Harry Houdini Mysteries Read online

  “That is clearly the impression that Lieutenant Murray has formed,” I said.

  Bess nodded in agreement. “It would seem the logical conclusion, but it doesn’t explain how one of you could have broken away from the circle without alerting the others. Wasn’t Mr. Grange sitting next to Lucius Craig?”

  “He was,” Harry confirmed. “He was sitting to the left of Mr. Craig.”

  “And who was sitting on Mr. Grange’s left?”

  I looked up from buttering a piece of brown toast. “I was.”

  Bess favored me with a winning smile. “It begins to look quite bad for you, Dash. Did you kill Edgar Grange?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “No,” she agreed. “You don’t seem the murderous type. And we must rule out Mr. Craig, because Harry had tied him to his own chair.”

  “The man couldn’t have moved an inch in any direction,” Harry said proudly.

  “So where does that leave us?” Bess took a sip of tea. “Dash didn’t kill Mr. Grange. Lucius Craig didn’t kill Mr. Grange. None of the others could have killed Mr. Grange without breaking the circle. Therefore, the killer must have been hidden elsewhere in the room.”

  “I’m not quite so sure,” I said. “There was a great deal of confusion when that figure appeared in the room—whatever it was. Lieutenant Murray asked last night if it might have been possible for one of the guests to take advantage of the chaos to break away from the circle. After all, Harry and I did so. We went after the ghost the instant we spotted it.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t know that was going to happen in advance. No one could have, except possibly—”

  “Lucius Craig,” Harry said.

  “Exactly,” she agreed.

  “And he was tied to the chair.” Harry gripped the arms of his own chair for emphasis. “He couldn’t move.”

  Bess smiled at him over the rim of her tea cup. “Which is why I think there must have been someone else hidden in the room.”

  “My exact thought!” Harry cried. “And it seemed to me that the séance table was the most logical place of concealment. Kenneth told us the other night that Craig had ordered it made to his own standards. It seemed perfectly logical to me that there should be a secret compartment hidden in the base.”

  “I don’t know about that, Harry,” I said. “It would have to have been an awfully small person to fit in there.”

  “Lila Craig,” Harry said. “She’s nothing more than a slip of a girl. And didn’t Sterling Foster give us the impression that there was more to her than meets the eye?”

  “He did,” I agreed, “and then he slipped to the floor in a drunken stupor. I’m not sure how much weight I would lend to anything that Sterling Foster says.”

  “Even so, Lila Craig is the daughter of the medium, which certainly gives us reason to be suspicious of her. And we do not know for certain where she was at the time that the ghost made its appearance.”

  “Harry’s right,” said Bess. “It only makes sense that Lucius Craig works with an accomplice, and his daughter would have to be the most logical choice. She appears to be above suspicion because she wasn’t in the room at the time. But what if they devised some means of hiding her in the room before the séance began? Perhaps she wasn’t hidden in the base of the table, as Harry supposed, but there must have been other places in the room where she might have hidden. What about under the desk?”

  Harry appeared to be taking enormous gratification from the fact that Bess was supporting his theories. He gave me a happy grin, much as he did after his inevitable victories in our boyhood wrestling matches. “Yes, Dash, what about that? Maybe she was hidden under the desk! Or perhaps behind a hidden panel concealed in one of the bookcases! Wouldn’t that be something? Perhaps there is a secret corridor leading to the murderer’s lair!”

  Bess reached over and patted his hand. “I’m not sure I would go quite that far, Harry.”

  I pondered the matter. “You’re saying that Lila Craig could have been hidden somewhere in the room while the rest of us took our places at the séance table. At the critical moment, after the lights went down, she emerged from her place of concealment wearing some sort of glowing sheet. Is that it?”

  “Yes!” Harry cried. “Exactly!”

  “What is it, Dash?” Bess asked, noting my apparent skepticism. “Have you some other explanation?”

