The Ectoplasmic Man

by Daniel Stashower

  “No? Believe me, it’ll take more than a can of milk to bring this thing down!” Houdini gave what he meant to be a reassuring laugh and continued pushing the craft towards the tower.

  “At least in that case we did not fall very far down. But this... this...” I threw up my hands in despair.

  “Look, John, I’ve flown dozens of times. I broke my arm once, that’s all. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “That is of little comfort, coming from a man who routinely imprisons himself in a tank of water.” I looked over to where Holmes was pushing the other wing. “How is it that you are a party to this madness, Holmes?”

  He glanced over at me. “I’ve flown myself.”

  “What?”

  “Of course. Houdini, hand me the roller, won’t you?” They had by now reached the tall tower, and were pointing the aeroplane down the length of railroad track. As curious as I was about this singular device, I was not to be put off my present line of questioning.

  “Holmes, you’ve flown an aircraft?”

  “Several times.” He had crawled under the wings of the craft, but he continued to address me as though delivering a university lecture. “The necessity of aeroplane travel became obvious from the moment I began this investigation. Proceeding, as I did, from the assumption that Houdini did not commit the Gairstowe burglary, I had to deal with the problem of Herr Kleppini’s apparent ubiquity.”

  “What does that mean, Holmes?” asked Houdini, who was engaged in some adjustment of the engine.

  “It simply means,” Holmes continued from beneath the craft, “that Kleppini could not be in Brighton and in London at the same time. So, if he was responsible for the burglary, he could not very well have performed in Brighton that same evening. Yet, my continued enquires suggested that he had indeed done both things. I was left to conclude that either he had arranged for a substitute to take his place in Brighton, or he had procured a very rapid means of transportation. I quickly discovered that he owned an aeroplane very much like this one.”

  “Hah!” Houdini snorted. “He was probably jealous of mine!”

  “Possibly, or perhaps he recognised the sluggishness of the trains when one must travel from London to Brighton in thirty minutes.”

  “Good Lord, Holmes! Is the aeroplane really that fast?”

  “It is,” he said, rolling out from under the wing. “I have done it myself.”

  “No!”

  “You will recall that I placed you on a train in Victoria and yet managed to reach Brighton in advance of you?”

  “You flew?”

  “Yes. That was my first solo flight. It was positively exhilarating. In fact, you had earlier mistaken my heightened spirits for a return to narcotic use. Terribly mistrustful of you, Doctor.”

  “My apologies, I’m sure; but you will allow that what is exhilarating to you is madness to me. That you, one of the brightest lights of our era, should risk your life at such—”

  “Holmes,” Houdini broke in, pointing to the tower, “we’ll have to add to the drop-weight if we expect to get off the ground.”

  “And there’s another thing,” I cried in exasperation. “What on earth is the purpose of that device?”

  “Ah! Allow me to explain,” said Houdini, happily assuming Holmes’s professorial air. “Like the aeroplane itself, this launching apparatus was designed by the Wright brothers. Americans, you know. The tower you see here hoists this cylinder-weight about forty feet into the air. Then, as it is released, a cable pulls the aeroplane along the railroad track in the opposite direction. The aeroplane gains speed as the weight falls to earth, so that by the time the weight hits the bottom, the plane is moving fast enough to leave the ground.”

  “You make it seem so simple, and yet—”

  “The only problem,” Houdini continued, thoroughly enjoying his role as lecturer, “is that the drop-weight will have to be made heavier to account for the added weight of you and Holmes.”

  “If my weight is such a problem, hadn’t I best stay on the ground?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need you to balance out Holmes. Where is Holmes, anyway? Ah, here he is. He’s found some chains. Just what we need.”

  While the two of them set to wrapping the heavy chains about the drop-weight as Houdini had mentioned, I took the opportunity to examine the aircraft which they so confidently intended to fling into the sky.

