Who Done Houdini

by Raymond John

  Instead of answering, she took a bottle out of the bag and handed it to me with an embarrassed grin.

  “Four Roses rye whiskey? Where in the world did you get that?”

  “The desk clerk suggested a place I might be able to find it.”

  I stared at her in amazement. “But you’re a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. You’re going against your own principles.”

  “My principles never met Mr. Becker’s gun before. We probably should have worked on prohibiting the sale of guns while we were getting rid of alcohol. Then the bootleggers and gang members would have to go after each other with baseball bats.”

  “That’d put me out of a job. Just remember, if we drink this whiskey, we’re breaking the law.”

  “Who’s going to tell on us? Mr. Holmes?”

  “Maybe we should ask him to join us. Then he’ll be party to a conspiracy. Just how much did this cost us?”

  “Seven dollars. It’s supposed to be a bargain at that.”

  The alcohol was only two dollars before Prohibition. I went to the bathroom and brought back two glasses. “If we want Mr. Holmes to join us, he’ll have to get his own glass.”

  With that, Violet knocked on the connecting door.

  No one answered. “He must be asleep,” she said.

  “He wouldn’t retire without telling us when the train leaves.”

  I rapped louder. Still no answer. “He must have gone out.”

  “Then he just doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  “Absolutely, my dear. Tell me. Did you join the WCTU because all the other women in the neighborhood were members?”

  “Well, sort of. I really do believe banning alcohol has brought down the crime rate. And just think of all the working men who used to spend all their money on booze. At least their families’ll have food on the table now.”

  “All very true, but you’re not a criminal or an alcoholic. You don’t think Prohibition was intended to apply to you. Right?”

  Unable to look me in the eye, her lips trembled. “I guess not.”

  “Do you know what you are?”

  “A cheat and liar?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “No. You’re a Wet Dry, someone who supports the law but still drinks. I’ll bet at least half of the women in the neighborhood are, too.”

  “Oh, stop being so English. Shut up and drink.”

  Accusing me of being English has always been her favorite last resort in an argument. This time I didn’t want to argue. She poured out a couple of fingers of whiskey for each of us, and I took a welcome sip.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Find a comfortable place to sit and wait for Holmes to call. I’m very surprised he hasn’t already done so.”

  Sitting in the plush armchair, fatigue hit home. I awoke some time later, startled by the sound of the telephone.

  “Holmes?”

  “Yes. Get dressed. We have important business to tend to.”

  “I’m already dressed. I’ll meet you in the hallway.”

  Holmes was dressed in dungarees, a blue mackinaw jacket, and crepe-soled shoes and carrying a black rucksack bag.

  “Should I put something else on?” I asked.

  “Yes. Wake Violet and tell her not to open the door under any circumstances. You can go back into your room through my door when we get back.”

  I returned to the room. After giving Violet the room key and passing on Holmes’s warning, I quickly changed clothes.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, barely able to keep her eyes open.

  “Lord only knows. Don’t wait up.”

  A quick kiss goodbye and I was back in the hallway.

  “What are we up to now?”

  “We’re not up to anything. Becker and his associate or associates are definitely up to no good and Rose is in serious peril.”

  “Where were you after we left you? I called you.”

  He held up the bag. “I had to retrieve a few things for our mission. These came from housekeeping, but I’ll need your skills to open the maintenance room door for the rest.”

  “Lead on,” I said.

  “One slight precaution before we go,” he said.

  Reentering his room, he showed me a small piece of paper with a skull and crossbones drawn on it. He then opened the hall door. Slipping the paper with the drawing aligned horizontally between the door and frame, and with skill perfectly perpendicular, he held it in place with a finger.

  “Please pull the door shut, Wiggins.”

  I did. The slip of paper was stuck firmly out like a pirate ship flag where Holmes had placed it.

  “Since our whereabouts has been discovered, I want to be able to find out if anyone has been in my room while we were gone. We obviously will need to exit through your door.”

  Unlocking his side of the connecting door between our rooms, he rapped.

  The door opened and a bleary-eyed Violet appeared.

  “We don’t have enough time to explain now,” Holmes said. “Just keep your doors locked and don’t let anyone in for any reason. When we return, I’ll knock twice, pause and knock three more times. That way you’ll know who’s at the door. I suggest you leave your key here, Wiggins, for security reasons.”

  I handed the key to my worried-looking spouse. “No more Four Roses. Right?”

  “I’m too tired to uncork the bottle,” she said with a yawn.

  “To the maintenance room,” said Holmes.

  As usual, unlocking the door was easier done than said.

  A half-eaten ham sandwich sat on a work table sopping up the oily atmosphere of the room, and tools hung on nails on the walls. Each had its own outline. Taking a look at Holmes’s so-called grocery list, I smirked. “This is easier than opening the door.”

  The hammer and wire-cutting pliers came down from the wall and disappeared into Holmes’s mysterious bag A spool of three-mil copper wire rested on the floor at the back of the room. I unrolled a three-foot section. I snipped it, and it disappeared into Holmes’ bag.

