Gavigan stuck out his square under jaw, and there were cold lights in his blue eyes. “Who is it? You tell me that and I’ll get a confession.”
Merlini shook his head. “No, Inspector. Your bright lights, your torturing, incessant questioning, your Third Degree wouldn’t make a dent. You’d find that Hauptmann was a talkative old woman compared to this murderer. You’ll see that the psychological make-up of our culprit will explain a lot of things, but he’s not the sort to fall for that. We’ve got to trip him up some other way.”
“Okay, and since you’re the Great Mysterioso—he sees all, he knows all—suppose you tell me how to do that. But remember, hypnotic confessions don’t count.”
“If my little trap works, your worries will be over,” Merlini said.
“Your little trap?”
“Yes. That’s what I was busily working at. Didn’t you notice?”
“Yeah, but the way you said it, I thought maybe it wasn’t what I think it is.”
“Very clever of you, Inspector. I don’t believe it is.”
Merlini’s innocent, pleased expression was that of the cat who has just swallowed the canary. Gavigan’s expression was the canary’s. He snorted and went out to the hall where he conferred with Malloy. Merlini put on his hat, and then, instead of leaving, stood silently looking out the window at the fading light in Van Ness Lane. I gave myself up to a survey of my alibi list, but it had all the aggravating obstinacy of a scattered Chinese Wood Puzzle, one of the more devilish ones.
Absorbed in that futile occupation, it was only afterwards that I remembered having been vaguely conscious of a phone ringing and of Gavigan’s answering it. Standing just this side of the study door, he was suddenly saying, “If anyone else gets killed, Merlini, it’s your fault. Trouble is, I’ll have to answer for it.”
“What’s happened, Inspector?”
“Jones! He went home with a detective, left the man in the bedroom, stepped into the John, closed the door, and dropped out the window on to the fire escape. God knows what he’s up to now.”
That announcement made me unbutton my ears, and then something I glimpsed in Merlini’s face left me with my chin hanging. I was closer than Gavigan to where Merlini stood in the shadow, and I caught something I couldn’t quite define, the barest flicker of a smile playing at the corners of his lips, perhaps, or just a faint hint of artificiality in the surprise he showed at the Inspector’s news. At any rate I was sure of one thing—Merlini had expected that.
Chapter 23
The Most Dangerous Trick
“…and sometimes vanishes in the midst of multitudes that go to take him…”
THE GUEST NIGHT PROGRAMS of the Society of American Magicians are presented in the twenty-fourth-floor auditorium of the McAlpin Hotel on Broadway at 34th Street. As I entered the main-floor lobby I found the Inspector, with Captain Malloy, Grimm, and half a dozen detectives gathered near the door.
“Something brewing?” I asked.
“Looks like it,” Gavigan said. “Merlini phoned H.Q. a while ago and told me to have all the exits from the twenty-fourth floor covered during the show. Then he announced—as off-handedly as he could manage—that he’d found Jones, and hung up. I called him back and he simply let the phone ring.”
The Inspector turned to the others. “You boys have your orders. Go to it, and keep your eyes open. Come on, Harte.”
I followed him across the lobby into the hotel manager’s office. Gavigan introduced himself and said, “I want you to issue orders to the elevator operators that, once the S.A.M. show upstairs has started tonight, no car is to stop for any reason whatsoever at the twenty-fourth floor, except at my order.”
Having completely upset that gentleman’s peace of mind, we left.
“Looks as if we were going to be properly marooned for the rest of the evening,” I commented. “More of Merlini’s recommendations?”
“Yes,” Gavigan said gloomily.
We stepped from the elevator into the twenty-fourth-floor lobby, a T-shaped corridor, with elevators lining both sides of the downstroke. The right arm of the T held the checkroom, and at its end, an exit led to the roof. The left-hand corridor stopped at the large door, now closed, of a banquet room. Directly before us, opposite the elevators, was the auditorium door and before it a small table where an S.A.M. officer stood taking tickets.
