Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

Mustapha objected vehemently, but was overruled. In the room my uncle’s eyes fell on a closed door. It was locked, and Mustapha insisted that he had lost the key; but the police soon forced the door open. I gasped, for seated on the floor of a small closet was Mustapha.

My uncle gave a tug, and the figure collapsed like an over-sized doll. “A very fine dummy,” my uncle said as he parted the clothes at the back. “See, the figure is entirely hollow. Clever but not quite original. Walter Gibson reports that Houdini designed a similar hollow dummy for one of his illusions shortly before he died.”

Turning to the dejected Mustapha, my uncle said with authority, “Your only chance is to tell the truth! Isn’t this what happened? You killed Dr Marlin in self-defence when he tried to kill you because you knew that he had murdered Ali!”

Mustapha started and nodded vigorously, “As God is my witness, that is the truth!… But how did you know?”

“I missed it at the time, but Dr Marlin made a slip when we were taking the finger-prints. He said, ‘You may think that Ali had a twin brother?’ Already, before the demonstration, Dr Marlin was thinking of Ali in the past tense.”

“But, Señor Dobbs,” the police inspector objected, “how could Dr Marlin have murdered this Ali? Do you believe in magic?”

“There was no magic at all, Inspector. The whole rope trick was only a ‘stage illusion,’ but quite an elaborate one. But Dr Marlin made one mistake. He forgot about the watches. When I learned that Jimmy’s watch and mine had suddenly become erratic, I guessed part of the truth.”

“How so, Señor Dobbs?”

“I’ll start at the beginning and describe what I think happened,” my uncle replied. “Mustapha can correct me if I go wrong on details. But let’s go and sit on the veranda, as this will take some time.”

On the veranda my uncle resumed, “There are really two parts to the Indian Rope Trick-both universally considered impossible. The first is to make a rope rise miraculously in the air. The second is to make the boy suddenly disappear from the top and have him reappear at a distant spot.

“There can be no doubt that this morning something like a rope really did rise in the air – the photographs prove it. Now, there is no way to make a rope do that, but this ‘rope’ must have had as a core either a wire or chain of magnetic metal. Isn’t that so Mustapha?”

Receiving a nod, my uncle continued, “The fact that both Jimmy’s watch and mine behaved erratically could mean only one thing – that they had been exposed to a strong magnetic field and had become magnetized. This gave me the clue. As you know, while opposite poles of a magnet attract each other, similar poles repel each other with equal force. I remember at the exposition in San Francisco in 1939 seeing an exhibit where a metal bowl was made to float in the air by a powerful electro-magnetic field underneath. Later I read that mediums used this method to make metal tables rise from the floor during fake seances. Perhaps Dr Marlin first got his idea there.”

Mustapha nodded again, as my uncle continued, “Dr Marlin made his ‘rope’ a chain or wire of highly magnetized metal covered with a thin layer of hemp. Under the ground in the field he had built a very large system of electro-magnets designed to project a cone of force. When the current was turned on magnetic repulsion raised the ‘rope’ above the ground as if by magic.”

“But, Uncle Edward,” I objected, “if it’s as easy as that, why hasn’t someone done it before?”

“It’s far from easy, Jimmy. As the ‘rope’ rises above the ground, the magnetic force diminishes very rapidly. To raise a ‘rope’ twenty feet takes something like a baby cyclotron. Making one would take years of work and cost a small fortune.”

“Three years and fifty thousand dollars,” Mustapha broke in. “At least so Dr Marlin told me. But the reward was enormous.”

“But what happened to Ali; how did he vanish from the top of the rope?” I asked.

“Let’s take things in order,” my uncle said. “When we arrived yesterday, Dr Marlin took us to the field to watch the pouring of the concrete. The real reason for the pavement was to keep us from digging later and finding the electro-magnets. Dr Marlin also introduced us to his two assistants, supposedly from India. Where do you really come from, Mustapha?”

“From Mexico City, Señor. Ali and I have had a Hindu act for some time.”

“You might have chosen better names,” said my uncle.” ‘Mustapha’ and ‘Ali’ sound more like Mohammedans than Hindus… To come to this morning. At the start of the demonstration Mustapha, Ali, and Dr Marlin were all present on the pavement. But that was the last time the three were really together until we found Ali in the water.

“Dr Marlin ‘forgot’ his ink-pad, and we three, with Ali, went to the laboratory to take the finger-prints. As soon as we had left, Mustapha produced the hollow dummy of himself from some hiding-place nearby (perhaps in the hedge) and arranged it in a sitting position on the pavement. Leaving it there, he, himself, ran up to the house.

“When we came back from the laboratory we never doubted that the dummy was Mustapha. (But remember, Jimmy, ‘Mustapha never moved’ when you gave that loud sneeze.) Dr Marlin and Ali rejoined ‘him’ on the pavement and closed all four curtains.

“Then Dr Marlin ‘discovered’ that the rope was ‘defective’ and sent ‘Mustapha’ for another one. What really happened was that the hollow dummy was placed on the cycle, and Ali crept inside it, came through the curtains and rode rapidly up to the house in the semblance of Mustapha. He had no trouble balancing on the tricycle; all he had to do was to sit still and steer. We never doubted that Ali was still behind the curtains, but, really, at that time Dr Marlin was there alone.

“When Ali reached the house, out of our sight, he emerged from the dummy, took it upstairs and hid it; while the real Mustapha walked back to the field, to give Ali more time, and ‘returned’ to us with another rope.”

“But,” I objected, “we saw Ali at the top of the rope.”

“No, Jimmy, we only thought we did. After the real Mustapha rejoined Dr Marlin behind the curtains, he started a chanting wail while Dr Marlin pressed a concealed switch – probably in one of the iron rods. This turned on the electro-magnets underneath and, as if by magic, the ‘rope’ rose in the air.

“Then either Dr Marlin or Mustapha brought from his pocket a collapsed rubber dummy which, when inflated, was an exact life-sized replica of Ali. Incidentally, that was why Ali had to shave his head. Hair would be hard to imitate, but the rubber looked just like dark skin.

“Instead of using air, Dr Marlin inflated the rubber dummy with helium. I don’t know just how; did you have a small cylinder of it under your robe, Mustapha?”

“No, Señor, the helium was under pressure in a tank beneath the concrete. One of the iron rods was really a pipe with a concealed nozzle. It took only an instant to inflate the dummy, which looked exactly like Ali. Dr Marlin paid three thousand dollars to have it made by an expert in magical supplies in Mexico City.”

“Next,” continued my uncle, “Dr Marlin placed a loin-cloth on the figure to weigh it down in position, and attached the dummy with dark threads to the bottom of the ‘rope’. Then he fired a blank cartridge, set fire to the curtains, and under cover of the dense smoke the released dummy, filled with helium and exactly weighted with a light ballast, rose to the top of the ‘rope,’ where the large knot prevented it from going higher. You must have used a very light loin-cloth, Mustapha?”