Neil made his way to the door through the chattering, excited crowd that milled here and there between the costumes and the mirrors. He couldn’t see his mother anywhere in the general pandemonium of the dressing rooms. It all looked pretty frantic, but rehearsals had taught him that there was method behind the madness and that within an hour the entire cast would be totally transformed. Reaching the side of the stage, he practised walking up and down to get the feel of the gaudy slippers. Before he had arrived at the theatre, he had been looking forward to taking part in the show; now his confidence drained away as he worried about keeping the shoes on his feet!
Last minute practices were still going on. On stage, two men were fighting with deadly-looking, curved scimitars. Neil grinned as he watched them go through their routine. Before the rehearsals started, neither man had ever used a sword before, far less a scimitar, but they had managed to work out a mock-duel with the help of the one man in the cast that knew anything about sword-play; Alec Johnston, the Genie of the Lamp.
Alec, whose arrogance was unsurpassed, considered himself a rising star in the theatrical world and had, unsurprisingly, managed to make more enemies than friends during the course of rehearsals. Nevertheless, he was a professional and stood watching the fight critically as the two swordsmen went through their paces.
He was already made-up and in costume. It was, Neil admitted enviously, a fantastic costume. A dark blue mask, spiked with gold, decorated the upper part of his face and covered his hair while a loose cloak of the same colour hung over a tight under-suit of shimmering gold. And there was no doubt whatsoever that his spectacular leap onto the stage when Ali Baba rubbed the magic lamp, was absolutely fantastic and one of the highlights of the pantomime. However much you disliked him as a person, he made a fantastic genie, Neil thought, as he saw him lift a commanding hand and stop the fight.
“Watch me again,” he instructed, taking the scimitar from the hands of one of the men. “Step forward — one, two, three — and then lunge, like this.” The steel blade glinted and as the folds of his shimmering cloak rippled and billowed, his arm swung forward with deadly accuracy.
In the wings, the producer looked at his watch and turned to the Stage Manager. “Has the paint on that big mirror dried yet?” he asked.
“Should’ve done! I’ll just get Sandy and Alfie to bring it upstairs. It weighs a ton and a half!”
Neil barely heard them as he turned to go back to the dressing room. He hadn’t been made up yet and reckoned that Clara must be nearly finished. In his anxiety to get back, however, Neil missed a sight that would have set his pulses racing; for barely five minutes later, two burly stage hands carried a huge mirror up the stairs from the cellar. Casimir, the Sultan, the MacArthurs, Sir James — all of them would have recognized it immediately. It was over seven feet tall and its iron frame was decorated with carvings of flowers, birds and strange animals. It was a magic mirror!
The paint shop had done a grand job the Stage Manager thought as he looked it over; the drab frame, now covered in layers of gold paint, shone brilliantly and its mirrored surface, he reckoned, would reflect the stage lighting nicely. It had been a real find and just what was needed to give an extra buzz to the bazaar scene. Had he known just how big a buzz the mirror was going to give the bazaar scene, he would have sent it straight back down to the cellars there and then but, as he didn’t, he waved a casual hand. “Stack it in that corner over there,” he told Alfie. “We’re using it for the Lashkari Bazaar scene!”
“Sorry I’m late,” Jock MacPherson apologized as he squeezed along the row of people to sit beside his wife. “I got held up at the bank!”
Archie Thompson gave a wry smile as Jock settled in his seat with a sigh, glad he’d made it before the performance began. How often, thought the Chief Constable, had he been in the same position himself! He looked at his watch. “Still five minutes to curtain-up, Jock,” he said comfortably. “Busy, these days, are you?”
“Frantically,” was the reply. “Been doing nothing but sign papers all evening. We’re modernizing a lot of the branches at the moment and while it saves time to do them all in one fell swoop, so to speak, the amount of organization is tremendous. Got to stash the cash somewhere, eh!”
Sir Archie’s eyes sharpened and a stab of worry shot through him. “May I ask where you’ve … er … stashed it?”
Jock MacPherson turned in his seat and looked him warily in the eye. “Do you have a reason for asking, Archie?”