Harry Houdini Mysteries

by Daniel Stashower

  “Pardon?”

  Harry stepped closer to Clairmont and grasped his elbow. “Tell me, have you mentioned our names to Lucius Craig? Have you told him that you have invited a pair of professional magicians to observe his actions this evening?”

  “Why, no. You specifically told me not to do so. I’ve only said that a pair of school friends would be joining us.”

  “Excellent! Then it is not too late!”

  “Too late? Too late for what?”

  By way of an answer, Harry reached into his coat pocket and produced a monocle and a false moustache. “I must conceal my true identity from Mr. Craig at all costs,” Harry explained, fixing the monocle over his right eye. “If he should learn that the Great Houdini is among the sitters this evening, he will be on guard. Indeed, he might even refuse to proceed!”

  “Uh, Harry,” I said, “I’m not sure this is entirely necessary.”

  “We cannot be too careful,” he insisted, fixing a luxuriant black moustache onto his upper lip. “It is our best chance of exposing Mr. Craig’s trickery. You must not use my name during the evening. You may refer to me as Dr. Weiss.”

  Clairmont watched with raised eyebrows as my brother straightened his moustache. “You’re quite certain about this, Houdini?”

  “Harry, is that Uncle Herman’s monocle?”

  “Don’t worry, Dash, I’ve brought a disguise for you, too! Here is a false nose!”

  “Harry, I don’t want to wear a false nose.”

  “But it has a wart!”

  “Be that as it may, I’m not going to wear it. The whole idea is absolute foolishness.”

  Harry gazed at the false nose wistfully, then put it back into his pocket. “Very well,” he said. “It is not essential to my plan for you to be incognito as well. Your fame is not quite so transcendent as mine. I merely thought—”

  “Gentlemen?” Brunson, the butler, had reappeared at the doors to the reception room. “If you’ll pardon me, Mrs. Clairmont wondered what had become of you.” The butler’s eyes came to rest upon my brother’s upper lip, which had been clean-shaven not five minutes earlier. If the sudden sprouting of a handlebar moustache struck him as odd, he gave no outward sign.

  “Of course, Brunson,” said Kenneth, glancing at Harry with an uncertain expression. “We’re just coming now.” Squaring his shoulders, he led us from the room.

  We were shown through to a large and brightly appointed reception room, where a woman whom I took to be Mrs. Clairmont stood waiting to greet us. Behind her was an imposing oil portrait of a grim-faced man who could only have been her late husband.

  “Mother,” Kenneth said, “here are the two friends I mentioned. This is Dash Hardeen, and this, uh, this is Dr. Weiss.”

  “It is so good of you to agree to fill out our little circle,” said Mrs. Clairmont, greeting us with genuine warmth. “When Kenneth said that Mr. Biggs would not be joining us this evening, I was afraid that we would not have a sufficient number of sitters. I am delighted you were able to step in, and no doubt Brunson is relieved to have been freed of the obligation to fill the extra chair. I do hope that our demonstration this evening will be of interest.”

  Mrs. Clairmont was tall and slender, with long hair of brilliant white. With her pleasing high cheekbones and sparkling gray eyes, it was plain to see that she had been a beauty in her youth. Like her son, she had an easy, gracious manner that went a long way toward putting us at our ease. Though Harry and I could not have been the sort of young men she was accustomed to receiving in her home, there was nothing in her manner to hint that we were unwelcome.

  “Allow me to introduce my brother, Mr. Sterling Foster,” Mrs. Clairmont was saying, indicating a stooped figure near the fire. Sterling Foster made no move to acknowledge our presence. He stood at the far end of the room with a glass of whiskey in hand, glowering at us as though we might have been debt collectors. Like his sister, he had bright eyes and strong features, though the broken veins tracing his bulbous nose spoke of a more dissolute lifestyle.

  “I don’t see why I have to participate in this foolery,” he grumbled. “Lucius Craig can go and hang himself for all I care.”

  “Where is the mysterious Mr. Craig?” I asked, scanning the room.

  “He is upstairs in my late husband’s study,” Mrs. Clairmont answered, ignoring her brother’s grousing. “He requires a period of silent meditation before a demonstration. We shall wait here for the others.” She signalled to the butler, who moved forward with a tray of wine glasses.

