Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

Chapter Seven

  WHEN I AWOKE the next morning, a bright bolt of sunlight lay across the room. Tiny motes of dust floated slowly through it like microscopic creatures drifting in a golden shaft of sea.

  It was the first sunshine I had seen since we left Paris. I had started to think that I would never see it again.

  I picked up my watch from the night table. A quarter to nine. Late.

  I eased out of bed, climbed into my robe, padded to the Great Man’s door and knocked.

  “Come in,” he called out.

  He was wearing his gray socks and his gray pants, a shirt and a tie, an opened gray vest. He was sitting on top of the bedspread, his back against the tall dark wood headboard. There was a pen in his hand and a notebook on his lap.

  “Good morning, Phil,” he said cheerfully.

  “Morning, Harry. Why aren’t you downstairs?”

  He smiled. It was an innocent smile, and his innocent smiles always made me nervous. “But, Phil,” he said. I am under orders not to leave without you, am I not?”

  “Being under orders isn’t the same as taking them.”

  “But for me it is, Phil. I gave my word.” He changed the subject. “Did you sleep well?”

  “When I slept,” I said.

  His face became thoughtful. “Do you know, I must have actually slept myself last night—for a time, at any rate—because I had a dream. It was a most curious dream. You were in it and you were wearing a pair of handcuffs. You asked me to remove them for you.

  “That was no dream, Harry. That was my life.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You weren’t dreaming. I was wearing a pair of handcuffs last night, and I asked you to take them off.”

  “They were made by Mueller and Kohl?”

  “According to you. Spring-loaded, you said.”

  “Amazing. Where did you get them?”

  “They were a gift. From Cecily Fitzwilliam.”

  “A gift? Why would Miss Fitzwilliam give you a gift? And why a pair of handcuffs?”

  “They weren’t really for me. They were for you. Mind if I sit down?”

  “No, no,” he said, and waved a hand toward the seat by the writing desk. “For me? What do you mean?”

  I sat down. “Well, Harry, it looks to me like Miss Fitzwilliam is smitten.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “Smitten? What are you saying, Phil?”

  “She wanted to get to know you better. So she came to the room. She got me instead.”

  “Better?” Suddenly he blushed. “You mean . . . ? Miss Fitzwilliam?” His voice had risen slightly. “Phil—no. Her father is an English lord. ”

  “Harry. Calm down.”

  “But doesn’t she know that I’m a married man?”

  “She’s just a kid, Harry. She only wanted to talk.”

  He looked off, toward the window, and stared at it for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and slowly let it out in a kind of moaning sigh, long and low. He shook his head. “So it begins again,” he said.

  “Again?” I said.

  He looked at me sadly. “This has happened before, Phil. Many, many times. It is a terrible curse. Women of a certain . . . ah . . . animal nature, they inevitably find me irresistible. Perhaps my great physical strength attracts them. Or my virile demeanor. Perhaps it is merely the fact that Houdini is the most famous man alive.”

  He shrugged sadly. “Who knows, Phil? Who can plumb the hearts of these women? Certainly I never encourage them, never give them reason to believe, even for a moment, that I would respond to their advances. You know that my darling wife is the light of my existence. She is my beacon in life’s storm-tossed sea, the only woman who has ever meant anything to me. Except, of course, for my dear departed mother. I would never betray Bess, Phil.”

  He looked off again. “I suppose I must try to find it within me to forgive them, these women. They cannot help themselves, naturally.” He shook his head. “But I would never have believed that the daughter of an English lord ...”

  He looked back at me. “What shall we do about this, Phil? Shall we go to Lord Purleigh and ask him to keep a closer watch over this daughter of his?”

  I smiled. “I don’t think so, Harry. Cecily won’t bother you again.”

  He raised his dark eyebrows hopefully. “Really? What did you say to her?”

  “All the stuff you just said. About Bess and all. The beacon in the storm-tossed sea. I explained everything. She understands.”

  “Ah. Wonderful, Phil. A good thing that you are a man of the world, like myself.” He frowned suddenly. “But why on earth did she bring the handcuffs?”

