The Last Illusion

by Unknown

  Passersby stopped to observe with interest.

  “I had some things that needed to be done,” I replied with dignity.

  “I’ve been looking for you all day,” he said. “Come on. Climb in. We are holding up traffic!”

  Oh, I was so tempted to say that I didn’t need a ride, thank you, and I’d prefer to take the train, but my curiosity won out over my pride. If he’d been looking for me, he might have important news he wished me to know.

  I hitched up my skirts, showing an improper amount of ankle, and negotiated the high step into the automobile.

  “There’s no need to shout,” I said as we drove off, swerving around a parked carriage.

  “I have every reason to shout,” he said. “You were going to Atlantic City, weren’t you? Against my express wishes.”

  “I hardly went to Atlantic City, conducted my business, and then returned, unless I’ve developed wings,” I replied.

  “Then you must have seen sense at the last moment,” he snapped, “because you were observed getting on the ferry to the rail terminus.”

  “You are having me followed these days?” I demanded angrily. “Am I a suspected criminal? Or do you plan to have a man on my tail every day after we are married, just to make sure I behave myself?”

  “I had men observing the ferry in case Houdini was spotted trying to sneak out of town,” he said. “One of my men recognized you.”

  I gave him a frosty stare as we came to a halt behind a jitney that had stopped to let off passengers. “Then let me just reiterate that I did not go to Atlantic City, as you must have now realized, given that I am already back in the city.”

  “But you were going to go, weren’t you? And common sense won out at the last moment?”

  I gave him a long stare. “I can truthfully say that common sense did not win out at the last moment.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “Daniel, you know very well that I can’t discuss my cases with you, any more than you discuss yours with me,” I said. “Suffice it to say that my business is concluded. I didn’t meet with any murderers, and I will not have to leave town again.”

  “You realize that this is not your case any longer, Molly. Your client is either kidnapped, dead, or on the run from police. Either way this is now a criminal case and you are to have nothing more to do with it, do you understand?”

  “Keep your hair on, Daniel. I might have other cases on the books, you know. Other perfectly simple, normal divorce cases that involve my gadding around town at odd moments, and about which I can’t tell you.”

  “You are infuriating, do you know that?” he stormed. “I was worried sick about you, Molly. Don’t you realize that I worry about you all the time?”

  I reached up and touched his cheek. “You don’t have to, Daniel. I can take care of myself.”

  “I do have to,” he said. “This ridiculous profession of yours constantly puts you in harm’s way. You should never have accepted an assignment like this in the first place. If you really thought Houdini’s life was in danger, you should have come straight to me.”

  “I would have, in fact, that was what I suggested. But my client wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Daniel shook his head in disbelief. “Thank God this is all coming to an end,” he said. “I can’t wait to have you safely under my protection. Do you realize how many lucky escapes you have had?”

  “More than my fair share, I agree,” I said. “And you’re right. I should never have taken this case in the first place.”

  “Molly Murphy admitting she was in the wrong! Well, I never thought I was going to hear those words.” Then he ducked. “Don’t hit me while I’m driving. It’s dangerous.”

  We glanced at each other and a smile passed between us.

  “So what did you want to see me for?” I asked as the traffic moved on again. “Presumably you must have had a reason to hunt me down all over the city.”

  “Actually I came to tell you that the trunk, or one resembling it, was found floating in the East River.”

  “Oh, dear. But no body in it?”

  “It was empty. So we can come to one of two conclusions: that whoever murdered that unidentified man also killed Houdini and dumped his body into the East River, where no doubt it will surface in a day or so, or that Houdini was part of the plot and threw the trunk into the river to make us think he was the victim.”

  I tried not to let my expression betray that I now knew the truth, and that Houdini wasn’t part of the plot. I also thought of those keys in my purse. Should I mention that I had in my possession proof as to whether the trunk really was Houdini’s or not? This presented a tricky problem. Daniel had already ordered me off the case, so he’d want me to hand over the keys. I wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  “So were there any bloodstains in the trunk?” I asked.

