Death from a Top Hat

by Clayton Rawson

  He didn’t, but Gavigan wouldn’t admit it. Instead he said, “You do, if you want me to believe any of it.”

  “Yes, I see that, though you don’t put it very tactfully. Still, I hate to be telling tales out of school, you know.”

  “Listen, Mr. Fu,” Gavigan said, apparently unaware that a Chinese surname is found at the front end of the signature, “you’ve just admitted you were right smack on the scene of a murder at the time it was committed. I would advise that you talk, that is, unless you’re guilty.”

  “Oh, it’s that bad, is it?” Ching’s eyes were round. “Well, of course, in that case, there’s not much—” He stopped and said it. “It was Zelma LaClaire.”

  After hearing his description, Gavigan, Merlini, and I had expected that. But, nevertheless, we all relaxed, and I put away the paper of matches whose flap my fingers has absently torn into an untidy fringe. Ching only remained tense, sitting very straight on the davenport, his hand that had been so full of gestures now very quiet on his knees.

  “Then,” Gavigan asked, “you went home to bed?”

  Ching nodded.

  “And today you did what?”

  Ching looked at the floor and poked at a polished toe with his cane. “I spent the afternoon at the library looking over some books on Chinese magic in the Ellison collection. At seven o’clock I ran into a friend, Marvin Jones. We had dinner together at The Deep Sea Inn and afterwards went to my apartment for a few highballs. He left at ten, and a little while after he’d gone I phoned Sabbat.”

  “How long have you known Sabbat?”

  “Fifteen, twenty years, I guess.”

  “Good friends?”

  “Pretty much. I haven’t seen him since 1927 up until a year or so ago. He was in Europe somewhere—Hungary, I think. I ran into him on the street one day, and I’ve been up to visit him half a dozen times since.”

  “How long has he been back in this country?”

  “Two years.”

  “Did he ever show you,” Gavigan asked warily, “any occult funny business that you, as a magician, couldn’t explain?”

  “No. He said magicians were prejudiced bigots and wouldn’t admit there was such a thing as magic without trickery, even if they saw it. He said he wouldn’t waste his time proving something he knew was a fact.”

  “He have any enemies?”

  “He thought he did, but I’ve always suspected it was his imagination. He was quite sensitive and not easy to get along with. The lone wolf type.”

  “Was he well off?”

  “I don’t know, except that he has always seemed to be in funds, and without any visible means of support.”

  “Did you know Tarot?”

  “Yes, very well.” Ching seemed uneasy again. “He was one of my best friends. I don’t know why anyone should want to kill him.”

  Gavigan pondered. Then, “That’ll be all for the moment, unless—. Merlini, any questions you’d like to ask?”

  Merlini sat on the divan with a deck of cards, playing an odd sort of solitaire. He laid out the queen of hearts between two deuces, face down.

  “No, I don’t think so, Inspector,” he answered, without looking up.

  He flipped the queen face up, only I saw that in some inexplicable fashion she had become a deuce. His favorite brand of solitaire was evidently Three Card Monte.

  After Ching had gone, Gavigan instructed Malloy to find out how the roundup was progressing and to make sure that Zelma LaClaire, in particular, was being looked after.

  “That wench is going to get a thorough going over, and no holds barred. She’s been asking for it.”

  “Sounds as if she’d need a chaperone, Inspector,” Merlini said, springing the cards in a long flutter from hand to hand.

  “I don’t blame you though. She parts with information on the strip-tease principle. A little at a time. But, now we’ve got her down to her pants, it should get interesting.”

  “What’s the lowdown on this Heathen Chinee with the Scotch name and the innocent face?”

  Merlini put the deck on the back of his right hand and with a sweep of his left spread them out along his arm. “He’s quite good. A very finished performer with a clever and entertainingly humorous presentation.” Merlini’s right arm dropped, and the cards hung for a fraction of a second spread out in space, then dropped. His right hand drew back quickly, and then shot forward, gathering them from midair. “He claims to have produced more rabbits from hats than any other magician. He specializes in children’s parties, but has lately gone in for night-club work. He was born in China of missionary parents, and his magical training was preceded by the usual Oriental initiatory course in juggling. He’s the only present-day conjurer to include plate spinning in his act.”

