Death from a Top Hat (30 page)

“All right,” Merlini countered. “Would you submit if it were someone else, someone quite outside, Dr. Brainard, for instance? I only suggested Duvallo because he’s handy and he’s the only one here who could do it properly.”

Alfred spoke. “The answer is no. I don’t trust the police, nor you, since you seem to be hand-in-glove with them. They always have to have a fall guy, and I’m not accepting the nomination.”

Watrous, who had returned in time to hear most of Merlini’s speech, spoke up. “I agree with Mr. LaClaire, very decidedly. I will not submit to any such unorthodox procedure, and I most emphatically cannot allow Madame Rappourt to do so. Both for the reasons Mr. LaClaire has mentioned and for the further reason that any hypnotic tampering with her delicately attuned, inner psychic self might be disastrous.”

“I think we can let Madame Rappourt speak for herself, Colonel,” Merlini said.

“The Colonel,” she said, “is wrong. Your idea is a sound one. But why do you beat around the bush? You do not need to hunt for some small thing that someone has incorrectly observed. That is foolish. Why not find the murderer? Hypnotize each of us and ask, ‘Did you kill Sabbat? Did you kill Tarot?”

That had occurred to me too, but I didn’t want to horn in. It was Merlini’s show, and I suspected he was fully aware of the possibility, but had some secret reason for approaching it circuitously. I couldn’t tell whether or not Madame Rappourt’s incisive going to the point bothered him.

“Yes, of course, there is that,” he said matter-of-factly. “Jones, what about you?”

“I don’t see that an innocent person has any choice. Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Judy?”

She nodded without speaking, but the cool face under the warm brilliance of her hair was troubled.

“Mrs. LaClaire?”

“Yes, if you keep your questions within bounds.”

“Duvallo?”

“Yes. I think it might work.”

“Ching?”

“Suits me.”

“Care to change your mind, Watrous?”

“I do not.”

“Alfred?”

“No, dammit. I don’t trust you. Zelma, you’re a fool.”

“Well, that’s that,” Merlini said. “I might add that if anyone thinks the test is off, unless everyone consents, they’re mistaken. I shall make arrangements with Dr. Brainard for this evening. If anyone has any other engagement—”

“You’re forgetting, Merlini,” Ching said, “the S.A.M. show is tonight.”

Merlini snapped his fingers. “Oh, yes, of course. All right. We’ll make it after the show. Suit everyone?”

No one said anything.

“Fine,” Merlini said. “We’ll meet at the show and go from there. I’d like to have you come as my guest, Madame Rappourt, and the Colonel, too, if he will.”

Watrous started to protest but, noticing Madame Rappourt’s nodded assent, said, “Yes, I’ll come. If she’s going to go through with this in spite of my counsel, the least I can do is watch to see that you don’t try any tricks.” The emphasis he put on that last word was thoroughly uncomplimentary.

Merlini was impervious. “I think you’ll like the bill,” he said brightly. “Duvallo, Ching, the LaClaires, and myself are on it. And Jones has something rather special to present. He’s doing Ching Lung Soo’s famous trick. He…”

“Can I say something?” Gavigan put in.

Merlini nodded. “Yes. Time’s up now. And thanks for your forbearance.”

“Hmmpf! It’s old age creeping up on me. Merlini, do you realize that whatever you may discover with your hypnotic Aim flam won’t be admissible in any court as evidence?”

“I know that. But evidence obtained with the Third Degree isn’t either, and yet the police of this country still resort to that medieval technique. It sometimes gives them leads toward evidence that is admissible. You’ll admit that.”

Gavigan scowled, not wanting to put himself on record. “Okay, if you want to play Svengali, I don’t suppose I can stop you. You’d do it anyway.”

“If that’s all then, Inspector, suppose we adjourn until tonight at eight.” He frowned at Gavigan, signalling him with his eyes to say “yes.”

The latter agreed somewhat reluctantly. “Okay, but if you people are smart,” he said, addressing the others, “you’ll each accept the escort of one of my men until after this monkey business is over. If the murderer should happen to agree with Merlini that one of you knows something that hypnosis may reveal, then that person is in obvious danger.”

Watrous asked, “Then I can go?”

