1. Now You See It .

Ludovico Visconti put down his glass of port on a small table designed to do nothing more than hold such a delicate glass, and looked around his sitting room.

Not for the first time, he recalled what this space had looked like when he bought Compton Manor a decade ago: the exposed timbers blackened, the stench overwhelming, the floor completely ruined with all the water that they'd had to pump in to quell the flames.

There had even been talk - according to the over-eager estate agent - of knocking the place down. And, Visconti thought, probably putting up God knows what kind of modern monstrosity.

But then, of course, he'd entered the picture. He'd done his best to hide who he was - after all, he was an established star. In fact - dare he say it - still the best-known stage magician in the world. If a seller was armed with that information the price for that burnt-out wreck would have surely soared.

Of course, despite his instructions to the estate agent - shifty-looking fellow named Cauldwell - the man had clearly shared the identity of the person interested in the ruin.

Visconti had ended up paying millions.

But then, he thought with a smile, in those days I had no shortage of millions.

And what wonders he had worked with that burnt-out shell of a manor house!

Not a traditional rebuild at all - he'd meticulously designed Compton Manor to be a home that, once inside, you'd know it clearly belonged to a magician.

A building as grand and perplexing as his most clever illusions. With secrets that would never be revealed - to anyone.

He loved it.

And as to resale? Well, that was a concept that didn't concern him. This was his home - his last home. A place not just for him, but for his remarkable collection drawn from a life devoted to wonder. A life devoted to performing.

A life, yes, devoted to illusion.

From his deep, leather armchair he gazed at the wall of framed posters not only from his shows but priceless originals from some of the greats of all time. Houdini! Yarrow! Harry Blackstone!

All of whom were his "company" for his nightly port. Gentlemen who would completely understand his love for what they all did.

Magic.

For them, for him . never a truer word.

He turned to look at the wall by his side. His own personal collection of memorabilia. What he liked to call his trophy wall.

Black and white photos capturing his life of magic.

Chatting with Her Majesty the Queen after he'd topped the bill at the Royal Variety Performance.

The White House - a handshake with Bill Clinton.

So many photos with movie stars on that long, wearying run in Vegas.

And then - the shelves crowded with awards. His Emmys. His Bafta for Best Entertainment Show.

And finally - in pride of place - his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Magic Circle.

Such fond memories.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes, then took a last sip of his port and placed the now-empty glass on the table.

Enough of this. Time for bed.

Ludovico got up from his chair. He was, despite his age, still limber. All those years of contorting and twisting essential to his most dramatic routines had kept him in flexible shape - albeit that both his knees did issue complaints as he began his regular pre-bed ritual.

He took one last look around the expansive sitting room, so familiar, so comforting.

Then he turned off the table lamps, crossed the thick carpet, entered the great hall and closed the door behind him.

*

The staircase featured a railing of what looked like curved branches of rich mahogany - twisting, turning as one's hand tried to follow the polished wood.

Though Ludovico did not often welcome guests of any sort here.

On the occasions when he absolutely had to entertain a visitor - a peer who perhaps had also performed on the world's great stages - they would quickly realise that this handrail was itself an impossible and intricate puzzle.

You could spend a lot of time trying to figure out where one strand of curling wood ended and another began, and never find the answer.

Ludovico made his way up the stairs, past classic paintings, showing the skill (and superstition) that surrounded magicians.

But, at the top of the stairs, he was startled - nearly losing his footing!

From a massive armoire in the hallway, a black shape came flying down, landing at his feet like some haunted spirit.

His cat, Midnight, who, for some unknown reason, liked to secrete himself in hidden areas of the house and suddenly appear.

Ludovico just loved that!

Could he be a more appropriate pet?

Midnight looked up as Ludovico bent down: a pat to the animal's jet-black head, that small dollop of white around one eye giving the feline a truly dramatic look.

"Good kitty," he said. To which the cat agreed with a single meow before strolling away - its work for the evening apparently done.

Though - Ludovico was soon to learn - that would not be the case.

*

Ludovico walked along the hallway, which was dotted with tables holding all sorts of odd and perplexing statuary, then turned to the right, down another corridor, away from his bedroom.

There were, in this nightly ritual, things that he loved to do, but also felt that he needed to do. Like someone checking on precious offspring, he thought, to make sure that all were safe and dreaming peacefully.

He passed his library, which held irreplaceable tomes on both the history and the performance of magic through the ages, including the oldest known book on performing magic, the aptly named Hocus Pocus from 1635.

He reached an ordinary looking oak door, which anyone would assume would open onto a bedroom.

He grabbed the doorknob. He always smiled at this point because a simple twist would never suffice to open it.

The knob was an intricate lock that he had had specially made in Bruges, where the metal worker had been clearly mystified as to why such a contraption was being fabricated in the first place.

A twist to the left. Then a twist to the right. Then, when it caught, yet another twist to the right.

Again, back and forth, until hidden tumblers within the lock popped open.

And Visconti could enter his favourite room in his perfectly unusual home.

A chamber of mirrors.

As the door opened, lights flashed on, and suddenly there were dozens of his image reflected back at him, and - to someone unfamiliar - no clear way at all to move forward.

Ludovico never found this nightly navigation of the mirror maze tedious.

Each night it brought him joy, especially when he thought of what it protected.

*

Through the maze, leaving behind the last mirrored panels, Ludovico stepped through into the most remarkable room in the whole mansion, the lights coming on as if welcoming him.

A room he called the Treasury.

He looked around and could see - in great cases on walls, and in display tables standing in the room - props and instruments he had used throughout his long career.

Some with such wonderful history.

The handcuffs employed by the great Harry Houdini himself to escape a chest wrapped in massive chains.

The wooden coffin-like case that Visconti used to perform his floating-head illusion, one that - for those seeing it for the first time - was beyond mystifying. He knew - with the right lighting, the right setting - that effect could be quite terrifying.

And so many decks of cards, all with undetectable modifications that allowed incredible feats of mentalism.

Many of those routines had long ago been retired from his act. Ludovico was always one for introducing new effects, or taking a classic illusion in some remarkable new direction and transforming it.

Now, he walked the room as he did every night, his fingers brushing the velvet of a card table, trailing across cabinets, checking the bookcase, gently alighting on leather-bound books and ancient artefacts.

Just taking a minute to make sure that these treasures - almost like his children - were all safe, all sound.

Here, behind glass, was the silken scarf once used in a grand show for the Prince in Monte Carlo to produce a beautiful dove that flew off into the deep blue sky.

There, on a special stand, was one of his favourites. The classic and irreplaceable wand that would not merely produce some phony bouquet or turn into a bendy piece of black liquorice.

This wand could vanish in thin air with a flash, before everyone's eyes.

All done with a mix of clever sleight of hand and a mechanical gimmick that Ludovico had never shared - and never would.

Finally, he stepped back and gazed at the ornate casket in the room's centre - itself a piece of magical art - its surfaces composed of intricate metal tiles decorated with entwined serpents.

And so cleverly designed too! Only when those tiles lined up in a particular - meticulous - way, did the lid spring open. That fiendish puzzle...