The Last Illusion (32 page)

B
ess was sitting up in bed sipping soup when I returned to her house. The windows were open and a refreshing breeze wafted through the room, sending the aroma of the food in my direction. My stomach reminded me that it was my dinnertime too and I had just turned down a delightful invitation to dine with friends. I wondered how Mama Houdini would feel about feeding the intruder. But I had more pressing things to do first.

I knelt on the floor and pulled out the suitcase.

“I think I may have found the key,” I said.

“Where? Where did you find it?”

“In Harry’s top pocket at the theater. Remember when we tried to open the second trunk, only neither key would work? I must have stuck the keys in my belt and forgotten about them. Lucky, wasn’t it?”

I took out the keys and knelt in front of the suitcase.

“I don’t know, Molly. Harry’s going to be awful mad if he finds out.”

“Bess,” I said, my patience and good nature wearing thin after a very trying day, “if your husband has been kidnapped and is waiting to be rescued, don’t you think we should do everything we can to find him?”

“Of course, but I don’t see what—”

“Look,” I said, trying to measure my words so that I didn’t give too much away. “The police think he may have something in this trunk that someone is willing to kill for. I have no idea what that might be, but we have to look. Either I can look here and I promise not to study how he does his illusions, or I can hand the whole suitcase over to the police, which is probably what I should be doing now.”

She chewed on her lip, looking ridiculously like a helpless child, then nodded. “Yes, I see. Thank you, Molly. I do understand that you’re trying to help. You’re trying to do what’s best for us. Okay, go ahead then.”

I put the first key in the lock. It was too big. So that must be the key to Houdini’s trunk. I replaced it in my purse. I tried the second key and heard a satisfying click as the suitcase opened. I don’t know what I expected to see—an envelope marked
TOP SECRET
or something, but all I  saw was a lot of incomprehensible diagrams with words scribbled across them, sometimes in English and sometimes in what must have been Hungarian. If I’d wanted to steal Houdini’s secrets, I’d have been none the wiser. The diagrams meant nothing to me. I read their titles: “Making Orange Tree Grow—after Robert-Houdin.” And scrawled underneath, triumphant: “I finally figured out how he did it!” Various boxes, coffins, handcuff designs, and then, “Possible new stunt. The amazing underwater illusion.” What followed were some complicated diagrams, a device shaped like a large bullet with what looked like flower petals at one end, with arrows around it, and tiny words scribbled in another language.

“Underwater illusion,” I said. “That sounds ambitious. Does he do an underwater stunt?”

“No. He’s talked about doing one for some time—using a milk churn, I believe. I didn’t want him to think about it because it’s so dangerous. But he got this bee in his bonnet on the way home from Germany. He was sitting in the cabin for hours, working away at it. I asked him about it but he didn’t want to talk. He’s like that sometimes when he’s concentrating. Wouldn’t even come to the dining saloon for meals. I told him I didn’t want him doing any trick that involved being underwater.
Too dangerous. Other magicians have talked about doing it, but nobody’s had the courage yet to pull it off.”

“I don’t see how this would work anyway,” I said, putting it aside and moving on to the next thing. “It looks more like some kind of machine. How would he use a machine underwater? Maybe he plans to escape from—”

I broke off, picking up the sketch again and examining it more carefully. There was a hatch on top of it that opened. The amazing underwater trick. Had Houdini fooled us all and planned his escape from the East River using such a contraption, leaving his trunk floating to make us think he was dead? Was this in fact a design for an underwater machine? Did such things exist? I wondered if this was something that Mr. Wilkie would want to know about. And it didn’t make sense that Houdini had planned his own escape, seeing that one of Mr. Wilkie’s men was dead and Houdini was working with him. Unless he was the one working for both sides. I remembered the passage he had written about illusionists working on both sides of the stage and deceiving everyone. I glanced up at Bess. Everything I was discovering seemed to be worse and worse news for her.

I resolved to sleep on it and decide whether to tell Mr. Wilkie in the morning. I went through the rest of the suitcase then closed it again, making sure I locked it.

“That’s that, then,” I said. “Nothing more of interest in here.”

“Other illusionists wouldn’t say that,” Bess said. “They’d kill for the contents of that suitcase.” She realized what she had said and put her hand up to her mouth. “Do you think that’s what happened, Molly? Then we’re not safe here if that’s what they want.”

“There is a police constable on guard outside and a good sturdy front door,” I said. “I’m going to make sure you get a good night’s sleep.”

I took her tray from her, carried it downstairs, and found Houdini’s mother in the kitchen, now making what looked like some kind of bread.

“You see, Bess finished every drop,” I said. “You must make good soup.”

“Try for yourself,” she said, nodding at the stove. I needed no second invitation but filled a big bowl and wolfed it down. Mrs. Weiss
obviously approved of a good appetite as she then produced some plum dumplings and some honey cake.

“You’re a wonderful cook, Mrs. Weiss,” I said. “You must miss your son when he’s away.”

“I stay with other son—Leopold, and with daughter, Gladys,” she said. “They like when I cook food from old country for them.”

“You’re lucky to have such a nice big family,” I told her.

“You have no family?”

“I had a father and three brothers. My mother died when I was a child. Now my father and one of my brothers are dead, and I don’t know when I’ll ever see the other two brothers again.”

“Life is hard,” she said. “But you are healthy young girl. You get married, no?”

“Yes, I’m getting married soon,” I said.

“Your young man. He has good steady work?”

“Yes, he’s—” I broke off. Of course I couldn’t let her know he was a policeman. “He’s got a good job,” I finished. “He’ll take good care of me.”

