Harry Houdini Mysteries

by Daniel Stashower

  “It was a trick,” my brother repeated, more emphatically this time.

  “Then how did you do it?” Dr. Wells asked. “How could you possibly have known what was inscribed in Augusta’s ring? How did the word appear on that slate?”

  Harry’s expression wavered. “I fear the answer does me no credit.”

  “Ha!” cried Lucius Craig. “He is determined to hide his gift! I tell you that this man is the most promising young medium I have come across in years! If his ability is a bit rough at this early stage, it will soon blossom into a fine and powerful talent!”

  Mrs. Clairmont, having recovered her composure, stood and took my brother’s hands. “Mr. Houdini, you could offer so much comfort if only you would embrace this strange and wonderful ability.”

  “Harry,” I said, “it’s time to tip the gaffe.”

  A pained expression crossed his face. “Mrs. Clairmont, I have taken advantage of your kindness and your trusting nature. You would do well to consider how easily I have done so.” He gripped her shoulder, as if to drive the point home. “You wish to know how I was able to learn what was inscribed on your wedding ring? I assure you there was no great difficulty about this. I simply took your ring and read the inscription myself.”

  “Impossible!” Mrs. Clairmont cried. “My ring has never been off my—It’s gone! My ring is gone!”

  “Here it is,” said Harry, holding up the jeweled band. “It is a simple enough maneuver. As I grasped your shoulder, you were distracted by the pressure and did not notice as I slipped the ring off your finger. Again, my apologies.” He passed the ring back. “I did the same thing earlier this evening, while you were kindly showing me the portrait of your late husband downstairs. The only difficulty was in slipping it back on your finger without arousing your suspicions.”

  “You stole Augusta’s ring?” asked Dr. Wells.

  “Only to read the inscription,” Harry said.

  “I don’t believe it! How could you have done so without—”

  Harry adopted an innocent expression. “Have you seen your watch lately, Dr. Wells?”

  The doctor’s hand flew to the pocket of his waistcoat. “Why—it’s—”

  Harry held out his hand and let the watch dangle from its chain. “As I said, it’s quite a simple maneuver.”

  Kenneth grinned broadly at the exchange. “Very clever, Houdini. It still doesn’t explain everything, however. How on earth did the word ‘Always’ appear on that chalk slate? It’s an ordinary school slate, isn’t it? There’s nothing tricky about it that I can see.” He reached for the slate and tugged at the wooden corners.

  “You can examine it as closely as you like,” I said. “You’ll never find the gimmick.”

  Kenneth looked at me. “What gimmick? It’s nothing more than a piece of slate in a wooden frame. There’s no room for trickery.”

  “That’s what you’re meant to think,” I said, reaching for the slate. “In fact, there’s an extra flap hidden there, with a hinge right down the center that you can barely make out against the black surface. It’s quite hard to spot—in fact, I can’t even make it out myself—but when the hidden catch is depressed, the extra flap springs across the frame. In effect, a new slate surface folds over the old one. If there’s a message written on the inside of the flap, it looks as if the words have appeared from nowhere.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you, Hardeen,” said Kenneth.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” I scratched at the frame with my thumbnail, looking for the latch. “Imagine that I had two identical playing cards and I wrote my name across the face of one of them. If—strange, I can’t quite seem to make this work—if I dropped one card over the other without any of you seeing it, you would be convinced that my name had suddenly appeared on the playing card. It’s much the same with the slate, only the mechanism is far harder to detect.” I held the slate out to my brother. “Harry, I can’t seem to work the flap. Would you—?”

  “There’s no flap, Dash.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a perfectly ordinary school slate. So far as I know, Mr. Craig got it from the classroom down the street.”

  “Then how did the message appear?”

  Harry took the slate from my hands. “Perhaps I’d better demonstrate.”

