The Dime Museum Murders

THE
DIME

MUSEUM

MURDERS

A
HARRY HOUDINI MYSTERY

DANIEL
STASHOWER

AVON
BOOKS, INC.

1350
Avenue of the Americas

New
York, New York 10019

Copyright
© 1999 by Daniel Stashower Published by arrangement with the
author Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-94465 ISBN:
0-380-80056-X
www.avonbooks.com/twilight

All
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portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the
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First
Avon Twilight Printing: December 1999

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you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that mis
book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and
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Could
it really be that time of the year again? Another Halloween, already?
It must be, the old man told himself. There were reporters in the
downstairs parlor, and that only happened at Halloween.

How
long had it been now? Twenty-seven years? Twenty-eight? Yes,
twenty-eight. It hardly seemed possible. Harry had been dead for
nearly three decades.

Even
now, the old man was particular in matters of dress. He had spent
fifty-three minutes polishing his black Riderstone wing-tips that
morning, applying a second coat of EverBlack with an oil-soaked
chamois, and buffing the stitch-work with his late wife's eyebrow
pencil. His best suit, the double-breasted tick-weave, got a vigorous
brushing, and his black onyx shirt studs received a last-minute
spit-shine. A brisk dousing with Jenkinson's Lime Pomade completed
his toilette. On his way downstairs, he paused at the mirror. Not bad
for a man of eighty-four. In the old days, they called him "Dash."

Seated
in the parlor, he waited quietly for the interview to begin. The
photographer, a man named Parker,
fussed
and clucked over his light meter while the reporter glanced at his
notes. Matthews, he said his name was. Call me Jack.

Very
little changed about this ritual from year to year. The cameras
seemed to get smaller, and the reporters younger, but each interview
crept along in the same weary way. One year, there had been a man
with a moving picture camera, crouching beneath a black cloth while
his hand turned a crank. Another year there had been a recording
device with two large spools of silver wire. Matthews, a plump-faced
youth with thinning ginger hair, seemed content with the traditional
pad of paper and a well-chewed pencil.

Always
the same questions* though.
Tell
us what you remember about your brother, Mr. Hardeen. If your brother
were alive today, Mr. Hardeen, what sorts of escapes do you suppose
he would be performing? Can you tell us how he made that elephant
vanish, Mr. Hardeen?

And
every year, come what may, the big wrap-up question:
Do
you suppose, Mr. Hardeen, that your brother will ever make good on
his promise to send a message from the spirit world?

He
had not yet made up his mind how to play the interview this year. For
a few moments he considered reprising his Wily Codger routine from
the year before. This entailed a great deal of thigh-slapping and
many repetitions of the phrase "1 kid you not, Sonny Boy ..."
It played well and traveled wide, bringing a harvest of clips from
all over the map—Louisville's
Courier-Journal,
Toledo's
Evening
Bee.
He
couldn't remember them all, but they were in the press book.

Or
perhaps he would give them the Wistful Trouper. This involved lengthy
patches of misty-eyed reminiscence about gaslit stages, Bertrand's
Alum Face Paint, and the great days of the sideshows and dime
museums. He had a heartwarming anecdote about Emma Shaller, the
Ossified Girl, that could always be counted on for three or four
column inches.

Parker,
the photographer, was now frowning over a troublesome shadow. The old
man folded his legs and ran his hand across his shirt front, checking
the red silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. There had been a
time, the winter season of 1931-32, when his show traveled with 612
props. Today, he needed only one.
Tell
me, Mr. Hardeen,
the
reporter would ask,
were
you and your brother close at the time of his death?
At
this, the old man would sit back in his chair as if surprised by the
question, and impressed by the reporter's insight. Clearing his
throat, he would begin to answer but then stop himself, as though
seized by a sudden rush of feeling. He would smile faintly and shake
his head at this—such emotion! After so many years!—and
clutch at his handkerchief to dab his moistening eyes.

And
here was the beauty of the thing. As he plucked the red silk from his
pocket, a small metallic object would fall heavily to the floor,
perhaps rolling to the reporter's feet.
I'm
sorry, at my age it's difficult to bend
—
would
you... ?
The
reporter would pick it up. A heavy gold medallion with a strange
insignia.
Did
this belong to your brother, Mr. Hardeen?
And
the Great Hardeen would fold his hands and allow a wry smile to play
across his lips.
In
a sense, young man.

