The Last Illusion

“Why so long away?”


“The money,” she said. “They treat Harry like a king over there. He gets paid enormous sums to appear in the theaters and sometimes he is invited to perform for royalty and nobility too. The Tsar of Russia was so taken with him he wanted him to stay on as his adviser. And the Kaiser gave him a gold watch. We only came home this summer because Harry worries about his mother, and I hadn’t been well and was homesick. But we’re booked to sail back to Europe in a couple of weeks from now.”

We paused to let a horse-drawn jitney cross in front of us. The driver glared as if we were a menace. Little boys ran over to examine our contraption.

“What makes it go, mister?” one of them asked.

“Magic!” Daniel called as the coast cleared and we moved off.

“And I understand that last night wasn’t the first occasion that something unpleasant has happened to you during this visit?” Daniel continued.

“It wasn’t. In fact I’ve felt uneasy from the moment we landed here. That’s why”—she glanced back at me—“I should probably tell you that this lady in the backseat is not an entertainer at all. She’s a detective, hired by me.”

“Is she really?” Daniel said. “I suspected something of the kind.”

“You did? Why?” Bess asked.

“You only had to watch the way she walked across the stage to know she wasn’t a professional,” Daniel said.

I thought I saw a smirk. I wanted to hit him but kept my self-control.

“And why did you hire her, Mrs. Houdini?”

“Because I thought my husband’s life was in danger.”

“And you didn’t come to the police?”

“You don’t know Harry,” she said. “He’s a proud man. He thinks he’s invincible. Besides, he wouldn’t admit there was anything wrong.”

“But then I gather you yourself almost suffered a similar fate in that trunk a few nights ago,” Daniel continued. “Something went wrong and you were trapped in there?”

“That’s right.” Bess put a handkerchief up to her mouth. “I thought I was going to suffocate.”

“Did you have any suspicion at all about who might have done this?” Daniel asked. “You say your husband’s life was in danger, but this was you who nearly died, not your husband that time.”

“I know. I thought it was maybe to give Harry a warning.”

So she was a good liar when she needed to be. I resolved to have a private word about it later with Daniel, but I kept quiet for the moment.

“Who?” Daniel asked, more sharply now. “Who wanted to give your husband such a strong warning?”

“I’ve no idea. Honestly.” She shook her head so violently I thought her hat might come flying off in the breeze.

“Yet you said that you recognized the dead man last night. He came to your house, you said, and made threats?”

“They sounded like threats to me. He asked for Harry and when I said he wasn’t home he said that Harry would know who he was and to tell him that he’d be back.”

“And what did your husband say when you related this to him?”

“He said it was nothing to worry about. Just a spot of business.”

“And he gave you no indication of the man’s name or where he came from?”

“Nothing. As I told Miss Murphy, Harry was very close about business matters. He didn’t like to bother me with details.”

“I overheard a similar conversation at the theater,” I said, leaning forward between them as we skirted the park. “Tell me, Mrs. Houdini, did you ever meet a well-dressed young man with light blond hair and light eyes and a sort of haughty air to him?”

“I can’t say that anyone comes to mind,” she said.

“Well, I overheard your husband speaking with such a man. They said something about it being ‘serious stuff’ and the other man said, ‘You can’t be too careful’ and that your husband should ‘hurry up and hand it over.’ ”

“Interesting,” Daniel said. “Did you pick up any ideas about what ‘it’ was?”

“Not at all,” I said. “And when I asked Mr. Houdini about it he said that everything would be taken care of the next day—that would have been today. So it seems that he had something that someone else wanted, and what happened last night prevented him from delivering it.”

“Or he didn’t want to hand it over, killed the messenger who came to collect it, and quietly disappeared,” Daniel said.