The Last Illusion Read online

  While he was performing to polite applause I turned to see the sword swallower warming up only a few feet from me. He was a big, brawny fellow, naked to the waist, with a fine muscled physique. Definitely handsome in an exotic, Middle Eastern kind of way. He was busy counting and adjusting his own table of props, but he must have sensed me looking at him and glanced up to meet my gaze. He gave me a wink and a roguish smile, then went back to his work. So my presence didn’t seem to alarm or worry him, which it might have done if he had been sent from a Coney Island gang boss to do mischief. But then the mischief had been done, hadn’t it? The warning had been given. If we were indeed dealing with gangs and protection money, then they wouldn’t want Houdini dead—that way he could never pay them what he owed. Unless he had refused to pay, of course.

  Billy Robinson finished and the sword swallower went on. Houdini came to stand beside me as fire was swallowed, then blown out, and swords were swallowed.

  “When I go on, watch carefully,” he said. I thought he meant that I should keep an eye on him in case he was in danger, but he added, “Take note of where everything goes onstage,” he whispered. “It will be your job to make sure it’s all in place.”

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, straight from the royal courts of Europe, I bring you a man—nay, a superhuman—whose feats defy the imagination!” the announcer roared. “Who defies death every time he steps onstage, as we witnessed last night when his lovely wife almost came to a tragic end. I give you the one, the only, the King of Handcuffs, Houdini!”

  Houdini stepped out to receive the adulation of the crowd. He held up his hands. “I must apologize that my wife is not with me tonight. As you know, something went horribly wrong the other night and my poor Bess nearly died of suffocation. She is luckily well on her way to recovery but won’t be well enough to perform with me for a while. So tonight we’ll begin with the handcuff challenge. Who has come to try and win the hundred-dollar prize?”

  Three men came up onstage. Harry looked at their handcuffs and nodded. “I tell you what,” he said, “to make things a little more interesting, let’s put all three pairs on at once.”

  The three men complied. Houdini turned his back on the audience. We could see his shoulders moving as he worked himself free. A minute went by. Five minutes. I was beginning to feel alarmed. Surely it shouldn’t take this long? I could feel the tension in the audience mounting. Then suddenly he spun around, holding up three pairs of handcuffs and laughing delightedly.

  Then he called up more men from the audience, had them handcuff him, put leg irons on him, and place him in the bag, inside the trunk. He instructed the men to latch the trunk, then hold up a velvet curtain in front of it. A hush fell on the audience. I have to say that I was holding my own breath. I wondered who might have the key tonight, should he not be able to get it open. But after less than a minute one of the men holding the curtain was tapped on the shoulder, and there was Houdini standing behind him. The curtain was whisked aside to reveal the trunk, still firmly latched. Houdini then opened it with great flourish to reveal it was empty. The crowd went wild. I’d been sitting a few feet away and I hadn’t seen how he’d escaped from the trunk. I began to believe that he might be superhuman after all.

  “More! More!” The word echoed through the crowd. I could see that the act, though astonishing, was now too short. As the men made their way down from the stage Houdini held up his hand and approached the audience.

  “You give me no choice but to perform something I find painful and dangerous,” he said, “but will demonstrate the ultimate limits of my power. This time I invite ten men to come up onstage.”

  There was a buzz through the audience. Those who had seen Houdini before could not think what this illusion was going to be. The men ran eagerly up the steps. Houdini wheeled forward a trolley and whisked the cloth from a small tray.

  “On this tray, gentlemen,” he said, slowly and deliberately because the audience couldn’t actually see, “you will see ten common, ordinary sewing needles. I’d like you to test them to see that there is nothing strange about them and that they are indeed sharp.”

  Needles were tested.

  “Now,” Houdini continued, “I would like you each to take one of the needles and pierce my face with it—anywhere but my eyes.”

  A gasp came from the audience. The men hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” Houdini said. “Try my cheek first.”

  One by one the needles pierced his cheeks. It was horrible to watch, but strangely enough, he did not appear to be bleeding.

  Then he removed the needles and, one by one, he put them into his mouth and ate them. I could actually hear them being crunched. Then he had the men examine his mouth to make sure he had swallowed them all.

  “Needles are no use without thread,” he said and promptly swallowed a length of sewing thread. A hush fell over the audience. Houdini nodded to the orchestra pit. A drumroll began. He put his hand to his mouth, gagged and acted as if he was about to vomit. The men stepped hastily away from him. Then he reached into his mouth and started to pull out a piece of thread. Out it came, longer and longer, and the audience gasped as all ten of the needles were threaded on it. At last he held up the thread triumphantly, the needles glistening in the stage lights.

  The applause was thunderous. Even the men onstage applauded. The curtain came down, then Houdini went through the center opening to take several more bows. He came back, looking flushed and triumphant.

  “You see what the job of the illusionist is, don’t you, Molly?” he said. “Always keep them surprised and guessing. The audience never has to know what is coming next.”

  “Those needles,” I said, staring at his face, because it showed no signs of having been pierced, “don’t they hurt? How do you make sure they don’t get stuck in your throat?”

