Houdini looked at his watch. “You do own an airplane?” he asked, his sarcasm born of impatience.
“That’s my JN-4D trainer parked outside. It’s got an eight-cylinder Hisso engine. Whole lot better’n the Curtiss Challenger driving most Jennies. Sixty more horsepower.”
“I’ll give you three hundred dollars for it”
“What…?”
“Three-fifty … cash.”
“Mister, you just bought yourself a damned fine flying machine.”
Twenty minutes later, Houdini was gassed up and in the air. Ace gave him the flight suit, along with a well-worn map and laconic directions, adding his personal belief that going up at night in bad weather was certain suicide.
Two hours into his flight, when the rain turned first to sleet and then to snow, Houdini felt inclined to agree with the barnstormer’s assessment. Ice accumulated on the wooden struts connecting the wings. The wind licked horizontal icicles into sawtoothed spines along their back edges. The magician estimated a loss of altitude caused by the additional weight. Despite the bronze trophy hanging in his dining room, Houdini was not an experienced pilot. Had he been, he would have put the Jenny into a spin and descended to a warmer altitude. Instead, he gritted his teeth and pushed on into the storm.
Four inches of wind-driven ice encrusted each strut. Houdini heard them creak, a wail of pain above the engine’s roar. They didn’t appear strong enough to withstand the extra weight. If even one snapped, he was a goner. Without support, the fabric wings would buckle, shredding under the force of the slipstream.
A prolonged groan of straining wood determined the magician’s desperate decision. He stabilized the stick, wrapping it in a length of rope tied to either side of the cockpit. Searching under the seat, Houdini uncovered a toolbox. He rummaged among the wrenches jumbled inside until his fingers closed around the haft of a ball peen hammer. With this tool in hand, he eased himself out of the cockpit on the port side, grasping a diagonal guy as he stepped onto the ice-slick wing.
The blast of rushing wind caught him like laundry hung on a line. He clung to the turnbuckle-tightened cable, struggling to maintain his footing as the gale raged, roaring in his ears louder than a passing express train. The magician thought of his Hollywood stunt doubles with their safety harnesses and connecting wires and, for a brief ironic moment, regretted he had no camera present to capture the most daring exploit of his long career.
Edging warily along the wing, left hand gripping the vibrating cable, Houdini chipped ice away from the struts, one at a time, tapping the hammer with the delicate touch of a sculptor, afraid too strong a blow might fracture the frozen wood. Suddenly, the biplane veered, lifting on a massive up-draft. The magician’s feet skidded out from under him and, for a terrifying moment, he hung in space by one hand, desperately trying not to drop the precious hammer.
Hooking his elbow around the guy, Houdini slid to his knees on the slick, bucking wing. The Jenny yawed and pitched in the wind. Struggling upright, the magician resumed his steady chipping. It took another fifteen minutes for him to finish the job. The starboard wing took twice as long.
The storm raged through the waning hours of the night. Houdini flew on, navigating by compass. Just before daybreak, he again climbed out on the wings to chip ice off the struts. After more than three hours of flight, the Jenny ran low on fuel and the magician spun down through the tempest, emerging out of the clouds in the hazy dawn over the barren, harvested farmland of eastern Ohio.
He soon cut across a muddy highway. Following it for a few miles led to a medium-sized town situated on a railroad crossing. Houdini circled once, close enough to read CHEW MAIL POUCH painted on the side of a big red barn and JESUS SAVES emblazoned on the water tower. As luck would have it, he spotted a filling station and cafe just opposite a fallow five-acre field. The magician throttled back for a smooth, easy landing, barely traveling at the speed of a coasting bicycle when his wheels touched down on the sere grass. Catering to a farming community, the establishment opened early and Houdini was fueled up and back in the air in under twenty minutes, with a full thermos of hot coffee and a paper sack stuffed with sandwiches. His arrival had not gone undetected. Before he took off, a small crowd gathered around the biplane, mostly curious children on their way to school. They stood staring, somber and silent, breath steaming in the chill November air, while he taxied to the end of the field. Several of the bolder ones waved as he roared past, skimming away over the treetops. Ever the showman, Houdini waved energetically back. Not one of them recognized him.
