Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
“Yes, it certainly appears as if she’s been drugged.
Her pupils are dilated and there’s a sweet, mint smell on her breath that correlates to chloroform inhalation,” the doctor said, straightening from where he’d been examining her.
“Probably soaked on a rag and pressed against her mouth, as your witness said. Her pulse is strong and she’s breathing well, so once the chloroform wears off, she should be fine, though somewhat disoriented. ”
“How long will she be unconscious for?” Jack asked.
“It depends on when she was given it,” the doctor replied. “But it usually lasts between one to three hours.”
“Can we move her to one of the guest rooms to make her more comfortable until she wakes up?”
“Yes, that’s not a problem,” the doctor confirmed. “I’m happy to stay and monitor her.”
“That would be appreciated, Doctor. I’ll carry her upstairs to one of the guest rooms, if you’d like to follow me?”
The doctor nodded as Tobias went over to Miss Brunham and effortlessly picked her up, cradling her sleeping form against his chest. “Did you want to come?” he asked Jack.
She shook her head. “No, I might keep looking around the stage and the back room to see if I can find anything else.”
“Very well. I shouldn’t be long, and then we can go speak with Dodd,” Tobias said before carrying Miss Brunham down the stage with the doctor following behind him.
As the others left the ballroom, Jack’s eyes were drawn back to the guillotine and the gleaming blade still lodged into the wooden block of the stock.
It had sliced the prop in two effortlessly and would have done the same with Miss Brunham’s neck too.
She couldn’t help but admire the simplicity yet intricacy that went into the workmanship of the device.
A part of her did miss magic and the props that went with it. Magic really was about experiencing the wonder of the impossible. Thomas Clorren was doing his very best to destroy that for everyone.
“Tobias isn’t here with you?” Sergeant Kellerman’s voice asked from the far doorway as he walked into the ballroom, closing the door firmly behind him.
“No, he’s taken Miss Brunham along with the doctor to one of the guest rooms,” Jack replied. “He’ll be back soon.”
The sergeant nodded and rubbed his beard as he strode over towards the stage. “It was a good thing you and the inspector got here when you did. I don’t think Miss Brunham would be alive otherwise.”
“No, I don’t think she would, either.” Jack shivered lightly, with the thought of how close it had been. “If we’d been even thirty seconds later, the blade would have sliced straight through her neck.”
He climbed the stairs up to the stage and then walked over the guillotine. “So, they really use a proper guillotine to do this trick?”
“Yes.” Jack wandered over to the contraption as the sergeant crouched down and examined the blade.
“The magician demonstrates the sharpness of the blade to the audience by firstly cutting in half a wooden prop. Then he moves the guillotine over to where his assistant is lying on a table, and in the process of moving the machine, he secretly flicks that switch notched into the frame.” She pointed to a tiny grove in the side of it.
“How does the switch stop the thing from hurting the assistant?”
“When flicked, it diverts the blade on a slightly different angle, so it slices into a hidden panel in the block that’s solid and the blade can’t penetrate.”
“Ah, so the blade doesn’t actually touch the assistant,” Sergeant Kellerman said.
“Exactly,” Jack confirmed. “But to the audience, it looks like it’s been sliced clean through the assistant’s neck.”
The sergeant shook his head, then sighed heartily. “Talk about trusting the magician. Dodd didn’t flick the switch, then?”
Jack walked around to where the switch was and flicked it, but it didn’t click as it should have.
She pulled open the hidden piece of wood that masked the secret metal wires running in the middle of the frame and immediately saw they’d been cut.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference if he did. Someone’s tampered with the wires.”
“They were cut on purpose.” Sergeant Kellerman peered over her shoulder. “Why anyone would want to be a magician’s assistant, I just don’t know… Lucky for Miss Brunham you both were here.”
“Speaking of Miss Brunham, what about her parents? They need to know that we’ve found her and she’s alive.” They’d still have been worrying so much.
“I’ve already sent an officer around to get them and bring them back here. The countess said she’d have a guest room prepared for them to stay the night in, next to where Miss Brunham can sleep.”
“That’s very generous of her.”
“Tobias’s parents are pretty decent for hobnobs.” He shrugged. “Though his father’s a bit more difficult, and he’s very hard on Tobias, I’m afraid.”
Jack turned and looked at the sergeant. “You’ve been friends with him since you both joined the police, haven’t you?”
“We met each other a little before that.” He crossed his hands over his chest and eyed her steadily. “We’ve had each other’s backs and saved each other’s lives many a time. He’s the best man I know. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
She could hear the unspoken warning in his words and raised an eyebrow. “You think I’ll hurt him?”
“Not on purpose,” he replied. “But I recognize the same fear in your eyes that I see every time I look in the mirror too.”
“‘Fear,’ Sergeant?”
“Aye,” he confirmed with a nod. “Fear to give your heart to someone in case they leave you. Like you, my parents both died when I was young, leaving me all alone and on the streets fending for myself. I became as tough as nails I did, then when I was nineteen, I tried to steal a young lord’s wallet. It didn’t go as expected, though.”
“Tobias’s wallet?”
“Aye, it was his,” the sergeant replied.
“To cut a long story short, not only didn’t he have me arrested that day, but he became my friend, and even bloody ended up convincing me to join the Yard with him when we both turned twenty.
” He barked out a loud laugh into the empty room.
“I never thought that would ever happen. Talk about a magician, him being able to do that. In any event, I’d give my life for him, and that means I’ll protect his heart from getting broken too. ”
“I have no intention of continuing anything with him after this case.” Jack raised her chin towards the sergeant.
“I’ve seen how he looks at you, and trust me, he has other ideas.
And he’s more stubborn than a mule when he gets an idea into his head, and he’s bloody good at convincing people to go along with his plan.
A natural leader, he is. But one who’s got a real soft heart underneath it all. Just don’t break it, all right?”
The two of them stood staring at each other for a moment, and then Jack slowly nodded.
“I won’t. I promise.” And she wouldn’t. Because if she broke his heart, she knew her heart would be shattered, and that was not something she could handle ever again in her life.
Not after her parents’ deaths had taken a sledge hammer to it already.