Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

  “I know that, Harry.”

  The Great Man couldn’t take yes for an answer. “There you were,” he said, “all of you, running around like schoolchildren. Throwing furniture. Breaking doors. It was absurd. All I required was a simple wire clothes hanger.”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head and sighed. “I am very surprised at Lord Purleigh, I confess. I would never have expected such behavior from an English lord.”

  “It was his father trapped in there.”

  “Yes, of course, but I could have opened the door more swiftly. And with less damage, too, of course.”

  “He needed to do something besides stand around and wait. You saw him, Harry. He was going nuts.”

  The Great Man frowned. He turned to me. “This is why you suggested using the bench?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pursed his lips again. He nodded. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, you did well, Phil. I was so concerned with defeating the door and aiding the unfortunate Earl that for a brief moment I forgot myself.” He nodded again. “You did well, Phil.

  “Thanks, Harry.”

  We had come to the Great Hall. Even at the entrance, fifty feet from the gun collection, I could see that the Smith & Wesson was missing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “YOU FORGOT TO mention, Harry,” I said, “that Sir Arthur is crazy.”

  The Great Man frowned. “Sir Arthur? Not at all. He has, I think, been reacting to all this with great intelligence.”

  The two of us were in the Great Hall, at the end of the long table, near the gun collection. We were sitting on uncomfortable wooden chairs with tall straight backs, waiting for Doyle and Lord Bob.

  “I don’t mean that,” I told the Great Man. “I had a talk with him this afternoon. He thinks you pull off your tricks by demate-rializing.”

  “Ah. Yes.” He nodded sadly. “I have tried to persuade him otherwise, of course, but he refuses to believe me. Spiritualism has become with him an idee fixe. A fixed idea, that is, in French.”

  “Thanks.”

  He remembered something. “Incidentally, Phil, you must never mention fairies.”

  “Fairies,” I said.

  “Yes. You must never mention them to Sir Arthur. He believes that fairies exist, you see. He has some photographs, two young girls playing with a tribe of fairies in an English garden. They are an obvious hoax—the girls are clearly holding cardboard cutouts—but Sir Arthur believes them to be genuine. He has actually written a book about them. If you mention fairies, he will begin to explain the photographs, as he did in the library this afternoon, after you left. Much as I like and respect Sir Arthur, I have already heard as much about fairies as I care to.”

  I shrugged. “Like I said, Harry. He’s crazy.”

  “Phil, he is perhaps the best-known and the most respected author in the world. He was knighted. By Queen Victoria. Aside from his credulousness in these matters, he is an extremely rational and intelligent man.”

  “Pretty big aside. ”

  “Phil, he lost his son in the War, and his dear mother only this past year. He wishes to believe, and so he believes.” He shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Who knows? Perhaps if I lacked my extraordinary expertise, perhaps I too should become a credulous believer.” He looked off, frowning, as he considered that.

  I read his mind for him. “No,” I said. “Not you, Harry. You re

  too sharp.”

  He nodded. “Yes. That is true, of course.”

  THE SMELL OF smoldering burlap filled the room. Sitting back in his chair, Doyle took his pipe from his mouth. “They’re sending their best man,” he said, talking about Scotland Yard. “Fellow named Marsh. An inspector. I’ve heard of him, and he’s reported to be extremely good. Unconventional, so I understand, but intelligent and very thorough.” He turned to Lord Bob. And discreet. Lord Bob snorted.

  “Unfortunately,” said Doyle, “he won’t be arriving until sometime tomorrow morning. Meantime, they’ll wire the Purleigh police. The constable from the village should be here presently.”

  Lord Bob scowled. “That buffoon. Dubbins.”

  Doyle and Lord Bob had arrived together, a few minutes ago, and now they sat opposite the Great Man and me. About ten minutes before that, a uniformed servant had ferried in a crystal decanter of brandy and four balloon glasses, along with a crystal carafe of water and four water glasses. He had poured four brandies, four glasses of water, and left.

  Doyle said, “A medical examiner will be dispatched from

  Amberly.”