  “Plate spinning! What in blue blazes is…never mind. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. You’d get started on a history of the art, if it has one. Ross, get that list of yours out.”

  I produced it and added Ching Wong Fu’s name.

  Gavigan said, “Give him a nice goose egg for Sabbat’s murder. Even though his times seem to check, he was on the scene, and it doesn’t take long to strangle a man; instead of the walk and the subway, he might have used a taxi and, at that time of night, gained fifteen or twenty minutes. As for Tarot’s murder…he says he phoned from 23rd Street, but there’s a phone here. I wonder—”

  Merlini put his cards away and stood up. “Grimm,” he said, “let’s see your watch.”

  Grimm drew it out, and Merlini compared it with his own. “Afraid not, Inspector. We both agree. Grimm heard two angry voices in here between 10:30 and 10:35. Ching was talking to you on the phone at 10:33, by my watch. He may not have called from 23rd Street, but if he used this phone, then there must have been three people in here, and that leaves us faced with two persons who leave no footprints. I object. Let’s call it an alibi.”

  Gavigan didn’t argue, so I wrote: On phone, and ringed it. The list now presented this none too promising appearance:

  Gavigan said, “And the question is: which one of those alibis isn’t what it seems. Where do you think you’re going?” This last was directed as Merlini, who had wound his muffler around his neck and picked up his overcoat.

  “I want food; then I’m going home where I can think. I can’t do it around you. Too much going on. Suspects hopping in and out like mad, questions and answers popping six dozen to the minute, detectives swarming, Harte writing a book on the back of an envelope, photographers climbing all over me, fingerprint experts spraying powder down my neck, and every ten minutes the whole blamed case does a triple somersault over six elephants and lands on its neck. Once tonight I thought I had it all nicely figured out, and then, suddenly, my solution melted, all at once, like a Vanishing Bird Cage.”

  “So you’re running out on me.” Gavigan was scornful. “The murderer’s little vanishing trick has the Great Merlini licked.”

  “No, Inspector, you can’t draw me like that. I’ll tell you this much though. We’ve discussed four methods of escape from this room and investigated three of them. There is a fifth one, but as yet I don’t see how it fits and theory that will also explain why the lights were gummed up at Sabbat’s, Duvallo’s business card, why Tarot disguised himself, why he chose such a spectacular method to elude Janssen, or what the ladder means—especially the ladder—oh, definitely. But you get the idea. I want to sleep on it.”

  “When I have all those answers,” Gavigan said, “I’ll know how to do the vanishing trick myself.”

  “If you try it, Inspector, be sure you know how to reappear. And, oh yes, if you should happen to discover where Watrous went on his little walk, what Rappourt was doing at 10:30, what Zelma has to say for herself this time, how Judy explains the handkerchief, and who Mr. Williams is, I’d love to hear. Coming, Harte?”

  I got my hat.

  It was 4 A.M. when I crawled into bed in the Merlinis’ guest room. I had just turned out the light when the door opened and Merlini
’s head appeared, silhouetted by the light in the hall.

  “I was afraid for a moment there,” he said, “that Gavigan wasn’t going to let us get away without repeating that question of his as to what Jones does for a living.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, “I can guess. He’s either a tightrope walker or a trapeze artist. He also does tricks with matches.”

  “You’re warm but no bull’s-eyes. His stage name is Signor Ecco.”

  The door closed gently after him.

  And I had the devil’s own time getting to sleep. I kept trying to imagine the look Grimm’s face would have when he learned that the man with whom he had listened to voices through a locked door was a ventriloquist.

  Chapter 18

  The Invisible Man

  To render oneself invisible, it is only necessary to possess the stone called ophthalme. Constantine held one in his hand, and in this wise became invisible.

  Albertus Magnus: De Secretis Mulierum The power of becoming invisible at will…is…ascribed by Tibetan occultists to the cessation of mental activity…material contrivances for causing invisibility…the dip shing…the fabulous wood which a strange crow hides in its nest…The smallest fragment of it insures complete invisibility to the man, beast or object which holds it or near which it is placed.

