The Ectoplasmic Man

by Daniel Stashower

  Fifteen

  ON THE BRIGHTON LINE

  “Holmes, this really is too much,” I said, as we boarded the train to London. “Your capacity for disguise grows more remarkable all the time.”

  “Yes, this is rather a good one,” he chuckled, leading me into a private compartment in the forward car, “but I wasn’t certain just how good until I saw how completely shocked you were to see me.”

  “It is astonishing! And all the time I sat wondering if that old sailor could be you.”

  “No, Watson, when you see a man whose hook is of the same length as his hand, you may be sure that it is not the trapping of a disguise.”

  “But your age, how did you manage to appear so young?”

  “Well, as you can see, there was very little of my true self involved.” This was true enough, for as he spoke Holmes began to remove layer after layer of make-up, wax, and gauze paddings, all of which contributed in one way or another to his youthful appearance. “And I’m sorry to say that to a gentleman of your advanced years, anyone walking without a pronounced stoop gives the impression of youth.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true,” I allowed, “and yet, the disguise fooled the others.”

  “Actually not, Watson. Deceiving Herr Kleppini was my only concern. The girl and the sailor were in my employ.”

  “What! Then the sailor’s remarks — the girl’s attentions towards me—?”

  “Fear not, old boy. No doubt the young lady would inevitably have succumbed to your attractions, even without my prodding. As for the sailor, Wooden Jack, yes, his actions were entirely of my own devising. It was necessary that the entire scene be carefully orchestrated beforehand. I thought it played out rather well, don’t you?”

  “But — I—” Vainly I sought to make sense of what had passed, but I could find no logic to what Holmes was telling me. “You must explain all of this from the beginning,” I said. “How did you manage to arrive in Brighton before me? I saw you walk away from the platform, and mine was the last train down this afternoon. Did you hire a special?”

  “You might say that,” he answered, dabbing at the remaining traces of make-up with a coarse towel. “Now, Watson, we have precisely sixty-seven minutes left before reaching London. I shall endeavour in that time to explain the matter fully.” He felt about in his pockets for a pipe, though apparently he had not thought to include one in his commercial traveller’s attire. I offered a cigar. “Thank you,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “Very well. As you yourself have asserted, Watson, it has become necessary to conclude this investigation as quickly as can be managed. I have hourly wires from Lord O’Neill apprising me of recent Anglo-Germanic communications. They have a grim tenor, Watson, very grim indeed. It is only a question of a day or so before Houdini is thrown to the wolves, merely to appease the High Court of Cologne.”

  “This is terrible!” I cried.

  “Quite,” Holmes agreed. “Therefore, a precipitous course of action was indicated. While I would most assuredly have discovered the true particulars of the plot in my own fashion, that may have taken as many as four more days. I find that we do not have that much time.”

  “That is clear enough,” I said, “but I don’t see how our exploit in Brighton can possibly bring about a swifter conclusion to the case.”

  “My good fellow, the case will be solved by morning!”

  “By morning! But how?”

  “Allow me,” he said, reaching over to pull down the window coverings which separated our compartment from the passageway. “We are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us return to our parting in Victoria. You will recall asking how I could be so certain that the Gairstowe letters had not already been applied to whatever blackmail or scandal motivated their theft. This was an extremely sound question, Watson. I replied that Lord O’Neill had discovered a letter which discredited the others, shielding the prince against any foul play.”

  I recalled with shame how I had blurted out this information to Kleppini, inflicting untold damage upon the careful plans of Holmes. “I’m terribly sorry, Holmes, I know I have—”

  Holmes held up his hand. “Not a word, Watson. You must hear all of this.” He dabbed at the last remnant of make-up on his face with a pocket square. “I chose to answer your question by telling you of this letter, and in doing so I provided a comfortable safeguard against our possible failure to recover the letters. Had I been telling the truth, this safeguard would have granted us the leisure to conduct our investigation properly. As it happens—”

  “You lied?”

