Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

  “I think she’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, she’ll make a lovely witness, to be sure. Although I must confess to the tiniest sliver of unease concerning her reason for going to the Earl’s room last night.”

  “She explained that.”

  “She excused it,” he said. “I’m not altogether convinced that she explained it.”

  “She’s read about mediums. She knows they pick up information, and she knows that sometimes they pick it up from servants.

  “Assume she’s right,” said Marsh, and that it was the Earl prancing through her room last night. We haven't established, as yet, that the servants knew of this.”

  “But Briggs knew about Darleen’s visits to the Earl’s room. The kitchen maid. Maybe he told Madame Sosostris. And maybe that was what she was talking about at the seance. Maybe Miss Turner came to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.”

  We were in the final corridor now. The Earl’s rooms were up ahead. “Thicker and thicker,” said Marsh. “Peas and parsnips, a sprig of parsley, a dash of sage.”

  “This is Carson’s room,” I told him, and I nodded toward the closed door.

  “The valet. Yes.”

  “And this is the Earl’s suite.”

  I turned the knob and pushed open the door, then I stood back to let Marsh go in first.

  He looked around the sitting room, at the bare stone walls and the heavy oak furniture and the Oriental carpet.

  “Somewhat spartan,” he said. “But, good Lord, that is a magnificent rug.” He glanced at me. “Kurdish. A Senneh.” He admired the rug some more. “And seventeenth century, unless I miss my guess. Priceless. Sheer blasphemy to leave it lying about like that.”

  He stepped delicately around the thing and walked along the wooden floor. I followed him and Sergeant Meadows followed me. Marsh took a last glance at the carpet and then opened the door to the Earl’s room.

  He stood in the doorway, closely peering at the wooden jamb. He reached out and ran his fingers along the wood.

  “According to Houdini,” I said, “no one gimmicked the door.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, without looking at me. “So you said.” He stepped into the room and examined the broken support for the door’s bar. He took a careful look at the edge of the door itself, running his slender fingers along that. He nodded to himself and then he stepped into the room. Sergeant Meadows and I followed.

  The fire in the fireplace had gone out and the air in the room was cooler. I could still smell gunsmoke but it was very faint now, wavering weakly behind the smells of dust and age.

  “Where was the pistol?” Marsh asked me.

  I showed him. “About there. And you can still see the ash. Along the floor.”

  Sergeant Meadows had gone to the window and he stood there craning his neck to look down at the ground beneath.

  “Hmmm,” said Marsh. “Yes.” He bent at the waist and studied the floor. “Footprints. A herd of wildebeest were apparently frolicking in here.”

  “We were all here. Doyle, Lord Purleigh, Houdini. And then Superintendent Honniwell and his men.”

  Marsh was still bent at the waist. “Did you examine the ash when you first arrived?”

  “Yeah. No prints. There wouldn’t have been. The ash flew out when we broke open the door.”

  “Hmmm.” Bent forward, shuffling his feet, Marsh inched along the floor, toward the far wall. “This is rather intriguing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Here’s a set of footprints that proceed directly to the wall. And then muddle about for a bit.” He stood up, looked at me. But don’t return.”

  At that moment, the stone wall silently swung open, a doorshaped section of it, and the Great Man stepped out of the darkness beyond. He held a glowing railroad lantern in his hand and he was smiling that wide charming smile of his. “The footprints, he announced, “are mine, naturally.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  THE GREAT MAN knew how to make an entrance.

  Inspector Marsh knew how to stand there and smile delicately. “Mr. Houdini,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  The Great Man ignored him and he aimed his grin at me. “You see, Phil? Already I have discovered something absolutely crucial.”

  “I see that, Harry. Where does it go?”

  “There is a stairway here.” He held the lamp up to the opening in the wall. Inside, a narrow stone stairway led down into the blackness. He turned back to me. “It goes down to a kind of tunnel which seems to encircle all of Maplewhite. From this tunnel, additional stairways lead upward to various rooms of the house.”

