The Hangman's Revolution Read Online Free PDF

the wing nooks were added in; but Riley was proud of the old girl nonetheless, despite the fact that here he’d been punched, kicked, sliced, etherized, and on one occasion hung from a noose tied to a rafter.
    He patted one of the proscenium arch’s pillars fondly. “That weren’t your fault, eh, girl? You were looking out for me.”
    Still, the memory made Riley wince. “Tell me, Mr. Winkle, did I ever relate the story of how Garrick says to me one fine morning: ‘Riley,’ he says. ‘How’s about we re-create the hanging of Dick Turpin at York? And how’s about— ’ ”
    Bob groaned. “ ‘And how’s about you be Turpin?’ That worn-out tale. I heard that more times than I heard Great Tom a-bonging from St. Paul’s.”
    This, Riley thought, would be the ideal time to check on Bob’s studies, while he was chock-full of his own hilariousness.
    “Well then, Mr. Winkle, perhaps you would tell me something else? Seven somethings in fact.”
    The cockiness gushed from Bob’s face, and had it been liquid, it would have filled his boots.
    “Bob is busy,” he said. “Bob has duties.”
    Riley tugged a slim leather-bound volume from his pants pocket. He had destroyed many of Garrick’s possessions, but this handwritten Guide to Magicks & Illusion was a priceless inheritance of daily practical use.
    Also, it cheered Riley to think that Garrick’s ghost would shrivel with horror at the notion of his notebook’s being consulted by the one who had banished him from this earth.
    “ ‘Chapter one, ’ ” he read. “ ‘Magic of the theatrical kind, being very separate from actual conjuring, has seven basic elements.’ Seven, Robert Winkle. Trot them out, if you please.”
    “Seven,” repeated Bob. “You said no testing today, guv, on account of the grand reopening.”
    “No, I never did. Seven.”
    “Seven.” Bob was currently Riley’s assistant, but his dearest wish was to twirl his own wand. However, to do this, he would have to step up his rote learning, and rote learning was not Bob’s strong suit. He put his fingers to his temples and stared out into the seats, the very picture of a mentalist.
    “Well, misdirection is first. The bones in the cemetery know that much.”
    “Misdirection,” said Riley. “We don’t want the punters peeping where we don’t want them peeping.”
    “Then the ditch. Dumping what we doesn’t need the marks spying, like the Rams do with corpses at Caversham Lock.”
    “Disposal,” corrected Riley. “We ain’t a criminal gang dealing in dead bodies, just doves and the like. Next?”
    Bob chewed a thumbnail. “I know this, bossman. It’s the conceal, ain’t it?”
    Riley rubbed his hands together until a rose sprouted from the fingertips. “The conceal, or the palm. Hiding an object in an apparently empty hand.”
    Bob’s jaw dropped so far you might think Riley had pulled an elephant from a tulip bulb. “Well, I never seen such smooth finger work. You is wasted, guv. Up on the lawn in Leicester Square you should be, dipping for wallets.”
    Riley was not about to be distracted by such brazen bootlicking, but he gave himself a moment to smile at his apprentice’s efforts nonetheless. “Four to go, Bob, regardless of where I should or should not be.”
    Bob made a great show of checking an invisible pocket watch.
    “Oh Lord, lookee at the time, how she flies,” he said. “And I too must fly if I’m to make the Brighton train.”
    Bob buttoned his new jacket to the neck and pumped Riley’s hand.
    “Break a leg, O Great Savano. I will cable you from the seaside.”
    Riley knew that it was pointless to quiz Bob any further. In young Winkle’s head, he was already halfway to Brighton.
    “Very well, Bob. Off with you. Cable as soon as you have news.”
    “And that will be right soon, or my name ain’t Handsome Bob Winkle.”
    Handsome Bob?
    That was a new one.
    And with no more delay, in case Riley would squeeze in another question, Bob was down the