  “Shamefully. There is no such letter at Gairstowe. All of the papers were stolen, and they could at any moment bring disgrace and ruin to the future sovereign of England.”

  “This is horrible!” I cried. “But if this is the case, what was the purpose of telling me otherwise?”

  So that you would believe it to be true.”

  “Holmes, don’t talk in circles! If I have been deceived I deserve an explanation!”

  “I am trying to provide one,” he said quietly. “I wished you to believe that this document existed so that you would tell as much to Kleppini.”

  “Then... then...” At last I began to perceive that I had been the unwitting object of an exceedingly devious manipulation. “How could you have known that I would divulge the information to Kleppini? I am not by nature a gossip.”

  “No, you are not,” Holmes agreed. “But from the moment you entered Kleppini’s booth, every word uttered by myself, the girl and Wooden Jack was calculated to produce your outburst.”

  “You — then all of the indignities I have borne were contrivances of your own?”

  “Yes,” Holmes said with a merry chuckle. “You must forgive me, but it really is quite amusing. I knew that only an extreme personal affront would cause you to betray my confidence, and the simplest way to affront you proved to be a test of your loyalty to me!” He sank back against the seat, laughing heartily. “Quite ironic, is it not?”

  I regarded him for some moments in cold silence, my anger building as his laughter subsided into a series of contented chuckles. “Holmes,” I said at length, “I do not see the mirth in all this. You have flouted my loyalty to you, engineered a public humiliation, and what is more, you seem to find all of it marvellously entertaining!”

  “My dear fellow!” cried Holmes, seeing at last that I was deeply offended. “Pray forgive me! I assumed that you would understand, once you saw how—”

  “I understand nothing,” I returned, cutting short his excuses, “save that my feelings are beneath your notice. I am less a friend than a chess piece to you, Holmes!”

  “Watson—!”

  “If you had wanted Kleppini to know about this new letter, you could very simply have told me the truth! I’d have played along with your gambit as well as the girl or the sailor! But instead you chose to make a mockery of my years of faithful companionship!”

  “Watson, you must allow me—!”

  “I’m having none of it, Holmes!” I shouted, turning away from him to control my outburst. “Do not try to explain,” I said, composing myself with great effort. “The facts are plain enough. I see that our association is no longer of use to you, Holmes. Perhaps I had best end it here.”

  Seldom have any words of mine produced such a marked effect on Sherlock Holmes. He could not have seemed more shocked if I had threatened to throw him off the train. In truth, his surprise and apparent contrition caused me a great deal of satisfaction, but for the time I contented myself to look stoically out of our compartment window, leaving him to his thoughts.

  How long we sat in silence I cannot say, but when Holmes spoke again his jocular tone had been entirely replaced by one of earnest conviction. “Watson,” he said, not meeting my eye, “for more than twenty years I have been honoured by your friendship, yet in all that time I can recall little which I have done to earn it. Having few emotions myself, I tend to disregard those of others, save as a means to a logical end. My dece
ption this afternoon was just such a means, Watson. Yes, it is true that I took the girl and Wooden Jack into my confidence, but the burden of convincing Kleppini of the new letter did not rest with them, it rested with you. You are not an actor, Watson. I required that your conviction be fuelled by actual belief. That is why I misled you. In doing so I have wounded you deeply. I can do nothing more than offer my apologies. Once the case is solved and the full implication of what I have done is known to you, I am sure you will forgive me.”

  “Meaning to say that I deserve no further explanation until then?”

  “I have no explanation to give! The case is not yet solved!”

  “But surely you have a theory?”

  “It is pure speculation. As you have often heard me say, it is a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts. This case is such that I haven’t had time to gather all of the facts. Accordingly, I was forced to take the measures which you have found so offensive.”

  “But what good will come of it? You must tell me that much.”

  “Very well,” he said with a sigh, “I shall try to explain everything so far as I have determined, but you shall have to forgive me where I will inevitably be proven wrong.”

  “I shall bear that in mind for posterity,” I said drily.

