Harry Houdini Mysteries (19 page)

“Sterling,” said Dr. Wells, “a man has been murdered. It is only right that the police should ask questions.”

“But I wasn’t there, I tell you! How am I supposed to know anything about it?”

Harry’s ears had pricked up during this exchange. “You say you weren’t in the house?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Foster said. “I have my own rooms across the street.”

“Can anyone confirm that you were there at the time?”

Foster wheeled around, sloshing a measure of tea onto the arm of his chair. “See here, young man! I’ve just answered a full slate of questions for the police! If you think I’m going to explain myself to you, you’ve got another thing coming!”

“Calm down, Sterling,” said Dr. Wells. “We’re all rattled by what’s happened. We’re trying to understand how such a thing could have occurred.”

“I was in my rooms,” said Foster pointedly. “Across the green. Even if I hadn’t been, how could I have had anything to do with this thing? You were all locked away in the study. I couldn’t have gotten in there even if I’d wished it!”

I looked at Kenneth. “Is that true? You grew up in this house, Kenneth. Is the room really as secure as it appears? Is it possible to get in by any other means?”

Kenneth shook his head. “That room was off-limits to me as a boy,” he said, “so naturally I was powerfully curious to know what went on when my father locked himself away. I tried to find a way of spying on him. I even harbored a childish hope that I might discover a secret passage, but of course there was nothing of the kind. There is no way in or out of that room apart from the doors.”

“Well, that puts the lot of you in a rather awkward position,” said Foster with apparent satisfaction. “Either one of you killed
Edgar, or it was the work of Jasper’s ghost.”

“So it would seem,” said Kenneth gloomily. “I can’t say that I find much comfort in either of those two options.”

A moody silence settled over the room as Sergeant Flaherty appeared to conduct each of us in turn into the presence of Lieutenant Murray. I passed the time looking through the leather-bound volumes near the fireplace, while Dr. Wells stirred at the coals with a metal poker. When it was Harry’s turn to be led away for questioning, I took advantage of his absence to accept a cigarette from Kenneth. My brother’s passion for physical conditioning left him with an abiding mistrust of tobacco, but in those days I still believed that a cigarette gave me an air of sophistication. I was happy to strike a pose near the mantelpiece, surveying the room though a cloud of fragrant smoke.

I had gotten through three of Kenneth’s cigarettes before Sergeant Flaherty reappeared to take me upstairs to Jasper Clairmont’s study. I found Lieutenant Murray seated at the séance table, with a sheaf of notes and reports spread out before him.

“Afternoon, Hardeen,” he said. “Any more theories for me today? You and your brother aren’t going to set fire to the room again, are you?”

“You must admit that it was an interesting solution to the problem,” I returned. “It just didn’t happen to be the correct one.”

“Yes,” the lieutenant allowed. “Unfortunately, I haven’t anything better on hand at the moment. Why don’t you tell me again what happened here last night?”

He sat absolutely still as I ran through the events of the previous evening in as much detail as I could recall. He did not make a single notation or even glance at the papers on the table before him, and I had the impression that he was waiting to see if my account varied from those of the others.

“I’ll tell you what bothers me,” he said when I had finished. “If I wanted to stab Edgar Grange in the back, I don’t think I’d
do it in a roomful of people.”

“No,” I agreed. “I can’t imagine that you would.”

“Obviously the killer wanted everyone to believe that Jasper Clairmont’s ghost was responsible. For that he needed witnesses. Who benefits from giving the impression that there’s a murderous ghost on the loose?”

“Lucius Craig,” I answered. “He’s already taken care to get his name in the newspapers.”

“He killed a man to get his name in the newspapers? I don’t buy it.”

“Well, there may have been other motivations as well.”

The lieutenant stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “I know. He may have had designs on the Clairmont millions. Still, if he was tied up as securely as your brother says—”

“Then he would have needed an accomplice from outside of the room.”

“It seems so, though I can’t figure how that could have been managed. Still, somebody had to be running around in a sheet or pulling strings or something. That was no ghost you saw.”

“It wasn’t someone dressed in a sheet, either, Lieutenant. It was too—too ethereal.”

“Ethereal, huh?” He rubbed at his jaw. “You’re a real fount of information, Hardeen. You really are. You’re sure you didn’t hear anyone moving around before this ethereal vision appeared?”

