The Prestige (37 page)

“Indeed not. But it would most likely be because both brothers are required to perform it.”

“I think you should tell me the name of your client, Koenig.”

“My Lord, I believe you once knew an American woman by the name of Olive Wenscombe?”

I have written the name here as I now realize he said it, but in the surprise of the
moment I thought he said Olivia Svenson. Because of this a misunderstanding arose between
us. At first I thought we were both speaking of the same person, then when he clarified
the name I thought that he was talking about someone else. Finally I remember that Olivia
had taken her mother's maiden name when she approached Borden.

“For reasons you surely appreciate,” I said when all this had been cleared up, “I never
speak of Miss Svenson.”

“Yes, yes. And I apologize for mentioning her. However, she is deeply bound up in the
matter of the notebook. I understand that Miss Wenscombe, or Svenson as you knew her, was
in your employ some years ago, but she defected to the Borden camp. For a while she worked
as Borden's stage assistant, but not for long. You lost contact with her, I think, around
this time.”

I confirmed that that was so.

“It turns out,” Koenig continued, “that the Borden twins own a secret hideout in North
London. To be precise it is a suite of rooms in a well-to-do part of Hornsey, and it is
here that one of the brothers lived incognito while the other enjoyed the comforts of home
in St Johns Wood. They alternated regularly. After her… defection, Miss Wenscombe was
installed in the Hornsey flat, and has been living there ever since. And will go on doing
so if the court proceedings against her fail.”

“Proceedings?”

I was having trouble taking in all this information at once.

Koenig went on, “She has been served with notice to quit for non-payment of rent, and is
due to be evicted next week. As a foreign national with no permanent abode she would then
be faced with deportation. It was for these reasons that she approached me, knowing my
interest in Mr Borden. She thought I might be able to help her.”

“By approaching me for money.”

Koenig grimaced unhappily. “Not exactly, but—”

“Continue.”

“You'll be interested to learn that Miss Wenscombe was not aware that there were two
brothers, and to this day refuses to believe that she was deceived.”

“I asked her myself once,” I said, remembering the grim interview with her in the theatre
in Richmond. “She said then that Borden was just one man. She knew my suspicions. But I
can hardly believe that now.”

"The Borden brother who died was taken ill while in the Hornsey flat. It sounds as if he
had a heart attack. Miss Wenscombe summoned Borden's doctor, and after the body had been
taken away the police came round. When she told them who the dead man was they left to
make further enquiries, but never returned. She later contacted the doctor, to discover
that he was not available. His assistant told her that Mr Borden had been taken ill, but
had recovered quickly and had just been discharged from hospital! As Miss Wenscombe had
been with him when he died, she could not believe it! She went to the police again, but to
her amazement they too confirmed it.

“I heard all this from Miss Wenscombe herself. Now, from what she told me, she has no idea
that Borden was maintaining a second household. He completely pulled the wool over her
eyes. As far as she was concerned, Borden was with her most days and nights, and she
always knew where he was at other times.” Koenig was leaning forward intently in his chair
as he regaled me with his story. “So then Borden died suddenly, and she was shocked and
upset as anyone in her position would be, but she had no reason to believe there was going
to be anything unusual about it! And he did most certainly die, according to her. She says
she was with the body for more than an hour before the doctor arrived, and it had gone
cold by then. The doctor examined the body enough to confirm death, and said that he would
sign a death certificate on his return to his surgery. Yet now she is faced not only with
denials from everyone involved, but also with the incontrovertible fact that Alfred Borden
appears on the public stage, performing his magic, and is manifestly not dead.”

“If she thinks that Borden was only one man, how on earth does she account for that?” I
interjected.

“I asked her, of course. As you know, she is no stranger to the world of illusions. She
told me that after much thought she came to the sorrowful conclusion that Borden had used
magical techniques to fake his death, for instance swallowing some kind of medication, and
that it was all an elaborate charade to enable him to walk out on her.”

“Did you tell her that the Bordens were twins?”

“Yes. She scoffed at the idea, and assured me that if a woman lives with a man for five
years she knows everything there is to know about him. She absolutely rejected the notion
that there might have been two of them.”

(I had earlier raised my own questions about the Borden twins’ relationship with his/their
wife and children. These now take on an added level of enquiry. It seems the mistress was
also deceived, but is unwilling to admit that she was, or simply never knew.)

“So this notebook has suddenly appeared, to solve all her problems,” I said.

Koenig stared at me thoughtfully, then said, “Not all of them, but her most immediate
ones. My Lord, I think that as a gesture of my good faith, I should let you examine the
notebook without promise of payment.”

He passed the key across to me, and sat back in his chair while I opened the lock.

The notebook was written in a tiny hand, neatly inscribed in regular and even lines, but
not at first glance legible. After I had looked at the opening pages I began to riffle
through the rest as if running my fingers across the edges of a deck of cards. My
magician's instinct was telling me to be on my guard against Borden's trickery. All those
years of feuding had revealed the extent of his willingness to hurt or harm me. I had
turned through about half the thickness of the notebook, when I halted. I stared at it,
deep in thought.

It was more than possible that this was Borden's most elaborate attack on me yet. Koenig's
story about Olivia, the death of Borden in her flat, the conveniently revealed existence
of a notebook containing Borden's most valuable professional secrets, all these could be
fabricated.

I had only Koenig's word to go on. What would the notebook actually contain, if it were
another trick? An intricate maze of deceits which would manipulate me into some misguided
response? Could there be something here that would, through the person of Olivia Svenson,
threaten my one remaining area of stability, namely my miraculously restored marriage to
Julia?

It seemed to me that I was putting myself in hazard, even to hold the notebook.

