The Last Illusion

“I hope that’s true,” she said. “In spite of all his bluster and swagger, he’s still easily impressed. He’s a simple, small-town boy at heart. A real rags-to-riches story. His dad was a rabbi, you know. He was born in Hungary and when they came over here, the family was real poor—almost starving.”


I thought I’d better make my escape before she told me that story in detail. “I really should be getting back,” I said. “There’s a cab waiting for me, and my intended will wonder where I’ve got to.”

She reached out a dainty, white hand this time. “Thank you again. You’ve been very kind.”

“Take care of yourself,” I said.

“Oh, I will. It’s not me I worry about. It’s Harry. I worry about him every single day.”

I went out, closing the door quietly behind me. I was also about to marry someone in a profession fraught with danger. Would I be worrying about Daniel every single day?





Two


I came back to the stage to find Daniel, Signor Scarpelli, and the theater manager in conversation. No sign of the box containing Lily, nor of Houdini.

“Molly, you’re still here.” Daniel looked up in surprise. “I thought the cab came for you ages ago.”

“I took Mrs. Houdini to her dressing room and she was in such a distressed state that I couldn’t leave her until she calmed down,” I said.

“Good of you, miss,” the theater manager said. “It was a most distressing sight. Awful. I’ve never seen a thing like it happen in my theaters and I’ve had fire-eaters, lion tamers, you name it.”

Daniel cleared his throat, obviously wanting to get down to business. “Now, Mr. Scarpelli—is that your correct name?”

“My stage name,” the man said. “In real life I’m Alfred Rosen.”

“And the girl’s name?”

“Lily Kaufman.”

“A relative of yours?”

Scarpelli looked almost coy. “No, just a professional associate.”

“I see.” Daniel nodded. “I’ll need the name and address of her next of kin. They’ll have to be notified.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather do it myself,” Scarpelli said. “I feel responsible. It’s only right that I should go and see them. Lily thought the world of her parents. Sent money home to them every month regular.”

“Very well, but I’ll still need their names and address for our records.”

“I can come down to your police station and bring you all that in the morning, if you don’t mind,” Scarpelli said. “I don’t know the address off the top of my head and I’m all at sixes and sevens at the moment. My heart still hasn’t stopped thumping. I still can’t believe it, if you want to know the truth. I keep thinking it’s a horrible nightmare and I’ll wake up any second.”

“You stated that someone must have tampered with your equipment,” Daniel said, showing no sign of sympathy. “Why are you so sure of that? Why couldn’t it simply be a malfunction of your trick?”

“Because the trick should have been foolproof,” Scarpelli said.

“Explain it to me.”

Scarpelli raised his hands in horror. “My dear sir. An illusionist never reveals his secrets to anybody.”

“As you wish,” Daniel said, “but you have to realize that the only evidence I have so far of a crime being committed is yourself wielding a saw and almost certainly killing a young woman. A most convenient way of dispatching someone you might have wanted dead.”

Scarpelli’s face flushed. “You think that I—Captain, I assure you that I was exceedingly fond of Lily. I would never have done anything to harm her.”

“So what makes you think anyone else would have wanted to harm her?”

Scarpelli paused, looked around, then lowered his voice. “There have been little things,” he said. “Small glitches in the act. Locks that wouldn’t open, props that mysteriously disappeared right before show-time. I put them down to Lily’s lack of organization. She was something of a scatterbrain, you know. But now I’m wondering if someone was trying to disrupt my act all along. It wasn’t someone who wished harm to Lily, it was someone who wished to destroy my reputation as an illusionist.”

“So tell me why I should believe the accident was not a mere malfunction of your equipment,” Daniel insisted. “Your secret will have to come out anyway in a court of law if you’re tried with negligence or even worse, homicide.”

Scarpelli glanced at first the theater manager then me. “They are not to know,” he said.

“Molly, I think it’s about time you went home,” Daniel said. “The cab has been waiting for hours and you’ve no place in a police inquiry.”

As if on cue several more policemen burst in through the front doors.

“Up here, men,” Daniel called. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Off you go, then,” he said.

I had no choice but to leave just when things were getting interesting.