The Floating Lady Murder (13 page)

At this, the wooden representation of Princess Karnac was meant to rise from the banquette and float gracefully through the empty space above the stage. Sadly, this was not precisely what happened. Matters got off to an inauspicious start when Matilda lurched down the length of the banquette with a sudden start, banging her head against the forward edge as she passed. The wooden figure then bounced up and down in the manner of a hooked fish while Felsden struggled to control the movements.

“Uh, Silent—?” Collins looked up at the top of the ladder.

“Give him a minute,” said Valletin. “He’s almost got it.”

But Matilda had now turned head-down so that her legs were pointing to the heavens. As the covering cloth slipped to the stage, we could see her skirts slipping earthward in a most indecorous manner.

“I knew a girl like that in Paris once,” said Valletin.

By now the creaking of the pulley-cleat could be plainly heard, and with each tug of the rope the mannequin seemed to strike a new and increasingly lurid pose. After a moment, by which time Matilda had succeeded in traveling only two feet into the air, Collins motioned for Silent Felsden to cease his exertions. “I think that will do,” he said, unhooking the mannequin from its leather harness. “I guess we need to go back to the drawing board.”

“We could always grease the pulley,” said Valletin.

“Why bother?” asked Collins dejectedly. “Even if we could figure out a way to hide the ropes, we’ll never manage to stabilize that harness. Miss Moore would be gyrating like a top.”

“The gentlemen in the gallery might enjoy it,” Valletin offered.

Collins ignored him. “Two days,” he said. “Mr. Kellar wants to be ready to debut the Levitation of Princess Karnac in two days.” He pushed a lock of hair from his eyes. “Houdini, if you have a suggestion, I’d be very happy to hear it.”

“I’m afraid my brother and I are at something of a disadvantage,” Harry said. “We’ve never seen any version of the Floating Lady.”

“You’ve never seen the Maskelyne version?”

“We’ve never been to London,” I said.

“Of course, I keep forgetting.” Collins said. “Wait a moment.” He darted into the wings and returned a moment later with a large tube of rolled broadsheets. “This is how Mr. Maskelyne’s presentation appears to the audience,” he said, displaying a colorful theatrical poster. It showed a gentleman in a riding jacket and breech leggings rising horizontally from a bare stage.
Nearby, a pair of performers in Japanese garb were waving a pair of fans, as though creating a gentle breeze to lift the floating figure higher into the air.

“Impressive,” I said.

“Indeed,” said Collins. “Read what it says there.” He pointed to a small box of text in the lower corner.

“ ‘Trapped By Magic,’ ” I read. “ ‘Mr. Maskelyne’s latest illusory sketch, introducing the most astounding mysteries ever witnessed, in one of which a performer rises into space in full light, and a solid steel hoop, which is examined by the audience before and after it is used, is passed completely over him from head to foot.’ ”

“How is that possible?” Harry asked.

“I’ll show you,” said Collins, unrolling a second broadsheet. “Here, as you can see—”

“Mr. Collins!” Harry cried. “Those are the blueprints for Mr. Maskelyne’s effect!”

Collins looked up from the page with a bemused expression. “So they are, Houdini.”

“But—but—how do you come to have them?”

“Professional secret, Houdini.” He glanced at Valletin, who was whistling and glancing heavenward in a showy display of innocence.

“I take it Mr. Le Roy isn’t the only one who has spies about?” I said.

Collins grinned. “You may be right about that, Hardeen. In any case, these plans aren’t of much practical use. Take a look.”

“Wondrous,” Harry murmured, scanning the intricate markings. “The man who created this must be a genius.”

“But it’s even bigger than we imagined,” I said. “The hoisting apparatus is the largest winch I’ve ever seen. I haven’t seen such a device since the Brooklyn Bridge was completed!”

“Totally impractical for a touring magician,” Collins agreed. “There’s no possible way that this device will ever leave London. Even if we could recreate it here, the presentation would never satisfy Mr. Kellar.”

“But why not?” Harry asked. “It seems to have done very well for Mr. Maskelyne.”

“Mr. Maskelyne is content merely to present the spectacle,” Collins said. “Mr. Kellar wishes to be the featured player. Look at this illustration—” he pointed to the two Japanese men crouched beneath the floating figure “—which one of them is the magician? Is it one of the two men waving the fans, or is it the one who’s floating?”

“I see your point,” Harry said.

