The Illusion of Murder (28 page)

So I go to sleep, lullabied by the sloshing water on my cabin floor, and slumber soundly until the breakfast hour. The ship is making its way laboriously through a very frisky sea when I look out in the morning, but the deck is drained, even if it is not dry.

With the seas slowly returning to normal, I make my evening constitutional with less concern that I will be washed overboard, but worry whether I will get to Hong Kong in time to board the ship that will take me across the Pacific.

I’m absorbed in my own thoughts when I hear the voice of the Aussie sharpshooter.

“That’s my demand.”

He is standing under a stairwell. I can’t see him in the darkness well enough to recognize him, but it’s his voice and I can make out that distinctive Outback rancher hat he sports. I can’t see who he is talking to, but his tone had been a hard one, as if in response to an argument.

My poor nose twitches at the prospect of not finding a reason to tarry and loiter around to find out, but feeling that the eyes of his companion might be on me, I keep moving, hoping he will say something that gives a clue as to what his demand is—and to whom it’s directed.

When mentioning the incident later to Von Reich, who finds little intrigue in what I observed, he suggests a way I can ask the sharpshooter myself about the conversation:

“Volunteer to have him shoot a cigarette from your lips.”

I am omitting my unladylike reaction to his comment. However, as with all the other passengers and crew that can squeeze into the dining room, I show up to watch the Aussie sharpshooter’s performance.

Von Reich kindly signals me to join a table that includes Lord Warton, the captain, an Italian count, and his wife from Lombardy. I spot Frederick standing along the back wall with others unable to find a seat in the packed room.

I don’t bother asking Lord Warton about his wife’s absence. Her ill disposition to seafaring is well known.

The lights are turned down in the room and up on the stage as Hugh Murdock’s wife comes out and introduces her husband as the “world’s most amazing and accurate marksman!”

He appears, stage right, to a burst of applause.

The Aussie puts on a demonstration of marksmanship, shooting playing cards on a spinning wheel and shooting the flames off of candles. A thick wood barrier stage left is used to catch the bullets.

The assistant appears stage left and after she is introduced, takes up a position before the barrier and holds up a wood kitchen match.

The Aussie counts twelve paces back from her, placing him nearly in the curtained area stage right, and fires from that position, the bullet nicking the match head and igniting it.

“It’s not over yet!” Von Reich whispers to me, “I’ve seen these sort of acts performed in Budapest and London.”

The assistant lights a cigarette with the burning match. Taking aim, the sharpshooter fires and knocks the tip off the cigarette.

The assistant doesn’t move and the Aussie fires again, exploding the cigarette in its entirety.

A well-deserved round of standing applause erupts.

The Aussie holds up his hand to silence the applause.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will present the most death-defying physical feat ever performed on a stage. My wife will fire a bullet at me … and I will catch it in my teeth.”

The Aussie holds his hand over his eyes, trying to see out into the dark audience. He is not wearing his Outback hat. “Yes, there he is, Mr. Frederick Selous, the noted hunter and explorer. Please come forward.”

Frederick joins the sharpshooter on stage.

“I’m sure you all know that Mr. Selous is the world’s greatest hunter, a man who has trekked the wilds of the Dark Continent and bagged the most fierce creatures found anywhere. No one has greater expertise than this renowned hunter on how to load and fire a weapon. His life has depended on such skill a hundred times over when he faced charging beasts.”

The assistant brings out a small table covered with a black velvet cloth and sets it in front of the two men. The wife places a rifle on the table and two cartridges next to it.

“Mr. Selous, would you please load the rifle with one of the cartridges and fire it into the barrier. A light-caliber weapon is being used to keep down the noise,” Murdock tells the audience.

Frederick fires into the barrier.

“Are you satisfied that the weapon is fully functional and capable of bringing down a charging lion?” he asks Frederick.

“I wouldn’t want to face a lion with this caliber, but a well-placed shot from it would certainly bring down smaller game.”

“Would it kill a man, sir?”

Frederick smiles. “Certainly. Men are small game.”

Murdock hands Frederick a small knife with its blade open. “Please carve your initials on the lead part of the bullet.”

Frederick marks the bullet and offers it back to the sharpshooter, who holds up his hands to block the handoff.

“No, please, I don’t want to touch the bullet or the gun. If I did so, the audience would justly believe I had substituted another bullet by sleight of hand and have the marked one already in my possession. Please load the rifle with the bullet and place it back on the table.”

Frederick slips the cartridge into the chamber and places the rifle on the table.

Murdock has Frederick leave the stage amidst a hand of applause and then has his wife join him and asks her if she is ready to shoot a bullet at him.

“If I must,” she says.

“Make sure you are satisfied with the weapon and it is ready to fire,” he tells her.

She examines the weapon briefly, cocks it, and lays it back on the table.

“I am ready, but—”

“No buts, my love, these people have paid good money … well, would have paid good money had they not been a captive audience on a ship. Either way, they deserve to see the most dangerous and incredible feat ever performed onstage!”

She starts to hand him his distinctive hat and give him a peck on the cheek, saying, “I’ll try not to miss, dear,” but he steps back and holds up his hands, telling her, “We must not touch, there must be no trick of a hand faster than the eye of the audience.”

