Footprints on the Ceiling

Chapter Twenty-One: HOCUS-POCUS

Dr. Gail said nothing, but I could see that a lot of fast thinking was going on behind those shrewd gray eyes.

Sigrid cried, “Merlini! You can’t—”

Gavigan said, “You two were lying about being in the library together! One of you went out and fired at Rappourt. Dr. Gail, I—”

And Merlini said quickly, “I warn you, Inspector, if you make any further arrests without knowing, as I don’t think you do, exactly how that fire was set, why it was set, and who knew enough to have a reason for setting it, you’ll be shooting in the dark. Unless—”

“So. You don’t think it was Gail.” The Inspector’s blue eyes were disillusioned and coldly suspicious.

“Unless,” Merlini insisted, “you can explain the phantom bullet that magically penetrates steel and concrete, you may very well make a mistake — and even if you shouldn’t, you won’t have a case, unless you can explain the phantom bullet that—”

“Stop imitating a cracked phonograph record,” Gavigan snarled. “Do you have a case?”

“I do. Will you sit down and relax?”

Gavigan roared, “No!”

Merlini spoke to Gail and the girl. “If this over-zealous police officer arrests either of you before I’m quite finished with what I have to say — and if he snaps his handcuffs on the wrong person, I’ll contribute the services of my lawyer free of charge to aid in a thundering big suit for false arrest. I will have attention!”

The Inspector scowled mightily, sat down, and took a shiny blue-steel automatic from his pocket. He didn’t point it at anyone, but it was obvious that when the time came only the smallest twist of the wrist was going to be necessary.

“I arrested those others,” he grumbled, “so there’d be no more attempts at murder, and now you spring this! You want to sit there and show off. Well, talk, dammit! But if anyone in this room makes one single funny motion, something sudden and unpleasant is going to happen!”

Merlini, seated in the center of the large davenport, leaned back, his long legs outstretched. He appeared as calm and unwary as a well-fed sleeping cat. Yet he was about to raise the curtain on some subtle feat of mental hocus-pocus, some “now you see it — now you don’t” display of cerebral sleight-of-hand.

“Before anything unpleasant does happen,” he suggested quietly, “drinks all around might lessen the tension in this room. I’ll have straight Italian vermouth, Burt. I’m going to need it before this is over. Miss Verrill?”

The Doctor had an arm around her shoulder. She pressed his hand once, then moved to a chair, and sat down. “I’ll — Scotch please and — and not too much soda.”

“Doctor?”

“Nothing, thanks. I want to hear this solution. I don’t think I’m going to like it.”

“Inspector?”

“Merlini, for the last time, if you don’t—”

“All right. Stop nagging at me. I never saw a less receptive audience. However — suppose we begin at the beginning.” He looked lazily at the ceiling. “The difficulty in this case has arisen largely because our criminal committed — er — his or her — there’s that pronoun difficulty again. Inspector, may I, for the sake of brevity, use the masculine without your initiating any of those unpleasant actions?”

Gavigan grunted faintly, eyed Burt, who was busy at the liquor cabinet, and said, “I’ll have Scotch, straight.”

“Our criminal then,” Merlini continued, “committed his murders while surrounded, nearly swamped, in fact, by criminals and potential criminals, and against a background of smooth, expert; dirty work. These people, in order to avoid their own detection, found it necessary to cover up after him. It’s a device to remember. Though it does have its dangers.”

He nodded his thanks as Burt passed him his drink, held it in his hand, looked at it speculatively a moment, and went on.

“The situation was this: Floyd and Arnold both hated Linda with understandable fervor because, as Arnold said, she was hell on wheels to live with and because she had a tight hold on what they considered their rightful share of the Skelton fortune. And Linda, with a disproportionate number of left-handed kinks under her hat, rubbed that fact in. She even went so far as to wave a will in their faces which, except for the trifling technical bequest of one dollar each, made no mention of either of them. She taunted them with the fact that she had willed the Skelton millions to — Miss Sigrid Verrill.”

Sigrid’s glass dropped from her fingers, and the liquid splashed out across the carpet. Dr. Gail was motionless.

“Mix her another, Burt,” Merlini said and, without pause, went quickly on. “Arnold, as you know, with yet another, even stronger motive, planned eventually to kill her. While Floyd, unable to suffer lack of funds, planned to get some of his own back. He had invested what little patrimony he had in treasure hunts that never panned out. He decided that Linda should play angel for the next, with himself on the receiving end. I can imagine he thought about that for a long time before he stumbled on a practical method of selling her such a bill of goods. But he found it — Madame Eva Rappourt.