The ceiling lifted to well over a thousand feet and the magician kept the Jenny below the cloud cover. Daylight made flying much easier. With the worst of the storm behind him, he no longer feared the weather. Although he encountered troubling patches of fog, the danger of ice waned with the warming of the day. Watching the endless gray and brown farmland patchwork pass monotonously below reassured him. He had a strong, steady tail wind and estimated his air speed at over seventy-five miles per hour. For the first time since leaving Skokie, he believed he had a chance of reaching New York before Sir Arthur’s séance with Isis.
After failing to reach Conan Doyle, Houdini had phoned Bess and Dash at the Drake Hotel. He stressed the urgency of the situation but offered no explanations, saying only he’d be back in Chicago in two days’ time. His brother agreed to cover for him at the shows he would miss. When pressed for details, Houdini said it was a life or death situation. Something in the tone of his voice precluded any further questions.
His final call roused the house detective. Houdini told the man recent death threats endangered his family and offered full salaries plus a bonus for men to guard Bess and Dash round the clock. The hotel dick assured him he knew several city cops who’d be more than happy for the chance to make some extra dough-re-mi.
Shortly before noon, the magician landed on the outskirts of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for a second refueling stop. He put down, quite by chance, at a small field equipped with a gasoline pump, something not usually encountered except at big city airdromes. Able to fill up and be quickly on his way, Houdini considered himself lucky and, as luck would have it, the field manager provided new directions guaranteed to shave almost half an hour off his flying time.
The man proved correct in this prediction. Houdini adhered to his navigational instructions and the Hudson came into view in under three hours. The magician followed the river flowing southward like a great shimmering highway. Blood-red, the last of the sunset slashed across the western horizon over New Jersey. Ahead in the gathering dusk, the myriad lights of the city resembled a fallen galaxy jumbled in a heap beneath an empty sky.
Smug with satisfaction as he flew past Yonkers, Houdini at first refused to believe the hour he observed on a church clock tower. He’d forgotten the different time zones. It was five-thirty in the afternoon, although his own watch insisted it to be an hour earlier. No time remained to look for a landing field in the Bronx or Queens as he had planned. He had to be at the Fletcher house on Eighty-fifth Street before six o’clock.
Houdini angled into the city over Harlem. Off his starboard wing he glimpsed Morningside Park and the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He thought of his beloved home, indistinguishable from so many others in the vast grid below. How odd to view Manhattan this way and see man’s grandest achievements reduced to mere geometry. Crossing into Central Park above Harlem Meer snapped him abruptly out of any philosophic musings.
The magician flew due south, beginning a steep descent taking him across Croton Reservoir. Belvedere Castle crowned Vista Rock dead ahead. Off to port, the massive Metropolitan Museum hulked beside Fifth Avenue. To the rear, abrupt as an exclamation mark, the weathered obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle jutted above the autumnal trees. The Jenny came gliding in over a deserted playground. All along the walkways, in the soft glow of cast-iron street-lamps, astonished pedestrians out for an early evening stroll pointed at its unexpected approach.
Hard to st
arboard, the double rectangle of the Old Reservoir succinctly defined one boundary of the magician’s makeshift runway. A narrow reach of greensward stretched before him. Only a fool would land an airplane here, Houdini thought, setting down slowly in a controlled stall. He grinned at his own audacity, but the urgency of the situation foreclosed on any prolonged felonious pleasure. Touchdown came smooth and easy.
The moment the Jenny rolled to a stop, Houdini gathered up his belongings and scrambled out of the cockpit, the prop still turning. Numbers of curious bystanders hurried toward the biplane, anxious to be part of this miraculous occurrence. The magician dropped to the ground and ran off under the trees before they reached him.
Loping down the steep sledding hill north of the museum, Houdini shed the bulky flight suit like a sleek black moth emerging from its chrysalis. He darted out onto Fifth Avenue through the gate on Eighty-fourth Street. Blasé New Yorkers paid scant attention to the frantic man dressed in evening clothes who dodged between them and raced across the avenue, heedless of the two-way traffic. He made it safely to the other side amid an auto-horn cacophony, demented as a chorus of drunken geese.
