The Floating Lady Murder (9 page)

I stubbed out my Havana in a crystal ashtray. “You don’t sound entirely surprised, Mr. Kellar.”

He rubbed his forehead wearily. “I’m afraid I’ve been expecting something of the sort, now that we’re so close to debuting the
Floating Lady. I’ve spent a fortune developing that illusion, and you can’t imagine what Le Roy would do to get his hands on it. I must hold the copyright to the Floating Lady at all—”

Harry looked up from the locking mechanism. “I thought I understood that Mr. Maskelyne held the copyright to the Floating Lady. Was I misinformed?”

Kellar’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Sir,” he said with considerable heat, “Mr. Maskelyne is a fine magician, a clever inventor and an excellent showman. The Egyptian Hall in London is an ornament to the conjuror’s craft and we would do well to emulate its success here in America. But for all his many talents, Mr. Maskelyne cannot claim to own the patent on inspiration. He has devised a very engaging little illusion called Asrah, and it is a commendable effort, so far as it goes. But it is not the Floating Lady that I have in mind. It is not the Floating Lady that I have dreamed of since boyhood. And by God it is not the Floating Lady that I plan to present in New York City in four days’ time!”

Kellar’s voice had risen steadily during these remarks, and by the time he concluded his face had turned an alarming shade of red. “You must forgive my husband,” said Mrs. Kellar in a tone of mild reproach, as though he had dropped a dinner roll. “It is one of the few subjects upon which he has absolutely no sense of humor.”

“Yes, of course,” said Kellar, struggling to master his temper, “I—”

“Do you mean to say,” Harry broke in, brushing aside the social proprieties, “that you have been working on a Floating Lady illusion since the beginning of your career?”

“I have. It was a lifelong dream of my mentor, the Wizard of Kalliffa.” His eyes drifted toward a small portrait in a gilt frame. It showed a steely-eyed older man with mutton chop whiskers, a dimpled chin and a sweep of dark hair across a heavily-lined forehead. “He always said that this trick would bring fame and fortune to the man who perfected it. I believe that even he had
no real conception of what the idea would be worth. I estimate that the man who introduces the Floating Lady to America stands to make well over one million dollars.”

“One million!”

“It’s true, Mr. Hardeen. My bookings have fallen off a touch during recent years, but a headline grabber such as this one would put me back in the money. Moreover, I could send out four or five touring companies, each one carrying an authorized version of the effect. Make no mistake, one of us is going to make a fortune—me or Servais Le Roy.” He leaned back and drew on his cigar. “Fame and fortune does not matter to me so much as it once did,” he continued, “but I confess that I will not consider my career complete until I have mastered this one last illusion. I feel that I owe it to my old mentor.”

“He was really an Englishman, wasn’t he? The Wizard of Kalliffa?”

“A Scot, Mr. Houdini. Duncan McGregor. I knew him as Mac. He and Mrs. McGregor were like second parents to me, and I have tried to honor their memory by becoming the kind of magician he wanted me to be.”

Harry studied the face in the portrait. “How did a Scot named Duncan McGregor come to be known as the ‘Wizard of Kalliffa’?”

“In those days, every Scottish magician had to take pains to avoid comparisons with the great John Henry Anderson. I think Mac might have done better without the exotic trappings, however. He was born too soon, really. He had brilliant ideas, just brilliant. The Floating Lady was like the holy grail to him. He nearly got there.”

“But surely in his day there was little hope of perfecting such an ambitious illusion? It is only recently that we’ve developed the necessary mechanics.”

Kellar chuckled. “It may amuse you to know that Mac created and discarded no fewer than five methods of floating a lady, including the one that Mr. Maskelyne is taking such
great pains to protect. Mac simply wasn’t satisfied with any of them. He invented the apparatus you may know as a ‘levitation banquette’—the piece of furniture upon which the assistant is resting as she begins to rise. It’s a wonderfully clever idea. The banquette appears to be so innocent, and yet—well, I suppose you know all about it. In any case, Mac discovered a means of causing the assistant to rise from the banquette and hover about five feet off the stage. I thought it was a thing of beauty, but he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted her to float out over the heads of the audience. ‘Got to get her off the stage and into the audience,’ he would say. ‘Knock down the artifice of the thing.’ ”

“Floating over the heads of the audience,” Harry said, with a note of reverence in his voice. “That would be one for the ages.”

