Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Исторический детектив, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Dime Museum Murders: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Dime Museum Murders»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

In 1897, New York City teems with hustlers and freshly made millionaires, fine artists and con artists, criminals and immigrants. Among them is a rabbi's son who calls himself Houdini. He is struggling to make it in the brutal entertainment business when detectives call on him to attempt the most amazing feat of his fledgling career: solve the mystery of a toy tycoon murdered in his posh Fifth Avenue mansion.
It's a challenge which Harry-never at a loss for self-confidence-is more than willing to accept. But soon two more murders are linked to the first, and the investigation leads into the strange world of rare curios and the collectors who pay fortunes to own them. Now, the master magician, with the reluctant help of his brother, Dash Hardeen, must uncover a motive for murder adn track a killer to his hidden lair-an appointment with danger from which not even the great Houdini can escape.

The Dime Museum Murders — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Dime Museum Murders», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

"Astonishing!" he declared. "Look at the gears! They are made of-of-" He leaned in close and sniffed at the workings. "Yes! The gears are made of cork! And the shafts, they are hollow bamboo! How extraordinary that they should have survived all this time. And see the weights and counterweights? They are nothing more than tiny bags of silk, each one filled with sand. The craftsman who created this device can only have been a genius! It is even more beautiful than I imagined!"

"I'm glad you think so," said Lieutenant Murray. "But can you tell us what it is?"

"It's an automaton," Harry said, keeping his eyes fixed on the small figure. "One of the most exquisite ever made."

"An automaton," Lieutenant Murray said. "A little doll that moves and does tricks. Like a child's toy. We knew that much. And it's supposed to be worth a fortune because it's from the collection of some French guy with the same name as you. That's one reason we called you."

Harry straightened and set his mouth in a tight line. "Dash," he said, "perhaps you'd better enlighten them about the 'French guy.'"

The lieutenant folded his arms. "Just tell me about automatons," he said to me. "I've never seen one before tonight. What are they? What do they do?"

There must have been a dozen people in the room- police officers, medical workers, and a small knot of people in evening dress who appeared to be the dead man's dinner guests. All of them stopped what they were doing to listen to me. I was momentarily stage-struck. "Well," I began. "Urn, let me see…"

"Begin with Jacob Philadelphia," Harry said. "Well," I said again, "there was a magician named Jacob Philadelphia who was active in the eighteenth century, and he-"

"Born in 1734," my brother said. "Thank you, Harry, that was very illuminating. This magician liked to display automatons-or automata, if you will. Little clockwork figures like this one. These figures, which resembled ordinary dolls, could move and perform in amazingly lifelike ways. At the magician's command, they did tricks for the audience. One changed water into wine; another gave answers to mathematical problems. Sometimes these figures were designed to look like animals. There was a very famous peacock that strutted around the stage, spread its feathers, and even gave a nice little screech."

I paused and surveyed the room. People appeared to be listening, so I continued. "Bear in mind, many of the people who came to see these devices had never seen a mechanical device more sophisticated than a clock. So a little doll that could play cards, or a monkey that could smoke cigarettes, would have seemed quite miraculous. Jacob Philadelphia made a good living with his automatons, and they didn't require a whole lot of effort from him. He basically turned a key, set the machines going, and collected his money."

I glanced around again to take the crowd's pulse. There was a regal-looking lady sitting on one of the Chesterfields who kept nodding and smiling, as though giving encouragement to a clumsy piano student. I took a deep breath. "Sometimes these devices weren't all they seemed," I continued. "There was a German magician named Herr Alexander who had a magic bell. You asked it a question-for instance: 'What's two plus two?'-and the bell would chime out the answer. Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, came to believe that Alexander had devised some new telegraphic system. Actually, the bell was rung by a bird hidden inside the workings."

This drew an appreciative smile from the Chesterfield, so I persevered. "Then there was the Kempelen Chess Player, from Austria. It looked like a much larger version of our friend here," I pointed at the device on the desk, "but it had Turkish robes and a turban. There was a chess board on top of the gear cabinet, and the figure sat behind it. At the turn of a key the figure not only pushed its own chess pieces across the board, but also moved its head to follow the play of opponents. Benjamin Franklin played it twice-and lost. Edgar Allen Poe was so impressed that he wrote a long article trying to explain how it worked. Poe guessed wrong on some of the finer points, but his basic theory was correct-a human chess player, hidden inside the cabinet, controlled the movements."

Lieutenant Murray looked at his watch. "This is all very edifying, young man, but we have a body decomposing here, and I'd really like-"

"You must forgive my brother," Harry said, breaking in. "Sometimes he forgets himself." He turned to me as if reprimanding a schoolboy. "Dash, tell them about the Frenchman."

I shrugged. "Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin was a French magician-"

"Born in 1805," said Harry. "-born in 1805-who started out as a clock maker.,He was a genius with mechanical apparatus, and his effects made use of electricity and modern innovations in a way no one had ever seen before. At the time, magicians tended to wear long Merlin robes and conical hats, as though they were sorcerers of some kind. Robert-Houdin appeared in normal dress clothes, and presented himself as a man of science, rather than superstition. Over the course of his career he amassed an enormous collection of automatons. He was fascinated by them and studied their workings to help create his own mysteries."

I could see Lieutenant Murray's eyes glazing over, so I tried a different tack. "Imagine if Thomas Edison had a big warehouse and he gathered up historical inventions like Alexander Graham Bell's telephone and Samuel Morse's telegraph. The objects would be important and valuable for their own sake, but all the more so because Edison had taken inspiration from them. That's what Robert-Houdin's collection was like, and that's why people are so fascinated by it."

Lieutenant Murray glanced at the little Japanese figure on the dead man's desk. "So where is this collection now?"

"That's just it. It's supposed to have been destroyed. Near the end of his life, Robert-Houdin's workshop burned down. It's believed that the entire collection was lost."

"Or so they say," Harry added. “There were rumors at the time that the fire had been set by a jealous rival, who stole the collection and set the fire to cover his tracks. Any time an automaton turns up that's known to have belonged to Robert-Houdin, it sends up those rumors all over again."

"And this one belonged to him?" Murray asked. "Absolutely," said Harry. "It's called Le Fant ф me. One of Robert-Houdin's jewels. Le Fant ф me in French means-"

"The phantom," Murray said, bending over the little figure. "Strange thing to call it. It looks Oriental to me. Japanese."

"But Robert-Houdin was French." "Ah. And was he a relation of yours, Mr. Houdini?" Harry bristled at the suggestion. "He was perhaps the greatest charlatan in all of-''

"No relation," I said, quickly. It had been a touchy point for some little while. Robert-Houdin had, in fact, been my brother's boyhood idol, ever since the fateful day when a copy of the Frenchman's memoirs fell into Harry's hands. But as he got older, and his ego reached its maturity, he came to regret having chosen his stage name to appear "like Houdin." In time he would write a book about Robert-Houdin intended to expose the Frenchman as "a mere pretender, a man who waxed great on the brainwork of others, a mechanician who had boldly filched the inventions of the master craftsmen among his predecessors." These sorts of things mattered very deeply to Harry, if not to anyone else.

"Tell me something," Lieutenant Murray continued. "Are these things really so valuable? If this French guy's collection still exists, what would it be worth today?"

Harry considered for a moment. "Possibly as much as ten or twelve thousand dollars." A respectful silence fell over the room. "Perhaps that was the motivation for his murder," Harry said.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Dime Museum Murders»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Dime Museum Murders» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Dime Museum Murders»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Dime Museum Murders» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x