  He laughed. “My dear, you should know by now: an illusionist never gives away his secrets. But I’ll tell you one thing—that’s a trick I wouldn’t want on the bill every night. I had to do it tonight because I guessed they’d want more than I had to offer. Tomorrow let’s hope that we can soften them up with the mind reading first.”

  And so I went home, having agreed to meet him at the theater at eleven o’clock the next morning.

  I woke early, my stomach in a knot about what I had ahead of me. I was ready and raring to go by eight, and I wanted to pay a call on Daniel the dressmaker, but I knew better than to disturb theater folk before ten. I made myself walk slowly in his direction and on the stroke of ten I knocked on his door.

  “Just call me a miracle worker, but I think I’ve come up with a solution to our problems,” he said, opening the door to admit me into his cluttered room. “Rather stylish, if I say so myself.”

  He handed me the garment that had been lying beside his sewing machine. I looked for somewhere to retire when he asked me to try on the garment but he laughed. “I can tell you haven’t been in the theater, my darling. We don’t worry about such things. Besides, I’ve seen it all before and you are in no danger from me.”

  So feeling rather foolish, I removed my dress and allowed him to help me into the costume. It really was rather lovely: white satin bloomers, a frilly white jabot at the neck, and over it a bright green cape, lined with sparkling gold.

  “We show off your legs, which are your only good feature, apart from the hair, which is rather striking, I have to admit,” he said. “And we draw attention away from the waist, or lack thereof, by the frills at the neck and the flowing cape.”

  “It’s lovely,” I said, because I could tell this was expected and the reflection in his mirror was quite pleasing. “Could it possibly be ready for tonight?”

  He rolled his eyes again and gave a dramatic sigh. “I told you I was a miracle worker, didn’t I? I suppose if I work slavishly all day . . .”

  So I left him with at least one thing in place. Now all I had to do was become the person who was to wear that costume. I arrived at the theater to find Houdini pac
ing impatiently.

  “There you are at last,” he said. “Right, let’s get down to it. Lots to learn and no room for error. You think you can do this?”

  “We’ll know by the end of the day, won’t we?” I said. “But I’ll give it a good try. If not, I can always watch you from the wings, if that’s what Bess wants.”

  He paused, considering this. “The act goes better with a second person,” he said. “You saw last night. They weren’t satisfied with just the escapes.” He clapped his hands and started barking orders.

  My goodness, how we worked that day. I’ve never been afraid of hard work in my life. After all, I had to run a household and look after my father and three brothers after my mother died and that was no easy task. I worked in a sweatshop for twelve hours a day once when I was on a case. But I don’t think I’ve ever had to work as hard as that day with Houdini. He was a perfectionist himself and demanded perfection.

  “Again,” he would say, clapping his hands as if I were a performing animal. “No, never turn your back on the audience. Wrong hand. This way. Now, cross the stage. No, not like that. And don’t stick out your behind when you wheel in the cabinet.”

  Over and over it we went until I was so tired that I felt close to tears. He only released me just before six o’clock to take a cab to pick up my costume.

  “What about makeup?” I asked.

  “You can use Bess’s tonight.”

  So there I was, dressed in my new costume, my face made up, my hair piled up with an egret’s feather ornament in it, and feeling absolutely terrified. I was about to go out there, in front of all those people, with one of the most famous entertainers in the world.

  “Don’t let me down,” he said, as we made our way down to the stage.

  It was interesting to watch the reaction of the other theater folk. Old Ted had only frowned when I had arrived in the morning to rehearse. But when I came back for the performance he said, “So that was what this was all about—trying to wangle yourself into a job? At least I suppose it’s better than what some young ladies will do to be cast in the theater.”

  “I’m only helping out because Bess Houdini isn’t well enough to go on,” I said. “Let’s just say I was in the right place at the right time.”

  “If that’s what you say,” he said, clearly not quite believing me.

  The stagehands had reacted with astonishment and amusement when they saw me rehearsing. And after they had gotten over their surprise at seeing an intruder turned into part of the show, I provided good entertainment for them as I stumbled my way through learning the physical positioning of the act. And Mr. Irving, the theater manager, had come stomping onto the stage as we were in midrehearsal.

  “What’s this I hear about some new girl?” he demanded. “What is this?”

  He frowned as he stared at me. “You’ve been hanging around for a few days.”

  “That’s because I’m Bess Houdini’s friend,” I said. “She invited me to the show, and then she begged me to take her place when she wasn’t well enough to go on and she knew that Houdini needed an assistant.”

  “So you’ve done this before?” Mr. Irving snapped. “I run a top-class house here. I’ve no time for amateurs.”

  “Do you think I’d permit an amateur to work with me?” Houdini stepped between us with the kind of flourish only he could produce. “If she hadn’t been up to par, there is no way I would have considered having her onstage with me. You’ll see. She’ll be all right on the night.”

  “She better be,” Irving muttered, “or you might find that you’ve just broken the terms of your contract.”

  So now I had the added worry of not disgracing Houdini so that he actually got paid for the performance. I didn’t have a chance to see the other performers before I went onstage as I was up in the dressing room, thinking that I was about to be sick. Why did I put myself through these things? Then I remembered that I had promised Daniel this would be my last case. At that particular moment I thought this was the best idea in the world.