  “Still don’t get that,” said Lord Bob. “What’s wrong with Christie, eh? Been the family quack for years.”

  “In the circumstances, Lord Purleigh, my friend at the Yard feels, and I agree with him, that an outside observer would be best.”

  Lord Bob scowled again.

  “I also mentioned,” said Doyle, “the matter of Chin Soo. I explained that it was quite unrelated to the death of the Earl, but that it was a situation which required immediate attention. An additional force of police will be sent here, these to come from Amberly as well.”

  “More of them,” grunted Lord Bob. He shook his head. “Peering and prodding. Tracking muck about the house.”

  “How is Lady Purleigh?” the Great Man asked.

  Lord Bob sat back, raised his bushy eyebrows, sighed heavily. “Bearing up. She’s a wonder, Alice. Always has been. But she’s upset, of course. As I say, she was fond of the old swine.” He took a sip from his brandy glass.

  I asked him, “Have you told the guests about Chin Soo?”

  He looked at me. “Said I would, didn’t I?”

  “Lord Purleigh,” said Doyle, holding his pipe tilted at an angle beside his wide red face. “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Certainly,” he said, sitting back. “You’ve earned the right, Doyle. Appreciate the way you’ve handled things. The gun. Guarding the room. Never would’ve thought of it myself.”

  He turned back to me, frowned. “You, too, Beaumont. Owe you an apology. Got a bit shirty upstairs.”

  “No need to apologize,” I told him. I tasted the brandy. It was older than I was. Better, too, probably.

  “Pay what I owe,” said Lord Bob, and sipped at his. “Even to a Pinkerton. Noblesse oblige, eh?” He turned to Doyle. “A suggestion, you said?”

  Doyle took a puff from the pipe. “Yes.” As he shifted slightly on the uncomfortable seat, another small quick wince flashed across his face. “I suggest to you—and I do assure you, Lord Purleigh, that I have only your best interests at heart—I suggest to you that when the police arrive, you might perhaps refrain from referring to the Earl as an old swine.”

  Lord Bob seemed puzzled. “Whatever for? Whole bloody county knows he was an old swine, and knows that I know it. He’s dead, mebbe, but a swine’s a swine for a’ that. Eh?”

  “Yes, of course. But given the unusual circumstances of the Earl’s death—”

  Lord Bob frowned impatiently. “You keep nattering on about the circumstances. Swine killed himself. Doesn’t happen every day, grant you, but it happens. Should have done it years ago. Inevitable, in a way, you know. Inherent Contradictions of Capitalism. Historical Necessity. Swine finally realized what he was, couldn’t stomach it, took the easy way out.”

  “But I understood that your father suffered from paralysis.”

  Lord Bob nodded. “Years now. Fell off a horse. Sorrel mare.” “And Mr. Beaumont has pointed out that the pistol found in his room came from that gun collection.” He pointed his pipe at the guns on the wall.

  Lord Bob nodded. “Got you. Worried me for a bit. How’d the old swine get hold of it, eh? Well, no mystery there. One of the servants fetched it for him.”

  “But why? What reason could the Earl possibly give a servant

  for wanting a pistol?”

  “No idea. Told him he wanted to pot at pigeons, mebbe. We get them, you know. Poison doesn’t work. Costs me a fortune, cleaning up after
the buggers. Filthy things.” He drained his brandy.

  “But Lord Purleigh—”

  “What is it, exactly, you’re after, Doyle?”

  “Not I, Lord Purleigh. The police—”

  “Look here.” Lord Bob grabbed the decanter, splashed some more brandy into his glass. “You’re not implying that this was something more than a suicide? You’re not saying, blast it, that it was murder?” He slapped the decanter back onto the table.

  “Certainly not. But the police—”

  “Bugger the police.” He swallowed some brandy. “Poor Carson heard the bloody gun go off. You saw the door. It was locked. Barred. From the inside.” He turned to the Great Man. “You re the lock-expert chap. Could you have nipped out of that room? Eh? In one piece? And left the locks the way we found them?”