  “How’d you find it?” I asked him.

  “Simple logic,” he said. He turned to Marsh. “May I explain?”

  “But of course,” said Marsh. “I swoon to hear it.” He turned, dusted off the bedspread with a delicate hand, and sat down on the bed as if it were a theater seat. He put his hands on his lap and looked up at the Great Man with his eyebrows raised in attention, or maybe an impersonation of it. Sergeant Meadows was still looming with his notebook over by the window. He crossed his arms over his thick chest and leaned back against the sill.

  The Great Man set the lantern on the floor. He rubbed his hands together. “Well,” he said. “We have been presented here at Maplewhite with a series of totally baffling events. Even Houdini was, for a while, baffled by these. But then it occurred to me that all of them were very similar, in form, to simple magic tricks, of the sort performed by mediocre magicians.” He looked at me. “And what do magic tricks require, Phil?”

  I smiled. “You tell me, Harry.”

  Inspector Marsh had lowered his eyebrows and his head, and he was carefully studying the manicured fingernails of his left hand.

  “Timing,” said the Great Man. “Misdirection. And, of course, gimmicked props.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and he began to pace up and down as he talked. He spoke seriously and slowly, like a professor at a college for dimwits. “Now. In order to understand the mechanics of a successful trick, we must begin with no preconceptions. None whatever. But in the case of the Earl s death, even Houdini had in fact entertained some of these. I had believed that the Earl was paralyzed and bedridden. So had all of us believed. But Miss Turner’s story—of the Earl coming to her room, disguised as a ghost—clearly cast some doubt on this.”

  I said, “I thought you didn’t believe her story.”

  “Aha,” he said. “That was before I pondered my preconceptions. But suppose, I told myself, suppose Miss Turner’s story were true. Suppose that the Earl were, in fact, mobile. If he had actually invaded the privacy of her room on Friday night, how had he done so without being seen?”

  Marsh looked up from his fingernails and he frowned. “It was the middle of the night. There was no one about to see him.”

  “But could he be certain of that? A single witness would have given away his game. And, assuming that the Earl did, in fact, commit suicide on the following day, how did he obtain the pistol from the hall without being seen?”

  Marsh held up his hand. “Yes, yes, all right. There are other means by which he could have accomplished that. But quite clearly there’s also this stairway you’ve stumbled upon.”

  The Great Man drew back his head. “Stumbled upon? Hardly, Inspector Marsh. I worked it out, with complete logic. As to the Earl, you see, and his death, I considered the other possibility that he had not committed suicide. That he had been murdered. In such a case, how had the murderer escaped? I have examined that door very carefully, and I knew—”

  “Yes,” said Marsh. “Mr. Beaumont has informed me. So you deduced there was another entrance to the room.”

  “I deduced, yes, exactly! And I obtained this from the housekeeper, Mrs. Blandings!” He reached into his coat pocket and plucked out a cloth tape measure. He waved his arm through the air in a theatrical circle, so the length of yellow tape streamed into a single hoop. “And I came up he
re.”

  He stalked to the door to show us, the tape rippling in the air behind him. On the bed, Marsh turned to follow him. The Great Man spun around. “I examined the room visually. Then I walked to the window.”

  He strode to the window. Sergeant Meadows stood there watching him, his arms crossed, his face blank. “Excuse me,” the Great Man said, and reached out and took hold of Meadow’s hips, as though he were going to pick him up and drop him somewhere. Maybe he would have. But Sergeant Meadows looked at Inspector Marsh, who nodded once, and Meadows stepped aside.

  “I examined the window very carefully,” said the Great Man. “Measuring, measuring.” Bending over, he showed us. He stood up. “Then I went all around the room, measuring its dimensions. All of its dimensions.” He waved the tape measure through the air. “Then I went to the room next door.”

  For a second I thought he was going to stalk over there, expecting us to follow him. He didn’t.

  “I examined its dimensions,” he said. “I—”

  “Yes,” said Marsh. “I do believe I follow. You determined where the passage must have been.”

