The Prestige

Once the apparatus has been correctly put together (I wrote the assembly instructions myself) you will find it is in complete working order, and operates exactly to the agreed technical specification. The device is self-regulating, and should continue to work without adjustment or repair for many years. All you should do is keep it clean, brighten the electrical contact points should they become dull, and in general ensure that no physical damage goes unrepaired. (Mr Tesla enclosed a set of spares for those parts which will, in the ordinary course, require replacement. All the other parts, such as the wooden struts, may be replaced from normal sources.)

I would of course be fascinated to learn what illusions you work with this extraordinary invention, because I am as you know one of your greatest admirers. Although you were not here to see it for yourself, I can testify that Snowshoes (the name of my children's pet cat) was safely transported several times by the device, but is back once more with our family as a domestic animal.

Let me say in conclusion, Sir, that I was honored to play some part, no matter how small, in building this apparatus for you.

Yours most sincerely, Fareham K. Alley, Dip. Eng.

P.S.: You were once kind enough to admire, and pretend bafflement by, the small tricks I had the temerity to show to you. Since you made such a point of demanding an explanation, perhaps you would like to know that my little illusion with the five playing-cards and the disappearing silver dollars was achieved by a combination of classic palming and a card force. I was most gratified by your response to this trick, and would be delighted to send on detailed instructions about each move in turn, should you require them. F.K.A.

As soon as I read this I hurried around to my workshop. I enquired of my neighbours there if a large package might recently have been delivered from the USA, but they knew nothing of it.

22nd November 1900

I showed Alley's letter to Julia this morning, quite forgetting that I had not yet told her about my most recent trip to the USA, and what I had done there. Of course her curiosity was aroused by it, and I then needed to explain.

"So this is where all your money has gone?" she said.

"Yes."

"And Tesla has apparently absconded, and we have only this letter to show for it?"

I assured her that Alley was trustworthy, and pointed out that he had written his letter without solicitation from me. For a while we discussed what might have happened to the package while en route to me, where it might be, and how we might recover it.

Then Julia said, "What is so special about the illusion?"

"Not the illusion itself," I replied. "It is the means by which it is achieved."

"Is Mr Borden something to do with this?"

"You have not forgotten Mr Borden, I see."

"My dear, it was Alfred Borden who drove the first wedge between us. I have had many years to reflect, and I trace everything that went wrong back to that day when he attacked me." Tears had started in her eyes, making them gleam with grief, but she spoke in quiet rage and without any trace of self-pity. "Had he not hurt me I should not have lost our first child, and the aftermath, in which I felt a great divide opening between us, would not have occurred. Your restlessness began then. Even the dear children who followed could not compensate for the cruelty and stupidity of what Borden did that day, and that the feud between you continues is proof of the outrage you too must still feel."

"I have never spoken to you about that," I said. "How do you know?"

"Because I am not a fool, Rupert, and I have seen occasional remarks in the magic magazines." I had not known she continued to subscribe to those. "You are still prime amongst my concerns," she said. 'I wonder only why you have never spoken to me of his attacks."

"Because I am, I suppose, a little ashamed of the feud."

"Surely he is the aggressor?"

"I have had to defend myself," I said.

I told her about my investigations into his past, and my attempts to discover how he worked the illusion. Then I described the hopes I had for Tesla's equipment.

"Borden relies on standard stage trickery," I explained. "He uses cabinets and lights and make-up, and when he transports himself across the stage he does so by concealment. He enters one apparatus and emerges from another. It is brilliantly done, but the mystery is not only concealed by his props it is also made banal by them. The beauty of the Tesla device is that the trick can be carried out in the open, and the materialization uses no props at all! If it works as planned I shall be transporting myself instantly to any position I like: to an empty part of the stage, to the royal box, to the front of the grand circle, even to an empty seat in the centre of the stalls! Anywhere, indeed, that will produce the greatest impact on the audience."

"You make it sound a little provisional," Julia said. "You say this is still being planned?"