  Madame David-Neel: Magic and Mystery in Tibet

  FROM SOMEWHERE FAR AWAY the irritable clamor of a bell came and beat at me with a steady insistent demand. I reached out, groping for the alarm clock, and found, where the night table always stood—emptiness. Turtle-like I pushed my head out from under the covers and tentatively opened one eye. Gray morning light came in through a window that was in the wrong wall. And then, at last, the bell still ringing, I remembered where I was.

  I threw back the covers and let the cold air wake me. Forcing myself from the bed, I went to the window, threw it wide and leaned out. The Inspector’s shiny Lincoln waited at the curb, and below me the Inspector himself leaned on the bell push, whistling a flat but cheerful tune.

  “Morning, Inspector!” I growled. “You’re disturbing the peace, did you know?”

  He took his thumb from the bell and looked up. “It’s about time,” he said, grinning. “I thought the battery was going to give up before you did. Do something drastic to that long-legged friend of yours, and then come down here and let me in.”

  I pulled the window down and got going. In the hall I thumped on Merlini’s door, hailing, “Shake a leg, sailor. Company calling. The Inspect—”

  Under my knocking the door swung inward, and I saw the bed. At the sight of the thing that sat there on the counterpane, I stood for a long instant stock still. Propped awkwardly against the pillows was the body of a midget with a grotesquely large head. From under the bulgy mass of crimson hair, fixed glassy eyes stared at me, motionless, and on the mouth a flat, dead smile had hardened.

  Then I saw that it was a ventriloquist’s dummy, a snub-nosed little imp with painted freckles. There was a white envelope in the small wooden hand, and across its face, scrawled large, I saw my name. I ripped it open and read the note, pencilled in a jagged, nearly impossible script.

  The early bird gets the clues. See you at Duvallo’s.

  Hawkshaw

  As we left the house I noticed that Gavigan slipped into his pocket the thin red-covered book from Merlini’s shelves which he had been reading as he waited. I knew then whence sprang the Inspector’s cheery whistling mood. I had only gotten a glimpse of the title, but that was enough. Its author was Arthur W. Prince and its title, The Whole Art of Ventriloquism.

  Malloy, Grimm, and Brady were waiting on the steps of No. 36. They looked sleepy.

  Gavigan asked, “Have you seen Merlini?”

  Malloy shook his head. “No. Duvallo was here a few minutes ago. Said he wanted a clean shirt. We shooed him off. Shannon was still on his tail.”

  He held the door open for us as we went in. We were halfway down the hall when it happened.

  There were two voices, rising faintly in angry excited tones, and they came from inside the living room. Suddenly these words, shouted, stood out above the rest:

  “And the police will never know!”

  Grimm’s “What the hell!” was explosive.

  We covered the remaining ten feet at nearly the speed of light. The door, which had been replaced on its hinges, was closed. Gavigan kicked it open, and the four of us crowded violently in, stopped and stood looking—at each other. There was no one else to look at. The voices had ceased; the room was empty.

  Gavigan repeated Grimm’s actions of the night before. He sailed comet-like toward the study with Malloy at his heels, gun in hand. Grimm, his jaw sagging, seemed incapable of movement.

  Gavigan disappeared; Malloy stopped in the doorway. Then, almost at once, they returned. There was an angry bewilderment on the Inspector’s face, and the line of his jaw was rigid.

  “Not a soul,” he said. “And this time the window’s closed, just as I left it—”

  He stopped, watching the thin thread of blue smoke that rose tenuously from an ash receiver standing on the floor by an empty armchair. It came from a lighted cigarette, long and new, that lay balanced there.

  Grimm whispered, half sincere, “The place is haunted!”

  As if in verification of that statement, an irregular ghostly tapping began, coming from the dark corner near the study door. We strained our eyes looking and saw something white that moved in the shadow. Malloy’s gun pointed. We stepped forward. On a small single-legged table such as magicians use was a portable typewriter that seemed to be endowed with a life of its own. As we watched the keys jerked spasmodically, the type bars swung up, and the space bar danced. We closed in, uncertainly.