“He met her when they were both taken to the cleaners by the Caribbean Salvage Corporation, a concern that could stand — or perhaps might not stand investigation. You should look into it, Inspector. If it was a phony, I’m beginning to suspect that Ira Brooke might just possibly have had a finger in the pie.

“Floyd realized that, if there was one sure-fire method of swindling Linda, it was by the spirit-message route. He didn’t know whether Rappourt could be ‘had,’ but he worked on the almost-axiomatic assumption that, crossing a medium’s palm with a good-sized cut of $8,000,000 will buy just about any spirit phenomena one could desire. He didn’t tell her he was after the salvage money, you notice. He told her his Hussar story — and she fell for it, as she’d fallen for the Caribbean Salvage Corporation. Anyone can be fooled at the other man’s game. Lamb, the ex-head of a million-dollar criminal combine, was hooked on a confidence game — and is that going to burn him up when he realizes it! I knew a world-famous magician — you’d recognize the name at once — who earned a respectable fortune fooling people and promptly sank it all in a nearly nonexistent gold mine. ‘Old Smoke’ Morrisey, perhaps the most important figure in the history of American gambling, made himself $1,500,000 in 20 years of skinning-house and casino operation, and then lost most of it in Wall Street. Even the slicker can be a sucker. Rappourt had fooled a lot of learned investigating committees in dark rooms, but—”

Irritably Gavigan cut-in.

“Do you have to document your argument so damn thoroughly?”

Merlini, twisting his glass in his fingers and gazing into the liquid as into a crystal ball, continued imperturbably, “Rappourt fell for his story though she did bounce a bit. She’d just dropped $75,000 and she figured that this time she might as well hold out an ace or two. That bright and shining $8,000,000 might be there in the river as Floyd asserted, but she was going to see that the salvage money was not expended in any vain attempt to get it. Floyd was double-crossing her and, quite independently, she laid plans to double-cross him! She brought in Glass Eye George to play the part of Ira Brooke, submarine expert and inventor, suggest a lot of fancy reasons why at least $200,000 would be needed to salvage the treasure, and help her produce spirit phenomena. But Floyd didn’t know that. Floyd thought he was a bona-fide expert and congratulated himself because his Hussar changed-location theory got by so nicely. Of course, he didn’t object if the salvage ante was raised; that was okay with him, since that’s what he was really after. Floyd, the amateur swindler, placed his con-game in the hands of a couple of experts — though not the sort he thought!”

Gavigan said, “It sounds good, but how have you managed to read Floyd’s mind after death? You been getting spirit messages, too?”

“Yes, I have. I’ll produce a few shortly, genuine ones, that will corroborate everything I’ve said. But I’ll have you know that I deduced those facts, too, believe it or not. It wasn’t too difficult. Counterfeit coins and stolen relics obviously indicated a swindle and made it only too apparent that Floyd himself never really believed his Hussar theory. If he really thought he had located the genuine article, he’d never have jeopardized a possible $8,000,000 haul by introducing faked evidence. That could only mean he was after the salvage money itself. Also, if he knew that Ira was a phony expert he’d certainly never have even considered making a dangerous 110-foot dive with that gentleman as his topside assistant. Thus, since he thought Ira the real thing, it meant that he must be planning to blow with the salvage money, double-crossing Rappourt and Ira; and, conversely, his unawareness of Ira’s faked status meant that Rappourt and Brooke must be crossing him up.

“But didn’t we decide,” Gavigan objected, “that the murderer would never have thought of his fake-diving-chart murder method unless he knew Ira was not what he pretended to be? If Rappourt and Brooke kept that fact even from Floyd, who the hell else—? Was Watrous in on the con-game too?”

“No. The Colonel was no swindler. We did decide the murderer must have known Ira was a fake; the murderer did know; and once you tumble to how he knew you’ve solved the case. Think about it.”

Without having tasted it, Merlini leaned forward and placed his drink on the floor between his feet. He took a cigarette from his pocket. Burt, standing quietly beside my chair, tossed him a paper of matches. When the cigarette was glowing, Merlini went on.