  “No,” I said. “I most certainly do not. If this had been an ordinary séance, I would have no trouble accepting the idea that Lila Craig had been responsible for whatever floating trumpets and chalk slate messages we might have seen. But this was no ordinary séance. A man was murdered. Do you really mean to suggest that a girl of thirteen stabbed Edgar Grange to death?”

  Harry frowned and looked over at Bess.

  “Dash,” she said, “you have always been too chivalrous for your own good. Do you really mean to say that no mere girl could have done such a thing?”

  I held up my hands in resignation, having learned long ago not to argue with my sister-in-law on the subject of what a woman might or might not do. Bess firmly believed that there were few things that a man could do that a woman could not do just as well. Apparently her views were broad enough to encompass murder.

  “I would not think of contradicting you,” I said. “I would just like to know more about the matter before I accuse Lila Craig of Mr. Grange’s murder. I would like to know more about Lucius Craig, first of all. We know very little about his background. If I knew more, perhaps I could suggest a motive. The same goes for the others—Dr. Wells, Kenneth, Sterling Foster, Brunson—”

  “But Sterling Foster wasn’t even in the room at the time!” Harry cried.

  “Neither was Lila Craig, so far as we know,” I said. “As for Brunson, he had no way of knowing that he would be asked to fill the empty chair at the table, but I’d still like to know more about him. We have a few hours before we have to appear at the Clairmont house. I’m going to call in on Biggs at the Herald and see if he’s found anything else in the files.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Bess. “Harry, you should go down to Huber’s and tell Albert that you won’t be able to cover your slot today. As for me, I’d better be getting over to Ravelsen’s.” She looked at Harry, steeling herself for the torrent of objections that usually accompanied any mention of her work in the chorus line.

  Instead, Harry simply stared into his tea cup. “Yes, dear,” he said.

  “Harry? Are you all right?”

  He gave no sign of having heard.

  Bess looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Harry,” she said. “I have signed a long-term, binding contract with Ravelsen’s. What do you think?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “We shall be touring throughout Europe and the Far East. I shall not return for five years. Does that sound acceptable to you?”

  He stirred his tea.

  “The touring manager has asked me to share accommodations with him, as a matter of economy. I’m certain it will be all right. What do you think?”

  Harry was studying the back of his hand as though it might hold the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. Bess reached across and tapped him on the shoulder. “Harry. What are you thinking?”

  He looked up and blinked rapidly, as if emerging from a pool of water. “Dash,” he said, “did you get a good look at it last night? That—that phantom?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “Nor did I. It was very dark, of course, and everything happened so quickly. But I can’t escape the feeling that—I can’t quite shake the impression that—”

  “What?” Bess asked.

  He covered her hands with his. “You will think I am talking nonsense, but there was something about that apparition that defies explanation. I am not a fanciful man, Bess. I am not given to wild flights of imagination. But there was something about that figure that rattled me.” He looked from her to me and back again. “I know how a spook show works. Dash and I still ha
ve our costumes from the old Graveyard Ghouls act. Black cloth with the white bones and skulls painted on the front. All we had to do was dance about in front of a black screen, and the audience was prepared to swear that a pair of skeletons had returned from the grave. Is it so much to suppose that Lucius Craig and his daughter have worked out something along those lines? It seems the only logical explanation, and yet—” He shook his head.

  “I know what you’re trying to say, Harry,” I said. “I know a fair bit about stagecraft, but I can’t think how anyone could have produced a ghost like that one. For one thing, it seemed to be floating. For another, you could almost—you could—”

  “See through it,” Harry said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “You could see through it.”

  Bess fixed us both with an incredulous expression. “You’re imagining things,” she said. “You’ve been taken in by a master deceiver.”

  I looked at Harry, who did not appear convinced.

  “I’m supposed to be the master deceiver,” he said.

