The Complete Simon Iff (33 page)

"The minute I saw it I called up the office and asked if I might cover the story, and mentioned you. They said there were no facts come through yet; I told them it was all the better; you didn't need anything so crude."

"Again I am betrayed!"

"I've told you practically the whole story already. Of course it's suicide, because it couldn't possibly be anything else; but there's no reason why he should have done it, except the stunt itself, and that's going a little far. His wife talks crazily, from grief."

"It isn't really a mystery, then; it's merely an eccentric action."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"But Opopo was not at all an eccentric man. He was prosperous, I imagine; his wife was apparently devoted to him; he must have been a steady, sober person to hold down his job; he was always inventing new tricks; he has written three books on illusions. Let us consider if his wife's talk is as crazy as it sounds. What is it?"

"She claims Miss Max - the girl he pretends to turn into, you know - did it."

"Let us consider this hypothesis. How is the trick done, anyhow?"

"Nobody knows."

"Oh yes, I know. I saw the show when it was at the Gloria. Let me show you at least how it could be done, on what I saw that night.

"First. A very thin elastic steel plate is put on the floor. Over this a green baize cloth is thrown, very carelessly. This action raised a protest, as the cloth had not been examined; time was occupied in the argument about it. Something important was certainly being done with that time. When ultimately replaced on the plate, it was not thrown loosely, but spread out carefully, leaving a yard of plate visible in front, and overlapping the bare stage behind. The safe was then placed on the centre of the plate, after being put in its tarpaulin.

"We can stop there, for the moment. We have a complete picture of the apparatus which is subsequently hidden by the tent for a few moments. We need not worry about the cords and handcuffs; Opopo would have had them off before the echoes of the clanging door had died away. The safe is of a pattern which opens from within at a touch.

"It is sealed; but as he enters it, he affixes a strip of oiled paper to the jamb, so that the seal comes away whole. He can then remove the paper, heat the back of the wax with a special instrument, and reseal the safe so as to defy detection.

"Opopo, then, hearing the tarpaulin pulled into position, puts out a hand and offers a 'false end', as it is called, to the man who is tying the cord. This cord is then not fastened at all till Opopo fastens it, later on. This he must do, lest the fraud be discovered during the opening.

"While the baize is lying on the plate, a second plate, containing an orifice large enough for a man to pass, is pushed, under cover of the baize, through a slit in the stage, beneath the first plate. While the baize is being spread - after the little controversy - he would always find a new way every night, no doubt, to distract attention - the first plate is pulled back through the slit.

"We thus have a simple means of exit. It is merely necessary to open a trap beneath the hole in the plate. The moment that the tent is in place, Miss Max comes up from beneath, and helps, if necessary, to adjust affairs plausibly. Possibly she is really needed to assist in the unfastening, though I doubt it. Opopo shuts her in the safe, attends to the resealing, and vanishes through the hole. The trick is turned.

"On the night I was there the time between the rise and fall of the curtain was fourteen minutes and seven seconds: between the veiling and unveiling of the safe thirty-eight seconds and three-fifths. That is, the safe was actually hidden from my sight for that period. It is a splendidly smart performance. Of course, I cannot be sure that they do it in the way I have indicated; but it is not far out. The escape is certainly through the stage, not in any other direction.

"It follows that every action must be done with incomparable verve and snap. They have to drill for weeks. Of course there's a little lee-way, but that's in case of a hitch. The brilliant effect depends entirely on the shortness of the time of veiling. Take sixty seconds, and people would begin to be bored.

"Now then - whom have we here? Opopo himself, Miss Max, and a man to work the exchange of the plates, unless she did it herself, as is possible. These people hate to multiply assistants; each one means a chance to let their secrets get out. The porters are mere supers, of course.

"However, it doesn't matter if there were twenty assistants. One person, and one only, had access to Opopo during that forty seconds more or less when the safe was veiled. At any other time, no one had access. Of course, Opopo was alone after he had shut her into the safe, but a third person could hardly have killed him and put him back and taken her out, without her noticing something unusual! We must therefore take out choice between suicide, and murder by Miss Max.