  “I’m certain that you shall,” Holmes said. “Now, you recall that when I asked you to come to Brighton it was to observe whether or not a substitute could have taken Kleppini’s place at one of his seances, allowing the real Kleppini time to return from London before he was missed.”

  “But this was a ruse to cause me to reveal the existence of the safeguard letter.”

  “Actually, I had both aims in mind. And now that you have attended Kleppini’s reading, what do you conclude about the man himself?”

  “Well,” I began, recalling what I had supposed was the purpose of my journey to Brighton, “I saw nothing at the reading that bespoke any great skill or talent.”

  “Precisely so,” Holmes agreed.

  “Though I didn’t see him attempt any conjuring tricks or escapes, his manner hardly supports the notion that he is a serious rival of Houdini.”

  “I entirely agree. The man is no match for Houdini. Which leads me to wonder how he can so very nearly be a match for me!”

  “What can you mean?”

  “The problem before us is as subtle and carefully devised as any I have seen. I’ve not encountered such a devious turn of mind since the death of the professor. I cannot believe that Herr Kleppini is capable of such a crime.”

  “What? Then you do not believe that Kleppini is the villain?”

  “Oh, he is guilty of the theft, surely. And he may have had a hand in the murder. But Kleppini was merely the agent of the crime, not the mind behind it. There is another, much cleverer man at work than he. Someone who has gained cognisance of the daily routine at Gairstowe, and of the peculiar quirks of our new acquaintance Houdini. Our man is capable of planning the inspired breach of the Gairstowe vault, and of the brutal murder of the Countess Valenka. Does that sound to you like Herr Kleppini and his ’spotted lizard of destiny’?”

  I agreed that it did not.

  “So, there is someone in the shadows, someone who must be brought to light through the series of events which we have just set in motion. By morning we shall have him!”

  “So you have said, but I still don’t see how our debacle in Brighton can possibly lead to the criminal’s capture.”

  “It will, Watson, it will. First, as soon as we arrive at Victoria, I will go to Baker Street and rid myself of these clothes. You must go directly to Scotland Yard. There you will tell Houdini that the pleasure of his company is requested by Sherlock Holmes.”

  “But he is locked in a cell!”

  “He will not be for long, unless I am very much mistaken. Take these tools, though I doubt he’ll need them.”

  “But Holmes! You did not see him! He was thoroughly bound and chained, even he cannot escape from such restraints!”

  “Did he not say that he could?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Watson, Houdini may be a braggart, but I do not think he is an idle one.”

  I thoght of Houdini, helpless in his steel and leather cocoon, and prayed that Holmes’s confidence would not be disappointed. “Suppose Houdini is able to escape,” I asked, “what then?”

  “The two of you will meet me at the gate of Gairstowe House. With Houdini’s aid, we will break into the Gairstowe vault, just as Kleppini must have done on the night of the crime, and just as he will have to do again this evening.”

  “Again this evening! What do you mean by that?”

  “You yourself have just told Kleppini that a document exists which renders those he stole useless. Even as we speak, he is contacting his mysterious employer with this unsettling bit of information. They will have but one recourse. They will have to steal the document in order to protect their plan.”

  “But there is no such document!”

  “They do not know that.”

  “I see,” I said admiringly. “And when they break in—?” “We will be waiting.”

  “Will we get both of them, Kleppini and the mastermind?”

  “I believe the theft will require both of them. Perhaps now you understand why it was necessary to deceive you as I did. We are forcing their hand, my friend.” Our train thundered across the rail bridge, moments from Victoria. “The final card has now been played. Now, Watson” — his voice was hushed, but his grey eyes gleamed with an inner fire — “now, truly, the game is afoot!”

  Sixteen

  HOUDINI UNBOUND

  I had no great difficulty gaining readmittance to the Scotland Yard gaol that evening, nor was the guard at all reluctant to leave me unattended outside of Houdini’s cell. “That bloke ain’t going nowhere,” said the guard with a laugh, leaving us alone in the empty block of cells.

