The Last Illusion

I was about to nod, but I was beginning to get angry with this bullying treatment. “So you’re prepared to look after me from this moment onward, are you?” I demanded in the same aggressive tone that he was using. “Because somehow I have to eat between now and the wedding and I have no other source of income. And I’ll need a trousseau, won’t I? And a wedding dress. I’d not be expecting my groom to pay for those and I have no family, as you well know.”


He swallowed and took a half step back at my sudden attack. “Molly, please. I only want what’s best for you and I’m sick of worrying about what might happen to you next. Besides, you’ll need time to plan a wedding and have a trousseau made,” he continued. “I’m sure you haven’t had a chance to find a good dressmaker in New York and I haven’t had any indication that you’re a keen seamstress.”

I laughed. “I can patch and darn when completely necessary. That’s about it.”

“That’s why it’s such a pity you can’t come with me tomorrow. My mother is a dab hand with a needle. If you stay up with her for a while, she’d be happy to help you with the wedding dress and all the rest. You won’t even need to pay a dressmaker.”

Oh, Lord—he’d reminded me of my fitting with the other Daniel in the morning. Wouldn’t this Daniel be surprised if he knew that I had already hired a top-notch dressmaker to make me something that involved spangles and a lot of whalebone? I suppose I must have grinned.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Me, picturing myself making a wedding dress,” I said hastily. “I must go, Daniel. Please give my fondest regards to your mother and tell her I hope to see her soon.”

He nodded and gave me a perfunctory peck on the cheek.

“Don’t be so grouchy when you can’t get your own way,” I said. “I would enjoy staying with your mother when the weather is like this and I’d even be prepared to learn how to sew and cook. There, I can’t say fairer than that, can I?”

“I suppose not.” He managed a smile.

“Now I have to get to work. I don’t want to be fired from my last case.”

“Oh, and Molly,” he said, grabbing my arm as I turned to go. “You read the postscript to my note, didn’t you? I don’t know what you thought you were doing at that theater against my express wishes, but I don’t want you going near it again. It was highly embarrassing to have one of my men report that a theater stage doorkeeper had described a certain Miss Molly Murphy as lurking about suspiciously and up to no good.”

He waited for me to say something. Wisely I stayed silent, so he continued. “Just exactly what made him suspicious of you?”

“Daniel, it’s a storm in a teacup,” I said. “I told you that Bess Houdini invited me to see the show from backstage. What is so strange about that?”

“And then when the second accident happened—to the Houdinis this time, you thought you’d come back and ask a few questions?”

“I may have asked one or two.” I gave a nonchalant shrug. “I was worried about poor Bess. So I actually went back to the theater to find out where she was staying so that I could go and see if she was fully recovered.”

“Hmmph,” Daniel said. “Go and see if she was fully recovered in your case means go and do some snooping, I suspect.”

“Not at all. It was an act of mercy.”

“There must have been something more than that to make the stage doorkeeper suspicious enough to report you to a policeman.”

“All right, if you really want to know, that old man was suspicious because he thought I was a newspaper reporter. He told me so. He thought I was trying to get a scoop on Houdini.” I returned the peck on the cheek. “I must run.”

Daniel sighed. “Why couldn’t I have chosen a young lady who played the piano and practiced embroidery?” he called after me.

“You could have done so, remember?” I called back. “At least I’m not boring.”

“That I don’t dispute,” he said, laughing as I disappeared down the stairs.





Sixteen


I arrived at the theater after the show had started.

“Good evening, Ted,” I said to the doorkeeper, giving him an innocent smile. “Mr. Houdini is expecting me. I’ll go on through, shall I?”

He scowled at me. “Yes, he told me you’d be turning up again like the proverbial bad penny. But let me give you a word of warning, girlie—if all this chumminess is in aid of getting a good story, you’ll be sorry. Guys like Harry Houdini—they don’t take well to being hoodwinked.”

“I can assure you that I’m not here to hoodwink anyone,” I said, “least of all Mr. Houdini. Why have you been so suspicious of me? Have other people been coming around, trying to bother the Houdinis? Other, less desirable sort of people, shall we say?”

His eyes narrowed and he squinted at me. “Less desirable than what? The usual riffraff we get around at the stage door? There’s been plenty wanting to get an exclusive interview with him, that’s for sure.”

“I meant anyone you suspected had come to threaten him—like that young man we saw the other night—the one you said must have come from front of house.”

“You know what’s wrong with you, don’t you,” he grunted. “You ask too many questions. It ain’t healthy. Curiosity killed the cat, remember that.”