The girl’s eyes remained on the script writer as she continued, “He said, ‘Sorry, baby, but you shouldn’t have come just now.’ I thought he was going to kill me, too. I fought him and tried to get away. It was no good. Then he threw me into a chair and went to the phone there by the door. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘your coming is a break after all.’ He dialed the operator and told her to get the police. They got here a few minutes later.”
The Inspector turned to Sutton. “Okay. It’s your turn.”
Don spoke to the girl. “Take a bow, Helen. The acting and writing credits on that bit are both yours. And you only had a few minutes to put it together before air time. You did fine.” He looked at Gavigan. “Following her act is tough, but I’ll try. I worked all day on script changes which Carl wanted to have before he left for the weekend. I finished at six and started downtown.”
“In that rainstorm?” Malloy asked.
“Yes, but my car was close by and I ran for it. It was a bit like driving a submarine the first few blocks, but at 60th Street it stopped as suddenly as if some stagehand had turned it off. I managed to find a parking space four blocks over—on 40th—and walked from there. I had just reached Carl’s door when it opened and Helen walked out.”
“You’re not a bad actor yourself, Don,” Helen cut in. “Or, rather, you are.”
Sutton ignored that. “She left the door wide open behind her and walked past me as though I weren’t there. She didn’t answer when I spoke. She moved like a sleepwalker—staring straight ahead. I don’t think she saw me at all. I stepped inside, saw Carl’s body, then hightailed it down the hall and caught her at the elevator. It just happens that I told a few people at rehearsal yesterday what I thought of Carl Todd. I didn’t say anything nice. So I didn’t care to be found here with his body. I grabbed her—that part of her story is right—and pulled her back in here. It wasn’t easy.” He ran his fingers over the scratches on his cheek. “Her fingernails are sharp … Then I called the police.”
“Got anything that corroborates either story?” Gavigan asked Malloy.
“Not yet. Miss Lowe can’t give me anyone who saw her waiting for the rain to stop, so she could have left the rehearsal hall earlier than she claims. Sutton’s a bachelor and leaving earlier goes for him, too. We haven’t found anyone who saw either of them enter this building, and the elevator is self-service.”
Gavigan scowled, then marched back into the den to stand again over the body. Merlini and the Lieutenant followed.
“They both say the rain stopped just after six,” the magician said. “Anybody check that?”
“We did,” Malloy said. “The Weather Bureau says it was 6:05 on the dot.”
The Inspector looked at Merlini. “He doesn’t miss much, does he?”
“I don’t need an engraved diploma from the Police Academy,” Merlini answered, “to notice that when Todd saw the blow coming, he raised his arm and got his wrist watch smashed. Since it reads 6:01, he was killed before the rain stopped.”
“The one who got here first is the liar,” Malloy said.
“Merlini,” Gavigan said suddenly, “does that lie detector trick you did tonight ever miss?”
The Great Merlini smiled. “No. But the method won’t work in this situation. I have a hunch, however, that there is an impromptu mechanical lie detector available to us and that it is hand-tailored for this case.”
“Okay, wheel it out.”
“I can’t do that. It’s downstairs. Bring your two suspects along and we’ll try it. I won’t guarantee anything, but we might have the answer in five minutes.”
Don Sutton and Helen Lowe, escorted by Malloy and another detective, followed Merlini and Inspector Gavigan. The magician stopped by the bright-yellow Cadillac that Miss Lowe said was hers. It was neatly parked in front of a fire hydrant.
“Your keys, please, Miss Lowe,” Merlini said. “I’ll drive.”
“Just a minute,” Gavigan objected. “Where are we going?”
“Fortieth Street. Come on. You and Miss Lowe up front with me.” Merlini got behind the wheel.
When the others were in, he put the key in the ignition switch and turned it. The motor started at once, purring softly like a contented cat. Merlini sat motionless for a second or two, watching a fly amble leisurely down across the windshield. Then he set the Hydramatic lever at Drive, released the brake, pressed the gas pedal, and the car pulled out smoothly.