Finally, the Aussie takes up his position in front of the barrier with the wife, rifle in hand, on the other side of the stage. The assistant has gone offstage, behind the wife.

The Aussie appears a bit nervous and pats sweat on his forehead, but it’s easy for me to see it’s an act.

A drum starts with a low tempo and slowly builds up as the wife gets into a shooting stance, cocks the rifle, and slowly raises it to aim.

She starts a countdown as the drum beats louder : “One … two…”

“Three” is lost in the bang of the drum and the sound of the shot.

The man’s head snaps back, blood sprays, and his whole body slams back against the barrier. His mouth gapes open and a bullet falls out.

A moment frozen in time occurs as no one moves or breathes in the room.

A cry of surprise and agony breaks the silence.

The sound is from the wife.

The rifle slips out of her hand and onto the stage.

T
HE
M
AGICIAN
W
HO
S
TOPPED A
W
AR

In 1856, magician Jean Robert-Houdin was sent to French Algeria by Emperor Louis-Napoléon to use his conjuring skills to break the influence of the Marabouts, Islamic religious fanatics who claimed to have magic powers to drive the French from the country.

After putting on shows in cities, Robert-Houdin went into the desert and performed the most dangerous trick of all for rebel tribal leaders: the bullet catch.

He had a rebel put a distinctive mark on a lead bullet, then he placed the cartridge in the rebel’s own rifle, and had the man fire it at him—stunning the rebels when he caught the bullet in his teeth.

Robert-Houdin, through sleight of hand, had switched the real cartridge for one in which the bullet appeared to be lead but was actually wax mixed with lampblack.

When the cartridge was fired, the wax “bullet” completely dissipated—and the magician, who had slipped the real bullet in his mouth, spit out the bullet as if he had caught it with his teeth.

On another occasion before rebel leaders, to demonstrate that his magic was even more powerful than the
jinnis
, the demonic spirits of the desert, he suddenly shouted that a
jinni
was in front of a building. He fired his pistol at the “spirit” and then raced to where the bullet had left a mark on the building. As he ran his hand over the bullethole, he smeared a red substance—and told the amazed tribesmen the spirit had bled from the gunshot wound.

By the time Robert-Houdin left Algeria, there was no doubt that French magic was more powerful than that of the fanatics.

Jean Robert-Houdin, who died in 1871, is considered the Father of Modern Magic.

His name was immortalized by a disciple named Ehrich Weiss—who took the stage name of “Harry Houdini” as a tribute to the great conjurer.

42

Before most of the ship is awake, I am at Frederick Selous’s door. He surprises me by being fully dressed and ready to leave his cabin.

“I was expecting you,” he explains. “Let’s walk.”

“Why were you expecting me?”

He gives me a sour frown as he steps out and shuts his door behind him. “I’ve learned to expect you at the scene of a sensational news story.”

I stop him short in the corridor. “I beg your pardon,
Mr. Selous
, you make it sound like I find my way to crime scenes chasing police wagons. That’s hardly been the case. If anything, I’ve been the one chased.”

“You’re right, I apologize. I was up half the night with the captain and others going over the accident.”

“Accident?” I deliberately say it with a tone of sarcasm.

That gets a lift of his eyebrows and shake of his head. “Let’s take a brisk walk before it gets too warm. I need to clear my head from the captain’s cheap cigars and immature brandy.”

We walk briskly, indeed, with me almost running to keep pace with his long legs.

After a complete lap around the ship in stony silence, I wait until we are out of ear reach of others and then stop to get my curiosity satisfied.

“What happened last night? What went wrong?”

“Two things. The first is that Murdock chose to add what is considered magic’s most dangerous conjuring trick to his simple sharpshooting act. And he got careless.”

“Is it the first time he tried to catch a bullet?”

“No, he’s done it a number of times over the past few months. But it only takes one error to end a life. Do you know how the trick is done?”

“No, but I think Von Reich does.”

“Yes, he volunteered to assist the captain in the investigation because he is an amateur magician. However, Mrs. Murdock explained the trick and we examined the weapon to confirm her statements.”

“Which were?”

“There was a malfunction. There are different ways to perform the trick, but with some common features. A member of the audience is asked to mark the bullet so it can be identified later.”

“As you did.”

“Yes. In most cases the magician uses sleight of hand to substitute the marked bullet for a fake one that will not fire because it has an insufficient load of powder, or is made of wax, or is otherwise rendered impotent. The fake bullet is fired and the magician, who has palmed the real bullet, pretends to catch it and spit it out into his hand.”

“But I watched closely. Murdock never touched the weapon. And you fired it to make sure it was real.”

“I put a cartridge with a lead bullet head into the gun and fired it. The cartridge I placed next into the weapon, the one Murdock is supposed to catch in his mouth, is also real, but the lead head has been altered so the wife is able to slip it off.”

“How could she slip the head off the cartridge? It was in the gun.”

“There’s a trick to cocking the gun that permits the cartridge to drop out, into her hand. The cocking action brings a blank into the chamber to be fired.”

“How does the bullet get to his mouth?”

“He had a bullet hidden in his mouth when the act started. When the blank is fired, he spits out the bullet as if it’s the one I marked.”

“How does he get the one you marked to show to the audience?”

“As he steps forward with the wet bullet in his hand, his wife gives him a handkerchief to wipe it. The handkerchief—”