Death out of Thin Air (9 page)

The captain was tired of hearing that story. He said, “Yes, ma'am,” politely but hopelessly and went out. What he couldn't understand was why she should be lying to him. It couldn't be an insurance swindle because the most valuable stone in the collection,
The Star of Persia
, had only just been purchased by Mrs. Saylor and had not yet been insured. Even so they couldn't have hoped to collect from an insurance company on the story they were dishing out. It didn't make sense any way you looked at it.

Ogden Saylor was a lean, athletic, handsome man of about thirty — some ten years younger than his wife. Diavolo had seen his pictures in the papers often, a few years ago. His swimming and diving exploits had made headline news. The bored look that was on his dissipated face most of the time his wife was talking told Don that, whether or not he had married her for her money, it was now obviously the only reason he was still around.

He turned to Diavolo as if he wasn't interested in the disappearance of the money, since there was lots more where that came from. He said, “Avery Chandler tells us that you are familiar with the occult and that you will be going with us to the séance tonight.”

The Maharajah bowed. “Yes. In my country many strange things happen. It is one of the earliest homes of magic and psychic phenomena. I have always been deeply interested. The Count has had, I understand, some very remarkable results.”

Ogden Saylor gave the Maharajah a penetrating look. “That,” he said, “is putting it mildly. The Indian Rope Trick is simple parlor magic by comparison.”

Diavolo smiled. “Perhaps, like the Indian Rope Trick — the Count's phenomena never really happened at all.”

Mrs. Saylor objected to that. “My dear Maharajah,” she said, somewhat awed by the presence of an Indian prince who was reputed to be even wealthier than she herself. (She didn't meet many people like that.) “You would not say that, if you had seen what we have seen. Many strange things are hidden behind the occult veil. All things, on the Astral Plane, are possible. Now and then, through the medium of a few favored persons such as Marie Zsgany, those secrets manifest themselves and are made clear.”

“Secrets like Gilles de Rais?” Diavolo asked in polite skepticism. “The vampire-ghost of a murderer who has been dead five hundred years?”

Estelle Saylor frowned, one hand went to her throat, around which she wore a narrow black silk band. “There are evil things as well as good in the world of the spirit, evil things which sometimes gain ascendancy and which must be destroyed. Tonight—”

The butler entered at that moment and announced Miss Inez LaValle and Avery Chandler.

Diavolo, when he saw the girl, suppressed a start. She too wore a narrow silken band around her neck. Don edged over toward Mickey and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “What is this neckwear? The latest style from Paris?”

Mickey shook her head. “If it is,” she replied, “all the fashion magazines I read missed out on it this month. It's a new one on me.”

Inez LaValle was a slim, lithe brunette with a figure that must have made Mrs. Saylor green with envy. Mickey later admitted to Don that she had a twinge of it herself. Inez's years of dancing — she had started ballet when she was six — had given her a sleek, assured physical poise, and, as Don noticed when she gave him her hand, a muscular strength that some men would have envied.

Inez LaValle wasn't nearly as wealthy as Estelle Saylor. She wasn't exactly destitute either. Her father was president of the LaValle Motor Car Company and, judging from the way Chandler kept his eyes on her, Don figured that Woody's column would probably announce before long that the wealthy producer and the Music Hall's premiere danseuse were middle-aisling it. Chandler, in spite of his short leg was definitely a catch — an otherwise well built, handsome man, with charm and money.

Miss LaValle's dark flashing eyes looked at Don and she said, “If you do not believe that a vampire has materialized and escaped the control at Count Draco's séances — then what killed Marie Zsgany?”

“Marie
killed?
” Mrs. Saylor's voice was horror-stricken — her eyes round. “What do you mean?”

The Maharajah answered Inez first. “I understand from the papers that the police seem to think Diavolo, an actor — a magician, I believe — did it.” He turned to Mrs. Saylor. “Hadn't you heard? The papers are full of it tonight.”

She shook her head nervously, her hand at her throat again. “No, no,” she said. “We have not seen the papers. What—”

Inez cut in, “Gilles de Rais, Mrs. Saylor, killed Marie this afternoon in Don Diavolo's dressing room. The police think the magician did it because his door was locked on the inside and a boy in the corridor had seen no one else enter. The window, however, was open!”

