The Last Illusion

by Unknown

  “I really think this has gone on long enough,” one of the men onstage said. “The poor fellow obviously can’t get out. We tied the bonds too tight. Open the trunk.”

  I sensed the agony of indecision in the face of Mr. Irving.

  “Open it up! For God’s sake open it up!” Voices were coming from the audience.

  “Who has a key?” Mr. Irving demanded.

  “I know where the key is.” I ran to Houdini’s frock coat and reached for the inside pocket. My fingers touched what felt like two keys. Clearly he hadn’t been taking any chances at one getting mislaid this time. I was so tense by now that my fingers refused to obey me, fumbled, and got caught up in the jacket lining. I forced my hand to obey me, grabbed both keys, and rushed across the stage to the waiting men. They had already wheeled aside the cabinet. The trunk lay there, still locked and untouched.

  “Here.” I handed Mr. Irving the key and he knelt beside the trunk. At any second I expected to hear a laugh and to see Harry Houdini appear from somewhere else in the theater.

  “I fooled you good and proper that time, didn’t I?” he’d say.

  Mr. Irving tried the key. “It doesn’t fit,” he said.

  “There’s a second key. Try this.” I thrust it into his hand. He put it into the lock and jiggled it. Then he tried the second lock. “This one doesn’t work either,” he said, throwing them down. “Someone get the ax again. We’ll have to break it open.”

  I watched in fascination, still half expecting this to be a stunt. Someone ran backstage, found the ax, and handed it to Mr. Irving. “Hold it steady, Ernest,” he commanded, and swung at the first lock. After several attacks the locks swung open and he lifted the lid. The dark velvet bag lay in the trunk, not moving.

  “For God’s sake get him out of there!” someone shouted.

  Stagehands rushed forward to help the volunteers and the manager to lift the bag from the trunk and place it on the stage. One of the men was fumbling to undo the knot that held the bag tightly shut. “It won’t open. Get a knife!” he shouted.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” the manager had to ask for the third time in a week.

  Someone came running back with a knife and slit the string that held the mouth of the bag shut. At last he had it free and wrenched open the bag. Then I heard a gasp from those around me and stared down in disbelief and horror.

  A complete stranger lay in the bag, tied up with rope, eyes wide open in surprise, not moving.

  Eighteen

  At first the audience thought this was a good stunt. Some of them started to applaud, but the applause petered out as the manager stood up again.

  “He’s dead,” he said in a stunned voice. “Somebody go for the police.”

  There was a shriek from the stage box. “Where’s my husband? What’s happened to him?”

  “Yes, where is he?” other voices echoed. “Where’s Houdini then?”

  “Find Houdini. Don’t let him leave the theater!” the manager shouted. “Lock all the exits. Bring up the houselights.”

  There was an eerie silence as the lights came on in the auditorium and then chaos broke out. I had been standing by the body so I hadn’t noticed that Daniel had come onto the stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please.” He held up his hands for silence. “Take your seats. Nobody move. I’m Captain Sullivan of the New York police, and this is now a police matter. Nobody is going anywhere until my men arrive. I ask for your complete cooperation. Ushers, would you please man the doors.” He turned to the manager. “Is there a telephone available?”

  “In my office.”

  “Then go and call police headquarters and tell them that Captain Sullivan wants the detective on duty here immediately with a team of men. Tell them there has been a murder.”

  “Are you sure it’s murder?” the theater manager asked. “Not just a stunt gone wrong?”

  Daniel gave me a brief glance as he knelt to examine the body. “Help me get him out of this thing,” he ordered the men standing around him. “Gently.” Willing hands pulled away the bag from the body. It was a young man wearing a brown suit—a very ordinary, respectable-looking young man with light brown hair and the beginnings of a mustache. Daniel opened the jacket. There was an ugly red stain across the front of the shirt.

