Nevermore (16 page)

Houdini amused the boys with a few easy sleights, pulling coins from their noses and ears. Solemnly pronouncing a “magic” phrase he’d invented at the beginning of his career, “Anthro-pro-po-lay-gos,” the magician extracted a pink-dyed baby chick from his mouth and handed it peeping to Billy. The little girl was delighted. Conan Doyle’s expression revealed the displeasure of a parent having to deal with unwanted pets while traveling.

They decided to return immediately to the hotel so that the “kiddies” might teach Houdini how to swim. All of them regarded this as a great joke as even Billy knew of the magician’s famous underwater escapes. The remainder of the morning passed in the pool at the Ambassador, a wild splashing frolic, laughter echoing off the tiled walls. Sir Arthur floated on his back, spouting like a happy walrus; Houdini demonstrated holding his breath for extended lengths of time. The boys had a grand time challenging the magician to races, he swimming beneath the surface while they thrashed above like frantic spaniels.

After lunch, the knight and the magician sat on canvas beach chairs in the sand, watching the waves curl and fall. Houdini had come down to Atlantic City alone, planning for Bess to join him the following day. His private meeting with Sir Arthur prompted the early arrival. “I felt such an urgency to speak with you I almost telephoned,” the magician said, “but decided the matter demanded privacy.”

The knight chuckled. “Servants and telephone operators hear all.”

“Perhaps an even more sinister eavesdropper is listening.”

“I say. You do have a flair for the dramatic, what?”

“I’m serious, Sir Arthur. Do you recall your remarks at the banquet, about how difficult it is to track a random killer?”

“The arbitrary mind of a madman is impossible to anticipate.”

“Yes. But what if the acts are not random?” Houdini gripped Sir Arthur’s arm. “What if the murders were somehow connected? Did you know Mary Rogers worked for a time recently in my company?”

“ ‘Marie Roget…’ Poe again.”

“She was with me when I played the Palace the first two weeks of April. Another murdered woman, Violette Speers, was half of a dancing team on the same bill.”

“Coincidence.”

“That’s what I said, and then Ernst made a stray comment. You remember Bernie Ernst, my lawyer?”

“Of course. He urged you to refute my claims of your mediumship by explaining how you did the slate trick, and you refused.”

“No conjurer ever reveals his secrets.” Houdini’s grim smile lacked any trace of joy. His hawklike eyes glistened. “Ernst and I were going over the contracts for the summer tour yesterday and he says to me, ‘Curious thing. That Esp girl murdered by the Poe killer? Well, she was a secretary at Dumphry, Hale, and Simmons, the accounting firm that does our books.’ Another connection or just coincidence?”

“The young woman up the chimney…?”

“Ingrid Esp. She worked for my accountant!”

“Did you know her?”

“Never heard of her until Bernie mentioned it the other day.”

Sir Arthur stared at the sand between his feet, lost in concentration. “Nothing you’ve told me makes me doubt that we are dealing with a maniac.”

“Maybe so.” The magician’s intensity seemed itself manic. “But his acts are not random. They’re connected by Poe, and … they’re connected by me.”

“Let’s assume there is a connection.” Sir Arthur smoothed the sand between his feet. “We observe that each of the victims was better known to you than the last.”

“I didn’t know the Esp girl in the slightest.”

“Exactly.” With his forefinger, Sir Arthur drew a series of concentric circles, shaping a target in the smooth sand. “Here we have a pattern of behavior.” He marked the outermost circle with a white fragment of clam shell. “This represents Ingrid Esp.” He placed a second bit of shell on the bull’s-eye. “And this is you. Now, if the Speers killing goes here, and Mary Rogers maybe here …” Two more shell fragments joined in orbit on the diagram. “There is an observable progression. The logical assumption is that the next victim will be still more intimate with you. One of your staff. A good friend …”

Houdini flipped a wedge of shell onto the target like a kid shooting marbles. “Everybody I know is in danger.”

“Precisely.”

“Especially those closest to me. You yourself are at risk, Sir Arthur.”

“So it would appear …” The knight studied the diagram between his feet. “It seems logical the killer is someone close to you, or at least, someone you know.”

“I can’t believe it.” Houdini’s innate sense of fair play made it hard for him to accept the contradictions implicit in such betrayal. “No one who loved me could do such things.”