  “Of course,” said the Great Man. His timing, as usual, was perfect. “There are several methods by which I could have done so. With the simplest of these, I could have prepared the door in less than a few seconds.”

  Doyle leaned forward, interested, and he said, “Really? By what means?”

  Lord Bob sat back, scowling. “Rubbish.”

  “Not at all, Lord Purleigh,” said the Great Man. “It is quite simple.” He turned to Doyle. “The lock is an ancient one, with the warded chamber set midway between the two lock plates, one on the interior of the room and one on the exterior. The channel passes straight through, from room to room. Let us say, theoretically, that I am in the bedroom, and that the door is locked from the inside when Carson attempts to open it. As in fact it was.”

  My attention was wandering. The Great Man had already explained all this to me. I glanced over at the weapons on the wall. A lot of armament hanging up there.

  “To deal with the bar,” the Great Man was saying, “I would require only a strong piece of wire, perhaps a coat hanger—which is exactly the item, of course, with which I would have opened the door, had I been given the opportunity.”

  Up there, above an antique piece of furniture, a long dark wooden dresser, there were dirks and daggers, swords, halberds, pikes, rifles, and pistols.

  “I unlock the door,” said the Great Man, “leaving the key in the lock. I open the door. I raise the bar and I use the wire to support it above the restraining posts, holding the wire along the edge of the door. I am standing outside now, in the other room. As I close the door, I slide the wire from beneath the bar. The bar descends into the restraining posts, and the wire slips around the frame of the door, and out. I then use a simple lock pick to turn the key in the chamber and drive the bolt home.”

  Doyle laughed aloud. “Topping!”

  Lord Bob said, “But how could you do all that with Carson standing right outside the door?”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Lord Purleigh?”

  He glared at me.

  “The guns on the wall,” I said. “They’re not loaded, are they?”

  He made a face. “What sort of blockhead puts loaded weapons on the bloody wall?”

  “Where’s the ammunition?”

  “That cupboard there.”

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  He waved a brusque hand. “Do as you like.” He turned back to the Great Man. “Carson was standing outside the door,” he said. “No way on earth you could’ve performed all those fancy tricks of yours without him seeing you.”

  I stood up, walked toward the cupboard.

  “Ah, but remember,” said the Great Man. Carson left the room to summon help. He used the emergency telephone in his own quarters.”

  Inside the cupboard, on the top shelf, the ammunition was neatly stacked in cardboard boxes.

  “When Carson leaves,” said the voice of the Great Man, “I unlock the door and I prepare everything—the bar, the lock. It is a matter of seconds only. Then I slip from the room. By the time he returns to it, I am safely away.”

  I saw a .45 auto, 30.30 Remington, 9-millimeter Parabellum. A metal canister holding black powder. And, toward the rear, a box of .38s. I glanced at the wall.

  Lord Bob: “And you’re saying that’s what bloody happened?”

  The Great Man: “Not at all, Lord Purleigh. Sir Arthur asked me how it could have happened. I was merely explaining this.”

  I walked over to the scoped Winchester lever-action rifle on the wall. I leaned forward, sniffed at the ejection port.

  “In my opinion,” said the Great Man, “nothing like this took place. There would have been indications, you see.”

  “Indications?” said Doyle.

  I put my right hand beneath the rifle’s butt plate, used my left to grip the tip of the barrel, and lifted the weapon from its supports on the wall. I sniffed the muzzle.

  “On the key, for example,” said the Great Man. “The key is copper, a soft metal. Had anyone used a pick on it, he would have left marks on the key’s bit.”

  I turned around to face them. I waited for the Great Man to finish. Lord Bob saw me holding the Winchester, frowned briefly, looked back at the Great Man.

  “The key,” said the Great Man, “landed on the floor on its right side. Its left side, of course, was facing up. It is on the left side of the bit that marks would have been left, had someone used a pick. I examined it and saw that there were no marks. You will find, however, when the key is turned over, the marks I left when I opened the lock.”

  He took a sip of water. “I also examined the wooden frame of the door. Had someone used a wire to lower the bar, the wire would have left a very narrow groove in the wood. I found no such groove. It is therefore obvious to me that no one used this method. Or, for that matter, any of the other methods that might have been employed. It is perfectly clear to me that the Earl did, in fact, commit suicide.”