When Martha, the elderly, gray-haired housekeeper, opened the front door, Houdini pushed past her without a word. “Wait!” she called, outrage raising her voice an octave. “You can’t—”
“Where is she?” The magician started across the huge foyer toward the curving marble stairs. “In the library?”
“You have no right,” the housekeeper scolded. “I will call the police.”
Somewhere off in the distance a clock chimed six times. Houdini started up the polished steps. In the nick of time, he reflected, just like the movies.
The elderly housekeeper puffed along behind as he hurried down the long hallway. In his urgency, he gave no thought to his previous visit to these elegant surroundings. He thrust through the open doorway into the Queen Anne library and was astonished to discover Isis quietly sipping tea with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“Houdini…?” Sir Arthur rose to his feet, teacup in hand.
The magician understood immediately from the Englishman’s astonished expression how alien he must appear in his leather flying helmet and rumpled tuxedo. “Did you get my wire at the Plaza?” he demanded.
The housekeeper fidgeted behind him. “I tried to stop him, Mrs. Fletcher,” she whined. “He just wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s all right, Martha.” Isis patted the couch cushion beside her. She wore a gold-embroidered green velvet caftan and her pale, oval features gleamed like polished ivory. “Mr. Houdini is always welcome here.” The housekeeper left the library with a quiet humph of indignation.
Conan Doyle grinned. “Took your advice and remained in Buffalo until this morning.”
The magician felt utterly foolish. “Wasn’t the séance set for six?”
“So it was, old chap,” Sir Arthur answered, “but a scheduling conflict arose and so we moved it back to five. Absolutely astonishing session. The Ma’am was with me, fresh as life. But, you know all about Mrs. Fletcher’s remarkable gifts.”
Houdini blushed. “Well … yes… . She’s … a remarkable woman.”
“Won’t you join us for some tea?” Isis purred. Her enigmatic smile rivaled the Mona Lisa’s. “You prefer yours in a glass, I believe.”
“No! Thank you, I mean … I’m afraid I must decline. No time to stay.” Houdini unbuckled the leather flying helmet. “I hope you’ll excuse me. … Sir Arthur, I need a word with you in private. It’s of the utmost importance.”
The knight glanced awkwardly at Isis. “If you insist,” he said. “I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Not at all,” she said. “We all have our little secrets.”
The two men stepped out into the hallway, Houdini leading them away from the open door. “Most gifted voice medium I’ve ever encountered,” Sir Arthur enthused. “I’m recommending her for the Scientific American prize.”
The magician ignored his friend’s fervor, drawing him into a small sitting room off the hall. “The Poe killer tried to murder me last night,” he whispered.
“What!”
“Suckered me into a trap. Used the chloroform.”
“Where? I thought you were away on tour.”
“Happened in Chicago. Big surprise. ‘Pit and the Pendulum,’ only no pit.”
“Last night you say? How on earth did you—”
Houdini impatiently cut him off, answering the unfinished question by waving the flying helmet and goggles like props in an elaborate trick. “Best escape I ever made,” the magician boasted. “Had me shackled under a blade as big as a manhole cover. He was after me all along, like you said.”
Sir Arthur tugged on his earlobe, flabbergasted by his friend’s amazing audacity. “You’re positive it’s a man…?”
“More than that. I know his identity.”
“Good Lord! Who is it?”
“I won’t make any accusations until I have proof.” Houdini strode to the door, clearly constructing a dramatic exit. “I mean to search his home. Top to bottom.”
Sir Arthur stepped quickly to the magician’s side. “I’m coming with you.”
“No!” Houdini placed his hand on the knight’s shoulder. The fingers gripped like iron talons. “You’ve already put yourself too much at risk because of me.”
They faced one another in the richly carpeted hall. “I believe I’ve earned the right to see this thing through to the end.” Conan Doyle’s resolute manner left no room for argument.
“What thing is that…?” The lilting voice made both men turn. Isis stood watching them from the library door.