  “Young ladies don’t normally ask questions like that.” Daniel chuckled. “The trunk had been underwater and had collected floating debris, so it’s hard to tell at the moment. But our lab boys are working on it to see if they can extract any trace evidence that it belongs to Houdini.”

  “So did the back come off easily and swing outward the way Bess had described?”

  “The back had broken off, but yes, it appears that it was designed to swing outward.”

  “So you can pretty much conclude that it was Houdini’s trunk.” I sighed. “You haven’t mentioned any of this to Bess yet, have you?”

  “Absolutely not, and I don’t think you should either. No sense in upsetting her unnecessarily, although I’m afraid either option does not bode well for her, does it?”

  “Poor Bess. She’ll be lost without him,” I said. “I’m planning to stay with her for a while.”

  “And we have a man on his way to Atlantic City to interview the brother, you’ll be pleased to know,” Daniel said.

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “I thought over what you said and I decided you might be onto something. At the very least we have to check the brother out. The fact that he made such a hasty departure from New York is suspicious in itself. And even if he’s not involved personally, Houdini may have confided in him.”

  “I’m glad you’re finally listening to me,” I said, not able to admit that going to Atlantic City was now a waste of time and money. But then was it? Harry Houdini’s brother had also been in Germany. Whatever Mr. Wilkie thought, it was just possible that he was the spy we were looking for.

  Twenty-six

  Bess was sitting up in bed sipping soup when I returned to her house. The windows were open and a refreshing breeze wafted through the room, sending the aroma of the food in my direction. My stomach reminded me that it was my dinnertime too and I had just turned down a delightful invitation to dine with friends. I wondered how Mama Houdini would feel about feeding the intruder. But I had more pressing things to do first.

  I knelt on the floor and pulled out the suitcase.

  “I think I may have found the key,” I said.

  “Where? Where did you find it?”

  “In Harry’s top pocket at the theater. Remember when we tried to open the second trunk, only neither key would work? I must have stuck the keys in my belt and forgotten about them. Lucky, wasn’t it?”

  I took out the keys and knelt in front of the suitcase.

  “I don’t know, Molly. Harry’s going to be awful mad if he finds out.”

  “Bess,” I said, my patience and good nature wearing thin after a very trying day, “if your husband has been kidnapped and is waiting to be rescued, don’t you think we should do everything we can to find him?”

  “Of course, but I don’t see what—”

  “Look,” I said, trying to measure my words so that I didn’t give too much away. “The police think he may have something in this trunk that someone is willing to kill for. I have no idea what that might be, but we have to look. Either I can look here and I promise not to study how he does his illusions, or I can hand the who
le suitcase over to the police, which is probably what I should be doing now.”

  She chewed on her lip, looking ridiculously like a helpless child, then nodded. “Yes, I see. Thank you, Molly. I do understand that you’re trying to help. You’re trying to do what’s best for us. Okay, go ahead then.”

  I put the first key in the lock. It was too big. So that must be the key to Houdini’s trunk. I replaced it in my purse. I tried the second key and heard a satisfying click as the suitcase opened. I don’t know what I expected to see—an envelope marked TOP SECRET or something, but all I saw was a lot of incomprehensible diagrams with words scribbled across them, sometimes in English and sometimes in what must have been Hungarian. If I’d wanted to steal Houdini’s secrets, I’d have been none the wiser. The diagrams meant nothing to me. I read their titles: “Making Orange Tree Grow—after Robert-Houdin.” And scrawled underneath, triumphant: “I finally figured out how he did it!” Various boxes, coffins, handcuff designs, and then, “Possible new stunt. The amazing underwater illusion.” What followed were some complicated diagrams, a device shaped like a large bullet with what looked like flower petals at one end, with arrows around it, and tiny words scribbled in another language.

  “Underwater illusion,” I said. “That sounds ambitious. Does he do an underwater stunt?”