  As we shut the door, Holmes said, “Now we shall need to find a taxicab driver. We can call for one in the lobby.”

  Our earlier experience had left us edgy. Over the phone, Holmes insisted the driver had to come into the hotel. Seeing him was but a small precaution, but one we felt we had to take, given what had happened earlier that day.

  I had always wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge, but didn’t get but a glimpse of it until just before we turned on Center Street to enter the bridge and, again, after we exited at Pearl Street. The lighted towers and pylons filled the sky like the sides of a majestic sloping mountain. Some wag, Mencken most likely, called it the most often-sold piece of real estate in the world. I was almost disappointed no one had a chance to try to sell it to me, considering I looked to be the perfect yokel on vacation and a prime candidate to be the next buyer. I would have liked to meet a realtor just to see how long I could convince him I was a legitimate hot prospect.

  We turned onto the parkway leading to Fort Hamilton, passing by single residences and small multiple dwellings. Holmes had given instructions to the driver to stop two blocks away from our destination at 57th Street and Tenth Avenue and wait there until we returned, no matter how long that would be. To insure the driver would stay, we made an advance payment of five two-dollar gold pieces and told him there would be five more when we returned.

  “I’ll sit here the rest of the night for that,” the driver said. Stepping out of the cab, he pointed us in the right direction. “It’s just a block away.”

  A chill wind blew leaves against my legs, and I tightened my collar. “What now?”

  “We have to discover how many people are at work. I’m guessing two, but Rose s
aid she only saw one person.”

  “Becker must be livid by now. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he came here after he fled the theatre.”

  “Quite so. If that is the case, I’d think there’s a very good chance someone’s also lurking in the hallway. Herr Becker isn’t nearly as smart as Moriarty was, but he shares some of his worst characteristics. He undoubtedly is equally ruthless, if not more so, and his perseverance to complete a job is remarkably similar.”

  “Characteristics of the German soldier,” I said with a sigh. “I think he really considers himself to be one.”

  “As do I.”

  The half-moon high in the sky and street light showed we had arrived at Tenth Avenue. A convenient hedge provided me an opportunity to peer around the corner without being seen.

  Once again lit by the moon and a nearby street lamp, a man stood in plain view across the street from Rose’s apartment. I immediately recognized him as the one I earlier took to be a cabbie. I motioned to point him out.

  “Excellent,” Holmes whispered. “We shall deal with him shortly. I suspect that the enemy is employing the lion’s hunting technique of placing one of the pride in plain sight and hiding the others in the bushes, waiting to attack when the prey bolts. The first thing we have to do is find out if there is anyone in the hallway. Rose’s room’s on the third floor. I expect there must be more than one stairway. If so, we should be able to catch our human lion in a pincer movement. After he’s disposed of, we can go after the one in plain sight with ease.”

  We circled around to Eleventh Avenue and then to the alleyway behind the building. The back door was unlocked, but to our consternation we discovered only one stairway. It reeked of wood smoke and pine logs, and the boards in the stairway creaked.

  “So much for a pincer movement,” Holmes grumbled. “I hope we won’t be in plain sight when we open the door on the third floor.”

  We didn’t have to hope long. As we started up from the second floor we heard scurrying above us, then a door slamming shut.

  “I think we flushed out our lurking lion,” Holmes whispered. He reached into his bag and took out a black object. I looked, open-mouthed, at what appeared to be a 45-caliber handgun.

  “It’s wood,” Holmes whispered. “That’s the reason I visited a carpenter in Detroit.”

  We reached the third-floor door. “I’ll go out first,” he whispered.

  Light from the hallway flooded over us as he opened the door. Gesturing for me to follow, he stepped out. I heard a surprised yell, then Holmes’s authoritative voice. “Drop the knife.”

  A long-bladed knife fell to the floor.

  “Down on your stomach, hands behind your back,” Holmes demanded. Handing me the black bag he said, “Take out the wire and cut it in half.”

  I did and handed him one of the halves.

  “Here’s the gun. Don’t hesitate to use it if our friend refuses to cooperate.”

  He wrapped the wire around the man’s wrists, then used the pliers to tighten it until our unfortunate trapped lion cried out in pain.

  “There. I’ll venture even Houdini couldn’t have gotten free from this knot.”

  I noticed a bulge in one of the mark’s back pockets. “He has a wallet.”

  After a brief struggle to free it from the pocket, Holmes read “Jurgen Schmidt, 1211 Kosciusko Street, Schenectady, New York.”

  I repeated the name and address to send it to my brain file. I have many shortcomings, but I never forget a name, face, or number.

  “Schenectady was the second to last stop Harry Houdini made before Detroit. Did you happen to see him there?”

  “Iss scheisse, juden,” Schmidt said in a growl.

  “Nein, danke. I’m a Universalist. You’re a long ways from home. But so is Herr Becker, nicht wahr?”

  Schmidt merely hissed in disdain.

  “Now I’ll need the other piece of wire.”

  Holmes wrapped it around the man’s ankles. Another twist and Schmidt was hog tied.

  “Can you breathe?”

  The man mumbled something angry.