“Then Mr. Charles Lamb appeared on the scene, and the plot thickened. He came out here with his two guns, looking for an island to settle on because he had a persecution complex that sprang, not like Linda’s neurosis, from an imaginary fear, but from a very real one. Lamb was a thorn in my deductions throughout. I realized that his aversion for the police, indicated by his cutting the phone, scuttling the boats, and blackjacking the Colonel, meant that he had something to hide. But until you got the goods on him I didn’t know that he was scared pink that some day Mike the Weasel or Gatling Gun Joe, or whatever their names are, would catch up with him. He wanted to have a good open view of all the approaches. A nice quiet retreat with a moat around it. I rather think, if Dr. Gail will permit me to enter the diagnostic field for a moment, that that was also the reason for those little pink pills of his. He had, for business purposes, acted the part of a stony-faced, ruthless killer and his emotions, securely bottled up for so long, simply played merry hell with his digestive system.… Do you realize that this case might well be titled The Great Pirate Murder Mystery? It began with the notorious Captain Skelton, and it ends with the just-as-notorious Captain Lamb, First Mate Rappourt, and Second Mate Brooke — pirates all, modern versions. The conspirators didn’t know about Lamb’s reputation. I thought they looked unnaturally pale around the gills tonight when you told them, Inspector. They thought he was a hard-headed business man, a retired broker. And they weren’t too sure, at first, that their spirit hocus-pocus would go down. But he wasn’t a broker and he was a not-particularly-cultivated Corsican, and superstitious. The séance phenomena impressed him — with what he had on his conscience, I’m surprised it didn’t scare the living daylights out of him! Anyway, Floyd, Rappourt, and Brooke decided that he was just another lamb ready for the shearing — sorry — that crept up on me.

“But, at the last when it was too late, when they got down to the subject of cold cash, his business sense flashed a red light. He wanted to send down a disinterested diver — not Floyd, as was immediately suggested — for a preliminary survey. He wanted some really tangible evidence. Linda, seeing his hesitation, held out, too.

“Something had to be done at once. They did it. They stalled him off until they could plant some evidence. They stole the Hussar relics and placed an order for the counterfeit guineas. They were so close to $200,000 that their mouths watered; and, if Ira’s pretty-looking blueprints and his model suction salvage apparatus weren’t enough in the way of confidence-game props, they’d supply what was.

“And now — because of a certain motive which will be discussed shortly — the murderer went into action.

“He knew that Ira was a fake expert, and he knew that Floyd was going to dive and salt the site of the wreck. He typed the diving chart. The method wasn’t sure fire, of course. Either Floyd or Ira might possibly suspect the chart — but he took that chance rather than resort to any first-hand and possibly bloody murder method; He couldn’t bring himself to that. Even if the chart was noticed, Floyd could only suspect Brooke or Rappourt — which would be all right, too. One of his motives was to smash the con-game. If the conspirators quarreled — that was fine. He might not even have to murder.

“While, if it did work — as it did — Brooke would find himself in a spot. That would be another monkey wrench in the swindle machinery — Brooke, fearing exposure, because of Floyd’s death while diving, could be expected to take it on the lam. But, as it happens, Brooke doesn’t scare easily. He is a professional and knows his job. He promptly put his customary con-man’s ingenuity to work. Floyd had gone in to New York, before diving, to get the relics from Ira’s room and to make it appear he wasn’t on the island. He went in again, afterward, in order to shuck the heavy underwear necessary for diving at that depth and to return legitimately via the water taxi. But when he failed to come back, Ira began to worry and sneaked in to check up. He found Floyd dead in the hotel room. That wouldn’t do at all. He had to think fast. He moved the body, took some very clever and direct steps to prevent any immediate identification, and then, later, some others to prevent any suspicion that Floyd, though missing, wasn’t in perfectly good health. He wrote the letter, and posted it by what we might call the boomerang method.”

Merlini crushed his cigarette in an ash tray. Sigrid and Gail were listening intently. Gavigan watched them, but he paid attention. I got up and added ice to my drink. Burt, following me, poured himself another brandy.

“Do you remember what that letter said?” Merlini asked. “ ‘Kick in before I get back, or else.’ Brooke and Rappourt were, in the face of imminent disaster, making a last stand, trying to push the con-game to its pay-off before the dead Floyd could appear to embarrass them. They were playing for time until Lamb had completed his independent diving survey and been convinced by the relics Floyd had planted. The guineas would have been there, too, except that Lamb, having rushed matters, had made Floyd’s dive necessary before the counterfeiter had delivered them.