  My brother pulled out the chair he had been sitting in and placed it in the center of the room. He positioned two other chairs beside it, “Mrs. Clairmont, if I could ask you to sit at my right, just as you did earlier, and Dr. Wells, please take the place on my left. Thank you.” Harry flipped the slate upright and wiped off the chalk message with his sleeve. “Now we shall put the slate on the floor at our feet, only this time you will be able to follow what I do, because the table is no longer blocking your view.”

  “I think I see,” said Kenneth Clairmont. “You must have a duplicate slate beneath your jacket. You must have switched the slates while we were distracted.”

  “Impossible!” snorted Dr. Wells. “We’d have seen him do it! Besides, how would he manage such a thing without the use of his hands?”

  “Perhaps the second slate was already on the floor, hidden beneath the carpet. He could have used his feet to nudge it into place.”

  Dr. Wells shook his head. “His feet were under control. Augusta and the lieutenant had their feet pressing down on his. He couldn’t have moved them.”

  Harry smiled. “The solution will be obvious soon enough,” he said. “Even my brother Dash will be able to grasp it. Let us proceed. Take control of my hands as before and place your feet firmly upon mine. Just so. Keep up the pressure. This is exactly as matters stood before, is it not? Now, watch very carefully.”

  I had seen my brother do some amazing things in his life by that time, but I must admit that his performance that night amazed even me. As our small party crowded around for a better view, Harry smoothly eased his right foot out of his opera pump, revealing that his silk stockings were cut away at the toe. He flexed his toes, then repeated the procedure with his left foot.

  Expressions of confusion and surprise greeted this display. “I don’t understand,” said Kenneth. “Surely my mother and the lieutenant would have been aware of your feet slipping out of the shoes. I’m surprised those flimsy pumps didn’t collapse as soon as your feet were out of them!”

  “Mr. Bithworth,” I said.

  Harry nodded at me. “Exactly, Dash,” he said.

  “Jacob Bithworth,” I said, with considerable wonder. “Very good, Harry. That’s excellent.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” said Dr. Wells. “Who is this Bithworth, and what has he got to do with anything?”

  “He’s a cobbler,” I said. “A friend of the family. Harry mentioned him the other night, though at the time I couldn’t imagine why. That’s why you disappeared so mysteriously the other day, wasn’t it? You went to see Mr. Bithworth and had him put special supports in the saddle of your shoes—so they would retain their shape even though your feet were no longer in them. Mrs. Clairmont and Dr. Wells would never have felt the movement. That’s why you’ve been walking so strangely for the past couple of days. Your feet must have been killing you.”

  “Indeed,” said Harry. “It is also why I insisted on formal attire this evening. The discomfort was well worth it, as you can see. The supports served their purpose brilliantly. It’s very useful to be on friendly terms with a cobbler, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Craig?”

  The medium affected not to hear.

  “I’m sure I must seem very dim-witted,” said Mrs. Clairmont, “but I can’t see why Mr. Houdini’s shoes are of such importance. And why are there holes in your stockings, Mr. Houdini? You don’t mean to say—oh, good heavens!”

  “I believe you have guessed the truth, Mrs. Clairmont,” said Harry with a proud grin. “I wrote the message with my feet. Observe.” We crowded in for a closer look as Harry flexed the toes of his right foot and used them to dip into the cuff of his left trous
er leg. From the fold of fabric he withdrew a piece of ordinary chalk, grasping it between the first two toes of his right foot. With astonishing agility he then gripped the frame of the chalk slate with his left foot and held it up off the floor. In this manner, he was able to write the word “Houdini” on the slate, using the chalk gripped between his toes.

  “I simply don’t believe it!” cried Kenneth Clairmont. “You are as capable with your two feet as most people are with their hands!”

  “Perhaps more so,” Harry said. “And since my feet would have been free throughout the course of a normal séance, I would have been free to use my toes to ring a bell or pull a string or anything else that might be required to give the illusion that spirits were abroad. Is that not so, Mr. Craig?”

  “See here, young man,” the medium said, “if you mean to suggest that I am capable of what you’ve just done, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m flattered that you think me capable of such acrobatics, but—”

  “You can’t escape me, Mr. Craig,” Harry said. He stood and pointed an accusing finger at the medium. “I demand that you take off your shoes!”