  “I’ll take that as an affirmative,” Holmes said with a chuckle. “I’m sure this is uncomfortable, but I assure you it won’t last long. We’ll put in a call to the Brooklyn Police to let them know where to find you. We have no issue with you except for your political views and your choice of friends. Mr. Becker is a very evil and dangerous man.”

  Holmes got to his feet. After knocking three times on Rose’s door, he paused, then rapped twice more. Seconds later Rose opened the door to a darkened apartment. When she saw Holmes, she said, “I’m glad you got here. My husband and daughter are in Baltimore. I’m here alone.”

  “I’m very pleased you’re safe. Have you packed yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I suggest we drag our friend into your apartment so we can lock your door. We want to make sure he can breathe but is unable to move. Please take a look and see if his accomplice is still outside. We’ll come back after we’ve dealth with him.”

  Dropping to all fours to the window and peered out. “I don’t see him.”

  Holmes shook his head. “This is very bad, Wiggins. He could be anywhere, and I certainly don’t want to look for him in the dark. I don’t want to give him a chance to become the lion.”

  “I suggest we call the police and let them handle the situation,” I said without hesitation. “The Manhattan police will already have an alert on Becker. Perhaps they can even squeeze some information out of our captive lion.”

  “Lamentably that may be the best solution, as much as I want to pull Herr Becker’s fangs once and for all. Please ring them up, Rose.”

  She did. “They’re sending someone now.”

  “Did you get a good enough look at the man outside to know if it was Becker?”

  “I didn’t see his face,” Rose said, “but I’m quite sure it’s not him. Becker is much heavier.”

  The police arrived ten minutes later. Rose answered their knock, and they stopped in their tracks when they saw our Mr. Schmidt lying on the floor. One officer, wearing a name plate with the word “Perry” on it, knelt to inspect Schmidt’s bonds. Schmidt let out a stream of muffled expletives as he did.

  The officer got to his feet. “What’s going on here?”

  Holmes and Rose looked at each other. With a nod from Holmes, Rose began first. “I got home around four o’clock. When I was entering the building, I happened to notice a man standing across the street smoking. I thought he was waiting for someone and didn’t pay much attention to him. I glanced out the window about an hour later. He was still there.”

  “And half an hour after that, she called me,” Holmes said. “I recently hired her to do some investigative work for me. She told me she’d been subjected to harassment before on occasion, and I didn’t want her to get hurt. My associate and I found this gentleman lurking in the stairwell. He pulled a knife on me, and my friend and I subdued him.”

  The officer pursed his lips, then looked at his partner. The second officer shrugged.

  Things had gotten off to a bad start, and I realized it was my time to step in. “May I speak to you alone in the hallway?”

  “Good idea.”

  After closing the door, I started in with a forceful voice. “I can see you’re confused, but everything we’ve told you is true. The man lying on the floor and the man who was on the street are working for Albert Becker from Detroit. Becker tried to kill my wife and me while we were at the Hudson Theatre tonight.”

  “Who’s Albert Becker?”

  I did my best to give him the revised condensed version of who Becker was and our raid on his mansion. As I spoke, the quizzical look on the officer’s face turned into a frown.

  When I finished, the officer said, “It so
unds to me like Mr. Becker has motive. What does he have to do with the man on the floor?”

  I produced Schmidt’s wallet. Officer Perry glanced at it.

  “I’m certain Schmidt works for Becker. He and the man on the street were trying to kidnap or murder Miss Mackenberg. She’s been threatened before.”

  “How do you know they’re working for Becker?”

  “Schmidt’s associate showed up at our hotel when we arrived this afternoon. He must have followed us from Penn Station. I took him to be a cab driver and didn’t pay much attention to him. I’m fairly sure he found out our room number and discovered we were going to attend a play at the Hudson Theatre tonight. Albert Becker showed up and tried to murder us, and the only way he could have found out we were going there was if Schmidt’s associate told him.”

  The words came out in a torrent. With every word I uttered, the less credible the story sounded to me, and I could even see Holmes and I being arrested instead of Schmidt.

  Officer Perry was no longer frowning when I showed him my press card. “I believe you, but it may be impossible to charge him with a crime. Everything you told me is circumstantial evidence, and very weak by any standards. You say your friend disarmed Schmidt?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m confused. Why did Schmidt surrender so easily?”

  I’m sure I must have blushed. “My associate has a wooden gun.”

  The officer rolled his eyes. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are Schmidt didn’t call your bluff? From what you’ve told me so far, I can’t see he’s committed any provable crime. Owning a knife isn’t illegal. Schmidt might have a case to sue you for unlawful detainment.”

  “Then run a bluff. Tell him you captured Albert Becker, and he confessed to being in a plot involving Schmidt.”

  “That might work, but I’m afraid we’ll most likely have to release him.”

  “I understand. If that’s the case, we don’t want to be here when Schmidt is freed. Would you kindly have one of your officers escort us to our cab? He’s parked two blocks away, waiting for us.”

  Five minutes later Holmes, Rose, and I were on our way to the Roosevelt Hotel.