A moment later, the car radio came to life—a band playing the last bars of Stormy Weather. The syrupy voice of an announcer trying hard to sound like Arthur Godfrey followed. “Did you get wet feet during the cloudburst? Do you want to avoid the sniffles tomorrow? Then rush out and get—”
The Inspector twisted the volume control, cutting him off.
A few minutes later the magician double-parked beside Sutton’s green Plymouth on 40th Street. “All passengers change at this junction. Keys please.”
Sutton handed them over.
Again Merlini sat behind the wheel, put the key in the switch, his foot on the gas. He hesitated briefly, then twisted the key. The engine purred just as smoothly as the other had done.
Gavigan, watching Merlini, turned his head and stared with the magician at the windshield.
“As an impromptu lie detector, does that tell you who arrived first?” Merlini asked.
“Yes,” Gavigan agreed. “We make the arrest now.”
Merlini turned in his seat to face Helen Lowe and Don Sutton. “My impromptu lie detector is a mechanical gadget found on all cars. When I started the motor of Miss Lowe’s car, the radio she had neglected to turn off when she parked began to operate. When I turned the ignition key in Sutton’s car, something similar but much more significant happened—the windshield wipers began working.
“If Sutton, as he claims, was twenty blocks uptown at 60th Street when the rain stopped, he’d have turned the wipers off a moment or so later. They wouldn’t have sprung into action just now when I started the motor. The fact that they did means they were still turned on when he parked here—and that means he arrived before the rain stopped. He lied when he said he got here after the storm and after Todd was killed.”
Sutton didn’t try to deny it. He stared hopelessly at the wiper blades moving like twin robots back and forth across the dry glass, monotonously repeating their accusation of guilt.
Merlini and the Vanished Diamonds
THE BLACK POLICE CAR HESITATED BRIEFLY ON 42ND STREET NEAR Times Square. A tall, lean figure stepped in and the car catapulted forward like a scared jackrabbit, its siren rising in a banshee howl.
“Merlini,” Inspector Gavigan said, “the gentleman whose lap you just landed in is George Hurley. He’s chief of the Division of Investigation and Patrol of the Customs Service, and he wants to ask you a question.”
The gnome-like little man who appeared as Merlini moved over had a neat military moustache, a mild pleasant voice, and cold blue eyes. “I want to know,” he said flatly, “how you would go about making nearly half a million dollars disappear?”
It is no easy matter to startle a magician, but that did it. The Great Merlini blinked, hesitated, then said, “That sounds like fun. Where do I get—”
“If s not cash,” Gavigan put in. “It’s ice.”
“Nearly half a million? Did somebody steal the North Pole?”
“No jokes, please. To the crooks George and I associate with, ice means jewels—and you know it.”
“In this case,” Hurley explained, “diamonds. An Amsterdam dealer gave us the tip-off and we’ve had the suspect under observation ever since. A Customs Agent came across on the same boat. Last night he searched the man’s cabin and the stones were there then. The suspect had no visitors after that and didn’t leave his cabin until the boat docked this morning. Three agents went up the gangplank the moment it hit the pier and covered him right from his cabin door to the customs inspection. No diamonds were listed on his declaration form, so we grabbed him. He got the A-
One treatment—and there were no stones in his bags or on his person.”
“A search by Customs men who are sure they smell contraband,” Inspector Gavigan added, “is something to see. Hurley’s boys are experts. They also took the cabin apart in case he hid the stuff there, intending to pick it up by coming back as a visitor on the next sailing day.”
“That’s an old one,” Hurley said. “Most of the dodges are. I’ve found contraband in babies’ milk bottles, wooden legs, phony rolls of camera film, fountain pens, chocolate creams, tulip bulbs, beards, a woman’s hair-do, ear trumpets, hearing aids, mounted insect specimens, a shipment of boa constrictors, even on a corpse …”
“A corpse?”
“Yeah. One character kept bringing in relatives who had died abroad, always using a different port of entry. The day we got him, the body of his deceased sister—stolen from some French cemetery—was wrapped in a good many yards of Brussels lace and wearing $140,000 in gems.”
“How big a package,” Merlini asked, “does nearly a half million dollars worth of diamonds make?”
