The Dime Museum Murders (12 page)

"This
should do it," he said, pushing the flexible steel through the
bars and guiding it toward the lock. "By straightening out this
spring, I can use it as a reaching rod. You see? It seems to be
working."

Mr.
Graff and I watched as Harry eased the end of the heavy lock-pick
toward the lock. For a few moments it bobbed up and down like a
fishing pole as the metal spring strained beneath the weight. "I
must get a feel for the balance," he said. "There was no
way of practicing this beforehand."

Gradually,
I could see that Harry was getting control of the reaching rod.
Cautiously, he began guiding the pick toward the keyhole but it
repeatedly bounced off the lock plate. "I'm getting closer each
time," he said. "Now, if I can just—if I can just—"

I
don't know how long my brother stood there flailing about in the dim
light with that strange piece of metal. Occasionally I heard a dull
scratch of metal as the pick bounced off the lock. Sometimes there
would be a faint flash as light from the overhead bulbs glinted off
the metal spring.

Perhaps
an hour passed in this fashion. I was sitting
on
the floor with my back against the door, and had nearly fallen asleep
when a cry from my brother brought me to my senses. "Dash!"
Harry cried exuberantly. "At last! The pick is in the lock! Now
it should be child's play to—"

And
that's when the spring broke. Harry watched in mute horror as his
lock-pick clattered to the floor.

"Bad
luck," said Mr. Graff.

"My
dear sirs," said our drunken friend in the opposite cell, "once
again I feel compelled to—"

"Silence!"
Harry snapped.

Mr.
Graff and I looked at one another. Not another sound was heard for a
good ten minutes or so.

"Well,
Harry," I said at fast. "It's getting quite late. Shall I
call for Sergeant O'Donnell?"

"Indeed
not," my brother said. "If you would be so good as to hand
me the lock-pick, I shall begin again."

Harry
made three more attempts to escape from the lockup that night, and
failed each time. He kept his arms folded and his mouth shut when
Sergeant O'Donnell finally came to release us, and would not even
return my "good night" when I dropped him at home. I hoped
a night's sleep would restore him to his usual bull-headed arrogance.

In
those days, Harry and Bess were living in my mother's flat on East
Sixty-ninth Street, an arrangement that appealed to him for two
reasons—it was cheap and it kept him close to Mama. There would
have been room for me, too, but I fancied myself as a bit of a man
about town, and imagined living at home might cramp my style. I kept
a room in Mrs. Arthur's boarding house, only seven blocks away, where
I very occasionally enjoyed an evening of whist and cigars with my
fellow lodgers. Apart from this, I might just as well have been
living in a monastery.

Harry
and Bess were seated at the breakfast table when I arrived, while
Mother busied herself at the stove. Harry still looked a bit
crestfallen.

"My
darling
Theo!" Mother called as I came through the kitchen door. "Sit
down! I will bring
you
a
little something!"

"No,
thank you, Mama," I said, removing my trilby. "I have
already breakfasted with Mrs. Arthur. Good morning, Bess."

"Hello,
Dash," my sister-in-law said. "You boys were out a bit late
last night, weren't you?"

"Speak
to your husband about that," I answered. "I would rather
have been home sleeping."

"You
say you've had breakfast?" Mother asked. "It cannot have
been enough. You look thin! Sit!"

"I'm
fine, Mother. I'll take a cup of tea, if there is any left."

I
sat down at the breakfast table while she began clattering around in
the cupboards. I couldn't tell you how many days began that way in
those years, with Harry and Bess sitting at their places and my
mother darting from table to stove. I once had occasion to visit
Professor Einstein at his laboratory in Princeton, and I must report
that it seemed quite a modest affair compared with my mother's
kitchen. She never used one pot where three would do; she never
finished serving one meal before starting preparations on the next.
One navigated the room as though crossing a busy thoroughfare,
bobbing and weaving amongst the simmering goulashes, cooling breads,
whistling kettles, and clattering cake pans. Many times I would call
at the house on a summer afternoon to take my mother for a drive,
only to find that she could not leave her stewpot and basting spoon.
"You go along, Theo," she would invariably say. "The
pot needs minding."

As
for my brother, he was never happier than when our mother was
clucking over him. He sighed with sat-

isfaction
whenever she placed a dish of his beloved Hungarian pepper roast in
front of him. His face glowed as she poured out his tea, giving him a
peck on the forehead as she did so. From my vantage across the table,
however, I would often see a flicker of despair pass over my
sister-in-law's face whenever Mama tucked Harry's napkin under his
chin, or cut up his kippered herring into bite-sized pieces. I
resolved that it would be different for me, if I were ever fortunate
enough to marry.

