Circus Read Free

while Bruno stood with his back to him. When the paper was inside the envelope Bruno turned, but did not even look at the paper far less touch it. He said: ‘Add the three numbers and tell me what the total is.’
    â€˜Twenty.’
    â€˜The numbers you wrote down were seven, seven and six.’
    The youth extracted the paper and held it up for the audience to see. Seven, seven and six it was.
    Fawcett looked at Pilgrim, who had now adopted a very thoughtful expression indeed. Clearly, if Bruno were not genuine then he was either a consummate magician or an extraordinarily devious character.
    Then Bruno announced his most difficult feat of all – that of displaying that he was possessed of a photographic memory, that of identifying, given the location, of any word in a double-spread of any magazine, irrespective of language. Masters left nothing to chance or the impetuousness of any eager beaver who might care to forestall him for he was on stage even before Bruno had finished his explanation. Bruno, slightly lifting amused eyebrows, took the opened magazine from him, glanced at it briefly, handed it back and looked interrogatively at Masters.
    Masters said: ‘Left page, second column, let me see now, seven lines down, middle word.’ He looked at Bruno with a half-smile of triumphant expectation.
    Bruno said: ‘Canada.’
    The half-smile vanished. Masters’s nondescript features seemed to fall apart then he shrugged his shoulders in genuine disbelief and turned away.
    Outside, Fawcett said: ‘I hardly think that Bruno is likely to have the inside track on the CIA. Convinced?’
    â€˜Convinced. When does the performance start?’
    â€˜Half an hour.’
    â€˜Let’s go and watch him on the high wire or whatever. If he’s half as good out there – well, he’s our man.’
    The exhibition hall that housed the three-ring circus was completely full. The air was alive with music, this time more than tolerable music from a very competent orchestra, an air that was charged with tension and excitement and anticipation, with thousands of young children transported into an enchanted fairyland – almost, indeed, to the extent their grandparents were. Everything glittered, but it was no cheap tinsel glitter, but a background that seemed the integral and inevitable part of everything a circus should be. Apart from the dun-coloured sand in the three rings, a dazzling rainbow of colours caught the eye even more than the music the ear. Circling the ring were beautiful and beautifully dressedgirls on the most outrageously caparisoned elephants and if there was any colour in the spectrum that the designer had omitted it wasn’t apparent to the eye. In the rings themselves clowns and pierrots vied with each other in the ludicrousness of their antics and the ridiculousness of their costumes, while both of them vied with the tumblers and the stately procession of stilt-walkers. The audience watched it all in fascination – albeit with an element of impatience, for this spectacle, magnificent as it was, was only the warm-up, the prelude to the action to come. There is no atmosphere in the world quite like that of the charged atmosphere in the big top just before the performance begins.
    Fawcett and Pilgrim sat together in excellent viewing seats, almost opposite the entrance of the main ring. Fawcett said: ‘Which is Wrinfield?’
    Without appearing to do so, Pilgrim indicated a man sitting only two seats away in the same row. Immaculately clad in a dark blue suit, matching tie and white shirt, he had a lean, thoughtful, almost scholarly face, with neatly parted grey hair and pebble glasses.
    â€˜That’s Wrinfield?’ Pilgrim nodded. ‘Looks more like a college professor to me.’
    â€˜I believe he was once. Economics. But bossing a modern circus is no longer a seat of the pants job. It’s big business and running it requires corresponding