“Exactly. Mac planned to debut the effect at the old Lyceum, which had a magnificent high dome, so that Mrs. McGregor could rise clear up to the top.” Kellar paused, gazing long and hard at the framed portrait. “Mac even had his patter all scripted. ‘Cast your eyes heavenward, my friends, and watch as she rises, rises, rises. Now she flings aside the high-flown theories of gravity and science like so much useless chaff. See how she floats, as though on a gentle zephyr, borne aloft by the hypnotic force of animal magnetism.’ ”

“What happened?” Bess asked. “Why didn’t he show the effect?”

A dark cloud seemed to pass over Kellar’s face. “He—he never got the opportunity. Mrs. McGregor passed away suddenly, and Mac couldn’t bring himself to go on. The performance had been all set. The theater was booked, and the tickets sold, but Mac— he simply couldn’t carry on. This coming Saturday night will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mrs. McGregor’s passing. I can’t imagine a more fitting tribute than to perform the Floating Lady at long last.” Kellar raised his glass to McGregor’s portrait and threw back the rest of his bourbon. “I really think I’ll get there this time,” he said. “I’ve been so close so often, but now
I’ve almost perfected it. I’ll make John Nevil Maskelyne look like a circus tout! If only—” his face darkened. “If only Le Roy doesn’t beat me to it. Damn clever fellow, for a Frenchman.”

“I believe Mr. Le Roy is Belgian,” said Harry.

“Whatever. All I know is that he’s smart as blazes, and he’s let it be known that he plans to introduce a ‘
Lévitation Mystérieuse
’ by the end of this season. If Le Roy beats me to the finish line, he may well take the bulk of next year’s bookings out from under me. A magician is only as good as his latest miracle. I started out doing shadow puppets and producing cakes from a hat. Do I do those tricks any more? No, sir, I do not. Quaint. That’s what those tricks are. And when one reaches my age, there is little distinction between quaint and antiquated. I’m going to be first with the Floating Lady, and there’s nothing Le Roy can do to stop me.”

“Mr. Kellar,” I said, “you’re not suggesting that Mr. Le Roy had anything to do with the sabotage of the lion cage?”

“I don’t know, young man. I wouldn’t rule it out. Not with a million dollars at stake.”

“Yes,” said Harry, considering the possibility, “he could have bribed a member of the company. If Boris had gone on a rampage, Le Roy’s only true competitor would have been forced to withdraw.”

“What you’re suggesting is outrageous!” I cried. “That lion could easily have killed someone! I can’t believe that anyone would sink to such a depth, not even for a million dollars!”

“Someone did,” Kellar said, picking up the broken lock from the lion cage. “Someone filed these pins. Maybe Le Roy is responsible, maybe not. When I find out who did it, I’ll have my answer. That’s where the two of you come in.”

I gripped the arm of the divan as the train clattered over a series of points. “You want us to find out who did this?”

“I suppose I could hire a private detective, but he wouldn’t be able to mingle with the company as freely as the two of you can. He wouldn’t know what he was looking for, in any
case. You two are new to the company. I know I can trust you. You can keep your ears to the ground in a way that I cannot.” He paused and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Young man, you showed a remarkably cool head when Boris escaped. I could use a man like you just now.”

As Kellar spoke, my brother’s face lit up like a penny pumpkin. The older magician had not only appealed to my brother’s titanic ego, but he had also placed him in a role he had come to relish—that of the amateur sleuth. Harry stood up and laced his fingers behind his back, pacing the parlor car as though considering whether or not to accept the request. “Your case is not without features of interest,” he said.

“Harry—” I began.

“If it is a question of payment,” Kellar said, “I would be willing to compensate you for whatever added burdens are placed upon you.”

Harry frowned. “My fees are on a fixed scale, save when I remit them altogether.”

“Harry,” I said. “For God’s sake.”

