Death from a Top Hat

by Clayton Rawson

  “You brought ammunition?”

  The Captain placed the rifles on a table and drew a box of cartridges from his coat pocket. At Jones’ suggestion he slit the box open and poured the bullets in a heap on the table.

  Jones, keeping some distance from the table, motioned to the committeemen. “Will you kindly step over and examine the bullets. When you are quite satisfied that they are genuine, will you select two and stand them on end, at the edge of the table away from the others.”

  When this had been done, he asked, “Does someone have a pocketknife?”

  The man whom I recognized as a detective produced one and offered it.

  Jones indicated the selected bullets. “Will you choose one of those,” he said, “and scratch your initials on the nose of the bullet and on the case.”

  As the man did this, Gavigan curled a few words from the side of his mouth at Merlini. “You would think up something like this, dammit. I’ve a good notion to break it up right now.”

  “Easy, Inspector,” Merlini whispered. “We’re going to get a nibble.”

  Jones spoke to Watrous and Dr. Hesse. “Will you gentlemen please select one of those guns.”

  They did so, examing each and agreeing on one.

  “Who, beside the Captain, knows how to load this gun. You, sir?”

  He looked at the fifth committeeman, a shy professorial looking man who wore thick lensed glasses and a short Vandyke. He stepped hesitantly from the background, and in a low voice that barely got across the footlights, said, “Yes. I think I can.”

  “Will you take the gun then and load it with the bullet that is left, there on the table.”

  As he did so, Jones picked up a white dinner plate from the table and placed it in a metal holder at the right and rear of the stage.

  “Captain Storm, will you please take the gun and fire at the plate.”

  The Captain nodded, took the gun and raised it. I saw a woman in front of me put her fingers to her ears. The gun cracked and the plate dropped, a shower of small pieces that rattled on the floor.

  An odd sort of sound rose from the audience as more than one person gasped involuntarily and caught at his breath.

  Jones held the tension steady. He quickly took the marked bullet and held it in turn before each committeeman, asking that the initialling he noted. He passed the bullet to the man who had loaded before, and as Captain Storm held out the gun, the latter threw back the breech, ejecting the spent shell. As he loaded the gun again, Jones turned his back, walked across stage to where the plate had been and faced his audience.

  “The trick I am about to present, is, of course, the Great Bullet Catching Feat.”

  His voice was strained, with a tight piano-wire vibrance in it that sang. Was he acting, building up his effect, or was he scared to death? I couldn’t tell.

  “Ready, Captain?” Storm nodded.

  “Then you will aim the gun, which everyone has seen loaded with a freely selected and marked bullet—at my face. When you fire I shall try to catch the bullet between my teeth. Can you score a bull’s-eye the first time, Captain?” The man nodded slowly. “If you say so.” Somewhere a woman giggled, the loose foolish sound that precedes hysteria. Jones was putting on a good act.

  I saw Judy come through the door from backstage and make her way through the dark back to her seat.

  “I must have complete quiet, please,” Jones cautioned. “Everything—my life, perhaps—depends upon the Captain’s aim.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, then faced the Captain and stood stiffly, like a store-window dummy, his movements jerky and mechanical.

  “I shall call, ‘Ready—Aim’—and, when I drop this handkerchief, you will fire. Is that clear?”

  Captain Storm nodded almost imperceptibly and frowned. The handkerchief dropped—but stopped short. Jones still held an end of it. That drew another gasp from the audience. Jones, arms rigidly at his side, appeared not to have heard. He pulled his chin up and said: “Ready!”

  The Captain half raised the rifle. Merlini, oddly, settled back somewhat in his chair, a queer half smile on his mouth. Gavigan had one hand in his coat pocket, his arm flexed, ready. Judy moved slightly and glanced toward us, her eyes dark and large. “Aim!”

  The gun snapped to the Captain’s shoulder, one sharp, clean movement in a blurred slow-motion film. A cold high light glinted brightly down the long barrel that pointed steadily at Jones.

  The silence was complete, breathless, and the chalky faces of the committeemen were like a row of white holes in the dark backdrop. Watrous shifted on his feet uneasily. There were damp high lights on Jones’ sharp, tight face.