Estelle Saylor was genuinely frightened. She moved back and sat down, shakily. “The Vampire!” she said in a low husky voice. “Gilles de Rais — he
can
kill, then!”

Ogden Saylor who had been listening quietly, scowled and said, “Chandler, is this true? Because of these séances will our names be connected with—”

“It's true enough, Ogden,” Chandler replied. “And though the police haven't as yet identified the girl as Marie Zsgany, I suspect our names will be drawn into it. I think your robbery is somehow connected with Marie's murder. The Bat appeared at my offices this afternoon. He rifled my safe also. He got thirty thousand in bonds. His Highness arrived just in time to save my life. He saw the Bat.”

Inez turned to Diavolo. “You saw him?” she asked incredulously. “And you still do not believe in him?”

“I saw a man who seemed to have the head of a bat, yes,” His Highness answered gravely. “But I was also in the Music Hall this afternoon. I saw Don Diavolo make an elephant disappear. That does not mean that I believe elephants can vanish into thin air. It is only that they can be made to appear to do so.”

Ogden Saylor smiled, “I think I agree with you. The Bat is not strictly kosher. I have suspected it all along. Chandler, those séances are phoney as hell. We've been so careful all along to tie Mlle. Zsgany in her chair so that she could not move. But we should have tied Count Draco. He could have produced all the phenomena.”

“But, Ogden,” Mrs. Saylor objected. “You saw the Vampire yourself. The Count was there when he appeared. Surely you can't say that he is the Bat — No, no, I won't believe it. Marie Zsgany was a true medium. The Count wouldn't dare — what could he gain?”

The Maharajah answered that one. “You ask what the Count could gain, Mrs. Saylor. You have just lost a fortune in precious stones. Perhaps, if the psychic manifestations the Count demonstrates are so remarkable, he also may know how to make diamonds vanish from a locked safe. Some people would consider that a very useful bit of knowledge — a trick really worth knowing.”

“Trick, magic, trick!” Mrs. Saylor stood up with a bright light in her watery blue eyes. “You say Marie was killed in a magician's dressing room. You say there is a connection between her murder and my missing jewels. I know where my jewels went now! There is only one man who could have made them vanish as they did.
Don Diavolo!
”

She flew excitedly toward the phone.

Had anyone been standing close to the Maharajah of Vdai-Loo, they would have been surprised to hear him mutter under his breath a peculiarly American exclamation, “Good grief! This is certainly
not
my lucky day!”

Ogden Saylor, however, came to the rescue. He did not agree with his wife. He had seen her jump at wild conclusions before. And wasting money on lawyers' fees did not suit his book at all. He said, “Estelle, if this magician has an alibi, he'll sue you for libel. And the Saylor name is going to be in the papers enough as it is. I think it would be better if you waited until you had some evidence.”

He glanced at his watch. “Besides it's time for the Count's séance. If the theft of the jewels is in any way connected with Mlle. Zsgany's death, I think Count Draco's apartment is the place to look for an answer. I'm going now. Are the rest of you coming?”

Chandler said that he was, as did Diavolo. Estelle and Inez didn't seem to relish the idea, but they both nodded. Don had the feeling that they both appeared to be scared to death but that some horrible fascination drew them on. He thought that the feeling in Mrs. Saylor was genuine. Inez puzzled him somewhat — there was something about her that was hard to grasp. Inez was difficult because she was a good actress and one couldn't be too sure, even offstage, that she was not acting a part.

The Saylors, Chandler and Miss LaValle went on ahead in a cab; Don Diavolo and Mickey followed in another toward the Count's penthouse apartments on Fifth Avenue opposite Central Park. Don ordered his cab driver to stay some distance behind the taxi ahead.

When they arrived at their destination, he waited until the others had gone in before letting his driver stop in front of the apartment building. The reason for this was apparent as soon as he and Mickey had gotten out. Woody Haines came toward them from across the street where he had been stationed on a park bench watching the building.

