The Last Illusion Read online

  “Where are you heading?” he asked.

  “Atlantic City. And yourself?”

  “As luck would have it, we’re going the same way,” he said, giving me a friendly smile. “Why don’t you let me carry your bag? You seem encumbered and as you notice, I have no luggage of my own.”

  “I’m really just fine, thank you. I’m a strong, healthy woman and I don’t need any help.”

  “But at the very least you’ll let me escort you to your carriage,” he said. “I find train journeys so tedious and the thought of sitting beside a pretty girl has cheered me no end.”

  He was beginning to annoy me. There was something about his overfriendliness that made me wary. “I have to warn you that this pretty girl is about to be married to someone else,” I said. “I would go and do your fishing elsewhere if I were you.”

  He laughed. “And witty too. How delightful.”

  I tried to walk ahead of him. He took my arm and steered me across the station toward one of the platforms. I really didn’t want to make a fuss amid all these people but I was going to clobber his straw boater if he kept this up.

  Smoke swirled upward, then parted, revealing the destination board.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “This isn’t the platform for the train to Atlantic City.”

  “No more it is,” the man said, his grip on my arm tightening.

  “Let go of me. What are you playing at?” I demanded. “Do you want me to scream for help?”

  That’s when I noticed that a man had come up on the other side of me. I felt something dig into my side.

  “I wouldn’t scream if I were you,” the second man said in a low voice. “There is a knife in my hand. I can slip it in between your ribs and you’ll be dead before you know it. Much less noisy than a gun. Now be a sensible girl and you’ll not get hurt.”

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “You’ll soon find out.” A train was already standing at the platform, puffing out steam as if impatient to be on its way. Down the platform they bore me, past families waving good-bye, porters wheeling trolleys of luggage. I couldn’t believe what was happening. A small voice in my head was saying, “You’re being kidnapped,” but it seemed too absurd to be true. My brain started racing, trying to think how I could escape from them. If I gave the one with the stiletto a hefty push and started screaming, would I have a chance to run before he could stab me? I could feel the prick of sharp steel against my skin so I knew his threat was not idle.

  Before I had time to contemplate any longer the first man opened a carriage door. “In you get,” he said.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll soon find out. Now sit down and shut up.”

  He pushed me into the seat and sat on one side of me. The man with the knife had slid into place on the other side. I noticed that the compartment said RESERVED and that there was no corridor. The first man immediately pulled down the blinds. I glanced up at the emergency cord. If I caught them off guard, I could leap up and pull on it, but then they’d have killed me before the train came to a halt and the conductor found my carriage. I looked from one to the other, trying to decide who they were and what they wanted of me. They certainly didn’t look like the criminal classes. Nor did they look like entertainers. More like—more like the young man who had lain dead in the trunk. Bank clerks, shop assistants, respectable wage earners.

  On the platform outside there was a piercing whistle and a shout of “All aboard!” Then the sound of doors slamming up and down the platform. The engine gave a mighty huff, and we lurched forward. At the last moment our carriage door opened and a man got in. My two captors nodded and jumped out. The train picked up speed. I looked at the man who had replaced my abductors. He was older than they, avuncular-looking actually, with a gray beard and horn-rimmed spectacles. He gave a sigh and promptly removed the beard and glasses. I stared at him again and gasped as I realized with a jolt of surprise that I recognized him.

  Twenty-four

  Mr. Wilkie, isn’t it?” I demanded.

  He smiled benignly and removed his homburg. “It is indeed. A pleasure to meet you again, Miss Murphy.”

  I didn’t return the smile. I fact I was furious, as one often is after a big fright. “So those unmannered louts work for you?”

  “I’m afraid so. I hope they didn’t alarm you too much?”

  “Only kidnap me, stick a knife into my side, and threaten to kill me,” I said. “I was on my way to Atlantic City.”

  “I know. That’s why we had to act quickly. I apologize for their behavior but I did tell them to make sure you reached this carriage before the train pulled out.”

  “They could have tried saying that Mr. Wilkie, head of the Secret Service, wanted to speak with me urgently. Maybe I’d have come along of my own accord.”

  “Ah, but I couldn’t let them use my name or let anybody know that we were meeting. Actually I didn’t want anybody to even know I was anywhere near New York City. I slipped through the station, hopefully incognito.” He leaned closer to me. “And I had to speak to you in a place where I could guarantee that we were not followed or overheard.”

  “Good heavens. Why all the secrecy? Or does the Secret Service always operate this way?”

  The train was chugging along merrily across the Jersey marshes and the outer sprawl of civilization. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “The journey is what matters, not the destination,” he said. “You can get out when the train stops in Philadelphia if we’ve concluded our business by then, but I find it expedient to conduct strictly confidential cases on a train. It’s like a private world, isn’t it?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t set up a hot air balloon,” I said and he laughed.

  “I like you, Miss Murphy. You’ve been through a scare and you’re feisty and witty as ever.”

  “So why do you need to speak to me so privately?” I asked.