“As you wish,” Houdini whispered.
Isis glided noiselessly toward them. “You’re not taking Sir Arthur away, I trust?” she asked, displaying the merest astringent hint of annoyance.
“Mrs Fletcher … I beg you to accept my profound apologies.” The knight bowed his head like an apprehended truant. “Mr. Houdini and I have some unfinished business requiring immediate attention.”
“You promise not to leave for England without a proper good-bye?” Isis clasped Sir Arthur’s hand in hers. The magician noted a fecund swell of abdomen barely perceptible beneath the flowing velvet garment.
“You have my word.” Conan Doyle beamed.
Isis turned her foxfire eyes on Houdini. He surprised her by holding her gaze. “Take great care, Osiris,” she murmured. “The blow that kills you will be completely unexpected.”
“They haven’t killed me yet,” he replied.
“It’s only a matter of time.” Isis brushed her fingertips across his cheek and left them, drifting off down the hall with a languid wave of her hand.
“The angel of death,” Houdini whispered, watching her turn the corner.
Sir Arthur chuckled. “I daresay Mrs. Fletcher hasn’t forgiven you yet for disrupting her séance last April.”
“Hell hath no fury … ,” Houdini said, faking a grin as they headed together for the stairs.
28
ELEMENTARY
THE CABBY LEFT THE meter running while Houdini hurried inside his house on West 113th Street. Conan Doyle sat and waited, contemplating the seam sewn along the crest of the leather flying helmet he held in one hand. On the drive uptown from Mrs. Fletcher’s, the magician had filled him in on the incredible details of the past twenty-four hours. Exhilaration accelerated Sir Arthur’s heartbeat. His physician’s nature cautioned that a man his age ought not to get so overexcited, but under the circumstances, any prescribed calm remained impossible.
In his other hand, Sir Arthur gripped the eyeless leather mask, still emanating a caustic hint of chloroform. Closely examined, it seemed a crude affair, very like the flying helmet in overall design. How many victims had it claimed, he wondered. Perhaps this same infernal mask had been forced over his own head.
“Put that stuff in this.” Houdini placed a Gladstone bag on Conan Doyle’s lap as he slid back onto the seat beside him.
“Driver,” he barked. “Take us to Herald Square.”
“You got it, mister.” The cabby adjusted his spark and throttle, engaged the transmission, and they set off, turning the corner and heading downtown on Eighth Avenue.
“You found the correct address?” Sir Arthur asked.
“In here.” The magician waved the copy of the Society of American Magicians directory they’d come uptown to retrieve. He dropped the small, leatherette-covered book into the Gladstone bag.
“And you say I’ve actually met this Rammage chap?” Houdini nodded. “Back in May. The S.A.M. banquet.”
“How can you be sure you’ve got the right man?”
“First off, he’s the right size.” The magician’s eager eyes gleamed with predatory intensity. “We were so convinced it was a woman. Rammage is slight; you might even call him tiny. Yet, because of his profession, he is physically very strong.”
“Purely circumstantial,” Sir Arthur snorted.
Houdini ignored this rebuttal. “It was something he said that gave him away. You yourself remarked about the Red Death’s fake tone of voice. I remember you thought it was a woman pretending to be a man.”
“There was obviously an attempt made to disguise the voice.”
“Yes. But not because of sex. Because of his accent.” The magician’s enthusiasm made his words tumble rapidly, one on top of the other. “Rammage is an Englishman, like yourself, but his accent is different. Not so educated. More like Jim Collins and poor dear Vickery. But not cockney.”
“Working class?”
“Yes, and provincial, too, I’d guess. He didn’t try to disguise it with me. Even so, I couldn’t put my finger on what sounded so familiar. It nagged at me all through the flight from Chicago. Well, at least after the storm died down. Up there alone, you’ve got plenty of time to think. It was something he said. I racked my brain, but just couldn’t bring it to mind. And then I remembered. It was ‘Righty-o.’ “
“Righty-o…?” Sir Arthur suppressed a dubious grin.
“Something Rammage says all the time. The Grand Inquisitor used the exact same expression.”
Nevermore Page 26
