The Dime Museum Murders

by Daniel Stashower

  The following morning at half past nine, Phillips the butler answered our knock at the door of the Wintour mansion. “Mrs. Wintour is expecting you,” he told us, as if surprised by this information.

  The butler conducted us through the vast entry hall and down a wide corridor lined with Impressionist paintings and Chinese urns. There was also a suit of armor clutching a pikestaff, and one of those big glass domes with a stuffed pheasant in it. I half-expected to see the eyes in one of the paintings follow our progress down the hall.

  At the far end of the corridor Phillips opened a set of double doors into the family greenhouse, a two-story glass cathedral filled to capacity with exotic plants and trees. Mrs. Wintour, wearing traditional black and a veil of thin netting, sat at a small glass table some twenty yards away. Dr. Blanton, looking somber in a gray frock-coat, hovered at her elbow.

  The butler announced us and withdrew as Mrs. Wintour extended her hand in our direction. Harry crossed the distance to the table in a graceful sliding run and raised the hand to his lips, clicking his heels as he did so. I contented myself by removing my hat.

  “It is kind of you to see us, Mrs. Wintour,” said my brother. “I know how difficult it must be for you to receive callers at such a time.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Houdini. But your note was so kind, and the flowers were so lovely. If I can help in any way, I feel I must.”

  Biggs had been right about the abrasiveness of Mrs. Wintour’s voice. A drowning cat would have been positively tuneful in comparison. Even Harry, with his face composed in a mask of sympathetic charm, could not entirely conceal a wince. “Your courage is an inspiration,” he said. He held out a covered bowl he had been cradling beneath his arm. “My mother wished you to have this,” he said.

  Mrs. Wintour tugged at a corner of her veil. “What is it, may I ask?”

  “Chicken soup.”

  The widow hesitated, apparently trying to decide whether to find the gesture charming or gauche. After a moment, a crooked smile broke across her features. “Please set it down here, Mr. Houdini,” she said, gesturing at the glass table. “It is really too kind of your mother. you must tell her how exceedingly grateful I am.”

  Harry smiled and nodded.

  “Forgive me,” Mrs. Wintour continued, “I have been rude. May I introduce Dr. Blanton, my personal physician?” She indicated the grim figure at her side. “My nerves are in a bit of a state at the moment, and he has been seeing to them.”

  “Of course. We met Dr. Blanton the other night.” Harry and I nodded at the doctor, who gave no more response than the suit of armor in the hall.

  “May I offer you tea?” Mrs. Wintour asked. She had raised her veil and placed a lorgnette to her eyes, giving my brother a frank appraisal. She seemed to be warming to him by the moment.

  “We will not impose on you any longer than necessary,” Harry said. “We merely wished to gain your consent to examine your husband’s study.”

  “Bran’s study? Whatever for?”

  “To uncover a means of slipping in and out without disturbing the locks.”

  “The locks? Percy?” She glanced uncertainly at Dr. Blanton.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “It would appear these men wish to ascertain if anyone might have entered Branford’s study and—I mean—on the night in question.”

  Mrs. Wintour turned to us. “The police have already been here this morning,” she said. “The matter is entirely too distressing. I thought everything was settled. But now—but now—” Her voice was rising steadily to an even more challenging timbre.

  “Mrs. Wintour,” Harry said, “we have no wish to upset you further. We merely wish to examine the scene.”

  “I take it that the little shopkeeper was a friend of yours?”

  “He was,” Harry said.

  “You have my sympathies. However, I really don’t see why you should hope to learn anything by examining my husband’s study. The police have been very thorough.”

  I broke in, sensing that Harry was about to share his views on the police investigation. “My brother is a professional escapologist,” I ventured. “Problems of this sort fascinate him.”

  “A what?” The lorgnette returned to Mrs. Wintour’s eyes.

  “An escape artist. He makes his living by escaping from things—handcuffs, ropes, straitjackets, packing crates—”

  “Does he, indeed?”

  “Yes. He enjoyed a remarkable success on tour last season.”