“These are all top quality blue-white stones. They crossed the Atlantic in his suitcase inside a silver cigarette lighter. Dimensions, two inches by three inches by one-quarter inch. When we opened it at inspection we found—just cotton and lighter fuel. What worried us is his profession.”
“He sounds,” Merlini guessed, “like a magician.”
“And that,” Gavigan announced,“wins you the trip to Hollywood, the automatic dishwasher, and one hundred pounds of soap flakes. He calls himself Aldo the Enigma. Know him?”
“Pierre Aldo. Yes. He’s been playing the Continental music halls with a smooth card manipulation act.”
“Cards!” Hurley almost snorted. “I’ve seen enough card tricks today to last me a lifetime. He’s been doing them all morning. Says he has to practice because American cards are bigger than the ones he’s been used to.”
“They’re quite a bit larger,” Merlini said. “And there are only thirty-two cards in Écarté and Pique decks. He’d need a bit of practice to get the feel of an American fifty-two-card Poker-size deck.”
“I’ll give him a passing grade right now,” Hurley said glumly. “I wouldn’t sit in on any game that had him in the same room.”
“The Sûreté doesn’t recommend it,” Gavigan added. “They report he’s been booked twice on crooked gambling charges and once did a two-year stretch on a confidence rap.”
“Merlini,” Hurley said, “the Inspector tells me he’s seen you make an elephant disappear. So, if you’ll explain how a magician would go about making a small parcel of diamonds vanish into thin air, the Customs Service will give you a medal.”
As the car stopped in front of a pier entrance, Merlini pushed his lighted cigarette into his closed left fist, blew a cloud of smoke at it, then slowly opened his fingers. The cigarette was gone.
“When I do that,” he said, “I don’t usually let a crew of Customs men search me. And when I make an elephant disappear I don’t let the audience take the theater apart the way you must have done with Aldo’s luggage and cabin. I can see I’m going to enjoy meeting the enigmatic Pierre. He may have a new one up his sleeve.”
Gavigan opened the car door. “Let’s go. Hurley can only hold this bird for twenty-four hours and there’s not much of it left.”
A Customs Agent stood on guard before a door on A deck. “That’s his cabin,” Hurley said, “but all the movable furniture, bedding, and such stuff is in here.” He opened the door of the cabin just opposite. Three chairs, a mattress, sheets, pillows, two lamps, a writing desk, and several dresser drawers occupied the center of the room. The bottom coverings of the chairs had been removed exposing the springs; the lamps had been disassembled.
“He watched your examination?” Merlini asked.
Hurley nodded. “That’s standard practice. It’s the suspect who gives us the most help. When he’s calm and relaxed we know we’re looking in the wrong places. But when he begins to get nervous it means we’re getting warm. I once examined three trunks, four suitcases, and a couple of hatboxes, and found a pearl necklace inside a bottle of suntan oil in under five minutes just by keeping one eye on the woman. But Aldo doesn’t seem to have nerves. He just sits there dealing himself pat Poker hands and grinning every time we draw a blank. He’s been grinning a lot.” Hurley waved a hand at the furniture. “You want to give this stuff a once-over?”
“I doubt it,” Merlini said. “Let’s take a look at Pierre. But don’t tell him I’m a magician.”
The writers of advertising copy who describe the luxurious cabin appointments for the cruise folders would have been shocked at the bare, cheerless aspect of Aldo’s cabin. The only remaining decoration, if you could call him that, was a tired and very glum Customs Agent who leaned against one wall. He was scowling at a fat, round-faced little man sitting cross-legged on the floor—a man no movie director would have ever cast as a cardsharp, and one no card player would have ever suspected of possessing the ability he was now demonstrating.
His right hand, holding a deck of cards, moved up and down in a blur of motion, shuffling the cards off into his left. Then, with the rapid precision of a well-oiled automaton, he dealt five hands of Poker. He looked up at the glum Customs Agent and grinned broadly.
“Okay?”
The Agent grunted. “I didn’t see anything wrong with the deal, but then I’m no slow-motion camera. My money says the best cards are in your hand again.”
