Death From a Top Hat

1

The examination of a lock’s interior without removing it is accomplished with the aid of a cystosopic device, consisting of a viewing tube with a small electric bulb and a mirror at its end. The irregular searching movements of a picklock or skeleton key leave traces in the coating of oil and grease usually present in lock mechanisms.

2

His more scientifically acceptable books were: Daughters of Hecate, The Road to Endor — A History of Prophecy, and Studies in Superstition, this last an encyclopedic six volume work that is still the standard authority on the subject.

3

A colony of 1000 Lemurians (from the Pacific’s even more ancient lost continent of Mu) was reported as late as 1932 to exist on the slopes of Mt. Shasta surrounded by an invisible wall of force that prevents approach by either man or forest fires!

4

See Montague Summers: The Vampire in Europe, Dutton, 1929, and A Popular History of Witchcraft, 1937; Alexander Cannon: Powers That Be, Dutton, 1936; Hamlin Garland: Forty Years of Psychic Research, Macmillan, 1934; Charles Fort: Wild Talents, Kendall, 1932; Maurice Magre: Magicians, Seers and Mystics, Dutton, 1932; etc.

And if you really want to go to town, see Harry Price: Short-title Catalogue of the Research Library from 1472 A.D. to the present day, University of London, Council for Psychical Investigation, 1935.

5

The Universal Alkahest was the alchemist’s ideal solvent, a super-hydrofluoric acid that would act on any and every thing. It never was decided just what sort of a container to keep it in once it was found.

6

Two of the formulae as given by Weyer are as follows: 1. Water Hemlock, sweet flag, cinquefoil, bat’s blood, deadly nightshade and oil. 2. Baby’s fat, juice of cowbane, aconite, cinquefoil, deadly nightshade and soot. It is interesting to note that, in the opinion of Prof. D. J. Clarke, the use of aconite and belladonna as an unguent is likely to produce the sensation of flying.

7

In signing on the dotted line of any compact with His Satanic Majesty you will, of course, write your signature with your own blood, but the body of the deed itself requires a special ink. Arthur Edward Waite in The Book of Ceremonial Magic gives this formula: || Gall-Nuts, 10 oz. Roman Vitriol or Green Copperas, 3 oz., Rock Alum or Gum Arabic, 3 oz. Dissolve this powder in river water using a new varnished earthenware pot, and bring to a boil over a fire laid with sprigs of fern gathered on the Eve of St. John and vine twigs cut in the full moon of March, and kindled with virgin paper.

8

Harper & Bros. 1936.

9

Mystery and Magic in Tibet, Claude Kendall, 1932.

10

“Maelzel’s Chess Player,” an article in the Southern Literary Messenger, April 1836. Or see Poe’s Complete Works, Stedman and Woodberry, Vol. 9, Page 141 et seq.

11

Posthumous Memoirs of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Boston, J. M. Wade, 1896.

12

Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, Putnam, 1936.

13

The electric lamp was a modern variation of Merlini’s, Hartz himself having produced several lanterns containing lighted candles. A description of his original routine may be found in Hoffman’s Later Magic, the editions of 1925 and 1931.

14

Chung Ling Soo (William Elsworth Robinson) was killed while performing the Bullet Trick at the Wood Empire Theatre in London in 1918. A verdict of Accidental Death was returned at the inquest, although some commentators have pointed to certain evidence, still unexplained, that would seem to indicate suicide or even murder. Of the dozen performers who have featured the trick, half were killed, the others injured. The only present-day performer who dares it is Theodore Anneman.

15

See pp. 125–126.

16

Modern Criminal Investigation, Funk & Wagnall’s, 1935, p. 31. Hypnotism was one of the two things Duvallo could have done that none of the other suspects were able to do. See p. 12.

17

See pp. 31 and 40.

18

See p. 12.

19

He did, sooner than he thought. We were to meet Colonel Watrous and Madame Rappourt again, later, in the strange case of The Footprints on the Ceiling.