  “Houdini, of course,” he said.

  “Houdini? What is that to do with you?” I was taken completely off guard.

  “A lot, as it happens,” he said. “And I understand that you are also somehow intimately involved.”

  “I was hired to assist Mr. and Mrs. Houdini with a problem, yes.”

  “Can you share the nature of that problem with me?”

  “If you can share the reason for your involvement with me,” I said.

  He smiled again. He had a charming, avuncular smile and I found that I was bristling slightly less than before.

  “Quite right, Miss Murphy. Actually I have set up this little assignation so that we can pool our knowledge. You see, I came to New York to meet with him, only to find that he had vanished.”

  “You were the one he was planning to meet with?”

  “He told you about it?”

  “He said that something would be sorted out the next day and then he’d be off the hook.”

  “Ah,” Wilkie said.

  “So why would Houdini need to sort something out with you?”

  “He was working for me, Miss Murphy,” Mr. Wilkie said in his soft, calm voice. “Don’t look so surprised. The Secret Service has found it most useful to employ entertainers, particularly magicians, as spies. They can move freely in foreign countries. They are invited to places like royal courts that normal foreigners never enter. They have perfect opportunities to overhear and to observe when those in power are at ease and speaking freely. And Houdini was one of the best.”

  “Really?” I paused as my brain processed the implications of this. “So you do think that the incident at the theater last night had something to do with you?”

  “I’m sure of it,” he said. “The man who was killed. He worked for me. I had placed him to keep an eye on Houdini because we had word that German agents were after him.” He leaned closer to me again. “Houdini had discovered something important, Miss Murphy. Something so vital that he couldn’t communicate in the normal manner.”

  “Whi
ch was?”

  “I wish I knew. There could be no direct communication between us, ever. He wrote articles for various magicians’ magazines, seemingly harmless reports on illusionists and performances, but with coded messages in them. Or he placed information in classified advertisements.”

  “And you think he had discovered something important?”

  “I’m sure of it. The future of our country may even be at stake.”

  “Holy Mother of God!” I exclaimed. “You really mean that?”

  “I believe so. What he discovered was too risky or too complicated to put in a magazine. Or perhaps he knew that the other side was onto him. Either way, he refused to hand over the information to anybody but me. That’s why I had come to New York last week, only he couldn’t be located and the president summoned me back to Washington before I could get in touch with Houdini. I sent a couple of my men in my stead, but he insisted on meeting only with me. He was supposed to have caught this train today. He should have been sitting opposite me and all would have been well. Now he may well be dead.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” I asked.

  “I only know what I read in the morning papers,” he said. “A clever illusionist. One who is working for the other side.”

  “Is Germany the other side now? Are they our enemy?”

  “At this moment, no. But the Kaiser has grand ambitions, Miss Murphy. They are seeking to expand their empire and they are building up their armaments at an alarming rate. That’s one of the reasons Houdini was so useful. He was fascinated with gadgets so the Germans were happy to show him around their factories. They’re proud of their mechanical superiority, you know.”

  “So you believe they have sent an illusionist over here with instructions to kill Houdini?”

  “Before he could make a report to me, I must assume,” Mr. Wilkie said.

  “How many German illusionists can there be in New York at this time? Surely it will be easy to flush him out?”

  “Not necessarily a German, I’m afraid. If I can persuade magicians to work for me, then presumably some can be persuaded to work for alien powers, if the money is enticing enough.”

  “Oh, I see. So who else knew that Houdini was working for you?”

  “Nobody should have known, except for a couple of my own men—and the president, of course. He takes a keen interest in what we are doing.”

  The carriage was warm and smelled of stale cigar smoke but I knew better than to open the window and have the smoke from the locomotive blow in on us. I fought to stay alert, trying to digest everything I had been told.

  “I wonder if Bess knew?” I said.

  “I’m sure she didn’t. Houdini once told me, on a train journey similar to this one, that he would never confide matters of importance to his wife. He said she had too fragile a nature to bear the strain of worry.”

  “He babied her,” I said. “She’s in an awful state at this moment. I really shouldn’t have left her side, but I felt I had to speak with Houdini’s brother, who has left New York to perform at a theater in Atlantic City.”

  “Hardeen, you mean?”

  “Yes. Was he working for you too?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then could it be possible that he is working for the other side? He was also performing in Germany, wasn’t he?”

  “You think he’d murder his own brother?” He shook his head. “I very much doubt that, Miss Murphy. They are a devoted family from what I’ve heard. Very close. No, I don’t think that Hardeen is our man. In fact I rather suspect that our man is working for both sides.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “This,” he said, and handed me a cutting from a magazine. I started to read. It seemed innocuous enough, reporting on the various acts currently performing in Berlin.

  “Illusionists are always popular with the crowd and there seems to be a crop of good ones at the moment, including the amazing Mr. Harry Houdini—” I looked up and Mr. Wilkie smiled.

  “He was never particularly modest about himself when reporting as a supposed third person. Read on.”

