Death out of Thin Air (21 page)

To Pat, beside him, Don said, “This is bad. I don't see a door knocker and we forgot to bring a battering ram.”

As he spoke, from a lookout above the gate, a powerful searchlight swept down upon them.

“Larry,” Don said quickly, “Duck!”

Larry Keeler, the miniature magician who was in the seat behind, dropped quickly to the floor — and vanished. He had been standing in a large open valise which Don, reaching over, had snapped shut as Larry doubled up within it.

Lieutenant Brophy came toward them from the shadows of the gate.

“You'll have to leave the car here,” he said. “The big gate isn't to be opened. The Inspector's orders. Come with me.”

Pat and Don descended from the car and Don lifted the suitcase that held Larry Keeler's ninety pounds. They followed the detective and, moving closely one behind the other they entered through a small door that was opened just enough to allow them to slip in.

The detective indicated the high, fortress-like walls that stretched away on either side. “If that invisible loony gets in here tonight, he's good. The top of that wall is electrified and the shore down there has a cordon of men along it that a mouse couldn't slip through. We won't see any invisible man tonight.”

“If he warns us he's going to do one thing and then does something else as he did this morning, perhaps we won't,” Diavolo said. “On the other hand, in spite of walls and guards an invisible man is a difficult visitor to avoid.”

Don was thinking that if he could sneak Larry Keeler in past all these precautions, then a completely invisible man shouldn't have too much trouble. The reason for Larry's secret presence was that Diavolo had decided to have one watcher that no one else knew was present.

That morning at the Museum, the Invisible Man had successfully misdirected several thousand people in an expert manner that got Don's admiration. But Don, as a magician, knew one fact that might prove to be the monkey wrench in the machinery if the Invisible Man should try the same methods tonight. He knew that it is extremely difficult to misdirect someone that you do not know is there. The Invisible Man would naturally concentrate on misdirecting Diavolo, Belmont, the Inspector and his men. If he did not know that another pair of sharp magician's eyes were watching, his misdirection might not be complete.

A police car sped them along the winding road that led up to the great mansion. Diavolo noticed that the grounds were alive with cops and that the house itself was surrounded as if the Inspector were expecting the Goths and Vandals to descend upon him in all their armed force. It was apparent that he was taking no chances this time around.

As they went in with Brophy, the butler met them and tried to relieve Don Diavolo of the suitcase. The magician shook his head.

Brophy asked curiously, “What are you lugging around in that suitcase? Do you expect to stay the night?”

“Brought along a few gadgets that may help us trip up our invisible visitor,” Don said. “Where's the party going to be held?”

“Library,” Brophy answered moving down the hall and opening a door on the right.

Don Diavolo put the suitcase on the floor ten feet or so from the door, leaned over it for a moment, unsnapped the catch and slipping his hand in, came out with a common tin flour-sifter and a paper sack whose side bore the inscription
Silver Medal Flour.
He also took the opportunity to whisper, “Okay, Larry. Keep your eyes peeled. I'll leave the catch free so you can get out and snoop. But
Watch that door!
”

Larry, curled uncomfortably inside, whispered, “Aye, aye, sir.” When Don, Pat, and Brophy went on into the room and the butler had disappeared, the Invisible Man, if he were in the hall and watching closely, could have seen a narrow slitted peephole appear in the end of the suitcase that faced the library door.

Larry, watching through it, smiled grimly and waited.

As the newcomers entered the vaulted library, Inspector Church standing before the massive Gothic fireplace nodded glumly toward Don and spoke to Belmont who paced the floor nervously nearby. “You don't make it any easier for me, inviting a magician out here,” he growled. “I don't trust him even when I'm looking at him.”

Don pretended to look hurt. “But, Inspector, you know that I was in the curator's office this morning with Shultz watching me like a hawk. I couldn't have been robbing Mr. Ziegler at the same time.”

“Maybe and maybe not,” Church replied unconvinced. “What about that funny business in your act where the audience watches you just as hard as Shultz did and, suddenly, when you take off that damned mask of yours, you turn out to be your assistant and your assistant who's been helping with the props turns out to be you? When you make a living doing things like that, how can you expect me to—”

J.D. Belmont exhaled a cloud of smoke and asked a question. “Diavolo, have you figured out a way to prevent this theft?”

“I've got a precaution or two I'd like to take,” Don answered. He glanced around the room. “Grills on the windows,” he said. “Good. Three doors. I suggest we lock all but one.”

“I've done that already,” Church said. “What are you going to do with that flour sifter?”

“Even an invisible man has to leave footprints,” Don explained. “Unless he's a ghost. If we see any footprints being made, we'll know where he is and can take steps accordingly.”

Church said, “Hmmmpf!” unconsciously giving such a good imitation of Belmont that the latter scowled at the Inspector, wondering if he was being kidded.

“Very practical scheme,” the financier said then. “An invisible man could slip between a couple of cops. But I don't see how he could get across a flour-covered floor without leaving traces.”

Diavolo opened his sack, filled the sifter and spread a wide twelve-foot strip of white flour across the floor before each door and window. “Any secret sliding panels or trapdoors in this room?” he asked.

Belmont nodded. “One. The book case on the right of the fireplace swings out.”

Don proceeded to create a miniature snowstorm there, and then said. “Okay. Let him come. What's the time? Judging from this morning's performance, our friend is a punctual chap.”

“We've a few minutes yet,” Church answered. “Belmont, let's see that necklace. I want it where I can watch it.”

The financier grasped the frame of an El Greco on the wall and swung it outward to reveal the face of a large safe set into the wall. He worked at the dial for a moment and then, when the heavy door had been opened, brought out a flat ebony case whose cover was inlaid with blue enamel and semiprecious stones.

