The Floating Lady Murder

by Daniel Stashower

  From within the sack, I tried to follow our progress as Malachi flicked the reins and the cart moved toward the rear gate of the station. The cocoon of heavy canvas made it difficult to pick out movement and sound, but I could dimly hear a muffled exchange of greetings between the driver and the guard, followed by the sounds of the heavy gate swinging open. Our wagon lurched forward, and a sudden brightening of light told me that we had entered the station. I barely had time to register this fact when I felt a sudden thudding pain in my side, followed by the sensation of falling through empty space. Apparently Malachi had climbed onto the back of the cart and was kicking the bags onto the floor. Swathed in canvas, I could do nothing to break my fall. I came to land on a grunting mass that I took to be my brother. I rolled off and lay still for a moment. The sound of retreating horse hooves told me that the wagon was moving off.

  For a considerable length of time I lay motionless, straining to hear any sounds of movement. It was decidedly close within the canvas sack, and it required something of an effort to breathe. Although I do not generally suffer from claustrophobia, I had the impression that my supply of air was thinning with each breath, and I had to fight an overpowering urge to struggle.

  Straining to control my breathing, I listened for any sound that might indicate that Harry was slipping out of his sack. If Harry was lying low, I reasoned, perhaps we were still in danger of discovery by the guards. Several moments passed, and with each one my sense of suffocation intensified. I was now coated in a sheen of perspiration, and waves of needle-like heat were spreading across my skin. My legs had begun to cramp, and spots were swimming before my eyes.

  Why had Harry not freed himself? There had been no sounds of movement that I could discern. All indications pointed to the fact that the storage facility was empty. A second thought struck me; perhaps Harry had been knocked unconscious when we had been unceremoniously dumped from the cart. Maybe he had struck his head and was now in danger of suffocating within the canvas sheath! I listened again for the sound of movement, but heard nothing. At last I could stand it no longer. I decided to free myself from the mailbag.

  It proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. The durable canvas not only restricted my breathing, it also limited my movement. Worse, the top of the sack was folded over and cinched with a leather buckle-strap, which in turn was fastened with a padlock. Harry had taken pains to insure that I was securely locked in, so that the bag would appear no different from any of the others. His own bag, I assumed, could not have been so rigorously sealed, since he had no one on the outside to assist him.

  Harry had helped me get in, but it appeared that I was going to have to get myself out. Twisting to get my hands into position, I tried to work my fingers through the top of the sack, but the folded canvas held fast like drying mortar—Harry had tightened the buckle-strap with his usual energy.

  I cannot say how long I kept at it, or how many times I cursed my brother under my breath. The rough fabric became like dense brambles against my skin, and my fingers grew raw with the strain of trying to tunnel through the infernal fold at the top of the sack. At last I managed to get one hand free, like a chick hatching from an egg. Straining against my limited range of movement, I felt around for the padlock that held the strap in place. When I found it, I could not suppress a blue oath. My lock-picks would be useless—the lock had no keyhole. It was one of the modern rotary dial fasteners, which opened by a sequence of numbers dialed in combination, rather than a key.

  For a moment I simply lay quiet, too exhausted by my efforts even to ponder my next move. Then, suddenly, I felt the entire sack lifted off the ground and placed on some elevated platform. An instant later the top opened and a welcome rush of light and cool air flooded over me.

  “What were you waiting for, Dash?” came my brother’s voice. “I realize that you are not the world’s foremost self-liberator, but surely you must have learned a thing or two from me over the years! I thought you’d fallen asleep in there!”

  “Harry?”

  “Come on. It’ll be light soon. We have less than an hour.”

  “I couldn’t hear you. I thought—”

  “I shouldn’t wonder that you couldn’t hear. You sounded as though you were throwing a calf! So much for stealth! What were you doing in there?”

  I blinked in the light as I threw off the heavy sack. “Harry, those things are suffocating! You can’t imagine how tortuous it is when that strap is properly fastened. It’s like quicksand!”

