Death From a Top Hat

Chapter 22 The Absent-Minded Suspect

Merlini wasn’t listening to the Inspector. He said, half to himself, “And so we know that Tarot wasn’t killed because he knew too much. The radio indicates preparation so far in advance that the murderer must have planned Tarot’s death even before Sabbat was killed. Hmmm. What did you say, Inspector?”

“I asked if you realized that Jones was the man who started that infernal machine talking? He pushed that light switch.”

“Yes, of course,” Merlini said, eyeing Gavigan warily. “Jones was the man. And so what?”

The Inspector snorted. “Don’t ‘and so what’ me! Goddallmighty, man! Jones is a liar, that’s all. He couldn’t have ‘just happened’ to stop in here. He set those voices going; therefore, he came for just that purpose. No murderer’s going to put together a setup like this and then trust to luck, to a million-to-one chance that someone will pull the trigger for him. Jones is either the murderer or an accomplice. There’s no other answer.”

“No?” Merlini asked significantly. “Suppose the murderer did make arrangements for himself or an accomplice to poke that light button? Jones may have entered accidentally and too soon, the unpredictable human element no criminal can foresee.”

“And the next person who entered after Jones, other than ourselves, was Miss Barclay. No, this isn’t a woman’s crime. All this expert vanishing and slipping out through keyholes sounds like someone with narrower hips. Women aren’t magicians; they don’t saw people in two; they’re always the sawees.”

“Yes,” Merlini admitted, “conjuring is largely a male pursuit; woman’s love of mystery is concerned with something else. But you mustn’t forget that the great majority of mediums are female and that the magic profession has the fraudulent ones among them to thank for some of the best and subtlest conjuring devices in the whole field of deception. Besides, this present vanishing and escaping isn’t necessarily a question of rope ladders and flying leaps. I’ve told you about misdirection. It may not be safe to rule out everyone who’s not an acrobat.”

The Inspector shook his head slowly. “No, Miss Barclay’s out. You’re clutching at straws. If it had been anyone but Jones at that door… The fact that he’s a ventriloquist makes the irony too perfect, the coincidence appalling. And that radio dialogue Grimm caught; it was far too appropriate. The odds are a hundred to one that if the radio had been turned on by accident and too soon, he would have heard Cab Calloway, or cooking recipes, or — or Charlie McCarthy.” Gavigan faced Malloy, “Find out what that program was. Get me the scripts of all programs that went on the air from stations in this area at 10:30 last night.” He started to turn away when a thought struck him. “Oh… er, you might try NBC first.”

“I’m prostrate under the Juggernaut of your logic, Inspector,” Merlini admitted, inclining his head slightly. “But aren’t you forgetting that Grimm was there? Can you account for that?”

“Say!” Grimm burst out, “is he insinuating that I turned that radio on?”

“No, not that,” Merlini said. “I merely want to know how Jones, or, if he’s only an accomplice, the murderer could have predicted that Grimm would be there as a witness. If Jones is an accomplice, he wouldn’t start the radio and simply expect us to take his word that he heard voices. He could simply lie about them, and there would be no need for the radio. If he’s the murderer the same holds true, though I don’t know why a ventriloquist would bother with the much clumsier device of the radio. The point is, in either case he’d supply himself with at least one witness. He might have brought Ching along. But he didn’t. He came alone.”

“But Grimm had been out front for a good half hour before. The murderer could have known that far in advance.” Gavigan objected half heartedly.

“Now you’re clutching at straws, Inspector. The gimmicked radio proves that the murderer’s plans were laid well in advance of Grimm’s arrival. No, the fact that Jones was the man who pushed that light switch merely takes us up another blind alley — a damned dark one, too. I know who the murderer is, Inspector. I’ve known for some time. But the mystery is still there, and almost every time we discover something it gets deeper. Perhaps the murderer is too smart for us, perhaps… ”

He paused discouragedly; then suddenly his head jerked up, his shoulders straightened. “Inspector,” he said, “I’ve got to get out of here and think. Somewhere along the line there has been some A No. 1 misdirection, some smooth criminal slight of hand. I haven’t caught all of it, and I don’t like it. I’m supposed to know about such things.” He picked up his hat and jammed it on his head. “Come on, Harte. I’ll need you.”

Gavigan stood between Merlini and the door. “So you know who the murderer is, do you? I’ll call that little bluff. Let’s have it.”