“For the time being, yes,” Gavigan said, “
with
one of my men.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, thank you, since I’m going to have nothing to do with Merlini’s test.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. My man goes with you, whether you like it or not. Grimm, you’re delegated. And don’t let him take it on the lam out any back doors. Better have someone with you.”

The Colonel threw him a look that needed its face washed, and then, gathering up Madame Rappourt, he went out. Grimm followed doggedly.

“Malloy,” Gavigan ordered, “get out there and detail men to nursemaid this bunch.”

Duvallo was speaking to Judy. “You come with me, kid. I’ll just see to it you have two nursemaids. Merlini, you’ve certainly managed to cook up a situation. If it wasn’t for Judy, I’d enjoy it. It has everything. Drama, suspense, and danger. I wish you luck.”

Merlini said, “Before you go, Dave, I’d like to see you a minute. The Inspector will look after Judy. Come here.”

Merlini took him by the arm and led him into the study.

As the others got up to leave and were going toward the door, I edged back nearer the study. Merlini and Duvallo were leaning out the window, talking in low tones. They were examining a hook set into the outside frame of the window; a hook from which dangled a rusty pulley that some tenant had used to hold a clothesline. Once Merlini pointed toward the far end of the yard, and I caught two words, “….
the tree
.” But that was all. When I saw them pull in their heads I moved away.

The others had all gone now. Merlini and Duvallo returned to the living room, and when the latter showed signs of staying, Gavigan sent him off.

“What,” he said then, “were you two up to in there?” Merlini picked up his hat and tried balancing it on his forefinger. “It’s a secret, Inspector. A deep, dark secret.”

The Inspector grumbled. “Going mysterious on me again, are you? Dammit, I’m old enough to know better. There should be a year-round open season on amateur detectives. I might have known you’d set off a lot of melodramatic fireworks. Hypnosis! Bah!”

Merlini grinned. “But, oh, my friend, and ah, my friend, Roman candles give off such a lovely light.”

“And very little illumination,” Gavigan came back acidly. “I’m beginning to wonder if the murderer is among that list of suspects after all. God knows they all act suspicious enough, but I don’t see a theory that’ll explain half the puzzles we’ve got on our hands.”

“And that’s just the trouble, Inspector. The murderer is among that list of suspects, but the evidence is too flimsy. A defense attorney, even one fresh out of college, could take that alibi list as it now stands and say, “The murderer must have been two other guys.”

Gavigan stuck out his square under jaw, and there were cold lights in his blue eyes. “Who is it? You tell me that and I’ll get a confession.”

Merlini shook his head. “No, Inspector. Your bright lights, your torturing, incessant questioning, your Third Degree wouldn’t make a dent. You’d find that Hauptmann was a talkative old woman compared to this murderer. You’ll see that the psychological make-up of our culprit will explain a lot of things, but he’s not the sort to fall for that. We’ve got to trip him up some other way.”

“Okay, and since you’re the Great Mysterioso—he sees all, he knows all—suppose you tell me how to do that. But remember, hypnotic confessions don’t count.”

“If my little trap works, your worries will be over,” Merlini said.

“Your little trap?”

“Yes. That’s what I was busily working at. Didn’t you notice?”

“Yeah, but the way you said it, I thought maybe it wasn’t what I think it is.”

“Very clever of you, Inspector. I don’t believe it is.”

Merlini’s innocent, pleased expression was that of the cat who has just swallowed the canary. Gavigan’s expression was the canary’s. He snorted and went out to the hall where he conferred with Malloy. Merlini put on his hat, and then, instead of leaving, stood silently looking out the window at the fading light in Van Ness Lane. I gave myself up to a survey of my alibi list, but it had all the aggravating obstinacy of a scattered Chinese Wood Puzzle, one of the more devilish ones.

Absorbed in that futile occupation, it was only afterwards that I remembered having been vaguely conscious of a phone ringing and of Gavigan’s answering it. Standing just this side of the study door, he was suddenly saying, “If anyone else gets killed, Merlini, it’s your fault. Trouble is, I’ll have to answer for it.”

“What’s happened, Inspector?”

“Jones! He went home with a detective, left the man in the bedroom, stepped into the John, closed the door, and dropped out the window on to the fire escape. God knows what he’s up to now.”

