“I suppose it was all of those things. Some people thought her pretentious, and some thought the romance that surrounded her was frowsy, and people always made a certain amount of fun of her, and she was a cult figure as well. In addition she was a wonderfully kind, wise, courageous person who was not easy to understand. I’ve been thinking a lot about her today. I told you that I was a busker beside the Irving statue when I came to London. It was there Holroyd picked me up and took me to Milady. She decided I should have a job, and made Sir John give me one, which he didn’t want to do.”

“Magnus, do please, I implore you, stop being mysterious. You know very well you mean to tell us all about it. You want to, and furthermore, you must. Do it to please me.” Liesl was laying herself out to be irresistible, and I have never known a woman who was better at the work.

“Do it for the sake of the subtext,” said Ingestree, who was also making himself charming, like a naughty boy who has been forgiven.

“All right. So I shall. My show under the shadow of Irving was not extensive. The buskers I was working with wouldn’t give me much of a chance, but they allowed me to draw a crowd by making some showy passes with cards. It was stuff I had learned long ago with Willard—shooting a deck into the air and making it slide back into my hand like a beautiful waterfall, and that sort of thing. It can be done with a deck that is mounted on a rubber string, but I could do it with any deck. It’s simply a matter of hours of practice, and confidence that you can do it. I don’t call it conjuring. More like juggling. But it makes people gape.

“One day, a week or two after I had begun in this underpaid, miserable work, I noticed a man hanging around at the back of the crowd, watching me very closely. He wore a long overcoat, though it wasn’t a day for such a coat, and he had a pipe stuck in his mouth as if it had grown there. He worried me because, as you know, my passport wasn’t all it should have been. I thought he might be a detective. So as soon as I had done my short trick, I made for a near-by alley. He was right behind me. ‘Hi!’ he shouted, ‘I want a word with you.’ There was no getting away, so I faced him. ‘Are you interested in a better job than that?’ he asked. I said I was. ‘Can you do a bit of juggling?’ said he. Yes, I could do juggling, though I wouldn’t call myself a juggler. ‘Any experience walking a tightrope?’ Because of the work I had done with Duparc I was able to say I could. ‘Then you come to this address tomorrow morning at twelve,’ said he, and gave me a card on which was his name—James Holroyd—and he had scribbled a direction on it.