  “Dash!” cried Biggs, glancing up from his compositor’s desk at the Herald. “I turn my back on you for just one moment, and you land in the middle of a murder drama! I really shouldn’t leave you unsupervised!” He climbed down from his stool as I tossed my trilby onto the battered stand in the corner. “How is Mrs. Clairmont bearing up?” he asked. “This must have been a terrible shock.”

  “Dr. Wells had given her a sleeping draught when we left last night. He was doing everything possible to protect her from the more troubling details.”

  “Then he will have to be certain that she doesn’t see a copy of this morning’s World,” Biggs said. “I’m afraid the story made quite an impression, though I can’t understand how they got it into print before we did.” He passed a folded newspaper to me.

  “‘A Sanguinary Spirit,’” I read, scanning the headline. “‘Gramercy Park Séance Results in Murder.’” I glanced up. “That’s quite a headline,” I said.

  “I recognize the style. Sounds like the work of Ben Michaels. He’s always been a bit florid. Skip to the third paragraph.”

  “‘The police investigation, under the diligent supervision of Lieutenant Patrick Murray, has not yet identified any suspects in the brutal slaying. A source close to the investigation was heard to remark that Lucius Craig, the noted spirit medium, was assisting the official force in their inquiries. “Mr. Lucius Craig is an expert in all things pertaining to the unusual and the arcane,” said an observer of the case. “He will surely be able to help the investigators navigate these most unusual circumstances.’” I tossed the paper aside in disgust. “And who might this observer be, do you suppose?”

  “Lucius Craig himself, obviously,” Biggs replied. “The man is seeking to burnish his reputation with the sensational details of this tragedy. He must have phoned Michaels in the middle of the night.”

  “And if the police should prove unable to solve the case—?”

  “Then there are those who will be willing to believe that the spirit of Jasper Clairmont was responsible.”

  “And Lucius Craig will be remembered as the man who conjured up the so-called sanguinary spirit. This will only make him more notorious and therefore more sought after by the gullible likes of Mrs. Clairmont. Either way, Craig gamers a great deal of the notoriety upon which he thrives. Biggs, I came here this morning because I was hoping that you might—”

  Biggs cut me off with a wave of his pen. “I know, Dash, you want to go through the morgue and see what you can dig up on each of the guests at the séance. I’ve already done the preliminary work. Come along.” He led me through a warren of offices to a dim basement chamber arrayed with row upon row of dusty wooden filing cabinets.

  “Here,” Biggs said, pointing to a manuscript table at the center of the room. “I’ve already pulled out the relevant packets.”

  “Did you find anything of interest?” I asked.

  “I’ve only just glanced through them,” he admitted. “You may find something that wasn’t apparent to me, but it all looks fairly innocent. The dead man appears to have had an uneventful career as a partner in the firm of Larwood and Grange, having begun his professional climb as a junior clerk at Tammany Hall. His wife passed away nearly six years ago, and in the intervening years he seems to have lived quietly. One occasionally finds him mentioned among the first-nighters at various opera functions, but otherwise he’s kept to himself.”

  “What about Dr. Wells?”

  Biggs nudged a fat packet over to me. “An interesting character—I thought so when I met him the other night. Richardson Wells comes from a well-heeled family in Boston, but upon completing his medical degree he packed himself of to the West. First Colorado and then California, where he spent most of his career.”

  “Any idea why he left Boston?”

  “There seems to have been some sort of family scandal over a broken engagement. I haven’t been able to obtain the details. In any event, he has only recently returned to society.”

  “How recently?”

  “Four or five years ago. He and Jasper Clairmont became friendly at the Union League Club.” He looked over the edge of the file at me, as if reading my thoughts. “No, Augusta Clairmont wasn’t the one who broke his heart all those years ago, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “He seems rather fond of her now.”

  “Perhaps, but Wells is no money-grubber. He may have turned his back on the family fortune, but he made one of his own in California. Seems he made some wise investments in two or three of the better mining concerns.”

  “So he has no need of the Clairmont millions?”