Merlini shook his head obstinately. “As long as I can’t prove it, it’s slander. I’ll keep it under my hat until I can. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me; and I know better than to try to sell you a bill of goods that doesn’t make sense.”

Gavigan hesitated, measuring Merlini with his eyes. Then he stepped aside. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to find that out. All right. Go on. Take your run-out powder, but think fast, Captain Flagg. Eliminating suspects by letting the murderer kill them off may be all right for rental library fiction, but it isn’t department procedure.”

Merlini stopped in the doorway. “You won’t do anything drastic without calling me, will you? We’ll be at my place.”

“I’ll think about it,” Gavigan said.

Merlini said nothing until we had let ourselves in at 13½ Washington Square North. Then he said, “What logic there is in this case is about as neat and tidy as a tornado. And the trouble is dat ole debbil, faulty observation. We’re going to work on that. There’s a chance you may have seen something, Ross, which, in your hasty recitals to Gavigan and myself, you overlooked because it seemed small or unimportant. I want you to sit down at that typewriter and put on paper in minute detail everything that happened from the time you heard Rappourt’s voice outside your door until I arrived. And I mean everything.”

I jerked off my tie, rolled up my sleeves, and, lighting the first of a chain of cigarettes, went at it. While the typewriter was warming up, Merlini hunted up Scotch and soda. The pages fell from the typewriter in swift succession while Merlini waited hungrily, reading them as they came.

I had been typing for perhaps an hour and was halfway down on a new page when I noticed that Merlini had not leaped to pick the last one from the floor. He held the penultimate sheet unnoticed in his lap, and was lying in his chair, long legs thrust out, eyes closed. I thought he was asleep. But as the rattle of the typewriter stopped he raised his head and looked at me, a bright sparkle dancing in his eyes.

“Ross,” he said, “you’ve done it. The solution I’ve been shying from because I couldn’t quite believe it isn’t all airy logic any more. You’ve given it a solid base of observed fact. But don’t stop. I want more.”

He snatched at the page on the floor and read avidly. I retrieved the sheet he had held and ran through it. So, I’d done it, had I? I read it a second time. I didn’t see it, and if he suspected the person I’d just been writing about, then something was screwy as hell. I knew better than to ask for explanations, so I began pounding again at the keyboard, slower now, my thoughts circling like Sonja Henie.

I typed for another half hour until the phone interrupted, ringing with a nervous uneasy jangle. While Merlini answered it, I took time out and filled my glass again.

He came back. “Gavigan’s just discovered that the radio program was broadcast from WJZ. The dialogue Grimm caught was the beginning of a sustaining program, one of those blood and thunder serials for the kiddies called Crime Doesn’t Pay. And it was written by Tarot himself!”

“Oh, for Crissake!” I said. “It would be. Every interesting lead we get takes us straight to a dead man, and they don’t talk. If Rappourt’s the real McCoy, it looks as if she’d be the one to solve this case.”

“You forget, I’ve solved it. Though you’re right about Rappourt in one way. If she could bring back Sabbat or Tarot, I could get some evidence I badly need. But the radio program isn’t what has the Inspector all atwitter and agog. He’s just found out who Mrs. Joseph Vanek is. Ching supplied the information, said he thought it might be pertinent. It is.”

“Just a minute,” I said. I reached for my glass and killed the rest of the drink. “All right. Let’s have it. Another surprise package, I suppose.”

Merlini poured three fingers of Scotch into my glass and the same in his own. “Better have another, Ross. Mrs. Josef Vanek is Madame Eva Rappourt!” Merlini drained his glass and added, “Gather up those papers and let’s go. Gavigan is rounding up all the suspects. He has a bee buzzing in his bonnet, and unless we’re there I’m afraid he may get stung.”

A police car stopped before Van Ness Lane as we came abreast of it. The LaClaires got out, accompanied by several detectives. We went in with them. Entering the hall, we heard the Inspectors voice:

“I’d like to see that trick with the business card, Duvallo. It sounds — Oh, hello. Come in.”

Duvallo, Judy, Ching, and Jones, along with Malloy, Grimm, and Quinn were already there.

When we had taken seats, Duvallo said, “Yes, of course, Inspector. Do you have a card?”

“Suppose we use yours.”

