The Ectoplasmic Man (18 page)

“I assure you, I am fully aware of the indelicacy of the situation, but it is still my full wish to assist you. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

“I thank you for that, John. You are a true gentleman. But I can get out of here without placing you in the hazard. You have a cab? Good. Pull it around by the west wall, near the exercise yard. I’ll get my clothes and join you there in ten minutes. It will be a full two hours before I am missed.”

“You’re certain you can manage alone?”

“Certain? I am Houdini! Now go and tell the guard I am asleep. Or that I am busy singing British anthems.”

“But Harry,” I asked as he hastened me off towards the exit, “how is it that you have waited until now to escape, if you were so readily able to do so earlier?”

“Because I gave Holmes my word of honour that I would
not,
and that,” he said, swinging the cell door closed, “is the one bond I never break.”

V
IGIL
A
T
G
AIRSTOWE

W
ithin ten minutes Houdini and I were clattering through the night on our way to Stoke Newington. In that short space of time, Houdini had located and donned his black suit, escaped from the prison building, and scaled the wall of the exercise yard. Looking not in the least bit the worse for these efforts, he listened eagerly as I described the events of the previous two days and outlined our purpose in returning to Gairstowe House.

“I see you had much the same reaction as I did to Herr Kleppini,” Houdini commented when I had finished. “Likeable fellow, isn’t he?”

“He is a villain, just as you said; and if Holmes is correct, Kleppini will not be the only one we capture this evening.”

“Yes, a mysterious stranger. I wonder who it could be?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, though I fancy Holmes suspects more than he was telling.”

“Possibly, but don’t blame him for keeping it from you, John. We all have our professional secrets. They provide a useful distraction from our private ones.”

I was curious to know just what he meant by this remark, but I did not press the point for we had arrived at the wrought-iron gates of Gairstowe House. Stepping down from the cab, I was surprised to see young Turks, the amiable guard I had met previously, standing at the sentry-post.

“Dr Watson!” he called. “There you are! I’ve had a wire from Lord O’Neill asking me to take the late watch this evening. He seemed to feel that you might need me.”

“Very good,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Not at all. Nasty night, though,” he said, fortifying himself with the contents of a small flask. “Very nasty night.”

Turks’s assessment was correct. A heavy fog now lent a chill to an already bitter night. Houdini did not have an overcoat, but he did not appear affected by the cold.

“This fog is just as eerie as I’d imagined,” he said, peering about. “I’ve read about London fogs in... well, in your stories, John. All that’s missing now is—”

From out of the swirling mists stepped Sherlock Holmes, dressed in his Inverness travelling cape and deerstalker cap.

“Good evening, Watson,” said he. “Ready for the hunt? Mr Houdini, I am delighted that you could join us.”

“Nothing could have kept me away.”

“I thought not. Turks, you’d best remain at your post. And mind our horses and trap, if you would. Now, gentlemen, shall we go in?”

Turks swung open the gate and the three of us proceeded to the marbled entrance. “We’d better not use any of the interior lighting,” Holmes cautioned. “I have brought the dark lantern; it should suffice.” He reached under his cloak and withdrew not only the lantern, but also my service revolver, which he handed to me without comment.

“Expecting trouble?” Houdini raised his eyebrows at this.

“Watson’s revolver often takes up where deductive reasoning leaves
off,” Holmes answered, guiding us down the dim passageway which led to Lord O’Neill’s study. “Here we are,” he said, shining the lantern on the massive vault door, which was now securely closed. “This is the room from which you are supposed to have stolen the papers, Mr Houdini. If all goes according to design, the real culprits will have to repeat the theft tonight.”

“Shall we wait for them here?” I asked.

Holmes cast the lantern’s beam about the stark corridor. “There is no cover here,” he said. “If we intend to surprise them in the act, we shall have to wait inside the chamber. That is why we have invited Mr Houdini. Now, if you would be so good as to open the vault door—?”

Houdini eyed the vault warily and fingered the first of the three complicated locking mechanisms. “Sorry,” he said “I can’t do it.”

“Houdini,” said Holmes impatiently, “this is no time for your professional secrecy. Watson and I will keep quiet.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t do it. I can’t get in. I wish I could help you.”

“What! But at your performances at the Savoy you open a vault door without so much as blinking an eye!”

“There’s a crucial difference, Holmes. At the Savoy I break
out
of a safe. That is a fairly simple thing to do. A safe is designed to keep burglars from breaking in, not from breaking out. Once inside the safe, it is easy to get at the locking mechanisms. But from the outside, the locks are sealed in metal. I can’t get at them.”

“This is very inconvenient,” Holmes said.

“But Holmes,” I offered, “I don’t understand why it is necessary for Houdini to open the door at all. Why do we not simply telephone Lord O’Neill and ask him to open the door for us?”

“Because he would never agree to it,” Holmes answered quietly.

“I don’t understand; I thought he instructed the guard to let us in?”

“Lord O’Neill does not know that we are here. I sent the instructions
to Turks in his name.”

Houdini laughed. “Looks as if we’ve both overstepped our limits a bit, eh Holmes? Maybe you’re not as clever as Watson makes you out to be.”

Eager to prevent what would surely have been an acerbic reply, I unfolded Holmes’s elaborate set of lock-picking tools and offered it to Houdini. “Do you suppose these tools might help you to get into the vault? Kleppini must have used a similar set.”

“No, my friend. Those tools are useless. They are child’s playthings, I’m surprised that a man of your intelligence would be carrying them.” I stole a glance at Holmes, but he did not appear to have heard. “I hate to spoil the plan, but there is no possible way for me to get us in there. This is not something I admit lightly.”