  “No. He’s talked about doing one for some time—using a milk churn, I believe. I didn’t want him to think about it because it’s so dangerous. But he got this bee in his bonnet on the way home from Germany. He was sitting in the cabin for hours, working away at it. I asked him about it but he didn’t want to talk. He’s like that sometimes when he’s concentrating. Wouldn’t even come to the dining saloon for meals. I told him I didn’t want him doing any trick that involved being underwater. Too dangerous. Other magicians have talked about doing it, but nobody’s had the courage yet to pull it off.”

  “I don’t see how this would work anyway,” I said, putting it aside and moving on to the next thing. “It looks more like some kind of machine. How would he use a machine underwater? Maybe he plans to escape from—”

  I broke off, picking up the sketch again and examining it more carefully. There was a hatch on top of it that opened. The amazing underwater trick. Had Houdini fooled us all and planned his escape from the East River using such a contraption, leaving his trunk floating to make us think he was dead? Was this in fact a design for an underwater machine? Did such things exist? I wondered if this was something that Mr. Wilkie would want to know about. And it didn’t make sense that Houdini had planned his own escape, seeing that one of Mr. Wilkie’s men was dead and Houdini was working with him. Unless he was the one working for both sides. I remembered the passage he had written about illusionists working on both sides of the stage and deceiving everyone. I glanced up at Bess. Everything I was discovering seemed to be worse and worse news for her.

  I resolved to sleep on it and decide whether to tell Mr. Wilkie in the morning. I went through the rest of the suitcase then closed it again, making sure I locked it.

  “That’s that, then,” I said. “Nothing more of interest in here.”

  “Other illusionists wouldn’t say that,” Bess said. “They’d kill for the contents of that suitcase.” She realized what she had said and put her hand up to her mouth. “Do you think that’s what happened, Molly? Then we’re not safe here if that’s what they want.”

  “There is a police constable on guard outside and a good sturdy front door,” I said. “I’m going to make sure you get a good night’s sleep.”

  I took her tray from her, carried it downstairs, and found Houdini’s mother in the kitchen, now making what looked like some kind of bread.

  “You see, Bess finished every drop,” I said. “You must make good soup.”

  “Try for yourself,” she said, nodding at the stove. I needed no second invitation but filled a big bowl and wolfed it down. Mrs. Weiss obviously approved of a good appetite as she then produced some plum dumplings and some honey cake.

  “You’re a wonderful cook, Mrs. Weiss,” I said. “You must miss your son when he’s away.”

  “I stay with other son—Leopold, and with daughter, Gladys,” she said. “They like when I cook food from old country for them.”

  “You’re lucky to have such a nice big family,” I told her.

  “You have no family?”

  “I had a father and three brothers. My mother died when I was a child. Now my father and one of my brothers are dead, and I don’t know when I’ll ever see the other two brothers again.”

  “Life is hard,” she said. “But you are healthy young girl. You get married, no?”

  “Yes, I’m getting married soon,” I said.

  “Your young man. He has good steady work?”

  “Yes, he’s—” I broke off. Of course I couldn’t let her know he was a policeman. “He’s got a good job,” I finished. “He’ll take good care of me.”

  “That is as should be. Show business. Pah! My son make lots of money, but what kind of life, huh? Never know where you will be tomorrow. And always danger. And now—who knows if he is still alive.” Her voice broke as she said these last words.

  I surprised myself by going over and putting an arm around her. “We can only hope for the best,” I said. “I know how hard this must be for you.”

  She put her hand up to her mouth and nodded. Then she turned away. “I make us coffee,” she said gruffly.

  We were sitting at the kitchen table finishing our coffee when there came a loud knock on the front door. We looked at each other.

  “I’ll go if you like,” I said, expecting it to be Daniel.

  “It may be my son Leopold. He may come to see his mother.”

  I went to the front door and opened it. A strange man and woman stood there. She was dressed in a rather old-fashioned dark costume and a bonnet that hid her face, and he in a somber black-tailed coat and top hat. He also had a remarkably bushy gray beard. I glanced past them to see the constable standing beside the steps.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “We’ve come to see Mrs. Houdini,” the man said.