“Sure. I usually borrow one; it looks better. That wasn’t necessary when I did it for Tarot because he knew the trick and it was more of a technical demonstration than a performance.” He drew a card from his billfold and passed it to Gavigan. “Write a word or draw any simple design on the back of the card.”

The Inspector took a pencil and sketched something quickly.

“Now, I can discover what you’ve written by using either clairvoyance or telepathy. The latter is a little more certain, but you have to help by broadcasting a few thought waves. You can do that by freeing your mind as far as possible of all else and concentrating on the word or diagram. I shall try to reproduce it.”

“Never mind the ballyhoo,” Gavigan objected. “What is it?”

Duvallo smiled. “Careful, you might have to eat those words. Hold the card, back toward me, up before your eyes, and give me a break by concentrating on it, anyway. Just to make quite sure I couldn’t possibly see what you’ve written — here.” He drew out his handkerchief and dropped it over Gavigan’s hands, covering the card. Then he stepped back some distance from the Inspector, took another of the business cards from his pocket, and held a pencil over it, frowning. The Inspector didn’t play fair. He watched Duvallo like a hawk.

Then, slowly, Duvallo began drawing on his card. Suddenly he made two or three last quick strokes and looked up.

“Are you trying to scare someone, Inspector?” he said, turning the card so that we all could see.

On it there was a drawing of a gallows.

The Inspector dropped his hands and nodded resignedly. “Okay. I don’t get it. How’s it done?”

“Keep your illusions and stay young, Inspector,” Merlini said. “The truth would disappoint you. Here, drop that card and pencil into this envelope.” He produced a plain, white, letter-size envelope and held it open. Gavigan complied, and Merlini immediately closed the flap and sealed it. Then, holding the envelope at his finger tips and always in full view before him, he said, “Give me a number, five or six digits.”

Glumly Gavigan said, “Six eight nine two four.”

“Added, they total what, Inspector?”

“Twenty nine.”

Merlini winked broadly at Duvallo. “There are unseen forces in the air about us, Inspector, imps from some fourth dimension who have strange powers.” He ripped the end from the envelope. “Hold out your hand.”

Gavigan did so and Merlini shook the pencil and card out on to his palm. Gavigan took one look and said, “Goddammit!”

I’d seen Merlini do that little stunt before so I knew, without looking, that Gavigan had found, pencilled on the card, the figure 29. I was standing quite near and directly behind him, however, and I saw that, this time, something more was written there in Merlini’s uneven script: “Ask hall light but don’t mention radio.”

The Inspector put the card in his pocket just as the front door banged. Colonel Watrous came in, protesting every step of the way. He was followed quietly by Madame Rappourt and two detectives. The latter stopped on the threshold, and Gavigan dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Watrous stomped toward the Inspector like a turkey cock with its tail feathers ruffled. His voice was angry and rose too high in a strident, almost feminine pitch.

“You’ll regret this, Inspector. I intend to sue. I want to call my lawyer.”

Gavigan looked down at the little red-faced man. “Sue for what?”

“False arrest, and what’s more—”

“Skip it, Colonel. I haven’t arrested you… yet.”

“Then just what do you mean by this high handed — this—” Watrous’ choler seemed to have retarded his mental responses. As the meaning of that “yet” finally penetrated he left the rails and plowed to an uncertain stop.

“Grimm,” the Inspector said, “put the Colonel over there on the divan and treat him gently, but if he starts to yap, take him across your knee.” Gavigan seemed a bit fed up with the Colonel.

Watrous flounced across and sat down with his outraged dignity next to Madame Rappourt, who was already seated there. She sat quietly, only the black eyes moving restlessly in the white stillness of her face. I glanced at her hand, looking for a wedding ring, and saw none.

“This is a familiar looking scene, in detective fiction, at least,” Duvallo said. “All the suspects present and accounted for. Are we about to unmask the murderer?”

Gavigan looked at him thoughtfully and then glanced at the others, his gaze travelling slowly. Duvallo’s question hung suspended over us. Judy sat in the armchair, apparently at ease, but as the Inspector’s eyes met hers she looked down and fumbled in her purse for a cigarette. Ching Wong Fu MacNeil, the customary grin missing from his found face, was furtively eyeing Zelma, who in turn watched the Inspector cat-like. There was a clouded expression in her eyes, and she shifted uneasily in her chair.

