The Linking Rings

by John Gaspard

  “McHugh is either on his way or he is here,” he said to the group, and as if the universe had set out to prove him right, McHugh chose that moment to walk through the front door. As the only people in the restaurant, we were easy to spot. He moved toward us, and Harry pulled a chair over from a nearby table to add him to our party. All conversation at the table stopped as he settled in. Harry asked the key question we all had.

  “So who was murdered?”

  McHugh started to say something but stopped as the waiter approached the table and put a glass of water in front of him. When asked if he wanted anything else to drink, McHugh ordered tea and then turned his attention back to us.

  “I just got off the phone with a friend of mine at the Yard,” he said, stopping for a moment to take a sip of water. Somehow this seemed to inspire Davis De Vries and Roy Templeton to also take a quick drink from their own glasses—ice tea for De Vries and a dark ale for Roy.

  “I’m sorry to report Hector Hechizo was found dead this morning in a hotel about three kilometers from here,” McHugh continued.

  McHugh’s statement produced a series of overlapping questions from the group—How was he killed? When was he killed? Why is Baxter a suspect?—and he waited patiently until all of our questions had been expressed.

  “The method of the killing suggests a perpetrator with a more than rudimentary understanding of medical procedures,” he said slowly. “It appears Mr. Hechizo was killed via what I can only term as something akin to blood-letting. That is, a series of—in this case, hundreds—of small cuts, covering the entirety of the victim’s body.”

  “Like being nibbled to death by ducks,” Roy said quietly, and McHugh nodded at the analogy.

  “That’s not far off. It was the sheer number of cuts which resulted in enough blood loss to cause death. And what’s most unsettling about the procedure,” he added grimly, “is there is every indication the victim was conscious and aware the entire time.”

  “How is that even possible?” De Vries said. “Was he bound and gagged?”

  McHugh shook his head. “The preliminary report suggests a paralytic drug of some kind was used. Such a drug would, essentially, freeze all the muscles in the body, allowing the victim to be awake throughout the entire ordeal, regardless of how long it might have taken. And the police believe it took a good long while indeed.”

  “But,” De Vries said, leaning forward. “The lungs, the heart, breathing—”

  “Exactly,” McHugh said. “For the patient to survive while under the effects of such a drug, he would have to be intubated with a breathing tube or device of some kind.”

  “Well, I can see how that would suggest someone with a medical background,” De Vries said. “But Baxter hasn’t practiced in over thirty years.”

  “Forty if it’s a day,” Roy added. “He gave up medicine virtually right after he got out of school.”

  “Be that as it may,” McHugh said as the waiter set a cup of tea in front of him, “it is the shiny object which currently has the attention of the force and until something shinier comes along...” He took a long sip of tea.

  “Hundreds of little cuts,” Harry repeated almost to himself. McHugh looked over at him.

  “Well, that’s the thing, Harry,” he said, setting the cup back in its saucer. “That was how it was first described to me. But the second time my contact said it, he referred to it differently. He said, and I quote, ‘It must have been a thousand cuts.’”

  This phrasing clearly brought Harry up short. He blinked at McHugh, started to say something, stopped, and then started again. “That was the phrase, ‘a thousand cuts?’”

  “It was indeed. Taken on its own, that’s a unique expression. But when you put it into context with the other two murders...”

  He let his words hang in the air as Harry processed what he was hearing.

  “A stabbing. Then poison,” McHugh continued slowly.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Harry finally said.

  “Often,” McHugh replied and then turned to the group. “Harry and I have the amusing habit of occasionally landing on the exact same thought at the exact same moment. And, unless I miss my guess, we have done that again. Am I right?”

  Harry nodded slowly, and the two men considered this silently for what felt like a long time. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “So what the heck are you two are thinking?” I said, making no effort to temper my exasperation.

  Harry looked over at me and then at the group. He was clearly choosing his words with great care.

  “We’re thinking the evidence suggests the possibility our murderer might be none other than Archie Banks.”

  This produced a shocked reaction from everyone around the table. I mean, actual gasps, jaws dropping, the whole nine yards.

  “But Archie died over thirty years ago,” Davis De Vries finally said.

  “Yes,” McHugh said, looking over at Harry, who nodded in agreement. “That is presently the one sticking point in our theory.”

  Chapter 14

  As tantalizing as this bizarre statement was, both Harry and McHugh declined to elaborate further until, as McHugh explained obliquely, “We do a quick check of the paperwork.”

  Instead, Harry insisted that, since we were already seated in a fine Indian restaurant, it would be borderline criminal not to partake in some fine Indian food. This argument was met with annoyed grumbles, but once the food began to arrive, the primary sounds from the table were simple, satisfied sighs of contentment. Once we were all sated, McHugh sat back, wiped his face with the cloth napkin, and suggested we all accompany him to his flat for some coffee, tea, and much-needed explanations.

  “All will be elucidated,” he promised.

  Megan, De Vries, and I were all for it, but Roy Templeton opted out of the plan almost immediately.

