I would of course be fascinated to learn what illusions you work with this extraordinary invention, because I am as you know one of your greatest admirers. Although you were not here to see it for yourself, I can testify that Snowshoes (the name of my children's pet cat) was safely transported several times by the device, but is back once more with our family as a domestic animal.
Let me say in conclusion, Sir, that I was honored to play some part, no matter how small, in building this apparatus for you.
Yours most sincerely, Fareham K. Alley, Dip. Eng.
P.S.: You were once kind enough to admire, and pretend bafflement by, the small tricks I had the temerity to show to you. Since you made such a point of demanding an explanation, perhaps you would like to know that my little illusion with the five playing-cards and the disappearing silver dollars was achieved by a combination of classic palming and a card force. I was most gratified by your response to this trick, and would be delighted to send on detailed instructions about each move in turn, should you require them. F.K.A.
As soon as I read this I hurried around to my workshop. I enquired of my neighbours there if a large package might recently have been delivered from the USA, but they knew nothing of it.
22nd November 1900
I showed Alley's letter to Julia this morning, quite forgetting that I had not yet told her about my most recent trip to the USA, and what I had done there. Of course her curiosity was aroused by it, and I then needed to explain.
"So this is where all your money has gone?" she said.
"Yes."
"And Tesla has apparently absconded, and we have only this letter to show for it?"
I assured her that Alley was trustworthy, and pointed out that he had written his letter without solicitation from me. For a while we discussed what might have happened to the package while en route to me, where it might be, and how we might recover it.
Then Julia said, "What is so special about the illusion?"
"Not the illusion itself," I replied. "It is the means by which it is achieved."
"Is Mr Borden something to do with this?"
"You have not forgotten Mr Borden, I see."
"My dear, it was Alfred Borden who drove the first wedge between us. I have had many years to reflect, and I trace everything that went wrong back to that day when he attacked me." Tears had started in her eyes, making them gleam with grief, but she spoke in quiet rage and without any trace of self-pity. "Had he not hurt me I should not have lost our first child, and the aftermath, in which I felt a great divide opening between us, would not have occurred. Your restlessness began then. Even the dear children who followed could not compensate for the cruelty and stupidity of what Borden did that day, and that the feud between you continues is proof of the outrage you too must still feel."
"I have never spoken to you about that," I said. "How do you know?"
"Because I am not a fool, Rupert, and I have seen occasional remarks in the magic magazines." I had not known she continued to subscribe to those. "You are still prime amongst my concerns," she said. 'I wonder only why you have never spoken to me of his attacks."
"Because I am, I suppose, a little ashamed of the feud."
"Surely he is the aggressor?"
"I have had to defend myself," I said.
I told her about my investigations into his past, and my attempts to discover how he worked the illusion. Then I described the hopes I had for Tesla's equipment.
"Borden relies on standard stage trickery," I explained. "He uses cabinets and lights and make-up, and when he transports himself across the stage he does so by concealment. He enters one apparatus and emerges from another. It is brilliantly done, but the mystery is not only concealed by his props it is also made banal by them. The beauty of the Tesla device is that the trick can be carried out in the open, and the materialization uses no props at all! If it works as planned I shall be transporting myself instantly to any position I like: to an empty part of the stage, to the royal box, to the front of the grand circle, even to an empty seat in the centre of the stalls! Anywhere, indeed, that will produce the greatest impact on the audience."
"You make it sound a little provisional," Julia said. "You say this is still being planned?"
"As Alley says in his letter, it has been despatched to me
… but I have yet to receive it!"
Julia was the perfect audience for my enthusiasms about Tesla's device, and for the next hour or more we discussed all the possibilities it presented to me. Julia quickly identified the instinct that had been at the heart of it; if I were to perform this illusion on any public stage it would thwart Borden forever!
Were there any remaining doubts about what I should be doing, Julia dispelled them forever. Indeed, so excited was she that we began our search for the shipment at once.
I proposed, gloomily, that it would take several weeks to tour around the many shipping agents’ offices in London, trying to trace an undelivered crate. But Julia said, in her familiar way of cutting through the Gordian Knot: "Why do we not begin our enquiries with the Post Office?" So it was, two hours later, that we located two immense crates addressed to me, waiting safely in the dead-letter section of the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office.
15th December 1900
Most of the last three weeks have been an agony of frustration, because I have been waiting for electricity to be supplied to my workshop. I have been like a small boy with a toy I could not play with. The Tesla apparatus has been erected in my workshop ever since I picked it up from Mount Pleasant, but without a supply of current it is useless. I have read Mr Alley's lucid instructions a thousand times! However, after my increasingly frequent reminders and urgings, the London Electricity Company has at last done the necessary work.
I have been rehearsing ever since, wrapped up mentally and emotionally in the demands this extraordinary device makes on me. Here, in no particular order, is a summary of what I have learned.
It is in full working order, and has been ingeniously designed to work on all presently known versions of electrical supply. This means I may travel with my show, even to Europe, the USA and (Alley claims in his instructions) the Far East.
However, I cannot perform my show unless the theatre has electrical current supplied. In future I will have to check this before I accept any new bookings, as well as many other new matters (some of which follow).
Portability. I know Tesla has done his best, but the equipment is damnably heavy. From now on, planning the delivery, unpacking and setting up of the apparatus is a priority. It means, for instance, that the simple informality of a train-ride to one of my shows is a thing of the past, at least if I wish to perform the Tesla illusion.
Technical rehearsals. The apparatus has to be erected twice. First for private testing on the morning of the show, then, while the main curtain is down and another act is in progress, it has to be re-erected for the performance. The admirable Alley has included suggestions as to how it might be carried out speedily and silently, but even so this is going to be hard work. Much rehearsal will be necessary, and I shall require extra assistants.
Physical layout of the theatres. I or Adam Wilson will always need to reconnoitre beforehand.