  Kenneth and I each accepted a glass while Harry busied himself examining a shelf of books. “Is wine not to your liking, Dr. Weiss?” Mrs. Clairmont asked, noting that Harry had not taken a glass. “We have other spirits, if you would prefer.”

  “Thank you, no,” my brother answered. “As a medical man, I prefer to keep my mind clear.” He tapped the side of his head, indicating the fine and presumably delicate organ operating within.

  “What a shame,” said Mrs. Clairmont. “It’s a most unusual vintage.”

  The ringing of the door chime interrupted Harry’s reply, and a moment later Brunson appeared to announce a pair of fresh visitors.

  Dr. Richardson Wells was a dark-haired giant of a man, with a swag belly but powerful arms and shoulders. His skin had a coppery tinge that spoke of much time spent out of doors, and he appeared uncomfortable and somewhat confined in his formal attire. Mr. Edgar Grange, by contrast, had a pallid, drawn face that appeared never to have seen the light of day and the languid manner of a man unused to physical exertion of any kind. Kenneth had mentioned that Grange had taken over the family’s business concerns in the months since Jasper Clairmont’s passing, and it took no great feat of imagination to picture him hunched over a ledger volume, tallying up a column of figures.

  “Ah! Grange! There you are!” called Sterling Foster in a voice thickened by whiskey. “Need to speak to you. Most urgent.” With this, Foster shuttled the lawyer into a corner for a whispered conference. Judging by the sharp gestures and grim expressions, the subject under discussion was not pleasant.

  “Weiss, eh?” Dr. Wells was saying to my brother. “What sort of practice are you in, sir?”

  “Practice?” Harry asked, adjusting his monocle.

  “I’m a general practitioner, myself,” said Dr. Wells. “Had a country practice for many years.”

  “Yes!” Harry’s head bobbed eagerly. “I am also a general practitioner.”

  “Ah!” cried Dr. Wells. “A kindred spirit! Where did you do your practicals?”

  A spark of fear began to show in Harry’s eyes. “Europe,” he said. “Budapest, to be precise.”

  “Budapest? How very interesting! I can’t say I know much about Hungary. It must be fascinating!”

  “Dr. Weiss was just telling me of the most fascinating article he saw in The Lancet,” said Kenneth Clairmont, endeavoring to save my brother from himself. “It had to do with the vasomotor changes in tabes dorsalis and its influence on the sympathetic nervous system.”

  “Indeed! Interested in nervous disorders, are you?” asked Dr. Wells.

  “Isn’t everyone?” said my brother.

  “Well, Kenneth here certainly is.” He clapped Kenneth on the back. “So, you’re keeping up with your studies, boy? They’ve managed to teach you a thing or two in New Haven?”

  “A thing or two, yes,” Kenneth answered.

  “You know there’ll always be a place for you with me, if you should want some seasoning when you finish. I could use a pair of fresh legs on my rounds.”

  A cloud passed over the young man’s face. “Well, I’m not certain that will be possible in the present circumstances.”

  “Nonsense!” cried Wells. “You’re a born sawbones. Never saw anyone with such a ready grasp of anatomy. It’s been that way since you were a pup.”

  “See here, Wells,” said Edgar Grange, extricating himself from his conference with Sterling Foster, “you know perfectly well that young Kenneth wi
ll be joining the family firm soon enough. With Jasper gone, it’s all the more urgent that we have a member of the Clairmont family at the helm.”

  The remark prompted a surly exclamation from Sterling Foster, who moved off toward the sideboard and reached for a whiskey decanter.

  “Gentlemen,” said Mrs. Clairmont in a bright but firm tone, “we agreed that there would be no talk of business this evening. My plans are too important.”

  “Sorry, Augusta,” said Dr. Wells, finishing off his glass of wine. “When are we going to have another go in the spook room, anyway?”

  “We shall be joining Mr. Craig after the meal. Gentlemen, if you will follow me.” With that, our hostess led us through to the dining room.

  “I hope you’ve built up an appetite,” Kenneth said as we made our way down a long corridor. “My mother has a rather exaggerated view of what constitutes a light supper.”

