The Silvered Cage. John Russell Fearn

      He led the way to the stage, gaining it by climbing the four steps at the side. Whittaker, Sidney Laycock, and a whole host of guests were right behind him.

      “Crafto!” Kestrel boomed. “Where are you? Come here!”

      For the moment Whittaker was not vitally interested in Crafto; he was looking at the hanging cage, standing now right beside it. The limelights were extinguished now, but he could see the cage details clearly enough, and there certainly did not seem to be anything odd about it. It was metal all right and, at first glance, there were no signs of traps, movable bars, or anything of a magical nature.

      Then Crafto reappeared, pulling off his wizard’s hat. There were beads of perspiration coursing down his forehead as he faced the smolderingly angry tycoon.

      “Where’s my daughter?” Kestrel demanded.

      “I just don’t know, Mr. Kestrel—”

      “Don’t know! Stop talking like an idiot! You per­formed this trick and you must know where she is!”

      “But I don’t!” Crafto insisted. “She should have been in the wings, ready to come out when I called her. But she isn’t. She’s utterly disappeared.”

      “I think,” Whittaker put in, with heavy calm, “that I had better take over from here.”

      Kestrel glanced at him. “Yes, maybe you had.”

      Crafto waited, still glancing around him. Whittaker studied him, quite satisfied that the man was genuinely flustered. No actor, no matter how good, could have faked this anxiety of mind.

      “Just what is the procedure of this illusion?” Whittaker questioned. “When we know that, we may have a better idea of how to act.”

      “Why should I give away a cherished secret to a complete stranger?” Crafto snapped. “Who are you any­way?”

      Whittaker held out his warrant-card, which plainly took the magician by surprise. Just the same his mouth was still stubborn.

      “Your being a police officer naturally makes a differ­ence,” he admitted, “but I’m not giving away the secret of this illusion, even to you. I will tell you what should have happened in regard to Miss Kestrel, though. Fol­lowing her disappearance from the cage, performed by a means which is my secret—­and hers too—Miss Kestrel should have been able to reappear in the wings there and then come on the stage.”

      “How would she get into the wings?” Kestrel de­manded. “That is what we wish to know.”

      “There is a passage under this stage which leads to a trap-door in the wings. In fact there is one both sides. Let it suffice that she should have passed along that tunnel to the wings—only she didn’t, and she isn’t any­where in the tunnel below stage either. I’ve just looked.”

      “Then it’s time we looked,” the magnate decided. “Follow me, the rest of you.”

      Crafto himself showed no hesitancy over revealing the position of the wing trapdoor, which was still open from his own emergence therefrom. Light was gleaming below and he led the way quickly down the steps into the narrow passage that went directly under the stage. Crafto pointed above his head to the outline of a closed trap set in the stage floor itself.

      “That’s where she should have come through,” he explained. “Never mind how, but that’s the truth.”

      “Half a story is no damned good to us!” Kestrel de­clared, his eyes hard. “My daughter’s gone and I want this whole idiotic illusion explained! Out with the facts, Crafto!”

      “No,” the magician replied stubbornly. “I flatly re­fuse. This trick is worth a fortune on the halls to me and with the secret gone I’ll be nowhere.”

      “Since Vera knows the trick already I don’t see what you’re so cautious about,” Sidney Laycock remarked cynically. “Whoever heard of a woman able to keep her mouth shut?”

      Whittaker was not taking much notice of the conver­sation. He was looking back and forth along the corri­dor, putting into practice the powers of observation in which he was trained. Not that he saw anything very interesting. The passage was a normal one of rough brick, and at either end of it were the bases of the two imitation granite pillars that stood at either end of the proscenium. Down here, though, they were no longer surfaced with imitation granite: they were plain brick-built in cylindrical style after the fashion of a factory chimney.

      “Well, all right,” came Kestrel’s growling voice. “Since you see fit to be obstinate about this business, Crafto, we’d better finish our journey along this passage to the other side of the stage. Maybe she took the wrong direction and lost herself in the opposite wings, or some­thing.”

      Such a possibility was obviously unlikely in the case of a girl as bright as Vera. Whittaker ponderously fol­lowed the party down the remaining length of the pas­sage and eventually they climbed the few steps at its other end, emerging into the midst of the crowd of guests who were by now hunting around in all corners of the stage, assisted by the artistes themselves, most of whom had not yet changed back into everyday attire.

      “Has anybody looked outside the house?” Whittaker asked, abruptly taking charge as he moved to the center of the stage.

      “Madge and I did,” one of the chorus girls volun­teered. “We went right out onto the driveway and had a look round the paths generally, but we didn’t see any­thing unusual. In any case, to get away from the back stage here Vera would have had to pass us, and we were standing in the wings there all the time watching the show.”

      “You watched the illusion, you mean?” Whittaker questioned.

      “Yes....” The girl hesitated and her shoulders shrugged. “Not that that solves anything. We’re as mystified as everybody else.”

      Whittaker made up his mind and turned to Kestrel. “Mr. Kestrel, I’m leaving it to you to see that nobody leaves here whilst I’m absent. I’m going to ring up the Yard and have your daughter’s description circulated immediately. I’m also getting some experts down here to take photographs, statements, and so forth. I’ll be back in a moment—and none of you are to touch any­thing, if you please.”

      Definitely worried Whittaker descended from the stage and went as quickly as possible into the house regions. He was decidedly worried. It was rare that the onus rested squarely on him: he was accustomed to sharing it with his dyspeptic superior, Chief-Inspector Garth, but on this occasion the whole thing had dropped right in his lap.

      “Whittaker here,” he said briefly, when finally he had made phone contact with the Yard. “Send a couple of men down to Victor de Maine-Kestrel’s place immediately—The Marlows, West Kensington: they’ll be needed for guard duty. Also a photographer. I’ll wait.”

      “What about Inspector Garth, Sergeant?” came the voice at the other end. “Don’t you want him, too?”

      “More than anything else on earth, but he’s in Kent.”

      “He was. He came in half an hour ago, and right now he’s in his office, cleaning up accumulated reports and correspondence. I’ll switch you through.”

      With a sense of vast relief Whittaker waited, then Mortimer Garth’s gravelly voice came through.

      “Yes? Garth here. Chief-Inspector Garth, C.I.D.”