I stood up and walked to the music box cabinet. “Mr. Craig had the music playing from the beginning, and he was talking most of the time. It was difficult to hear anything else.” I leaned over the music box and pushed the speaker trumpet aside on its swivel, then I lifted the mahogany lid to peer at the workings. Inside was a metal cylinder covered with grooves and notches, a pair of glass tubes, a metal disc with a series of holes punched in a spiral pattern, and a wooden pick arm that stretched across the spin shaft. I’ve always been fascinated by mechanical gadgets and longed to take the device apart to see how it worked.

“Your brother seems to think that Lucius Craig is the one
man who couldn’t have done it,” the lieutenant was saying. “I’m not sure I agree.”

“He couldn’t have done it alone, Lieutenant,” I said, setting the music box going. “That much is certain.”

“I’m not so sure,” he answered as the first notes of Mozart filled the room. “Sergeant Flaherty?”

The sergeant, who had been standing by the open door, snapped to attention. “Sir?”

“Ask Mr. Houdini if I might have a few more moments of his time, would you?”

“Right away, sir.”

‘Tell me again what these screens are for, Hardeen,” the lieutenant said, indicating the fabric tent surrounding Lucius Craig’s chair.

“He claims that they help to focus the spirit energy in the room.”

“Is Craig the only one who thinks so, or are there are other mediums who use this type of covering?”

“As I understand it, it’s fairly typical for a spirit medium to use a screen of this type. What’s unusual is that these particular screens actually provide less cover than one would expect. When Harry and I did our stint as mediums, we used a screen of opaque black cloth. When Harry went behind those curtains, he could do whatever he wanted without being observed by the audience.”

The lieutenant stretched out his arm. “I can see my hand right through this material,” he said.

“Yes, and there was never any sort of covering in front of the enclosure. He was only screened from the back and sides.”

“Makes no sense.”

“I’ve heard it explained in various ways. According to Harry, it’s supposed to be like starting a fire in the woods. The spark has to be shielded from stray gusts of wind. The screens are meant to keep restless spirits from interfering.”

“Restless spirits.” The lieutenant narrowed his eyes. “Imagine that.”

“It’s just scene-setting. A platform magician will sometimes use his cape in the same way—hiding something from the eyes of the audience that doesn’t really need to be hidden, just to make the effect look more mysterious than it actually is.”

“Just to make it look good, eh?” He fingered the sheer fabric. “Maybe. Ah, Houdini! There you are!”

“How can I help you, Lieutenant?” my brother asked. “Is there some new discovery that requires my attention?”

“Not exactly, Houdini,” the lieutenant said. “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“A favor? What sort of favor?”

The lieutenant fixed me with a strange expression. “Well, Houdini,” he said, “I think you might actually enjoy it.”

Five minutes later I was lashed to a wooden chair as securely as if dipped in a vat of plaster.

“You’re quite right, Lieutenant,” said Harry, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “I did find that rather agreeable.”

“This is how you tied up Lucius Craig last night? With the double knots and short strips of rope?”

“It is more practical to bind someone with short strips rather than one long hank of rope. The shorter lengths can be tightened more securely. A longer rope is likely to admit slack.”

Lieutenant Murray poked at the restraints around my left arm. “Any slack there, Hardeen?”

“None,” I said.

“But your hands are free,” he noted.

“That was so that Mr. Craig would still be able to grasp the hands of Mrs. Clairmont and Mr. Grange,” Harry said. “He insisted upon it. As you can see, however, he had no movement in his hands. They had to reach over to him in order to complete the circle.”

“So I see. You’re telling me that Lucius Craig couldn’t have been responsible for the death of Edgar Grange.”

“It is absolutely impossible, Lieutenant. Had the murder
occurred in the earlier part of the evening, then I would have been the first to accuse Mr. Craig. The man is a transparent cad. But at the time of the murder he was securely tied, as you can see. We had to cut him free afterwards. He simply could not have done it. He must be eliminated from the list of suspects.”

Lieutenant Murray fixed my brother with a level gaze. “You could have done it, Houdini.”

Harry started. “You mean to suggest that I could have killed Mr. Grange? Preposterous!”