As Houdini spoke, I perceived a subtle change in the manner of Sherlock Holmes. Despite the apparent frustration of his plan, Holmes had resumed that lightness of spirit which I have come to associate with moments of revelation. Lost in thought, he walked to the vault door and ran his hand along its workings. “Of course,” he murmured. “Ingenious.” He turned to face us. “I believe that you are right, Houdini. Perhaps I am not so clever, after all. I have certainly not demonstrated any particular skill in this investigation, at any rate. I attribute my failings, at least partially, to the undue haste dictated by circumstance. But now the matter has become plain.”

“You have solved the case, Holmes?”

“I know how the robbery was done, Watson. That should occupy us for the present.”

“Then you know how Kleppini was able to break into the vault when Houdini could not?” I regretted saying this immediately, for Houdini gave me a murderous look.

“I know how Kleppini got inside the vault, yes.”

“Look, Holmes,” said Houdini, quite hotly, “I don’t know what you’re,
getting at here, but it isn’t possible that Kleppini could open that door. I’d stake my last dollar on it.”

“You’re certain? Then how were the papers stolen?”

“Holmes, Houdini has repeatedly said that the door is impenetrable. If a man of his skills cannot find a way of entering the chamber, surely Kleppini would be far less likely to succeed?” I said this hoping both to appease Houdini and draw out Holmes. Did ever a physician minister to two such sensitive vanities?

“And yet the papers are missing,” Holmes reminded us.

Houdini snorted. “Next you’ll be telling us that Kleppini converted his body to ectoplasm and oozed through the door! Spit it out, Holmes! How was the crime done?”

“You yourself have given me the answer, Mr Houdini. Let us redirect your energies to the problem. Now, you are a magician of some repute—”

“World’s greatest,” Houdini amended quietly.

“Are you? I’ve heard good reports of T. Nelson Downs, the coin manipulator—”

“I am unquestionably the world’s greatest magician and escape artist.”

“Fine. Then the question at hand should present little difficulty. Suppose you wished to achieve the illusion of having breached this chamber, but recognised that the door was impassable. How would you go about it?”

“I’d conceal myself inside the room while the vault door was open. That way I could break out from inside once the chamber had been sealed.”

“Just so.”

“Holmes, do you mean to say that Kleppini was in the room the whole time?” The idea seemed absurd to me. “Even during Lord O’Neill’s conference with the prince?”

“Precisely.”

Houdini and I stared at the heavy vault door.

“But—”

“That would mean—”

“So it would. If Kleppini has successfully duplicated the crime this evening, he is in the chamber even as we speak.”

“But that cannot be!” I instinctively lowered my voice so that if Kleppini were present, he would not overhear. “Kleppini could not—”

“There is no need to lower your voice, Watson. The chamber is quite impervious to sound.”

“Kleppini cannot be in the vault,” I resumed at a normal volume. “We left him in Brighton. It is inconceivable that he could have arrived here so far in advance of us, however he managed to get inside.”

“Look, Holmes,” Houdini continued, “I don’t know Lord O’Neill very well, but he’d have to be a simpleton to take such precautions to secure the study, and then overlook a man hiding in it!”

“Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “Kleppini is hidden in the chamber, and it is only a matter of time before he breaks out.”

“Do you propose that we simply wait until he does?”

“I don’t see that we have any choice.”

“This is absurd!” cried Houdini. “Do you really expect us to wait here, maybe all night, on the chance that Kleppini is in there? Why don’t we—”

“Harry,” I interrupted gently, “I’m certain that Holmes’s theory is correct. I suggest we follow his plan.”

“But… all right, John. If you say so.”

While I had succeeded in calming Houdini, Sherlock Holmes observed our apparent intimacy with a vaguely puzzled expression and fell silent.

Making ourselves as comfortable as possible in the stark corridor, we settled in for what promised to be a long vigil. Within half an hour, Houdini had fallen asleep, and I feared that his snores would penetrate even into the sound-proofed chamber. For my own part, I was far too absorbed in the consequence of our watch to think of sleep. If Holmes’s
suppositions were correct, Herr Kleppini had somehow — in the short time since my hasty departure from his booth — managed to contact his liaison, come up from Brighton to London, regain entrance to Gairstowe House, and conceal himself in Lord O’Neill’s study. Was such a thing possible? Could it have been done in such a limited span of time? How did Kleppini get past the guard? How did he enter the study without alerting Lord O’Neill, who must have been present if the door was open? These were but a few of the questions I pondered in those dark hours of the night, as Houdini slumbered on noisily.

This was not the first time I had been awake all night on a watch with Holmes, but time had not inured me to its discomforts. After two hours my limbs had stiffened and my old wound throbbed miserably. No amount of stretching or shifting provided me with any relief. Holmes, conversely, seemed to thrive under such circumstances. Almost immediately he placed himself into that distant, trance-like state, wherein — though he gives the appearance of complete self-absorption — he is in fact sensitive to and alert for the very slightest outside stimuli, which would instantly impel him into action. I have seen Holmes withdraw into this meditative state on many similar occasions and, strangely enough, at the opera. Thus withdrawn, he bore the tedium of our wait far better than I as the long hours of night dragged past.

Just as the first traces of dawn appeared through a distant window, there came the faint sound of metallic tapping, as if some distant blacksmith were hammering at his anvil. Holmes was on his feet instantly.

“That is Kleppini,” he said, now finding it expedient to whisper. “He is opening the vault from the inside. Wake Houdini.”

But the magician was already awake and alert, having evidently been roused by the sharp clicking of the metal ratchets.

“He’s got the back plate off,” said Houdini, just as the first of the vault’s three large combination dials began to turn, seemingly of its own
accord. “He’ll have the door open in seconds.”

“Amazing,” I whispered.

“Child’s play,” the magician replied, as the second and third dials spun in turn. “Holmes, can I lay first hands on him? He owes me a debt.”