  “I will soon be the eclipsing sensation of America,” Harry averred. “Nothing on earth can hold Houdini a prisoner. I—”

  “So naturally,” I interrupted, “in his distress over the tragic circumstances of your husband’s demise, it occurred to Harry that he may be able to shed some light on how an unwanted visitor might have gained admittance.”

  Mrs. Wintour wrapped a brocade shawl around her shoulders and spent several moments studying the young man who liked to be tied up. Then, languidly waving the lorgnette at Dr. Blanton, she said, “Percy, show them to the study.” The doctor began to frame a protest, but Mrs. Wintour held up her hand. “I see no harm,” she said, curtly.

  With a shrug, the doctor motioned for us to follow him.

  “And Mr. Houdini—!” the widow called after us.

  “Yes?”

  “Do remember to thank your mother for the soup!”

  Dr. Blanton conducted us back down the corridor in the manner of a man putting the cat out.

  “Doctor?” Harry called after him. “I wonder if you know our brother? Dr. Leopold Weiss?”

  “I think not,” he said, without turning.

  “He is a doctor like yourself.”

  “Is he. How interesting.”

  “Another question, if I may?”

  Dr. Blanton pulled up and glanced at his watch with showy impatience.

  “I did not like to say in front of the lady,” Harry said, “but I am convinced that Josef Graff had nothing to do with the murder of Mr. Wintour.”

  “So I gathered, Mr. Houdini. But I am afraid I do not share this view.”

  “As you like. I wondered, though, if you might supply a list of the names of anyone who might wish to see harm come to Mr. Wintour?”

  Something on the order of a smile crossed the doctor’s face— possibly for the first time since the Jackson administration. “A list of Bran’s enemies, you mean? you want me to draw up a list of Branford Wintour’s enemies?”

  “If it would not be too much trouble.”

  The doctor steepled his fingers. “Mr. Houdini, you could knock down every white pine from here to California and you still couldn’t mill enough paper to draw up such a list. Branford Wintour used to boast that he made a business enemy along with every dollar he earned.”

  “But surely not all of them would have wished to see him dead?”

  “Not a businessman, are you, Mr. Houdini?” The doctor turned and continued down the hall. “I will tell you this, though. Bran was working on something unusual these past few months. Something of enormous importance. Wouldn’t tell me a thing about it. ‘Going to write my name in the history books,’ he said. Very mysterious. No doubt he was stepping on some toes with that one.”

  We reached the entrance to the study. Dr. Blanton pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the doors.

  “You have your own key?” Harry asked.

  The doctor paused, holding the key in the lock. “These are Bran’s keys. I’m seeing to a few of his affairs until the estate is settled.” He passed over the heavy ring. “Leave them with Phillips on your way out. Good day to you, gentlemen.” He turned and made his way back down the corridor.

  Harry pulled me inside the study and locked the door behind us. Putting a finger to his lips, he pulled me to the center of the room. “That man,” he said in a low voice, “is the murderer. He killed Branford Wintour and the Graffs besides. I have him now!”

  “Got any proof, Harry?”

  “Is it not obvious?” he asked in a hus
hed, but urgent tone of voice. “As a doctor he could easily have obtained the poison used to kill Mr. Wintour! He had the motive and the opportunity!”

  “Motive?”

  “Did you see him leering at Mrs. Wintour? A vulture, that’s what he is. Can’t wait to move in and claim the dead man’s territory. Strutting around with Mr. Wintour’s keys in his pocket. He’s a wrong one, I tell you.”

  “Harry, if you go to Lieutenant Murray with this ridiculous blather he’ll have your head stuffed and mounted like that moose over there.”

  “I’ll get proof. Don’t worry about that. Now—” he resumed at normal volume, “—let us see what we can discover about this lock.” He walked back to the door and crouched to examine the lockplate. “Dash,” he said, pulling a high-powered magnifying lens from his pocket. “Bring me a taper from the fireplace, will you?”

  “Can I also get you a deerstalker hat and some shag tobacco?”

  “I have a good reason for employing the magnifying glass, Dash. I’m checking for scratches on the bolt mechanism.”