“The murderer,” Gavigan said slowly and in a way that made me wonder why he should criticise Merlini for building up suspense, “is, I have reason to believe, in this room.”

If you have ever stood in a room filled with purring dynamos and inhaled the crackling pungency of ozone, you know what the atmosphere in that room was like. Alfred LaClaire took his cigarette slowly from his lips. Duvallo was sitting on the arm of Judy’s chair, and his right leg, which had been swinging, stopped. Jones stood in the shadowed background, leaning with Merlini against the bookcases. He was like the rest of us, tense, but I caught no other reaction. Merlini alone seemed at ease, his eyes half closed, apparently gazing in abstraction at the floor. But some sixth sense told me that he was watching someone, waiting for some histrionic flaw, some tell-tale false action.

Having allowed his preamble to sink in, Gavigan said suddenly, “Duvallo, do you use that hall light out there in the daytime?”

Duvallo raised an eyebrow. “No, there’s enough light from the glass transom above the door. Why?”

“When was the last time you used it?”

“Night before last when I came in, I suppose.” He looked curiously at the door to the hall and then back at Gavigan.

“You gave Jones a key to this apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have gone to the trouble of making a duplicate key to your front door? There are traces of paraffin on the wards of the lock.”

“Oh? Perhaps that’s how Tarot got in. I’ve been wondering about that.”

“I doubt it. He would have planned on using those picklocks of yours that he had. And since Grimm was out front within a few minutes after Tarot’s arrival, it looks as if the murderer was already here. He could have let Tarot in.”

“Inspector,” Jones said hesitantly, “I can tell you about the paraffin.” Heads turned, looking at him. “I made the duplicate key. While I was staying here during Duvallo’s absence, I mislaid the one he gave me and locked myself out. I took a paraffin impression on a blank key and had a locksmith cut it out.”

“Where’d you lose it?” This, Gavigan’s tone said, began to look interesting.

“That’s what worried me. I’ve said nothing about it before, because, well, it was the day after the party that I missed it. But I found it this morning in a pocket of this suit. I thought I had looked there, but I guess—”

“Party?” Gavigan growled. “What party?”

“Tarot, Ching, the LaClaires, and Judy were here one Friday night. It was just an end of the week party.”

The Inspector’s face was stormy. “If you people would tell me things as they happen we’d get ahead a lot faster.” Everyone looked at him so damned innocently that he got mad. “You, for instance, Madame Rappourt.”

“I?” Her voice had that full deep-throated quality again.

“You heard me. I’m not talking to myself.”

She looked straight ahead at nothing and said, “I know nothing at all about your murders, nor do I care to.”

Watrous started up. “I warn you, Inspector, that—”

Grimm’s hand shot out and hooked into the Colonel’s collar. He pulled and Watrous flopped back on his fanny. “Sit down, you!” Grimm said.

“But you do know quite a lot about Cesare Sabbat, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, without moving her lips.

Gavigan followed through, quickly. “Tell me about it.”

The trance-like monotone she used gave her voice the flat, dead feel of a legal document. “I married him in Paris five years ago. He called himself Josef Vanek. I didn’t know until yesterday that that wasn’t his right name. I lived with him two years. Then we separated. I had not seen him since, until I walked into that room and saw him lying there on the floor.”

“Why did you separate?”

“I left him. The man wasn’t — wasn’t sane.”

“You knew that he had taken out an insurance policy with you as the beneficiary? For $75,000?”

“Yes… but… ” She wasn’t so still now; she looked at the Inspector, as if startled. “But he would have changed that.”

“No, he didn’t. And it would be nice if you could prove you didn’t know that. Perhaps now you’ve something more to say about that prediction of yours last night. Have you?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ll admit that was not psychic. I had been told that Sabbat was very precise about appointments. There was the milk bottle that hadn’t been taken in, and the room inside was so very still, I felt that something was wrong; and — I shouldn’t have but I did — I took a chance and said that there was death in that room. When we found that the keyholes were stuffed up, I was sure of it, but I didn’t — I never knew I’d find Josef there.”

The Inspector, I gathered, wasn’t quite sure whether he believed that one or not. “So, just a play for publicity. Nothing lost if you missed; everything gained if you were right, and the Colonel would see to it that the reporters were informed.”

