“Stop. There’s something wrong. Let me out!” Chesterfield shouted.
“Your pleas fall on deaf ears,” the assistant said.
One of the gloved assistants took a handful of scorpions and poured them down the chute. Chesterfield screamed again.
“Let him out!” someone shouted.
The assistants ignored that plea as well.
Chesterfield’s voice grew weaker. Then an unearthly scream issued from the coffin, followed by silence.
“Please, let him out!” a woman shouted.
A man stood up and started for the stage, but a security guard stopped him.
“Let me go. This has gone too far!” the man shouted.
“Lord Chesterfield has traveled to the land of the dead,” one of the assistants said as she unlocked the padlocks. When the chains were unwrapped, another of the assistants opened the lid of the coffin. She stared inside.
Then she turned to the audience. “Miss Lockwood, will you look inside the sarcophagus and attest to the fact that the snakes and scorpions are in it, but Lord Chesterfield is not?”
Robin walked up onstage and looked in the coffin. Snakes and scorpions wriggled and slithered in it, but there was no sign of the magician. “He’s not in there,” Robin declared.
The assistants gathered at the front of the stage and stared toward the back of the theater. Robin and the members of the audience followed their gaze. No one spoke. After a few moments, the assistants turned to one another. They seemed confused.
“Is something wrong?” Robin asked.
“This isn’t how the finale works,” an assistant whispered. “Mr. Chesterfield is supposed to appear at the back of the theater, but he’s not there.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Claire walked up to the stage. “What’s going on?”
The assistants looked nervous. “We don’t know where Mr. Chesterfield is. He’s supposed to have materialized in the back of the theater.”
Claire turned around. “Larry, turn up the lights.”
When the lights came up, no one was there.
“If he’s not where he’s supposed to be, where would he be?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know,” the assistant answered.
David Turner started to walk toward the stage, but Miriam Ross blocked his way. The security guards flanked her.
“No one is allowed to go on the stage without Mr. Chesterfield’s permission,” Ross said.
The magician turned toward Claire. “Tell her to move.”
“I can’t. This is Bobby’s house.” Then Claire addressed Miriam Ross. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Ross looked upset. “Honestly, I don’t. Every time I’ve seen Mr. Chesterfield do the trick, there’s this flash and he appears behind the audience.”
“Is this part of the trick, Miriam? Is he trying to build the suspense?” Claire asked. “If it is, tell us now, because I’m getting worried.”
“No, no. I don’t know why he’s not here. He… he’ll probably turn up,” Ross said, but she didn’t sound as if she believed what she was saying.
“Did you tell him I was here, Claire?” Joe Samuels asked.