I shook my head and stepped into the cool shade of the theater foyer. The box office was doing a lively trade for the matinee. People were pressing around the kiosk and I could hear excited whispers: “They’re not sold out already, are they?” “Do you think anything terrible’s going to happen this week?” “Did you hear there was a curse on this theater? Some are saying there’s a monster lurking in the basement.”

I wondered if the new illusionist was as famous as Houdini, or if the reason all these people were here was merely that morbid human fascination with death. Did they want to see another girl sliced in half or another dead body roll from a trunk? Apparently they did. I hesitated, not sure whether to push past the throng and into the theater or not. As I waited I studied this week’s playbill. The new illusionist was called Stevie Summer and he too sported an impressive handlebar mustache. Was this a requirement of illusionists, I wondered? In which case why was Houdini clean shaven? I stared at the face again. There was something about the deep-set eyes that caught my attention. It was as if the face was set in a perpetual worried frown.

“Wait a minute,” I muttered, and stepped into the far corner of the foyer where there was a gilt-and-velvet bench. I sat down and brought out the scrapbooks. I had seen those eyes, that worried scowl, I was sure of it. I thumbed hastily through the pages and, yes, there he was. It was a group photo taken onstage in Berlin. Houdini was standing front and center, looking rather pleased with himself, but right behind him, much taller and thinner, his face half obscured in shadow, was a man who looked remarkably like this Mr. Summer, only he was clean shaven. The article below was in German, of course, but I scanned through the words, hoping to find something familiar, and came across the word “Fommer.” Was that character an “F,” as I had previously decided, or an “S” in the German script? In which case was “Sommer” the German equivalent of “Summer”?

I hurried to rejoin the throng around the ticket booth. I had to come to the matinee this afternoon and see this Mr. Summer for myself. As I was jostled forward toward the booth I wondered why I was so excited to find that Mr. Summer might also be Herr Sommer from the Berlin newspaper. Even if he was the same person, he hadn’t been at this theater last week. I supposed I could dare to pay a visit to the suspicious stage doorkeeper and ask if Mr. Summer had shown up in advance, but that would probably mean admitting that I was working for the Houdini family and that message could be passed along to unfriendly ears.