The lobby was crowded, and from the animated buzz of conversation that filled the air my ears several times filtered out the word Tarot. To many of these people, I realized, the murders were headline news that had come close and touched them.
I noticed again what had struck me on a previous reportorial visit. With the exception of one or two men that had overdue haircuts, all looked about as mysterious as—well, as Gavigan did. And yet, I knew that among them were many famous exponents of the wand, master of the innocent face and the deceptive hand. There were, too, the amateurs, whose skill in some specialty often equalled that of their professional colleagues—professors, jewelers, brokers, florists, mailmen, doctors, lawyers, newspaper cartoonists—who at night turned to wizardry and deception. Sprinkled here and there were perhaps a dozen or so decorative blondes, those glamorous and indestructible ladies whose bodies are nightly severed from their heads, pierced with swords, divided into halves with a crosscut saw, and burned alive.
Merlini stood near the ticket taker’s table, talking to Colonel Watrous. Standing very still beside him was a woman wearing dark glasses—Madame Rappourt. Aha, I thought, she’s shy among the conjurers.
Merlini saw us as we started toward them, and with a warning shake of his head, he quickly steered Rappourt and Watrous through the door into the auditorium. After several moments he hurried out again and took us under his wing.
“What’s the idea of that?” Gavigan wanted to know.
“I want your presence as little noticed as possible. You wouldn’t wear a disguise.” Merlini winked at me.
Gavigan made a sour face. “When I get a case that necessitates my dressing up like the House of David, I’ll resign.”
“Always so forthright and direct,” Merlini said. “A little deception is sometimes a good thing, Inspector, and it’s lots of fun. But perhaps we’d better go in. I’ve saved seats down front and the hocus-pocus is about to begin. Are your minions in their proper places?”
“Yes, but I’d enjoy myself a lot more if I knew…”
“That’s what you think. Besides, there’d be no dramatic suspense, no climax.”
“Hang your suspense, Merlini!” Gavigan began, but Merlini shut him off by introducing us, as we passed, to two card kings, a sword swallower, and the Man with the X-Ray Eyes.
Merlini had three seats reserved on the center aisle in the sixth row. Watrous and Rappourt, I noticed, were sitting two rows further forward on the other side of the aisle, and in the end seat of our own row, near the wall, I saw Judy Barclay.
I glanced at my program, and Gavigan scowled at his.
GUEST NIGHT
The Society of American Magicians
Masters of Ceremonies
Al Baker and Dennis
1. Jossefy The Skull of Cagliostro
2. John Mulholland Magic of India
3. Bernard Zufall The Human Encyclopedia
4. The Mystic LaClaires Mysteries of the Mind
5. David Duvallo Nothing Can Hold Him
6. The Great Merlini The Devil’s Hat
7. Max Holden Shadowgraphs
8. Signor Ecco Something Old, Something New
9. Ching Wong Fu Darn Clever, These Chinese
“Merlini,” Gavignan said sharply, “Is Jones backstage?”
“Yes, but you sit right where you are. Before the evening is over you can have at him all you want. But not now.”
The auditorium lights faded. Al Baker stepped from between the curtains carrying Dennis, a harsh and utterly irrepressible ventriloquist’s dummy, who interrupted violently every time Al tried to speak. Dennis finally M.C.’d the
show, introducing Joseffy’s act as a masterpiece of skullduggery.
The skull—Cagliostro’s, so Joseffy said—rested on a glass plate held by a committee from the audience and indicated, with a gruesome clicking of its white teeth, the names of cards surreptitiously chosen by the audience.
Gavigan’s disgruntled comment was, “Maybe I should ask him who our murderer is.”
John Mulholland caused a rosebush to grow from nothing and mysteriously blossom. Bernard Zufall instantly memorized a list of fifty words supplied by the audience and repeated them forwards, backwards, and then singly as they were called for by number.
Dennis then introduced the LaClaires and challenged Zelma to read his mind. Dressed in white and blindfolded with a black bandage, she was apparently in constant communication with Alfred, who silently went up and down the aisles, glancing at the various objects held up for his examination, which she immediately described, and listening to whispered questions, which she answered. The act was well done, faster paced than most, and it finished with a clairvoyant climax that consisted in Zelma’s addition, sight unseen, of several six-digit figures written my members of the audience on a slate.
