Death From a Top Hat

Chapter 17 The Heathen Chinee

“I feel as if I were riding on a ferris wheel,” Inspector Gavigan said. “First we’re up, then we’re down, but all the time we’re moving in a circle.”

Captain Malloy came in then, followed by Ching Wong Fu. I had been wondering what a Scotch Chinese Menace looked like. This one was, by a good majority, just plain American. He did have the short stature and bland, round face that made a Chinese make-up plausible, but he was no more Oriental, off stage, than a kippered herring. Or Scotch, for that matter; it was obvious that this branch of the clan MacNeil was several generations removed from its native heath. He used his stage name in private life as Tarot did his opera cape, for reasons of publicity. His personality was effervescent, supercharged with enthusiasm. He talked like a bottle of seltzer water, and his pudgy hands were full of nervous, hackneyed gestures. He wore a derby and spats, and carried gray gloves and a cane.

He bounced in, eyes round with excitement and, completely failing to catch either the mood or tempo of the scene, greeted brightly, “Hello, Merlini! What’s all this international intrigue I’m surrounded with? Mysterious message asking for rendezvous at hide-out of sinister alchemist. I depart in haste and fall smack into the arms of the law! Never saw so many cops and detectives! Thick as anything, and twice as uninformative. Somebody snatch the Crown jewels, or get away with the air defense plans, or—”

His roving eyes glimpsed the body, and his rapid-fire patter stumbled and fell headlong.

“Who… what… damn! I seem to have put my foot in it again.”

The Inspector swung while Ching was off balance. “Did you know that man?”

Ching moved closer, hesitantly. “Yes,” he said soberly. “It’s Tarot. But what’s — what—” He foundered completely.

“Why did you phone Sabbat tonight?”

Ching swung around. His eyes probed the Inspector’s. “Why shouldn’t I? And just what did happen up there anyway?”

“He was murdered too. Why did you phone him?”

Ching Wong Fu looked from Gavigan to Merlini, and back at Gavigan. I felt that somewhere behind his astonished face some fast thinking was going on.

Merlini helped out. “The inquisitive gentleman is Inspector Gavigan of the Homicide Squad. I think Emily Post would advise, in such circumstances, that you overcome your natural shyness and provide answers.”

“Excuse me, Inspector,” Ching said, “but you do have a nasty way of knocking a man all of a heap. I called Cesare to ask if he was home to visitors. I thought I’d fill in the evening with a social call. Anything wrong with that?”

“Where were you and what were you doing from midnight last night until 10 P.M. tonight?” I divined an eagerness about the Inspector that his gruff tone didn’t quite cover.

Ching blinked and said, “What is this, a game of Twenty Questions?”

“Something like that, yes. Only when I play I do all the asking. Let’s have it.”

Ching took two slow steps toward the nearer sofa and then seated himself on it, his back to the body.

“From midnight until two-thirty,” he said in a level monotone, “I was working at the 13 Club, on East 48th Street. Dinner-table magic between floor shows. I left shortly before three and went home to bed. This morning—”

“You got home at what time?” Gavigan asked.

“It was just three-thirty. I remember because my watch had stopped and I asked the elevator boy.”

“Take a taxi?”

Ching shook his head, “No. Subway. I walked to Grand Central and shuttled across to the Seventh Avenue line.”

“And you didn’t stop anywhere between the 13 Club and the subway entrance in Grand Central?”

Ching regarded the Inspector searchingly; then, though his eyes didn’t move, he half smiled and said, “From a magician’s point of view you’re a bad audience, Inspector, I see that. No deception allowed. You know too much. Mind telling me what brand of clairvoyance you use?”

“Not at all. I’ve a witness who saw you coming out of Sabbat’s building at three this morning. Simple as that.”

“Oh. Yes, I did pass someone. But he exaggerates. I wasn’t coming out of the building, though I’m afraid it may have looked that way. I had intended calling on Sabbat, and I went there with that intention, but I… er… I changed my mind at the door.”

“Sabbat expecting you at that hour?”

“I was under that impression. He’s not an actor, but he keeps that sort of hours. I’d phoned him earlier in the day, and he had suggested that I stop in after my last turn at the Club.”

“Sabbat was expecting you; you went there intending to call on him; and you were seen coming away from the building. What do you mean, you changed your mind?”