  There was a sheet of paper in the roll, across which, above the ribbon, words were forming.

  “Dear Inspector: You not only can’t believe all you see…” We heard the bell and saw the carriage slide suddenly from left to right, double spacing as it did so. Other words clicked into being, letter by letter. “…but you mustn’t believe everything you can’t see. Very truly yours, THE INVISIBLE MAN.”

  “Merlini!” Gavigan exclaimed. “But where—”

  Suddenly all the keys on the keyboard jumped convulsively; there was a vague, swishy movement within the typewriter and a low, hissing, snake-like sound. Gavigan bent over, eyeing the machine warily. Then he lifted it quickly and peered under it, at nothing. Turning, he carried it to the light of the window where we examined it gingerly, to no effect.

  Grimm, looking nervously behind him, suddenly pointed and pushed out one startled word, “Look!”

  We wheeled. Gavigan almost dropped the typewriter on my foot. Merlini was sitting in the big armchair, smiling impishly and blowing smoke rings.

  “Dammit!” Gavigan thundered. “I’ve had all the parlor magic I can stomach!” He dropped the typewriter back on to its table with a crash. “Here’s where you do some fast, furious, and fancy explaining. How did you get in here? How did you disappear, and how did you get back? And don’t give me any song and dance about invisibility! I won’t—”

  Merlini stood up. He dropped his cigarette into the ash receiver, not bothering to vanish it, and spoke rapidly. “In the literature of Psychical Research you will find some mention of a phenomenon known as Bilocation. Watrous mentions it, for one. It is defined as the presence of an individual in two different places at one and the same time. It is one of the rarer psychic manifestations. What few recorded cases there are lack any proper sort of authenticity—with one exception—and that, though occurring under rigid test conditions, was patently a trick. Duvallo called it The Mystery of the Yogi. He performed it before an audience of newspapermen in this room two years ago, just after his return from India, and it netted him a whole scrapbook of clippings.

  “He had a couple of the reporters go out and buy several padlocks and a hasp. They fixed those on the inside of the door leading to the hall. You can still see the sc
rew holes in the woodwork. The padlocks were locked and the keys held by the reports. Duvallo sat in this chair and dished out some high-powered pseudo-Yogi patter. He began by demonstrating the system of breath control and apparently slid off into a deep trance. With his customary flair for showmanship, he had a doctor standing by who poked a stethoscope at his chest every few minutes, kept a constant hand on his pulse, and exhibited a properly grave countenance. The reporters were naturally skeptical, but Duvallo got fairly respectful attention because they knew that he usually came through with something that rated page one. He held that trance for a good ten minutes, heating up suspense.

  “Then finally the phone rang, and one of the reporters answered it. He heard Duvallo’s voice, saying that he was at La Rumba, three blocks away. At the suggestion of the voice in the phone, several other reporters listened and were each given an earful. Their credulity balked a bit, and there were a few impolite snickers. One of them suggested to the voice that he hang up, and wait to be called back. They tried that, but the same voice answered. When they started to stall, the voice hung up. Then Duvallo rolled his eyes and, breathing heavily, began to come out of his coma.

  “They immediately accused him of having employed a double, and began to razz him. ‘Wait a minute, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘It’s not quite over. Look out the front window.’ Several of them did, and in a minute or so they all had their noses glued to the pane. A man was running down the street through the snow. As he came under the light from the window, he was, to all appearances, Duvallo. Everyone whirled, started for the door, and stopped. Duvallo had vanished. He was no longer in the room.

  “They began on the padlocks. While they were unlocking them, someone knocked on the door. When they got it open, in walked Duvallo, big as you please, grinning and shaking the snow from his overcoat. He handed over a menu card, bearing the orchestra leader’s and the headwaiter’s signatures, with the hour and date. When they checked later they got a further shock. It had been celebrity night and Duvallo had been called on to stand and take a bow. So there were plenty of witnesses at both ends.”