  At last, after what seemed an interminable pose, the tableau moved. Jones’ fingers jerked wide, convulsively and the white blur of handkerchief fell slowly, almost floating, to the floor. It touched the stage and the rifle cracked! The report still rang in my ears; Jones fell backwards, and slowly swung halfway around, his body twisting above the knees. His legs gave loosely like a marionette’s and he slumped forward to the floor on his face. And was still. A faint halation of dust rose upward around him. For a brief second no one moved, no sound came. Then instantly the place was in an uproar. “Come on, Inspector,” Merlini cried, but Gavigan was halfway up the aisle, running. In the back of my head some automatic adding machine foolishly did a sum. Where there had been five committeemen, there were now but four!

  Simultaneously a heavy voice from off stage at the left shouted, “Oh, no you don’t!” Then I heard the sound that accompanies a smashing impact of fist against bone.

  The missing committeeman tumbled backward from the wings on to the stage. Detective Janssen, whose voice I had recognized, jumped out after him, plunging forward in a flying tackle to wrap himself about the falling man’s knees; they went down together. The uproar became pandemonium.

  “He tried to sneak off into the wings,” Janssen yelled at Gavigan as the latter vaulted the footlights.

  Merlini, climbing up, said, “Grab him, Inspector. That’s your murderer!”

  With that, a movement on the opposite side of the stage caught instant attention.

  The still body of Jones rolled over—and sat up! The audience stood and stared.

  My hands that were gripping the chairback before me started slowly to relax. It was all over now; there was no need for that tight, strained feeling or for the pounding of my pulse—and then, as the Inspector drew out a pair of brightly glittering handcuffs, the murderer’s foot swung up and caught him in the groin. With almost the same movement he swung a haymaker against Janssen’s jaw and, leaping forward, threw himself into the air across the footlights. He landed, falling to his knees and, without rising, pivoted. There was a revolver in his hand.

  Gavigan’s was out too, but he didn’t use it. The man’s voice came, hard, rasping, with a deadly sincerity.

  “If anyone moves, I’ll fire into the crowd. I’m going out, and, if you try to stop me, someone’ll get hurt. I mean it! Clear that aisle!”

  He started sideways down the aisle, watching over his shoulder, his gun moving at the crowd. The people before him fell away; a path straight to the door opened magically. Halfway back, a woman gave a small yelp and fainted, falling across the aisle. He stepped over her and went on, his gun waving from side to side menacingly, the tendons of his jaw standing out in hard ridges.

  I saw Janssen half raise his gun. Gavigan knocked his arm down and ordered loudly, “Let him go! Everyone keep your seats!”

  As the man reached the doorway, he turned and backed into it “Thanks, Inspector—and good-bye.”

  He was through it, and the door closed after him. There was a thump from outside as of a table overturned.

  Gavigan cried, “Quiet, everybody, and sit still. The exits are all guarded and the elevators aren’t—”

  “Crack!”

  The report of a gun came from the lobby outside. Gavigan and the two detectives were suddenly running down the aisle. I slipped out of my seat as
Merlini went past, and followed. In spite of the Inspector’s command, the spectators were milling desperately amid a welter of overturned chairs.

  The Inspector threw himself at the door, pushing it open against the table that lay there. Outside, the detective I had seen before the elevators lay on the floor with a dark wet-shaped stain on the carpet beside him. From doors at either end of the lobby the other detectives came with drawn guns. But I saw no sign of any murderer.

  “Where’d he go?” Gavigan shouted frantically.

  “Who?” Malloy asked. Brady, from the other door, shook his head blankly.

  Gavigan looked at the coatroom as a girl’s white face came up above the edge of the half door.

  “Did you see him?”

  She nodded dumbly, he mouth working. “I—yes—I saw him come out—and shoot…and I ducked. I don’t know…”

  The Inspector didn’t listen to the rest. He turned about once, completely, surveying the empty lobby, the bare lobby that held no hiding place at all.

  I’ll never forget the blank astonishment on his face and the empty teetering in the pit of my own stomach. The murderer had done it again! He had vanished into thin air, from a room whose exits all were guarded!