“Brooke and Rappourt, you might note, are at this point eliminated as suspects in Linda’s murder — they’d hardly kill one of the geese that were about to lay the golden eggs. They’re innocent on another count, also. Had they intended to murder Linda later, they’d have taken more care with the letter-mailing details. They never expected an official investigation or they’d have not used the typewriter they did, or left the faintest smudge of a fingerprint on the notepaper, or planted it on a train that took such a roundabout route to Chicago. They could hardly have expected to cover up Floyd’s death successfully. They’d have known that a missing person—”

“Skip it,” Gavigan said. “I’m damned if I’ll listen to all the hair-splitting logic that proves innocence in Linda’s death when Rappourt was the intended victim.”

“As you say, Inspector. And we’ll skip the logic that proves Rappourt and Brooke were innocent in plotting Rappourt’s death. It should be obvious—” Merlini’s eyes twinkled impishly—“though there are one or two other things I should have thought were obvious, too. Perhaps I had better—”

“Go ahead, gloat! But if you don’t get to the point soon, I’m going to arrest you as an accessory after the fact. Why are you so damned sure there’s only one murderer? Why couldn’t there be two — one for Floyd and one for Rappourt?” Gavigan eyed Sigrid and Gail almost hungrily.

“No,” Merlini protested. “Not two. I won’t have it. That would give us one potential murderer and three actual ones out of only seven suspects. The percentage is absurd. Not only that, but the essential similarity of means — two finicky long-range murder methods: the poison and the typewriter — is indicative of one and the same person.

“Floyd’s murder was nearly perfect. All the murderer did was type a few words on a sheet of paper and tack it up at the houseboat. The only really solid deduction we can draw from the whole business is that the murderer knew Ira was a phony. As for the first attempt on Rappourt, the murderer simply substituted cyanide for the contents of the top capsule in the vial. Another small action much easier than the bloody businesses of shooting and head bashing.

“Then Rappourt perversely gave the capsule to Linda. The first crime was brilliant; the second a miserable piece of amateur bungling. And yet, in spite of it — the murderer’s luck held — he was still as safe as houses. Rappourt didn’t know the finger had been put on her, and there was no motive the murderer could possibly be suspected of having for Linda’s murder. But one thing bothered him. When he discovered how his plan had misfired, he didn’t know when Linda had died nor whether he had an alibi. That worried him enough so that he cooked up his first piece of misdirection — the fire. The fire, the evidence of the murderer who knew too much, and the bullet that traveled in a curve. Those three things separately and together solve the case and name the culprit.”

Merlini leaned forward and picked his glass from the floor. “When we found that no one had the slightest opportunity to set the fire, I thought it looked suspiciously like a manufactured alibi, an act for the special benefit of Ross and myself. Now, if that was true, it indicated someone who knew we’d be where we were when we were, someone who knew we were coming to the island last night—”

“Both Miss Verrill and Dr. Gail—” Gavigan began.

“Yes. Also Arnold. But, if you remember, I hadn’t told Sigrid we would land at the haunted house. She and those other two expected me at the séance. That was all they knew. But the murderer—” Merlini stopped exasperatingly and raised his glass to his lips at last, as if to drink. I knew then that he was playing catlike with the murderer, tantalizing, taunting him, pretending to drink and hoping — for what?

Suddenly I pulled myself from my chair and took a long running jump — plunging toward him! The man was mad. He actually was drinking! I swung and smashed at the glass with my fists. It flew from his hand and splintered on the floor. The tension in the room snapped with the tinkling glass — and then was taut again!

“Ross Harte!” Gavigan thundered. “Put your hands up!”

The ugly black hole of his gun was aimed full at me.

But I turned and pointed.

“Burt!” I said, breathing hard, “He knew we were coming to the haunted house! He knew Ira was a phony. He, if anyone, could shinny down a tree in two seconds!”

Gavigan wheeled on him, his jaw loose. “Ross,” he said thickly, “I hope to hell you’re wrong because if there was cyanide in that glass, Merlini hasn’t the ghost of a chance!”

On the davenport, Merlini suddenly doubled up with laughter!

“Inspector,” he said, between spasms. “Please put that gun away. Burt hasn’t killed anyone. And, to prevent any ill-considered shooting, I’d better tell you that Miss Verrill is also innocent. Likewise Dr. Gail. The Hendersons are innocent. And I didn’t do it — honest injun, cross my heart. Rappourt, Brooke, Arnold, Lamb, Svoboda, Malloy, Grimm, Brady, Muller, Leach, Quinn, Carter, Hunter, Mr. Novak, Dr. Hesse — they’re all guiltless. And yourself, Inspector. You didn’t do it. Did I miss anyone?”

Burt said, “I’ll get you for this, Ross Harte.” He quickly poured himself another drink.

