Murder by Magic

by Paul Tomlinson

  Malloy wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the magic act or her relationship with her husband; perhaps she meant both. “Was there anything unusual about that last performance?” He asked. “Anything different?”

  “Charlie wasn’t much of one for improvisation, Mr. Malloy. He might do different tricks occasionally, but everything was rehearsed to the last gesture – it was like watching a machine. Same words, same movements. His performance that night was the same as always. He stuck to what he was good at.”

  “He always wore the same costume?” Malloy asked.

  “Yes. He was almost superstitious about it – didn’t like to change anything without a reason.”

  Marlene took another cigarette from the packet on the coffee table and leaned forward so Malloy could light it with the onyx table lighter. She drew the smoke deep into her lungs.

  “Did your husband have any particular worries at the moment,” Malloy asked. “Financial ones, perhaps?”

  Marlene shook her head. “He lost some money – who didn’t? But he was always careful. After what happened to his father. And yes, there is a life-insurance policy, if that’s what you’re asking. Charlie left me well-provided for.”

  “And your son also?” Vickery asked.

  Marlene looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “Walter won’t go short,” she said, “though I doubt he’ll save it for a rainy day. Young people never do.”

  “Charlie had a good relationship with his son?” Malloy asked.

  “You’ll have to ask Walter the answer to that. As far as I am aware, they got along fine. They didn’t have a great deal in common. Walter didn’t see much of his father growing up – but that’s in the nature of the work. They were never close, but they never had any major falling out.”

  Marlene was looking at Vickery as she said this, and Malloy suspected there was something she was not telling, and that Vickery might already know about it. Her eyes were almost challenging him to say it out loud.

  “Tell us about your husband’s assistant,” Vickery said. “Had Danny Holcroft worked with him long?”

  “Poor Danny – he got a real crack on the noggin, didn’t he? He’s been with us for three or four years now, I suppose. Time flies.”

  “What’s he like?” Malloy asked.

  “Young and ambitious, like we all used to be,” she said, flicking ash from her cigarette onto the carpet. “Some of the ideas Danny has for mechanicals – well, we could never afford to build them. Not these days. I think he felt Charlie was holding him back. I always thought Danny should try his luck in America – perhaps now he will.”

  “Apart from Charlie’s lack of ambition, was there any other conflict between them?” Malloy asked.

  Marlene looked at Vickery and smiled. “He’s very good, isn’t he? You should keep this one.” She looked back at Malloy and shook her head. “Danny had no reason to kill Charlie.”

  “I didn’t mean...”

  “I know you didn’t, love. Danny was more like a son to Charlie than our Walter.” Again her eyes flicked towards Vickery. “Danny and Charlie both loved magic. To hear them talk, you’d think there wasn’t anything else in the world. And Danny looked up to Charlie, I know he did.”

  “Did Danny and your son get along?” Malloy asked.

  Marlene frowned. “He and Walter hardly knew each other,” she said. “They met a handful of times I suppose, but I don’t think they ever really spoke to one another.”

  “There was no jealousy on Walter’s part – with your husband treating Danny like a son, I mean?” Malloy asked.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. Danny gets nothing in the will, Walter knew that. Charlie wanted to make sure he had something to leave his son – because of what happened with his own father. Everything he had, Charlie built for himself: I never got a penny from anyone – you can almost hear him saying it, can’t you?”

  Vickery nodded and smiled.

  “Was Danny the substitute when Charlie needed to be in two places for a trick?” Malloy asked.

  Marlene nodded. “Danny wanted to be just like him. When he put that costume on, it wasn’t just the audience who believed he was Charlie – I saw it too. He looked just like Charlie looked twenty years ago. I would stand next to him and imagine I was young again too.” There were tears in her eyes.

  Vickery took a pristine white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and passed it to her.

  “I’m sorry, I thought I was done with crying,” she said, dabbing the corners of her eyes and trying not to smear her make-up.

  “It takes some time,” Vickery said, “and it will affect you when you least expect it. I’m sorry if we have upset you.”

  “No, no, I’m glad you came. Both of you. Everyone has been tiptoeing around me, not mentioning what happened, and afraid they’ll say something to set me off again. It’s a relief to talk about it properly.” She passed the handkerchief back to Vickery, who folded it and put it back in his pocket.

  “People never quite know what to say,” Vickery said.

  “Some of them think he killed himself,” Marlene said. “I think that makes it worse. They think there was some dark, terrible secret in his life that made him do it.”

  “Oh no, he didn’t kill himself,” Vickery said, “it was murder, I’m quite sure of it.”

  *

  “She didn’t tell us a great deal that’s any use, did she?” Malloy said as they walked back towards the car.

  “Not directly, no,” Vickery said. “It is the things she didn’t tell us that caught my attention.”

  “Is that right?” Malloy frowned.

  “And then there were the obvious lies.”

  “Ah, you spotted those too,” Malloy said.

  Vickery glanced at him.

  “That’s the look my headmaster used to give me,” Malloy said.

  “With good reason, no doubt.”