Aldo laughed. “I do not play cards for money. If I win everyone thinks I cheat. If I lose they say I am a no-good magician.”
In one continuous fluid movement Aldo’s right hand gathered the cards he had dealt to himself, turned them face up, and spread them in a neat fan. He had a Full House—three Aces and two Kings.
“But if the sucker doesn’t know you’re a magician,” Hurley said from the doorway, “you take him to the cleaners.”
Aldo scooped up the remaining cards and shuffled the deck again. “Cleaners?” he asked, still grinning. “What is that?” He began dealing again, this time with one hand only.
“Enjoying himself, isn’t he?” Gavigan said.
Hurley nodded. “He’s acting much too damned pleased with himself. And that means the stuff is here somewhere—right under our noses.”
Aldo said nothing. He smiled enigmatically and turned up a Royal Flush in Spades.
Merlini looked down at the open empty suitcase on the floor near the foot of the bed. Its contents had been laid out neatly beside it. “You find some odd things in a magician’s luggage, don’t you?”
Hurley grunted. “Colored silk handkerchiefs by the yard, a couple hundred feet of rope, a bird cage, a dozen billiard balls—”
Merlini picked up one of the balls and hefted it. “These are all solid?”
“Yeah.” Hurley pointed to a small red-lacquered box bearing Chinese characters. “That has a secret compartment, but it’s empty. We took all this stuff and the clothes he’s wearing down to Varick Street and gave them a fluoroscopic examination. That doesn’t spot diamonds too well—they’re nearly transparent to X-rays—but it’ll show cavities in objects that should be solid.”
Inspector Gavigan picked up a book, La Prestidigitation Sans Appareils, and riffled the pages.
“No hollowed-out books,” Hurley said. “We cut his soap into little pieces, squeezed out all his toothpaste and shaving cream, cut open every last pill in half a dozen medicine bottles, took his pen and wrist watch apart. His teeth and eyes are his own.”
“Teeth and eyes?”
“False teeth made to hold gems aren’t too uncommon, and an importer once got past us declaring all his diamonds except the big one inside his glass eye.”
Gavigan looked into the bathroom. “Plumbing?” he asked.
“We took most of it apart; the rest we probed.”
Aldo dealt himself four Aces. “Les flics,” he said, “sont formidables. They miss nothing.”
“And what,” Merlini wanted to know, “was the searching routine on our nimble-fingered friend here?”
“I’ll show you,” Hurley said. “On your feet, wise guy.”
The Cheshire-cat grin that had seemed to be permanently affixed to the magician’s moon-like face vanished abruptly.
“Not the pill again! Ça, je refuse absolument!”
“No. We’ll skip the cathartic this time. But start stripping.”
Pierre Aldo put the deck on the floor, scooped up the Aces, turned them face down, snapped his fingers, then counted the cards face up. There were still four, but the Aces were now Kings. He dropped these on the deck, stood up, removed his coat, and began to unknot his tie.
“I do this now three times. Soon I am good enough for the Folies Bergère. Pierre Aldo—Le Prestidigitateur Nu!”
The glum Customs Agent turned the pockets of the coat inside out, then the sleeves. He felt the lining inch by inch and tossed the garment to Merlini who did the same. The man’s necktie, shirt, undershirt, trousers, shoes, socks and, finally, his shorts got the same painstaking inspection.
“New heels, I see,” Merlini said as he examined the shoes.
“Courtesy of the Customs Service,” Hurley explained, “We replaced the ones we cut up.”
“You also pay for les funérailles,” Aldo asked, “when I die from la pneumonie?”
Hurley threw him his shorts. Aldo, grinning again now, climbed into them.
“Well?” Hurley eyed Merlini without much hope. “What did we miss?”
“I think,” the magician said slowly, “that you saw a little too much. One thing—a small piece of misdirection—made you jump unconsciously to a hasty conclusion.”
Hurley didn’t believe it. “Are you telling me there is a place we haven’t looked?”
“I am. As you said—right under our noses. But first I want to ask a favor. If I’m right, Pierre’s next stop will be a Federal prison. Since I may not see him again very soon, I’d like to show him one trick before he goes.”
The Great Merlini Page 9