Ching put a cigarette in his mouth, scowled at a paper of matches, then scratched one and applied it. “I meant just what I said. It seemed rather obvious that Sabbat had forgotten all about my coming. He was a bit eccentric.” He expelled a cloud of blue smoke. “There are two doors at the entrance of that place, the inner of which is locked, and the mailboxes with names and bell pushes are between them. When I opened the first door I saw a woman letting herself in at the second. Thought it was some tenant, at first, as she had her own key. Don’t think she saw me, but she should be able to tell you that I didn’t follow her up to Sabbat’s.”

“How do you know that’s where she went?”

“That wasn’t hard. The inner door is glass and, as it closed behind her and she went on toward the stairs, I recognized her. I didn’t see her face, but I saw the platinum-blond hair and I recognized her — well — her walk. Knowing who it was I had a good idea where she was going and deduced further that, in this case, three might very possibly be a crowd… I came away. Do I have to explain any further?”

He didn’t, but Gavigan wouldn’t admit it. Instead he said, “You do, if you want me to believe any of it.”

“Yes, I see that, though you don’t put it very tactfully. Still, I hate to be telling tales out of school, you know.”

“Listen, Mr. Fu,” Gavigan said, apparently unaware that a Chinese surname is found at the front end of the signature, “you’ve just admitted you were right smack on the scene of a murder at the time it was committed. I would advise that you talk, that is, unless you’re guilty.”

“Oh, it’s that bad, is it?” Ching’s eyes were round. “Well, of course, in that case, there’s not much—” He stopped and said it. “It was Zelma LaClaire.”

After hearing his description, Gavigan, Merlini, and I had expected that. But, nevertheless, we all relaxed, and I put away the paper of matches whose flap my fingers has absently torn into an untidy fringe. Ching only remained tense, sitting very straight on the davenport, his hand that had been so full of gestures now very quiet on his knees.

“Then,” Gavigan asked, “you went home to bed?”

Ching nodded.

“And today you did what?”

Ching looked at the floor and poked at a polished toe with his cane. “I spent the afternoon at the library looking over some books on Chinese magic in the Ellison collection. At seven o’clock I ran into a friend, Marvin Jones. We had dinner together at The Deep Sea Inn and afterwards went to my apartment for a few highballs. He left at ten, and a little while after he’d gone I phoned Sabbat.”

“How long have you known Sabbat?”

“Fifteen, twenty years, I guess.”

“Good friends?”

“Pretty much. I haven’t seen him since 1927 up until a year or so ago. He was in Europe somewhere — Hungary, I think. I ran into him on the street one day, and I’ve been up to visit him half a dozen times since.”

“How long has he been back in this country?”

“Two years.”

“Did he ever show you,” Gavigan asked warily, “any occult funny business that you, as a magician, couldn’t explain?”

“No. He said magicians were prejudiced bigots and wouldn’t admit there was such a thing as magic without trickery, even if they saw it. He said he wouldn’t waste his time proving something he knew was a fact.”

“He have any enemies?”

“He thought he did, but I’ve always suspected it was his imagination. He was quite sensitive and not easy to get along with. The lone wolf type.”

“Was he well off?”

“I don’t know, except that he has always seemed to be in funds, and without any visible means of support.”

“Did you know Tarot?”

“Yes, very well.” Ching seemed uneasy again. “He was one of my best friends. I don’t know why anyone should want to kill him.”

Gavigan pondered. Then, “That’ll be all for the moment, unless—. Merlini, any questions you’d like to ask?”

Merlini sat on the divan with a deck of cards, playing an odd sort of solitaire. He laid out the queen of hearts between two deuces, face down.

“No, I don’t think so, Inspector,” he answered, without looking up.

He flipped the queen face up, only I saw that in some inexplicable fashion she had become a deuce. His favorite brand of solitaire was evidently Three Card Monte.

After Ching had gone, Gavigan instructed Malloy to find out how the roundup was progressing and to make sure that Zelma LaClaire, in particular, was being looked after.

“That wench is going to get a thorough going over, and no holds barred. She’s been asking for it.”

“Sounds as if she’d need a chaperone, Inspector,” Merlini said, springing the cards in a long flutter from hand to hand.