“Now look at this,” Collins continued. “It’s Mr. Kellar’s poster—just off the presses.” He unrolled a large tube of paper and spread it across the stage. The image showed Mr. Kellar standing upon a curtained stage with his arms outstretched. The figure of Princess Karnac, draped in her loose-fitting Indian garb, hovered in empty space just beyond the magician’s fingertips. In the foreground, a trio of men whispered excitedly to one another, presumably about the miracle unfolding before them. The single word ‘Kellar’ was splashed across the bottom of the illustration, in the familiar, upward-sweeping block letters that he had used for many years.

“Do you see the difference?” Collins asked. “In the Maskelyne poster, there’s no focus. With Mr. Kellar’s version, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Kellar waves his hands—the lady floats. That’s the impression he means to convey, and that’s what we have to create on stage.”

“Very dramatic,” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Collins said. “Here’s the description Mr. McAdow is having printed up in the program.” He handed over a sheet of paper.

“ ‘The Levitation of Princess Karnac,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘The most daring and bewildering illusion, and by far the most difficult achievement ever attempted. Absolutely new in principle. The dream in mid-air of the dainty Princess Karnac surpasses the fabled feats of the ancient Egyptian sorcerers, and it lends a resemblance to the miraculous tales of levitation that come out
of India. It is the most profound achievement of either ancient or modern magic. Its perfection represents thirty years of patient research and obtuse study, and the expenditure of many thousands of dollars. The result of these labors is a veritable masterpiece of magic, the sensational marvel of the nineteenth century, and the crowning achievement of Mr. Kellar’s long and brilliant career.’ ”

I handed the paper back to him. “I gather that Mr. McAdow is not one for understatement.”

“Hardly,” said Collins. “Of course, it’s left to us to make certain that it actually happens. I don’t know whether—”

“The dome,” Harry said.

Collins looked up from the illusion plans. “Pardon?”

“I would be surprised if Maskelyne’s floating figure is able to rise more than four feet above the stage,” Harry said. “Not if this apparatus works in the manner that I believe it must. What’s more, a conventional winch would lift the figure straight up above the stage. But Mr. Kellar has made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than a Floating Lady who rises out over the heads of the audience until she has reached the very dome of the theater.”

“A winch doesn’t help us,” Valletin agreed. “Neither does ‘thirty years of patient research and obtuse study,’ apparently.”

“The dome is the key to the entire effect,” said Harry. “The dome at the Belasco must be a good seventy feet high!”

“Seventy-two and a half.”

“Even better!” cried Harry.

“I can’t imagine why you’d think so, Houdini,” said Collins. “I’ve been trying to talk the old man out of it ever since he came up with the idea. I could just about see giving him a levitation roughly equal to the Maskelyne effect, but the dome is just too much. He’s got his heart set on it because of—Houdini? What are you doing?”

My brother had wandered off into the wings and was pawing through an open crate of juggling props. “I’m just thinking,” he
said. “Carry on with what you were saying.”

“He’s got his heart set on it because of his kindly old teacher. The Wizard of Kansas, or whatever his name was.”

“Kalliffa.”

“Right. But every time we try to give him what he wants, we get buffaloed by—Houdini? What are you doing now?”

Harry had climbed onto the Floating Lady banquette and was holding a red juggling ball up to the lights. “Ignore me,” he said. “Pretend you don’t see me.”

Collins looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I shrugged. “Well, as I was saying, I’ve now devised four or five perfectly acceptable methods of doing a levitation. Any other magician would be well satisfied. But unless we find a way to—unless we find a way—Houdini? That’s quite distracting. Would you mind?”

Harry had begun bouncing the rubberized juggling ball off of the stage with such force that it bounced nearly into the curtain rigging. “Pay me no mind,” he said, darting out his hand to catch the ball as it dropped. “Just go about your business, if you would.” He hurled the ball at the stage once more, and watched as it bounced high overhead.

“Look, Houdini,” said Collins, raising his voice a notch. “As much as I hate to interrupt, I believe Mr. Kellar would prefer that you assist us with our little problem.”

Harry’s hand darted out to catch the ball as it returned, though he nearly lost his footing as the platform shifted beneath his weight. “Oh, that,” he said, leaping down from the platform. “I’ve solved it.”

“Pardon?” Collins asked.

Valletin struggled to suppress a smirk. Silent Felsden merely folded his arms and glowered.

“Yes,” said Harry. “Quite simple, really.” He tossed the red ball to me. “Small steps, Dash,” he said. “Everything in small steps.”

