Death from Nowhere (26 page)

It worked. Shivara wilted visibly. That had been his last card and Don had trumped it.

Brophy with a bandaged shoulder, Woody, and two other detectives hurried in.

They had handcuffs on Woody and they took Don's prisoner off his hands. Brophy had a good notion to handcuff Don too, but the latter talked fast. “For one thing,” he said, “you know darned well I'd take them right off again. And besides Church wouldn't like it. A lot of water has gone under a lot of bridges since we saw you last. I think we'd better get him.

Diavolo saw a phone on the kitchen wall. He lifted the receiver and put his finger above the dial. “Shivara,” he said calmly. “Church is still down there having your pal boxed up and shipped out. What's the phone number?” Don held his breath as he waited. It was a long chance at best. If Pat and the gunman had merely been told to cruise around and wait, then Shivara would catch wise, or if Church arrived too soon …

The Hindu's sharp eyes probed Don's. A hint of suspicion crept into his glance.

But Brophy tipped the balance. He stepped up to the man and gave him a sharp crack across the face with his good hand. “Talk!” he commanded. “Or do you want me to rough you up? I can do it even with a bum arm and it would be more fun.”

Shivara talked. “Central Park 9-6657.”

Don grinned as he turned to the phone. His fingers flew around the dial. Finally he heard Ugly Face at the other end.

Don's imitation of Shivara's smooth accents was so good it made Brophy jump, wondering if maybe the magician wasn't Shivara's astral double in disguise.

“Bring the girl at once,” Don ordered. “Meet me at Fifth and Seventieth. Hurry!”

He dropped the receiver and turned to Brophy. “Get the idea, Lieutenant? I want a gun and a man or two. I'm going to be waiting for Shivara's pal and take Pat off his hands.”

Brophy had to agree. “It looks like your party,” he said.

Diavolo pointed toward Shivara. “Don't, for Pete's sake, take your gun off that guy for as much as half a minute. You'll regret it.” Then as he went out he told the still puzzled Hindu, “You aren't the only one who has an astral double. My Western imitation magic as you call it can also play at that game.” He indicated Mickey. “This young lady has one too — and a much better-looking one than yours!”

Inspector Church arrived a few moments later, Karl Hartz and a bandaged Dr. Bent with him. The siren of his car was going full blast as he drove up. It expressed the way Church felt. He had heard a story from Ted VanRyn that he did not like at all. He didn't like it because there were big pieces of it that he didn't understand.

Ted VanRyn had told him, first, that he couldn't understand how the report of his death had arisen, that he had, throughout the past year, written letters to Judith Allison regularly. It had not been until a few weeks ago that he had come down out of the desert and discovered that letters from her which he expected to find waiting him at Bombay were not there.

Shivara, he said, was the agent for a Central Asian Fascist party that was gathering forces in northwest India with the intention of taking over India, Turkestan, Tibet and Western China while Britain and the other powers had their hands full with trouble at home.

Other agents, suspecting that he had discovered Alexander's buried hoard, had followed him from India and reported in New York to Shivara. He had lost them en route to the Winfield Hotel but Richards had answered the phone when he had tried to call Miss Allison and, he realized now, had apparently tipped off Shivara. Anyone, having the phone number, could phone back, hear the switchboard girl say “Hotel Winfield” and know where he was.

After his attacker had stabbed him, Delaney had put his head in at the door and gotten knocked out. The Hindu, after that, had left in a hurry and failed to make sure that VanRyn, playing 'possum, was dead. He had taken the dagger.

And VanRyn, so as to avoid being finished off, had had to let him go. But he knew that once they found that the inscription on the dagger was coded, that as soon as they found he was still alive, they would be after him again. He knew that they would stop at nothing, that even a hospital would not be safe.

The only safety — at least until he had recovered enough from his wound to defend himself — lay in vanishing so completely that they could not know for sure that he was alive nor where he was.

He had bandaged his wound with his extra shirt and had managed to escape from the hotel inconspicuously. He had reached a taxi and a refuge at Dr. Bent's before he keeled over.