  “Thanks for the invite, I’m as intrigued as the rest of you,” he said to the group as we assembled in front of the restaurant. “But I left Roxanne alone out there at Baxter’s Foll—” He caught himself before completing his traditional dig at Laurence Baxter’s estate and, in deference to his host’s current situation, took a decidedly kinder tone in his remarks. “She’s alone out there at Larry’s, and I think she’d like some company. When I called and told her news about Hector, it hit her hard. To be honest, it’s still settling in on me. Let me know what comes of this whole Archie Banks thing. And be sure to give me a call if you find Elvis as well.”

  With that final attempt at humor, he flagged a passing cab and was gone. I put out a hand to signal another taxi for our group, but McHugh waved it away.

  “We’re two minutes from Euston station, and it’s a six-minute tube ride to my flat. Trust me, in today’s traffic, we’ll be better off on the train.”

  With that he led us to the nearby station, and less than ten minutes later we were exiting a different station, one which deposited us into a charming London neighborhood known as Camden Town.

  Upon seeing the sign announcing the station, I realized my only other experience with Camden Town had been that it was my sole spoken line in a high-school production of A Christmas Carol. Due to the large number of characters in the show, a wide net had been cast for supporting players, a net which eventually captured me and a handful of other non-theater geeks. My one line came near the climax of the performance, when—as The Poulterer—I was dragged on stage to confront a recently transformed Ebenezer Scrooge, who instructed me to “Take this bird to Bob Cratchit: 15 Bagshot Row, Camden Town!”

  At that point, I would utter my one line (“Camden Town?”), which would then propel Scrooge into a longer spiel about how the bird was too large and how I needed a cab and so forth. Even at the time, it seemed like a lot of effort for very little payoff. I had to arrive at the theater an hour before the show, sit around in an itchy wool costume for two hours
, and then wander on stage to say two words, which, in reality, weren’t truly required to move the plot forward. To prove my point, one night I decided to skip my line altogether, which produced only a momentary pause on Scrooge’s part as I stared back at him blankly. Unflustered, he launched back into his monologue, and the show continued as if nothing had gone astray.

  If I had to pinpoint the one moment that determined why I became a magician instead of an actor, that would it.

  Ironically, the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the production was performed by none other than Jake North, who was routinely handed all the key male roles throughout his sunny high-school theatrical career. This, in turn, made him very popular with the girls. However, I took solace in the fact that—while Jake was getting all the girls—I had, by the age of sixteen, nearly perfected the Erdnase Diagonal Palm Shift. Turns out self-delusion is a strong force, at any age.

  Remembering A Christmas Carol got me thinking of its famous opening line (“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.”), which returned me to the purpose for this sudden expedition to McHugh’s flat: The amazing suggestion that the three murdered magicians had been struck down by a man thought to be dead for over thirty years.

  Dead as a doornail, as the saying goes. Or not.

  “I will readily confess to—during the course of my career—squirrelling away copies of the occasional official ephemera that passed across my desk and piqued my interest,” McHugh said as he pulled open one of several file drawers in a cramped alcove off his small sitting room. “I have, over the years, winnowed the file considerably, but I believe the document in question is one that I held onto. For reasons I hope will soon become apparent, as it is, at the very least, an interesting read.”

  The four of us—Harry, De Vries, Megan, and I—were in his sitting room, sipping tea and nibbling on the sugar cookies McHugh had placed out for us before he began his deep dive into his filing system. Although “system” might have been too strong a word. Small filing cabinets were loaded on top of other larger, mismatched filing cabinets, with stacks of papers resting precariously on top of these equally haphazard cabinet towers. While I couldn’t distinguish any sort of organizational structure, it only took him about five minutes and what appeared to be two incorrect drawer dives for him to put his hands on the piece of paper that he was searching for.

  “I have seen my share of suicide notes over the years,” he said as he turned toward the group. He held the paper up to the light to check it was, in fact, the one he was hunting for and then turned back and closed the drawer from which he had extracted it. “But this is one of the few I made a copy of, because it was—and I suspect, still is—endlessly intriguing.

  “And I think,” he continued, as he lowered himself into the remaining empty chair, “it may offer some insight into the events of the last five or six days.” He gave the paper one last look and then handed it over to Harry.

  Harry glanced at the faded piece of paper while he patted his pockets, trying to determine the location of his glasses. From where I was sitting, I could see the note was hand-written and appeared to be a photocopy of the original. Harry finally gave up on his search and looked over at me.

  “Eli, I can’t find my glasses. Do you mind?”

  He handed the paper to me and sat back in his chair, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. I looked down at the document. The photocopy was a bit smeared; however, the handwriting was so neat and precise that it was still easy to read, despite the poor quality of the copy. I read the single sheet out loud.

  To whom it may concern:

  This is the only way out I can see. No other options remain.

  You know who you are and what you have done to me.

  You stabbed me in the back and poisoned my reputation.

  I am already dying a death of a thousand cuts, so I might as well go ahead and complete the job you started.

  You have drowned my dreams, pushed me over the edge, and I am at the point of no return. I hope you can live with that.

  While my career goes up in flames, you ride high on success, fueled by the failure you heaped upon me.

