3

'Even I was surprised by Haraldson's savagery. What you boys saw was a little pig's blood and the hint of something grotesque - what I saw was a man being slowly dismembered and kept alive in absolute agony until the last possible second. I had been thinking of the Collector as a sort of toy, as it had been when I had invented it. Of course, the power was mine, not Haraldson's. He was only a tool, a doll filled with my own imagery. And because Haraldson was now a liability, I realized that he could be replaced by any number of our hangers-on - even with one of the Wandering Boys if necessary. I released Haraldson from the Collector as quickly as possible, after I was sure Withers was dead. The police found him almost immediately: the Swede was in such a daze that he was put away in a mental home and convicted but never executed for Withers' murder. There was a little stir in the papers for a bit; then it died away, and we were far out in the country, working the provinces; no one connected Withers or Haraldson to myself.

'The other thing I had realized while the Collector gathered in poor Withers was that I had no real need of the Wandering Boys anymore. The Collector was bodyguard enough. This was just a seed in my mind, understand. I thought about it while I gave the Wandering Boys their one amusement, badger-baiting. Whenever we were out in the countryside, they arranged for a couple of dogs, and we went out in the middle of the night with our shovels and tongs and put paid to a couple of badgers. The night after Withers had been dispatched, we were in the countryside west of York, and I looked at those six trolls and their ringmaster working for the moment when they could witness the slaughter of a few animals, and I thought: Are they really necessary? I filed the thought away: there was a great deal on my mind at the time.

'Rosa Forte, for one. She had become distant and sulky, and this infuriated me. I often beat her when I was drunk. I could not tell if she loved or hated me, her manner was so contradictory. Speckle John, who by 1922 was definitely my second fiddle, used to try to advise me about her, and his advice was an old woman's. Be nicer to her, treat her better, listen to her, that sort of thing. She would go to him and weep. I despised both of them. Money was also on my mind. Though we were as successful as any magicians were in those days, I constantly felt pinched for extra money. Even with what I made reading fortunes and doing prognostications for the wealthy, I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to live well, I wanted a lavish act; even then, I think I had the germ of my farewell performance in my mind. A good climax is important to any performance, and I knew that when I tired of touring - of dragging nine other people around the world with me - I would want my final show to be the most spectacular performance ever seen.

'That would be very expensive; and indeed my own tastes had become costly. We were already charging as much as we could ask. So I adopted other means, and here the Wandering Boys were useful to me.

'I went unannounced to that rich fool in Kensington, Robert Chalfont, late one night. When he opened the door to me, I saw on his big-jawed public-school face that he was both flattered and unsettled, even a little frightened. That was perfect. He knew what I had done to Crowley in his garden earlier that summer. Chalfont invited me in and offered me a drink. I took some malt whiskey and sat down in the library while he paced up and down. He had invited me for dinner several times and I had not come; now that I was there, he was nervous. 'Nice of you to drop in,' he said.

''I want money,' I said unceremoniously. 'A lot of it.'

' 'Well, look here, Collins,' he said. 'I'm afraid I can't just give you money on demand, you know - there are ways of doing things.'

''And this is my way,' I told him. 'I want three thousand pounds a year from you. And I want you to sign a paper stating that you give it voluntarily, in recognition of my work.'

''Well, dammit, man, no one respects your work more than I do,' he said, 'but what you're asking is preposterous.'

''No, you are preposterous,' I told him. 'You wish the privilege of associating with great magicians. You want intimacy with their secrets; you want to witness displays of their power. Now it is time to pay for the privilege.' And I reminded him of what I could do to him if he refused me.

'He asked me for time to think. I gave him two days - I could see on that stupid well-brought-up face that he wished he'd stuck to shooting and fishing.

'The following day I sent Mr. Peet and his trolls around to his house, and they did some damage there. Chalfont came straightaway to my hotel suite and agreed to what I'd demanded. But by then I had decided I wanted more - all of it, in fact. And he gave it to me, everything he had.'

