as if burned. “Du bist nicht Leopold.” She held him at arm’s length, then she let out a stream of words out of which I could only make out, “Mein Ehrich.” But the way she hugged him and cried made it clear that she’d worked out who he really was.
With that he stripped off the beard. “Bess!” he yelled. “Bess, come down here. Your husband has returned from the grave.”
There was a scream from up above and Bess came flying down the stairs. We were in the midst of a touching reunion when there was a bang at the front door. We froze. Houdini’s mother went to answer it and I heard Mr. Wilkie’s calm, deep voice. In he came, and in his wake was Daniel.
Daniel pushed past him and swept me into his arms. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God.” He held me close, his heart thumping against mine. Then he released me, holding me at arm’s length and frowning at me. “I’ve only heard the sketchiest account of what you might have been doing, but it’s never going to happen again, do you hear that? I utterly forbid it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have no aspirations to become a spy.”
“I can’t believe that you kept it from me,” he said, his eyes flashing angrily now. “You deliberately lied to me.”
“I was sworn to secrecy,” I said. “I had no choice. I’m sorry.”
“Miss Murphy has just endured a most harrowing experience,” Houdini said, and he recounted it.
Wilkie sighed. “I am sorry to have put you in such danger,” he said. “We have long suspected that one of my own men was a double agent, but I had no way to make him show his hand.”
“So you used me as bait,” I said angrily.
“I rather fear the answer to that is yes,” he said. “But it never occurred to me that he’d reach New York before me. Or that he’d realize you had discovered his true identity.”
“I did more than that,” I said. “I found out why the German agents were so eager to keep Houdini from meeting you.” I looked across at him.
“I was taken around a factory,” Houdini explained. “They were proud to show off their engineering superiority. I glimpsed a design for an underwater craft that could transport many men undetected. And then, on another occasion, when I overheard a plan to launch a surprise attack on the East Coast of the United States, I realized how dangerous this craft could be.”
Wilkie nodded. “We were half expecting something like this.”
“Why would the Germans want to attack the United States?” Daniel asked. “Do they want to wage war against us? Do they have the might to do so?”
“Not yet,” Wilkie said. “They merely mean to alarm us. They wish to expand their presence in the Americas—to establish colonies in Central and South America—and they think such surprise attacks would make a good bargaining tool with the country that dominates the Americas.”
“How foolhardy of them,” I said. “Smaller incidents have led to out-and-out wars, haven’t they?”
He nodded.
“So what will happen now?”
“We will let them know that we know. They will mumble apologies, claim that they meant no harm, that they were merely formulating possible strategies, that their agents overreacted, and the cat-and-mouse game will begin all over again.”
My head suddenly started throbbing again and weariness and pain swept over me. I clutched at Daniel. “I’m not feeling very well,” I said. “Would you please take me home?”
. . .
Soon we were sitting side by side in a hansom as it clip-clopped southward through the park. It was a glorious evening. Children played and couples strolled in the balmy air. The trees glowed in late sunlight. It felt as if the whole world had suddenly been put right.
Daniel slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Molly—” he began.
“I know. It can never happen again. Don’t worry. I agree with you. I have no wish to go through that again ever. Let’s pick a date and get married soon.”
“September?” he suggested. “It’s a lovely month, isn’t it? Cooler, fall colors beginning. A perfect time in Westchester.”
As he spoke I pictured it: tables on the lawn, an open carriage from the church with my veil blowing in the breeze. It did seem rather inviting. “All right,” I said. “We’ll get married from your mother’s house if it means a lot to you, only I’m inviting all my friends and I don’t want to hear any complaints from you.”
He looked at me and laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of crossing someone who has just taken on the cream of German espionage and won,” he said. “I want you to know that I’m very impressed. Mr. Wilkie said it was too bad you were a woman.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it was absolutely perfect that you were a woman because I was madly in love with you.”
I laughed and turned my face toward him to be kissed. A long time of silence then ensued.
“So you will agree to give up this detective business, as promised?” he asked.
“I suppose I’ll have to if I’m to be a married lady,” I said, “but I’m willing to offer my superior detecting skills to my husband, should he need them.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said.
“By the way, did you analyze that bloody rag I gave you?”
“We did,” he said. “It was pig’s blood. Your instincts were quite right.”
I allowed myself a little smirk, which then broadened as I remembered something else.
“Tell me,” I began, “have any forged banknotes turned up in Boston yet?”
He looked astonished. “How the deuce did you—”
I grinned. “You can tell Mr. Wilkie that you have solved the problem of the fake money,” I said. “Or at least part of it. I suspect they are being printed in New York, below a theatrical boarding house, and are being distributed by the vanishing Signor Scarpelli, alias Alfred Rosen. Maybe other entertainers are in on it, and I suspect that we’ll discover that German agents are behind this as well.”
“Why didn’t you tell this to Mr. Wilkie when we were with him just now?”
I hesitated. In truth I was still too much in shock to be able to think straight about anything and in the heat of the moment I had forgotten the banknotes. So I permitted myself one small last lie. “I thought it might look good for my future husband’s career if he solved the case,” I said at last.
“Well I’m—” Daniel started. I put my finger on his lips.
“No bad language from now on. It won’t be good for the children.”
He laughed and swept me into his arms, hugging me fiercely.
“I love you, Molly Murphy,” he said.
“And so you should,” I replied.
Suddenly a strange expression came over his face. He sat up and reached into his pocket.
“It wasn’t the right time to give you this before,” he said. “But I can’t carry it around forever.” He drew out a small embossed leather box and opened it. In the shadows of the cab I saw the sparkle of diamonds.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Do not read until you have finished the book!
This is an order.
This is, of course, a work of fiction but not such an outlandish story as you might imagine. It is an established fact that John Wilkie, head of the Secret Service at the time, used entertainers to spy for him in Europe. A good case has been put forward that Houdini was indeed one of those spies and he corresponded with Wilkie through articles he wrote for magicians’ magazines. He really had worked on things like vanishing ink and shoes with hollow heels, which might have been useful for more than stage tricks.
Many countries were working to perfect the submarine at that time. Germany was gaining superiority in the building of machines of many kinds, and also eager to expand its colonies to include footholds in South and Central America. It has been suggested that they were planning surprise raids on cities on America’s East Coast. Whether one of these would have led to a war, who can surmise?
And as for Houdini and Bess, I have tried to make them as true to life as possible, as described by their biographers and in their letters. And their illusions are portrayed exactly as they have been described in newspapers of the time.