“No. Of course not. But what of those who don’t love you? My dear Houdini, I’m sure you recognize that you are one of a brave new breed; a creature concocted of celluloid and newsprint, of radio waves; a twentieth-century hero, beloved by millions, all of whom feel that they know you intimately, that you belong to them.”

Houdini scowled. “The curse of fame …”

“Much more than that, dear chap. It’s the future. What terrors await in an age wedding mass destruction with mass communication?” Sir Arthur chuckled, teeth clenched around his pipe. “Such speculation is of little use to us in our present predicament.”

“What should we do?”

“Don’t know there’s much we can do, other than to stay on guard at all times.” Puffing at his pipe provided only the briefest pause. “You might think about possible enemies; someone wishing to do you harm.”

“Houdini has no enemies; there are only friends, throughout the world.”

Sir Arthur sighed. What was one to do with a living, breathing circus poster? “I ask you to seriously look beyond hyperbole. Is there no one who might harbor some grudge? Can you not recall any threats from disgruntled fans?”

Houdini said nothing but thought immediately of Isis. How he sat exhausted on the bronze coffin as she came pacing back along the pool’s edge, sipping from a folded paper cup filled for her at the water cooler in the men’s locker room. “You must be careful,” she said, in passing. “I get a very strong feeling they’re going to bury you in that casket.” He didn’t think of it as a threat when she said it, but remembered the unfamiliar prickle of fear, instigated a second time that day by just the sound of her silken voice.

“Well…?” Sir Arthur cut into his reverie. “All that cogitation uncover any likely suspects?”

“No,” the magician blurted, altogether too quickly. Sir Arthur raised a bushy eyebrow. “Jess Willard and I once exchanged heated words,” Houdini continued, visibly annoyed. “I was onstage. He sat in the balcony. The audience hooted him from the theater. That was in Los Angeles in 1915. He’s not champion anymore. Maybe he’s a bitter man. Maybe he’s had it in for me for the last eight years. Maybe he reads a lot of Poe!”

Sir Arthur patted Houdini’s shoulder, as if he were comforting a nervous pointer. “I quite sympathize with the impossible enormity of the task I’ve given you. Looking back over your long career, you undoubtedly could name a thousand such chance encounters. How many of those led to lasting enmity? It’s impossible to tell. So, in essence, we’re back where we started, confronting a faceless madman.”

“Wrong. We started out among the spectators. Now we’re on the program with a faceless madman topping the bill.”

“Or madwoman …” Sir Arthur drew thoughtfully on his pipe. “Last seen dressed as a gorilla.”

The windows of Conan Doyle’s suite looked out across the boardwalk to the wind-tossed Atlantic. From where he stood, Sir Arthur could easily see the children sprawled on the beach with young Ashton, their tutor. He’d warned the apple-cheeked Oxonian to keep a weather eye out for strangers, saying there’d been veiled threats from the anti-spiritualist factions. As a further precaution, he checked the loads in his service revolver, a .455 Webley-Green he kept in his desk drawer at Windlesham and hadn’t seen since packing it deep in one of the trunks at the start of the mission.

The Webley’s weight felt reassuring in Sir Arthur’s jacket pocket. There it would reside until all were safely home. He held back the lace curtain and watched his children frolic in the angled afternoon sun.

Houdini hadn’t told all he knew. It wasn’t the man’s nature to share secrets. Sir Arthur saw him flinch when he mentioned the possibility of a mad “woman.” Not that the knight had been altogether candid with his magician friend, having made no reference to communicating with Poe’s spirit. Without witnesses, he knew any such claim would be dismissed by Houdini as mere “ghost stories.”

Sir Arthur had begun a journal on the Poe manifestation in tandem with the study of a two-volume biography. He marked critical observations with an asterisk in the notebook’s margin.

•Spirit shows itself only to me.

•Spirit only visible in cities where Poe actually lived. No sightings in Atlantic City after ten days.

•Spirit regards ME as a ghost. Is very calm and rational regarding this belief.

•Spirit does not acknowledge own death!

•Spirit mourns death of wife (Virginia Clemm).

•Is there a way to test the spirit and my own runaway imagination? I must phrase a question for which I haven’t the answer, then check Poe’s response with a known authority. A correct match-up proves me sane …

Reading through these made him pause and uncap his fountain pen. He jotted this note:

Must ask spirit about murders.

Also, get NYC newspaper accounts of all three “Poe” murders.