  Merlini, after one quick look, bent over the fallen man and then, straightening, glanced at the elevator indicators. He took two long strides and yanked a hand phone from the box in the wall.

  “Starter!” he shouted, “Starter! Police speaking. Quick! Number Two car. Start it back to floor twenty-three at once. Don’t let it stop! And for God’s sake don’t let it go above twenty-three!”

  The dial hand moved on—6, 5, 4…However between 3 and 2 it stopped, hung briefly and began to reverse.

  “That does it!” Merlini cried, “Quick, Inspector. At each side of the door and have your guns ready. He plays rough.”

  We flattened ourselves against the wall. Someone pulled the fallen man out of line, and the damp smear streaked the floor.

  Merlini was talking fast and low. “I don’t smell any brimstone, so there’s only one place he could have gone. The top of that car. He must have found it parked at twenty-two or three and jumped to its top, intending to get off at the second floor when it arrived at the first.”

  The dial hand moved on…21…22…23…

  Merlini inserted the end of a pencil into the small, round hole in the center of the sliding doors. He levered upward and the doors moved half an inch. Gavigan got his fingers in the opening and pulled the doors wide, staying flat behind them.

  “All right,” he said grimly. “Throw out that gun!”

  His words fell into silence, and then, finally, the brittle tension in the air shattered and a voice came, calm as always, but tired and flat, empty of the old cocksureness.

  “Pick up the marbles, Inspector, you win.”

  A revolver flashed dully, turning as it fell, and bumped across the carpet. A pair of glasses and a false Vandyke followed.

  Then, his greasy hands raised, a sagging weary expression on his lean gray face, the shy committeeman who had loaded the rifle, David Duvallo, stepped out into the light.

  1The electric lamp was a modern variation of Merlini’s, Hartz himself having produced several lanterns containing lighted candles. A description of his original routine may be found in Hoffman’s Later Magic, the editions of 1925 and 1931.

  Chapter 24

  Rolang

  The Performance of all this is fair…as always the juggler confesses in the End that these are no supernatural Actions, but Devices of Men performed by Dexterity and Nimble Conveyance.

  Henry Dean: The Whole Art of Legerdemain, or Hocus Focus in Perfection.

  HIDDEN AWAY ON THE top floor of one of the elderly buildings surrounding Times Square is a door that bears this inscription: THE MAGIC SHOP, Miracles for Sale, A. Merlini, Prop. Behind that door is a queer sort of shop, a shop that is somehow all at once gay, festive, bizarre, spectacular, weird, showy, and comfortable. There are the usual glass-topped counters, shelves rising high on one wall, and a cash register; but there the usual ceases. A white rabbit hops about on the floor and the merchandise is a strangely incongruous assortment of cards, thimbles, silk handkerchiefs, tripod-legged tables, billiard balls, slates, ribbons, flowers, alarm clocks, crystal gazing balls, red and gold cabinets and boxes, bird cages, fish, bowls, a half dozen toothy papier-mâché skulls, and several hundred books. The right-hand wall, from above a comfortable divan that stands against it, upward to the ceiling is covered with framed and autographed photos of magicians, and grinning foolishly down from the top row of shelves is a brightly painted set of Punch and Judy figures.

  Inspector Gavigan and I were sitting on the divan the morning after Duvallo’s arrest. Merlini leaned on the counter scratching the head of Dr. Faustus, an enormous black cat who stretched luxuriously on the glass.

  “How’s Hunter?” Merlini asked.

  Hunter was the casualty of the night before.

  “It was damned close,” Gavigan answered, “but the report this morning was that he’d pull through.”

  “And what happened at headquarters after the fireworks last night? Duvallo talk?”

  “Yes, once he knew it was no go, he talked plenty. Oddly, too. He’d get so enthused at times that he’s forget he had come a cropper, and he almost boasted of the way he’d fooled us.”