  The craft was of a stark and spare design, constructed of little more than wooden spars and panels of fabric. While it had two long continuous wings, one above the other, they were quite delicate in appearance and did little to bolster my enthusiasm. Some thirty feet across, the wings were merely concave frames covered with heavy cloth, connected to each other by numerous wooden supports and steel cables which served only to emphasise their fragility.

  At the centre of the lower wing was a squat wooden seat for the pilot and an ordinary leather-covered automobile steering wheel. No other means of controlling the craft were apparent. Behind the seat was a small petrol engine which served to power a large wooden propeller. This propeller, which faced the rear of the craft, stood nearly as tall as a man.

  Beyond the propeller extended the tail of the craft, a bare frame of wood and criss-crossed struts which stretched for twenty-five feet or so, finally resolving itself into something like a box kite at the far end.

  To the fore of the craft was a short protrusion resembling a whale’s tail, which was connected by two thin cables to the steering wheel.

  My scrutiny of the aircraft, brief though it was, did little to enhance my confidence in its function; and indeed it struck me as rather overly ambitious of this ragtag collection of firewood to aspire to flight.

  In the meanwhile, Holmes and Houdini had secured the heavy chains about the drop-weight, and were now struggling to hoist the weight to the top of the tower by means of a rope pulley.

  “Come and give us a hand, John,” Houdini called as he strained against the heavy weight. “This is usually a job for five men.”

  “But… I…” Watching them toil with the pulley, I was reminded of the ancient hoists used to lift knights in armour onto their horses. While this was a pleasant enough association, it is perhaps some measure of my natural disinclination towards modern aviation. A very real and paralysing fear now gripped me, and I believe that Holmes must have sensed my discomfort, for he addressed me quite civilly despite his maddening struggle with the drop-weight.

  “Watson,” he said, pulling fiercely on the rope, “within the last five minutes our quarry departed in an aircraft very similar to this one. They will head directly for the Channel. If they manage to leave the country, England will never see King George V.” He gave another pull at the rope. “Therefore, I would be very much obliged if you would help us to pull up this weight.”

  With a sigh of resignation, I stepped over to the tower and took my place beside them. “All right, gentlemen,” said I, grasping the rope firmly. “Pull!”

  After a brief but rigorous struggle, we managed to hoist the drop-weight up to the top of the tower, where Houdini secured it with a locking lever.

  “All right then!” the magician cried. “We’re ready to go! John, you and Holmes will have to lie flush across the wings on either side of me. Better balance that way.”

  “Harry… are you sure…?”

  “She’s really something, isn’t she?” He gestured to a panel of fabric upon which his name was printed in bold letters. “Long after the world has forgotten Houdini the magician, they will remember Houdini the aviator!”

  “I only hope she’s as fast as you say,” Holmes commented. “Kleppini is flying a slower model, but we’ve given him nearly five minutes of advantage.”

  “That’s nothing!” Houdini scoffed. “We’ll make it up easy. Come on, John. Up you go.” He stood ready to help me up onto the wing.

  “I’m expected simply to drape myself over the wing? I’ll fall off!”

  “No you won’t,” he assured me, “as long as
you lie in close to the cockpit you’ll be protected from the wind. That’s called the dead space.”

  “Delightful.”

  “Look, if you’ll feel better, here’s something to hang on to.” He snapped a pair of handcuffs onto one of the wing spars. “You can get a good grip on that. Now let’s be off.”

  “All right,” I sighed, climbing onto the lower wing and trying to lay myself as flat across its width as possible. Like a child regretting a foolish dare, I gripped my supports and waited.

  Houdini leapt into the pilot’s seat and gave a signal to Holmes, who spun the huge propeller. The engine started up immediately and the propeller began to turn faster and faster, making an insufferable racket as Holmes climbed onto the other side of the wing. We were now ready for flight.

  Pulling on a leather cap and goggles, Houdini turned to say something to me which was drowned out by the sound of the engine. Seeing that I had not heard, he simply gave a jaunty thumbs-up signal and pulled the cord which released the drop-weight.

