Fredric Brown - The Hat Trick

In a sense, the thing never happened. Actually, it would not have happened had not a thundershower been at its height when the four of them came out of the movie.

It had been a horror picture. A really horrible one—not trapdoor claptrap, but a subtle, insidious thing that made the rain-laden night air seem clean and sweet and welcome. To three of them. The fourth—

They stood under the marquee, and Mae said, “Gee, gang, what do we do now, swim or take taxis?” Mae was a cute little blonde with a turned-up nose, the better for smelling the perfumes she sold across a department-store counter.

Elsie turned to the two boys and said, “Let’s all go up to my studio for a while. It’s early yet.” The faint emphasis on the word “studio” was the snapper. Elsie had had the studio for only a week, and the novelty of living in a studio instead of a furnished room made her feel proud and Bohemian and a little wicked. She wouldn’t, of course, have invited Walter up alone, but as long as there were two couples of them, it would be all right.

Bob said, “Swell. Listen. Wally, you hold this cab. I’ll run down and get some wine. You girls like port?”

Walter and the girls took the cab while Bob talked the bartender, whom he knew slightly, into selling a fifth of wine after legal hours. He came running back with it and they were off to Elsie’s.

Mae, in the cab, got to thinking about the horror picture again; she’d almost made them walk out on it. She shivered, and Bob put his arm around her protectively. “Forget it, Mae.” he said. “Just a picture. Nothing like that ever happens, really.”

“If it did—” Walter began, and then stopped abruptly.

Bob looked at him and said, “If it did, what?”

Walter’s voice was a bit apologetic. “Forget now what I was going to say.” He smiled, a little strangely, as though the picture had affected him a bit differently than it had affected the others. Quite a bit.

“How’s school coming, Walter?” Elsie asked.

Walter was taking a premed course at night school; this was his one night off for the week. Days he worked in a bookstore on Chestnut Street. He nodded and said, “Pretty good.”

Elsie was comparing him, mentally, with Mae’s boy friend, Bob. Walter wasn’t quite as tall as Bob, but he wasn’t bad-looking in spite of his glasses. And he was sure a lot smarter than Bob was and would get further some day. Bob was learning printing and was halfway through his apprenticeship now. He’d quit high school in his third year.

When they got to Elsie’s studio, she found four glasses in the cupboard, even if they were all different sizes and shapes, and then she rummaged around for crackers and peanut butter while Bob opened the wine and filled the glasses.

It was Elsie’s first party in the studio, and it turned out not to be a very wicked one. They talked about the horror picture mostly, and Bob refilled their glasses a couple of times, but none of them felt it much.

Then the conversation ran down a bit and it was still early. Elsie said, “Bob, you used to do some good card tricks. I got a deck in the drawer there. Show us.”

That’s how it started, as simply as that. Bob took the deck and had Mae draw a card. Then he cut the deck and had Mae put it back in at the cut, and let her cut them a few times, and then he went through the deck, face up, and showed her the card, the nine of spades.

Walter watched without particular interest. He probably wouldn’t have said anything if Elsie hadn’t piped up, “Bob, that’s wonderful. I don’t see how you do it.” So Walter told her, “It’s easy; he looked at the bottom card before he started, and when he cut her card into the deck, that card would be on top of it, so he just picked out the card that was next to it.”

Elsie saw the look Bob was giving Walter and she tried to cover up by saying how clever it was even when you knew how it worked, but Bob said, “Wally, maybe you can show us something good. Maybe you’re Houdini’s pet nephew or something.”

Walter grinned at him. He said, “If I had a hat, I might show you one.” It was safe; neither of the boys had worn hats. Mae pointed to the tricky little thing she’d taken off her head and put on Elsie’s dresser. Walter scowled at it. “Call that a hat? Listen, Bob, I’m sorry I gave your trick away. Skip it; I’m no good at them.”

Bob had been riffling the cards back and forth from one hand to the other, and he might have skipped it had not the deck slipped and scattered on the floor. He picked them up and his face was red, not entirely from bending over. He held out the deck to Walter. “You must be good on cards, too,” he said. “If you could give my trick away, you must know some. G’wan, do one.”

Walter took the deck a little reluctantly, and thought a minute. Then, with Elsie watching him eagerly, he picked out three cards, holding them so no one else could see them, and put the deck back down. Then he held up the three cards, in a V shape, and said, “I’ll put one of these on top, one on bottom, and one in the middle of the deck and bring them together with a cut. Look, it’s the two of diamonds, the ace of diamonds, and the three of diamonds.”

He turned them around again so the backs of the cards were towards his audience and began to place them one on top the deck, one in the middle, and—

“Aw, I get that one,” Bob said. “That wasn’t the ace of diamonds. It was the ace of hearts and you held it between the other two so just the point of the heart showed. You got that ace of diamonds already planted on top the deck.” He grinned triumphantly.

Mae said, “Bob, that was mean. Wally anyway let you finish your stunt before he said anything.”

Elsie frowned at Bob, too. Then her face suddenly lit up and she went across to the closet and opened the door and took a cardboard box off the top shelf. “Just remembered this,” she said. “It’s from a year ago when I had a part in a ballet at the social centre. A top hat.”

She opened the box and took it out. It was dented and, despite the box, a bit dusty, but it was indubitably a top hat. She put it, on its crown, on the table near Walter. “You said you could do a good one with a hat, Walter,” she said. “Show him.”

Everybody was looking at Walter and he shifted uncomfortably. “I—I was just kidding him, Elsie. I don’t—I mean it’s been so long since I tried that kind of stuff when I was a kid, and everything. I don’t remember it.”

Bob grinned happily and stood up. His glass and Walter’s were empty and he filled them, and he put a little more into the girls’ glasses, although they weren’t empty yet. Then he picked up a yardstick that was in the corner and flourished it like a circus barker’s cane. He said, “Step this way, ladies and gentleman, to see the one and only Walter Beekman do the famous non-existent trick with the black top hat. And in the next cage we have—”

“Bob, shut up,” said Mae.

There was a faint glitter in Walter’s eyes. He said, “For two cents, I’d—”

Bob reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. He took two pennies out and reached across and dropped them into the inverted top hat. He said, “There you are,” and waved the yardstick-cane again. “Price only two cents, the one-fiftieth part of a dollah! Step right up and see the greatest prestidigitatah on earth—”

Walter drank his wine and then his face kept getting redder while Bob went on spieling. Then he stood up. He said quietly, “What’d you like to see for your two cents, Bob?”

Elsie looked at him open-eyed, “You mean, Wally, you’re offering to take anything out of—”