  “What?”

  “Your shoes! Surrender them!”

  “Houdini, that’s enough,” said Lieutenant Murray, speaking for the first time since Harry’s demonstration had begun. “What difference does it make if he’s a sham or not? It brings us no closer to finding the killer of Edgar Grange. I didn’t come out here tonight to see you argue over parlor games.”

  Harry’s head snapped back as if from a blow. “Can it be? Is it possible that you do not see? Lieutenant, Mr. Craig must be made to take off his shoes. It is the only way of proving my theory about the murder!”

  “Your theory about the murder?” the lieutenant asked. “And what theory is that, Houdini?”

  “Is it not obvious? I have demonstrated plainly how Mr. Craig was able to gain the full use of his feet without the others being aware of it.”

  Lieutenant Murray stared blankly.

  “Harry,” I said, straining to suppress a note of disbelief in my voice, “are you suggesting that Lucius Craig stabbed Edgar Grange to death while clutching the knife with his toes?”

  “Of course! What other explanation could there be?”

  I brought my hands to my head and slowly massaged my temples. “Let me see if I have this straight. While we were all sitting around the table, Mr. Craig slipped his foot out of his specially constructed shoes, gripped a knife firmly between his toes, and then reached around to stab Mr. Grange in the back?”

  Harry’s confidence appeared to flicker, but he pressed on. “Dr. Peterson said that the injury was shallow and that the killer was lucky to have inflicted a fatal wound. That would be consistent with my theory.”

  I pulled one of the chairs away from the table and sat down. “I don’t know, Harry. If I had been seated here and Mr. Grange had been seated beside me, I would have found it somewhat daunting to twist my leg up over my head and behind the other man’s back. I consider myself reasonably athletic, but that would be a little beyond me.”

  My brother chewed his lower lip. “Elbert Klack could have done it.”

  “No doubt, Harry. But Elbert Klack is a dime museum contortionist.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Craig is also—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Houdini,” cried Craig, reaching down to remove his left shoe. “Here! Take the damned shoes! As you can plainly see, they are ordinary in every way. I’m pleased to say, moreover, that there are no holes in my stockings. I trust the matter ends here.” The medium folded his arms and assumed a posture of wounded dignity.

  Lieutenant Murray grunted. “I think we can dispense with the contortionist theory, Houdini.”

  Harry’s lip quivered a bit. “It was a perfectly sound idea,” he said.

  “You think so, Houdini?” the lieutenant asked. “Did you ever stop to ask yourself why Mr. Craig should have wanted to murder Mr. Grange?”

  Harry gathered some of his old resolve. “Because of the mind-reading machine.”

  Lieutenant Murray sighed heavily. “Mind-reading machine?”

  Harry unfolded the piece of paper we had discovered in Edgar Grange’s office that afternoon. “Look!” he said, spreading the paper on the table. “Do you see these symbols?” He pointed to the mosaic of spirals, zigzags, and wavy lines we had noted earlier. “These are simple geometric shapes of the type commonly used in mind-reading experiments. The subject is told to pick one of the shapes and concentrate upon it. The clairvoyant, or mind-reader, is able to discern which pattern the subject has chosen. Ordinarily it is done with a simple mirror or shiner ring. But with this device”—Harry jabbed at the illustration with his index finger—“the clairvoyant would be able to achieve his effect over a vast distance! He would not even need to be in the same room!”

  “Houdini,” Lieutenant Murray said, “you’re not making any sense.”

  “Don’t you see? It is a combination telescope and signalling device! Let us suppose that I asked you to be seated here at the table and choose from among several geometric patterns placed before you. Let us further suppose that I withdrew from the room while you made your selection. My actions would appear to be above suspicion, but my accomplice would be able to spy upon your choice through the telescope, then signal the correct answer to me using the mirror here at the other end! Simplicity itself!”

  “Houdini—” the lieutenant began again.