  We made our way downstairs to the backstage area. A thought struck me.

  “Where is the key to the trunk?”

  “In my jacket pocket,” he said.

  “A lot of good it will be in there, if you’re trapped inside,” I said.

  “In case you haven’t been watching properly, I hang up my jacket before they truss me up and put me in the bag,” he said. “So the key will be hanging from the coatrack. But it won’t be necessary. I have yet to find anything that can hold me.”

  At that moment I heard the announcer’s voice, booming out in dramatic tones, “And let’s put our hands together in a rousing welcome for the lovely Molly, who has graciously agreed to take the place of Bess Houdini until she is well again.”

  “You’re on.” Houdini gave me a shove. And I stepped out onstage, my heart racing and my eyes blinking in the strong lights. I hadn’t realized how bright they would be. Out in the darkened auditorium I could just make out that sea of faces watching me and tried to make my body act like a glamorous magician’s assistant as the announcer whipped up the crowd into a frenzy for the appearance of Houdini.

  I was vaguely aware of Houdini speaking to the audience, saying that the Irish were noted for their second sight, and how he was lucky enough to have stumbled across a true Irish medium with remarkable powers of mind reading. I managed to walk across the stage and to sit in the chair that had been placed in the center. With that he made his way down into the audience and asked someone to pick a card, study it, and then place it in a box.

  “All right, Molly,” he said. “You are going to tell this nice lady what card she has put into this little black box.”

  Oh, Holy Mother. Did I really see him wiggle his eyebrows up and down? And he touched the woman’s right shoulder, didn’t he?

  “Molly?” he repeated. “What card comes to your mind?”

  I opened my mouth but no sound would come out. “The five of hearts?” It was scarcely bigger than a whisper.

  “Louder!” he boomed. “Let those in the back row of the balcony hear it too.”

  “The five of hearts!” I exclaimed.

  He handed the box to another audience member. “Would you see what card is in this box?” he asked.

  “The box is empty,” the man replied.

  “That’s strange,” Houdini said. “Where can the card have gone?”

  He ran back onstage and made me stand up. I was sitting on the five of hearts. Vaguely I was aware of the applause.

  Then we went into the part with the hood over my head. He made it easy for me, with the most obvious of clues that we had practiced. I guessed successfully a fan and a pocket watch. The rest of the act went without a hitch, although I’m sure I didn’t move across the stage with the glamorous grace of Lily. But Houdini successfully escaped from the handcuffs and from the trunk and there I was, standing in front of the curtains, taking a bow.

  “Well done,” Houdini said, putting his hand around my waist as we came offstage. Such a gesture would have resulted in a slapped face in the outside world, but this was the theater, after all. But I did recall Bess’s jealous outburst and moved aside with agility.

  “We got through it, didn’t we?” I agreed.

  “In one piece,” he added. He was half joking but I moved closer to him again.

  “Tell me, Harry, do you really suspect that someone is trying to kill you, as Bess thinks?”

  He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Until yesterday I would have said no. Bess does tend to—well, you’ve seen what she can be like. But I’d like to know what happened to the key to that trunk. The key was in the inside pocket to my coat. Who would have known about that?”

  “Bess said that strange men have been coming to your house,” I ventured, taking this further. “Making what sounded like threats. And at the theater one night I overheard you talking to a young man—well dressed, light hair. Clearly didn’t belong in the theater and the doorman ha
d no idea how he got in.”

  “Oh, that.” He stopped abruptly, then he shook his head. “That was something quite different altogether.”

  I decided to take the risk. “It sounded to me as if he might have been delivering a threat from his boss.”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “I want to meet with his boss. I had hoped to do so by now but there has been no time. I can’t think why—” Then he gave me an exaggerated smile, took my hand, and patted it.

  “So let’s assume that all will be well. Only one more night here, then new theater, new show, new people.”

  Seventeen

  I woke on Sunday to a lovely morning—not too hot, blue sky, exactly the right sort of day to spend in the country or on the seashore. That thought prompted another one. Coney Island. As a detective, did it behoove me to take a trip to Coney Island and ask questions about the infamous Risey and his threat to get even with Houdini? Much as I hated to go back to that place because it was connected with such horrific memories, I decided that today would be the day to do this. It would be crowded with city workers escaping from the heat and toil of the city. So I put on an inconspicuous shirtwaist such as a factory worker would wear and off I went to catch the trolley across the Brooklyn Bridge.

  The trolley and then the train to Coney Island were packed and I regretted that I had ever had such a foolish idea. Memories came back to me of the time I’d had to find a killer lurking in the funfair and had had a nightmare experience in a freak show. I found that I was sweating and not just from the heat. Did I really want to go through with this? However, when we descended at the terminus the crowd streamed toward the amusement parks and the beach and I felt my spirits lifting a little. The sea was sparkling, everyone was having a good time, and what’s more, a new amusement park had sprung up since I was there last. I could hear screams and laughter as fairgoers were swung around on the new rides.