'He just gave you all his money?' Tom asked. 'Just like that?'

'Not exactly.' The magician smiled. 'I invited Chalfont to participate in our act.'

'You collected him,' Tom said, horrified.

'Of course. Once he'd had a sample of that, he signed everything over to me. I kept the trolls with him every day while he made the arrangements. And when I had his name on the papers and his money in my account, I collected him again. As he should have had the sense to expect. He gave a new dimension to the Collector, a sort of poignance. In fact, I began to think it was a pity I'd never put Crowley in the Collector. Imagine what a Collector he would have made! But we made do with Chalfont for as long as we stayed together. And I had no other Collector until I heard the pleas of your school-friend and saw how helpful he would be to us this summer.'

Down in the trees, a faint light began to glow, teasing the fog that moved slowly across it.

'But pay attention now', boys. We are coming to the next turning point in my life - one of those great reversals, like the death of Vendouris or my first meeting with Speckle John.

'The money question had been solved, for many of my wealthy admirers had half-suspected the kind of thing that had happened to Chalfont, and gave over large sums whenever I wanted them. But I was growing tired of Europe. Europe was dead. I sensed new life in America - life that did not stink of corpses. Europe was really a graveyard, and in America my family had enough money to keep me for the rest of my life. I took a month off, sailed to the States, and looked for a suitable place to set up my compound. For that was how I thought of it: a guarded place, remote from any city, where I could extend magic as far as it could go; without the third-party trappings of an audience. I found this place and bought it and hired workmen to make the improvements I had in mind. The price was too high originally, but I persuaded the owners to let it go reasonably. And my methods ensured that no one would come prowling around in my absence.'

There was an immense, terrifying beating of wings: a huge white owl came to life in the dim light. Both boys froze. The owl looked predatory, more purely savage than the Collector; it beat its wings once more, then blew apart like smoke, becoming part of the fog.

Still the light glowed, promising visions to come.

'I landed again in France in the autumn of 1923. It had been only five years since my first landing, but imagine the difference! Now I knew who and what I was: Coleman Collins had found and developed the power which Charles Nightingale had only dared to dream existed within him. I was rich enough to do anything I wished, and I was famous enough to draw large audiences wherever we appeared. Now I owned a house and extensive grounds in New England. And beyond all else, of course, I was King of the Cats, famous throughout the occult world. This was a position I intended to hold as long as I could - at least until I sensed the arrival of a magician whose powers were as much greater than mine as mine were than Speckle John's. Then, I thought, we'd see what we would see.'

The white owl flickered again down the funnel of trees; its eyes blazed. The great wings rustled the leaves. Then it was gone again.

'We drove, Mr. Peet and I, he actually driving the Daimler and I relaxing in the backseat, down through western France toward Paris. I looked forward to seeing Rosa Forte and Speckle John - most especially, Rosa Forte. I thought of bringing her back to America with me - she could not survive without me, I knew, and she would have her uses in my new life. As yet, all of that was only a vague dream. I wondered what new bookings Speckle John had managed to get for us; I wondered how long the trolls would go before they required another badger-baiting; I wondered what invitations had come, which women would be waiting for me with their palms extended and their checkbooks out; I wondered too if Rosa would be as amorous in her greetings as she usually was when I returned from long trips. So down we drove, going at the dazzling speed of perhaps thirty miles an hour through village after village, each with its obelisk inscribed with the names of those who had died in the war. The light was heavy, and the chestnut trees were turning red and orange; the dust rose up from the road; I thought of all the blood in those fields, which were just ripening into harvest time. I remembered what I had done to that poor ranter Crowley, and laughed out loud - also I thought about the attacks recently made against me by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, names important in the occult field at the time but now utterly forgotten. That heavy light… the orange, blood-soaked fields… Rosa waiting with her porcelain skin and open thighs… that feeling of time itself dying with a beautiful melancholy about me…

'Ten kilometers outside Paris I saw a peasant smile at my car with white flawless teeth, and I thought of Vendouris screaming in the frozen muck - thought of him for the first time in years, and it seemed to me that it really was time to get out when all of a beautiful European autumn seemed epitomized to me by the gleam of a dying man's teeth.

