“What happens next?”
“Good question,” he said.
He did not realize he had spoken aloud until he saw that she was watching him with faintly raised eyebrows.
Each of the four mirrors was mounted on a set of wheels. He rolled three of them into position around Irene. She was now surrounded on three sides.
“Notice that all of the mirrors have reflective surfaces on both sides,” he said. “When properly illuminated onstage, all the mirrored surfaces tend to dazzle the audience.”
“More distraction.”
“Right. It’s one of a magician’s most valuable tools. Now, note that three of the mirrors are mounted on narrow frames. When they are turned sideways to the audience, it’s obvious that there is no room for even a very slender assistant to be concealed inside.”
“Aha. But the other one has a hidden compartment?”
“Yes.” He opened the mirror and showed her the long, narrow box inside. “It’s just wide enough to allow a slim assistant to stand upright. Next, I position the fourth mirror in place. She is now surrounded on all four sides and concealed from the audience.”
He pushed the fourth mirror into position.
“The assistant opens the mirrored box and gets inside, right?” Irene said from the interior of the mirrored chamber.
“Yes, she does.”
He heard a hinged door open and close. In the old days the hinges would not have squeaked. Chester had kept them well oiled.
“Are you inside?” he asked.
“Yes. This is really a very small space, isn’t it?”
“The boxes are always small, which is, of course, why magicians’ assistants are usually small, slender people. If we were doing this onstage, a large curtain would descend at this point, covering the four mirrors. The entire assembly, including the mirrored box with the assistant inside, would be hoisted off the ground to show the audience that there is no secret hiding place beneath the mirrors. The whole thing is then lowered back to the stage. I pull one of the mirrors aside and the audience sees that there is no assistant inside the chamber.”
He rolled one of the mirrors out of the way. Irene had vanished.
“Nicely done,” he said.
He pushed the mirror back into position. “Now the process is repeated. The curtain is lowered and all four mirrors are hoisted off the floor. The assembly is lowered back down to the floor. The assistant steps out of the concealed box. One of the mirrors is rolled aside and we see that our lovely assistant is back, having just magically emerged from a mirror.”
He rolled one of the framed mirrors aside. Irene smiled at him.
“It’s all so simple,” she said.
“Most of the really dramatic illusions are fairly simple, at least technically speaking. The trick with this one is to make sure the lighting is right so that the audience never sees the wide sides of the mirrored box that conceals the compartment.”
“So the real skill is in the sleight-of-hand work.”
“Always,” Oliver said. “In this case, the magician’s job is to shuffle the four mirrors on the stage in such a way that the audience thinks they’ve seen all of them from every angle. But the truth is, they’ve only seen three of the mirrors from all sides.”
“What happens if you have an assistant who gets extremely nervous in small, enclosed spaces?”
“Assistants who suffer from claustrophobia don’t last long in the magic business.”
“I can understand that.” Irene shuddered. “I think you would have had to fire me by the end of the first performance.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just wouldn’t want to have to climb in and out of those boxes for a living.”
“As it turns out, I’m not hiring any box jumpers these days.”
“What happened to the ones who used to work for you?” Irene asked. She sounded curious.
“Some went their own way after I closed the show. But most of the people who worked for me in the old days decided to go into a new field.”
“What field?”
“The hospitality business.”
Irene gave him a knowing look. “You took care of your crew by giving them jobs here at the hotel.”
“As I told you, the hotel business and the magic business have a lot in common. The skills required to keep both operating are very similar.”
Irene searched his face. “Do you miss it a lot?”
“The magic business? Sometimes. But not as much as I did at first. Things change. I’ve changed. But, yes, occasionally I miss that moment when you know you’ve pulled off the perfect illusion and the audience is thrilled by the effect.”