7th July 1895
There is a cardinal rule in the world of magic (and if there is not one, let me formulate it) that you do not antagonize your assistants. This is because they know many of your secrets, and they therefore have a particular power over you.
If I fire Root I shall be at his mercy.
The problem he presents is partly his alcoholic addiction, and partly his arrogance.
He has often been inebriated during my performance, a fact he does not deny. He claims he can handle it. The trouble is that there is no controlling the behaviour of a heavy drinker, and I am terrified that one evening he will be too drunk to take part. A magician should never leave any aspect of his act to chance, yet here am I, dicing with it every time I perform the switch with him.
His arrogance is, if anything, a worse problem. He is convinced that I am unable to function effectively without him, and whenever he is around me, be it in rehearsal, backstage at the theatres, or even in my own workshop, I have to suffer a constant stream of advice based on his years of experience as a thespian.
Last night we had our long-planned "discussion", although in the event he did most of the talking. I have to report that much of what he said was nasty and threatening indeed. He said the words I most feared to hear, that he could expose my secrets and ruin my career.
And worse. He has somehow found out about my relationship with Sheila Macpherson, a matter which I had thought was strictly under the wraps. I am being blackmailed, of course. I need him, and he knows it. He has power over me, and I know it.
I was forced even to offer him a raise in his performance fees, and this, of course, he promptly accepted.
19th August 1895
This evening I returned early from my workshop because there was something (I forget what) I had left at home. Calling in first on Olivia, I was surprised, to say the very least, to discover Root with her in her parlour.
I should explain that after I bought my house at 45 Idmiston Villas I left it in its former configuration of two self-contained flats. During our marriage Julia and I moved freely between the two, but since Olivia has been with me we have lived apart under the same roof. This is partly to preserve the proprieties, but it also reflects the more casual nature of our association. While maintaining separate households, Olivia and I call without ceremony on each other whenever it pleases us.
I heard laughter while I climbed the stair. When I opened the door to her flat, which opens directly into her parlour, Olivia and Root were still merrily laughing away. The sound quickly died when they saw me standing there. Olivia looked angry. Root attempted to stand up, but swayed unsteadily and sat down again. I noticed, to my intense aggravation, that a half-empty bottle of gin stood on the table to the side, and that another, completely empty, was beside it. Both Olivia and Root were holding glasses containing the liquor.
"What is the meaning of this?" I demanded of them.
"I was calling in to see you, Mr Angier," replied Root.
"You knew I was rehearsing in my workshop this evening," I riposted. "Why did you not seek me there?"
"Honey, Gerry just called round for a drink," said Olivia.
"Then it is time he left!"
I held the door open with my arm, indicating he should depart, and this he did, promptly in spite of his inebriation, but staggeringly because of it. His gin-soaked breath curled briefly around me as he passed.
A tense conversation ensued between Olivia and I, which I shall not report here in detail. We left it at that, and I retired to pen this account. I have many feelings I have not described here.
24th August 1895
I learnt today that Borden is taking his magical show on a tour of Europe and the Levant, and that he will be out of England until the end of the year. Curiously, he will not be performing his own version of the two-cabinets illusion.
Hesketh Unwin informed me of this when I saw him earlier today. I made the pleasantry that I hoped that by the time he reached Paris Borden's spoken French would be better than when I last heard him at it!
25th August 1895
It took me twenty-four hours to work it out, but Borden has just done me a favour! I finally realized that with Borden out of the country I have no need to keep performing the switch illusion, and so without delay or scruple I have given Root the sack!
By the time Borden returns from his tour abroad, either I shall have replaced Mr Root or I shall no longer be performing the illusion at all.
14th November 1895
Olivia and I worked on the stage together for the last time tonight, at a performance at the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road. Afterwards, we drove home together, holding hands contentedly in the back of the cab. Since Mr Root departed, we have been perceptibly more contented. (I have been seeing less and less of Miss Macpherson.)
Next week, when I open for a short season at the Royal County Theatre in Reading, my assistant will be a young lady I have been training for the last two weeks. Her name is Gertrude, she is blessed with a supple and beautiful body, she has both the prettiness and the mental ability of a china ornament, and is the fiancйe of my other new employee, a carpenter and apparatus technician named Adam Wilson. I am paying them both well, and am satisfied with their contributions so far to my act.
Adam, I must record, is an almost exact double for me in terms of physique, and although I have not yet broached it to him I shall keep him in mind as Root's replacement.
12th February 1896
I have tonight learned the meaning of the phrase one's blood runs cold.
I was engaged in one of my customary tricks with playing cards in the first half of my show. In this, I ask a member of the audience to select a card and then to write his name upon it in full view of the audience. When this is done I take the card from him and tear it up before his eyes, tossing aside the pieces. Moments later, I show a live canary in a metal cage. When my volunteer takes the cage from me it unaccountably collapses in his hand (the bird vanishes from sight), and leaves him holding what appears to be the remains of the cage in which can be seen a single playing card. When he removes it, he discovers that it is the very one on which his name is inscribed. The trick ends, and the volunteer returns to his seat.
Tonight, at the conclusion of the trick, as I beamed towards the audience in anticipation of the applause, I heard the fellow say, "Here, this isn't my card!"
I turned towards him. The fool was standing there with the remains of the cage dangling from one hand, and the playing card in the other. He was trying to read it.
"Let me take it, sir!" I boomed theatrically, sensing that my forcing of the card might have gone wrong, and preparing to cover the mistake with a sudden production of a multitude of coloured streamers which I keep on hand for just such an eventuality.
I tried to snatch the card from him, but calamity piled on disaster.
He swung away from me, shouting in a triumphant voice, "Look, it's got summat else written on it!"
The man was playing to the audience, making the most of the fact that he had, somehow, beaten the magician at his own game. To save the moment I had to take possession of the card, and I did, wrenching it out of his hand. I showered him with coloured streamers, cued the bandmaster, and waved the audience to applaud, to waft the appalling fellow back towards his seat.
In the swelling music, and the paltry applause, I stood transfixed, reading the words that had been written there.
They said, "I know the address you go to with Sheila Macpherson — Abracadabra! — Alfred Borden."