I
had arrived just as Harry was buttering his first slice of brown
toast, an operation of enormous delicacy. Harry required three
coatings of paper-thin butter slices to achieve the required
perfection, and each of these had to be spread to the very edge of
the bread—but not beyond—in precise, surgical strokes.
"Have you seen
The
Herald?"
Harry
asked, pausing in his exertions long enough to pass the newspaper to
me. He had folded the front page to an item in the third column.

MAGNATE
FOUND DEAD

Millionaire
Wintour Poisoned

at
Fifth Avenue Home

"Horrible!
Horrible!" cries Distraught Wife

Wealthy
manufacturer Branford Howard Wintour, the reclusive patron of the
arts, was found dead at his home late yesterday, the apparent victim
of a bizarre poisoning. Police would not confirm whether a strange
mischance or a sinister murder plot had claimed the lif
e
of
the famed businessman.

Mr.
Wintour, a collector of rare toys, evidently succumbed to the deadly
toxin while examining a recent acquisition. As of last night, the
nature and source of the poison were unknown. Although police would
not confirm foul play in the matter, a suspect has been taken into
custody.

The
item continued for several paragraphs, detailing the dead man's long
record of philanthropy and public service, but adding little to what
Harry and I had learned the previous evening.

"It
is an obscenity, is it not?" Harry declared as I lowered the
newspaper.

"Tragic,
certainly," I answered.

"It
is an offense against decency." He took an angry bite of his
now-perfected toast.

Ah,
I said to myself, Harry's not referring to Win-tour's death. He's
referring to the fact that the newspaper failed to mention his name.

"Strange
mischance," I said, quoting from the account. "They seem to
be allowing for the possibility that Wintour's death was accidental."

"Ridiculous!
The police merely wish to give themselves an excuse if they fail to
unmask the murderer."

"I
don't know about that," I said. "If
Le
Fantôme
had
actually killed Mr. Wintour, I suppose it's possible that his death
might have been an accident."

"The
device might accidentally have fired a poison dart?"

"Suppose
some earlier owner had altered the mechanism to shoot a dart instead
of a red blotch. Maybe this person wanted it to be a different sort
of trick. Instead of marking a card, maybe he wanted to have it
puncture a balloon. And maybe the dart wasn't poisoned at all—
or not intentionally, anyway. Maybe it was simply coated with some
resin or adhesive that happened to be poisonous. It could have
happened that way, couldn't it?"

"Seems
a bit far-fetched," Harry said. "Far-fetched? A famous
millionaire has been found in his locked study with a dart in his
neck. All bets are off."

"Yes,"
Harry said. "It is quite a puzzle. That is why it appeals to the
Great Houdini. He is a master of puzzles."

"When
were you planning to unravel this puzzle?" Bess asked. "Aren't
we still working the ten-in-one?"

"Dash
will do some scouting around during the day," Harry told her.
"He will be my eyes and ears. Then we will report our
conclusions to the police."

"Harry,
I don't think the police are interested in receiving any further
assistance from the Brothers Houdini. Thank you, Mama," I said,
as she set a cup of tea before me.

"You?
are content to leave Josef Graff in jail?"

"Of
course not. But I'm confident that the police will get to the bottom
of the crime eventually, and that Mr. Graff will be released."

"Possibly,"
said Harry. He picked up a second slice of toast and resumed the
intricate buttering maneuver. My mother, meanwhile, had placed a
soft-boiled egg before me.

"There
you are, Theo," she said happily. "Just as you like it."

"Mama,
I told you—"

"That
looks delicious, Dash," Harry said.

"But—"

"So
kind of Mama to prepare it for you."

With
a sigh, I picked up the egg spoon she had laid for me. Many times in
my career I have allowed myself to be chained and roped and tossed
into the frigid waters
of
the Hudson River. It is an experience I much prefer to soft-boiled
eggs.

"Besides,"
said Harry, noting my squeamishness with quiet amusement, "you
saw for yourself that the police were completely misled by
Le
Fantôme.
It
is a wonder they did not handcuff the little doll and cart it off to
jail along with poor Mr. Graff."

"Lieutenant
Murray may not have understood how the automaton works, but he had
the good sense to call someone who did. He seems very reasonable to
me. What's more, he's an official detective and you're not."
Harry regarded me with genuine curiosity. "Dash," he said,
"you really
do
think
this matter would be better left to the police." He said it as
though the possibility had never occurred to him.

I
spooned a cool, gluey blob of soft-boiled egg into my mouth. "Why,
that's amazing, Harry! However did you deduce that?"