The Floating Lady Murder (18 page)

Kellar drew back and regarded himself in the dressing room mirror, as though searching for signs of his own incipient dissolution. “Then one night, after an especially ill-favored performance in Missouri, Mr. McGregor gathered the remaining members of the company into the darkened theater to make an announcement. At last he had perfected the Floating Lady illusion, he told us. The decline of our fortunes would be halted, and we would ascend to heights of glory we had never dreamed possible.”

Kellar drew a deep breath, apparently steeling himself to continue. “I allowed myself to believe that it might be true,” he said, “but the apparatus that Mr. McGregor unveiled that night did not inspire confidence. It was little more than a crude swing, supported by an intricate lattice-work of thin wire. Individually, the wires were too thin to be seen from below. Together, they would support the assistant’s weight as she swung from the stage to the top of the theater and back again.” Kellar winced at the memory. “I had no faith in the contrivance, and I tried to stop him from proceeding. Mr. McGregor would not be dissuaded. I appealed to Mrs. McGregor, but she wanted only to please her husband. She cheerfully climbed onto the contraption and waited for McGregor to set it in motion.” Kellar sighed heavily and closed his eyes before continuing.

“For a few moments, it appeared as if all might be well. Mrs. McGregor sailed high over our heads, with the swing device concealed beneath a flowing robe. The motion was a bit too fast, and perhaps too unnatural, but we might have worked out those difficulties. But then, as she began to descend, the wires
started to snap, one by one. She did not fall so much as tumble, as though pitching down a flight of stairs. She plunged headlong into the footlights.” Kellar’s hands clenched. “There was a ball of fire, and a spray of glass and hot oil. We rushed forward with blankets, but—but we were not in time.” Kellar’s eyes were moist, but his voice was firm. “That was twenty-five years ago, gentlemen. Twenty-five years ago this very evening. I suppose I hoped that if I were able to achieve the effect successfully, it would lay the memory to rest. But now the curse of Kalliffa has claimed another victim.”

“Henry,” said McAdow gently. “It was a terrible thing, I won’t deny it. But you cannot begin to compare the McGregor tragedy to our own. By your own admission he was reckless and foolhardy. You were not. We took every precaution that could be imagined. It was an accident. A terrible one, surely. But an accident all the same.”

“A tragic accident,” Kellar repeated. “Do you imagine that I did not try to console Mr. McGregor in exactly the same fashion? But he knew better. He caused his wife’s death, and he took the full measure of blame. The Wizard of Kalliffa never performed again. I can do no less. I am responsible for the death of Miss Moore. It would be best if I withdrew from public life.”

“You did not kill Miss Moore,” said Harry, speaking for the first time since we entered the room. I turned to him in some alarm, hearing a strange note in his voice. His entire aspect was flat and enervated, as though he could scarcely rouse himself to speech. “At worst you are the general who ordered his troops into battle, but you are not the one who killed her.” He sighed and looked down at his empty hands. “I am.”

“Harry...”

“Dash, you know as well as I do that Miss Moore would still be alive if I had not suggested that particular method of performing the effect.”

“We don’t know that, Harry.”

“It is foolishness to think otherwise. It appears that the curse
of Kalliffa has claimed yet another victim.”

“Harry, this is not a time for—”

He silenced me with a look. “You think that I am being dramatic. I am not. You think that Mr. Kellar is a superstitious old man. He is not. He is simply accepting the consequences of his actions. So must I. Houdini is finished.”

I stared. “You can’t mean that.”

“Young man,” said Kellar, “you are at the very beginning of your career. I see great promise in you. You must not let—”

“One week,” I blurted out. “That’s all I ask.”

“What do you mean, Hardeen?”

“When you brought us into the company you spoke of these accidents as being the work of some malicious enemy. I believe this may yet be the case. Mr. McAdow has suggested that we lower the curtain for one week to honor Miss Moore. Let me use that time to uncover whatever truth may lay behind this tragedy. If I find that we are at fault, then we must all share in the consequences. But if there are other agencies at work, it would be well to discover them.”

Mr. Kellar looked again at the daguerreotype in his hand. “One week,” he said, snapping the case shut. “But no longer. You are very persistent, Mr. Hardeen. I hope that this is not merely wishful thinking on your part.”

“So do I, sir.”

“Who knows? If you are right, perhaps I can still avoid the remainder of the curse.”

“The remainder?” Harry asked.

Kellar fingered the memory frame. “I said that the Wizard of Kalliffa never performed again. But Mr. McGregor did not have enough money to allow him simply to stop working. He began to appear in dirt shows and carny calls. I saw him once more, performing on a haywagon at a county fair. He was calling himself John Henry Anderson IV, pretending to be the nephew of the Wizard of the North. The lavish props were gone, sold to support his drinking. He had become a shadow of his former
greatness. His hands shook so badly that he dropped a Chinese rice bowl. The crowd jeered at him. When it was over I tried to speak with him. I had begun to have some success on my own by that time, and I tried to give him money, but he wouldn’t accept. He pretended not to recognize me.”

Kellar stood up and reached for the frockcoat hanging on a nearby peg. “I have always been haunted by it. I know that I could have done more. I should have pressed the money on him for the sake of his children. Perhaps I never should have left him in the first place, but I was young and I wanted to make my own way.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked McAdow. “Do you really think that Harry Kellar is going to end up in some backwater tent show? You’re the most famous magician in the world!”

