“I certainly did,” said Ingestree. “I didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t just the genial laughter of a man saying farewell to some guests. And certainly he didn’t seem to be laughing at us. I thought perhaps it was relief at having got something off his chest.”
“The laugh troubled me,” said Lind. “I am not good at humour, and I like to be perfectly sure what people are laughing at. Do you know what it was, Ramsay?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think I do. That was Merlin’s Laugh.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Lind.
“If Liesl will allow it, I must be mythological again. The magician Merlin had a strange laugh, and it was heard when nobody else was laughing. He laughed at the beggar who was bewailing his fate as he lay stretched on a dunghill; he laughed at the foppish young man who was making a great fuss about choosing a pair of shoes. He laughed because he knew that deep in the dunghill was a golden cup that would have made the beggar a rich man; he laughed because he knew that the pernickety young man would be stabbed in a quarrel before the soles of his new shoes were soiled. He laughed because he knew what was coming next.”
“And of course our friend knows what is coming next in his own story,” said Lind.
“Are we to take it then that there was some striking reversal of fortune awaiting him when he went to England?” said Ingestree.
“I know no more than you,” said I. “I do not hear Merlin’s Laugh very often, though I think I am more sensitive to its sound than most people. But he spoke of finding out what wine would be poured into the well-smoked bottled that he had become. I don’t know what it was.”
Ingestree was more excited than the rest. “But are we never to know? How can we find out?”
“Surely that’s up to you,” said Lind. “Aren’t you going to ask Eisengrim to come to London to see the rushes of this film we have been making? Isn’t that owing to him? Get him in London and ask him to continue.”
Ingestree looked doubtful. “Can it be squeezed out of the budget?” he said. “The corporation doesn’t like frivolous expenses. Of course I’d love to ask him, but if we run very much over budget, well, it would be as good as my place is worth, as servants used to say in the day when they knew they were servants.”
“Nonsense, you can rig it,” said Kinghovn. But Ingestree still looked like a worried, rather withered baby.
“I know what is worrying Roly,” said Liesl. “He thinks that he could squeeze Eisengrim’s expenses in London out of the B.B.C., but he knows he can’t lug in Ramsay and me, and he’s too nice a fellow to suggest that Magnus travel without us. Isn’t that it, Roly?”
Ingestree looked at her. “Bang on the head,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Liesl. “I’ll pay my own way, and even this grinding old miser Ramsay might unchain a few pennies for himself. Just let us know when to come.”
And so, at last, they went. As we came back into the large, gloomy, nineteenth-century Gothic hall of Sorgenfrei, I said to Liesl: “It was nice of you to think of Lebbaeus, tonight. People don’t mention him very often. But you’re wrong, you know, saying that there is no record of what he did after the Crucifixion. There is a non-canonical Acts of Thaddaeus—Thaddaeus was his surname, you recall—that tells all about him. It didn’t get into the Bible, but it exists.”
“What’s it like?”
“A great tale of marvels. Real Arabian Nights stuff. Puts him dead at the centre of affairs.”
“Didn’t I say so! Just like a man. I’ll bet he wrote it himself.”
2
Merlin’s Laugh
(1)
Because of Jurgen Lind’s slow methods of work, it took longer to get Un Hommage à Robert-Houdin into a final form than we had expected, and it was nearly three months later when Eisengrim, Liesl, and I journeyed to London to see what it looked like. The polite invitation suggested that criticism would be welcome. Eisengrim was the star, and Liesl had put up a good deal of the money for the venture, expecting to get it back over the next two or three years, with substantial gains, but I think we all knew that criticism of Lind would not be gratefully received. A decent pretence was to be kept up, all the same.
We three rarely travelled together; when we did there was always a good deal of haggling about where we should stay. I favoured small, modest hotels; Liesl felt a Swiss nationalist pull toward any hotel, anywhere, that was called the Ritz; Eisengrim wanted to stop at the Savoy.
The suite we occupied at the Savoy was precisely to his taste. It had been decorated in the twenties, and not changed since; the rooms were large, and the walls were in that most dismal of decorators’ colours, “off-white”; below the ceiling of the drawing-room was a nine-inch border of looking-glass; there was an Art Moderne fireplace with an electric fire in it which, when in use, gave off a heavy smell of roasted dust and reminiscences of mice; the furniture was big, and clumsy in the twenties mode. The windows looked out on what I called an alley, and what even Liesl called “a mean street”, but to our amazement Magnus came up with the comment that nobody who called himself a gentleman ever looked out of the window. (What did he know about the fine points of upper-class behaviour?) There was a master bedroom of astonishing size, and Magnus grabbed it for himself, saying that Liesl might have the other bed in it. My room, not quite so large but still a big room, was nearer the bathroom. That chamber was gorgeous in a style long forgotten, with what seemed to be Roman tiling, a sunken bath, and a giantess’s bidet. The daily rate for this grandeur startled me even when I had divided it by three, but I held my peace, and hoped we would not stay long. I am not a stingy man, but I think a decent prudence becoming even in the very rich, like Liesl. Also, I knew enough about the very rich to understand that I should not be let off with a penny less than my full third of whatever was spent.