  “So does mine,” I replied, “but as it happens, I’m so hungry I could eat a—good lord!”

  It is fortunate that I did not actually proclaim my willingness to eat a horse, as my hostess would undoubtedly have produced one. In later years, when I had achieved a modicum of fame, I became accustomed to dining in high style at some of the finest establishments in Europe—at considerable cost to my waistline. At that time, however, I had never seen a table laid out in the fashion that awaited us in Mrs. Clairmont’s dining room, nor would I have many more chances to enjoy the lavish gilded-age groaning board style of hospitality. The table was dressed with the finest linen beneath the soft glow of an alabaster gasolier. Each place was set with a square of cloth folded into an intricate crown imperial, and a bewildering array of seventeen pieces of silver. Mrs. Clairmont directed each of us to his place, then Dr. Wells held her chair as she settled herself to the right of the head of the table. The place of honor, I noted, was held vacant.

  Even now, I can still recall the delicious smells that rose from the vast assembly of dishes on offer. Kenneth Clairmont, perhaps noting my perplexed expression, took care to name each of the dishes, adding a word or two of comment so as to remove any further confusion. “Ah! What have we in the soup tureen? Mock turtle! How pleasant! And for the fish course? Salmon Restigouche, I see. A particular favorite of Mr. Grange’s, as I recall. And what about the entrees? There’s a brace of partridges, I see, and a wild duck. Is that Grenadine de Veau? You really must try that, Mr.—er, Dr. Weiss. The cook has a wonderful talent for veal.”

  On and on it went, with Kenneth offering helpful assistance at each stage of the meal, and Harry and myself struggling to do justice to the astonishing bounty before us. Brunson and his staff managed the silver serving platters and rolling carts with unobtrusive skill, although there had been some minor distress as we sat down over a missing chair. Brunson dispatched an assistant to fetch a replacement, and the rest of the meal passed without any noticeable disruption. More than once I looked down to find that my setting had changed or my glass had been filled without my having noticed.

  Mrs. Clairmont kept the conversation light and the wine flowing, though her brother partook of neither. A decanter of whiskey had been set at his place, and he spent the duration of the meal steadily draining it, growing more and more truculent with each swallow. Mr. Grange, by contrast, drank nothing but ate ravenously, occasionally glancing at the table and furnishings with a certain proprietary interest, as though contemplating a purchase. Dr. Wells, for his part, spent much of the meal attempting to extract information on the state of European medicine from my brother, whose faltering replies were skillfully embroidered by Kenneth. As Biggs had foreseen, there was an uneasy moment when Harry attempted to address a lobster galantine with a pair of snail tongs, but once again Kenneth Clairmont managed to salvage the situation. “I see,” he declared with a note of admiration, “is that how they do it in Budapest, Doctor?”

  I must say that there were no further gaffes from my brother during the meal, largely because he had been stunned into immobility by the sight of a sautéed rabbit, which had been made to stand upright with its paws crossed in a disturbingly lifelike way, with a sprig of cauliflower tucked in where its tail had been. The greenish tinge behind my brother’s monocle and false moustache told me that his thoughts were with his beloved lop-eared Selma.

  Presently, when the remains of a magnificent prune flory had been cleared away, the gathering repaired to the sitting room for port and cigars.

  “You must forgive me, Mr. Hardeen,” said Mrs. Clairmont, taking my arm as we walked back down the central corridor, “I haven’t had a chance to say more than two words to you all evening.”

  “I’m afraid I would not have been much of a conversationalist,” I replied. “Not while my attention was absorbed by that wondrous saddle of mutton.”

  “I do like to see my guests well fed. Now, tell me, Kenneth mentioned that you are a friend from school. Are you a newspaper man, like that young Mr. Biggs who was here the other night?”

  “Well, I have studied journalism,” I said, which was, in fact, the truth. “At present, however, I am involved in the theater.”

  “The theater! How exciting! In what connection?”

  “Management,” I said.

  “You must see all the new plays. Tell me, is the latest Sardou as wicked as I’ve heard?”