  “Hardly a stunt gone wrong,” Daniel said dryly, undoing the shirt buttons. “Stabbed through the heart. Very efficient. Very professional.” He examined the body more thoroughly. “And it doesn’t look as if he’s been dead very long. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet.” He looked up at those around him. “Anybody know who he is?”

  Blank faces stared at him.

  “Never seen him before in my life,” one of the stagehands muttered.

  “So he doesn’t work here at the theater?”

  The men shook their heads.

  Daniel now looked up at me. “You were apparently part of this act. So none of this was prearranged?”

  “A murder? Prearranged?”

  “I meant that it might have been part of the act for Houdini to change places with someone.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Usually his wife performs the Metamorphosis act with him, in which they do change places. But tonight’s trick was a simple escape. Houdini was just supposed to free himself from the ropes and emerge from the trunk. Yesterday it took him less than a minute to do so.”

  “I see.” Daniel’s eyes held mine, as if he wanted to ask more, then he turned his attention back to the body and started going through the young man’s pockets. “Interesting,” he said. “He seems to be carrying no form of identification. No keys, no wallet, no money. Nothing. But if someone didn’t want him to be identified, why place him here, where everyone can see him? Why not just dump him into the river?”

  The words were said more to himself than to anyone else.

  “And if he is here, then where the devil is Houdini?” Daniel looked up at me again. “Presumably you have some idea how this trick was supposed to work. How could the body have been placed here?”

  “Houdini didn’t share his secrets with me,” I said. “I was merely the assistant.”

  “There were other acts on the bill,” Daniel said. “Where are they?”

  “Probably still in their dressing rooms,” someone suggested.

  “Then go and bring them down here. I’ll want to question them.”

  The manager looked at his stage crew, then shrugged and went himself. At that moment there was the sound of raised voices, a woman screaming just offstage behind the curtains to our left.

  “What now?” Daniel demanded, getting to his feet. “I thought I instructed everyone to remain in their seats.”

  Bess came running onto the stage. Her eyes were wild and her mouth was open in pure terror. “Where is he?” she screamed. “What have they done with Harry?”

  “Who is this?” Daniel demanded. “How did she get up here?”

  “This is Mrs. Houdini,” I said, over the loud, gasping sobs coming from Bess. “She usually performs with her husband, but I was taking her place after the accident that happened the other night.”

  “I see.” Daniel put his hands on Bess’s shoulders. “Just calm down, Mrs. Houdini. This isn’t going to help us find your husband.” He turned to the stagehands who had now gathered around the body and were staring as if dazed.

  “You men, go and search the backstage area,” he said. “Every inch, every closet where someone could be hiding.”

  “Hiding?” Bess screamed. “You don’t think my husband did this, do you? Harry would never hurt a fly.”

  Daniel held up his hand again. “And if you come across a body,” he said in a low voice, “stay well away. Don’t disturb anything but come and get me.”

  “He’s dead. I know he is.” The words came in great gasps. I went over to Bess and put my arm around her. “We don’t know anything yet. Maybe he’s quite safe. Why don’t you sit down?” I pulled up a chair for her. She collapsed onto it, her fa
ce in her hands, her body convulsed with sobs.

  Daniel again went toward the audience, who had been sitting and standing in horrified fascination. “Does anybody out there recognize this man? Did he come with anyone here? If you know him, please come up to the stage now. And ushers, I’d like you to take a look at him and see if anyone remembers admitting him.”

  The requests brought no response, except for one of the ushers, who commented, “He’s not exactly the sort of man who would stand out in a crowd, is he? I don’t know if I’d remember if I’d shown him to his seat.”

  This was true enough. He was the sort of man you’d pass in a crowd and not notice. The first police constables arrived, presumably those patrolling the street outside the theater. They hurried up the center aisle and began to mount the steps to the stage.

  “What do you want us to do, sir?” one of them asked.

  “Control the exits for now,” Daniel said.

  “When can we leave?” a man shouted from the audience. “My wife is feeling faint. I should get her into the fresh air immediately.”