I must explain something. Over the course of his lifetime my brother would acquire some 70,000 volumes relating to magic and its history, and he even found time to author one or two of them himself. Despite his vast library, however, my brother could not have been called a great reader, and many was the time I pressed a volume of Dreiser or Tarkington upon him, only to come across it some months later with the spine unbroken and the pages uncut. Even so, there was one type of book that he dearly cherished, and this was the detective novel. He especially enjoyed the adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who at that time was believed to have perished at the hands of Professor Moriarty. There were at that stage only two collections of short stories detailing the cases of Sherlock Holmes, and I can say with confidence that both of them were in my brother’s travel grip that day. When Harry made his curious remark about remitting his fees, as
well as the comment about the unusual features of the case, he was actually quoting from the great detective, heedless of how inappropriate these utterances were to the situation in which we found ourselves. Mr. Kellar had handed him an opportunity to play detective, and my brother dearly loved to play detective. Despite my sympathy for Mr. Kellar’s position, I knew that if I did not make some effort to rein in my brother’s enthusiasm, Harry would soon be making obscure references to Wilson, the notorious canary trainer, and the giant rat of Sumatra.

“Harry,” I said, “I suspect that Mr. Kellar simply wants us to keep our eyes peeled. I don’t think we shall be required to fight off any poisonous swamp adders.”

Harry’s face colored. “I only meant to say that we would be honored to give any assistance that we can.”

“It’s very good of you, Houdini,” said Kellar. “You too, Hardeen. I really don’t know what to make of this, and frankly I’m feeling a bit hard pressed.”

“Is there anyone within the company who has given you cause to be suspicious in recent weeks?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say so. I’m embarrassed to say that I really don’t know the members of the company terribly well. People come and go in an outfit such as mine. I take it you met Collins this afternoon?”

“Your head stagehand? He seemed a very solid type of person. You don’t mean to say you suspect him?”

“Far from it. But Collins ought to be able to introduce you around and let you know if there are any rum characters in the bunch. Eva and I—” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “Eva and I have not been terribly familiar with the company for the past year or so.”

“We shall start with Collins, then,” Harry said.

“It might be useful to know the names of the most recent additions to the company,” I said. “Perhaps Mr. McAdow might be able to provide—”

Mrs. Kellar, who had been sitting quietly with a bag of knitting through much of this exchange, now spoke up, having evidently anticipated the question. “There are only four who have joined us within the past year,” she said. “First there is Francesca Moore, who is to be our floating lady.”

“A wonderful acrobat,” Kellar remarked. “A great ornament to the stage.”

“Then there is Mr. Malcolm Valletin,” Mrs. Kellar continued, “our new head carpenter.”

“I hired him away from Maskelyne,” said Kellar with a wink. “He—shall we say—he brought along some useful ideas for us. He’s a clever performer, as well, though I must say he is quite possibly the worst juggler I have ever seen. We’re badly in need of a juggler, as it happens. Does either of you gentlemen happen to—?”

“We are both quite adept at juggling,” Harry said.

“Excellent!” Kellar cried. “When all else fails, a man can always fall back on his juggling.” He turned to Mrs. Kellar. “Who else is there, my dear?”

“Miss Perdita Wynn came aboard in Chicago. A lovely girl.”

“We needed a singer,” Kellar explained. “The last one ran away with a tuba player.”

“And finally there is Mr. Collins himself,” added Mrs. Kellar. “But you’ve already made his acquaintance.”

“Mr. Collins has only been with you a short time?” I asked. “I thought I understood you to suggest that he was above suspicion.”

“He is,” said Kellar firmly. “I’ve known him for years. He spent some time working for the Herrmann show, but it was only this past March that I was lucky enough to hire him. I trust the man completely.”

I marked the names down on my note pad. “Who was the gentleman we saw sitting with Mr. McAdow this afternoon? The dark-haired man with a moustache?”

Mr. Kellar raised his eyebrows. “Not sure I know who you mean.”

“He seemed to be jotting down a great many notes. We didn’t catch his name.”

“Ah! Old Lyman! He’s a newspaper man who has been spending some time traveling with us. You needn’t pay any mind to him. He’s helping me with a bit of a project I have in mind. I’m afraid I can’t say anything more than that, but he’s a harmless fellow, I assure you.” He glanced at the ormolu clock. “We’ll be in Albany shortly, gentlemen. I hope that I may count on you to keep your eyes open?”

Harry stood up and thrust his index finger into the air. “Rest assured, the Great Houdini is on the case! I shall not cease my efforts until these evil-doers are apprehended! I shall—” He broke off momentarily as Bess, smiling sweetly, looped her arm through his and gently pulled him toward the exit. “—I shall hunt down these varlets wherever—”