Death from Nowhere (22 page)

“The Road of the Three Flowers, Shahjahanpur, India.”

Richards arrived then, just as the Inspector seemed on the verge of bursting with the sort of dull thunderous roar that Boulder Dam might make if it suddenly gave way.

“Richards! This man is an Inspector of Police. He insists on asking some questions. You will take the whole conversation down in shorthand and type it out for submission to my lawyers.”

Richards jumpily produced a notebook and pen. He threw a nervous, frightened look at the Inspector and then lowered his head above his notebook and made a few experimental scrawls with his pen.

The Inspector took one look at Richards, started to fire another query at the Hindu, stopped, looked at Richards again, and appeared to go into a sort of trance. He brought himself out of it after a moment, shook his head in a dazed fashion, and returned his attention to Shivara.

“India,” he growled. “Did you ever meet a man out there named T.G. Alexander?”

For the first time, Don thought, Shivara gave the impression of being just a wee bit off-balance. He took a gold-tipped cigarette from a thin silver case and regarded it thoughtfully for a second before he spoke.

“Alexander? No I don't believe so.”

“How well did you know Theodore VanRyn?”

Judith Allison was suddenly on her feet, her eyes cold and angry.

Shivara answered, “The name is a strange one.”

The Inspector's look flicked sideways toward Judith for a moment, then centered again on the Hindu. “Where were you at two-thirty this afternoon?”

Shivara's eyes were on Don Diavolo as he answered. “I was here, in this house, with Mr. Sayre.”

Church looked across at Sayre. The latter said, “Yes. Mr. Shivara was with me at that time. Why did you speak of Theodore VanRyn? What—”

The Inspector turned to Miss Allison. “
You
have heard the name, I think?”

Judith nodded. Her voice was little more than a whisper. “Yes.”

“Would it surprise you to know that he was here in New York this morning?”

That was apparently just a little more than Mr. Shivara's inscrutable calm could withstand. Don Diavolo saw the tiny jump that he gave. Nicholas Sayre and Dr. Bent stared wide-eyed at the Inspector. Don was sure he detected a hesitant tremor in the hand that held Richards' pen.

Judith Allison's face was white. “I don't understand,” she said faintly. “Ted died a year ago.”

“I'm sorry,” Church replied. “But I am not so sure of that. I think he died at two-thirty this afternoon in the Winfield Hotel on Thirty-fifth Street.”

The girl swayed on her feet, then fell forward.

Dr. Conrad Bent took a quick step and caught her in his arms.

He glared at the Inspector wordlessly. Then he lifted the girl's limp body in his arms and said, “Get out of my way!” Church got. Bent went out, through the hall and up the stairs.

“Inspector,” Don said, “I do wish you wouldn't blunder around like a herd of elephants running amok. Perhaps, if you'd just take it slow and easy and ask—”

Church's voice rose above Don's, growling, “When I want your advice I'll ask … what's
that?
”

Diavolo repeated the latter part of his sentence. “If you'll ask Mr. Shivara where his astral double was at two-thirty, you might get even more interesting results.”

“His astral—” Church closed his eyes and braced himself for the shock he knew was coming.

Don Diavolo was dealing cards from up his sleeve again and the Inspector, from past experience, knew that he was not going to like any part of it. “His astral double?” he finished. “Okay. Let's have it. What is an astral—”

“Mr. Shivara,” Don said slowly, “would seem to need more than one alibi. Just before you arrived, Inspector, he was busily demonstrating that he has the very curious ability to be in two places at once!”

The look that Shivara sent across the room at Diavolo was as thoroughly venomous as the tongue of a cobra.

C
HAPTER
IX

Murder by Magic

A
FTER
one brief horrible moment in which nightmare shapes crawled out from the dark recesses of his mind to leer and gibber and make impudent faces, Inspector Church pulled himself together and put his foot down with a bang.

He wheeled, strode to the door, and returned with Lieutenant Brophy. He announced in thunderous official tones that he'd had all the nonsense he was going to put up with; that, starting now,
he'd
ask the questions and no one else: that he'd hear the answers and any suggestions that anyone (he gave Don an angry glance) wanted to make; and, finally, that the lieutenant would place under immediate arrest the first person who disobeyed those orders.

