It was on the evening of the first snowfall of 1895 that I met Montague Dovetail. I had chosen an outfit suited to neither the weather nor the opulence of the area for our first meeting–my thin, patch-repaired woollen suit earnt me both sympathetic and displeased looks from beaver-hatted businessmen as I passed along the street, searching for Dovetail’s house. Of course, I did not know whom it was that I was going to meet, the newspaper advertisement crumpled in my jacket pocket revealed only that an employer was seeking “SOME PERSON TO AID WITH STAGE SHOWS, GENERAL LABOUR AND MORE. MUST BE WILLING TO FOLLOW STRICT DIRECTION.”
I reached his building and was let in by a porter who looked as if he was at least ninety years old, hands shaking as he opened the front door, mumbling something incomprehensible about the cold. I made my way up the stairs until I reached the first floor, and knocked upon flat number twenty seven, the doorplate of which was decorated with a small brass hare. There was no response for a few seconds, but then I heard light footsteps approaching, and the door was opened by my interviewer. He was tall and thin, the wrong side of forty with a neat black moustache, and dark hair which was slicked back at his temples. He was dressed in a dark suit, paired with a crimson cravat and pocket square, and he looked down at me through circular spectacles which were perched on his long, thin nose.
“Yes?” he said.
“Uh, hello, yes, I’m here about the advertisement,” I said, hurriedly reaching into my pocket to retrieve the crumpled scrap of paper, “I wrote to you? I’m assuming you? You said six o’clock?”
By the time I had found the clipping, he had already turned and was walking back inside his flat, silently beckoning me inside with a flick of his hand.
“Uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t bring the letter–I’m afraid I lost it in the river, a long tale–but it is me, I can prove it…”
I trailed off as I entered his large living room, which was decked out to look like more of a stage area, with crates of props piled up on either side, and old, curling stage show posters stuck up on his walls. A white rabbit with red eyes was asleep atop one of the crates, its feet tucked neatly under itself as it slept. The man reached into a box and pulled out a series of photographs, handing them over for me to look at. They each depicted the “decapitation” trick that I had seen printed in various scandalous newspapers, with smiling people holding what appeared to be their own heads in their arms, their necks clean cut.
“Now, Mister Muscari, what is the secret to this photographic trick?”
“Ummm,” I started, but he placed a long finger to my lips, silencing me.
“You have already failed my test!” he cried, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry?”
“You must never reveal any secrets.”
“But I was only going to guess, Sir, I never–”
“Ah!” he cried, and took the photos back from me, “how can I trust you to be my stage assistant with such a tongue?”
“Stage assistant?” I inquired, and he sighed, clearly bored of me already.
“Have you no knowledge of illusions at all? Every magician must have an assistant, to play the part of the willing victim, to demonstrate tricks before an audience member is chosen. I need you to be perfect on stage: to shine, but to never outshine.”
“You want me to be…your assistant?” I replied, trying to take it all in. The white rabbit decided then to spring into action, awaking from its slumber and leaping off of its crate, knocking over a stack of books as it went. Dovetail swore, and moved to start stacking the books up again. I bent down to help him, trying to figure the man out. He was incredibly dramatic, to the point of being annoying, and I had never considered a career which involved me treading the floorboards.
“Isn’t it a little unconventional for one to have a male assistant?” I asked him, and he rolled his eyes as he stacked up the books.
“I’ve never been one for convention, Mister Muscari.”
“I see…” I said, eyeing up the white rabbit who had taken to staring at me with its bright red eyes.
“Magic, Mister Muscari, is at a crisis point,” he continued, straightening himself up, “every day-labourer who can learn a shilling’s worth of magic and pull coins from behind their family’s ears thinks themselves a magician now. We have lost the theatre of it, Mister Muscari, and we are losing the illusion of the very stage itself.”
“So…what’s your plan then?” I asked, as the rabbit hopped over to me and began nibbling at my trouser hem.
“Rhubarb, you utter shit,” he sighed, picking up his pet, “My plan, Mister Muscari, is to re-invigorate the theatre. I want to make London fall in love with magic again, real magic. No more seances and ghost stories and fairies. Just real illusions, impressive props and presentable costumes. I want every home in London to know the name “Dovetail”. Don’t you want them to know “Muscari”, too?”
I hesitated, and finally said: “And I’ll…be paid, yes?”
“Of course.”
I looked at the strange man, the rabbit who was clawing at his cravat, and then looked down to my now-ruined trousers.
“Let’s bring some magic back to London, Mister Dovetail,” I said, looking up to meet his eyes.
That was the first time I saw him smile.
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