Out of the Sun by Robert Goddard Read Free Book Online

liking.
    And to Harry's, he would freely have admitted. Professional illusionism had clearly come on apace since his last exposure to it: a trip with Uncle Len to see the Great Caldenza at the old Empire Theatre in Swindon not far short of fifty years ago. Caldenza had not entered amidst deafening rock music and pink-lit swirls of dry ice. Nor had he been accompanied by a quartet of curvaceous blondes in diaphanous costumes. And he had definitely not embodied Adam Slade's curious mixture of Mephistopheles and the boy next door.
    High-octane charm with a jagged edge appeared to be Slade's stock-in-trade. Short and slightly built, with sharp features and a ready smile, he could have been every mother's ideal vision of a son-in-law, but for the dark crew-cut hair and the carefully judged five o'clock shadow. Confident he certainly was, as well as slick, witty and hugely egotistical. His routine was fast-moving and entertaining. But come the interval Harry could not help feeling disappointed. Tricksy lighting effects, whizz-bang technology and calendar-girl assistants apart, Slade's repertoire was basically the same old magician's routine of disappearing and reappearing, levitating and predicting, card-sharping and pea-shuffling. True, he sawed himself rather than a leotarded lady in half. And, equally true, Harry had not the first idea how he did any of it. Nor, presumably, had the audience member whose birthday Slade guessed. Not to mention the nervous volunteer whose gold wristwatch Slade apparently smashed to smithereens before suddenly reassembling it. But that it was all a trick all a clever sleight-of-hand Harry did not doubt.
    And what of higher dimensions? They've not even been mentioned," Harry complained to Mrs. Tandy in the bar.
    "You should have read the programme," she said reprovingly. They're billed as the highlight of the second half."
    "Oh."
    "And they'll need to be. So far, I haven't seen anything you couldn't learn how to do from dear Selwyn's Secrets of Houdini book. It's somewhere in the attic at home."
    The second half opened be musingly to subdued lighting and melancholic music. Slade entered unsmiling and alone, moved to a corner of the stage, advanced to the edge, sat down and gazed out at the audience.
    "What you've seen so far this evening," he announced, 'has been an illusion. I design my tricks for your enjoyment and mystification. But they are only tricks. Yet I find they prepare me better than solitude or meditation for the execution of genuine magic, which is what you're about to see. Unlike my fellow illusionists around the world, I possess the ability to manipulate objects in dimensions other than those of length, breadth and depth. It's an ability I inherited from my great-grandfather, Henry Slade, an American who visited this country in 1877 and was convicted of fraud on the basis of the demonstrations he gave of his hyper-dimensional powers. His conviction was unjust, as my grandfather and father both maintained throughout their lives. But only now, with the reappearance of his powers in my generation, can that injustice be proved. I shall perform this evening variations of three of the hyper-dimensional demonstrations Henry Slade gave. And I will add a couple of my own."
    The music gathered pace. The lights came up bright and clear. Three of the blondes, more conservatively costumed than before, brought on the props: a tray bearing a silver coffee-pot and a cup and saucera pair of wooden hoops about six inches in diameter and a length of rope, which they arranged on a circular pedestal table. Volunteers were asked for and a forest of hands shot up, Harry's among them. He was not one of those chosen, but the view from his seat was distinct and unobstructed. Whatever hyper-dimensionality was, he would soon see it in action.
    Slade welcomed the volunteers two men and a woman onto the stage, elicited their names, cracked a few mood-lifting jokes, then picked up the rope. "Professor Zollner of the