  I lit a wax taper at the fireplace and carried it over to the door. Harry held it close to the lockplate and peered into the internal mechanism of the keyhole. “difficult to see anything,” he said. He pulled out his lock-pick wallet and selected a tool that did double duty as a screwdriver. With practiced ease he loosened the four corner screws on the brass covering plate and lifted it off, exposing the inner workings of the lock. I peered over his shoulder. It was a heavy gunmetal lever-tumbler lock. Harry fished out the key ring that Dr. Blanton had given us and fitted the heavy bow key over the cam. The twelve-tooth bit on the end of the key fitted smoothly against the tumblers. Harry cranked the key three times. The bolt moved smoothly back and forth each time.

  “This is most interesting,” he said.

  “I don’t see anything unusual.”

  “Exactly. The lock is in perfect working order. No wear or scratches outside of normal key operation. if this lock had been picked, we would see scratches in the soft brass here on the fittings and lockplates. They are perfectly clean.”

  “Meaning it hasn’t been picked.”

  “It has not.”

  “What about that locksmith, Mr. Featherstone? He must have picked the lock the other night.”

  “No, Mr. Featherstone used his master skeleton. He’s the one who installed the lock in the first place.” He refastened the lockplate.

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “It means we are looking for some other means of entering the room.” He walked to the fireplace and stuck his head up the massive chimney. “Too narrow,” he said. He walked to the edge of the elaborate Oriental rug and dropped to his knees. “Help me with this, will you?”

  “Praying for inspiration?”

  “I want to roll this carpet back and see if there’s a trap door beneath.”

  I joined him on the floor and we took up some twelve feet of rug. “Just as a point of interest, Harry,” I said, waving away a cloud of dust, “why would anyone have a trap door in his study, apart from making life easier for a potential murderer?”

  “Mr. Wintour had this house built himself,” Harry said, “to his own specifications. He strikes me as a man who might have wished to slip out of the house occasionally, without his wife’s knowledge.”

  I had to agree that this was not entirely out of the question. Harry and I crawled over the oak flooring on our hands and knees, pulling and prying wherever there seemed to be a loose joint or an ill-fitting board. When this yielded no results, we began moving pieces of furniture and some of the statuary for spots we had missed. Harry crawled beneath the oblong platform that held the model train set, while I wriggled under the marble-inlay desk where Wintour had died. We finished by tapping at the marble tiles surrounding the fireplace.

  “No trap door,” I said at length.

  “It would seem not.”

  “What’s next?”

  “The walls, of course. If there’s no trap door, surely there must be a sliding panel!” He began rapping at the back of the fireplace. “Check behind the tapestry,” he called over his shoulder. “There has to be a reason why that entire wall is covered.”

  I walked to the corner of the room and carefully burrowed behind the hanging tapestry. It felt heavy and stiffing, and I moved carefully for fear of pulling the entire thing down on top of me. I spent perhaps fifteen minutes making a slow progress from one end to the other, checking the bare wall for any suspicious-looking cracks or seams. It appeared to be entirely solid.

  When I finally emerged, I found Harry sprawled on one of the arm chairs. “Give up?” I asked.

  He was staring at the tall bookshelves which I had so admired on our first visit to the Wintour mansion. They gave the dead man’s study a leathery opulence that I associated with the ruling families of Europe. Every time I looked at them, I imagined myself reclining in one of the stuffed chairs in my dressing gown, a snifter of fine cognac in one hand, perusing one of my custom-bound first editions.

  “Dash? Are you paying attention?”

  I looked away from the books. “Sure.”

  “You notice the doors on the bookcases?”

  “Of course.” Each case was fitted with a latch-frame door. Instead of glass panels in the frames, there was an open latticework of hammered brass.

  “It strikes me that the doors may have been designed to conceal an entryway of some sort,” Harry explained, “but I have examined each one and can find nothing. The cases themselves are firmly anchored to the floor and ceiling, and there is no sign of a sliding mechanism of any description.” He looked over at me. “Dash? you seem most distracted.”