  “You’re friends of hers?”

  “We are acquainted, yes.” He handed me his card. It read, “Harold and Bertha Symmes, Mediums. Your gateway to the spirit world.”

  “You’re a spiritualist? A medium?” I asked.

  The man nodded.

  “We came as soon as we could,” the woman said. “To offer our services to poor Mrs. Houdini.”

  “We heard she was out of her mind with worry,” Mr. Symmes said. “We are volunteering to try and contact her husband’s spirit for her.”

  “What makes you think he’s dead?” I asked.

  “We don’t know, do we?” the woman said. “But if he is dead, then I’m sure we’ll be able to contact his spirit and at least we’ll be able to put her mind at rest if she receives a message from him.”

  “I understood that Houdini did his best to expose spiritualists like yourselves,” I said.

  “Fake mediums, yes. There are, unfortunately, a lot of them around,” the man said in his grave voice. “It tarnishes the wonderful work of those who really do have the gift of contact with the spirit world, like ourselves.”

  “We’ve come to show that we bear no ill will for Mr. Houdini’s harsh words. We have come to make amends, to welcome Mrs. Houdini into our bosom,” the woman said. She was a skinny person, and the irreverent thought flashed through my mind that she didn’t have much bosom.

  It was almost dark outside. The gas lamps had been lit, throwing small pools of light at intervals along the street, and the children had vanished from the sidewalk. From an upstairs window came the sound of a pianola playing “Just a Song at Twilight,” and farther down the street a baby crying. All so peaceful and normal but my mind was racing. I didn’t want to let any strangers into the house, and yet it wasn’t up to me to make decisions.

  I made one anyway. “Look, I’m sure you mean wel
l, but I think that Mrs. Houdini still hopes her husband is alive,” I said. “I think that what you intend to do would distress her greatly.”

  “If he’s still alive, we shall not be able to contact his spirit,” the man said. “May we not at least speak with her—to offer our support?”

  I glanced into the house and then back to the street to make sure I could spot the constable. Was it up to me to play guard dog for Bess? Unfortunately I had had dealings with spiritualists before and they had evoked the same feelings of mistrust that I was now experiencing.

  “Why don’t we wait to find out what has happened to Houdini,” I said. “And if he has died, then I’m sure Bess will want to contact his spirit. Until then—”

  “Exactly who are you, miss? A relative?”

  “I am her best friend,” I said, “and frankly she’s in a bad way at the moment. She’s taken to her bed and the doctor has given her a strong sedative. So you see she is simply not in any state to receive visitors.”

  “A great pity,” the man said. “But you will let her know that we called to offer our services, won’t you? And our best wishes to the rest of Houdini’s family. I take it his family is still in residence?”

  I was about to say that his brother had now gone, but I could feel a warning voice in my head. “That’s right. So you can see that Bess is well looked after. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I must go back to her bedside. It was good of you to call. Good night.” And I shut the front door. They didn’t try to stop me. But when I went and looked from an upstairs window, I saw them still lingering in the street.

  Had I sensed danger? Were they really who they claimed to be or were they trying to find a way to gain entry to the house? I made sure the big bolt and chain were on the front door and then checked that the lower windows at the front of the house were all locked. As I went back to Bess I felt quite shaky. I just wished this whole wretched business were over.

  Twenty-seven

  I said nothing to Bess about the visitors. I made her some hot milk and she took the sedative powder her doctor had prescribed for her, then I found a bed for myself in a room across the hall from her. As soon as she dozed off I went in there and took with me the magazines and scrapbooks. The house had not yet been converted to electricity and I read in the softer, hissing light of the gas bracket. The most recent scrapbooks documented Houdini’s time on the Continent and most of the articles he had clipped from newspapers were in German. Sometimes there were pictures accompanying them and I stared at them, looking for faces that I recognized. But in the half darkness it was hard to distinguish features, other than large mustaches or beards. Underneath the articles Houdini had often written his own comment, most of these in German or Hungarian. Finally I closed the books in frustration. I would need to find someone to translate for me.