Heart, dagger, rose and ribbon drawing

Hal had asked for drips at the half. Nell had mixed treacle, glycerine and a thimble of red dye in the paint room, then spent an hour fixing the mixture to the base so it would run without staining the velvet. It had worked. Each night the audience leaned forward when the blade went in, and each night Hal fell to his knees in the glare of the lamp while the wax ran down the cloth like something living. The wardrobe mistress, Maud, called it the finest bit of trickery she had seen since the war, and then went home without saying goodnight.

Nell wound the ribbon back round the heart, three times, the way the original designer had drawn it on the back of a call sheet. The rose had gone limp on its wire in the flies, so she cut it free and tucked it into the box beside the dagger. Then she carried the heart down the iron stairs to the stage door, where the gutter ran thick and dark under the streetlamp. She set it on the kerb and watched the treacle slide off its base, one slow line after another, until the rain washed it clean and there was nothing left to show it had ever been anyone's heart.