You
see, it's a memento from the very first time that Harry Houdini ever
died.

I'm
sorry? Well, Mr. Matthews, it's a long story, and I know that you and
young Parker want to get back to the city. Maybe some other—?

No?
You want to hear it? Well, let's see how much of it I remember. I've
never told this story before. In fact, they made us swear an oath on
the Wintour family Bible, which was a bit of a laugh, if you must
know. The Brothers Houdini, sons of Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weiss, taking
a solemn vow on a Bible. But we gave our word and I've held to it. I
know Harry did, too. Never even told Bess, so far as I know. Still,
there's been a lot of water under the Williamsburg Bridge since then.
I read the other day—in the
Herald,
you'll
be gratified to hear—that Lady Wycliffe has finally passed. The
last great society hostess. Folded her last napkin, you might say.
I've kept my mouth shut all these years out of respect for her. She
was a fine woman, and she deserved better than that goggle-eyed
bastard she—

But
I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. Would you mind drawing those
blinds just a bit? My cataracts. The light, it troubles me a bit.

Thank
you. Now, gentlemen, you're certain that you'd like to hear about
this? You don't—? Very well.

It
must have been September, or perhaps October, of 1897. I turned
twenty-one that year. Harry would have been twenty-three. My brother
was going through a rough time. He'd worked like a dog, but try as he
might, he couldn't quite break out of the small time. He was strictly
a novelty act—traveling circuses, the midway, that sort of
thing. He and I had done an act together from the time we were kids,
but that changed when he married Bess. From that point on, she did
the act with him and I did the booking and advance work. Truth be
told, the duties were pretty light. There wasn't a tremendous demand
for appearances by the Great Houdini at that stage, but I was always
on hand, behind the scenes. Nowadays you would call me a theatrical
agent
and
pay me a fat commission. Back then, we literally worked for food.

We'd
been travelling quite a bit that year—sometimes with the Welsh
Brothers Circus, sometimes with the Marco Company. We did all right
trailing through such places as Cherokee, Kansas and Woonsocket,
Rhode Island, where people seemed grateful for most any form of
entertainment. Harry's escape act hadn't quite taken shape yet, but
he did a passable magic routine. He fancied himself a master
manipulator, and billed himself as the "King of Kards."
Bess worked as his assistant, and also pulled an occasional spot as a
singer. "The Melodious Little Songster," we called her. She
had a wonderful voice and—I don't mind telling you—she
was easy on the eyes.

In
a travelling show just about everyone takes a turn on stage, and I
did my share as a juggler and an acrobat. I also worked as a spotter
for the trapeze team, and occasionally I put on a gorilla suit for
the "Beasts of All Nations" tableau. I liked circus life.
The work suited me and I enjoyed the travel and the small towns,
which reminded me of my boyhood in Wisconsin. If not for my brother,
I might well have spent the rest of my working life touring the
sticks. Even my modest talents were sufficient to earn a living.
Nobody ever got famous working town fairs and medicine shows, but
nobody ever worked himself into an early grave either.

In
those days, you could make a living without ever setting foot in a
big city. For that matter, you could do well without ever touring
America. Carter the Great, one of the best magic acts of all time,
spent years overseas, just to stay out of Kellar's way. You've never
heard of Kellar? He was king back then. But the road show
wasn't
enough for Harry. He had to make it big. And to do that, he had to
conquer New York.

New
York didn't want to know from Harry Houdini. I was with him when he
went calling on a booking agent named Arthur Berg, who was a big fish
in those days. They called him "Snaps," because he could
make or break a career with a click of his fingers. Harry had been
sending him stacks of clippings from small town newspapers, most of
which had been planted—and sometimes even written—by
yours truly. "Houdini Astounds Residents of Kennesaw."
"Houdini A Delight, Say Audiences in Lynchburg."
Personally, I didn't put a whole lot of stock in the good opinion of
papers like the Brat-tleboro
Gazette,
but
Harry did. He preserved each clipping as though it were edged in
gold. Gathered them all up in a shiny leather binder, which he
proudly laid out in front of Mr. Berg when we finally got in to see
him. Snaps barely looked up from his desk. "Very nice, Mr.
Houdini," he said. "But what have you done
locally?"