The Prestige

Knowing this, I made myself think back carefully over what I had seen, re-running the illusion in my mind, and trying to estimate how much time had actually elapsed between Angier's apparent disappearance and his materialization elsewhere. In the end I came to the conclusion that certainly it had been no less than my first estimate of one or two seconds, and maybe as many as five seconds had passed. In five seconds of complete and unexpected darkness a skilled magician can carry out a great deal of invisible trickery!

This short period of time was the obvious clue to the mystery, but it still did not seem enough for Angier to have dashed almost to the back of the stalls.

Two weeks after the incident, by arrangement with the front-of-house manager, I went round to the Hackney Empire on the pretext of wishing to take measurements in advance of one of my own performances. This is a fairly regular feature of magical acts, as the illusionist will often adapt his performance to suit the physical limitations of the theatre. In the event, my request was treated as a normal one, and the manager's assistant greeted me with civility and assisted me with my researches.

I found the seat where I had been, and established that it was just over fifty feet from the stage. Trying to discover the precise point in the aisle where Angier had rematerialized was more difficult, and really all I had to go on was my own memory of the event. I stood beside the seat I had been using, and tried to triangulate his position by recalling the angle at which I had turned my head to see him. In the end the best I could do was to place him somewhere in a long stretch of the stepped aisle; its closest point to the stage was more than seventy-five feet, and its furthest extremity was greatly in excess of one hundred feet.

I stood for a while in the centre of the stage, approximately in the place where the tripod's apex had been, and stared along the central aisle, wondering how I myself would contrive to get from one position to the other, in a crowded auditorium, in darkness, in under five seconds.

I travelled down to discus: the problem with Tommy Elbourne, who by this time was living in retirement in Woking. After I had described the illusion to him I asked him how he thought it might be explained.

"I should have to see it myself, sir," he said after much thought and cross-questioning of me.

I tried a different approach. I put it to him that it might be an illusion I wished to design for myself. He and I had often worked like this in the past; I would describe an effect I wanted to achieve, and we would, so to speak, design the workings in reverse.

"But that would be no problem for you, would it, Mr Borden?"

"Yes, but I am different! How then would we design it for another illusionist?"

"I would not know how," he said. "The best way would be to use a double, someone already planted in the audience, but you say—"

"That is not how Angier worked it. He was alone."

"Then I have no idea, sir."

I laid new plans. I would attend Angier's next season of performances, visiting his show every night if necessary, until I had solved the mystery. Tommy Elbourne would be with me. I would cling to my pride so long as I could, and if I were able to wrest his secret from him, without arousing his suspicions, then that would be the ideal result. But if, by the end of the season, we had not come to a workable theory we would abandon all the rivalry and jealousies of the past, and I would approach him direct, pleading with him if necessary for an insight into the explanation. Such was the maddening effect on me of his mystery.

I write without shame. Mysteries are the common currency of magicians, and I saw it as my professional duty to find out how the trick was being worked. If it meant that I had to humble myself, had to acknowledge that Angier was the superior magician, then so be it.

None of this was to be, however. After an extended Christmas break Angier departed for a tour of the USA at the end of January, leaving me fretting with frustration in his wake.

A week after his return in April (announced in The Times ) I called at his house, determined to make my peace with him, but he was not there. The house, a large but modest building in a terrace not far from Highgate Fields, was closed and shuttered. I spoke to neighbours, but I was repeatedly told that they knew nothing of the people who lived there. Angier obviously kept his life as secure from the outside world as I did.

I contacted Hesketh Unwin, the man I knew to be his booking agent, but was rebuffed. I left a message with Unwin, pleading with Angier to contact me urgently. Although the agent promised the message would reach Angier in person it was never answered.

I wrote to Angier directly, personally, proposing an end to all the rivalry, all bitterness, offering any apology or amends he would care to name in the cause of conciliation between us.