  “Your patience for a little while longer, sir,” Daniel said. “I want only one exit opened and my men stationed there. Then the audience will be allowed to leave, row by row. I need you to give my constables your names and addresses as you file out in orderly fashion. If there’s pushing and shoving, we may sit here all night.”

  I had to admire Daniel’s great presence. In his own way he was as commanding as Houdini had been. This was a man who was used to being obeyed, I realized. No wonder he had such a hard time with me. I could hear the shuffling of feet and clattering of seats as the audience began to leave. Daniel turned back to us as there was the sound of footsteps from backstage, and Billy Robinson and Abdullah the sword swallower appeared, both now in street clothing. Robinson was fully dressed, but Abdullah was in shirtsleeves and still held a cotton ball in his hand with which he had been removing makeup.

  “What’s all this about?” Robinson demanded. “I was about to go home and I was told I couldn’t.”

  Then he saw the body. “Who the devil is that?”

  “I was hoping one of you could shed light on that,” Daniel said. “But there were three acts. Where is the man with the birds?”

  “Marvo? He’s already gone. He had an assignation with a young lady, so I believe,” Billy Robinson said.

  “I see.” Daniel turned to the manager. “I’ll need his name and address. And when my men get here we’ll want a statement from everybody who—” he broke off because Houdini’s brother Dash had come back onto the stage and was whispering something in Bess’s ear. Daniel reacted with such obvious surprise that I realized he had mistaken the brother for Houdini himself.

  “This is Houdini’s brother,” I said. “He is also an illusionist.”

  “Rather an escape artist,” Dash said. “I do the handcuffs and that sort of thing.”

  “Then you can tell me how the devil this body got into that trunk,” Daniel said.

  “I have no idea,” Dash said. “The way that illusion is performed, I can’t see how a body could be substituted.”

  “You usually perform this, Bess,” I said. “Can you think how it was done?”

  Bess looked up and shook her head.

  “You’ll find that illusionists are very tight with their secrets,” I said.

  “And they might find that jail is an uncomfortable place to spend a night if they don’t cooperate with the police,” Daniel replied.

  “I just want my husband found,” Bess said.

  “They are searching for him now,” I answered gently.

  “And neither of you recognizes the young man?” Daniel asked. “Take a good look at him.”

  Dash shook his head. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  But Bess got to her feet and went over to the body. She shuddered, then suddenly she put her hand to her mouth. “I think I have seen him,” she said. “He was the young man who came to our house that time when Harry was out. Remember I told you about him, Molly.”

  “He came to your house? For what reason?” Daniel asked.

  “He asked for my husband. I said he wasn’t there and he said to tell Harry that he’d be back. When I asked his name he said Harry would know who he was. It sounded like a threat to me.”

  “Interesting.” Daniel stared down at the corpse. “So has your husband been getting threats, Mrs. Houdini?”

  “I think he has,” she said.

  “From whom?”

  “I don’t know. When I asked him he said I was imagining things.”

  Daniel stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the young man. “He doesn’t look to me the type who would be employed by the criminal classes. So what kind of threats could he have been making? Was your husband in any kind of trouble?”

  “If he was, he didn’t tell me,” Bess said. “He knows I get upset.”

  “But you said he was worried about something,” I reminded her. “You said he paced up and down at night and he got up to scribble things down on paper.”

  “Yes, but that could have just been working out a new stunt,” she said. “He’s always in his own world when he’s working something out. Absolutely obsessed. Didn’t want to be disturbed.” She let out a great shuddering sigh. “I just want him found.”

  Stagehands were returning to the stage. “He’s not anywhere,” one of them said. “We’ve searched the whole place, top to bottom. And Ted at the door says no one’s been in or out that way, except for Marvo, and he went some time ago.”

  “Are there any other ways out?”

