The Last Illusion

Daniel sighed. “That’s just it. Any outsider would have been noticed. There’s just not that much room backstage and nowhere to hide, and stagehands all over the place. Now you’d better show me the way up to your dressing room. I went over it last night, but again you might notice something that we haven’t.”


Bess led the way up the stairs, looked around her dressing room, and shook her head. “It’s all just the way it was. There’s my costume and there are Harry’s street clothes, waiting for him to change back into . . .” She burst into tears again.

Daniel glanced over her head at me. “I’ll have one of my constables escort you home, Mrs. Houdini. You’re clearly not up to anything more here today. But I would ask you to do one thing for me when you feel a little better. Remember I asked you to write down everything you have done since you came back to America—every person you’ve seen, every person who has spoken to your husband. I’d also like a list of any illusionist you can think of who was at odds with your husband. Those famous challenges. Anybody who might have considered himself your husband’s rival.”

“He has scrapbooks,” I said. “From what I could see, he has all of these challenges pretty well documented.”

“Then we’ll compare the scrapbooks to Mrs. Houdini’s own recollections,” Daniel said. “Maybe something will emerge. Maybe there’s one name that he left out.”

Bess nodded. “All right. I’ll try and remember everything.”

Daniel helped her back down the stairs and gave instructions to one of the constables.

“Are you coming with me, Molly?” she asked.

I looked at Daniel.

“I’d like to keep this young woman a little longer,” he said. “I have some more questions for her. Your husband’s mother is with you, is she not? And his brother?”

“His brother has gone back to Atlantic City. He left early this morning,” I said, and a quick look passed between us.

“He has another brother who is a doctor, doesn’t he?” Daniel said. “Maybe he can be summoned to attend to you.”

That’s odd, I thought. When Bess almost died, why did Houdini take her to a private clinic instead of summoning his brother, who was a doctor?

As she made her way down the theater aisle she turned back to us. “You will let me know the minute you have any news, won’t you?”

“I will, and the same goes for you, Mrs. Houdini. If your husband tries to contact you, please let us know.”

With that she pushed open the doors and was for a moment a black silhouette against the fierce sunlight outside.

“So what do you think?” Daniel asked me as soon as we were alone. “Did he do it?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said.

“But I saw your reaction when you told me that the brother had left for Atlantic City.”

I nodded. “Yes, it just struck me as being too conve nient that he had to go out of town before the police could talk to him. Maybe this is family business, Daniel. They’re a very close-knit family. Houdini worships his mother. He pampers a neurotic wife, calls her ‘babykins’ and ‘poopsie’ and other such ridiculous nicknames.”

“I gather you won’t want to be called such things when we’re married,” Daniel said.

I gave him a withering stare.

“Go on,” he said. “So what are you suggesting?”

“The brother who just did a bunk—he was Houdini’s younger brother. He’d been part of the act until Bess came along. Some resentment there at his brother’s success, maybe? He seems a nice enough fellow. They look very similar, although Dash is bigger.”

“Dash?”

“That’s his nickname. His real name is Theodore, I believe, but the family calls him Dash and he’s known professionally as Hardeen.”

Daniel gave me a knowing look. “Somewhat similar to Houdini, wouldn’t you say? Cashing in on big brother.”

“Or wanting to be like big brother.”

“And he’s another illusionist. Does the same kind of tricks,” Daniel said thoughtfully.

“And he’s close enough to his brother in appearance that nobody would look twice if he were prowling around backstage,” I went on.

“And he was in the theater last night, wasn’t he? In the stage box. It would have been easy enough to slip out and back again without Bess even noticing that he’d gone.”

“Do you think he planned this to kill or harm his brother, or do you think he planned this whole thing with his brother, to get rid of a person they found to be a nuisance?”

“I hadn’t considered that before,” I said, “but who would the dead man be? Someone who was somehow disrupting the family?”

Daniel put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes alight. “What if he was bothering Bess Houdini—an old suitor maybe? Someone Harry didn’t want hanging around her.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t recognize him immediately.”

“Maybe she didn’t look at him too closely. Women are squeamish about looking at dead bodies—apart from you, of course, who seem to possess no delicate sensibilities of your sex.”