The Floating Lady Murder (25 page)

“
Kasheh
,” said Mother.

“Wonderful!” Kellar exclaimed. He turned back to us, smiling at the stunned expressions on our faces. “Forgive me, I seem to have forgotten my manners. You are wondering who this gentleman is that I’ve brought with me.” Kellar stood and pulled the napkin from under his chin.

“Allow me to present Mr. Servais Le Roy.”

13

SERVAIS LE ROY WAS A SMALL, DAPPER MAN WITH SLICK BLACK
hair and a waxed moustache, the tips of which extended a fair distance on either side of his face, in the manner of antennae. His black velvet suit featured buckled knee breeches and long stockings of the type once fashionable at court, making him quite the most singular-looking man I had ever seen. Certainly he was the most exotic visitor ever to grace my mother’s breakfast table.

“I hope that you will forgive the intrusion,” Le Roy said. His clear, pleasant voice was lightly accented with what I took to be Belgian rhythms. “Henry felt that it was imperative that we speak with you immediately. He was most insistent.”

“Le Roy has had a brainstorm!” Kellar cried. “An absolute brainstorm!”

Harry and I exchanged a look, trying to appraise the situation. We were definitely not looking our best. We still wore our dark clothing from the previous night’s escapade, and our labors at the Grand Central storage facility had left us a bit rough around the edges. The top of Harry’s head looked like one of the mops we had used to make our escape, and I was covered with cuts and scrapes from my struggle with the mail bag,

“I, uh—you must pardon our appearance,” Harry stammered.

“We—we’ve been helping a friend,” I added, hoping that
this explanation would suffice.

“Tell them your idea, Le Roy!” said Kellar, too caught up in his excitement to notice. “I can’t wait to hear what they think of it!”

Our dapper visitor, busy with a plate of my mother’s pepper sausages, nodded enthusiastically. “Henry is being generous,” he said, setting down his fork and dabbing at his lips. “The inspiration is not mine alone. It was he who suggested the hoop skirt.”

Harry pulled back a chair and sat down. “I’m afraid you’ve left us completely in the dark,” he said. “What hoop skirt?”

Kellar gave a barking laugh. “Sorry, Houdini,” he said. “We must sound as if we’re talking a lot of nonsense. We’ll start from the beginning.”

“I went to visit Henry at his hotel last night,” Le Roy explained. “It seemed to be the only proper thing to do. Of course I had read all about the tragedy of the other night. It made our little rivalry seem quite absurd, and I wished to call in and pay my condolences.”

“Very decent of him,” Kellar said.

“Well, I also wished to explain my sudden appearance in New York—to present a Floating Lady, no less! The timing was terribly disagreeable, coming so close on the heels of the misfortune. It must have appeared”—he paused, searching for the proper word—“ghoulish, I suppose.”

“No, no,” said Harry, his face growing scarlet.

“Not at all,” I hurried to add.

“But how could I have known? Yes, the timing was very disagreeable. I don’t know what you must have thought of me. I had no idea that Mr. Kellar would be presenting a Floating Lady at this time, far less that there would be such a disaster on the opening night. After all, it is not as if Mr. Kellar and I are spying on one another.”

“Of course not,” Harry said, laughing nervously.

“What a ridiculous notion!” I added.

“Le Roy and I had never met before,” Kellar said, taking up the story. “I suppose we were a bit wary of one another at first, but once the formalities were addressed, we warmed up rather quickly.”

“Henry is quite generous with his bourbon,” Le Roy observed.

“One thing led to another, and soon enough we had fallen into a debate over the Floating Lady. Very lively, it was. Le Roy has devised a rather crafty method of actually showing the lady rising above the levitation banquette. None of this covering her up with a cloak, either.”

“You don’t say?” asked Harry.

“Incredible, isn’t it? You’ll say it’s impossible, but he’s found a way to allow the lady to hover above the stage for a moment or so. And by his account, it will look sensational!”

“My levitation couch is quite delicate,” Le Roy explained, “far more so than the one Henry has been using. The audience sees this fragile piece of furniture, and they are not at all suspicious of it. Intuitively they understand that it could not be part of some elaborate machinery, because it lacks the solid appearance of the usual run of magician’s apparatus. You see what I’m suggesting?”

“The couch itself is not the mechanism of the levitation,” Harry said. “You’ve found some other means of establishing the necessary leverage. A carpet, perhaps.”

Le Roy drew back in surprise. “Why, yes! Exactly! How could you possibly have guessed that?”

I shot him a warning look. I suppose he couldn’t help himself.

Keller gave another snort of laughter. “I told you these boys were clever! Don’t get any ideas about stealing them away from me, Le Roy!”

Le Roy took another forkful of sausage, gazing at my brother with a wary expression.

“You can see how Le Roy’s version offers a great advance over mine,” Kellar resumed. “In our effect, we never actually saw the princess floating above the stage. She had to be covered with
the cloth or it wouldn’t work. It was fine for our purposes, but Le Roy’s method is far more effective.”

“So far as it goes,” Le Roy added. “But with my version, the Floating Lady never left the stage. Your method of having her float out over the audience—it is an inspiration!”

Kellar nodded eagerly. “So naturally it occurred to us—”

“—If we were to combine the two effects—” Le Roy broke in.

“—Use bits of Le Roy’s version and bits of mine—”

“—Then we would have the definitive version of the Floating Lady effect!”

Kellar turned to us with a happy expression on his features. “What do you think, boys?”

Harry and I were momentarily at a loss. A short time earlier, we had been plundering Le Roy’s equipment. Now we were swapping secrets over a plate of mother’s
kasheh
. My mind was racing to keep up.