  “Really?” He looked at the discarded sack with sudden interest. “I wonder...”

  A sudden noise interrupted the thought. We dove beneath the pile of mail sacks as a watchman’s footsteps drew closer. We were aware of the beam of a bull’s-eye lantern playing over the room, but then the footsteps receded.

  “He’s a bit ahead of schedule.” said Harry, as we emerged once again. “We’d better hurry.”

  For the first time, I had leave to examine my surroundings. We were in the midst of a cavernous storage area, in which crates and sacks were haphazardly arranged amid a number of hand trolleys, loading straps and sorting tables. “This is where Le Roy’s apparatus will be held until he collects it tomorrow,” Harry explained. “He came ahead on an earlier train in order to make the theater arrangements. Look at all these crates!” He swept his hand through the air to indicate the vast storage area. “Finding Le Roy’s apparatus among all this clutter will be difficult. Come on, Dash. We have a long search ahead of us. We must work quickly.”

  “Perhaps not, Harry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I may not be the world’s foremost self-liberator, but if I were looking for the effects of a famous Belgian magician, I might start with those large crates marked ‘Apparatus de Magie.’ ”

  “Ah. Very good.” Harry darted over to the crates I had indicated. Snatching up a metal crowbar from one of the work tables, he began prying open the lids of several of the containers.

  “I still don’t feel entirely at ease about this, Harry,” I said, watching him paw through the packing straw inside one of the cases.

  “Nor do I,” he admitted. “We are spying on a brother magician. It is a violation of our code.”

  “Actually, I was referring to the fact that we’re trespassing on government property.”

  “Oh, that,” said Harry. “Honestly, Dash, you can be such a limp dish rag! We are investigating a murder! We are entitled to bend the law just a bit if we are able to achieve—”

  “We’re entitled to no such thing,” I said with some heat. “We have a police department that investigates murders. You and I are just a pair of meddling amateurs.”

  “Perhaps so,” Harry admitted, prying open the lid of another crate, “but your Lieutenant Murray doesn’t know the first thing about illusions or sleight of hand or show business. He has admitted it himself. We are just giving him the benefit of our experience, as he requested.”

  “That may have been useful when he was interrogating Jim Collins,” I said. “But I doubt if it extends to committing a robbery.”

  Harry murmured something under his breath.

  “Pardon?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You know I’m right, Harry. If we should happen to be arrested, Lieutenant Murray won’t lift a finger to help us. And if you ever call me a ‘moaning Minnie’ again, I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”

  “You’re always welcome to try, Dash, but I think you’ll find—ah! Here we are!”

  Harry had pushed aside a considerable amount of straw to reveal a slender pedestal, not unlike our own levitation banquette. “This must be it,” he said. “Help me lift it out!”

  I went around to the other end of the crate and grabbed the legs of the pedestal. It lifted out easily. “There must be more to it,” I said. “You couldn’t make anyone disappear with this thing. There are no traps of any kind, and no possible place of concealment.”

  “Perhaps Le Roy�
��s Floating Lady doesn’t need to disappear.”

  “What do you mean, Harry?”

  “Well, we experimented with various methods of causing Princess Karnac to float using various harnesses and support devices. Perhaps Le Roy managed to perfect such a method.”

  I nudged the flimsy pedestal with my foot. “Even Bess couldn’t possibly levitate off of this thing. No one could, no matter how small she happened to be. It’s barely sturdy enough to support her weight. Even the most slender woman in the world would cause this thing to tip over before she ever managed to levitate. No leverage whatsoever. Far too top-heavy.”

  “Yes,” Harry agreed, studying the pedestal with a critical eye. “There must be some other piece in one of these other trunks. Help me move this crate out of the way.”

  “All right, but—uh, Harry?”

  “What is it, Dash?”

  “Why does this empty crate weigh so much?”