“No, I mean you could have escaped from the ropes, killed the lawyer, and then slipped back into your bonds. You’re always telling me what a master of escape you are. You could have done it.”

Harry weighed his response. “Indeed, I could have. But Houdini is without equal. There is no one else in the entire world who could have managed such a thing.”

Murray tapped a pencil against his notebook. “Hardeen could have. If we leave him sitting there long enough, I bet he’ll get out.”

Harry’s head snapped in my direction, as though he had never noticed me before. “Dash? Well, yes. I suppose Dash might be able to manage it. Perhaps not as flawlessly as I.”

“A minute ago you would have had me believe that there was no one else in the entire world capable of escaping from the ropes. Now we have two men sitting in the same room. Why not three?”

“My talents are quite without parallel, Lieutenant. While it is true that my brother Dash possesses some of them to a lesser degree, that is a matter of pure heredity. It may be that he himself is not luminous, but he is a conductor of light. Some people—”

I cleared my throat. “What Harry is trying to say, Lieutenant, is that Craig’s hands were bound in a manner far more stringent than the usual run of such things, as you can plainly see. Harry is the Paganini of ropes. Last night I chided him for being excessive. In the circumstances, I’m fully persuaded that Craig
was completely immobile. Even if he had been able to extricate himself from the ropes, I don’t see how he could possibly have managed it so that we wouldn’t have noticed when the lights were restored. It’s one thing to get out of restraints such as these, it’s quite another to get back in.” I strained at the bonds, demonstrating their unyielding strength. “As far as I’m concerned, Lucius Craig is the one man in the room that we can rule out—unless someone else was helping him.”

“Like his daughter, you mean?” Lieutenant Murray shook his head. “I don’t see it. You just can’t have it both ways, Hardeen. On the one hand, you and your brother have gone out of your way to paint this man as a charlatan and a huckster. On the other, you’ll have me believe that he’d be rendered helpless when a seasoned professional such as Houdini ties him up. I don’t buy it. Not for a minute. If he’s what you say he is, he’ll have picked up a trick or two over the years. How old are you, Houdini? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?”

“I am of age,” Harry said quietly.

“Well, Lucius Craig has a lifetime of experience over you. I don’t doubt that he could teach you a thing or two about pulling the wool over a sucker’s eyes.”

“Possibly,” Harry admitted. “But last night he’d have been obliged to teach that lesson with his hands tied.”

“Have it your way,” said the lieutenant. “But there’s one thing I may have neglected to mention.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

A flicker of satisfaction passed over the lieutenant’s features. “The blood,” he said.

“Blood?”

“Lucius Craig had blood on the right leg of his trousers and another small smear on the silk lining of his coat. Neither mark was especially dramatic—you could have covered the pair of them with penny—but our boys noticed them last night. I find that sort of suggestive, don’t you?”

I curled my fingers around the arms of the chair, wishing that
I were free so that I could begin pacing. “Very suggestive,” I said.

“Can we be certain that the blood belongs to Mr. Grange?”

Lieutenant Murray scowled. “Now, how are we supposed to know that? We can’t exactly ask him.”

“I thought Dr. Peterson might have performed a test of some sort.”

“A blood test? What do you know about blood tests, Houdini?”

“Well,” said Harry, puffing his chest a bit, “I am familiar with a technique involving a chemical reagent which is precipitated by a hobgoblin—and by nothing else. It is considered superior to the old guaiacum test.”

The lieutenant could scarcely have looked more surprised if my brother had begun walking on the ceiling. “Chemical reagent?” he asked. “Precipitated by a what?”

Harry glanced at his fingernails, his confidence fading. “A hobgoblin,” he said.

“Harry,” I said, “I believe the word you’re searching for is ‘haemoglobin,’ and since that test has never been mentioned outside of a Sherlock Holmes story, I’m not sure that it has much bearing on the matter at hand.”

“My point is perfectly valid,” he insisted. “There are tests that might determine whether it is the murdered man’s blood on Mr. Craig’s clothing.”

Lieutenant Murray shook his head. “Doc Peterson says he couldn’t get enough of a sample even to try a test,” he said. “Even if he had, none of those things carry any weight in court. For our purposes, all that matters is that he has blood on his clothes.”