  The aeroplane shot forward along the track, bouncing and quaking terrifically as we were thrust towards a grove of trees at the far end of the field. The distance of railroad track cannot have been more than seventy feet, but it might as well have been one hundred miles, for every inch was a torment of buffeting which threatened to shake us loose of the craft. My injured ribs were afire as the very wing upon which I was perched began to bounce up and down alarmingly, and I feared that my ribs or the wing must break at any instant.

  Just when it seemed that we would either wrench ourselves apart or crash into the onrushing trees, there came a final, jarring thump, and then all of the jostling was replaced by the steady vibration of the engine.

  In that moment we were airborne, and in that same moment I had the queer sensation that all the fluid in my body was being drawn out through the heels. I might well have fainted if not for the strong rush of air across my face. Houdini angled the craft sharply upward, narrowly missing the grove of trees at the end of the field, while I wrapped my arms more securely about the wooden cross-spars and pondered locking myself into the handcuffs.

  Only when Houdini brought the aeroplane level, some three hundred feet above the earth, did I summon the courage to look over the front edge of the wing. It was a remarkable sight, a vertical landscape in which tall trees took on the aspect of shrubbery, buildings were like footstools, and all movement took on the distant insignificance of raindrops running down a pane.

  Perhaps I was made giddy by the purer air, but my fascination with this aerial sightseeing so absorbed me that it pushed all thoughts of danger and pursuit from my mind. Indeed, in a few more moments I might have become a flying enthusiast if Houdini’s excited shouts had not broken my enchantment.

  “There they are!” Houdini roared, straining to be heard above the engine. “Their plane isn’t nearly as fast! We’ll catch them in no time at all!”

  The other aircraft, roughly four hundred yards distant, looked like some sort of great gliding pterodactyl. Apart from a perceptible quivering of its wings, Kleppini’s craft looked positively serene, and I wondered if ours — noisy and tremulous as it was — would appear as majestic when seen from their vantage.

  “What did you say, Holmes?” Houdini shouted, pulling off his leather helmet. Whatever Holmes had said was lost to me in the rush of wind and the din of the engine, but Houdini was closer to him and was evidently better able to pick it out.

  “I know,” Houdini responded as Holmes repeated himself, “but outrunning them isn’t good enough! We must find a way to stop them!” He peered off towards the other aircraft. “Maybe we should have left Watson behind after all, we’re too heavy for any manouvering… wait!” he cried, suddenly struck with an inspiration. “Can you really fly this thing, Holmes?”

  Holmes made a reply, and though I still could not hear, I suspect it was indignant.

  “Then come up here and take the control,” Houdini shouted. “Remember, pull in and out to work the elevator, turn the wheel for the rudder. Come on! Change places with me!”

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Don’t! The wind will carry you to your death!” Holmes could not hear me, though I doubt he would have heeded my warning if he had. Limited as my understanding of our craft was, I knew enough to realise that once Holmes left the sheltering dead space of the wing, he laid himself bare to the very forces which kept the plane aloft. I doubted that even he could long withstand them.

  Taking hold of two of the wooden spars, Holmes slowly pulled himself to a standing position on the lower wing. The wind blasted through the folds of his cloak, carrying his deerstalker cap over the edge of the wing. The journey from where he stood to the control was one of only four steps, but each of those steps was a peril of unsteady footing and savage wind, threatening at every moment to carry him overboard. Tentatively making his way inch by inch, handhold by handhold, Holmes managed at length to lay hands on the wheel and lower himself into Houdini’s seat, while the young magician slipped out beneath and took his place on the exposed wing.

  Very little would have surprised me at this point, for I was well convinced that the pair of them had gone insane, but even so I could make no sense of it as Houdini busily fastened a length of rope to two of the sturdier cross-spars. What could he be planning?