  “He would; he’s an egomaniac. That’s also why he’s such a good magician. I’ve a little theory—I don’t discuss it with my customers—that conjuring as a hobby appeals most to people with inferiority complexes. And the more they over-compensate the better magicians they make. Even the display of parlor tricks at a party imparts a glow of superiority, quite false of course, but not all of us realize that. Duvallo didn’t. He fooled himself thinking he was smart enough to deceive the police. And when a magician starts fooling himself, he’s on the skids.”

  “Yes,” Gavigan agreed, “that’s criminal psychology. Most of them think they’re too smart. And I noticed how Duvallo took Miss Barclay for granted, not being able to understand how anything in skirts could resist him. She was down at headquarters last night, and, though pretty cut up about it, I don’t think it’s anything she won’t get over shortly. She had suspected him all along, which explains some of her actions.”

  Merlini nodded. “Professionally, though,” he went on, “Duvallo’s egotism was a decided asset. It gave him a devil-may-care air of confidence and bravado that impresses an audience.”

  “I wonder how long it’ll stay with him. That statement I got last night is going to hang him unless some simple-minded jury-falls for the extenuating circumstances he’ll probably plead and lets him off with life.”

  “Oh, then you know the motive? I’m interested. I think I could hazard a good guess, though I haven’t had time to dig up any corroborative details. I’d intended to look through the daily papers for the last week of May 1935.”

  “You’d have wasted your time,” Gavigan said. “But I’ll trade you that information for some of the things you know that Duvallo didn’t. In fact, there’s a lot of answers I want.”

  “And what about me?” I protested. “You’re both bursting with information, and I’m about to explode. Come on, talk.”

  Merlini leaned over and picked the rabbit from the floor. He rang up “No Sale” on the cash register, took a carrot from the drawer, and held it before the twinkly nose of the bunny.

  “Breakfast, Peter,” he said. And then, to the Inspector: “We’d better enlighten Ross before he plunges us into another murder case, one that neither of us will be in a position to investigate. Which answer do you want first?”

  “I’d like to know how that bullet trick was stage-managed last night. Realizing that the murderer was on the stage and up to funny business when he loaded the gun, what the hell made you think Jones wouldn’t be killed, and why wasn’t he?”

  “Duvallo was the only one who took a chance, Inspector. We had the cards stacked, and dealt him four of
a kind—all jokers. Captain Storm, who rates tops as a trick shot, had instructions to aim a foot to the left of Jones’ head.”

  “I though so! You were responsible for Jones’ disappearance last night!”

  Merlini nodded, “Guilty. Yesterday afternoon at Duvallo’s I sneaked this note to him.” Merlini handed over a folded scrap of paper. It read: You and I may be able to trap the murderer, if you’ll sit tight and follow directions. Agree to anything I say about your act tonight, and, when you leave here, shake the detective who’ll be on your tail, and wait for me at The Shop.

  “He had planned his usual ventriloquism for the show, but I changed that when I announced that he was going to do Chung Ling Soo’s famous trick.1 Your query about the hall light told Duvallo that the radio gimmick had been uncovered, and he didn’t like my hypnotic plan a little bit. Things were getting warm. The Bullet Trick was a made-to-order chance for him to have his neck. But it was made-to-order more than he knew. He put on that scholarly committeeman disguise in his dressing room, and went out into the auditorium during the intermission ready to volunteer during Jones’ act. Backstage he passed as just another of the many performers’ relatives that were milling around. Judy almost threw a monkey wrench in my little trap, when, not knowing what was up, she went backstage once to look for Duvallo and couldn’t find him. I was afraid she’d raise a hue and cry, but luckily she was still giving him the benefit of the doubt. It’s always hard to believe one of your best friends is a murderer.”

  “There’s one thing I want straightened out right now,” I said. “How could Duvallo agree to let himself be hypnotized? Wouldn’t that have let the cat out of the bag?”

  “No,” Merlini explained, “being a hypnotist himself, he was confident that he could fake it, even though it meant fooling Brainard. It’s not an easy thing to do, but he could have gotten away with it if anyone could. His colossal self-confidence has pulled him out of some pretty tight spots. That time in Milwaukee when his Buried Alive stunt went wrong, he—”

  “Then Jones was the absent-minded suspect who had forgotten something vital?”