Читать книгу Mystery Lady - Paul Magrs - Страница 17

‘Spin the Bottle’ was a very silly kind of television programme with a gurning host in a shiny tuxedo making suggestive remarks and manipulating a gigantic bottle-shaped prop. The guests were set various demeaning and farcical tasks to perform and, naturally, the live studio audience, and presumably the viewers at home, lapped it all up. Cassie and I were in the front row in Studio 1 . Because of the elaborate nature of the props and stunts there were quite a lot of things that went wrong. The audience members around us were whooping and had tears of laughter streaming down their faces. After the events in Vaughan’s flat, Cassie and I weren’t in the mood for laughing.

It was then that Cassie saw the maggots in the brim of my hat.

And, quite forgetting that we were live on air, she gave out the most piercing scream.

‘Shush, Cassie!’ I gasped, reaching for my brim and feeling the nasty things squirming under my fingers.

But Cassie kept on screeching. It had been a long couple of days and her nerves were stretched taut.

We’ll be thrown out! I thought. We’ll get into awful hot water, and spoil the show for Timothy…

But I looked then and saw that no one was taking the slightest bit of notice of Cassandra and her hysterics. The raucous audience kept on laughing at the host’s and guests’ antics. The silly fun was continuing unabated.

Cassandra had managed to regain control of herself. I flicked the maggots from my hat onto the floor of the aisle beside us and squished them under my shoe.

‘Look,’ I hissed. ‘It’s Timothy’s turn.’

It was true. This was the tricky bit that he had been rehearsing all afternoon. It was an old-fashioned disappearing act involving an elaborate mirrored box. Tim’s apparently spontaneous forfeit was to attempt an impressive stage illusion usually performed by famed magician Carswell Hobbs, who’d been forced to pull out of the show due to ill health.

‘Go on, Tim…’ I urged him on, under my breath. This afternoon he had been nervous because the trick involved several hidden doors, cunning sleight of hand and a magician’s assistant called Doris, who was Carswell Hobbs’ second wife. She was wearing a bikini of green sequins and was standing between Timothy and the host right now. Oh, poor Timothy looked nervous as the band gave a drum roll. The audience went ‘oooh!’ as the lady stepped into the box. Then the host made suggestive remarks as Timothy stepped in after her and closed the door from within. The band struck up a spooky tune as the box revolved and smoke obscured our view of the magic unfolding on stage.

‘Remember, folks!’ bellowed the show’s host. ‘Timothy Bold is a completely untrained and inexperienced practitioner of stage magic! Who knows what terrible, deadly mistakes he might make?’

A chill of foreboding went right through me at this point.

And with good cause, it turns out.

For, when the music stopped and the box stopped revolving and the stage lights focused on its door as it opened, something rather awful happened.

For a split second I thought it was a part of the act.

But it clearly wasn’t, judging by the expressions on the faces of everyone on that stage.

That girl in the sequined bikini – Doris Hobbs – came toppling out of the magician’s magic box with her feather boa tied rather too tightly around her throat. With a flourish that wasn’t very elegant at all, she slumped heavily to the studio floor. Utterly dead.

And that’s when the real screaming started.