  “She wanted you to see them. They’re her grandfather’s. She thought you might be interested.”

  “In an ancient pair of Mueller and Kohls?” Mildly indignant. “She didn’t know, Harry. She was only trying to be friendly. After she left, I was playing around with them and I accidentally locked myself up. Sorry I had to wake you up.”

  He shook his head. “You did not actually awaken me. As you know, I have difficulty sleeping. I was merely resting.”

  I nodded. “There’s one other thing you should know, though.”

  He frowned. Worried, probably, about some other woman with an animal nature. “And what is that?”

  “Looks like we had a ghost here last night.”

  “A ghost?”

  I told him about Miss Turner.

  When I was finished, he asked me, “How did she seem to you, Phil? Miss Turner?”

  “Like someone who’d just seen a ghost.”

  “She was hysterical?”

  “Not hysterical. Upset. Whatever she saw, she thought it was a ghost, and it scared her. But she seemed to be handling it fairly well.”

  “Yes. From my brief meeting with her, I would say that she has a good head on her shoulders.”

  And a good pair of shoulders under her head.

  “As I may have told you, Phil, hauntings do not much interest me. If the accounts are true, ghosts seem to be completely unaware that they are actually dead. Which makes them, in my view, remarkably stupid creatures. What would be the point of communicating with them, even assuming that one could? But, you know, perhaps our Miss Turner is a sensitive. A natural medium. Unwittingly, without her own knowledge. I have heard of this, although never encountered it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I shall speak with her.”

  “Right.”

  “Shall we go have breakfast?” he asked me.

  I looked down at my bathrobe, looked back up at the Great Man. “I thought I’d get into some clothes first.”

  “Excellent. I shall finish up this letter to Bess.”

  DOWNSTAIRS, ANOTHER servant—one we hadn’t seen before— told us that breakfast was still available in the conservatory. We followed him along some more hallways.

  The conservatory was a large sunny room. All around, lush ferns and squat palms spread lacy fans and plump shiny fronds. Bright saffron light streaming through the walls of glass warmed the smooth gray marble floor. Beyond the glass was a view as still and as perfectly composed as a landscape painting. Blue sky overhead, a few white puffs of cumulus hanging there. An expanse of green lawn sloping down to a broad formal garden neatly blocked with squares of red and yellow and purple.

  Sitting in the middle of the room was a long table covered with white linen. On a sideboard to the right were five or six silver warming pans, all of them the size of washtubs. There were stacks of porcelain plates, teapots and coffeepots, cups and saucers.

  Lord Bob was sitting at the end of the empty table, in another gray suit.

  “Ah, Houdini, Beaumont,” said Lord Bob cheerfully. “Up at the crack of dawn, eh?” He chuckled. “You’ve missed the others, sorry to say. Gone into the village, all of’em. Shopping, seeing the sights. Both sights, presumably. The church and the pub.” He chuckled again. “Grab some grub, why don’t you. Isn’t that how you Americans say it? Marvelous language, American. Help yourself, we’re informal at
breakfast. And coffee, tea, whatever. Probably need your coffee this morning, eh, Beaumont? Comforting damsels in distress all night long, eh?”

  He was in too good a mood to be talking about his daughter. I smiled at him as I lifted the lid of a warming pan. “You heard about last night?” Inside the pan were glistening layers of chunky pork sausages. I picked up a fork and stabbed a few, levered them off the fork onto a plate.

  “Everyone has,” said Lord Bob. “Talk of the town, eh?”

  I said, “How is Miss Turner this morning?” I looked inside the next warming pan. A small beached school of stiffened fish stared up at me with scorched cloudy eyes. I returned the lid.

  “Fine, fine,” said Lord Bob. “None the worse. Funny, though, wouldn’t you say? Never would’ve pegged her for the flighty type.”

  The next dish held rashers of bacon. I took some. “Me neither.” Like me, the Great Man was piling food on his plate. He asked Lord Bob, “This ghost was your ancestor, Lord Purleigh?”