“Yes. But when we went into that room and I saw Josef… ”

“Yes, I know, you fainted. But what about that second faint? Wasn’t it to prevent Merlini questioning you? Wasn’t it?” Gavigan stood over her and thundered down. She twisted her hands and started to nod, when Watrous, who could contain himself no longer, blurted:

“Don’t pay any attention to his filthy accusations, Eva. You couldn’t have killed Tarot. You were at the séance.”

The Inspector, his eye warning Grimm to stay clear, pounced on Watrous. “So she was at the séance, was she? Maybe you can prove that? She was out of your sight for two hours. You’ve admitted that.”

“But I told you how we tied and fastened her. There can’t be any doubt as to where she was.”

“No? And suppose I explain to you with diagrams how she could have wriggled out of all those fancy Boy Scout knots and later returned, leaving no traces?”

Watrous blew up completely. He bounced to his feet and yelled, “It’s impossible, I tell you! Merlini, you’re responsible for this. You’ve primed him with one of your fake conjuring explanations. I’ll show you, all of you. She’ll repeat it and I defy any of you… you magicians to explain… ”

Merlini said, “Or better yet, Colonel, suppose you tie me — or Duvallo, for that matter — the same way you tied her. And let us try getting out.”

This challenge seemed to set him back a bit. “Yes, of course, I’ll do that; but you can’t… you couldn’t… ” There seemed to be a hint of uncertainty in his voice, of suspicion, as Gavigan broke in.

“Suppose,” he said, and his tone was a red flag, waving. “Suppose I should admit all you say. Suppose you tie Merlini and he can’t get out. Do you know what that leaves me, Watrous?”

The Colonel said nothing, but there was apprehension in his bloodshot eyes, and his pink tongue licked once across his lips.

“It leaves yourself! You could have left that séance even more easily than Rappourt, and don’t waste our time denying it. The room was in total darkness, and the sitters had their attention focused on the cabinet. You could have come over here when you were supposed to be walking circles around Union Square last night. You could have left the light on in your rooms to make the detective think you were still there. After killing Tarot, you could have gone back and let the elevator operator see you for an alibi. You could have killed them both!”

Gavigan laid it on rather thick, and he didn’t say anything about snow. The accusation, hammering at Watrous, seemed to act like cold water. His apoplectic symptoms vanished, and he gained control of himself. He was suddenly calm, icy.

With what, for him, was abnormal steadiness, he said, “You’re a bloody ass, Inspector. I never saw Tarot before in my life. And you’ll have to show more than opportunity — some sort of motive before you present that case to the State’s Attorney.”

“All right. How’s this? You knew that Rappourt would get $75,000 when Sabbat died, and, being a smart man, you could steer a course from there. As for Tarot… you had to kill him. He’d found you out.”

Watrous fixed his pince-nez more firmly on his nose and his hand shook, but his voice was hard. “You can’t prove any of that. I want to phone the British Consul, at once.”

“Is that all you have to say in your defense?”

“At the moment, yes. Where’s the phone, please?”

Gavigan glared at him with an angry frustrated scowl. “In there,” he said, indicating the study. Watrous went out, Grimm hooked on behind like a trailer.

Gavigan hesitated briefly, then addressed Judy. “Have you remembered where you lost that handkerchief of yours yet, Miss Barclay?”

Her vice was nonchalant, but the blue eyes wavered. “I’ve told you I lost it weeks ago. I haven’t the slightest idea where.”

Duvallo looked from Judy to Gavigan, suspicious and alert.

A new voice broke in — Zelma’s. “Is the handkerchief maroon with large polka dots?”

We all looked at her. Gavigan said, “Yes, what do you know about it?”

“I can guess where you found it. I left it there. Judy and I had lunch together uptown a couple of weeks ago. She dropped it, and I picked it up after she had gone, intending to return it; but I lost it myself, at Cesare’s, the last time I saw him.”

Something like relief sprang alive in Judy’s eyes. “Thanks, Zelma,” she said. “She’s right, Inspector. I do remember, that must have been the day.”

The Inspector’s batting average was low this afternoon. Every line of inquiry was beset with snags. He pulled at his mustache, eyeing Judy with indecision. And then Merlini stepped forward from the shadows and spoke quickly.

“Inspector, your case against Watrous sounds pretty complete.”