  Harry, straining to shove the wooden crate aside, suddenly let go and stepped back. “Excellent question,” he said.

  We pushed aside the rest of the straw packing at the bottom of the crate. “There’s nothing in here except that scrap of packing cloth,” Harry said. “Do you suppose the crate is constructed of some special—?”

  “That’s not packing cloth, Harry.”

  “No?”

  “It’s a round carpet. It must go underneath the pedestal.”

  “What of it?”

  “Unless I’m very much mistaken, that carpet weighs upwards of three hundred pounds.”

  Harry reached in to grab the edge of the carpet, but couldn’t budge it. “Brilliant,” he said, with genuine wonder in his voice. “A three hundred pound carpet. Who would ever suspect it? The pedestal is too fragile and spindly to attract any suspicion, but underneath, the deceptively heavy rug provides all the leverage one could wish.”

  Together we lifted the rug from the crate and spread it on the floor. “Ingenious,” Harry said. “With our method, the Floating Lady must be covered up at the beginning of the effect. Le Roy has made it possible for the audience to see her rising, without any covering at all! He must be quite gifted.”

  “Either that or he has some very inventive people working for him.”

  Harry did not appear to hear me. He was staring into the deep red and blue pattern of the rug. “Dash,” he said. “This is a rather unfortunate development.”

  “I realize that, Harry.”

  “If Mr. Le Roy has developed his own completely unique and original method of performing the Floating Lady effect, then he would have no reason to try and steal the Kellar version.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which means that he has no spies within the Kellar company.”

  “It seems unlikely.”

  “So we are no closer to discovering who is trying to put Mr. Kellar out of business. We have made no progress whatever in solving the murder of Francesca Moore.” He sat down on the three hundred pound rug and let his head slump forward. “Perhaps Mr. Collins is guilty after all. Could I have been so wrong about him?”

  “This may not be the place to discuss the matter, Harry.”

  “Someone has gone to extraordinary lengths to thwart Mr. Kellar’s plans for the Floating Lady. Extraordinary lengths. If not Mr. Le Roy, who could it be? Can it be that the intended victim was really not Miss Moore after all? Is it truly—”

  “Harry,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder, “the sun is coming up. We’ve broken into a locked warehouse in order to search the belongings of a rival magician. The guard will be coming back along in a few moments. Do you think we might put off this discussion until we’re safely out of here?”

  “All right, Dash,” said Harry with a note of annoyance. “But you really are becoming a terrible fusspot.”

  As it happened, Harry’s plan for getting out of the Grand Central storage facility was far simpler than the plan for getting in, though to this day I believe that he devised it on the spur of the moment. As daylight began to stream in through the high windows, we located a custodial closet near the wash rooms and picked the lock. Inside were a number of washermen’s coverings, along with mops and wooden pails. Harry and I simply donned the appropriate clothing and spent half an hour or so mopping the floor of the main waiting room. We were joined shortly by members of the station’s actual cleaning crew, none of whom found anything unusual in the presence of a pair of unfamiliar workers. After an appropriate interval, we stripped off the coverings, returned them to the custodial closet, and simply strolled out through the front gate of the station.

  “What an utter waste of a night,” Harry said, blinking in the morning light.

  I stretched my sore limbs. “Let’s discuss it later. Right now I need a bath and some sleep.”

  “We might as well admit defeat,” he continued, as we began walking uptown. “Collins will die for this crime, whether he’s guilty or not. And Mr. Kellar will carry the stigma with him until the end of his days.”

  “Please, Harry. I’m too tired to think about it right now.”

  “You care nothing for the fate of Jim Collins?”

  “Of course I do. But unlike you, I can’t keep going forever without food or sleep. I’m just a mortal, Harry. And right now I’m dog tired.”

  He fell silent for the rest of the walk home, having apparently added my fatigue to the lengthy catalog of my failings.

  A walk of half an hour or so brought us to East 69th Street. For once the prospect of one of my mother’s hearty breakfasts was a source of eager anticipation. I climbed the steps ahead of Harry, who was still absorbed in his reverie.