  The article went on to describe Harry’s act, and then that of other magicians. Then came the words, “The interesting thing about illusionists is that they can make you believe anything. You think they are working on one side of the stage, when really they are on the other. It’s all done with mirrors—that’s what they say, don’t they?”

  I looked up and handed him back the piece of paper. “Do you think that’s what those last words mean—that someone in Germany was working for both sides?”

  “I’m sure of it,” he said.

  The train lurched as it went around a bend, throwing me off balance. Mr. Wilkie put out a hand to steady me.

  “Why have you told me all this?” I asked.

  “Because you struck me as a particularly intelligent young woman and because you’re a detective, and you were already working with Houdini,” he said. “A most useful combination for our purposes.”

  “Your purposes? You want to hire me to work for you?”

  “I want you to work for your country, Miss Murphy.”

  I had to smile at the irony of this. “I’m not even a citizen here, and an outcast from my own country.”

  He returned the smile. “All the more reason to repay the debt to the country that has taken you in, wouldn’t you say?”

  I was about to say that the country hadn’t exactly done much for me yet. There had been times when I had been close to starvation and had only survived through my own wits, but Wilkie went on. “It is essential that we find out what Harry Houdini had discovered and was about to hand over to me. I want you to go back to New York and see what you can find.”

  I considered this. “Why me? Don’t you have a host of men you could send to search Houdini’s residence?”

  “I do, but at this moment I’d rather work with the element of surprise. I don’t want the enemy to know what we’re doing. I gather you’re well in with Houdini’s wife. He may have let slip something to her—something she’d confide to you but not to me. I want you to go through his things and bring anything suspicious to me.”

  “Harry Houdini was trying to bring something to you and he wound up missing or dead,” I said. “I’d rather like to stay alive, thank you.”

  A brief smile crossed his otherwise expressionless face. “Then shall we say ‘bring it to my attention?’ If you find anything you think I should know about, you will send me a wire saying ‘Thank you for birthday present,’ and sign it ‘Your niece.’ I will arrange to meet with you directly.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I’ll post one of my men to keep an eye on you.”

  “Not the one with the stiletto,” I said quickly.

  He actually laughed this time. “Those two are on this train with us returning to Washington. No, it will be a new man, one you’ve never seen before. It doesn’t do to leave operatives in one place for too long. The opposition is too darned clever.” He paused, looking at me long and hard. “I won’t say there isn’t some degree of danger involved. But we hope that you are only seen as a friend of Bess Houdini, keeping her company. And the house will be guarded, as it is possible that someone may try to break in if they think there is something vital to be found there.”

  “They did try to break in once,” I said. “Bess told me that Houdini scared a burglar off.”

  “I rather wish the brother hadn’t gone back to Atlantic City,” Wilkie said. “He was a male presence in the house. An extra defense.”

  “You will check into him, won’t you?” I said. “Just to put my mind at rest that he wasn’t the one working for the other side?”

  “You’re saying that I should pay attention to your feminine intuition?”

  “Nothing of the sort,” I replied hotly. “Just that you should pursue all suspects.”

  “Spoken like a true detective. I can see that Sullivan has trained you well.”


  “Indeed he hasn’t trained me at all,” I retorted. “In fact he’s desperately against my being a detective. Everything I know I’ve learned the hard way, and I still have a lot more to learn.”

  “I think you’ll do splendidly,” he said.

  “So does Captain Sullivan know about our meeting?” I asked. “Does he know that Houdini was working for you as a spy? Is that why you really came to New York when I met you at his apartment the other day?”

  “He knows nothing of it,” Wilkie said. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention your meeting with me to him. Not that I don’t trust him, of course. Splendid fellow. Sound as an oak. But in these cases, the fewer people who know the facts, the better. He is searching for Houdini, which is good, but I rather fear that he’ll not find him, or that his body will turn up weeks from now, probably quite unidentifiable.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “Poor Bess.”

  He nodded. “It will be hard for her, I agree. And it’s always harder not knowing, isn’t it? I’m glad you’re returning to her today. You can provide comfort as well helping us.”

  I plucked up courage to mention something that had been going through my head, but that I hadn’t dared to ask before. “I don’t want to sound crass, but am I to be paid a fee for my services or am I supposed to be doing this for the good of the country?”

  Wilkie threw back his head and laughed. “I do like you, Miss Murphy. You have none of the usual female sensibilities. Find us what we’re looking for and there will be a handsome fee.”

  “Do you have any idea at all what you’re looking for?”

  He shook his head. “None whatsoever. All we know from Houdini was that he’d discovered something important in Germany and that he wouldn’t share his news with anyone but me. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, but I don’t know whether this was information or something of substance like papers or drawings that he wanted to hand over.”

  “You’re not giving me much to go on,” I said.

  “All I can say is that some of the information may be contained in a magazine article he was writing. It may, of course, have been all in his head, in which case it is lost to us, but I suspect he’ll have wanted to show us some kind of proof. Now, these are the magazines I want you to look for.” And he opened his briefcase.