VanRyn had told Inspector Church all this and then one thing more — one thing that the Inspector knew, as he marched again into the Sayre house, was going to give him gray hairs. But he had no more time to puzzle over it just then.

When he saw Brophy with the gun trained on the subdued Shivara, his eyes popped. He eyed Woody and Mickey and looked around for Don. Failing to see that thorn in his flesh, he bellowed. “Brophy, what has been going on here and where is that magician?”

Lieutenant Brophy told him in detail. He was just finishing when Don returned, bringing Pat and a thoroughly sat-upon gunman, securely handcuffed.

Church had never before seen Pat and Mickey side by side without the brunette wig that one of the girls customarily wore to conceal their likeness from the public eye.

He choked. “Have you — have you gone in for astral doubles too?”

Don grinned at him cheerfully. “Sure. Why not? I had to meet Shivara's competition. I hated to let you in on the secret of the twins, but Pat was in a tough spot. Inspector, meet her sister Mickey.”

It was Brophy who spoke up then as he got a good look at the handcuffed prisoner. “Well! Well!” he said. “My old friend Monk Schneyder, the best second-story man in the business. I'm glad to see you on a couple of counts. You'll get ten years for each of them.”

And Mickey recognized Monk too. “That's our burglar!” she exclaimed. “The man who was listening in our upper hall this afternoon and who jumped out the window on to Detective O'Hearn!”

“Good,” Don said. “That explains the first of Mr. Siddahshivara's little parlor tricks. The secret is simple now. Monk here followed Sayre and Richards this afternoon when they came to take up my ten thousand dollar challenge. Then, on orders from Shivara, Monk did a little eavesdropping. He reported back to his boss what he heard and who we were. And Shivara, when we arrived, had no trouble at all in penetrating our aliases. Concentration of the mind, my eye!”

Inspector Church looked at Diavolo with a faint hope in his eyes. “That explains
the first
of his parlor tricks,” he repeated. “You sound awfully cocky. Maybe you can explain a couple more of them?”

The Inspector got his wish. Diavolo replied, “Yes, I think maybe I can. It's about time I rolled up my sleeves and took some rabbits out of the old hat of a sort that will keep Sayre from collecting my ten thousand dollars. I need it worse than he does. Shivara made a brass poker move without visible cause, he projected a thought-image or astral double of himself, and he faded into invisibility in front of the Inspector. Good tricks, all of them, but still tricks. And I think I can duplicate them.”

Don Diavolo bowed as if he were beginning his routine of streamlined sorcery on the stage of the Manhattan Music Hall. Then he made a mystic pass before the Inspector and intoned, “
Om vajra guru padma siddhi hum!
”

Church scowled, “What the hell is this?”

Don ignored him. “Inspector,” he said. “Watch my feet. I am going to float in midair. I am rising now slowly. There is an inch of space between my feet and the floor. I float higher, higher. There is a foot of space—”

Church interrupted. “Are you completely crazy?”

Don, whose feet were still solidly on the floor, merely said, “Oh. Then it doesn't last indefinitely. The effect has worn off.” Before Church could stop him he had turned and hurried into the library.

He came back a second later carrying the water carafe from Sayre's desk and a glass. He poured out a glass of water. “Inspector,” he said. “Drink this.” Church looked at it. “I will not. How do I know what you've put in it?” “I've put nothing in it,” Don insisted. “You drank some before, when you were in there questioning Shivara just before he vanished. It's the same stuff now. Here, Pat. You've let me saw you in two and chop off your head. You trust me. Drink it and show Church there's no cyanide in it.”

Pat took the glass and drained it. Then Diavolo poured another. He offered it again to the Inspector. “You'll miss the show if you don't.”

Church hesitated, but his curiosity won. He followed Pat's example.

Then Don talked rapidly, his words coming in a long monotonous stream. It reminded Woody of the way Shivara had talked at dinner.

“Shivara told us,” he said, “that the concentrated power of thought was the only force he used, that mind is everything. And he
was
telling the truth, or most of it. His magic is a magic of the mind. And it is not new, but old. He has, however, discovered a means of removing the uncertainty, of boosting the percentage of success to one hundred per cent. I'm surprised that the miracles he showed us were not more astonishing.”