  “Don’t you see?” Harry repeated, pointing at the bay window, “We came upon Lila Craig climbing a tree within sight of that window this very afternoon! She must have been practicing! She could easily have spied upon whatever was happening here in the study and then signalled the results to her father while he waited in a different room!”

  “So let me see if I’m following you, Houdini,” said the lieutenant. “You’re saying that Lucius Craig has worked up this so-called mind-reading machine, the better to persuade everyone of his psychic powers. Somewhere along the line, Edgar Grange discovered the machine, so Craig was forced to kill him—which he did by wielding a knife with his foot.”

  Harry folded his arms. “Exactly, Lieutenant.”

  “Houdini, that is absolutely the most harebrained idea I’ve ever heard. I will personally see to it that you never again—”

  We never found out what my brother would never again do. At that moment, three things happened in rapid succession. First, the lights went out. Next, Mrs. Clairmont let out a scream so powerful that it rattled the chandelier. Lastly, a glowing apparition appeared at the center of the room.

  It must be admitted that this latest apparition was not nearly so frightening as its predecessor. For one thing, it was decidedly more solid, with none of the pulsing evanescence that had been so notable on the previous occasion. Additionally, it moved with a strangely earthbound clumsiness, as though perhaps the eyeholes of its sheet were misaligned, while the earlier ghost had appeared to float through the air. Still, it was the best I could do on short notice.

  “Who is that?” Harry whispered, coming up beside me.

  “Bess,” I replied tersely. “I had Brunson sneak her into the sideboard before we got started.”

  “You did this without telling me? But I—”

  “It never hurts to have a back-up plan.” I motioned for him to be quiet.

  Bess lifted her arms as she moved slowly toward us. The phosphorus-coated sheet she wore gave her an appropriate glow but restricted her movements. As she moved closer, she narrowly avoided stumbling into the spirit screens behind Lucius Craig’s chair.

  I had left one candle burning at the center of the séance table, and in the guttering light I could see the others held rapt by this strange, if heavy-footed, vision. Only Lieutenant Murray seemed immune to any feeling of surprise. In the dim light, he pointed to me and raised an eyebrow, an unspoken query as to whether I was responsible for the apparition. I nodded in return. He smiled slightly and turned back.

  “Who dares?” Bess
intoned in a marvelously throaty contralto. “Who dares summon me to this place?”

  My plan was simple. Bess would wave her arms and reel off some of my surmises about the death of Edgar Grange. The idea was to rattle the man I suspected of being the murderer and provoke him to attempt to flee. Stepping back from the table, I positioned myself near the door to intercept him.

  It was a good plan, and had it been allowed to continue, it might very well have worked. There was, sad to say, one thing I had not counted on. As Bess moved closer to the table, a strange pool of light rose up out of the darkness behind her.

  “My God!” Harry cried, as the shimmering mass resolved itself into the silhouette of a man. “It’s—”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s the ghost of Jasper Clairmont.”

  11

  THE SECOND GHOST

  THERE WAS NO TIME TO THINK. I WATCHED IN DISBELIEF AS the apparition grew in size, filling the room with light, a glinting dagger clutched in its hands. With its glowing eyes and translucent form, it seemed to be the very embodiment of menace, hovering uncannily in the air. I fought back a mounting sense of horror as it drew up behind Bess and raised the dagger high overhead.

  “Harry!” I shouted. “Stop him!”

  But my brother was already in motion. With a powerful leap he bounded onto the table and hurled himself across the darkened space. I rushed forward and snatched Bess out of harm’s way even as Harry sailed past, throwing his arms wide to tackle the apparition. I watched in disbelief as my brother’s arms passed through the glowing figure as though it were pure vapor. Harry gave a cry of alarm and fell heavily onto the floor in front of the bookcases.

  “Someone get the lights back on!” shouted Lieutenant Murray. As the illumination was restored, the ghostly figure faded from view.

  “Harry, are you all right?” I cried.

  “Of course!” he answered.