  “There you are,” said Lord Bob triumphantly to Doyle. “Suicide. Plain and simple.”

  “Sorry,” I said. They turned to me. “It’s not all that simple.”

  It was Doyle who spoke. “What do you mean?”

  “I could be wrong,” I said, “but I think this is the rifle that was fired at Houdini today.”

  The three of them stared at me. Once again it was Doyle who did the talking. “Surely you’re not suggesting that Chin Soo came in here to obtain a rifle.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “I’m saying I think this is the rifle. It’s been fired, and fairly recently. Probably today.”

  Still holding the rifle’s barrel in my left hand, I jammed the butt plate against my stomach and I used the knuckles of my right hand to throw its lever open. The action was smooth and the lever moved easily, almost silently, and from the ejection port popped the long lethal shape of a 30.30 cartridge. The cartridge sailed in an arc to my right and then fell and thumped against the Oriental carpet and rolled up against the wall.

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen

  "IMPOSSIBLE,” SAID LORD Bob, glaring at the Winchester rifle as though it had just passed gas.

  Holding the rifle by its butt plate and the tip of its barrel, I carried it around the table and set it down carefully on the wooden tabletop, between Doyle and Lord Bob on one side, and the Great Man and me on the other. “Impossible or not,” I said, “that rifle’s been fired today.”

  I sat back down in my chair.

  Lord Bob reached out for the rifle. Doyle said warningly, “Lord Purleigh.”

  Lord Bob froze and glanced over at Doyle.

  “Fingerprints,” Doyle told him.

  Lord Bob scowled and withdrew his hand. “But damn it, Doyle,” he said. “It’s bloody impossible. No one could simply dash in here and grab the bloody thing!”

  I said, “Harry? Could Chin Soo have gotten into Maplewhite?”

  The Great Man frowned. “Get in? Yes, certainly.” He turned to Lord Bob. “The locks here are very fundamental, Lord Purleigh.”

  “Impossible,” said Lord Bob, and looked down at the rifle. He swallowed some brandy.

  I asked Lord Bob, “When was the last tim
e the gun was fired? That you know of.”

  Still staring at the Winchester, he said, “No idea. Spring sometime.” He looked up at me. “Target practice out on the lawn. Had some guests here, they wanted to give it a go.”

  Doyle turned to me. “You said that you still possess the slug that was fired this afternoon. There are scientific tests that can determine whether it was fired from this weapon.”

  “That won’t work here,” I told him. “The slug was too damaged. But the caliber is right.”

  Lord Bob turned to Doyle. “How could he possibly have known where the guns were kept?”

  Doyle puffed at the pipe, took it from his mouth. “Well, Lord Purleigh, there are written accounts of Maplewhite, you know. Descriptions of its rooms, its architecture.”

  Lord Bob’s furry eyebrows shot skyward. “You mean the filthy bugger investigated me? Investigated my bloody home? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Doyle shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose.”

  “The swine.” Lord Bob snatched up the decanter of brandy, splashed a couple of inches into his glass.

  Doyle frowned. “But would he’ve had the time to do so, I wonder?” He turned to me. “As I understand it, Chin Soo couldn’t have known until this morning that Houdini would be at Maplewhite this weekend. It was this morning that the article appeared in the Times. Even if he read it first thing in the day, would he have had time enough to study the accounts of the house and appear here as quickly as he did?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “Maybe Chin Soo had already figured out that Harry would be here.”

  Doyle raised his left eyebrow. “How so?” he asked.

  I asked, “How long have you known you’d be coming here, Sir Arthur? For the seance.”

  He stroked his mustache with the mouthpiece of the pipe as he thought about it. “Since Monday last,” he said finally. “Lady Purleigh asked me then, over the telephone, whether Madame Sosostris might be available this weekend. I rang up Madame and I asked her. She was available, she said, and she agreed to come. I telephoned Lady Purleigh and accepted her invitation, on both our behalfs.”