  “She lied about being in the audience on the night of the murder,” Malloy said.

  “Because?”

  “Because she said there was nothing different about her husband’s act, but we know he wore the wrong costume.”

  “Quite right.”

  “But I can’t say I caught her in any other untruths,” Malloy said.

  “There are things that you don’t know, so you couldn’t have picked up on them,” Vickery said.

  “Such as?”

  “Marlene pretended she didn’t know who her husband’s chief rival might be,” Vickery said, smiling. “But Charlie had been sparring with Raymond Skelhorn for the past twenty years or more.”

  “Raymond Skelhorn?”

  “Skelhorn the Spectacular,” Vickery said. “A conjuror with a rather over-inflated opinion of himself.”

  “Do you people all have aliases?”

  “Us people, Mr. Malloy?”

  “Point taken. But I feel I ought to be El Marvo or something,” Malloy said.

  “Makes you sound like a wrestler.”

  “Marlene would definitely have known about Skelhorn the Splendiferous, would she?” Malloy asked.

  “I think so, yes – she was Skelhorn’s assistant before she married Charlie.”

  Malloy laughed. “It’s unlikely that would have slipped her mind, eh?”

  “I’m sure she would prefer that everyone forgot about it,” Vickery said, “since the two men weren’t just rivals when it came to magic.”

  “Valentine is a suspect, then?” Malloy asked.

  “Everyone is a suspect until we find proof of their innocence,” Vickery said.

  “Including the son, Walter, and the lovely Danny boy?”

  “One of them gained financially from Charlie’s death, and who knows what the other might gain,” Vickery said.

  “The game’s afoot!” Malloy said. “Which of them shall we go in search of first?”

  “They can both wait – there’s something much more important we need to find first,” Vickery said.

  “There is? What?”

&nb
sp; “Steak and kidney pie and a glass of stout.”

    

   

  Chapter Eight

  “Who was that?” Malloy asked as Vickery returned from the bar with two more pints.

  “Who?” Vickery asked, mock innocently.

  “The big blond chap with the beard you were flirting with at the bar,” Malloy said.

  “Oh, you mean Bryan? Lovely young man. I had a nice little chat with him.”

  “I’m sure you did. He was built like a bear.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” Vickery said.

  Malloy shook his head and took a swallow of his stout, and pulled a face. “I really don’t like this stuff,” he said.

  “What kind of Irishman are you?”

  “The fake kind. The pie was good, though.”

  “A nice bit of beef,” Vickery said.

  “You’re thinking about Bryan again, aren’t you?”

  “No need to be jealous, Jamie, I was only talking to him about his work.”

  “And what does he do? Don’t tell me, he’s a lumberjack?”

  “There are no trees in Hawksgrove,” Vickery said.

  “I blame the lumberjacks.”

  Vickery shook his head. “Drink up, we’re done here.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me all about Big Blond Bryan, the bearded beefsteak?” Malloy asked. “I bet he wrestles lions at the circus.”

  “He’s a stagehand at the Palais,” Vickery said. “He was on the stage the night Charlie McNair was murdered.”

  Malloy had been raising his glass – he held it halfway up to his mouth and stared at Vickery. “It’s not a coincidence that we’re here, is it?”

  Vickery smiled. “Toby said I might find Bryan here.”

  “He was the one helped fasten the chains on the box?” Malloy asked.

  Vickery nodded. “And he helped prise them off with the iron bars.”

  “He could have used his teeth,” Malloy said. “What else did he tell you?”

  “His account was substantially the same as Constable Colman’s, but he did tell me one thing we haven’t heard before – something that happened backstage before the performance.”

  “Do tell.”

  “The son Walter was there, in Charlie’s dressing room, about an hour before the curtain went up, and the two of them were heard arguing loudly,” Vickery said. “Nobody knows what was said, but Walter stormed out afterwards, his face ‘red as a beetroot’ according to Bryan.”

  “That’s something we can ask the boy Walter about,” Malloy said. “I don’t suppose you happen to know where we might find him, do you?” He drained his glass.

  “You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I do,” Vickery said, getting to his feet.

  “Bryan told you, did he?” Malloy asked as they walked towards the exit.

  “No, he didn’t. But he did tell me I had lovely eyes,” Vickery said, “because the truth is, he was flirting with me.”

  “Sure he was.”

  Walter McNair was twenty years old and employed as a clerk in a draughtsman’s office. He came out to meet them after Vickery had charmed the receptionist and asked her to take his card in to the young man with a note on the back of it.

  “You were friends with my father?” Walter asked after they had exchanged greetings. He had dark curly hair; a clean-shaven, healthy complexion, and clear blue eyes. He was well-spoken, but not overly confident.

  Vickery nodded. “I called at your home to offer my condolences, but was told you were here.”

  “Thank you,” Walter said. “Mr. Hawksworth said I should take a couple of days, but I didn’t want to sit at home on my own.”

  Even without his recent loss, Malloy suspected the young man would display this same earnestness – as if he was afraid he would not be taken seriously. Perhaps that was an issue if your father was a magician who dressed up as a Chinaman.