Oh, oh, I thought, the Great Merlini is up to something. That didn’t sound right at all, not after the arguments he’d given us before.

“But,” he continued, “I’m not thoroughly satisfied. I’d like to try something else, a little experiment that may show whether you’re right or not.”

The Inspector hesitated a moment, then stepped back and sat down. “Go ahead,” he said. “The floor’s yours.”

“Thanks, but there’s one thing more before you commit yourself. I must have your word that you will not, under any circumstances, interrupt me. I want ten minutes of absolute freedom minus any assistance from the police department. Without that I can do nothing.”

The latter said, uneasily, “I don’t like that. I small rats.” But then he gave in, nodding, “But go ahead; let’s hear it.”

Gavigan put his trust in Merlini’s smiling face, and forgot that the man was a conjurer, his livelihood consisting in a polite kind of con game whose main principle is the double-cross. In a few minutes he was busily regretting his assent.

Merlini gave a final reflective flip to his half dollar and returned it to his pocket.

“Though it may never have occurred to you,” he said, “I think all of you here can easily appreciate the similarity that exists between crime and conjuring, between the murderer and the magician. It should also be obvious that the underlying technique in both fields of endeavor is — must be — the same, that the basic principles of deception used are identical. And if the murderer of Sabbat and Tarot is, as the Inspector says, among those present, these murders especially can be expected to show very definite symptoms of conjuring.”

Madame Rappourt was glaring at him spitefully, apparently annoyed at being included with the tricksters. If Merlini noticed it, he gave no sign.

“You all know that in every trick, in every effort to present an illusion or false appearance, there is always some tell-tale clue that points straight at the secret. The purpose of misdirection, of course, is to gloss over that danger point, to hide or camouflage it from the observer’s notice. If murder is like conjuring, then it too has its weak spots, which the murderer must cover up.”

He paused a moment, put his hands in his pockets and, leaning back against the mantelpiece, went on: “A magician can usually penetrate the secret of a new trick if he sees it twice. Though it may fool him the first time, each succeeding time he views it the odds grow in his favor. He knows what to expect and, from past experience, knows where to look for the chink in the armor. The person who committed these murders is clever, and the weak spot has been concealed very nicely — too well, perhaps. But there’s one chance. An illusion without a watcher is like the tree that falls in the forest where there is no listener; its crash sends out sound waves, but no sound is heard. We are faced with certain impossibilities, some of which must be illusory. And some one of you who have witnessed the various phases of these illusions has witnessed, without knowing or realizing its implications, that weak spot. I want to dig into your minds and get at that evidence. The tell-tale observation may be — I rather think it is — so small, so natural, or so innocent, and apparently so unimportant that you don’t remember it. I want to discover what it is someone has forgotten.”

He waited, and held the rest of us waiting, wondering what the devil he was getting at.

“There exists a way to do that. Hypnosis.”

Gavigan looked startled, and began his regretting.

Merlini went on: “Hypnosis would enable us to dive — like Mr. Beebe in his bathosphere — deep into the subconscious mind and bring to the surface that one essential clue, that missing jigsaw piece which we need to dispel the illusion. The plan has but one drawback. Hypnosis, as you know, requires the consent of the subject. The unwilling subject who doesn’t want to be hypnotised and fights unavailingly is a popular myth. If you will all consent to such an experiment, I’m confident that we can solve these murders and clear away the suspicion that now rests on so many of you. Duvallo, here, is a capable operator, and would, I think, do it for us.” He turned to the latter questioningly.

Duvallo was thoughtful. “Yes. I could, and it’s worth a try. But suppose I’m the person who has forgotten this minor detail you want to get at? I’m not sure that a self-hypnotic trance would go deep enough.”

“If we have no luck with the others, I’ll let my friend, Dr. Brainard, the psychoanalyst, give you the works.”

There was an uneasy air on several faces, including Gavigan’s. Malloy and Grimm wore expressions of frank skepticism. Alfred LaClaire was the first to object. “You can count me out, please. The whole idea is screwy. Suppose Duvallo is the murderer. I know enough about hypnotism to know that in a trance — well, he couldn’t make me admit murder — hypnosis has its limits — but he could make my answers sound damned funny. No thanks.”

“All right,” Merlini countered. “Would you submit if it were someone else, someone quite outside, Dr. Brainard, for instance? I only suggested Duvallo because he’s handy and he’s the only one here who could do it properly.”

