The Illusion of Murder
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Authors: Carol McCleary
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Historical
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To Hildegard,
who doesn’t know the beauty, kindness, intelligence, and wisdom that she possesses. But that is what makes her so extraordinarily special.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As Nellie Bly so adequately put at the end of her book
Around the World in 72 Days
:
To so many people this wide world over am I indebted for their kindnesses that I cannot thank them all individually. They form a chain around the earth. To each and all of you, men, women and children, in my land and in the lands I visited, I am most truly grateful. Every kind act and thought, if but an unuttered wish, a cheer, a tiny flower, is imbedded in my memory as one of the pleasant things of my novel tour.
I could not have expressed it better, except I would like to add to Nellie’s debt of thanks.
After I wrote
The Illusion of Murder
, I began my journey to reintroduce Nellie Bly to the public with my first novel,
The Alchemy of Murder.
To all the countless libraries and bookstores throughout the world who supported my novel, and to all the wonderful people who so graciously bought
The Alchemy of Murder
, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
There are a few people I want to thank for their kindness and special words of cheer. They are: Richard at Flowers by Richard in Manhattan; Heather Rees; Michael A. Giaquinto; Helena Cordeiro; Laurie and Ian at The Underground Bakery.
To Kareem Jr. and Amy Brogan, my first new Young Adults who sent me e-mails thanking me for introducing them to Nellie, “Thank you, I am thrilled and honored that you love Nellie. She truly is an inspiration to us all.”
I would also like to thank the people “behind the scenes” who are invaluable to me and Nellie: Harvey Klinger, my Maxwell Perkins; Bob Gleason, my editor; Linda Quinton, a very special lady at Tor/Forge; Ashley Cardiff, extraordinary assistant to Bob Gleason, and to Whitney Ross, who so graciously stepped in and helped me—Merci-Merci; Cassandra Ammerman, my publicist, whom I’m very lucky to have; and Helen Chin, my copyeditor, who did an incredible job.
A few new special little critters were born this year … Ella Krische, Arshay Fischer, Dustin Gregory Anderson, and Gavin Si Ying Krische. I want to welcome you to our world and may you learn about Nellie Bly, because her courage and determination are something that I believe will be of great value to you in this crazy world of ours … Good Luck!
In memory of
Kathleen Ann Carr,
a beautiful gal with a heart of gold.
Like Nellie, she left us too soon.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I discovered that Egypt is a land of both mystery and magic, an exotic place where trees talk and men turn staffs into snakes, so it should not have come as such a surprise to me that death would also be mysterious in this ancient, haunted land of pyramids, mummies, and the eternal Nile …
JOURNAL OF NELLIE BLY,
1889
Those words were recorded by Nellie Bly, the world’s first female investigative reporter, during the race around the world she made in 1889 to beat the record of Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg in the novel
Around the World in 80 Days.
That journey of nearly 22,000 miles by steamship, carriage, and Iron Horse brought her not just into contact with exciting and exotic cultures during Victorian times, but into the intrigues of great nations at a time when ancient magic and a mysterious prophecy of the Sphinx threatened to stain the Nile red with the blood of foreigners.
While Nellie’s adventurous journey was related for the public in her book
Around the World in 72 Days
, those of you who have read Nellie’s previous accounts of her investigations are aware that she also maintained a secret journal of what actually happened during her investigations, beginning with the murder and mad science she encountered when she spent ten days in a madhouse in order to get a “man’s” job as a reporter.
Many readers are already familiar with the fact that the discovery of Nellie’s secret journals—found in the rubble when the old building that housed her employer, the New York
World
, was razed—has been the subject of both litigation and accusations that Nellie’s actual accounts were liberally altered to include murder and intrigue.
This accusation is firmly rebutted.
While it was necessary to make modest editorial corrections to the journal, the reader may once again rest assured that they may compare our truth and veracity to that attributed to that lioness of literature, Lillian Hellman, by none other than author Mary McCarthy.
T
HE
E
DITORS
N
ELLIE
B
LY
SETTING OUT ON HER RACE AROUND THE WORLD WITH A SMALL VALISE
PROLOGUE
19th Dynasty Burial Chamber
Ancient Site of Tanis
Egypt, 1889
I discovered that Egypt is a land of both mystery and magic, an exotic place where trees talk and men turn staffs into snakes, so it should not have come as such a surprise that death would also be mysterious in this ancient, haunted land of pyramids, mummies, and the eternal Nile.
That I could suffer a bizarre death in this strange land had not occurred to me until now, as I stand cold to the bone, staring down at the long black snake I’ve stepped on.
I don’t dare lift my foot, I can’t even breathe; I just stand stiffly in place, the toe of my shoe pressing down on the serpent as it thrashes and tries to coil.
Darkness is closing in as a burning torch on the dirt a few feet from me fades. When the bundle of sticks burn out, there’ll be just me and the snake—in the dark.
In the dark where?
A burial chamber, for sure. A sarcophagus is off to my right and I can make out on a wall a scene from the
Egyptian Book of the Dead
—the aged painting of a boat that has the head of a lion, a tail and clawed feet at the stern; aboard are wailing women, some with hands outstretched, others covering their faces—mourners for the dead.