully understand your anxiety.

Here you are, a rich and beautiful aristocrat with the world at your feet, finding your personal life probed by some sordid little back-street magician — at least, I assume these were your sentiments? — where you suddenly risked having your secret exposed to the world, and don’t tell me you couldn’t have ridden out the danger. Even if it was proved that you substituted the prisoners, after already dropping one horrendous clanger, the authorities would be reluctant to start clapping foreign nobility in irons without a motive.

Ah, the motive...

Of all the tragedies in this sorry tale, yours is truly the most heartrending.

I confess I cried when I began making enquiries and learned how your daughter — your only child — was abducted and killed by a monster with a jagged scar down his right cheek. Just eight years old, blond and beautiful like her mama, butchered by a fiend, her corpse left to rot! See, I cry now when I think about that poor child, but you, Contessa... you do not. Your servants say you have not cried one tear since the day her body was carried home and you vowed to avenge her.

Vengeance, madam, is a dangerous force. It drives, but it also blinds, and, four years on, having finally tracked down the brute responsible for your daughter’s death, how galling to find that he was due to be shipped to the other side of the world for the comparatively minor crime of bludgeoning and robbing a jeweller. A crime, moreover, which carries a sentence of a mere twelve years. For you, Devil’s Island was not punishment enough for this monster. You wished him to pay fifty — a hundred! — times over for what he did to your child, and truly, I feel for you, Contessa. No woman should go through what you went through, but you became so obsessed with the notion of justice that you lost sight of its meaning.

Alas, I can only guess at the story you spun your daughter’s killer when you helped him escape, although many a decent woman has fallen in love with a monster — a phenomenon that is common, if not comprehensible — and I dare say you flattered him into believing you were one of those types, convinced they are able to reform a man who is, of course, beyond redemption.

Sadly for us all, you lost your sense of perspective the day you went gunning for him and, sadder still, you lost your sense of compassion. Did you not stop to think what would happen to the prison guard who aided the escape by unshackling the prisoner? I see from your eyes that you did not expect the switch to be discovered, but you should know that he’s been fired and, with his record, who will hire him now? What will happen to his family, without their breadwinner to support them?

An unforeseeable oversight, you might argue, but what about the Hungarian? At worst, he might have died on Devil’s Island. At best, he would have endured twelve years of hell, returning home a broken man. Or did you think that, because you’d paid him, it was the end of the matter? That a contract is a contract is a contract...? Ah, but whether you were aware of the repercussions or not, you callously deceived two decent men, and if that wasn’t enough, you set a course on coldblooded murder.

Oh, madame, if only you had stopped to think! So much beauty, so much intelligence, yet so little common sense!

You compliment my stage show, but not once during your visits backstage do you mention my heroics, even though they are splashed all over the papers, and why? Because you imagined that, in raising the subject, I might suspect that the Countess of Ravenna and the Countess of Perugia were not two different women, but one and the same, and that you were on to my snoopings. Instead, you imagined that with a combination of flattery, champagne, and a shapely ankle you would win my trust.

Well, I cannot deny I’ve been won over with less, but never, madam, without those two linchpins of life, humour and joy.

Contessa, I have played you at your own game from the start and, not wishing to sound conceited, am willing to bet that the poison of your choice is strychnine, added to that sublime vintage port destined to round off tonight’s repast. As little as two-hundredths of a gram would be fatal to a man of my build, with the convulsions passed off as heart failure, and no doubt when the time came for the digestif, you planned to have me too intoxicated with champagne, caviar, and your magnificent cleavage to notice any bitterness in the taste.

So then. Having established why you wished me dead and how you planned for my murder, what should we do about it?

Oh, Contessa! My brave and beautiful countess, I am so happy — yet so sad — to see you have done the right thing.

When I left you alone in my dressing room with the port and a notepad, I knew in my heart that you were not wicked by nature; merely a loving and devoted mother whose reasoning was savaged by grief. But no longer, madame. No longer. And rest assured, this is the right course you have taken, although not the easiest, I admit.

The easy way was to swallow the strychnine.

Instead, you waited for me to return (never has a late-night stroll been so sorrowful!), and now, my brave countess, together let us face the authorities and explain why you switched prisoners and where they can find the monster who butchered your daughter, that he might stand trial for his terrible crime.

Please. Take my arm. You are quite unsteady on your feet and not just from the vodka, but before we leave, let me just pour this port down the drain—

Oh, Contessa! The tears of grief are flowing at last. Here, take this handkerchief. No, no, I insist. It is silk, the only one of quality I have to hand, and — oh, apologies, madame. This is not the time, not the time at all for a bunch of fake flowers to pop up! But as I have lamented so many times on this tour, it can be a terrible strain, being The Great Rivorsky.

Copyright (c); 2005 by Marilyn Todd.