  “Exactly! And then, when I rushed back here, I set about finding it. And, of course, I did.”

  He went over to the opening in the wall. “It is an ingenious mechanism. You see.” He pushed shut the rectangle of stone. It moved back into place, silently and smoothly. The wall seemed completely solid now. “Counterweighted. Simple but effective. The key is here.”

  He pressed one of the stones to his left. Silently and smoothly, the rectangle swung open.

  Smiling widely, the Great Man turned back to us. “You see? Houdini succeeds before others even attempt.”

  “How very enterprising of you,” said Inspector Marsh.

  “Yes,” said the Great Man. “Thank you.”

  “And have you by any chance examined this tunnel?”

  “Only a small portion of it.” He folded up the tape measure. “I climbed up one of the stairways. It leads into another room. Not a bedroom. A small parlor.” He stuffed the tape back into his pocket. “But there are many of these stairways. I feel certain that one of them leads into Miss Turner’s room.”

  “But you haven’t actually established that,” said Marsh.

  “There is no question in my mind,” said the Great Man. “And no doubt one of the stairways also leads to the Great Hall.” He turned to me. “And so, Phil. The Earl could have removed the gun from the collection with no one being the wiser.”

  “Or somebody else could’ve taken it,” I said. “And used that stairway to come up here and kill him.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Both are possible, of course.”

  “Oh?” said Marsh. He was smiling. “You don’t mean to say that you still remain baffled by something?”

  The Great Man raised his head. “I shall determine the truth. And very shortly, I believe.”

  Marsh nodded. “Yes. Mr. Beaumont has apprised me of your plan. By afternoon tea, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes. That is correct.”

  “He that is proud eats up himself. Troilus and Cressida.”

  “Pride is irrelevant,” said the Great Man. “What Houdini sets out to do, he does.”

  “By tea time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You will permit me to harbor a stray doubt or two?

  “Harbor as many as you like. Harbor a fleet of these. I shall succeed, nonetheless.”

  “Are you a betting man, Mr. Houdini?”

  The Great Man drew himself up. “Houdini never wagers.”

  “No,” said Marsh. “I shouldn’t have thought so.”

  “But,” said the Great Man, “Houdini has been known, on occasion, to accept a challenge.” He looked at Marsh. “Are you offering a challenge, Inspector Marsh?”

  “I prefer to think of it as a wager. A gentleman’s wager, if you like. With no money passing hands. I’ll wager that you will not solve this case by the time of afternoon tea.”

  “And that you will?”

  “Oh,” said Marsh, smiling, “I fully expect to solve it long before then.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Oh yes.”

  The Great Man studied him for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “I accept.” He stepped forward holding out his hand. Marsh rose from the bed and took it.

  The Great Man dropped Marsh’s hand, took a look around the room, and then drew himself up. “I must go,” he announced, and then he did, stalking out the door.

  Marsh looked over at me. He smiled wryly. “Silly of me. But your employer has rather a way of getting under one’s skin.”

  “Yeah.”

  Marsh reached into his pants pocket, eased out a watch, glanced at its face. He nodded, slipped it back. He turned to Sergeant Meadows. “Grab that lantern, will you, Meadows, and take a look at the tunnel. Follow all the stairways. Determine into which rooms they lead. Discreetly, of course.”

  Beneath his heavy brow Sergeant Meadows glanced at me. He looked back at Marsh. For the first time he spoke. “And you, sir?”

  “Oh, I’ll muddle along on my own for a while.” Marsh turned to me. “Unless you’d care to come along?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I told him.

  TALKING TO THE Great Man, Inspector Marsh had seemed very sure of himself. And he seemed sure of himself for the next few hours, but I noticed that we were moving pretty quickly through the house.

  First we went to the room of Carson, the Earl’s valet. Carson was in bed, wearing a white nightshirt, but he was willing to talk. He looked worse than he had yesterday. His face was paler and his eyes were more dull. The trembling of his hands was more intense.