'We entered Paris from the northwest, throwing up plumes of dust behind us, and crossed the Seine at the Pont de Courbevoie and worked our way through the streets to the Ranelagh Gardens, where we lived in a splendid building on Avenue Prud'hon. We drew up before the splendid building. I could hear children's voices in the heavy air. The trees in the Ranelagh Gardens were brilliant gold, I remember, and the grass a very powerful dark green. Still the beautiful melancholy. I invited Peet to join me for a drink in my sitting room, which eventually cost him his life. We mounted the stairs, me carrying a small bag and Peet the two large suitcases from the Daimler's trunk. The interior of the building smelled of sandalwood. I opened the door of my apartment and let Peet enter. He went in a few steps and dropped the bags - they made a particularly loud thump. I followed and saw his face, which was both embarrassed and terrified. Then I saw them. Saw what any schoolboy would have suspected long before.'

The light blazed up in the trees, and Tom saw Rose lying naked on what looked like an oriental carpet. About her was the suggestion of a large room with oyster-colored walls. Rose's unmistakable body was sideways to him, her blond head turned away. A thick naked man with heavy arms and thighs lay atop her; his face was buried in her shoulder. Tom went rigid with shock. Beside him, Del gasped. The heavy hands kneaded her breasts, the brutal body thrust and thrust, moving itself blindly toward climax; and Rose clung to his hips, accommodating and moving with him. Shock spread so definitively throughout Tom that he could feel its progress, freezing him as it went. He could not even think of how Del was responding to this sight. You won't be foolish when you see me tonight, will you? That was what she had said, linking her hands behind his neck as they stood in chest-high water. And before that, You won't hate me, will you? I still have some work to do for him. This is what she had meant.

Everything here is a lie.

He seized at that straw until the girl tilted her face toward the sky and he saw the wide high brow, the mouth that had said she loved him. He felt as though he had been blowtorched. The man quickened, trembled, clutched at her. Rose's arms and legs clamped on the plunging man. Then the light died again, and they were alone with the magician. Del's eyes were dull. He was breathing heavily, almost panting.

You won't be foolish when you see me tonight, will you?

Everything here is a lie.

He could not see his way out of it.

'Of course it was not Root who was enjoying my Rosa, but my partner, Speckle John. I merely wanted you boys to feel my shock and outrage - and I see that I have succeeded. Arnold Peet fled. I left on his heels. When I returned half an hour later, Rosa was still there, dressed now, feigning contrition. She pretended that it had been the first occasion, but I knew better. I let her lie to me, and thought of all the consoling Speckle John had done for my poor Rosa. She expected me to beat her - she wanted to be beaten, for that would have been forgiveness. I did not beat her. I did not shoot her, either, though I had my service revolver with me - I always carried it in those days. I just let her plead and weep. And when I met Speckle John the next day, neither one of us mentioned what I had seen on the floor of my sitting room. I began to plan my final performance.'

Collins stood. 'Tomorrow night you will see how I wrapped up all the strands; how I removed Arnold Peet, who had witnessed my humiliation, along with his trolls; how I revenged myself against those who had humiliated me; and how I gave the gaudiest performance of my life.' He looked down at the two stricken boys. 'And stay in your rooms tonight. This time I will overlook no disobedience.'

The magician tilted his head, looking as if he were enjoying himself, and put his hands in his pockets, his amused eyes finding Tom's; vanished.

To hell with you, to hell with you, Tom said to himself. He leaned down and helped Del to his feet. 'Will you do whatever I ask?'