  “Actually, I haven’t—”

  “And what about this clever young Harry Houdini?” asked my brother, stroking his moustache. “I hear he is poised to become the toast of New York!”

  “Never heard of him,” I said drily.

  “No? But I understand he has just completed an engagement at the Belasco.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Can it be? I understand that no less a journal than the Milwaukee Sentinel was inspired to remark that—”

  “Tell me, Mrs. Clairmont,” I said, turning away from my brother, “when might we expect to begin our sitting with Mr. Craig?”

  “Very shortly, I expect. It is Mr. Craig’s habit to fast prior to his demonstrations, but Brunson informs me that he has ordered a Coquette de Volaille to be ready in one hour’s time.”

  “He’s what?” cried Edgar Grange. “Augusta, this man has made himself too much at home. He is too free with your hospitality.” He reached out to take a cigar from the humidor Brunson had offered.

  “Not at all, Edgar,” Mrs. Clairmont answered. “Lucius Craig is above material wants and desires.”

  Mr. Grange continued to voice his objections as Brunson made his way around the room with the humidor. Harry, listening intently, gave me a withering look as I reached out and selected a belvedere. “Dash,” he whispered, “tobacco is a—”

  I cut him short. “A serious obstacle to the proper development of the mental acuities. I know, Harry. But it’s a damned fine cigar.”

  “Is it?” He considered the humidor for a moment, then took a fat imperial from the center.

  “Harry?” I said. “What are you—?”

  “When in Rome,” he murmured, leaning forward to accept a light from Brunson.

  “But Harry,” I said, as he began choking violently on the first draw of smoke, “you’ve never so much as—”

  “Look, Mr. Hardeen! Is that not an interesting set of books on the mantelpiece?” Leading me away from the others, Harry resumed in a low voice, “Don’t look so shocked, Dash. I just wanted to see if these cigars were as good as you claimed.” With that, Harry turned the cigar over, examined the burning end carefully, and then popped the entire thing into his mouth. He chewed twice, then swallowed.

  “Harry!” I cried.

  “Nothing to it,” he said happily. “How very delectable!”

  “But that was a very expensive cigar! If you were going to practice your act, you could have done just as well with a penny cheroot!”

  “I suppose, but I doubt if Mrs. Clairmont keeps such things about the house. After all—”

  “You aren’t quite like the other doctors I’ve met,” came a drink-sodden
voice. We turned to see that Sterling Foster, whiskey glass in hand, had crossed the room to join us, having apparently witnessed Harry’s strange display.

  “Er, no,” Harry began.

  “We, uh—”

  He waved aside our attempts to explain ourselves, sloshing a fair measure of whiskey onto the carpet. “I couldn’t help overhearing. You needn’t worry about me, I’ll keep your secret. What are you, some sort of circus performer?”

  Harry puffed himself up a bit. “I am no mere circus performer,” he announced. “I am the eclipsing sensation of—”

  “Yes,” I put in. “He’s a circus performer.”

  “Wonderful! You may be able to expose this man Craig!” He gulped at his whiskey. “I had thought that was what that chap from the Herald might have been planning the other night, but he seemed just as flummoxed as the rest of them.” He waved his glass to indicate the others in the room. “Hooked like trout, they were. Me, I think he’s just a circus tout, like you. You might be just the thing to knock him down a peg. Set a thief to catch a thief, I say.”

  Harry began to protest the remark, but I restrained him.

  “You wouldn’t object to seeing Mr. Craig exposed, then?”

  “Object? Far from it. That man is the very worst kind of charlatan. He’s playing on my sister’s bereavement, giving her hope where none exists. Her husband is dead. We all have to accept it. So long as this man dangles the hope of communicating with Jasper, Augusta won’t be able to think of anything else. It’s cruel, I say.”

  I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “You were present at the séance the other night, I understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you accuse Mr. Craig of being a fraud then and there?”

  “Oh, the man is very clever. I’ll admit to that straight off. I don’t know how he does the things that he does, but I know perfectly well that he’s not communicating with any spirit presence.”

  “I quite agree,” said Harry in a conspiratorial tone. “It may interest you to know that we are not alone in thinking so. I understand that the Great Houdini himself has taken an interest in Mr. Craig.”