“Something damn funny has been going on around here and I'm going to find out what,” he finished. Then he faced Nicholas Sayre. “Where can I interview these people one at a time?”

Sayre gave him a long look as if he were debating whether or not to tell the Inspector to go jump in the lake. Then he gave in and indicated a door across the hall. “The library,” he said. “You may have that. Richards! Phone my lawyer. Tell him to come over here immediately!”

Richards jumped to his feet, dropped his notebook, stooped hurriedly and gathered it up, and then started out, half running.

Church's voice pulled him to a stop. “Just a minute! There's a phone in the library, isn't there, Mr. Sayre?”

Nicholas nodded.

“He can phone from there, then,” Church said. “I think I want to question Mr. Richards first.”

The Inspector and the secretary vanished behind the library door. The group they left behind them waited in uneasy silence. Lieutenant Brophy hovered over them with a grim determined air.

Nicholas Sayre sat down heavily and proceeded to give a lifelike imitation of a kettle coming to a boil. Mr. Shivara moved across to the tall window that looked out on Fifth Avenue and stood there looking out. He still retained some portion of his studied calm but it fell short of its usual perfection. The puffs he took at the long cigarette were angry, nervous ones, and he smiled no more.

Woody Haines crossed to where Diavolo stood and asked, “Got a light?”

The magician produced a match and held it to Woody's cigarette. In a low whisper the reporter said, “The Hindu's stunt. What was it? Twins and a secret opening in that fireplace behind him?”

Don shook his head. “No. I'm afraid not. And it wasn't mirrors either.”

“Then what the hell was it?”

Don Diavolo looked at the match he held. It snuffed itself out with no apparent cause. “That,” he said, “is what we've got to find out.”

Woody lifted an eyebrow. “You don't mean to tell me that the Great Don Diavolo doesn't know?”

Slowly Don said, “There's only one way to do what he did — and it's impossible! Go sit down and stop bothering me. I need to think.”

“What I need,” Woody said, sitting down, “is a drink.”

“What you'll get,” Brophy cut in heavily, “is a trip to headquarters in the wagon. Shut up!”

Ten minutes passed and then Richards came from the door across the hall.

Church's voice followed him out. “Brophy,” it said. “Bring Sayre.”

The lieutenant took him.

And then Don said quickly: “Woody! Richards went off down the hall. I'll bet the Inspector told him to come back here. Get behind that door over there and when Brophy comes in again, duck out and tail Richards. I'll keep Brophy's attention.”

Woody hesitated. The last time he had run errands for Don on the scene of a murder investigation, he had ended up behind bars. He had sworn he wasn't going to be caught sticking his neck out like that again. And now, with the Inspector howling like a Kansas tornado, and even Lieutenant Brophy whistling around their ears like a three-quarter gale, he wasn't so sure that this was just the time to …

Don's whisper was commanding. “Quick!”

Woody's ever-present desire for a scoop overcame his better judgment. He streaked across the room and flattened himself against the wall to the right of the door. Don threw a nervous glance at Shivara and hoped that that gentleman wouldn't break it up too soon. He still faced the window staring inscrutably into the outer dark.

As Brophy turned and came back, a deck of playing cards appeared in the magician's hands. He leaned forward toward the high wing-backed chair where Woody had been sitting. Its back was toward Brophy. He fanned the cards with a smooth expert gesture and said, “Take one. Thank you. Now remember it and return it.”

Don straightened and went forward to meet the lieutenant. “And will you—”

Brophy grunted. “I will not!”

Out of the corner of his eye Don saw the reporter slip out of the room and vanish in the hall.

Don shrugged at Brophy, held up his hand, and let the cards cascade to the floor — all but one. Then, over his shoulder, he addressed the wing-back chair.

“Your card, Woody, was—?”

And Woody's voice, sent there by Don's expert ventriloquism, came back, “The queen of spades.”

Don let the queen of spades flutter to the floor and then, reaching into thin air, produced a fan of cards at his fingertips. He reached again, and then again, until he had a full deck.

