Lewis made his invisible way towards the prompt corner where the Stage Manager, blissfully unaware of the mind-boggling surprises that lay in store for him, joined in the laughter as Matt Lafferty continued to reduce the audience to tears of helpless mirth. Lewis then wandered across the stage, looked at some of the stalls and went up close to the mirror itself, running his hands over the strange carvings.
“Don’t touch the carvings, Lewis!” Casimir warned urgently. His warning came too late, however. Lewis had never seen a magic mirror before and was totally amazed when a carved rose slipped under his fingers. As the rose clicked round, the mirror gave a slight hum as though its power supply had suddenly been switched on.
“Whoops!” he whispered, knowing that the mirror, in some strange way, had come to life.
“Well done, Lewis!” Casimir said sourly. “Now before you cause any more damage, perhaps you could find something for me to hide in!”
Lewis, who had spotted an Aladdin’s Lamp on one of the stalls, moved towards it. “Just the thing for you, Casimir,” he said softly as he put an invisible hand over its spout.
The choice of the lamp, it must be said, wasn’t really Lewis’s fault. He’d never seen Ali Baba before and wasn’t to know that in this particular production, the lamp played an important part. Nor did he realize that by putting a genie in it he had quite successfully sabotaged the whole performance — for between them, the magic mirror and the magic lamp were the equivalent of a ticking time bomb. A time bomb that, had he known it, was due to go off with a great deal of panache and quite astounding consequences.
Blissfully unaware of what he was doing, Lewis kept his hand over the lamp and felt Casimir’s presence drain out of him.
“Goodbye, Lewis,” Casimir said from inside the lamp. “Don’t forget, the invisibility spell will wear off quite soon! You’d better hurry back to your seat!”
22. The Hole in the Wall
In the depths of the Underground City, the clouds of stifling, choking dust raised by the explosion had reduced visibility to zero and all Murdo, Wullie and Tammy Souter could do was head in the general direction of the blast and hope for the best. Coughing and spluttering, they ran, hands outstretched towards the vault.
Tammy, as it happened, had done his work well. The side of the vault had been torn open and as they stepped through the massive hole they stopped and, peering uncertainly through the swirling clouds of dust, looked with awe at what had once been shelf upon shelf of neatly stacked banknotes. They were neat no longer for the shelving that had held them was hanging off the walls at all angles and the place was littered with pile upon pile of notes that had flown everywhere with the force of the explosion.
“There must be millions here!” Murdo gasped, his eyes darting round the vault greedily. “Come on, boys, help yourselves!” Pulling thick bin liners out of their pockets they started to pile the money in and, had everything gone to plan, would have made quite a tidy haul and a considerable dent in the finances of the bank.
The Chief Constable’s hurried phone call, however, had paid dividends and even as the noise of the blast echoed through the tunnels, a stream of police cars zoomed up the Mound, sirens blaring. They came to a screeching halt outside the imposing premises of the Bank of Scotland and passers-by looked on in amazement as dozens of policemen tumbled out of the cars and headed for the front door; a door held invitingly open for them by their own Chief Constable.
“There was an explosion a few minutes ago,” he said briefly to the Chief Inspector who headed the operation. “The bank’s security staff are just opening the vault up now.”
“Good, with any luck we’ll catch them red-handed,” answered the Chief Inspector as he and his men raced for the stairs.
Murdo and Wullie heard the sound of the vault door being opened and acted quickly. “The police!” said Wullie, totally flabbergasted. “How come they got here so quick?”
“Come on,” Murdo said. “Grab what you can!” So saying, he piled a few more armfuls of notes into his bags and hefting them over his shoulder, stumbled towards the hole in the wall. Tammy Souter followed close on his heels and together they took the steep slope of the little alley at a run.
Although they naturally assumed that Wullie would be following them, this did not actually happen, for Wullie, in his headlong flight from the ghosts, had managed to rip the side off one of his trainers and, in turning to follow the others, had stood on a loose shoelace. Not unnaturally, he tripped over his feet and in a spectacular effort to keep his balance, grabbed at some shelving. Several things then happened in quick succession. Firstly, the shelving fell off the wall; secondly, it knocked him unconscious and, thirdly, as a grand finale, countless bundles of banknotes cascaded downwards in slithering waves to bury him under a tidy pile that, at a vague estimate, could be reckoned in millions.