'Whatever you ask,' Del said. He still looked semi-catatonic.

'Let's go back now. We'll get out of here as soon as we can tonight. I don't know how, but we'll do it. I'm through with this place.'

'I feel sick,' Del said.

'And listen. You were never going to be invited back anyhow. Get me? Shadowland was over for you anyhow. He told me. You weren't going to be chosen - he said this was your last summer here. It was over anyhow. So let's get out now.'

'Okay,' Del said. His lip trembled. 'As long as you're coming with me.' He wiped at his eyes. 'What about her? What about Rose?'

'I don't know about Rose,' Tom said. 'But we're getting out of here late tonight. And nobody's going to stop us.'

He led Del back through the wood to the edge of the lake.

'You were chosen,' Del said. The moonlight lay a white cap over his black hair. A frog croaked from the side of the lake. Whiteness hung over the surface of the lake like a veil, and ghostly wisps trailed from the edge of the lake. The iron staircase rose up out of a pocket of gray wool like a ladder set in a cloud. 'You were the one who was welcomed,' Del said. 'Weren't you?'

'But I didn't welcome them back.'

'I was sure it was going to be me. But inside, I knew it wasn't me.'

'I wish it was you.'

They trudged across the sand. Del put his hands on the flaking rungs of the ladder; went up six rungs, stopped. 'I think everybody lied to me,' he said, as if to himself.

'Tonight,' Tom said. 'Then it's all over.'

'I want it to be all over. But I almost wish this ladder would fall over again and kill both of us.'

As they went through the dark living room, Tom thought of something. 'Wait.' Del drifted out into the hall and stood like a man on a gallows. Tom went to the cabinet in the corner and opened the glass doors. The porcelain shepherdess had been broken in two - Collins had done it. It was a joke, or a warning, or like the last moralizing line in a Perrault fable. The broken halves lay separated on the wood, a little fine white powder between them. All the other figurines had been pushed to the back of the cabinet. They faced him. The boy with the books, the six drunken men, the Elizabethan. Their eyes were dead, their faces. Then Tom understood. It was they who had murdered the shepherdess. That was a message straight from Collins to him. He took his eyes from them and picked up a piece of the broken figurine and put it in his pocket. On an afterthought, he took the pistol too and stuck it inside his shirt.

He followed Del upstairs. They walked down the hallway past a black window. 'Look,' Del said, and pointed. Tom should have seen it for himself: all the lights in the woods had been extinguished. There were no more stages, no more theaters in the woods. They could see only their own faces against solid black.

Del vanished around his door.

Tom went into his own room. The pocket doors were shut. He sat on his bed, heard rustling. He patted the bed and heard the whispery crackle again. Tom put his hand under the coverlet and touched a sheet of paper. He did not want to see it.

No: he did want to see it. He wanted with his whole damaged heart to see it. When he pulled it out and allowed himself to read it, it said: If you love me, come to the little beach.

So she too wanted to escape tonight. Tom saw Coleman Collins as a huge white owl swooping savagely toward them all, gathering and crushing them in his talons. He saw Rose squeezed in those claws. He folded the note and put it between the revolver and his skin. Then he touched the broken figurine in his pocket. 'Okay,' he said. 'Okay, Rose.'

Tom went to the doors and pushed them aside. Del lay on his bed in the dark. His shoulder twitched, one hand stirred babyishly. 'What?' he asked.

'We're going now,' Tom said, 'and we're going to meet Rose.'

The porcelain figures, lined up at the back of the cabinet, staring out with dead faces at their handiwork. Rosa Forte had been murdered by the Wandering Boys, and Collins wanted him to know it.

'I just want to get out,' Del said. 'I can't stand it here anymore. Please, Tom. Where do we go first?'

Tom led the way down the stairs, through the living room, and out onto the flagstones in the cool air. 'We're going back through the woods,' he said. 'All the way this time.'

'Whatever you say, master.'