The Last Illusion

“I don’t know. Someone helped me carry it onstage and we just put it down. I didn’t think it mattered that much where it was.”


“It doesn’t, but . . .” she stopped, then knelt beside the trunk. “Can I touch it?” she asked.

“Go ahead. We’ve already extracted fingerprints from it.”

She examined it briefly. “I thought something was wrong,” she said. “This isn’t our trunk.”





Twenty-two


Daniel squatted beside her.

“Are you sure?”

She looked up and nodded. “Quite sure. I already explained to Molly how we manage to pull off the switch so quickly. The back of the trunk is only held together with two screws that come out real easy, and then it swings open. This one is solid, see?” She banged on it. “Apart from that it’s an excellent copy, from what I can see.”

Daniel continued to stare at the trunk. “So someone knew exactly what your trunk looked like and had a copy made. How easy would it have been to get a good, close-up look at the trunk?”

“Well, you’d only have to come to the show for a couple of nights to get a good look, wouldn’t you?” she said. “And during our act it’s right there, in the wings, until it’s needed, so anybody backstage could get a good look at it then.”

“So that’s why the keys didn’t work!” I exclaimed.

They looked up at me. “When the trunk wouldn’t open I found the keys in Houdini’s pocket, but neither of them worked. Because it was a different trunk.”

“Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to pull this off,” Daniel said, staring down at the empty trunk. There was no sign of bloodstains and it was hard to imagine that a body had lain in it not too long ago. “In New York there are plenty of dark alleys and hired killers if you just want to get rid of someone. And the body turns up floating down the Hudson a few days later. This person wanted to do more than kill someone. But what?”

“I can think of several answers to that,” I said. “Either he wanted to publicly humiliate Houdini, at the same time as paying him back, or he wanted to send a strong message to the entire band of illusionists. Or—” I paused, collecting my thoughts. “He just wanted to show how clever he was.”

“Or none of the above,” Daniel said. “There is a fourth scenario. Houdini himself finding a clever way to get rid of an annoyance.”

“No!” Bess said again. “You’ve seen how Harry deals with his rivals. He challenges them. And he always wins. He’s an honorable man, Captain Sullivan, not a dirty trickster who stabs in the dark.”

“Let’s hope you’re right, Mrs. Houdini, for your sake as well as mine,” Daniel said. “Now, I’d like you to show us your dressing room, where your props were kept—anything that might help us uncover where and how the trunks might have been switched. Are you up to that?”

“I’ll try,” she said, “but Molly could show you those things.”

“I want your perspective on this. You were the only one who could tell us that the trunks had been switched, after all. So let’s start right before your act. You stand in the wings where?”

Bess led him through the curtains and indicated the spot.

“And who else would be standing nearby?”

“Stagehands. The theater manager.”

“We’re having our men check into their backgrounds,” Daniel said, “but I don’t see that any of them could have the skill to pull this off.”

“Besides,” I said, “we’d have noticed a second trunk. I was in Bess’s place last night, remember? I helped carry the trunk onto the stage.”

“How heavy was it?”

“Not too heavy. Certainly not heavy enough to have a body in it.”

Daniel poked around a bit. “There’s not much room back here. Nowhere to hide that second trunk, apart from among these curtains. Then the passage to the manager’s office goes off and the stairs to all the dressing rooms, is that correct?”

“That’s right,” Bess said. “And over to your left is the way to the stage door, and around on the left side of the stage is the stage manager’s office and the props room.”

“But you didn’t keep your props in that room?”

“None of the illusionists do. They all have their own crate or some way of keeping their props locked up. Illusionists are always worried that a rival will see something and steal their act.”

“But we know your husband was a whiz at opening locks. Presumably there are other illusionists who are equally skilled?”

“Not as good as Harry, but sure, there are men who have tried to call themselves the handcuff king. Cheek, if you ask me. But none of them was working here.”