Is it a puzzle? Can it be solved? Poe a student of cryptography. Victims’ names?

The following afternoon, Bess Houdini snuggled her head against her husband’s shoulder, safe in the relative privacy of a rented wicker-and-canvas cabana, a bit of welcome shade on the blaze of sunbright beach. Bess felt romantic by the sea. Their whirlwind teenage romance had been a Coney Island courtship and ever since that hot-blooded time it took the merest whiff of salt air, of cotton candy and Cracker Jacks, or the distant calliope waltzing of merry-go-rounds, to make her weak in the knees around Harry.

He was such an old poop. Brooding, his mouth clamped in a scowl, eyes fixed on the horizon; he might as well be a million miles away. Bessie forgave his introspection. She had long ago. At least he was sitting beside her, his arm hugging her to his side. Always such a struggle to get him to take a vacation, even harder to make him relax. It pleased her to have him close, her love a balm for his turbulent thoughts.

The magician’s mind filled with targets, all whirling like pinwheels. A knife-thrower’s blade flashed through his imagination, thudding among the red concentric circles, anchoring runaway images with a frightening finality. He pictured Bessie framed within a target, the bull’s-eye as red as her heart. As red as blood, he thought. Red as death.

He felt numb from the futility of knowing a task to be impossible. His whole career consisted of performing miracles. Easy enough with everything safely rigged beforehand. But what about a challenge from a madman? How do you protect someone you love from the unknown?

Young Billy’s breakneck zigzagging through the sand interrupted this desperate meditation. She skidded giggling to a stop on her knees in front of them. Sir Arthur trudged up behind in his dark wool suit, as out of place among the supine sun worshipers as a missionary surrounded by naked heathens.

“My … my …” Billy caught her breath. “My mother wants to … to invite you up to her room. She means to conduct a séance and wishes you to be her guest.”

Sir Arthur towered behind her, blocking the sun. Oddly enough, he considered himself a missionary, his speaking tour a mission proselytizing spiritism. Not a religion, actually, but a faith offering more comfort than wearing out your knees on the cold stones of some damp cathedral. His somber get-up was in no way meant to emphasize his beliefs. He’d had a breakfast meeting with local business leaders and a dark suit had seemed appropriate. “Excuse Billy’s enthusiastic excesses, but please accept her invitation.” Sir Arthur smiled down at them. “It’s not a séance, actually. As you may know, Jean has a gift for automatic writing.”

“My goodness, yes,” Bess piped up, having straightened primly at Sir Arthur’s approach. “She was telling me what a thrill it was to feel the spirits take possession.”

Sir Arthur coughed. “Well, you know… . The experience can be quite an emotional one. It was my wife’s expressed feeling that contact with Houdini’s dear mother should be attempted. She knows your sentiments and wishes to help.”

“Nothing could bring me greater joy.” Houdini sprang to his feet, his desire for contact tempered by a natural skepticism. “To speak once again with my sainted mother is a dream I cherish.”

“Perhaps we can put you in touch with that dream. Unfortunately, these things go better if it’s a private sitting. Having two subjects present might confuse matters. J do hope Mrs. Houdini won’t think me rude, but—”

“Sir Arthur, please!” The magician took his wife by the hand. “Under the circumstances, I am certain you realize I cannot allow my wife to leave my side.”

Sir Arthur nodded quickly, the revolver heavy in the pocket of his dark wool suit. “Yes. Of course. Quite right.”

The windows were left open in the Conan Doyle suite at the Ambassador as a concession to the season. A stiff sea breeze rippled the drawn drapes, allowing in occasional flashes of sunlight and a muted chorus passing along the boardwalk below. Pads of paper and a pair of ordinary yellow pencils waited on the table around which they sat. Sir Arthur stood beside Lady Jean. He bowed his head. “Dear Lord,” he prayed in a gruff whisper, “send us a sign from our beloved friends who have gone on before us.” Houdini thought he looked like a simple child.

Lady Doyle had been charming. “Now, Mr. Houdini,” she said when they first arrived, “I trust you’re on your best behavior and won’t try and embarrass me with any mischief this afternoon?”

The magician blushed at her forthright manner. He turned to his wife and stammered, “I … I have always been a good boy, have I not?”

Even Bess seemed surprised by his emotional exposure. She caught Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle exchanging a quick glance. “Why, Harry,” she said, “you’re never anything less than a perfect gentleman.”