Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

"Agitated voices ... arguing?"

"Loud enough to waken or disturb the immediate neighbors. You have to understand, Temple, that people in this development are very discreet. Most of them are celebrities, or at least used to be, so their names still ring bells all over the place. They dislike publicity and attention, and they all swear none of them called the police. But a squad car did drive through and make inquiries. Perhaps your pal Molina could look up the information on the call."

"Umhmmm. She's not even on this case."

Max stroked a hair loosened by his breaking-and-entry exertions from his forehead. Under it lurked a cynically lifted eyebrow. "You must appreciate that."

"Actually, no. I now realize that I used to get tidbits of information out of Molina when we had our little verbal sparring matches. From Watts and Sacker, I get nada , though they're a lot more polite."

"Perhaps Molina is more susceptible to your considerable charm than you think."

"No. Impervious' is her middle name. And if I told you what the C in C.R. stood for--"

Max tented his long flexible fingers. "Tell me. In my position it's always useful to have an insight into members of the local constabulary."

"You don't have a position, that's the trouble. You're just a Missing Man. And 'local constabulary,' honestly, Max. Sometimes you talk like someone from an Agatha Christie play."

"I lived abroad for a while, in my youth."

"Oh, right. Your Interpol days."

"We're not here to weasel background out of each other."

"I'll need more than I have now if I'm supposed to shed any light on Gandolph's death."

Temple tasted another drop of liqueur, then let it soak into her tongue. "So it's possible someone was here while Gandolph was at the seance; more than one 'someone,' or else Voices'

wouldn't have been heard. You've looked the place over, anything moved?"

"Hard to tell; it's been a while since I saw this stuff. But... yes, the magical equipment appears to have been moved, considerably."

"Gandolph's? Or yours?"

"Both. You realize that a magician's equipment is his stock-in trade and worth thousands, his professional secrets all bundled up into a few tables and trunks and boxes?"

"You think someone was searching--?" Temple sat up. "Why do you assume it was Gandolph's things they were disturbing? Why not yours? Not too long ago, somebody was looking for you, hard. Why not for your equipment?"

"Do you really think those thugs who knocked you around would know what to do with a metamorphosis cabinet if they stumbled over one?"

Temple sat back. "No. And no one saw anything, thanks to your blackout draperies. Nice pattern, by the way." She nodded at the cinnabar brocade curtains embroidered with teal and gold birds of paradise.

"The house is Chinese in design. I tried to honor the original intent."

"Why did Welles leave this house, and when?"

"In nineteen eighty-five, when he died."

"He died? But not here?"

"No, in Los Angeles. You didn't know when he died?"

"I must have missed the announcements. I was in college and didn't always have access to a television set in the dorm." Temple eyed the room with new worry. "And you bought it?"

"Somewhat later. First flush of success. I'd always felt Orson Welles was a tragic figure, stymied by his own fearsome talent and others' fear of the truly innovative. He was a magician of sorts, you know."

"No, I didn't. Was he any good?"

Max shrugged. "Like all amateurs, he enjoyed the flourishes but lacked the foundation to achieve any truly original effects. And the physique was lacking too."

"You mean the physique wasn't lacking; too much of a good thing, or too many good things."

"He still managed some stunning effects. The Great Orson swallowed needles and flames, did the trunk substitution with Rita Hayworth as long as Harry Cohn would let him, heckled hypnotized roosters, caught a bullet between his teeth and did psychic readings."

Only one item on this eccentric list caught Temple's attention. "Psychic readings?"

"Supposedly he'd done it earlier, on the road with a touring show to make a buck But he gave up for reasons others often do: he scared himself with his own apparent accuracy. Even Houdini tried it when he was hard up early in his career, and shied away."

"Do you think Welles was psychic?"

"Not at all. Everybody who isn't a crook and toys with doing psychic readings scares themselves silly. They have no idea of the role coincidence plays in daily life. When a few of their predictions hit home, they panic, doff their turbans and head for the hills."

"You have absolutely no belief in a life beyond death, or powers beyond the normal?"

"No," Max said without hesitation. "Anybody who tries to sell somebody else stock in those notions is a fraud."

"Most religions accept inexplicable events they call 'miracles.' Most religions posit a life after death."

"I repeat, anybody or any institution that tries to sell somebody else stock in such notions is a fraud."

"We've never discussed the topic. I always assumed magicians adore the mysterious, the unexplained."

"We do, but only in our own acts. Magicians as a class abhor the spacey side of occultism.

We know the ghostly visitations and the tap-dancing tables are manipulated, and we know how such tricks are done. That's why so many magicians, irritated by watching their art used to defraud the gullible, donate their services to debunk spectral phenomena."

"How is that different from charging the public to watch you do tricks?"

"Enormously!" Max leaned forward, elbows on knees, gesturing with the now-empty brandy glass. "We magicians advertise ourselves as tricksters. We admit that we are entertainers. We don't toy with people's pasts, or their pain. We appeal to their sense of reality, we challenge them in public to catch us tricking them. Psychics and mediums pretend to superior sensitivities.

They take money in private under false pretenses, in exchange for useless and deceptive information. They prolong the process for as long as the pigeon's cash holds out. They are thieves of time as well as money, pickpockets of the soul. They are ... despicable."

"And Gandolph felt as you do?"

"More strongly."

Temple sat back. "Was that why he was in disguise at the seance? Did he plan to expose one, or all, of the psychics present?"

"I don't know. Obviously, he didn't wish to be recognized. He could have been planning a book. He had the time now. Yet it was such an obvious publicity stunt; a seance in a haunted-house attraction seems beneath his notice."

"He mentioned nothing to you of the scheme?"

Max frowned and sipped from the brandy snifter. Temple noticed it was full again, and gave him a questioning look.

Max rolled the brandy in the crystal bowl, then sipped from the second snifter in his other hand. "Quite simple. I brought two glasses over, knowing my mood and capacity, then switched to the full one when the other was empty. Being a magician, I couldn't resist doing it surreptitiously."

"Ex-magicians are like ex-actors, always on."

"That's it!" Max said. "You've hit it. Gandolph was 'always on.' He couldn't resist trying to fool the eye, even if it was with that Lady-Lavinia-at-the-seance outfit. He might have done it simply as a lark, intending to rise at the end, pull off his bonnet and reveal himself."

"Happy Halloween."

"Trick or treat, you decide."

"That's why he wouldn't have told you."

"I wasn't exactly Harry Houseguest, with slippers warming on the hearth and a nice concave dip worn in the best chair. I come ... and go. I was here if I wanted to lie low. If I wanted something else, I was gone."

"So you really don't know much about Gandolph's movements, or even his state of mind?"