Duvallo’s act took some time to set. We could hear the thump of heavy apparatus being moved into position as Al Baker, before the curtain, put one over on Dennis. The latter pooh-poohed Duvallo’s skill, boasting that he could do as well. Mr. Baker, taking him at his word, produced a miniature strait jacket, laced the dummy in, tied a handkerchief securely over his protesting mouth, and commented, “That’s the best gag of the evening, if I do say it myself.”
When the curtain went up on Duvallo’s act, I saw the Inspector sit up and take notice. I dropped my cigarette on the floor and ground it out nervously with my heel. Was it coming now? Would we get a hint of the way in which someone had escaped from those two apartments? I looked about quickly. Judy, the Colonel, and Madame Rappourt were all present and accounted for.
On the stage I saw a great box whose sides were large rectangles of heavy plate glass, bound along the edges with steel bands. A fire hose from off stage was rapidly filling the box with water. Duvallo’s offering was obviously going to be the escape from the Chinese Water Torture Cell, a creation of Harry Houdini’s, and the secret of which was lost with his death. Duvallo had successfully re-discovered, if not the same, then an equally efficacious method of release. An assistant hoisted a smaller steel box with an open top and a steel-barred front up and into the water. Duvallo, stripped to bathing trunks, came on, and the separate top of the glass box, a heavy metal affair having two leg holes in it after the fashion of the Puritan stocks, was locked securely about his ankles. With block and tackle this was raised high, and then lowered over the box. Duvallo, hanging head down, was completely immersed in the water. Several large padlocks were quickly placed, locking the box and its top together, the keys being thrown into the audience. A concealing canopy was drawn around the Torture Cell and the assistant stood outside peering in through a slit in the curtains, holding a fire axe in readiness should anything go wrong.
For three minutes the audience, sensing the danger that was on the stage before them, sat very still, tensely searching the assistant’s face for some clue to what he saw. Then, at a sign from him the piano player stopped in mid-bar, and the curtains were flung wide. Duvallo, last seen upside down and smiling through thick plate glass, steel bars, and water, was sitting outside the box on the stage floor. He dripped water and was breathing heavily, drawing in the air with great gulps. The box remained inscrutably locked and was shy of being filled with water only by the amount his body had displaced. The applause of the audience expressed relief.
As the curtains closed, Merlini rose and excused himself to go and prepare for his own act. The audience got up to take a stretch and wandered about, smoking and chatting. Gavigan and myself went to the lobby and walked to the end of the corridor where he rapped lightly with his knuckles on the banquet hall door. It opened a crack and Malloy peered out.
“We’re bored stiff, Inspector,” he whispered. “Anything doing yet?”
“No, but sit tight. Merlini acts confident as hell.”
“Doesn’t he always?” Malloy asked and closed the door. As we came back, I noticed a man standing before the elevators, trying hard not to look like a detective. He paid no attention to us, nor Gavigan to him. The Inspector repeated his knock on the door leading to the roof, and got an answering reply. I recognized Brady’s voice. I asked, “What about exits from backstage?”
“There aren’t any except for the two doors on either side of the stage that lead from the dressing rooms directly into the auditorium. And I’ve got a couple of men backstage, anyway. Merlini had me place them everywhere, short of behind the woodwork.”
We slid back into our seats again, just as the lights dimmed. I saw Gavigan glance anxiously at the still empty chair where Judy had previously sat.
Merlini stepped on to a stage that was bare of everything except two or three small spindly-legged tables. He announced that, in his opinion, it was high time someone revived Joseph Hartz’s great trick Le Chapeau du Diable, neglected since that conjurer’s death in 1903. Borrowing a collapsible opera hat from a member of the stock exchange in the fifth row, he proceeded calmly and with smiling deliberation to produce from its empty interior the following objects in order named: a bushel or two of large silk handkerchiefs, six bottles of champagne and a dozen goblets, enough playing cards to fill three hats, an electric table lamp whose bulb burned brightly with some infernal energy of its own, a canary complete with cage, and a large goldfish bowl brimming with water and fish.1 And finally, as he returned the hat to its owner in the audience, it collapsed with a snap, disclosing the inevitable rabbit.