Alfred spoke. “The answer is no. I don’t trust the police, nor you, since you seem to be hand-in-glove with them. They always have to have a fall guy, and I’m not accepting the nomination.”

Watrous, who had returned in time to hear most of Merlini’s speech, spoke up. “I agree with Mr. LaClaire, very decidedly. I will not submit to any such unorthodox procedure, and I most emphatically cannot allow Madame Rappourt to do so. Both for the reasons Mr. LaClaire has mentioned and for the further reason that any hypnotic tampering with her delicately attuned, inner psychic self might be disastrous.”

“I think we can let Madame Rappourt speak for herself, Colonel,” Merlini said.

“The Colonel,” she said, “is wrong. Your idea is a sound one. But why do you beat around the bush? You do not need to hunt for some small thing that someone has incorrectly observed. That is foolish. Why not find the murderer? Hypnotize each of us and ask, ‘Did you kill Sabbat? Did you kill Tarot?”

That had occurred to me too, but I didn’t want to horn in. It was Merlini’s show, and I suspected he was fully aware of the possibility, but had some secret reason for approaching it circuitously. I couldn’t tell whether or not Madame Rappourt’s incisive going to the point bothered him.

“Yes, of course, there is that,” he said matter-of-factly. “Jones, what about you?”

“I don’t see that an innocent person has any choice. Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Judy?”

She nodded without speaking, but the cool face under the warm brilliance of her hair was troubled.

“Mrs. LaClaire?”

“Yes, if you keep your questions within bounds.”

“Duvallo?”

“Yes. I think it might work.”

“Ching?”

“Suits me.”

“Care to change your mind, Watrous?”

“I do not.”

“Alfred?”

“No, dammit. I don’t trust you. Zelma, you’re a fool.”

“Well, that’s that,” Merlini said. “I might add that if anyone thinks the test is off, unless everyone consents, they’re mistaken. I shall make arrangements with Dr. Brainard for this evening. If anyone has any other engagement—”

“You’re forgetting, Merlini,” Ching said, “the S.A.M. show is tonight.”

Merlini snapped his fingers. “Oh, yes, of course. All right. We’ll make it after the show. Suit everyone?”

No one said anything.

“Fine,” Merlini said. “We’ll meet at the show and go from there. I’d like to have you come as my guest, Madame Rappourt, and the Colonel, too, if he will.”

Watrous started to protest but, noticing Madame Rappourt’s nodded assent, said, “Yes, I’ll come. If she’s going to go through with this in spite of my counsel, the least I can do is watch to see that you don’t try any tricks.” The emphasis he put on that last word was thoroughly uncomplimentary.

Merlini was impervious. “I think you’ll like the bill,” he said brightly. “Duvallo, Ching, the LaClaires, and myself are on it. And Jones has something rather special to present. He’s doing Ching Lung Soo’s famous trick. He… ”

“Can I say something?” Gavigan put in.

Merlini nodded. “Yes. Time’s up now. And thanks for your forbearance.”

“Hmmpf! It’s old age creeping up on me. Merlini, do you realize that whatever you may discover with your hypnotic Aim flam won’t be admissible in any court as evidence?”

“I know that. But evidence obtained with the Third Degree isn’t either, and yet the police of this country still resort to that medieval technique. It sometimes gives them leads toward evidence that is admissible. You’ll admit that.”

Gavigan scowled, not wanting to put himself on record. “Okay, if you want to play Svengali, I don’t suppose I can stop you. You’d do it anyway.”

“If that’s all then, Inspector, suppose we adjourn until tonight at eight.” He frowned at Gavigan, signalling him with his eyes to say “yes.”

The latter agreed somewhat reluctantly. “Okay, but if you people are smart,” he said, addressing the others, “you’ll each accept the escort of one of my men until after this monkey business is over. If the murderer should happen to agree with Merlini that one of you knows something that hypnosis may reveal, then that person is in obvious danger.”

Watrous asked, “Then I can go?”

“For the time being, yes,” Gavigan said, “with one of my men.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, thank you, since I’m going to have nothing to do with Merlini’s test.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. My man goes with you, whether you like it or not. Grimm, you’re delegated. And don’t let him take it on the lam out any back doors. Better have someone with you.”

The Colonel threw him a look that needed its face washed, and then, gathering up Madame Rappourt, he went out. Grimm followed doggedly.