As he talked Don watched Church and Pat closely. Finally, he saw what he waited for. A slight glazing of the eyes, a steady, almost winkless stare.

Then his patter changed. “Inspector,” he said, “and Pat. You will listen closely to what I say; you will see what I tell you to see. You sleep now, but when you awake and when you hear the words
Om vajra guru padma siddhi hum
, you will listen to my voice, and will see what I tell you to see; but you will not remember afterward that I spoke, nor that I told you what to see!”

Don repeated that command in those same words half a dozen times, his voice compelling and hypnotic. Brophy, Sayre, Judith, Bent, Woody, Mickey and the detectives watched him curiously. Shivara scowled. Church and Pat watched him with a steadiness and fascination of gaze that was abnormal.

Don clapped his hands once and commanded, “Awake!”

Church and Pat relaxed. The stiff rigidity of body and the fascinated stare with which they had watched the magician melted. It was as if two statues had returned to life.
15

Then, once again Don used Shivara's mystic Buddhist formula. “Beside me,” Diavolo said, “you see a misty form appearing in the air, a form that grows stronger as you watch, and gradually takes shape. It is an image of myself, a twin, a second Diavolo. It moves and bows.”

The Inspector's face was gray. Pat took a step back. They were watching the empty air at Don's left. The other watchers saw nothing.

Don's voice went on. “When I count three the phantom vanishes. One. Two. Three!” Church and Pat turned their eyes suddenly back to Diavolo.

That would have been enough, but he gave them still more. At last Don had the chance to present the trick that all magicians dream of, the trick for which India is famous.

“Chan,” he said. “There's a coil of rope on the floor beside you. Give it to Pat.”

Chan had seen a hypnotic performance before. He stooped and pretended to lift the imaginary coil of rope. He went forward and held his hands out to Pat.

She took the invisible rope from him and examined it interestedly. It was obvious to the watchers that Pat was convinced she held a real rope. The fact was plain in every movement of her hands.

Then Don asked for it and she gave it to him. He pantomimed the motions of tossing one end in the air, describing each action as he made it, telling Church and Pat what they were to see, placing the hallucination in their minds by suggestion. Church and Pat thought they saw the rope go up and remain standing on end in midair.

“Chan,” Don continued, “could now climb the rope and vanish in midair, but I think that's enough. The performance is over. The rope is slowly fading away, until now it vanishes completely. Like it, Inspector?”

He grinned.

“No,” Church said, “I don't. What have you done? What—”

“Take it easy,” Don cautioned. “Ask Brophy what he saw.”

Church threw Brophy an inquiring look. And the Lieutenant answered. “I didn't see a damned thing, Inspector. What was in that water?”

“A drug, Brophy — one of the hypnotics,” Don said. “We'll have it analyzed.”

That statement was Don's mistake. The two dicks on either side of Shivara were too engrossed in Don's performance. They hadn't quite understood it yet, and, to them, it seemed that Inspector Church must have gone completely off his rocker. While they stared, Shivara made a sudden leap forward, reached the water carafe with his steel-linked hands, and quickly dumped the remaining contents. Don grabbed for him too late.

Shivara's old smile was back again. “No,” he said. “I think not. That secret remains with me.”

Don said, “I'm not so sure, Shivara, I'm afraid you may have been too late.”

The detectives hauled Shivara back in to line. Inspector Church caught Don's arm. “Dammit! Am I drunk? What … what … what—”

“You've been seeing things that weren't there,” Don explained rapidly. “Shivara's miracles were all hallucinations, post-hypnotically produced; There are drugs which aid the production of a hypnotic state. Potassium bromide is one. Somewhere in the East, among the Tibetan lamas, I suspect, Shivara has come upon a drug or a combination of drugs that induces 100 per cent suggestibility. It allows him to hypnotize anyone without his or her consent. For the science of medicine that discovery can be of vast value. It's a more important discovery than all of Alexander's gold. But Shivara has been using it as a weapon. He—”

Church had had too much. “
Hypnotism!
” he bellowed. “No. I won't take it. I've seen hypnotic acts on the stage. They use a lot of stooges. How you made that rope go up in the air, I don't know, but—”