That announcement made me unbutton my ears, and then something I glimpsed in Merlini’s face left me with my chin hanging. I was closer than Gavigan to where Merlini stood in the shadow, and I caught something I couldn’t quite define, the barest flicker of a smile playing at the corners of his lips, perhaps, or just a faint hint of artificiality in the surprise he showed at the Inspector’s news. At any rate I was sure of one thing—Merlini had expected that.

“…and sometimes vanishes in the midst of multitudes that go to take him…”

T
HE GUEST NIGHT PROGRAMS
of the Society of American Magicians are presented in the twenty-fourth-floor auditorium of the McAlpin Hotel on Broadway at 34th Street. As I entered the main-floor lobby I found the Inspector, with Captain Malloy, Grimm, and half a dozen detectives gathered near the door.

“Something brewing?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” Gavigan said. “Merlini phoned H.Q. a while ago and told me to have all the exits from the twenty-fourth floor covered during the show. Then he announced—as off-handedly as he could manage—that he’d found Jones, and hung up. I called him back and he simply let the phone ring.”

The Inspector turned to the others. “You boys have your orders. Go to it, and keep your eyes open. Come on, Harte.”

I followed him across the lobby into the hotel manager’s office. Gavigan introduced himself and said, “I want you to issue orders to the elevator operators that, once the S.A.M. show upstairs has started tonight, no car is to stop for any reason whatsoever at the twenty-fourth floor, except at my order.”

Having completely upset that gentleman’s peace of mind, we left.

“Looks as if we were going to be properly marooned for the rest of the evening,” I commented. “More of Merlini’s recommendations?”

“Yes,” Gavigan said gloomily.

We stepped from the elevator into the twenty-fourth-floor lobby, a T-shaped corridor, with elevators lining both sides of the downstroke. The right arm of the T held the checkroom, and at its end, an exit led to the roof. The left-hand corridor stopped at the large door, now closed, of a banquet room. Directly before us, opposite the elevators, was the auditorium door and before it a small table where an S.A.M. officer stood taking tickets.

The lobby was crowded, and from the animated buzz of conversation that filled the air my ears several times filtered out the word
Tarot
. To many of these people, I realized, the murders were headline news that had come close and touched them.

I noticed again what had struck me on a previous reportorial visit. With the exception of one or two men that had overdue haircuts, all looked about as mysterious as—well, as Gavigan did. And yet, I knew that among them were many famous exponents of the wand, master of the innocent face and the deceptive hand. There were, too, the amateurs, whose skill in some specialty often equalled that of their professional colleagues—professors, jewelers, brokers, florists, mailmen, doctors, lawyers, newspaper cartoonists—who at night turned to wizardry and deception. Sprinkled here and there were perhaps a dozen or so decorative blondes, those glamorous and indestructible ladies whose bodies are nightly severed from their heads, pierced with swords, divided into halves with a crosscut saw, and burned alive.

Merlini stood near the ticket taker’s table, talking to Colonel Watrous. Standing very still beside him was a woman wearing dark glasses—Madame Rappourt. Aha, I thought, she’s shy among the conjurers.

Merlini saw us as we started toward them, and with a warning shake of his head, he quickly steered Rappourt and Watrous through the door into the auditorium. After several moments he hurried out again and took us under his wing.

“What’s the idea of that?” Gavigan wanted to know.

“I want your presence as little noticed as possible. You wouldn’t wear a disguise.” Merlini winked at me.

Gavigan made a sour face. “When I get a case that necessitates my dressing up like the House of David, I’ll resign.”

“Always so forthright and direct,” Merlini said. “A little deception is sometimes a good thing, Inspector, and it’s lots of fun. But perhaps we’d better go in. I’ve saved seats down front and the hocus-pocus is about to begin. Are your minions in their proper places?”

“Yes, but I’d enjoy myself a lot more if I knew…”

“That’s what
you
think. Besides, there’d be no dramatic suspense, no climax.”

“Hang your suspense, Merlini!” Gavigan began, but Merlini shut him off by introducing us, as we passed, to two card kings, a sword swallower, and the Man with the X-Ray Eyes.

Merlini had three seats reserved on the center aisle in the sixth row. Watrous and Rappourt, I noticed, were sitting two rows further forward on the other side of the aisle, and in the end seat of our own row, near the wall, I saw Judy Barclay.

I glanced at my program, and Gavigan scowled at his.

GUEST NIGHT