  Marsh sat in the chair, I stood leaning against the wall. Marsh asked Carson pretty much the same questions I’d asked yesterday and Carson gave pretty much the same answers.

  Then Marsh said, “I understand that Lord and Lady Purleigh made a visit to the Earl’s room on Friday night.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Carson. “They did, sir.” His shaking hands moved vaguely along his chest.

  “Were you present at the time?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you have any idea what the three of them discussed?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “How did you know, Carson, that Lord and Lady Purleigh came to visit the Earl?”

  “I saw them, sir. Passing by in the hallway. I was in my room, sir, and generally I keep my door open.”

  “Do you indeed. At all times?’

  “Until I’m ready to sleep, sir. In case the Earl calls for me. Usually, around twelve, I go in to check on him, sir.” He frowned, took a ragged breath. “Went in to check on him, sir. Before I went to sleep.”

  Marsh nodded. “You could hear the Earl calling, all the way from his bedroom?”

  “Yes, sir. There was nothing wrong with the Earl’s voice, sir.”

  He made a feeble smile.

  “You could hear him when the doors were shut? His doors?”

  “No, sir. During the day, sir, we left all the doors open, my door and the Earl’s. Except when he took his nap, sir, before tea. I always shut his bedroom door then. It helped him to sleep.”

  “So your door was open yesterday afternoon, before you brought him his tea.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did anyone pass by?”

  “No, sir. No one, sir.”

  In the same conversational voice he’d been using all along, Marsh asked him, “You know the kitchen maid, Darleen?

  Carson blinked. “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever seen Darleen pass by your room?

  “No, sir.” He blinked again. “Why should I, sir?”

  “I’ve heard that this Darleen made an occasional visit to the Earl’s room. Late at night.”

  Carson shook his head. “Oh no, sir. Why should she, sir? Oh.” Carson opened his eyes wide. “Excuse me, sir. I tell a lie. Once, several months past, sir—I was ill, sir, my stomach, and I couldn’t
perform my duties. And I believe it was young Darleen, sir, from the kitchen, who helped the Earl then.”

  Marsh nodded. “Tell me, Carson. How long have you known of the secret passageway in the Earl’s room?”

  Carson’s hand jumped and he frowned, puzzled. “Secret passageway, sir?”

  “Come now, Carson. It’s been there for years. Centuries, I expect. You must have known.”

  Carson shook his head. “But I didn’t sir, I swear.” He tried to rise up from the bed, gasped out a small cough, and he lay back down. His hands moved along his chest. “A secret passageway, sir? In the Earl’s room? Where, sir?”

  Marsh smiled. “Carson, do you know the penalties for perjury?”

  Carson’s eyes were frantic. “Sir, I swear to you, I know nothing of a secret passageway. Nothing, sir. I swear it!”

  Marsh stared at him for a moment. Then he stood up, reached into his pocket, took out his watch, glanced at it, slid it back into his pocket. He turned to me. “We’re for the kitchen, I think.”

  The Morning Post

  Maplewhite, Devon

  August 19

  Dear Evangeline,

  More boulders. Many more of them. Large boulders.

  And no genteel rolling down the hillside for this pack; no. All at once they coughed from the clouds and smashed to earth at precisely that piece of it upon which I, wide-eyed and well intentioned, happened to be dawdling. I still lie here, flattened, beneath them.

  Mr Beaumont is the largest of these.

  An arresting image, don’t you think? Me lying flattened beneath Mr Beaumont?

  If such a position ever actually befell me—somewhere outside the chaste confines of metaphor—I should be far from the only woman at Maplewhite who had, shall we say, enjoyed it.

  It appears that I’ve been mistaken about Mr Beaumont. In several ways.

  Last night, you’ll recall, I was about to go slinking through the dark silent halls of Maplewhite, in the hope of learning something—

  Which I did; and, Evy, you won’t believe me—

  You recall the first ghost, the one I promised to explain but never did, really? It transpires that that ghost was no ghost at all. He was Lord Purleigh’s father, the Earl of Axminster.