With that he swiftly proceeded to run through a bewildering and expert routine of card juggling. The cards swished through the air from hand to hand in a long stream. They were laid out in a long row along his arm which suddenly dropped from beneath, moved back and shot forward again scooping the cards from the air as they fell. Waterfall shuffles succeeded one-handed shuffles.

The card on the deck's face changed from a ten spot to a six to a deuce and then became blank. The backs of all the cards in the deck changed from blue to red and back again. More cards appeared from nowhere.

Brophy couldn't help himself. He scowled at this pyrotechnical display of smooth, expert conjuring with a wary but fascinated eye.

Shivara, at the window, had turned to watch. He did not appear to notice Woody's absence. Don's nimble-finger prestidigitation rose to new heights of attention-compelling skill.

Inspector Church didn't question Nicholas Sayre long. He found out that the mysterious Mr. Shivara had appeared out of nowhere two weeks before and introduced himself to Sayre because of the latter's absorbing interest in Oriental occultism; he learned that Sayre was positive that Shivara had been with him every minute of the time from two
P.M.
until shortly before Sayre and Richards had left to call on Don Diavolo: he discovered that Sayre was the man who had supplied the financial backing for Theodore VanRyn's archeological trip into the East.

But when the millionaire got started on the subject of Indian and Tibetan sorcery and admitted that it was quite possible that Shivara, because of his power to project a
tulpa
of himself, could have been both with Sayre and at the Winfield Hotel at one and the same time, Church called a halt.

Sayre, in his opinion, had a large flock of bats swarming in his belfry and was thus not a creditable witness in the matter of Mr. Shivara's whereabouts at any time. Furthermore, the Inspector was anxious to get his hooks into the Hindu and take him efficiently over the bumps.

He dismissed Sayre, came out with him across the hall, and scowled with annoyance as he saw the act Don was putting on for Brophy. “Lieutenant,” he ordered, “take those cards away from him and fire them out of a window!”

Then he turned toward Shivara and, in the manner of a spider speaking to a fly, said, “You next.”

He waited in the door as Shivara came toward him. Suddenly he gave a small, surprised grunt, his eyebrows shot upward and he barked, “Brophy, where the hell is Richards?”

The lieutenant blinked and started to say, “But he didn't … I thought—”

Then, from down the hall, beyond the Inspector and to his right, an answer came — an answer to the Inspector's question that struck with whirlwind force and, as the words faded, left behind a silence that was like that of interstellar space.

The voice was Woody's, but so changed and shaken that it might have been that of a ghost.

It said, “Richards is here. He's dead!”

Time ticked on, a dull, flat, wasted interval in which nothing moved and no sound came. Then, all at once, as if animated by the same crackling electric shock, the transfixed figures of the wax tableau jerked into life.

Inspector Church whirled to face the hall; Brophy and Don Diavolo plunged toward him.

Down the hall they saw tall double doors, one of them half open. Woody Haines stood there facing them, his hand still on the doorknob. His face was white; forehead streaked with damp.

He moved back, leaning against the door, and swung it further in as they approached.

In the dim room beyond, a tall bronze statue of the Buddha towered, its slant eyes gazing from half lowered lids downward at the still figure on the floor — and beyond it toward some distant and ultimate Nirvana.

Richards sprawled face down before the sculptured prophet as if engrossed in the weird and secret rites of some unknown worship.

The yellow shaft of a dagger projected from between his shoulder blades and the bright warm pool of red that lay around him still grew.…

C
HAPTER
X

The Dagger of Darius

T
HE
Homicide Squad had never worked in stranger surroundings. The photographer's flash bulbs flared against the richly intricate patterns of cashmere hangings and the glowing color harmonies of XVIII Century Rajput paintings that covered the walls.

Hulking, big-shouldered men with Irish names leaned against the exhibition cases that contained the rarest of Ming dynasty porcelains, bronze libation cups from the Palace of Heaven, silver girdle-chains that had been worn by Indian princesses in the days when Asoka reigned, jade necklaces of holy beads.