  Holmes’s newly acquired aviation skills served him well as he pointed our craft directly towards Kleppini’s and began to overtake it. At the same time, Houdini had lashed his own ankles together with the other end of the rope and, heedless of this impediment, was crawling out to the front edge of the wing on his hands and knees. Despite the dubious precaution of the rope, I feared at every instant that Houdini would be swept off the wing, and twice he was forced to flatten himself against the surface as a particularly bitter gust tore across him. Still he worked doggedly, carrying the rope along the cross-spars for a purpose I could not yet fathom.

  We were by now flying directly over Kleppini’s aircraft, and it was then that Houdini performed one of those rare acts of bravery which, even as it inspires admiration, raises the dark spectre of the Juggernaut. For Houdini rolled his body to the extreme forward edge of the wing, carefully tested the rope about his ankles, and then gently lowered himself off the wing and into empty space.

  Supported only by the one strand of rope around his feet, Houdini spun and swayed like a child’s toy head down in the wind. Undaunted, he lowered himself still further, his body bent double to work hand over hand along the rope. This was the attitude he had devised for his open-air strait-jacket escapes, but I fancy that even that ordeal was pale compared to this. Dangling like a fish on a hook, he might at any moment break free and plummet to the far distant earth.

  Holmes was doing his best to compensate for our now wildly uneven distribution of weight, but even so our craft was listing forward dangerously, so that I had to brace myself more firmly against the supports or be spilled forward off the wing. The forward tilt of the aeroplane left me only too well situated to see that Houdini was now trying to swing himself towards the wing of the craft below. This proved nearly impossible, for though the two aeroplanes were flying almost parallel, Houdini had to contend not only with the violent wind, but also with the unsteady dips and waverings of our imbalanced craft.

  After several maddeningly near misses, Houdini did at last manage to grab hold of the extreme lower edge of Kleppini’s wing. Working with a strength born of desperation, Houdini pulled himself in under the wing and began tearing away at the fabric beneath. It was clear that, like punching a hole in a child’s kite, Houdini intended to cripple the aircraft by ripping through its wing. Of necessity, Houdini was completely taken up with his precarious task, which left him oblivious to a new and more menacing danger.

  Though Kleppini was occupied in flying his aircraft, the large man in the red muffler, our mysterious foe, had spotted Houdini and was inching his way along the wing towards him. I was certain that if he reached the spot where Houdini hung by the slender
cord, my friend’s life would be forfeit.

  I shouted to Holmes, but he could not hear me, and evidently he was so busy trying to keep our aeroplane level that he had not observed the new danger.

  In times of extreme stress, a man’s mind makes peculiar leaps. No sooner had I perceived this new threat to Houdini than I found myself doing precisely what I had thought so parlous only moments before. I released my supports and pulled myself out onto the unsheltered wing of the aeroplane.

  I will not pretend that some previously untapped well of bravery guided my actions, for I literally quaked with fear as I crawled forward, the wind tugging at me, my chest on fire, but I knew that I had either to act or watch Houdini be sent to his death some three hundred feet below.

  Gripping the edge of the wing with one hand, I aimed my revolver as best I could with the other. The man in the red muffler had nearly reached Houdini by now, but the American, still clinging to the underside of the bottom wing, could not even see his attacker crawling along the top.

  Both aeroplanes were now dipping and swaying wildly from imbalance, making careful aim impossible, but as the big man brandished a hunting knife within inches of Houdini’s lifeline, I steadied and fired.

  My bullet did not find its mark, but it must have passed close enough to alarm Houdini’s attacker, for he whirled about, grasping inside his coat for his own revolver. This action proved unwise, for as he took his hand from the support he was shunted over the edge of the inclined wing.

  I shall never forget how he clawed at the air as he fell, how his legs thrashed in the empty space; but soon he was beyond sight, beyond sound and beyond help.

  Twenty

  A SLEIGHT UNSEEN

  In the most extraordinary way, the unfortunate death of the man in the red muffler would soon lead to the successful resolution of our case. If not for his demise, and at precisely the moment and manner in which it occurred, we may never have recovered the Gairstowe letters. This fact, however, was not immediately apparent. My first impression, directly following the hideous incident, was that all of our efforts had been in vain.