  Bess met us at the kitchen door with a peculiar expression on her face.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is anything wrong?”

  “You’d better brace yourselves,” she said.

  “What?” cried Harry, pushing forward. “Is Mama—?”

  “She’s fine.” Bess swung the door open. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Harry Kellar and another gentleman were sitting at our mother’s breakfast table with white napkins tucked into their collars, eagerly attacking plates of food with their knives and forks. “Ah! Gentlemen! Good morning!” Kellar called cheerily as we came through the door. “I must say, Mrs. Weiss, this is the most delicious dish I have ever tasted! What did you call it?”

  “Kasheh,” said Mother.

  “Wonderful!” Kellar exclaimed. He turned back to us, smiling at the stunned expressions on our faces. “Forgive me, I seem to have forgotten my manners. You are wondering who this gentleman is that I’ve brought with me.” Kellar stood and pulled the napkin from under his chin.

  “Allow me to present Mr. Servais Le Roy.”

  13

  A LITTLE SOMETHING ON OUR STOMACHS

  SERVAIS LE ROY WAS A SMALL, DAPPER MAN WITH SLICK BLACK hair and a waxed moustache, the tips of which extended a fair distance on either side of his face, in the manner of antennae. His black velvet suit featured buckled knee breeches and long stockings of the type once fashionable at court, making him quite the most singular-looking man I had ever seen. Certainly he was the most exotic visitor ever to grace my mother’s breakfast table.

  “I hope that you will forgive the intrusion,” Le Roy said. His clear, pleasant voice was lightly accented with what I took to be Belgian rhythms. “Henry felt that it was imperative that we speak with you immediately. He was most insistent.”

  “Le Roy has had a brainstorm!” Kellar cried. “An absolute brainstorm!”

  Harry and I exchanged a look, trying to appraise the situation. We were definitely not looking our best. We still wore our dark clothing from the previous night’s escapade, and our labors at the Grand Central storage facility had left us a bit rough around the edges. The top of Harry’s head looked like one of the mops we had used to make our escape, and I was covered with cuts and scrapes from my struggle with the mail bag,

  “I, uh—you must pardon our appearance,” Harry stammered.r />
  “We—we’ve been helping a friend,” I added, hoping that this explanation would suffice.

  “Tell them your idea, Le Roy!” said Kellar, too caught up in his excitement to notice. “I can’t wait to hear what they think of it!”

  Our dapper visitor, busy with a plate of my mother’s pepper sausages, nodded enthusiastically. “Henry is being generous,” he said, setting down his fork and dabbing at his lips. “The inspiration is not mine alone. It was he who suggested the hoop skirt.”

  Harry pulled back a chair and sat down. “I’m afraid you’ve left us completely in the dark,” he said. “What hoop skirt?”

  Kellar gave a barking laugh. “Sorry, Houdini,” he said. “We must sound as if we’re talking a lot of nonsense. We’ll start from the beginning.”

  “I went to visit Henry at his hotel last night,” Le Roy explained. “It seemed to be the only proper thing to do. Of course I had read all about the tragedy of the other night. It made our little rivalry seem quite absurd, and I wished to call in and pay my condolences.”

  “Very decent of him,” Kellar said.

  “Well, I also wished to explain my sudden appearance in New York—to present a Floating Lady, no less! The timing was terribly disagreeable, coming so close on the heels of the misfortune. It must have appeared”—he paused, searching for the proper word—“ghoulish, I suppose.”

  “No, no,” said Harry, his face growing scarlet.

  “Not at all,” I hurried to add.

  “But how could I have known? Yes, the timing was very disagreeable. I don’t know what you must have thought of me. I had no idea that Mr. Kellar would be presenting a Floating Lady at this time, far less that there would be such a disaster on the opening night. After all, it is not as if Mr. Kellar and I are spying on one another.”