Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders

"Evening, Mrs. Houdini," Jack said, tugging at his cap. He thrust an envelope at Harry. "Telegram came for you at the box office, sir."

"Good lad," said Harry. He was always saying things like "Good lad" and "There's a good fellow" to Jack. He also liked to tousle the boy's hair, which Jack endured with ill-concealed annoyance.

Harry unfolded the telegram and scanned the contents. "It seems that I am moving up in the world, Dash," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I've been invited to the home of Branford Wintour. On Fifth Avenue, no less."

I whistled. "Branford Wintour? What's he want with you?"

"Who's Branford Wintour?" Jack asked.

"They call him the King of Toys," I explained. "There's hardly a boy in America who hasn't played with one of his whirly tops. He has a big factory in New Jersey-wooden soldiers, paper novelties, train sets. Anything you can imagine."

"I don't have much time for wooden soldiers," Jack said in a husky voice.

"What's he want with you, Harry?" I repeated. "Some sort of society wing ding?"

"I think not," Harry said. "It seems that Mr. Wintour has been murdered, and only Houdini can tell the police how it was done."

Bess and I looked at each other. Harry's patter-Albert's opinion notwithstanding-was getting better by the minute.

"Harry," I said, as we trotted up toward Fifth Avenue. "You really need to fill me in on the details. How was he murdered? Why do they need you there?"

He pulled the collar of his shaggy astrakhan cloak up around his ears, pretending not to have heard.

"Who sent the telegram? Why won't you tell me anything?"

My brother closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest, apparently lost in thought.

We were riding in a horse-drawn calash, jostling hard as the driver maneuvered around the evening theater traffic. Harry had said little since we'd left the theater- nothing, in fact, apart from a single line: "It is a case for the Great Houdini!" He delivered this sentiment while throwing his cloak around his shoulders.

Now, sitting back against the leather seat with his brow furrowed and his fingers steepled at his chin, he looked for all the world like the hero of some stage melodrama.

"Harry-" I began again.

"Dash," he said impatiently, "you cannot expect me

to divulge the particulars. It is traditional that the detective remain tight-lipped until he reaches the scene of the crime."

Ah. Suddenly it made sense. "Harry," I said, "you're thinking of detective stories, not real detective work. And anyway, you're a performer, not a detective."

"Performer!" he snorted. "I am no mere performer! I am Houdini! I have talents and knowledge that other men do not! At least our New York City police seem to appreciate this, if the theatrical community does not."

We rode in silence for a moment. "At least let me see the telegram," I said.

Wordlessly, he passed it over. It read: "Need Houdini Urgent Home Branford Wintour Stop Murder Investigation Stop Lt. Murray."

"Harry, this doesn't tell us much. Apart from the fact that this Lieutenant Murray is careful with his pocket change. Ten words exactly."

"It tells us a great deal," he said.

"Such as?"

He gave me a corner-of-the-eye look. "It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts."

"Harry," I said. "For God's sake."

I should explain something. My brother was not a great reader, but he dearly loved his detective stories. He would read them on trains, backstage, in the bath- virtually anywhere. His favorite was Sherlock Holmes, whose adventures he followed religiously in Harper's Weekly until the detective's tragic death at the hands of Professor Moriarty, an event that left him despondent for some weeks. Harry read the Sherlock Holmes stories many times over. Our late father could jab a pin into a random passage of the family Talmud and call out each word it had pierced on the subsequent pages. Harry could do the same with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

"Harry," I said, starting again, "this is a police investigation. You can't barge in there and expect to lead them around by their noses. There's no Inspector Lestrade in the New York Police Department."

"I will merely give them the benefit of my acknowledged expertise."

I muttered something under my breath.

"Pardon me?" Harry said. "Would you please repeat that?"

"I didn't say anything."

"No one will be dropping me over a waterfall anytime soon, Dash," he said. "And anyway, it was the Rei-chenbach Falls, not Rickenstoff."

I folded my arms and fell silent until we pulled up to the Wintour mansion.

Branford Wintour's home had always been something of an architectural curiosity. I remember that when they had built the place a few years earlier there were jokes about whether Manhattan would sink under its weight. It took up a good chunk of land and was lousy with gables and mansards and spires and all sorts of other features that you don't see much on Fifth Avenue these days, including a three-story aviary. Wintour had chosen a spot directly across the avenue from the Vanderbilt pile, and for a time it seemed as if he might put his neighbor in the shade.

Harry and I scrambled out of the calash and faced a brilliant white expanse of marble that might have given Nansen and Peary some uneasy moments. We crossed the vast forecourt and had just finished climbing the steps when the front door swung open. I had expected a butler but instead we found a uniformed patrolman in a blue greatcoat and leather helmet.

"Which one of you is this Houdini character?" he asked.

"I am Houdini," my brother answered, puffing himself up to an impressive five-foot-four.

"The lieutenant wants you to wait here."

We followed him into a vaulted two-story entry hall. "Harry," I whispered. "This room is bigger than the last theater I worked." Sad to say, I wasn't joking.

A pair of mahogany double doors opened and a big, beefy man in a rumpled brown suit stepped toward us. "Name's Patrick Murray," he said in a voice not long out of Dublin. "I'm the detective in charge of this case. Appreciate your answering my wire."

"Hmm," said Harry, stepping back to appraise our new acquaintance. "Patrick Murray. You are Irish, I perceive."

Strange to say, Harry wasn't kidding either. Murray looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I shrugged. "I can see you're going to be a big help to us, Mr. Houdini," he said.

"I shall certainly do my best to assist in whatever way possible," said my brother, who was a bit tone deaf when it came to irony. "Now, perhaps it would help if you showed me to the murder scene. I trust your men haven't been tramping about in their muddy boots, obscuring clues, damaging valuable-"

"My men are doing their jobs as instructed," Murray said firmly. "And I believe we'll be able to manage the murder investigation on our own. We've asked you here because there's an aspect of the crime that seems to fall under your area of expertise."

"Oh?"

"The murder weapon."

"The murder weapon? That is most gratifying. In what way does the murder weapon fall under my area of expertise?"

Murray sighed. "Branford Wintour seems to have been murdered by a magic trick."

Harry glanced at me with shining eyes, struggling to conceal his pleasure at this news. "Please continue," he said.

Lieutenant Murray motioned to a very tall, somewhat stooped elderly gentleman who had been standing quietly by the mahogany doors. "This is Phillips, Mr. Win-tour's butler," Murray said as the old man stepped forward. "I wonder if I might ask you to repeat what you've just told me for these gentlemen?"