"We know nothing about Miss Max; but would any human being choose to commit murder in such a way? Her only chance of escape is the suicide theory, which she must have known to be unlikely - else why murder the man, for one thing? It would be sure to strike some one to suspect her, as the one person with access to Opopo; the prussic acid good-bye! as Swinburne says. She must have had a dozen better opportunities daily. Bring me motives by the wagon load, circumstantial evidence by the rod, pole, or perch, and I shall still say that she didn't do it, unless she is an epileptic maniac."

"I may print that?"

"Yes; but add that I think it is a case of murder."

"You just proved it wasn't!" cried Miss Mollie Madison in comic despair.

"Never in the world! Read over your notes! Also add this. My opinion is provisional; but it is the best that I can do without having any facts at all to guide me."

And so it came about that Wake Morningside's article and the interview with Simon Iff were printed in parallel columns under the heading:

'Opposite Opinions: the man who saw and heard everything, and the man who saw and heard nothing.'

IV

Wake Morningside's article was a feather in Simon Iff's cap in one respect. He agreed entirely as to the method of the trick. The second plate of steel, which was of course exposed by the authorities as being part of the apparatus, made that clear.

But what was new was actually the record of the events of the fatal night. Morningside had been on the committee.

The trick had passed off normally up to the moment of the veiling. The 'green baize argument' had been started by a voice from the gallery, an accomplice stationed for the purpose in case the committee failed to challenge Opopo on the subject.

Morningside took out his watch to time the period of veiling. Ninety-two seconds elapsed; he thought 'What a badly worked trick!' Then the curtain came down suddenly, cutting off the committee from the audience. He heard the stage manager apologizing, and a singer coming on in front of the curtain as the orchestra struck up. At the same time as the manager began his little speech, Miss Max ran in from the wings. 'There's something wrong!' she said; 'open the safe, quick!'

Of course she had not the combination; only the committeeman knew that. The man rumbled; Mr. Nash ran up, got the word from him, and spun round the wheel. Both he and the committeeman were overpowered by the fume of the acid, and had to be treated medically.

Morningside kept his head, and examined the safe, discovering the trick by which the seals were affixed to a 'camouflage' strip of paper instead of to the steel jamb. He also discovered the 'false end' of the tarpaulin cord. Nothing had been touched from within; it was certain that Opopo had died almost immediately on entering the safe. In fact, he was still partially bound; his legs were tied firmly; his left arm still wore a handcuff. Only the right forearm was wholly free.

An inspector of police now appeared on the scene. The manager wanted the stage cleared; the inspector insisted that the audience be informed of the nature of the accident - so far as that it was not fire - and the house closed for the night, so that the coroner might view the body. The inspector took the names and addresses of the committee, that he might call them as witnesses.

Morningside dismissed the suicide theory as incredible.

The evidence of Opopo's wife was extremely sane and strong. He had bought a house only a month before; he was spending every day with her in delighted purchase of old furniture and pictures, in which he had always revelled. That very morning he had received a telegram informing him that the Supreme Court had confirmed a judgement in his favour relative to certain breaches of his copyright in the 'act'; and he had ordered a supper after the performance to celebrate it. He was not entangled with any woman; his marriage was only six months old; a baby was on the way, and his great wish had always been for a son to carry on the Opopo tradition, he himself being the third of that dynasty. Friends and colleagues confirmed this statement on many points.

Morningside then proceeded to prove that in the ninety-two seconds at her disposal Miss Max could easily have accomplished the murder. She had almost certainly some quick method of learning the combination of the safe. There were fifty ways of informing her. It was probably necessary, since now and again Opopo might fail to free himself from the cords, and she would then have to help him. Therefore, she had but to open the safe, administer the poison, readjust it and the seals, do the same with the tarpaulin, and give the alarm. The closed safe was her alibi.

As to the motive, that was not the affair of Mr. Wake Morningside, and he was always the servant of the public.

The 'Chicago Pigeon' had not been content with one angle of the case. Another reporter had got after Miss Max; and Morningside's article was followed by her biography.