  “Supposed to be.” His bristly white eyebrows dipped. Impatiently, he waved his teaspoon. “But too nice a day for that sort of thing, eh?”

  Both the Great Man and I had filled our plates. We sat down next to each other and the Great Man turned to Lord Bob. “You have a lovely home, Lord Purleigh.”

  “Bob,” he said. “Nice of you to say so. Can’t take all the credit, of course. Been here a lot longer than I have. Make a lovely golfing club, though, won’t it?”

  “A golfing club?” said the Great Man.

  “For the toiling masses. Idea of mine. Poor chaps don’t get enough fresh air, do they.”

  “Ah,” said the Great Man. “Yes. Miss Cecily mentioned something about this, I believe.”

  “Cecily did, did she?” He stroked his mustache. He nodded, faintly, sadly. “Doesn’t approve, Cecily. Neither does her mother. Upbringing, you know. But they’ll see the light. Know they will.” He leaned forward. “Think of it. A golfing club for the proletariat. Plenty of good fresh air, plenty of sound, healthy exercise. And we’ll have more, of course. Nursery school for the young ’uns. Free medical care for everyone. And research facilities with first-rate people, eh? Finding ways to improve the quality of life. Everyone’s life. And educational classes, as well, readings from Das Kapital. Not all those statistics, mind, but the gist of the thing. The meat. Read it, have you, Houdini?”

  The Great Man blinked. “Not as yet, Lord Robert.”

  “I’ll give you a copy. Got hundreds of ’em. It’ll change your life. Changed mine, for a fact. Would’ve started this thing years ago, the golfing club, if it hadn’t been for the Earl. My father. Dead set against it. Well, what can you expect? Complete reactionary. But he can’t hold on forever, thank goodness. Soon as he pops off, we get to work. Should be any day now, too. Got a bad ticker, the swine.” He grinned happily.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m off.” He stood up. “There’s coffee, tea, whatever. Help yourself.”

  “You are going into the village?” asked the Great Man.

  “No, going for a ride on my new motorbike. Arrived just yesterday, straight from the factory. A Brough Superior, one-liter engine, four gears, hundred miles an hour top speed. Real beauty.” He smiled at the Great Man. “Almost forgot, Houdini. You’re in the Times this morning. Maplewhite, too. The society page. Well, you two want anything, food, whatnot, just ask one of the servants. The others should be back soon. Tea at four o’clock. Till then, enjoy yourselves, eh?”

  Lord Bob left the room, as the Great Man looked over at me. “The Times?” I said.

  His eyelashes fluttered. “I know nothing about it,” he said. He leaned forward and plucked up the folded newspaper that lay in the center of the table. He opened it, turned the pages. I waited.

  He read silently. After a moment he began to smile with pleasure. Then he looked in my direction and he frowned. He said, “I had nothing to do with this, Phil.”

  “Let me see it.”

  He handed me the newspaper. I glanced over the society page until I found it. It was only one small paragraph in a long column, but it was enough.

  Viscount Purleigh will this weekend be entertaining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of one of England’s, and the world’s, most popular fictional characters, Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Also present at Maplewhite, the Devon estate of Lord Purleigh’s father, the Earl of Axminster, will be the famous American Escape Artist, Mr. Harry Houdini.

  I closed the newspaper, folded it, tossed it to the table. This, I thought, was why he had been so cooperative. “Damn it, Harry,” I said.

  He showed me the palms of his hands. “I did nothing, Phil.”

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It must have been Carlyle.” His manager.

  “Uh-huh. And how did Carlyle know?”

  “I cannot imagine. I shall telephone him. I shall tell him I am furious.”

  He snatched up the newspaper, started to read it again.

  “It’s a little late for that,” I said.

  Still peering at the page, he said, “Why do you suppose they mentioned Sir Arthur first?”

  “Harry, we’ve got more important things to worry about right now.”

  He lowered the paper, looked at me. “But perhaps Chin Soo is not in England yet. And even if he is, perhaps he did not read the Times this morning.”

  “Is that something you want to bet your life on?”