“I don’t blame you though. She parts with information on the strip-tease principle. A little at a time. But, now we’ve got her down to her pants, it should get interesting.”

“What’s the lowdown on this Heathen Chinee with the Scotch name and the innocent face?”

Merlini put the deck on the back of his right hand and with a sweep of his left spread them out along his arm. “He’s quite good. A very finished performer with a clever and entertainingly humorous presentation.” Merlini’s right arm dropped, and the cards hung for a fraction of a second spread out in space, then dropped. His right hand drew back quickly, and then shot forward, gathering them from midair. “He claims to have produced more rabbits from hats than any other magician. He specializes in children’s parties, but has lately gone in for night-club work. He was born in China of missionary parents, and his magical training was preceded by the usual Oriental initiatory course in juggling. He’s the only present-day conjurer to include plate spinning in his act.”

“Plate spinning! What in blue blazes is… never mind. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. You’d get started on a history of the art, if it has one. Ross, get that list of yours out.”

I produced it and added Ching Wong Fu’s name.

Gavigan said, “Give him a nice goose egg for Sabbat’s murder. Even though his times seem to check, he was on the scene, and it doesn’t take long to strangle a man; instead of the walk and the subway, he might have used a taxi and, at that time of night, gained fifteen or twenty minutes. As for Tarot’s murder… he says he phoned from 23rd Street, but there’s a phone here. I wonder—”

Merlini put his cards away and stood up. “Grimm,” he said, “let’s see your watch.”

Grimm drew it out, and Merlini compared it with his own. “Afraid not, Inspector. We both agree. Grimm heard two angry voices in here between 10:30 and 10:35. Ching was talking to you on the phone at 10:33, by my watch. He may not have called from 23rd Street, but if he used this phone, then there must have been three people in here, and that leaves us faced with two persons who leave no footprints. I object. Let’s call it an alibi.”

Gavigan didn’t argue, so I wrote: On phone, and ringed it. The list now presented this none too promising appearance:

Gavigan said, “And the question is: which one of those alibis isn’t what it seems. Where do you think you’re going?” This last was directed as Merlini, who had wound his muffler around his neck and picked up his overcoat.

“I want food; then I’m going home where I can think. I can’t do it around you. Too much going on. Suspects hopping in and out like mad, questions and answers popping six dozen to the minute, detectives swarming, Harte writing a book on the back of an envelope, photographers climbing all over me, fingerprint experts spraying powder down my neck, and every ten minutes the whole blamed case does a triple somersault over six elephants and lands on its neck. Once tonight I thought I had it all nicely figured out, and then, suddenly, my solution melted, all at once, like a Vanishing Bird Cage.”

“So you’re running out on me.” Gavigan was scornful. “The murderer’s little vanishing trick has the Great Merlini licked.”

“No, Inspector, you can’t draw me like that. I’ll tell you this much though. We’ve discussed four methods of escape from this room and investigated three of them. There is a fifth one, but as yet I don’t see how it fits and theory that will also explain why the lights were gummed up at Sabbat’s, Duvallo’s business card, why Tarot disguised himself, why he chose such a spectacular method to elude Janssen, or what the ladder means — especially the ladder — oh, definitely. But you get the idea. I want to sleep on it.”

“When I have all those answers,” Gavigan said, “I’ll know how to do the vanishing trick myself.”

“If you try it, Inspector, be sure you know how to reappear. And, oh yes, if you should happen to discover where Watrous went on his little walk, what Rappourt was doing at 10:30, what Zelma has to say for herself this time, how Judy explains the handkerchief, and who Mr. Williams is, I’d love to hear. Coming, Harte?”

I got my hat.

It was 4 A.M. when I crawled into bed in the Merlinis’ guest room. I had just turned out the light when the door opened and Merlini’s head appeared, silhouetted by the light in the hall.

“I was afraid for a moment there,” he said, “that Gavigan wasn’t going to let us get away without repeating that question of his as to what Jones does for a living.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “I can guess. He’s either a tightrope walker or a trapeze artist. He also does tricks with matches.”

“You’re warm but no bull’s-eyes. His stage name is Signor Ecco.”

The door closed gently after him.

And I had the devil’s own time getting to sleep. I kept trying to imagine the look Grimm’s face would have when he learned that the man with whom he had listened to voices through a locked door was a ventriloquist.