Koenig's voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Dare I presume, my Lord, that I can guess what is going through your mind?”

“No, you may not so presume,” I said.

“You are doubting me,” Koenig persisted. “You think that Borden has paid me, or coerced me
in some way, to bring this to you. Is that so?” I made no answer, still holding the
notebook half open, my eyes staring down at it.

“There are ways you could investigate what I am telling you,” Koenig went on. “A court
action against Miss Wenscombe by the landlord of the apartment in Hornsey was heard at
Hampstead Assizes a month ago. You could examine the court records for yourself. There are
almoner's records at the Whittington Hospital, where an unidentified victim of a heart
attack, with age and physical appearance matching that of Borden, was brought in on the
day Miss Wenscombe says he died. There is also a record that that corpse was removed by a
local doctor on the same day.”

“Koenig, you sent me on a trail of false evidence ten years ago,” I said.

“I did indeed. I have never ceased to regret it, and have already told you that my
dedication to your cause is the result of that error. I give you my word that the notebook
is genuine, that the circumstances of it coming into my possession are as I have
described, and that furthermore the surviving Borden brother is desperate to regain it.”

“How has it escaped him?” I said.

“Miss Wenscombe realized its potential value, perhaps as something that might be published
as a book. When her need for money became urgent, she thought it might be more valuable to
you or, as she understood recent events, to your widow. Naturally, she kept the notebook
hidden. Borden himself can not of course approach her for it, but it surely is not a
coincidence that ten days ago her flat was forcibly entered and the place ransacked?
Nothing was taken. This notebook, which she had secreted elsewhere, remained in her
possession.”

I opened the notebook where my finger had come to rest, reflecting that the act of
ruffling my fingers along the gilt-edged pages had been identical to one of the classic
moves a conjuror makes when forcing a playing-card on a subject. This thought was
reinforced when I looked at a line halfway down the right-hand page, and saw my own name
written there. It was as if Borden had forced the page on me.

I peered closely at the handwriting, and soon deciphered what the rest of the sentence
said: “This is the real reason Angier will never solve the whole mystery, unless I myself
give him the answer.”

“She wants five hundred pounds, you say?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“She shall have it.”

19th December 1903

Koenig's visit exhausted me, and soon after he left (with six hundred pounds, the surplus
being partly for his trouble to date, and partly for his silence and absence henceforth) I
took to my bed where I remained until the evening. I wrote up my account of it then, but
the next day and the day after I was too debilitated to attempt more than a little eating
and a lot of sleeping.

Yesterday I was able at last to read some of Borden's notebook. As Koenig had predicted, I
found it an engrossing read.

I have been showing extracts to Julia, who finds it equally interesting. She reacts more
against his self-satisfied tone than I do, and urges me not to burn up any of my precious
energy by getting angry with him again.

Anger, in fact, is not being kindled in me, although the way he distorts some of the
events of which I have a knowledge is both pitiable and irritating. What is most
fascinating to me is that at last I have proof that Alfred Borden was the product of a
conspiracy between twins. Nowhere do they admit it, but the notebook is clearly the work
of two hands.

They address each other in the first person singular. I found this confusing at first, as
perhaps was intended, but when I pointed it out to Julia she observed that the notebook
was apparently not intended to be read by anyone else.

It suggests that they call each other “me” by habit, and this in turn implies they have
done it for most of their lives. Reading between the lines of the notebook, as I must, I
realize that every event or happening in their lives has been subsumed into one collective
experience. It is as if they spent their lives from childhood preparing for the illusion
where one would secretly take the place of the other. It fooled me, and fooled most of the
audiences who saw them in performance, but surely in the end it is Borden who is the fool?

Two lives made into one means a halving of those lives. While one lives in the world, the
other hides in a nether world, literally non-existent, a lurking spirit, a
doppelgänger
, a prestige.

More tomorrow, if I have the energy.

25th December 1903

The house and grounds are cut off by the heavy falls of snow that have swept through the
Pennines for the last two days. We are however warm and provisioned, and not in need of
going anywhere. We have taken our Christmas dinner, and now the children are playing with
their new possessions, and Julia and I have been relaxing together.

I have not told her yet of a worrying ailment, newly arrived on my poor body. Several
purplish sores have broken out on my chest, upper arms and thighs, and although I have
spread them with antiseptic ointment they are as yet showing no sign of recession. As soon
as the thaw sets in I shall have to summon the physician again.

31st December 1903

The doctor has advised me to continue with the antiseptic medication, which at last shows
some indication of being effective. He observed to Julia before he left that these
unpleasant and painful eruptions on the skin might be a symptom of a more serious organic
or blood-related problem. Julia gently bathes the sores every night before we go to bed. I
have been continuing to lose weight, although in recent days the trend has been slowing.

A Happy New Year!

1st January 1904

I mark the turning of the new year with the grim reflection that I doubt if I shall last
to the end of it.

I have been distracting myself from my own troubles by reading the Borden notebook. I have
read it through to the end, and I confess I have been absorbed by it. I find it impossible
not to make notes about his methods, views, omissions, errors, self-deceptions, etc.

Much as I hate and fear Borden (and I cannot forget that he is alive and active somewhere
in the world outside), I find his views on magic provocative and stimulating.

I have mentioned this to Julia, who agrees. She does not say as much but I sense she
feels, as I am beginning to, that Borden and I might have made better collaborators than
adversaries.

26th March 1904

I have been seriously ill, and for at least two weeks believed myself to be on the point
of death. The symptoms have been horrific: persistent nausea and vomiting, a further
spread of the sores, paralysis of my right leg, a comprehensively ulcerated mouth, and an
almost uncontainable pain from my lower back. Needless to say, I have been confined in a
nursing home in Sheffield for much of the time.