  This may be my death, but my blood is on your hands.

  AB

  I finished reading and turned the paper over to ensure I hadn’t left anything out. Confident I had completed my assignment, I handed the paper to Davis De Vries, who took it gingerly, as if it possessed heretofore-unknown explosive properties.

  “Oh my,” he said, holding the document at arm’s length. “He really did blame us for the nosedive his career took, didn’t he?”

  “It was his own fault,” Harry said firmly. “It was a bizarre fiction back then, and it is equally bizarre under today’s circumstances. There is honor among magicians. If you steal from your brethren, I think you shouldn’t be surprised when they give you the boot. He blamed us for everything bad that happened to him, when in fact he had no one to blame but himself.”

  “I really can’t,” De Vries said, stammering as he looked up at McHugh and Harry, “I really can’t fathom what you are thinking. Are you, are you actually suggesting Archie Banks has come back from beyond the grave and is killing us, one by one? Are you suggesting that?”

  Harry greeted this short outburst with a warm smile. “Oh, no, Doctor. I don’t believe we’re suggesting anything of a supernatural or other-worldly explanation for the events of the last few days.”

  “Absolutely,” McHugh said, and I realized for the first time he was still wearing his trilby hat, which laid to rest any question I had about him ever taking it off. I had assumed it would come off at home, which was not the case. “However,” he continued, “the specific wording of this suicide note, coupled with the circumstances of the three recent deaths, are too analogous to be ignored.”

  De Vries had passed the note back to me, and I read part of the note aloud. “‘You stabbed me in the back and poisoned my reputation.’” I looked up at the small group. “Well, that certainly describes what happened to Oskar and Borys.”

  “Coincidence,” De Vries huffed, clearly not getting on board with this train of thought.

  “Absolutely,” Harry agreed. “That certainly could fall under the heading of a common coincidence. However, it’s the other phrase, ‘I am already dying a death of a thousand cuts,’ which, I think, moves this out of the realm of coincidence and into...” He looked around the room. “Well, I’m not entirely sure where it moves us.”

  “Archie Banks is dead,” De Vries said, clearly getting annoyed at where the conversation was headed.

  “Yes, that is the most likely premise,” McHugh said, standing up and moving across the small sitting room. The entire flat, with the exception of his office alcove, was neat and tidy and had the feel of a woman’s touch in the small details. I suspected the apartment had seen very few changes since the death of Cora, McHugh’s wife. Harry’s apartment offered the same, museum-like setting to the memory of his own late wife, my Aunt Alice.

  “And, if you follow that line of thinking,” he continued, moving to the window and pulling back a curtain to let more light into the room, “then someone is using the suicide note as a blueprint of sorts to exact a revenge on Archie Banks’ magical peers.”

  “And, so far, doing a bang-up job,” Harry said.

  “Indeed,” McHugh said, returning to his chair.

  “The next line in the note,” I said, glancing down to confirm my memory, “is ‘You have drowned my dreams.’ Since, so far the killer has been going in order, I’m guessing that would be the next likely line of attack.

  “Of course,” I added, thinking back to the large estate which was currently housing the Magi, “there aren’t a lot of opportunities for drowning at Baxter’s mansion. He’s got a great fitness room but no pool. I didn’t see any lake out in the Heath, unlike Minnesota, where you can’t turn around without stepping into a body
of water of some size. Other than a birdbath in the garden, I’m not sure where he—or she—would find the opportunity.”

  “Well, the killer got Hector into a hotel room, so I don’t think we should confine the area of concern to Hampstead Heath,” McHugh said. “There are plenty of bodies of water—including the Thames, which has seen its share of drowning victims—to choose from, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re afraid,” Harry said with a bit of a growl. “The only thing you need to be afraid of is the possibility of being collateral damage.”

  McHugh stood behind his chair and placed his hands on top of it, straightening a small white doily which lay across it. “Admittedly,” he agreed. “However, our first step must be to take this information to the fellows on the force, so they can follow up on our line of thinking: that a person or persons unknown are bringing Archie Banks’ words from his suicide note to life, as it were. As well as explore the other, less likely path.”

  De Vries narrowed his eyes at McHugh and then looked to Harry. “And what is that other less likely path?”

  “The other line of thinking, as absurd as it might be to consider, is to question a fact we always thought was beyond reproach,” Harry said.

  “And the fact is?” De Vries pressed as he folded his arms across his chest.

  “That Archie Banks may not actually be dead.” Harry said.

  He turned to McHugh, who nodded in silent agreement.

  “This is nonsense,” De Vries said when we stepped back out onto the street an hour later. I sensed from his mood he was an unlikely subway candidate at the moment, so I began to scan the street for an available taxi.

  “I would not say nonsense,” Harry said. “Bizarre, yes. Implausible, by all means. But this is a deadly business, and it cannot be treated lightly.”

  De Vries harrumphed and took up his own search for a cab, looking down the street in the opposite direction from where I was looking. I wasn’t entirely in his camp about Archie Banks at this point, but I was also far from convinced by the events of the last hour.