She was of poor parents of doubtful character, both dead or disappeared. Her mind was amazingly precocious; she had gained a scholarship at Bryn Mawr and specialized in chemistry. (Chemistry, pray observe.) She had led a wild life there, and been expelled for an outrageous escapade. For two years, it seems, she had walked the streets, and on three occassions narrowly escaped conviction as a thief. She then fascinated a photographer - in whose studio, remarked the reporter, potassium cyanide abounds, and only needs distillation with sulphuric acid to produce the poison that killed Opopo. This photographer had died under suspicious circumstances. Miss Max disappeared for awhile; she was next heard of in connexion with a gang of coiners, but the police could get no evidence against her. She began to have plenty of money, however; and, with the help of an 'angel' appeared in a cabaret as a dancer. She next tried vaudeville in a Japanese juggling act, but failed lamentably. Here, however, she met Opopo. This was a year before his marriage. He engaged her as his assistant. She set her cap at him, but in vain. Shortly after his engagement to the lady whom he married, somebody threw vitriol at them, which luckily missed. She was suspected, but proved an alibi by three wealthy men, probably all of them under her spell. Recently she had renewed her advances to Opopo. Her extraordinary cleverness in the 'act', which was making big money, prevented him from discharging her. But ten days before his death he had interviewed another girl, it is said, and engaged her from the end of the following month. Miss Max might or might not have been cognizant of this fact, but it was natural to suppose that he had given her notice to quit.

An hour after the publication of this issue an 'extra' was being cried on the streets. The coroner's jury had brought in a verdict of murder against Miss Max, and she had been arrested.

"This", said Simon Iff, "is where I become the darling of the Great American People. Rise, Sir Simon Iff! My arms, thou gallant squire! My battle-charger, Eustace! Hie thee to King Arthur, Clarence, and lout thee low, and say Sir Simon is afield. Beauty and Innocence in danger! By'r Lady, the varlets shall rue it!"

This singular outburst was entirely unintelligible to Iff's Japanese servant, but he judged from his master's tone that brandy would fit the case; so he placed on the table a bottle of date eighteen hundred and eleven.

"Pack!" commanded Iff, "and telephone for berths to Chicago on the first good train we can conveniently catch."

It is to be regretted that Simple Simon now becomes a character more infamous than Benedict Arnold. He telephoned Miss Mollie Madison, and told her his intentions. She was not going to miss that chance, and she followed him to Chicago on the very next train. Thus simply and without effort do we incur fifteen year's imprisonment in the Land of the Free.

The wretched woman, now completely in the toils of the vilest of mankind, had breakfast with him at the Hotel Obsidian. He drank neat brandy like a fish, and became more sober and more angry every moment.

"We are up against it, little one", said he, lighting a Florida Cigar in order to become still angrier; "we have Idiocy and Malice to contend with in the persons of Wake Morningside and this dog Walter Gale - whose name I should prefer to pronounce in the French fashion.*

"There isn't a hint of any investigation, or evidence of any desire to discover the truth. It's the most blasted balderdash from one, the foulest libel from the other. Let's run through it! Here! Evidence of the wife. Very anxious to prove how much her husband loved her, isn't she? Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Well, never mind her; she's nobody; wives often are.

"Evidence of Mr. Expert Wake Morningside. Wake is either 'lucus a non lucendo' or short for Quack. Hear him! 'She had almost certainly a way to get the word of the safe'. Almost. 'There were fifty ways of informing her.' Why not say one way, and mention it?

"'It was probably necessary'.

"'Opopo might fail'. He hasn't failed in thirty years on the stage, with the whole world, and his enemies in the profession, out to make a fool of him.

"'She had but to' perform a most complicated trick, which would certainly convict her. The wife, at least, would know how easy it would be for her, and her alone, to do it. And she is to do this, if you please, when Opopo is already out of his bonds, and free on the stage. She is to kill him and pack him up again, is she? The safe would certainly be open before she ever reached the stage. Thirty-eight seconds and three-fifths, for the whole transfer, the night I was present. Opopo didn't read any novels to pass away the time!