  “I understand you visited the theatre the night your father was murdered,” Vickery said.

  “Do the police think he was murdered?” Walter asked. “As far as I am aware, they haven’t been able to say for sure.”

  “He was murdered,” Vickery said, “the police will get around to telling you that, I’m sure.”

  “And what is your business in this?” Walter asked.

  “Detective Inspector Grives has requested that I ask some questions on his behalf,” Vickery said.

  “They’ll get around to telling me that as well, will they?” Walter said.

  “We’re only trying to find out what happened to your father,” Malloy said. “You do want the killer brought to justice, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Walter snapped. “Does mother know what you’re up to? I don’t want you going around there upsetting her with your questions.”

  “We’ve spoken to her already,” Vickery said, “Marlene and I are old friends.”

  Walter stared at him. “And just how well did you know my mother?”

  “I would have to say I was an acquaintance,” Vickery said, “rather than an intimate friend.”

  For a moment, Malloy thought the young man was going to explode: his whole body seemed to shake, and the colour drained from his face. Then his shoulders sagged and he seemed to deflate.

  “You only found out recently?” Vickery asked.

  Walter nodded. “You knew?”

  “I guessed,” Vickery said. “Understandably, your mother didn’t want people to know, so I never said a word.”

  “She never said a word to me,” Walter said, staring down at the floor. “I had no idea...”

  “How did you learn the truth?” Vickery asked.

  Walter looked up at him. “It was the strangest thing,” he said. “I received a letter, about a week ago. It was typewritten, the letter and the address on the envelope, and it was just the one line – no signature.”

  “What did it say?” Malloy asked.

  “It said: Ask Marlene who your father is. I thought it was a prank – someone’s lame attempt at calling me a bastard. I didn’t think they could mean it literally. I tore it up and burned it. I should have been angry, I suppose – but it just made me feel cold inside.”

  “And you couldn’t stop thinking about it?” Vickery prompted.

  Walter nodded. “It was ridiculous. I knew who my father was. There had never been any doubt in my mind. And yet...”

  “A seed of doubt had been planted,” Vickery said.

  “What did you do?” Malloy asked.

  “For a while, I didn’t do anything. I did a lot of pacing around. I couldn’t settle to do anything – it kept eating away at me.”

  “Whoever sent the letter obviously intended for that to happen,” Vickery said.

  “There was no way I could ask mother. I just couldn’t. What sort of son would even entertain such a thought?”

  “But you had to know,” Malloy said.

  “I had to know. I went to see father’s – Charlie’s – solicitor. I call him Uncle Bill, he’s my godfather. But he said there was nothing he could tell me. There are some papers to be turned over to me when I’m twenty-one, but that’s eighteen months away, so he said his hands were tied. He said I had nothing to worry about, but I could see he was uncomfortable – he wanted to know why I was asking. I should have kept the letter to show him...”

  “You decided to ask your father?” Malloy said.

  Walter nodded, looking down at the floor again.

  “Is that what you argued about, on the night he was killed?” Vickery asked.

  Walter nodded again, and his eyes filled up with tears. “I was so angry with him. He pretended to be my father for twenty years... I felt like an idiot.”

  “He did love you,” Vickery said. “As much as any man ever looked a son, I’m sure.”

  “I know that. And I loved him too. Or I thought I did. But I was just so confused...”

  “You argued with your father – what happened then? Whe
re did you go?” Vickery asked.

  Walter rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and then stared at Vickery. “You don’t think I killed him?”

  “I would like to demonstrate to the police that you did not,” Vickery said. “But I will need your help to do that.”

  Walter looked at Malloy as if seeking confirmation that Vickery was being serious. Malloy nodded encouragement. “Tell us where you went after you saw your father.”

  “He’s not my father,” Walter said, his voice barely audible.

  “You argued with your father and you left the theatre,” Vickery said. “What did you do then?”

  “I don’t know! I wasn’t thinking clearly. I went for a walk, down along the embankment. I watched men loading something on a barge. I threw stones at something floating in the water... it was getting light when I eventually made my way back here.”

  “Did anyone see you on the embankment? Did you speak to anyone?” Vickery asked.

  “No, of course not. I was crying and talking to myself like a mad person, no one was going to come near me, were they?” He looked down at his hands and then up at Vickery. “The police are going to come and ask me about this, aren’t they? I don’t have a very good story...”

  “You can only tell them the truth,” Vickery said. “It would be a mistake to try and do anything else.”

  “I was angry with him,” Walter said, “but I didn’t want anything to happen to him. Not really.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” Malloy said. “We all think bad thoughts sometimes, but they don’t come true. Not unless we take some action to make them true.”

  “I didn’t... I couldn’t...”

  “You haven’t been to see your mother, have you?” Vickery asked.

  Walter shook his head. “I wouldn’t know what to say to her.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. She’d like to see you,” Vickery said.

  “I can’t...”

  “She just lost her husband of twenty years – her son should be there to comfort her,” Malloy said. “You have to be a man now.”