  “I’m just admiring the books, Harry. I suppose I’m wondering how long it would take to read them all.”

  Harry lifted his head, as if seeing the books for the first time, rather than the shelves. “I have read some of them,” he said, gesturing at one of the cases. “Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. A fine book.” He peered intently. “The Master of Ballantrae, also by Mr. Stevenson. I have not read that one. Perhaps I shall.”

  I squinted at the shelves. “Can you really read those titles from here?”

  “Of course! Can’t you? Our friend at the ten-in-one is not the only one with telescope eyes.” He pointed to a row of books near the ceiling. “There is a complete set of Shakespeare. The green volume on the shelf below is Thackeray’s Henry Esmond. Next to it is Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott.”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Harry, I know perfectly well how the ‘human telescope’ act is done. you memorized those titles while I was flailing away under the wall hanging. Now you’re trying to impress me by calling them off as if you’re reading them with your telescope eyes. I’m not some boardwalk mark, Harry.”

  He folded his arms, grinning widely. “You do not believe me?”

  “No, Harry. No one has eyes that sharp. Not even you.”

  “Try me.”

  I walked to the case and pointed to a leather spine. “What’s this?”

  “Tristram Shandy,” he answered.

  “Lucky guess. This?”

  “The Vicar of Wakefield.”

  “This one?”

  “The Peregrine Pickle. Perhaps you need spectacles. Dash, you really should be—all right. That one is Clarissa Harlowe, by Samuel Richardson. There is Martin Chuzzlewit. That one is Guy Mannering. That one is...” His voice trailed off. “Extraordinary,” he said.

  “I should say so. you have the eyes of a hawk.”

  “No, not that.” He stood up and joined me at the center bookshelf. “Guy Mannering,” he said, pulling the volume off the shelf. “By Sir Walter Scott.”

  “Yes, looks as if there’s a complete set of Scott here.”

  “But that belongs over here.” He walked to a row of shelves at the other side of the case and threw open the latticework doors. “I saw a copy of Ivanhoe on this shelf. I wonder if—yes! Two sets of Scott! Two copies of Ivanhoe! Two c
opies of Guy Mannering!”

  “Harry, books are just another form of property to a man like Wintour. He probably bought the second set as an investment. Or as part of a collection. How many copies of Discoverie of Witchcraft do you have?”

  “No, Dash. Look—this second set is very high off the ground, so as to discourage the casual browser. Only Houdini, with his sharp eyes and uncanny powers of observation, would even have noticed it.” He darted to the corner of the room and seized a rolling library ladder. “Do you not see, Dash? This second set of Scott novels is a mere facade. We are certain to discover that the spine of each volume has been sliced from its binding and fastened together to form a false layer. We often see illusions of this sort in our profession. It appears to be a row of books, but in reality it is a hiding place!”

  Harry climbed to the top of the ladder and reached for the suspect volumes. “Behold! Now we shall see what is hidden behind these shelves!”

  Harry gave a sharp tug, expecting to uncover a spring-panel, trip-switch, or some other means of concealment. Instead, an entire set of the collected works of Sir Walter Scott cascaded onto the floor. I believe The Bride of Lammermoor hit him on the head. At the top of the ladder, Harry stared at the now- empty shelf in disbelief. “Is it possible?” he asked. “Can it really be perfectly innocent? I simply cannot credit it. Why should the man have two sets of Scott if one of them is not concealing a passageway or a secret compartment?”

  “I don’t know, Harry,” I said. “Perhaps he was uncommonly fond of historical romances.”

  Harry sat down on the top step of the ladder. “Dash,” he said, “there is no secret panel, trap door, or hidden entrance of any kind in this room.”

  “I was beginning to form that impression.”

  “Then how did the murderer get in and out?”

  “I think we can assume that Wintour knew his killer, and that he opened the door willingly.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” Harry said, “though it seems odd that no one else in the household was aware of any visitors. But how did the killer leave the door locked behind him? Someone bolted that door from the inside, and it certainly wasn’t Mr. Wintour.”