The Hangman's Revolution by Eoin Colfer Read Free Book Online Page A

a most entertaining fashion.”
    Malarkey winced. His hair told him something was wrong. Beneath the wig, Otto’s famed raven tresses yearned to be free and itched at the roots like they always did when things was a little off-color. Malarkey’s hair-sight had saved his life on more than one occasion—but Oh Lord, couldn’t that junior Ram chappie do the magic act like a topper?—so one more trick, then down to business.
    I never gets to go to real theater anymore. It’s all knife acts and then screaming.
    So he said, “Sharpish, Ramlet. And I better not sniff a whiff of underhand or it’s coming out of yer hide.”
    Riley bowed again, but it seemed to King Otto that all this bowing and scraping was perhaps not as respect-laden as it might be. Another point to dwell on later.
    After the trick.
    “So we have our customer for the present,” said Riley, bowing slightly. “But what will happen to Johnny Punter if we follow friend Farley’s counsel and fill the theater with Family?”
    Family . A cozy name for the criminal so-called fraternity.
    Riley pulled a handkerchief from inside a wide pocket in his cape and shook it out until it unfurled to the size of a tablecloth.
    “That was folded, is all,” muttered Inhumane, eager to prove himself a smarty-pants. Then as often happened, his words ran away too fast for his stumbling mouth to keep pace. “Folded is all, and then with the shaking wot…under his…cloak. Wot’s a magician’s cloak called now? So, anyways, it gets big, and now youse is all like, oh ’eck, and…”
    Malarkey poked his brother with his drinks parasol. “I know, brother. Now think yer words inside yer head and let the pup perform.”
    Riley worked the handkerchief. It was as Inhumane had guessed: simply folded, but not simply folded; the pattern of folds was as precise and complicated as an origami dragon, designed to conceal two wires shaped to cover his head and shoulders. Once the wires were perpendicular and the frame assembled, Riley draped the cloth neatly over himself. It assumed his shape and covered him completely. Riley stumbled stiff-legged this way and that, his arms stretched out before him, his eyes peeping through the gauze.
    “See?” said Riley. “I am surrounded, confused, and blinded. I am being dipped, poked, jostled, and fleeced. Never again shall I cast my shadow across the Orient Theatre’s lobby. I shall away from here and take my gold with me.”
    This bit of patter was to give him a chance to depress the trapdoor latch with his toe.
    “Never shall I return here with my hard-earned chink, thinks old Johnny to himself. For I am a-dripping in nervous sweat and leered at by dodgy-looking coves with black teeth and murder in their beady eyes. And this is what happens to Johnny Punter when he hears Family members sniffing at his collar.”
    Riley found the latch and pressed it. Now all that he needed to do was make a neat jump to the basement to demonstrate how Johnny Punter would disappear—and to actually disappear.
    He wrapped the magician’s cloak around himself for the jump, pulling the folds tight to speed his passage through the tight wooden frame, when all of a sudden, and to the great surprise of all present, the usually serene Anton Farley seemed to take issue with his performance.
    “No! No!” Farley said, jumping to his feet. “Enough of this tomfoolery. Back away from the trapdoor, or whatever you have there, boy. Come down here with these fools.”
    Silence.
    Stunned silence.
    Was Farley issuing commands? Had he just referred to his fellow Rams as fools ? And didn’t he sound more like a spoon-in-the-mouth toff now than a shiv-in-the-sock Ram?
    Riddle upon mystery.
    In situations like this, Malarkey, due to rank, would be deferred to for first reaction.
    “Farley? Is it a brain fever that has seized you? Fools, you say? Fools, is it?”
    Farley pulled a pistol of the revolver variety from his ink-sack, waving it casually as though it were an