He placed it on a table in the center of the room and the others all gathered around as he lifted the lid.

On a bed of black velvet lay an unbelievable display of diamonds whose scintillant, dazzling brilliance shone and sparkled in the light with living fire.

Belmont picked them up and the white light dripped from his fingers in shimmering silver cascades as if sunlight were falling on the tumbling icy waters of a foaming mountain stream.

“Five hundred and sixty diamonds,” Belmont said. “Boehmer, the Parisian jeweler, put every cent of his capital into it.” He turned, placed the necklace around Pat's neck, and snapped the gold clasp behind.

Seventeen perfect stones, each at least a half inch across, closely encircled her neck. From this glittering collar, festoons of smaller diamonds looped down carrying pendant rosettes — even larger stones encircled by small ones. Over the shoulders and down across the breast, two broad rows of medium size stones descended, joined and ended in tassels of diamonds caught by small tied bows of chased silver. Two further triple rows fell from the collar in back to more diamond tassels.

“It's beautiful,” Pat gasped. “And ugly!”

“Yes,” Belmont agreed. “The stones are perfect; the design is tasteless. Boehmer was no artist and the florid, ungraceful lines of the thing are probably one reason why he wasn't able to sell it to Antoinette. She advised him to break it up and realize on his frozen capital in that way. He refused. He didn't want to take the loss he'd been put to in assembling the matched stones. Because he was pigheaded, he lost the necklace itself.”

Don Diavolo said quietly: “I understood that Madame Lamotte broke up the necklace as soon as she got her hands on it and that her husband, and Vilette, the forger, sold the stones in Amsterdam and London.

“Sure,” Belmont nodded, puffing smoke and surveying the glittering impossibility that Pat wore. “That's what lots of people think. Hmmpf! Next time some so-called authority writes a book about Cagliostro, Lamotte and the Antoinette necklace, I wish he'd check up his sources. I can show you dozens of books on the affair, and every damned author cribs whole sections from the last previous book. The first writer makes a mistake and they all follow like so many blasted sheep. Bah! I've got Lamotte's husband's diary.

“He was the only member of the swindling gang who escaped arrest. Even the nitwitted authorities all agree on that. He fled to London and his diary tells how he took the necklace with him still intact. But he didn't have it long. Some thieves broke in to his lodgings one night. Beat him up and left with the necklace. The gendarmes were after him and all France was up in arms about the scandal so he couldn't very well report it. The necklace has been unheard of from that day to this.”

“How'd you come on it?” Church asked.

“I didn't,” Belmont answered. “One of Ziegler's buyers ferreted it out in England, along with the diary. Got it from a Duke. Can't tell you his name because he doesn't want it known that it was his ancestor who hired the thugs that lifted the necklace from Lamotte. There'd be a second scandal if I did.”

“And Ziegler offered it to you secretly?”

“Sure. He knew I was the only collector who could afford to grab it because of its historical interest. But there isn't one of them could pay the price. That necklace was worth $320,000 when Boehmer made it. Now — well I paid a good bit more than that.”

“I see,” Diavolo said. “How many people knew that you had purchased it from Ziegler?”

Belmont said “Hmmmpf!” again and scowled at Don. “I don't know. Number of people in the trade perhaps. Ziegler, his buyer, the Duke, a few others.”

“How do you suppose the Invisible Man knew you had it?”

“That,” Belmont said gruffly, “would seem to depend on who the Invisible Man is.”

Diavolo looked at his watch. “Pat,” he said, “perhaps you'd better climb out of it. The bogeyman is due any minute now and if he takes the necklace, it might be just as well you weren't in it at the time.”

Don unclasped the collar and gave it to Belmont who started to place it again in its velvet case.

“Leave it right there,” Church said. “I'm not going to take my eyes off it from now on.”

The Inspector, saying that, promised too much.

At that moment, behind them, a voice which the Inspector had heard once before said, “
Oh I see. Flour. That makes it difficult. I'll be back.
”

The group standing around the necklace whirled together like marionettes pulled by a single set of strings.

The one unlocked door that had been closed now stood open perhaps a foot and the voice came from beyond, apparently from someone standing just outside on the threshold, looking in. The trouble was that from where they stood, they all had a clear view out into the dim hall — and there was no one there.

They saw that much and then the door swung quickly to, slamming in its frame. No hand had touched the doorknob.

Inspector Church, Sergeant Brophy, and Belmont dashed headlong for the door, across the intervening strip of floor and out the door.

Don, as they ran, shouted, “Wait!” but they didn't hear him. He said, “Damn and blast! Now they've done it.”

Church commanded, “Watch that door, Brophy!” Then he ran down the hall toward the outer door. Don, scowling, followed them into the hall, knelt by the suitcase, and pretended to open it and take out a small automatic. Actually what he really did was to go through the motions and produce a gun that he had palmed in his hand. He also whispered to Larry, “What did you see?”

And Larry answered, “Not a single damn thing, Don! And I don't like it here. If that bird should get hep—”

“You stay on the job,” Diavolo ordered. “You may get an eyeful yet.” Don got up and quickly returned to the library. His lean and handsome face bore a dark, threatening scowl. His eyes glistened brightly, anger and excitement mingling in them.

Belmont, looking nervously from side to side, went into the library with him. The money king's prognathous jaw jutted unpleasantly.

And then Pat pointed, “Don!” she cried. “The necklace case. It's been moved!”

Don and Belmont both raced toward it. The case had been turned so that its uplifted lid concealed its interior.

Pat got there first and when she looked within her eyes were round.

Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace was gone. The black velvet bed on which the hard bright stones had flashed was bare and empty.