  “There’s a service door leading to the back alley, when they need to bring in big pieces of scenery, but that was bolted from the inside,” another of the stagehands said. “It’s hardly ever used.”

  “We’ll wait until my men get here then we’ll go over the whole place again.”

  “I should take Bess home,” Dash said. “My mother will be worried about where we’ve got to. And Bess was supposed to be resting. She’s only just out of the clinic. She shouldn’t have come tonight at all.”

  “I’m not leaving until they find my husband,” Bess said, her voice rising hysterically again. “He’s got to be somewhere. He can’t just have vanished.”

  Daniel put a calming hand on her shoulder. “As you say, Mrs. Houdini, he can’t just have vanished. Don’t worry, we’ll find him. Now why don’t you go home, as your brother-in-law suggested. We’ll need to talk to you in the morning.”

  Bess reached out imploring hands to me. “Molly—come with me. I’m scared.”

  I looked up at Daniel, not sure whether to comply with this request.

  “I’ll need to question this young lady before she can go anywhere,” he said. “Go home to your family now. I’ll send a constable with you and we’ll put a guard on the house tonight. We’ll let you know as soon as we have any news.”

  “I’ll come in the morning to be with you,” I said. “You’ll be quite safe.”

  “I won’t.” She started to sob again. “I’ll never be safe again.”

  As she was led away sobbing, Daniel looked at me and rolled his eyes for a moment.

  “And I thought I was going out for a pleasant evening at the theater,” he said.

  Nineteen

  The theater was emptying out in remarkably orderly fashion. Most people, I’d imagine, were just glad to be able to escape from a scene of such horror. I wished I could escape myself. Three such shocks in one week were a little much for even the strongest of constitutions. And in this case I couldn’t shake off the feeling of guilt that kept nagging at me. I was hired to protect him, a voice kept whispering in my head. I should have been able to do something. Of course this was nonsense, since he had been unwilling to divulge his own suspicions to me, but the thought kept haunting me. Also I was now cold and shivering in my flimsy costume.

  “Would it be all right if I went to change my clothes?” I asked. “I’m really cold.”

&
nbsp; “That might be a good idea.” Daniel eyed me up and down. “But I don’t want you wandering around back there. Not until my men have had a chance to search the whole place.”

  “I’d be happy to escort this lady to her dressing room if you fear for her safety,” Abdullah said.

  “Thank you, but I prefer that everyone remain here right now.”

  “Here, miss, put this around you.” One of the stagehands took down Houdini’s frock coat and put it around my shoulders. Suddenly, I remembered the keys in the pocket. Two keys that wouldn’t fit the trunk. I glanced down at the ground, noticed them still lying where they had been dropped, and bent to pick them up. I glanced back to see whether Daniel was looking, but he was interviewing the other illusionists. I tucked the keys into the waistband of my costume where there was a little pocket.

  “Would it be all right if we went now?” I heard one of the volunteers from the audience ask as I straightened up again. “After all, we were nothing to do with the show. We only volunteered to come up here. My wife will be waiting for me. She was still in the audience.”

  “I understand, sir. It’s inconvenient for all of us,” Daniel said. He looked up with relief as a voice called out, “Captain Sullivan?”

  “Up here, MacAffrey!” Daniel called and a fresh-faced young policeman came up to the stage, followed by a retinue of constables.

  “Take a look at this,” Daniel said, and explained what had happened. “Examine the body and tell me what you think.” He stood up to address the men who had accompanied MacAffrey. “I want this place searched. Every inch of it. I want to know where this man was killed, so look for traces of blood. He was obviously caught by surprise and finished off efficiently, so I don’t expect to find any sign of a scuffle. And you’re looking for any place that someone could hide.” He indicated two of the men. “You two. Outside the theater. Ask anyone working nearby—flower sellers, vendors, whether they saw Houdini come out. His picture is all over the posters so I’m sure they’d have recognized him. He can’t just have vanished. If he’s not here, he left the theater somehow.”