“That is as should be. Show business. Pah! My son make lots of money, but what kind of life, huh? Never know where you will be tomorrow. And always danger. And now—who knows if he is still alive.” Her voice broke as she said these last words.

I surprised myself by going over and putting an arm around her. “We can only hope for the best,” I said. “I know how hard this must be for you.”

She put her hand up to her mouth and nodded. Then she turned away. “I make us coffee,” she said gruffly.

We were sitting at the kitchen table finishing our coffee when there came a loud knock on the front door. We looked at each other.

“I’ll go if you like,” I said, expecting it to be Daniel.

“It may be my son Leopold. He may come to see his mother.”

I went to the front door and opened it. A strange man and woman stood there. She was dressed in a rather old-fashioned dark costume and a bonnet that hid her face, and he in a somber black-tailed coat and top hat. He also had a remarkably bushy gray beard. I glanced past them to see the constable standing beside the steps.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“We’ve come to see Mrs. Houdini,” the man said.

“You’re friends of hers?”

“We are acquainted, yes.” He handed me his card. It read, “Harold and Bertha Symmes, Mediums. Your gateway to the spirit world.”

“You’re a spiritualist? A medium?” I asked.

The man nodded.

“We came as soon as we could,” the woman said. “To offer our services to poor Mrs. Houdini.”

“We heard she was out of her mind with worry,” Mr. Symmes said. “We are volunteering to try and contact her husband’s spirit for her.”

“What makes you think he’s dead?” I asked.

“We don’t know, do we?” the woman said. “But if he is dead, then I’m sure we’ll be able to contact his spirit and at least we’ll be able to put her mind at rest if she receives a message from him.”

“I understood that Houdini did his best to expose spiritualists like yourselves,” I said.

“Fake mediums, yes. There are, unfortunately, a lot of them around,” the man said in his grave voice. “It tarnishes the wonderful work of those who really do have the gift of contact with the spirit world, like ourselves.”

“We’ve come to show that we bear no ill will for Mr. Houdini’s harsh words. We have come to make amends, to welcome Mrs. Houdini into our bosom,” the woman said. She was a skinny person, and the irreverent thought flashed through my mind that she didn’t have much bosom.

It was almost dark outside. The gas lamps had been lit, throwing small pools of light at intervals along the street, and the children had vanished from the sidewalk. From an upstairs window came the sound of a pianola playing “Just a Song at Twilight,” and farther down the street a baby crying. All so peaceful and normal but my mind was racing. I didn’t want to let any strangers into the house, and yet it wasn’t up to me to make decisions.

I made one anyway. “Look, I’m sure you mean well, but I think that Mrs. Houdini still hopes her husband is alive,” I said. “I think that what you intend to do would distress her greatly.”

“If he’s still alive, we shall not be able to contact his spirit,” the man said. “May we not at least speak with her—to offer our support?”

I glanced into the house and then back to the street to make sure I could spot the constable. Was it up to me to play guard dog for Bess? Unfortunately I had had dealings with spiritualists before and they had evoked the same feelings of mistrust that I was now experiencing.

“Why don’t we wait to find out what has happened to Houdini,” I said. “And if he has died, then I’m sure Bess will want to contact his spirit. Until then—”

“Exactly who are you, miss? A relative?”

“I am her best friend,” I said, “and frankly she’s in a bad way at the moment. She’s taken to her bed and the doctor has given her a strong sedative. So you see she is simply not in any state to receive visitors.”

“A great pity,” the man said. “But you will let her know that we called to offer our services, won’t you? And our best wishes to the rest of Houdini’s family. I take it his family is still in residence?”

I was about to say that his brother had now gone, but I could feel a warning voice in my head. “That’s right. So you can see that Bess is well looked after. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I must go back to her bedside. It was good of you to call. Good night.” And I shut the front door. They didn’t try to stop me. But when I went and looked from an upstairs window, I saw them still lingering in the street.

Had I sensed danger? Were they really who they claimed to be or were they trying to find a way to gain entry to the house? I made sure the big bolt and chain were on the front door and then checked that the lower windows at the front of the house were all locked. As I went back to Bess I felt quite shaky. I just wished this whole wretched business were over.

Twenty-seven

I
said nothing to Bess about the visitors. I made her some hot milk and she took the sedative powder her doctor had prescribed for her, then I found a bed for myself in a room across the hall from her. As soon as she dozed off I went in there and took with me the magazines and scrapbooks. The house had not yet been converted to electricity and I read in the softer, hissing light of the gas bracket. The most recent scrapbooks documented Houdini’s time on the Continent and most of the articles he had clipped from newspapers were in German. Sometimes there were pictures accompanying them and I stared at them, looking for faces that I recognized. But in the half darkness it was hard to distinguish features, other than large mustaches or beards. Underneath the articles Houdini had often written his own comment, most of these in German or Hungarian. Finally I closed the books in frustration. I would need to find someone to translate for me.

What was I looking for? I really didn’t know. All I could surmise was that a skilled illusionist had pulled off the remarkable stunt so smoothly that I, standing a few feet away, had not been aware of it. A skilled illusionist who had recently been in Germany and who was now in the
pay of the German secret service. And who was also a skilled killer. I scanned through the German text for names I might recognize, but the Gothic type was so different that I didn’t know what I was reading. Eventually my eyes started watering from the poor light and the exhaustion of the day caught up with me. I turned out the gas and looked out of the window before I went to sleep. I couldn’t see the constable from my window, but I thought I saw the shadow of a man standing across the street. I hoped he was Mr. Wilkie’s agent, sent to keep watch over me. I tried to reassure myself as I fell asleep.