“I think that Harry and Dash are a bit taken aback,” Bess said, trying to cover our obvious discomposure. “For one thing, Mr. Kellar, we had understood that you never wished to perform this trick again. You even spoke of withdrawing from the stage forever. This morning you seem quite transformed.”

A shadow passed across Kellar’s face. “It’s true,” he said. “I imagine that my enthusiasm must seem misplaced in the circumstances, but I have had a chance to do a great deal of thinking since the tragedy. That lieutenant from the police department informs me that he is investigating this matter as a case of murder. Poor Collins has fallen under suspicion, it seems.”

Harry spoke up. “We don’t happen to believe that Collins is guilty,” he said.

“Nor do I, Houdini. Nor do I. But that is a matter for the law.” He paused, considering his words carefully. “I know that it may strike you as odd, and perhaps a bit unseemly, but the knowledge that Miss Moore was murdered has brought me a strange form of comfort. Though her death is no less terrible,
I am consoled to know that it was not caused by negligence on my part. A thing such as this is a great blow, and I have now seen it twice in my lifetime—first with the misfortune of my mentor, Mr. McGregor, and now with the events of Saturday night. In such circumstances, I may perhaps be forgiven if I allowed myself to grow morbid and fanciful. So long as I felt that Miss Moore had come to her end through some doing of mine, I could never have faced an audience again. As it is, her death will haunt me to my last breath, but I am encouraged to believe that there was nothing I might have done to prevent it. And who knows, perhaps the same might be said of Hermione McGregor as well. Perhaps this evening will afford me an opportunity to lay her spirit to rest once and for all.”

“This evening?” Harry asked. “What is happening this evening?”

“This is why we have come to you this morning,” Le Roy said. “Henry and I are anxious to test our combined method of performing the Floating Lady. My debut is not until tomorrow evening, and of course the Belasco is dark in honor of Miss Moore, so we thought we might have an opportunity to stage a dress rehearsal. We shall incorporate both techniques into a seamless presentation of the effect.”

“What do you think, boys?” asked Kellar. “It would take a hard day’s work to be ready in time, but I told Le Roy that the pair of you would be up to the challenge. Of course we’ll have to build some new equipment in a terrible hurry, but we can get most of what we need from Le Roy. The rest of it we can knock together in the scene shop this afternoon.” He glanced at me. “Hardeen? Are you listening?”

I gave a start. “Forgive me. I was thinking of—”

“The two of you want to perform the effect together?” Harry broke in.

“Certainly!” Kellar said. “Why not? Of course, there won’t be an audience. We’ll just do it for our own gratification, to see if we can agree on the staging. It’s just this once, then we’ll go
back to business as usual, I’m afraid. Tomorrow Le Roy and I will be rivals once again. After all, a little competition is good for business.”

“Indeed,” said Le Roy. “I am a far better magician knowing that I must stay abreast of the great Harry Kellar.”

“But what about the patent?” Harry asked. “What about all the money?”

Kellar and Le Roy looked at one another with raised eyebrows. “I suppose I’ll have to let McAdow sort it out with your manager,” Kellar said. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him I’ve handed over my best secret to Mr. Servais Le Roy!”

“Wherever will you find an aerialist by this evening?” Bess asked. “What happened to Miss Moore—”

“Ah, but there’s the beauty of it!” said Kellar. “Le Roy has had a further inspiration that removes any remaining element of danger. We no longer require a trained wire-walker, simply because there is no longer any need of high-wire work.”

Le Roy reached into his breast pocket and unfolded a piece of yellowed paper. “It is a notion I have had for some time,” he said, spreading the illustration out on the breakfast table. “If the young lady were wearing the device I’ve envisioned here, it would offer far more safety than the conventional leather harness.” Mr. Le Roy’s drawing indicated a primitive type of gyroscope device that fastened about the assistant’s knees and waist, keeping her level while supporting the back and legs. “I call it the ‘Magic Corset.’ ”

“It’s an exceptional idea,” Harry said. “Quite remarkable. But how would it be possible to conceal such a device beneath the Princess Karnac robes?”

“We can’t,” said Kellar. “The Princess Karnac costume is useless to us now. We shall have to devise an entirely new story line—one that finds our Floating Lady wearing a hoop skirt.”

“A hoop skirt,” Harry said. “Yes, that might work.”

“Mrs. Houdini,” said Kellar, “would you honor us with your
assistance for the first-ever performance of the Kellar–Le Roy Floating Lady?”

Bess hesitated. “I—I’m not certain that I should, Mr. Kellar.”

His face clouded. “I quite understand, my dear. After what happened on Saturday night, I can hardly blame you.”

“No,” said Bess. “It isn’t that. I believe that Miss Wynn might be a more appropriate choice. She is taller, and perhaps better suited to the apparatus. Besides, I understand that she has her heart set on becoming your lead assistant.”

“Miss Wynn will be a splendid choice, dear lady,” said Kellar. “How gracious of you to—”

“This young lady,” Le Roy broke in. “How tall is she?”

“Perhaps a head taller than I,” said Bess. “Perhaps more.”

Le Roy shook his head. “Too tall. The harness won’t fit. I built it for my own assistant, who will not arrive until tomorrow. Marguerite is roughly your height, Mrs. Houdini.”

“Won’t you reconsider, Mrs. Houdini?” Kellar asked. “Just for this evening?”

Bess looked at Harry. He nodded. “I should be delighted, Mr. Kellar,” she said.

Kellar rubbed his hands together. “Very good. Shall we repair to the theater? There is much work to be done.” He pushed back his chair and set his napkin on the table. “Mrs. Weiss,” he said, clasping Mother’s hand, “I must compliment you once again on your wonderful cooking. This is the finest breakfast in all of New York.”