  “One can always use a few more millions, I suppose, but Wells does not give the impression of having a great concern for money.”

  “Still,” I said, “the other night Kenneth led us to believe that both Dr. Wells and Mr. Grange were showing a social interest in Mrs. Clairmont. Isn’t it possible that—”

  “A love triangle, Dash? Is that what you’re suggesting? That Wells and Grange were rivals for the hand of the Widow Clairmont and that one of them decided to eliminate the other?”

  “Is it really so outlandish, Biggs?”

  He rubbed at the corner of one eye as he considered the matter. “No,” he said slowly, “I suppose not, but I’m having trouble believing such a thing of Dr. Wells. He doesn’t seem capable of murder.”

  “I would tend to agree, but I’m trying to examine all of the possibilities. What about the brother-in-law?”

  “Sterling Foster? He wasn’t even in the room at the time of the murder.” He looked at me closely. “Was he?”

  I shrugged. “If we set aside the ‘sanguinary spirit’ theory, as I am compelled to do, then Grange was murdered either by someone at the table or by an unseen intruder. Suppose Foster had been able to find a way into the room. What sort of motive might he have had?”

  “None, I should think. I’d have thought it far more likely that Foster would be murdered himself.”

  “How’s that?”

  Biggs opened another file. “Mr. Foster has not made a great success of himself, as you may have gathered last night. He began with good prospects, took an engineering degree at Heidelberg, came home and settled into a civil post. But he soon fell into bad habits. He spends and drinks freely and for years has relied entirely on the largess of his brother-in-law. At one stage Mr. Clairmont tried to find a suitable place for him in the shipping firm, but Foster showed no great aptitude for it. He turned latterly to the stock exchange and lost a considerable fortune—not all of it his own—in a reckless speculation last year. Now he seems to fill his days lounging about his sister’s place.”

  Biggs pushed the file across the table to me, and I glanced through it. “He doesn’t live at the Clairmont house, surely.”

  “He keeps a bachelor flat directly across Gramercy Park, so as to be within staggering distance of his sister’s dinner table. Now that Mrs. Clairmont has come int
o her late husband’s fortune, Foster has been doing his best to get a share. He’s trying to get himself appointed in some sort of advisory capacity to oversee the handling of the estate.”

  “That explains why he was in such heated conversation with Edgar Grange last night. The two of them appeared to be arguing over something when Harry and I arrived.”

  “No doubt Foster was trying to pry another fat check out of the estate. I saw much the same display. I understand most of the money is still tied up, and a good deal of it will pass straight to Kenneth—on the condition that he enters the family firm.”

  “The family firm,” I repeated, fingering the ragged edge of a yellowed clipping. “Biggs, when we met Kenneth the other night, you seemed greatly surprised that he appeared willing to give up his medical aspirations.”

  “I’ve known Kenneth for some time, Dash, and he has always been determined to become a surgeon. He has a talent in that direction and his instructors saw great promise in him. But he’s the only son and heir apparent to the Clairmont shipping empire, and his father simply wouldn’t hear of him entering another profession, no matter how honorable.”

  “Harry and I have chosen a rather different path from the one our father envisioned for us. Surely Kenneth might have defied his father.”

  “If Mr. Clairmont had lived, I have little doubt that Kenneth would have stuck to his guns. You heard him the other night, though. He doesn’t feel he can turn his back now that his father is dead. He considers it his duty to look after his mother.”

  I recalled that my father had extracted a deathbed promise from Harry and me to look after our mother. Even in our hardest times, we always managed to send home a small portion of whatever meager earnings we had.

  “Biggs, is there some manner in which the death of Edgar Grange releases Kenneth from his obligation to enter the family firm?”

  My friend’s head snapped up. “That’s a rather devious thought, Dash. Are you suggesting that Kenneth murdered Edgar Grange so that he might pursue a career in medicine? It seems a rather inauspicious start to a life of healing, wouldn’t you say?”