“Malloy,” Gavigan ordered, “get out there and detail men to nursemaid this bunch.”

Duvallo was speaking to Judy. “You come with me, kid. I’ll just see to it you have two nursemaids. Merlini, you’ve certainly managed to cook up a situation. If it wasn’t for Judy, I’d enjoy it. It has everything. Drama, suspense, and danger. I wish you luck.”

Merlini said, “Before you go, Dave, I’d like to see you a minute. The Inspector will look after Judy. Come here.”

Merlini took him by the arm and led him into the study.

As the others got up to leave and were going toward the door, I edged back nearer the study. Merlini and Duvallo were leaning out the window, talking in low tones. They were examining a hook set into the outside frame of the window; a hook from which dangled a rusty pulley that some tenant had used to hold a clothesline. Once Merlini pointed toward the far end of the yard, and I caught two words, “….the tree.” But that was all. When I saw them pull in their heads I moved away.

The others had all gone now. Merlini and Duvallo returned to the living room, and when the latter showed signs of staying, Gavigan sent him off.

“What,” he said then, “were you two up to in there?” Merlini picked up his hat and tried balancing it on his forefinger. “It’s a secret, Inspector. A deep, dark secret.”

The Inspector grumbled. “Going mysterious on me again, are you? Dammit, I’m old enough to know better. There should be a year-round open season on amateur detectives. I might have known you’d set off a lot of melodramatic fireworks. Hypnosis! Bah!”

Merlini grinned. “But, oh, my friend, and ah, my friend, Roman candles give off such a lovely light.”

“And very little illumination,” Gavigan came back acidly. “I’m beginning to wonder if the murderer is among that list of suspects after all. God knows they all act suspicious enough, but I don’t see a theory that’ll explain half the puzzles we’ve got on our hands.”

“And that’s just the trouble, Inspector. The murderer is among that list of suspects, but the evidence is too flimsy. A defense attorney, even one fresh out of college, could take that alibi list as it now stands and say, “The murderer must have been two other guys.”

Gavigan stuck out his square under jaw, and there were cold lights in his blue eyes. “Who is it? You tell me that and I’ll get a confession.”

Merlini shook his head. “No, Inspector. Your bright lights, your torturing, incessant questioning, your Third Degree wouldn’t make a dent. You’d find that Hauptmann was a talkative old woman compared to this murderer. You’ll see that the psychological make-up of our culprit will explain a lot of things, but he’s not the sort to fall for that. We’ve got to trip him up some other way.”

“Okay, and since you’re the Great Mysterioso — he sees all, he knows all — suppose you tell me how to do that. But remember, hypnotic confessions don’t count.”

“If my little trap works, your worries will be over,” Merlini said.

“Your little trap?”

“Yes. That’s what I was busily working at. Didn’t you notice?”

“Yeah, but the way you said it, I thought maybe it wasn’t what I think it is.”

“Very clever of you, Inspector. I don’t believe it is.”

Merlini’s innocent, pleased expression was that of the cat who has just swallowed the canary. Gavigan’s expression was the canary’s. He snorted and went out to the hall where he conferred with Malloy. Merlini put on his hat, and then, instead of leaving, stood silently looking out the window at the fading light in Van Ness Lane. I gave myself up to a survey of my alibi list, but it had all the aggravating obstinacy of a scattered Chinese Wood Puzzle, one of the more devilish ones.

Absorbed in that futile occupation, it was only afterwards that I remembered having been vaguely conscious of a phone ringing and of Gavigan’s answering it. Standing just this side of the study door, he was suddenly saying, “If anyone else gets killed, Merlini, it’s your fault. Trouble is, I’ll have to answer for it.”

“What’s happened, Inspector?”

“Jones! He went home with a detective, left the man in the bedroom, stepped into the John, closed the door, and dropped out the window on to the fire escape. God knows what he’s up to now.”

That announcement made me unbutton my ears, and then something I glimpsed in Merlini’s face left me with my chin hanging. I was closer than Gavigan to where Merlini stood in the shadow, and I caught something I couldn’t quite define, the barest flicker of a smile playing at the corners of his lips, perhaps, or just a faint hint of artificiality in the surprise he showed at the Inspector’s news. At any rate I was sure of one thing — Merlini had expected that.