I caught the ball and examined it as though it might hold some clue to Harry’s strange behavior.

“I believe your mistake was in knowing how to approach the problem,” Harry was saying. “You have concentrated entirely on devising a means of causing Miss Moore to float.”

“Well, Mr. Houdini,” said Valletin, “since that is the effect that Mr. Kellar has asked us to achieve, I would say that our approach has been rather sensible.”

“Oh, I agree that we must achieve the effect of causing the lady to float. It is simply that we will not actually
cause
her to float.”

“You’ve lost me there, Houdini.” said Collins. “And I really don’t have time for more puzzles right now.”

“Harry,” I said, trying to head off Collins’s rising temper, “if you’ve really cracked the problem, now would be the time to let us know.”

“Feed me the ball, Dash.”

“What?”

“Feed me the ball.”

“If you say so.” He was referring to the throwing, or “feeding,” of a series of balls to a juggler—one at a time—so that the performer could handle three or more at once. I drew back my arm and sailed the ball toward him in a gentle arc, so that it would reach him at waist level. Rather than catch it, Harry brought his palms together in a thunderous hand clap. The ball had completely disappeared. “Gone,” he said, holding up his empty hands. “Vanished.”

Valletin appeared genuinely startled. “Not bad, Houdini,” he said, rubbing at his plump cheeks. “Where’d it go?”

“Ah!” Harry walked to the forward edge of the stage and pointed a finger upward. There, wedged between two arms of an ornate chandelier, was the red ball.

“Nice trick,” said Valletin, “but what’s that got to do with—”

“I get it.” I walked back to the center of the stage. “Very good, Harry. Small steps.” I ran my eyes from the banquette to the chandelier. “Small steps,” I said again. “It might work.”

“It will work,” Harry said. “It’s the only way.”

Collins cleared his throat. “Gentlemen? Would one of you
mind letting the rest of us in on the secret?”

“I believe that even Mr. McAdow will agree that it is absolutely new in principle,” Harry said. “One might even say that it is the most profound achievement of either ancient or modern magic, and that the result of my labors is a veritable masterpiece of magic.”

“What he means to say,” I added hastily, “is that he’s come up with an interesting variation on the problem which might satisfy Mr. Kellar’s requirements.”

Collins fixed his eyes on the chandelier. “Time to tip the gaffe, boys.”

“It’s really very simple,” I began. “Harry has just created the illusion of having caused that red ball to travel from the stage to the ceiling, as if it floated there. But in truth, the ball didn’t go anywhere. It’s actually a simple disappearance, followed by an equally simple reappearance. Harry made one red ball vanish from his hands, and at the same time he made another one appear in the chandelier. To the rest of us, it looked as if the red ball had traveled from one place to another instantaneously.”

Collins stroked his chin. “He made one ball vanish and made another one appear.”

“So the second ball was already up there in the chandelier the whole time,” said Valletin. “Even before you started the trick.”

“Exactly,” said Harry. “But you had no reason to look until I pointed it out.”

“And you’re saying that we can work it the same way with Princess Karnac, is that it?”

Collins furrowed his brow. “It might work.” He paced back and forth, talking it out to himself. “Princess Karnac comes out and lies down on the banquette. She’s covered with a cloth. The audience doesn’t realize it, but she’s vanished underneath the cloth. Then we figure out a way to make it seem as if she’s appeared up in the dome.” His head snapped up. “Say, Houdini, how did you make that little ball appear up there, anyway? I never saw you go anywhere near the chandelier.”

“Genius,” Harry said.

“Foresight,” I clarified. “While we were all ignoring him— when he seemed to be playing catch with the ball, he bounced one into the chandelier.”

“I prefer my explanation,” said Harry.

“Is there some means of causing Miss Moore to appear in the dome of the theater?” I asked. “The disappearance should be fairly straightforward, but I don’t know how we’ll manage the reappearance.”

“I don’t see too much difficulty about it,” Collins said. “There’s a catwalk running around the interior of the dome. We could lay a beam across the middle and have Miss Moore hidden beneath a black cloth. She’s a trapeze artist, after all. She’ll have no problem getting out onto the beam, so long as we have her attached to a safety harness. Once the house lights go down no one would ever be able to pick her out, even if they did happen to look up, which isn’t terribly likely. All we’d have to do is attach some wires to the black cloth so that we can whip it away at the critical moment. It will seem as if she has appeared in mid-air!”