“Yes,” I said glumly. “You missed Colonel Watrous.”

“Well,” Merlini replied, suddenly quiet, “I couldn’t very well include him, could I?”

For a moment I simply looked at him. Then I went after another drink, a tall undiluted one.

Gavigan said, “Watrous! So that’s why Grimm saw no one come up on to the sun deck. The Colonel simply leaned out his window, socked Grimm, and then fired at Rappourt from the sun deck! But the second shot — no, wait, you’re making that bullet curve even more!”

“No.” Merlini shook his head. “It wasn’t the bullet that curved, it was the misdirection. Watrous fired once and immediately threw the gun over the rail. It exploded when it landed. He threw it into the light from the French windows so we’d be sure to see him pick it up. He then moved his window noisily, shouted ‘There he goes!’, ran down, retrieved the gun, and fired into the woods. You yourself wondered why he was so foolhardy about that. And I wondered why he had to stand smack in the light to fire his shots. He did that so we could see what he was doing and where he was shooting — the misdirection. He didn’t think there was anyone out there to fire back at him! His tree story was full of holes because it was imaginary. At the last, his device of committing his crimes among a cast of criminals, literally backfired when Lamb, making his escape, thought he’d been discovered and fired back.”

“Yeah,” Gavigan said disgustedly. “You’ve been laboring the point that this murderer wasn’t the type to bash in people’s heads or shoot them. Long-distance methods-poison and a typewriter! Bah! Who’s guilty of misdirection now?”

“He ran amok, Inspector; and I’m afraid I’ll have to admit driving him to it and underestimating his resourcefulness. That was a grave error. He was listening at his detector, as I knew he would, to our questioning of Rappourt. I’d hoped that he had a dose of cyanide left, and would use it. He—”

Gavigan broke in. His voice was deadly serious. “Merlini, you read too many detective stories. If you ever pull a stunt like that again, so help me, I’ll book you for it. You might be interested to know that Section 2304 of the Penal Law of the State of New York reads: ‘A person who willfully in any manner, advises, encourages, abets, or assists another person in taking the latter’s life, is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree.”

Merlini blinked at him. “Anyway it didn’t come off. Watrous either had no cyanide left or else discovered he could screw himself up to knocking out Grimm and shooting at Rappourt sooner than he could face suicide.”

“Ignorance,” Gavigan said, “is no excuse. And Section 2305 says that an attempt at abetting and advising suicide is a felony. Not only that, dammit, but his shooting at Rappourt and his knocking out Grimm make you an accessory before the fact to attempted homicide and assault!”

“I’m sorry,” Merlini said contritely. “But I did place guards at both window and door, you know.”

“So that’s it!” I exclaimed, ringing the bell with more success this time. “That’s how he knew Ira was a phony and Floyd was going to dive! He heard the plotters with his little eavesdropping machine.”

“Yes. The murderer who knew too much. The fact that those shots came at such a precisely opportune moment should have reminded you that, of all our suspects, only Watrous was close enough and he alone had the means to overhear what was taking place in that closely guarded room. But for that detector there might have been no murders at all! Watrous might not have discovered until too late that he even had a motive for killing Rappourt and Floyd!”

Merlini went to the library door, reached inside and came back, carrying the Colonel’s voice detector. He placed it on the table and lifted the lid.

“I investigated Watrous’s room while you were chasing after Lamb.” He held up several phonograph records. “I found these under the paper linings of his dresser drawers. I didn’t expect so much. It had never occurred to me that he wouldn’t have destroyed the records of the conversations he overheard. Knowing that, I’d not have scheduled the Rappourt inquisition scene at all. All the evidence we need is right here. You’ll hear Floyd himself speaking from beyond the grave — a real spirit message this time — discussing with Rappourt the details I’ve just giver you of the swindle; and you’ll hear Brooke and Rappourt planning to double-cross Floyd.” Merlini placed one of the records on the turntable.

Gavigan asked, “Did you say one of his motives was to smash the con-game?”

“Yes. He was innocently enmeshed in it. They were playing him for a sucker. Rappourt was using him as her front, and after the pay-off, when no one would ever believe he hadn’t had his cut — he’d be the goat. He didn’t like that at all. That was Rappourt’s big mistake.”

“But why, with this record evidence, if it’s what you say, didn’t Watrous simply out with it to Linda or Lamb? He didn’t need to murder Rappourt and Floyd.”

