Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders

Lieutenant Murray looked at Harry with amused delight. "1 don't know, Mr. Houdini. If I were the murderer, it would seem a waste of effort to kill Mr. Wintour over the phantom doll here, and then leave it behind wnen I made my escape."

My curiosity got the better of me. "How was he killed, Lieutenant?"

"That's why I asked you here. He was killed with this. With the doll."

Harry's eyes widened. "Killed with Le Fant ф me! How is it possible?"

"Somebody hit him over the head with it?" I asked. "No, the doll itself-I'll get the doc to explain. Dr. Peterson?"

A short, stocky man with an impressive mane of white hair had been busying himself near the white hospital screens, jotting notes with a gold pencil in a leather notebook. He turned toward us and withdrew a folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. "He was killed with this," he said, unfolding the white cloth.

"With a handkerchief?" Harry asked.

"Look closer," Peterson said.

"It's nothing. A splinter."

"A splinter tipped with poison, unless I'm very much mistaken. I took it from the dead man's neck."

"How did it get there?"

Lieutenant Murray gestured at Le Fant ф me. "That thing."

"I'm not sure I get you," I said. "It plays the flute. It doesn't kill people."

The detective shook his head. "That thing in its hand is a blow gun, not a flute."

I looked at Harry. He nodded.

"The way we figure it," Murray continued, "Mr. Wintour had locked himself into his study to have a look at his latest acquisition. While he was poking around, the gears suddenly started cranking and it raised the blow gun to its lips and shot a poison dart into his neck."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again, apparently lost in thought. Slowly, he circled the desk, examining the automaton from all sides. Then he peered behind the hospital screens to have another look at the unfortunate Mr. Wintour. Emerging again, he dropped to his knees and began a minute examination of the Oriental rag. Occasionally he issued a soft grant of surprise or satisfaction, but gave no other clue as to what he might be doing.

"Mr. Houdini?" Lieutenant Murray stepped back as Harry, still on his hands and knees, rounded a corner of the dead man's desk. "Mr. Houdini? Is there something in particular you're looking for down there?"

Harry simply granted and continued his circuit of the desk. I looked at the Chesterfield, where the two men in evening dress were looking on with great amusement.

"Harry," I said, "this might not be the proper time for-"

"Silence, Dash! I am like a bloodhound on the scent!"

"Look, Mr. Houdini," Lieutenant Murray said with some asperity. "We don't need you to tell us whether Wintour is dead or not. We figured you'd know something about how the doll worked, seeing as how you and this Robert-Houdin have the same name."

Harry ignored the remark. "Dr. Peterson?" he called from the floor. "Was Mr. Wintour already dead when he was found?"

"Oh, absolutely," answered the police physician. "Though perhaps you should ask my colleague Dr. Blanton. He examined the body before I did."

"Dr. Blanton?" Harry asked, his head bobbing up from behind the desk. "Who is Dr. Blanton?"

One of the dinner guests rose from a club chair. He was a small, rotund man perhaps sixty years of age, with heavy dewlaps and large, moist eyes. His long, delicate hands seemed to be in constant motion, whether fiddling with the pearl buttons of his waistcoat or adjusting the pince nez he wore at the end of a chain. "I'm Percy Blanton," he said, clipping the spectacles onto his nose. "I've been a friend of Bran's for more years than I care to count. I was just arriving when-how shall I say it?- when the door to the study was opened, so of course I was the first to examine the-let me see-so of course I was the first to examine the subject."

Harry sprang to his feet. "And was Mr. Wintour dead when you examined him?"

"Mr. Houdini-," Lieutenant Murray stepped between my brother and Dr. Blanton.

"No, it's quite all right, Lieutenant," the doctor said. "I don't mind repeating my account."

"That's kind of you, sir, but this man is not an investigator."

It finally dawned on Harry that Lieutenant Murray was exasperated with him. "I do not wish to hamper your investigation or inconvenience Mr. Wintour's guests," he said, adopting a more diplomatic tone, "but what you say concerning Le Fant ф me seems incredible to me, knowing its workings as I do. I am merely trying to fix the scene in my mind, so as to judge whether the automaton could have acted in the manner you describe."

The lieutenant's hands dropped to his sides. He nodded at Blanton to continue. He didn't look happy about it, though.

"As I told the police," Dr. Blanton said, "Bran- that is, Mr. Wintour-was seated at his desk when I entered the room. His head was forward on the desk and I naturally supposed that he was asleep. It was only when we stepped forward-"

"Pardon me, sir," Harry interrupted. "Who was with you in the room?"

"Why, all of us. Myself, of course. Phillips, the butler. Mr. Hendricks and his wife. And Margaret, naturally."

"Margaret?"

"Mrs. Wintour."

"His wife? Where is she now?"

"I had to take her upstairs and give her a sleeping powder. She was distraught, as you can well imagine."

"I see. And who is Mr. Hendricks?"

"I am," said the gentleman who had been seated on the Chesterfield. He was tall and gaunt-faced, with brown curly hair and a Vandyke beard covering what looked to be a jutting chin. I guessed his age to be fifty or so, though his lined forehead and the dark hollows beneath his eyes made it difficult to judge.

"When Bran invited me here tonight he said he'd made the find of a lifetime," Hendricks said. "If what you say about the automaton is true, I'd say he wasn't exaggerating. I've often heard stories about the Blois collection, but I never dreamed I'd actually see any of it."

"Excuse me, sir," Lieutenant Murray said. "What did you call the collection?"

"The Blois collection," Hendricks said, giving a careful pronunciation. "That's what it's always been called. Blois is the name of the city where Robert-Houdin lived."

"You know something of these devices, then?" The lieutenant seemed to be choosing his words carefully.

"I own a great many automatons, Lieutenant. I daresay that's why Bran invited me here this evening-to gloat over his prize."

"Have you, ah, any experience of how they work?"

"Indeed I do. I'm in the toy business myself. One doesn't run a manufacturing concern without picking up a thing or two. I doubt if I'm as knowledgeable as Mr. Houdini, but I have a decent understanding of the basic mechanics. Don't look so alarmed, Lieutenant. I'm well aware that this makes me a suspect."

The woman sitting at his side-whose kindly face had encouraged me in my earlier recitation-laid a hand on his arm. "Surely you don't suspect my husband, do you, Lieutenant?"

"Of course he does, Nora," Hendricks said, not unkindly. "I dare say I'm at the very top of the list. There are only a handful of men in New York who could get Le Fant ф me to work after all these years. Three of us are in this room, and one of us is dead. I can't speak for Mr. Houdini, but I certainly have my share of motives. As soon as you begin to do a little digging, Lieutenant, you'll discover that I'm a business rival of the dead man."

"But the two of you are friends," Mrs. Hendricks protested. "You used to be partners."

"We used to be, darling," her husband said, patting her hand. "I'm afraid that's the point." He turned back toward the desk. "There is something I've been wondering, Lieutenant. Are you certain it was murder? Couldn't it have been an accident, like a gun going off during a cleaning? Who knows how long it's been since anyone has tinkered with those old gears."