Magnus was taking his new position as a film star—even though it was only as the star of a television “special”—with a seriousness that seemed to me absurd. The very first night he insisted on having Lind and his gang join us for what he called a snack in our drawing-room. Snack! Solomon and the Queen of Sheba would have been happy with such a snack; when I saw it laid out by the waiters I was so oppressed by the thought of what a third of it would come to that I wondered if I should be able to touch a morsel. But the others ate and drank hugely, and almost as soon as they entered the room began hinting that Magnus should continue the story he had begun at Sorgenfrei. That was what I wanted, too, and as it was plain that I was going to pay dear to hear it, I overcame my scruple and made sure of my share of the feast.
The showing of Hommage had been arranged for the following afternoon at three o’clock. “Good,” said Magnus; “that will allow me the morning to make a little sentimental pilgrimage I have in mind.”
Polite interest from Ingestree, and delicately inquisitive probings as to what this pilgrimage might be.
“Something associated with a turning-point in my life,” said Magnus. “I feel that one should not be neglectful of such observances.”
Was it anything with which the B.B.C. could be helpful, Ingestree asked.
“No, not at all,” said Magnus. “I simply want to lay some flowers at the foot of a monument.”
Surely, Ingestree persisted, Magnus would permit somebody from the publicity department, or from a newspaper, to get a picture of this charming moment? It could be so helpful later, when it was necessary to work up enthusiasm for the film.
Magnus was coy. He would prefer not to make public a private act of gratitude and respect. But he was willing to admit, among friends, that what he meant to do was part of the subtext of the film; an act related to his own career; something he did whenever he found himself in London.
He had now gone so far that it was plain he wanted to be coaxed, and Ingestree coaxed him with a mixture of affection and respect that was worthy of admiration. It was plain to be seen how Ingestree had not merely survived, but thriven, in the desperate world of television. It
was not long before Magnus yielded, as I suppose he meant to do from the beginning.
“It’s nothing in the least extraordinary. I’m going to lay a few yellow roses—I hope I can get yellow ones—at the foot of the monument to Henry Irving behind the National Portrait Gallery. You know it. It’s one of the best-known monuments in London. Irving, splendid and gracious, in his academical robes, looking up Charing Cross Road. I promised Milady I’d do that, in her name and my own, if I ever came to the point in life where I could afford such gestures. And I have. And so I shall.”
“Now you really mustn’t tease us any more,” said Ingestree. “We must be told. Who is Milady?”
“Lady Tresize,” said Magnus, and there was no hint of banter in his voice any longer. He was solemn. But Ingestree hooted with laughter.
“My God!” he said, “You don’t mean Old Mother Tresize? Old Nan? You knew her?”
“Better than you apparently did,” said Magnus. “She was a dear friend of mine, and very good to me when I needed a friend. She was one of Irving’s protégées, and in her name I do honour to his memory.”
“Well—I apologize. I apologize profoundly. I never knew her well, though I saw something of her. You’ll admit she was rather a joke as an actress.”
“Perhaps. Though I saw her give some remarkable performances. She didn’t always get parts that were suited to her.”
“I can’t imagine what parts could ever have suited her. It’s usually admitted she held the old man back. Dragged him down, in fact. He really may have been good, once. If he’d had a decent leading lady he mightn’t have ended up as he did.”
“I didn’t know that he had ended up badly. Indeed I know for a fact that he had quite a happy retirement, and was happier because he shared it with her. Are we talking about the same people?”
“I suppose it depends on how one looks at it. I’d better shut up.”
“No, no,” said Lind. “This is just the time to keep on. Who are these people called Tresize? Theatre people, I suppose?”
“Sir John Tresize was one of the most popular romantic actors of his day,” said Magnus.
“But in an absolutely appalling repertoire,” said Ingestree, who seemed unable to hold his tongue. “He went on into the twenties acting stuff that was moth-eaten when Irving died. You should have seen it, Jurgen! The Lyons Mail, The Corsican Brothers, and that interminable Master of Ballantrae; seeing him in repertory was a peep into the dark backward and abysm of time, let me tell you!”
“That’s not true,” said Magnus, and I knew how hot he was by the coolness with which he spoke. “He did some fine things, if you would take the trouble to find out. Some admired Shakespearean performances; a notable Hamlet. The money he made on The Master of Ballantrae he spent on introducing the work of Maeterlinck to England.”
“Maeterlinck’s frightfully old hat,” said Ingestree.
“Now, perhaps. But fashions change. And when Sir John Tresize introduced Maeterlinck to England he was an innovator. Have you no charity toward the past?”
“Not a scrap.”
“I think less of you for it.”
“Oh, come off it! You’re an immensely accomplished actor yourself. You know how the theatre is. Of all the arts it has least patience with bygones.”
“You have said several times that I am a good actor, because I can put up a decent show as Robert-Houdin. I’m glad you think so. Have you ever asked yourself where I learned to do that? One of the things that has given my work a special flavour is that I give my audiences something to look at apart from good tricks. They like the way I act the part of a conjuror. They say it has romantic flair. What they really mean is that it is projected with a skilled nineteenth-century technique. And where did I learn that?”