“It wasn’t as simple as that. Rappourt, on these disks, admits she’s a fraud. And Watrous had, at all costs, to smash the con-game without letting that cat out. The very last thing he wanted was to have Rappourt exposed. He killed her to prevent it. Dead, her reputation as a medium and his as a psychical authority were safe.”

“But he asked you to try and catch her out.”

“I know. That was a false note right from the beginning. You and Harte both commented on it, and wouldn’t believe it at first. You were right. He never intended that I’d get a chance to expose her. He’d intended that she would die at the start of the séance, before Ross and I got into it.”

“And he asked you out to witness his murder? I won’t believe it. Why would he want you smack on the scene when she kicked in?”

“He didn’t. That’s why he came after me. He couldn’t help himself. Sigrid and Arnold had decided to call me in. Remember where that conversation of theirs took place? In Rappourt’s room when they searched it. Watrous overheard and realized at once that I’d jump at the invitation. The man who knew too much again. That set him back on his heels, hard. He had just put the poison in Rappourt’s capsules — during the night while she slept. And then he discovers that I’ll be at the séance. He can’t call off the murder, even if he could get the capsule back, because then I might expose Rappourt. Watrous, who has never been able to catch her out before himself, now that, he knows she’s a fraud, is afraid of exposure at every turn. He can’t dissuade Sigrid and Arnold, since they naturally think he’s in league with Rappourt. Rappourt must die before I arrive. Can he, at the last moment when Sigrid has no time to warn me, get Rappourt to move the séance ahead? No. It’s already scheduled for just after dark, and she can’t stage her footprints on the ceiling in daylight. Persuading her to skip the séance entirely, is no good either — it would only delay the bitter ending and solve nothing.

“Since my presence is unavoidable, all he can do is try to sidetrack me, reach me before Sigrid does, and get me to agree to meet him at the haunted house so he can control my movements, holding me there until the séance has started and Rappourt is a goner. Sigrid wanted to force my presence on Rappourt. So, to insure my accepting his invitation in preference to hers, he simply offered a better plan — one that might be more productive of results, Rappourt being unaware of my presence. He was clever. His plan not only kept me from the séance until the danger point was passed, but it even put Watrous himself in my company at the time Rappourt was to die. And a damned likely case could be made out for suicide or an overdose because, though she actually took only sugar, she had gone on record as admitting that she dosed herself with poisons before her trances — a fact that Watrous knew better than anyone else, since it was in his own book we found the information! He’d have tucked in the one remaining loose end by using scopolamine rather than cyanide if he hadn’t been rushed. By some strange omission, scopolamine appears to be a poison photographers haven’t yet found a use for!”

I was remembering right there that the infra-red photographic directions Watrous had passed on to me through Merlini. convicted him of knowing enough about photography to have expected to find poisons in Arnold’s darkroom.

“And even though cyanide would be found at Rappourt’s autopsy,” Merlini continued, “just as long as no one could prove, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, that Rappourt was a fraudulent medium, Watrous wouldn’t appear to have a motive for poisoning the woman he hailed as spiritualism’s A-No. 1 exhibit. Look at his position. He hears his prize psychic exhibit admit fraud, admit she’s engineering a con-game — one in which he’s the catspaw. If he says nothing, Rappourt’s disappearance with the swag eventually spills the psychic beans. Watrous’s cherished reputation, the income from his psychic writings, the projected plans for his psychic laboratories all go up in smoke. He’s a laughingstock, the last thing that dandified, pompous little man could have stood. And if the con-game fails, if he does tell Linda or Lamb, or even if he tips off Floyd about the double-cross — expose again! He was between the devil and the deep blue sea, both of them closing in on him fast. Listen to this.” Merlini started the turntable and lowered the sound arm into position near the end of the record.

I heard again the rumbling and, above it, Rappourt’s voice: “I know a man who can duplicate those Hussar relics and supply us with some fake guineas dated 1779 that will get by Lamb. You’ve dived. You can—”

Then a new voice broke in, a smooth oily high-pitched voice — Floyd’s: “Ira wouldn’t fall for it. That’s right up his alley.”

Rappourt: “But he’s so damned anxious to get that salvage apparatus constructed and tested out that I doubt if he’ll stick at a little, justifiable hocus-pocus. Especially since he’s convinced the Hussar is there.”

Floyd: “All right. Put it up to him. Only your suggestion that I merely fake the dive, going down a short way and then bringing the stuff up, won’t do. Lamb’s insisting that he send his own diver.”