  He frowned.

  I reached into my pocket, took out my watch.

  Ten-thirty.

  “What are you thinking, Phil?” he asked me.

  “Let’s say that Chin Soo is in England. Let’s say he’s in London. Let’s say he read the paper this morning. The earliest he could read it would be eight o’clock, maybe. Let’s say seven, to be on the safe side. I don’t know how many trains are running from London to Devon on a Saturday, but there can’t be that many. And the trip takes six or seven hours. So we’ve got a few hours of leeway.”

  “Yes? And what do we do with them?”

  “We don’t do anything. You stay in your room.”

  “Phil—”

  “Just for a few hours, Harry. Read a book. Write a letter. Meanwhile, I’ll take a look around the grounds.”

  “And why will you do that, Phil?”

  “To see if I can figure out how he’s going to come at you.”

  Chapter Eight

  THE GREAT MAN and I went up the stairs and down the halls. He didn’t say anything, but his mouth was set in a thin petulant line and I knew that trouble was coming. When I closed the door to our suite, he turned to me. And on me.

  “Phil,” he said. “This is entirely unfair. You are treating me as though I were a child.”

  “It’s for your own good, Harry.”

  “But you said yourself that we have a few hours of leeway.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got something on your mind.”

  He drew himself to his full height. “I refuse to stay here, cooped up in that tiny room.”

  “Cooped up? Harry, you’re the guy who spends his time in coffins.”

  “From which I can escape whenever I wish.” Somehow he managed to draw himself still taller. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I refuse.”

  “Harry, you told me—”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. He raised his strong chin. “I know what I told you. That I would do whatever you said, whenever it involved matters of security. But this does not. You’re insisting on this because you wish to punish me for that silly article in the Times.”

  There was maybe some truth in what he said.

  “That was Carlyle,” he announced. “I had nothing to do with it. If I had been responsible, the article would have been more than an insignificant little filler.”

  I didn’t really believe that he was innocent, but I believed that, right now, he believed it. “So you’re suggesting what?”

  “That I come along while you inspect the grounds.”r />
  I shook my head. “It’s too open out there.”

  “But Chin Soo is not there. He cannot be. You said so. And what if he is? Tell me, Phil, am I in any less danger inside the building? What about the Hotel Ardmore? Was it not you who pointed out that he nearly reached me there? What happens if he comes for me here, in my room, while you are outside?”

  He had a point.

  I walked over to the bed and sat down. I looked over at him. “Harry. Listen. Maybe it’s time to bring the cops in on this.”

  “No. I told you. That is out of the question.”

  “Or at least let me wire New York,” I said. “Have them send some people from London.”

  “And how would I explain those? Shall we tell Lord Robert and Lady Alice that they are all my secretaries?”

  “Why not just tell them the truth, tell them—”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Harry, why is seeing the grounds so damned important?”

  “The grounds of Maplewhite are celebrated, Phil. The forest, the extensive lawn, the fabulous gardens.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them out to me. “Would you deny me a chance to see all these, to drink in their legendary beauty? And what will I say when people ask me about them? Shall I say that Houdini never saw them, because he was busy cowering in his room?”

  I slipped my watch from my pocket. Ten minutes to eleven.

  It was probably safe out there. Better to give way now, I told myself. If I did, maybe he would listen to me later, when it wasn’t safe.

  “An hour or two,” he said. “Only an hour or two. And then we can return to the rooms.”

  I sighed again. “Okay,” I said.

  “Ah, Phil, wonderful!” He stepped over to the bed, clapped me on the shoulder. “Wonderful!” When I was sitting down, his eyes were level with my own. They were shimmering with pleasure.

  He was easy to please. All you had to do was give him whatever he wanted.

  “Okay, Harry,” I said. “Okay. Go on downstairs. I’ll be right there.”

  “Certainly, Phil,” he beamed.

  When he left, I opened my traveling bag and lifted the false bottom. I removed the small automatic Colt and one of the spare magazines. I replaced the bottom, closed the bag, dropped the magazine into the left pocket of my coat.