Inspector Gavigan sat back in his chair, one finger tapping impatiently on his knee. Whatever he had expected had not happened. Had something misfired, or was it still to come? There were two acts yet which might have possibilities, Jones’ and Ching’s.
I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to Max Holden’s dextrous shadowgraphy. Instead, I watched Judy’s vacant chair and eyed Watrous, who was whispering excitedly to Madame Rappourt as she sat stolidly behind her dark glasses, possibly watching the performance, but giving every impression that, except for her body, she was lost in some other world. That woman’s dead-pan attitude got on my nerves.
Under cover of Dennis’ boisterous kibitzing, Merlini slipped back and took his seat again.
“Won’t Jones’ ventriloquial act be a bit flat after this Dennis kid?” Gavigan asked him.
“He’s doing something else tonight. Keep your eyes open.”
I didn’t like the way he said that, and a cold shiver coasted down my spine. So—now it was coming.
When the curtains parted the audience were still smiling over Dennis’ final remarks. But when they saw the bare, black-draped stage and the solemn, strangely pale expression on Jones’ face as he walked out and stood motionless near the footlights waiting for quiet, something stilled them.
He began quietly, in a soft, flat voice that accentuated the dramatic import of what he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this evening I shall present one of the most famous feats in all magic—and yet one that is rarely seen. It has been attempted by but few performers, for the very excellent reason that its presentation must always be absolutely perfect. Make just one mistake—as almost all its performers have eventually done—and it’s your last. It is the most dangerous trick in magic.”
His speech was somewhat stilted, as if memorized, and, as he paused, something of his nervousness passed across the footlights into the audience. There was a stiffening of attention, a hushed absence of those rustling, stirring noises that indicate lack of interest.
“Captain Carl Storm, formerly of the United States Army,” Jones continued, “is here tonight at my invitation. Will you please step up, Captain?”
From as aisle seat on the other side of the auditorium, a man in u
niform rose and made his way toward the stage. Under his arm he carried several implements that had, in their smooth, machined lines, an efficient, deadly look. The polite applause was hesitant, apprehensive.
“I requested the Captain to bring with him from his collection three army rifles which he was instructed to choose at random. Did you do that, Captain?” The man nodded.
A mumbled undercurrent of excitement wavered through the audience, many of whom apparently guessed what was to come.
Jones faced the footlights. “I would also like to have several gentlemen from the audience form a committee to assist me on the stage. Particularly those who may have some knowledge of firearms, though anyone at all is quite welcome to volunteer. Perhaps I should add that whatever danger exists does so for myself only an can in no way touch anyone else.”
Before any ordinary audience Jones would most certainly have made this request prior to any hint of danger or any display of armaments. But volunteer assistants come easily enough from an audience of magicians and their friends. There was a slight hesitation; then, almost at once, several persons rose from different parts of the auditorium. In a moment or two Jones had to hold up his hand indicating that that was enough. There were five men on the stage besides himself and the Captain.
Two of them I recognized immediately. One was a detective I had seen outside with Gavigan before the show, the other was Dr. Hesse. Then, as I watched them line up under Jones’ direction on the left side of the stage, a man in evening dress, the last to go forward, turned, and I saw that it was Watrous. I looked about quickly. Gavigan, bent forward, and scowling heavily at the stage, obscured my view; I couldn’t see Madame Rappourt. Judy was still missing. Duvallo, Ching, and the LaClaires were, I supposed, still backstage.
Jones spoke again. “Captain Storm, will you tell the audience if, since you chose those rifles, I have had any chance to examine or handle them.”
The Captain shook his head and answered in a parade-ground voice, “This is the first time you have even seen them.”
Death from a Top Hat Page 24