Kellar turned toward us as he slipped into his frockcoat. His eyes, it seemed to me, were now touched by the same sadness that I had noted in the daguerreotype. “I am grateful for your reassurances,” he said, “but I said much the same thing to Mr. McGregor.”

9

“
THE CURSE OF KALLIFFA
,”
SAID BESS AT BREAKFAST THE FOLLOWING
morning. “It sounds like the latest novel by H. Rider Haggard.”

“It does,” I agreed. “All it requires is a hidden treasure.”

“But there is a hidden treasure,” she answered. “If Mr. Kellar is to be believed, the secret of the Floating Lady is worth one million dollars.”

“Last night I believe he would have cheerfully surrendered that much and more never to have heard of the Floating Lady illusion. He believes that it is the source of this ludicrous curse.”

“That is not precisely what he said,” Harry insisted. “He merely pointed out that the Floating Lady had been the ruin of his mentor, and that now it was threatening to bring ruin upon him as well. Besides, you know perfectly well that many entertainers are superstitious. I have known actors to be so leery of the Scottish tragedy that they will not even speak the title in a theater.”

“
Macbeth
, you mean?” said Bess.

“Well, yes,” said Harry uneasily. “
Macbeth
.”

We were not in a theater. We were again gathered around the breakfast table in my mother’s flat on East 69th Street. Although Mr. Kellar had arranged for the company to stay at the Tilden, Harry and Bess had decided to lodge at home during the New York run, in anticipation of the lengthy tour to come. For my
own part, I had opted for the relative luxury of the hotel, with its modern shower-baths and fresh bedding.

“I must say, Dash,” said Bess. “You’re looking even more spruce than usual this morning.”

“Am I?” I rubbed at my chin. “Well, I had a shave and haircut from the hotel barber.”

“Shoes polished, too, I see.”

“Well, yes.”

“And what’s the scent?”

“A new hair tonic. Mitchell’s Lime Root.”

Harry snorted. “Availing yourself of all the amenities of the hotel, are you?”

“It seems a shame to let the opportunity pass,” I said. “No, thank you, Mama,” I added, as she placed a dish of salted herring before me. “I—well—I had a rather hearty breakfast in the hotel.”

Harry regarded me with interest. “With anyone in particular?”

“Miss Wynn asked for my company,” I explained. “She doesn’t like to dine alone.”

“Ah, the charming Miss Wynn!” said Harry. “You seem to be enjoying a great deal of her company.”

“She was quite devastated by the events of last night,” I replied. “I tried to lend some comfort.”

“Is that all it was?” Bess asked, smiling.

“You are wasting your time with him, my dear,” Harry said. “He seems determined to remain a bachelor. Miss Wynn is just another of the names on his list of suspects to be studied and questioned.”

“Surely not!” Bess cried. “You can’t seriously believe that Miss Wynn could have been responsible for last night’s tragedy!”

“Someone tampered with the lock on the lion cage,” I said. “Is it really so impossible to believe that this same person might have tampered with the Floating Lady apparatus?”

“Perhaps,” said Harry. “Perhaps not.”

“Harry, I won’t hear any more superstitious claptrap! If you
insist on going on about Mr. Kellar’s so-called curse—”

“You admit that there is such a thing as coincidence?”

“Of course.”

“And perhaps you have experienced the strange sensation of déjà vu?”

“Naturally.”

“Then your mind is beginning to open toward the possibility of senses and sensations beyond the normal realm. Small steps, Dash. Small steps.”

“Harry, you don’t believe in such things yourself.”

“No, but my mind is supple,” he said. “I am open to possibility. At least for the present.”

It must be said that these were strange words to have come from the mouth of Harry Houdini, who in his later years would acquire a reputation as the most outspoken anti-spiritualist crusader of his generation. There would come a time when he would devote the better part of his time and resources to the unmasking of fraudulent spirit mediums, whom he regarded as nothing more than sideshow hucksters. “Mine has not been an investigation of a few days or weeks or months but one that has extended over thirty years,” he was to write shortly before his death, “and in that thirty years I have found not one incident that savored of the genuine.”

By that time my brother had grown so accustomed to fraud on the part of the spiritualists that it was no longer possible for him to keep an open mind. With his vast knowledge of magic and its techniques he easily saw through the paper-thin deceptions of the séance room. But in his younger days, he was of a far more liberal frame of mind. “I wish to believe,” I often heard him say. “I
long
to believe. Yet I must have evidence that I can see and touch.”

But to my way of thinking, my brother’s “supple” mind was bringing us no closer to a plan of action. “Harry,” I said, impatient to return to the matter at hand, “we have only a short time in which to act. For the moment, shall we restrict
our attentions to the earthly plane?”

“I appreciate what you are trying to do, Dash. You are trying to ease my conscience over my role in the death of Miss Moore. You are hoping to prove that it was the work of some enemy of Mr. Kellar’s, but I shall carry—”

“Harry, you and your conscience can do whatever you like. I’m on my way down to the theater to see if I can shed any light on this matter. I intend to do so without recourse to the psychic realm. I would welcome your company, if the spirits will permit it.”

“There is no need for sarcasm, Dash,” he said in an injured tone. “Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No, Harry. Mr. Kellar has given us the full run of the theater. We have only to—”

“I was referring to your salted herring,” he said. “As Mama says, you can’t hope to put in a full day without a little something on your stomach.”