Rappourt: “That’s even better. If his own diver brings up positive proof—”

Floyd: “That should cinch it. Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll have to. We’ve got to convince them properly. These séances are getting too risky, anyway. I even think Colonel Fuss-budget is beginning to smell mice. You know, if he ever tumbles to the fact that you’re not on the level.… ”

Rappourt (laughing): “If I can’t fool Watrous, I’ll quit. Besides, we can’t ditch him now. He’s my front. But don’t worry. After that last book of his, he wouldn’t dare expose me — he’d be the laughingstock of two continents. Anyway, if he ever did, I’ve got the perfect stopper. I’d simply top his story with a better. I’d sell my confessions to Hearst, admit all, and accuse him of aiding me.”

Floyd: “You don’t miss much, do you? If I ever find you murdered, I think I’ll know who did it. If he ever tumbled to that—”

Merlini lifted the sound arm. “Which explains why Floyd had to die, too. Or partly. The rest consists in the fact that Watrous held Floyd responsible for Rappourt’s fall from grace. I think, even at the last, he still thought her previous phenomena genuine. He couldn’t believe he had been fooled so thoroughly. Watrous’s motives were revenge and self-defense. It’s a toss-up which was the stronger; together they were irresistible.”

I said, “No wonder he was so anxious for us not to tip Rappourt off that he was suspicious of her. It’s a wonder that didn’t gray his hair.”

“Yes,” Gavigan admitted. “It fits. Watrous was the second ‘vampire’ Svoboda heard come into the room where the body was. The Colonel went to his room at 9:10 and he didn’t meet you until 9:40. He left his room when he saw a light in the haunted house, just as he said, only it was Arnold’s light when he was putting the body there, not Svoboda’s light just before you arrived. He discovered the body, fixed his lighter and thread, and then, when he heard you coming, he retreated back up the path toward the house so you would see him apparently coming from it.”

“And Watrous was the only person within pulling distance of that thread — except possibly Mr. X. The fire was misdirection on the same principle as the business with Grimm’s gun. He was trying to make it appear that someone was busily setting fires and shooting people when he himself was in plain sight, and obviously doing no such thing. Mr. X was eliminated as the string puller because, as an intentional alibi on his part, the fire was nearly worthless; whereas, for Watrous, it was perfect. But he was moving on thin ice when he accused Floyd of having hooked his lighter. We nearly had him then. He’d overheard Brooke report back to Rappourt the clever steps he’d taken to prevent Floyd’s identification, and he thought that diverting suspicion from himself to Floyd was a safe bet. Later when Floyd was found dead, I realized that Watrous had known it before we did!”

“But how did he pull the thread right before your noses without your seeing him? That was a bit of conjuring you didn’t spot at the time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know I was watching a trick, not until later when I’d proved that no one but Watrous could have pulled the thread. He had used another common conjuring principle — disguised the action that works the trick as an unsuspicious natural one having some other and quite innocent purpose. Remember the ladder-back chair standing just before the living-room window, the one directly above the cellar window? I didn’t say that the person who had pulled the string was outside the house, only that the string led outside. The string must have led to someone near enough to pull it. Watrous, Harte, myself, and possibly Mr. X, whom I later eliminated, were the only candidates. Remembering that the Colonel, as soon as he entered, had pulled the chair out into the room away from the window, I knew at once that the thread must have been tied to it.”

Merlini got up, walked over to the liquor cabinet, and finally had his glass of vermouth. “The footprints on the ceiling,” he said as he finished it, “had no actual connection with the murders themselves, and yet they were very appropriate symbols of the misdirection Watrous used. Misdirection is nothing more than psychology turned upside down and inside out. The Principles of Deception — whether used by murderer, magician, or mystery-story writer — are only the orthodox, textbook psychological Laws of Attention, Observation, and Thought working in reverse. Gentlemen, the prosecution rests.”

And on the end of that sentence, the front door flew open and slammed against the wall with a crash that shook the house. All hell broke loose, blew into the living-room and headed straight for me. The man was a boiling, sputtering maniac with sudden death in his eye.

“Ross Harte!” he screamed. “What the thundering, infernal, blasted, pestilential, smoking hinges of everlasting hell do you mean by running out on me? We open the day after tomorrow! The scene-painters union is on strike! The costumes aren’t ready! That erotomaniac leading man has a shiner where the danseuse popped him one defending her honor! The publicity department is a complete shambles because they broke our biggest news release today and it was swamped by these two-penny, insignificant, piddling murders you’re mixed up in! Then I have to chase you! Stop standing there like an addlewitted loon. Get your hat!”

