You tell them.”
“Poppycock!” Clearly Mrs. Viridian was not impressed with Thalia’s stage patter.
Thalia spoke to the audience at large but she focused her gaze entirely on Mrs. Viridian. “Kindly return to your seats, ladies and gentlemen, and the demonstration will continue.” In truth, she didn’t blame Mrs. Viridian for her reaction. She was spouting poppycock. But the longer her stage act lasted, the more time Nutall had to make good his getaway.
Mrs. Viridian approached the stage and halted only when Thalia raised the sword. “You’re a fraud.”
“You’re mistaken. What I am, madame, is a stage magician. Once you cease your interference, I will prove it.” Thalia made a sweeping gesture with the sword and held her Lady of the Lake pose until everyone, even the visibly fuming Mrs. Viridian, had returned to their seats.
Thalia caught Nell’s eye and nodded toward the now-silent gramophone. As Freddie wound it up, Nell sprang to drop the needle on the wax cylinder. The music resumed in the wrong spot, but Thalia didn’t let that worry her.
First Thalia swung her sword high, sweeping the air above the mirror box. “No wires, as you see.”
Then Thalia set her sword down next to the muzzle-loading rifle, and moved around the mirror box, closing the doors front and back. Mrs. Viridian was still making disagreement noises, but they were small sounds and Thalia drowned them out without a qualm.
This time when Thalia spoke, she used her voice to command, letting the perfect acoustics of the place aid her as she spun out the patter.
“You all know who I am. I have the power to reveal the truth about Von Faber’s death.”
Thalia couldn’t resist a pause to let those words sink in, but went on before she gave her audience a chance to think. “I can call Justice herself to witness. The police have accused David Nutall of this crime. Mr. Nutall is innocent. Now I shall prove it.”
Thalia picked up the muzzle-loading rifle. The audience didn’t move. They didn’t make a sound. Yet Thalia felt their interest and anticipation rising. She reveled in it. “Some of you were there the night Von Faber died. I was. I can tell you exactly what happened.”
Thalia showed them the rifle. “Here we have the very rifle that took Von Faber’s life.” This was a lie. The true murder weapon had been safely filed away in some police evidence locker since the murder investigation had begun. “It has two firing chambers, not one.”
Thalia knew that the rifle she held, the one she’d used in her own Bullet Catch, was now so similar in appearance to the murder weapon that even an expert would be hard-pressed to tell them apart. “Someone meddled with this firearm so that a spark from the flint ignited the gunpowder in the wrong firing chamber.”
Thalia could sense her power over the audience faltering. Too much mechanical talk about things like firing chambers. She pressed on. “Gunpowder does not know who is using it or why. Gunpowder does one thing, and one thing only. Gunpowder explodes.” Thalia held the rifle to her shoulder, taking care to aim it up into the shadows above the miniature stage. The audience’s attention sharpened again, braced for a gunshot.
Thalia went on. “The trick went wrong that night. Someone tampered with this weapon. Someone used a jeweler’s file to widen the passage between the trick firing chamber and the true one. The finest stage magician in the world couldn’t catch that bullet. Mr. Von Faber had no chance.”
Thalia lowered the rifle, aiming it down toward the stage. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you who tampered with this weapon. I’ll tell you who planned it all.”
In the rapt silence that followed her words, Thalia surveyed the audience staring back at her. Mrs. Viridian’s face was pinched, eyes narrow, waiting for her next chance to interrupt. Immediately behind her, Mrs. Morris was wide-eyed and smiling. Her evident confidence in Thalia’s ability to save the day made Thalia’s throat feel tight.
Nell stood next to Freddie at the gramophone, her brother beside her. Nell was radiant. Ryker was scowling. Both were focused on Thalia. Freddie was intent on winding up the gramophone next time the music faded.
Aristides, although still in his seat and looking ostentatiously relaxed, was sharp-eyed, his attention on the room at large, not just on the stage. Madame Ostrova, on the other side of Ryker’s empty seat, watched with one eyebrow raised. The newspaper reporters appeared completely unimpressed. Only one had a notebook