He addressed the Maharajah in a fashion Maharajahs are unaccustomed to. “Hello, old sock. You're quite the handsome devil in that turban, aren't you? And you, Pat” — he turned to Mickey — “you're sweet enough to eat, as usual.” He lifted her veil as they entered the lobby and tried to take a quick kiss. He got his face slapped.

“Oh, oh,” he said. “Wrong again! Hello, Mickey. How are you?”

“
I'm
doing all right,” she said. “And you?”

Woody grinned. “Not so well, by the looks of it.”

Don interrupted. “This is no time for horseplay, Woody. Find out anything?”

“Nothing around here,” Woody answered. “Everything highly respectable and dull. But the latest papers have a nice story. Seen it?”

Don shook his head. “No. Let's have it.”

“The cops have identified the murdered girl,” Woody announced. “Just in time for the four star final.”

Don groaned. “And that spoils our party. The cops will be thick as gnats around this place in no time at all. I'm surprised they aren't here already.”

Woody said, “Now wait, Don. There won't be any cops here just yet. They don't know she was Marie Zsgany.”

“But you said they'd identified her?”

“Sure, they have. But they've found that she is Marie VanReyd.”

“Marie VanReyd!” Mickey exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Woody went on. “Marie VanReyd, the beautiful cloakroom girl who made the headlines when she married Charley VanReyd, millionaire playboy, six years ago. Excuse it, if I sound like one of my own columns.”

“You do know the most interesting things, Woody, my boy,” Diavolo said. “Let's hear more. Charles VanReyd fell off a mountain about a year later didn't he?”

Woody nodded. “Yes. Trying to get up the Matterhorn. His body was never found and a few months later, his widow, Marie, did a fade-out. As far as I know, no one has heard of her since, until now.”

“The cops sure about that identification?” Don asked.

“Uh huh,” Woody said. “She had some very fancy dental work. They broadcast a description and the dentist reported. It's she, all right.”

But Diavolo, though he appeared to have wanted an answer to his question, didn't seem to be listening. “Shades of Hermann, Kellar and Thurston!” he said slowly. “I think that may solve our case! Come on, Woody, let's go!”

“Good,” Woody said, taking Mickey's arm and starting toward the elevators. “I was afraid for a while I wasn't going to get an invite to the party. But what do you mean, the case is solved? Don't tell me the Vampire is Charles VanReyd instead of Gilles de Rais.”

“You're warm, Woody,” Don said. “In one way, I think he is.”

The elevator stopped at the top floor and the operator pointed to a flight of stairs at the corridor's end. “Count Draco's apartment is up there,” he said.

When the elevator door had closed behind them, Diavolo asked, “Woody, that penthouse is on which side of the building?”

“Front,” Woody said. “I could see it from the park.”

Instead of heading for the stairs, Don turned and approached the door to the suite of apartments that would be directly beneath the penthouse. Motioning the others to be quiet, he rang.

He got no answer at all, at first. Then he pushed again — a long steady ring. The door opened suddenly and a gruff unsociable voice growled, “Well?”

Diavolo replied politely, “We are looking for Count Draco's apartment. Could you tell us—”

“Up those stairs,” the voice said, and the door slammed.

Mickey and Woody had gotten a quick look at the tanned, broad-shouldered man whose small eyes held a hard, suspicious stare and whose nose had a queer smashed look as if a sledge-hammer or Joe Louis had once whacked it.

Woody stared at the closed door. “Something wrong there,” he said. “This apartment house is lull of fat stock brokers and social-register lounge-lizards. That bird isn't the type.”

Diavolo lit one of his gold-tipped cigarettes. And he was humming the chorus of
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.
“You're right about that, Woody. It looks like a case of social climbing. But the last time I saw that bird he was climbing around in a circus tent. A trapeze artist. Larry Fox of The Flying Foxes. That's how he got the nose. He missed the bar
and
the net one day. Last I heard of him he was — guess what?”

“I wouldn't even try,” Woody said. “An acrobat is likely to do anything.”

“He was barnstorming in the Middle West doing a human-fly act. He'd climb the side of the county courthouse and do a handstand atop a chair balanced on two legs on the roof's edge. And then pass the hat.”