“Well, obviously you’re going to tell me you learned it from old Tresize. But it isn’t the same, you know. I mean, I remember him. He was lousy.”
“Depends on the point of view, I suppose. Perhaps you had some reason not to like him.”
“Not at all.”
“You said you knew him.”
“Oh, very slightly.”
“Then you missed a chance to know him better. I had that chance and I took it. Probably I needed it more than you did. I took it, and I paid for it, because knowing Sir John didn’t come cheap. And Milady was a great woman. So tomorrow morning—yellow roses.”
“You’ll let us send a photographer?”
“Not after what you’ve been saying. I don’t pretend to an overwhelming delicacy, but I have some. So keep away, please, and if you disobey me I won’t finish the few shots you still have to make on Hommage. Is that clear?”
It was clear, and after lingering a few minutes, just to show that they could not be easily dismissed, Ingestree, and Jurgen Lind, and Kinghovn left us.
(2)
Both Liesl and I went with Magnus the following morning on his sentimental expedition. Liesl wanted to know who Milady was; her curiosity was aroused by the tenderness and reverence with which he spoke of the woman who appeared to Ingestree to be a figure of fun. I was curious about everything concerning him. After all, I had my document to consider. So we both went with him to buy the roses. Liesl protested when he bought an expensive bunch of two dozen. “If you leave them in the street, somebody will steal them,” she said; “the gesture is the same whether it’s one rose or a bundle. Don’t waste your money.” Once again I had occasion to be surprised at the way very rich people think about money; a costly apartment at the Savoy, and a haggle about a few roses! But Eisengrim was not to be changed from his purpose. “Nobody will steal them, and you’ll find out why,” said he. So off we went on foot along the Strand, because Magnus felt that taking a taxi would lessen the solemnity of his pilgrimage.
The Irving monument stands in quite a large piece of open pavement; near by a pavement artist was chalking busily on the flagstones. Beside the monument itself a street performer was unpacking some ropes and chains, and a woman was helping him to get ready for his performance. Magnus took off his hat, laid the flowers at the foot of the statue, arranged them to suit himself, stepped back, looked up at the statue, smiled, and said something under his breath. Then he said to the street performer: “Going to do a few escapes, are you?”
“Right you are,” said the man.
“Will you be here long?”
“Long as anybody wants to watch me.”
“I’d like you to keep an eye on those flowers. They’re for the Guvnor, you see. Here’s a pound. I’ll be back before lunch, and if they’re still there, and if you’re still here, I’ll have another pound for you. I want them to stay where they are for at least three hours; after that anybody who wants them can have them. Now let’s see your show.”
The busker and the woman went to work. She rattled a tambourine, and he shook the chains and defied the passers-by to tie him up so that he couldn’t escape. A few loungers gathered, but none of them seemed anxious to oblige the escape-artist by tying him up. At last Magnus did it himself.
I didn’t know what he had in mind, and I wondered if he meant to humiliate the poor fellow by tying him up and leaving him to struggle; after all, Magnus had been a distinguished escape-artist himself in his time, and as he was a man of scornful mind such a trick would not have been outside his range. He made a thorough job of it, and before he had done there was a crowd of fifteen or twenty people gathered to see the fun. It is not every day that one of these shabby street performers has a beautifully dressed and distinguished person as an assistant. I saw a policeman halt at the back of the crowd, and began to worry. My philosophical indifference to human suffering is not as complete as I wish it were. If Magnus tied up the poor wretch and left him, what should I do? Interfere, or run away? Or would I simply hang around and see what happened?
At last Magnus was contented with his work, and stepped away from the busker, who was now a bundle of chains and ropes. The man dropped to the ground, writhed and grovelled for a few seconds, worked
himself up on his knees, bent his head and tried to get at one of the ropes with his teeth, and in doing so fell forward and seemed to hurt himself badly. The crowd murmured sympathetically, and pressed a bit nearer. Then, suddenly, the busker gave a triumphant cry, and leapt to his feet, as chains and ropes fell in a tangle on the pavement.
Magnus led the applause. The woman passed the tattered cap that served as a collection bag. Some copper and a few silver coins were dropped in it. Liesl contributed a fifty-penny piece, and I found another. It was a good round for the busker; astonishingly good, I imagine, for the first show of the day.
When the crowd had dispersed, the busker said softly to Magnus: “Pro, ain’t yer?”
“Yes, I’m a pro.”
“Knew it. You couldn’t of done them ties without bein’ a pro. You playin’ in town?”
“No, but I have done. Years ago, I used to give a show right where we’re standing now.”
“You did! Christ, you’ve done well.”
“Yes. And I started here under the Guvnor’s statue. You’ll keep an eye on his flowers, won’t you?”
“Too right I will! And thanks!”
We walked away, Magnus smiling and big with mystery. He knew how much we wanted to know what lay behind what we had just seen, and was determined to make us beg. Liesl, who has less pride about such things than I, spoke before we had passed the pornography shops into Leicester Square.