The Inspector, not having sidestepped far enough, almost got a poke in the eye from the frantic arm-waving that accompanied this volcanic eruption.

“Ross,” he demanded, “who is this dithering lunatic?”

“And,” the director of Love Over Broadway wanted to know, “who the splitting hell are you? If you’re the infidel son of a spavined camel that seduced Harte into—”

Right there I saved the show. I knew all his other troubles could be fixed. They were just the usual ones. But with the director gibbering behind bars, I wasn’t so sure we would open. I yanked at him as I would at a live bomb and rushed him out of the house, out from under the awful stare of the majesty of the law. Gavigan was not in a lenient mood.

Love Over Broadway opened on time, and it ticked like a clock. I managed to stay on deck until the morning papers arrived with the first reviews.

The whirlwind brought them to my room, singing all down the corridor, “God bless Atkinson! God bless Watts! God bless Walter Winchell!”

I reached for the phone, called Room Service, and said, “Two strait-jackets, please. At once!” Then I went to bed. Two days later I was sitting up and tackling a solid diet again. Merlini came in just after I’d finished my luncheon tray, refused to take no for an answer, and shanghaied me. He pushed me into a taxi and ordered, “The D.A.’s office.”

On the way, he brought me up to date. Lamb had been extradited to Chicago and had hired a standing army of lawyers. Ira and Rappourt, had been indicted for trial. Arnold, after a night in the cooler, had been released with a lecture by the Police Commissioner on the subject of falsifying evidence and moving bodies without an official permit. And Merlini had managed to get Mr. Sandor X. Svoboda out on bail so that the circus could go on.

Then I told him something. “Anyway,” I said, “there’s one thing about this case that I did figure out on my own.”

“What?”

“The answer to that wine and water puzzle you had the nerve to propound when I was suffering from concussion. I gave it some thought while I was recuperating. There’s exactly the same amount of water in the wine glass as wine in the water glass. And don’t try to argue.”[1]

He didn’t. At that point, we arrived at our destination; and I managed to evade the issue. The D.A. stopped just short of kissing Merlini on both cheeks, made him an honorary member of the homicide squad, and announced that Gavigan had been promoted to Assistant Chief Inspector. Merlini festively poured drinks as called for — Scotch and soda, sidecars, old-fashioneds, beer with a collar on it, and a few drinks that no one wanted — tomato juice, india ink, pink lemonade, and a Bromo Seltzer — all from the D.A.’s water carafes!

Leaving the D.A.’s office, we went up Centre Street to headquarters and dropped in on Gavigan.

His voice was gruff, but it had the old chuckle in it. “Hawkshaw,” he said, “why is it you always fall into such screwy upside-down cases? Do you realize this one has made Homicide Bureau history? The case is closed, and yet, instead of having arrested the murderer, we arrested everybody else, or damn near it. All except Gail and Verrill, and I came close to that. Ross and Burt didn’t miss by much, and you’ll never know how close I came to putting leg irons on you.”

“Leg irons, Inspector?” Merlini moved one Satanic eyebrow up. “You should see Item No. 126 in my catalogue. The Little Gem Improved Handcuff and Leg-iron Escape Method—$1.00 postpaid. Tell me something. Do cops carry their guns to the Policeman’s Benefit Ball?”

“Do they—” Gavigan was startled. “No. Why?”

“Good,” Merlini said, “I’m relieved. The D.A. asked me to present the bullet-catching trick, and I was just a bit worried about having an armed audience. A magician did that once, out West in the gold rush days, before a crowded house of cowboys and miners. He’d finished the trick successfully, caught, the bullet in his teeth, and was taking his bow when a bushy-bearded and baffled desperado in the balcony jumped to, his feet, drew both six shooters, and yelled, Here, dammit! Catch these!’ ”

Chief Inspector Gavigan laughed and said, “Here’s my chance to arrest both you and the D.A. Paragraph 2 of Section 831 of the Penal Law distinctly states that any exhibition in which a person aims or discharges any bowgun, pistol, or firearm of any description whatever, or allows one to be aimed or discharged at or toward any human being, is unlawful and those persons are guilty of a misdemeanor.”

“Killjoy,” Merlini said as Gavigan turned, grinning widely, to answer the phone.

The Inspector listened a moment, grew an expression of astonishment, and then burst out laughing.

“The police force is batting 1000 percent,” he said. “It’s Doc Gail. He and Miss Verrill were in such an all-fired hurry to reach the marriage license bureau that they went through four stop lights and down a one-way street. They’ve been booked for reckless driving and would I please come to the rescue!”