  Peering through the small barred window in the door of Houdini’s cell, I found the magician bound as securely as ever and looking, if possible, even more dispirited and piteous than when I had left him. His was a face heavy with affliction; but seeing me, the faintest glimmer of hope ignited in his doleful eyes — an unspoken query to which I responded with only the barest nod of my head. Immediately Houdini’s face — indeed his very form, trammelled as it was — seemed to flare with energy, as though the very thought of freedom had rekindled his still indomitable spirit. With a grateful sigh, Houdini closed his eyes, tilted his head back in deepest concentration, and there then began the most remarkable sequence of human exertions I have ever witnessed.

  I have been told since that I am the only man who ever saw Houdini escape from a prison cell. This is to be regretted, for none of his public feats, remarkable though they were, can have matched the sheer drama and exhilaration of that solitary struggle at Scotland Yard. Thinking on the scene now, I realise that the studied grandeur and careful suspense of Houdini’s stage performances were as nothing to the unembellished rigour of the challenges he met alone. If ever his skill, knowledge and strength were truly tested in all their individual and collective applications, it was not on some bright stage with his practised mannerisms and gilt properties, but there in that dank, cheerless prison. There he seemed to confront not only his physical constraints, but also the more formidable onus of personal vindication.

  It began slowly enough, as Houdini sat straining his shoulders in a rhythmic motion against the layered bonds, the very motion which I had earlier mistaken for an effort to relax his muscles. “I’m trying to get some slack in these straps,” he explained. “I don’t need much, but it’s very difficult. I’m completely wrapped in canvas under all of this. They must have thought the canvas would make it harder on me, but actually it will help me to use the slack I get up here in other places. All I need is to be able to move my arm an inch or two.”

  “I see,” I said, in what I hoped was an encouraging tone, “and this movement will help you obtain that slack?”<
br />
  “Let’s hope so, Doctor,” Houdini said with a wan smile, casually up-ending his chair with his feet so that it crashed over with painful force.

  “Mr Houdini!” I cried, gripping the barred window which separated us. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not at all, Doctor,” said he, still strapped into the chair which now lay on its side. “And please call me Harry.”

  “And you must call me John,” I said, watching with open-mouthed fascination as Houdini’s left arm began the most peculiar twists and undulations beneath its heavy bonds.

  “If I can — just — slip off this one loop of chain—” Houdini’s voice came in taut gasps of effort. “That’s all — I need — there!” he cried, as a small section of chain slipped over the arm of the chair. “That’s the first step.”

  “Excellent!” I cried, though exactly what he thought he had gained was not clear to me. The one small loop of chain seemed a rather minute victory in the face of his complete cincture.

  “You see, John,” Houdini explained, his head resting on the floor, “my legs are absolutely immobile. But I’ve given myself some slack, just enough so that I might be able to work my foot through some of these chains and straps.”

  Houdini began to twist and turn his leg, straining against the bonds which held it to the leg of the chair. The movement was so slight and so restricted that it was impossible to detect any progress. “I think — I’m getting some movement,” he said through clenched teeth, sweat dampening his brow. “Very — difficult, though.”

  I watched in horror as a steel chain drawn tight about his calf raked his flesh even through the layer of canvas, causing slashes of blood to seep through the material. “Just — a little more,” he gasped, fighting back what must have been terrible pain. “There now,” came a long sigh. “A moment to regain my strength, and then on to step two.”

  “What is step two?” I asked, a little fearfully. Houdini did not reply. Again he closed his eyes, and then, with a desperate, convulsive strength, he began to buck and strain at the chair itself, trying, hopelessly, it appeared, to wrench his body into a tight ball even against the bonds which held him. It seemed to me that Houdini was determined to burst the constraints by sheer force of his muscles. On and on he strained, with a violence that rent the very air about him, until, with a crack that was barely audible above the groans of his labours, one leg of the chair gave way, allowing Houdini a precious bit of leverage. With a massive, final effort, Houdini twisted his body double, splintering the heavy wooden chair into a dozen fragments.