“You stated that someone must have tampered with your equipment,” Daniel said, showing no sign of sympathy. “Why are you so sure of that? Why couldn’t it simply be a malfunction of your trick?”
“Because the trick should have been foolproof,” Scarpelli said.
“Explain it to me.”
Scarpelli raised his hands in horror. “My dear sir. An illusionist never reveals his secrets to anybody.”
“As you wish,” Daniel said, “but you have to realize that the only evidence I have so far of a crime being committed is yourself wielding a saw and almost certainly killing a young woman. A most convenient way of dispatching someone you might have wanted dead.”
Scarpelli’s face flushed. “You think that I—Captain, I assure you that I was exceedingly fond of Lily. I would never have done anything to harm her.”
“So what makes you think anyone else would have wanted to harm her?”
Scarpelli paused, looked around, then lowered his voice. “There have been little things,” he said. “Small glitches in the act. Locks that wouldn’t open, props that mysteriously disappeared right before show-time. I put them down to Lily’s lack of organization. She was something of a scatterbrain, you know. But now I’m wondering if someone was trying to disrupt my act all along. It wasn’t someone who wished harm to Lily, it was someone who wished to destroy my reputation as an illusionist.”
“So tell me why I should believe the accident was not a mere malfunction of your equipment,” Daniel insisted. “Your secret will have to come out anyway in a court of law if you’re tried with negligence or even worse, homicide.”
Scarpelli glanced at first the theater manager then me. “They are not to know,” he said.
“Molly, I think it’s about time you went home,” Daniel said. “The cab has been waiting for hours and you’ve no place in a police inquiry.”
As if on cue several more policemen burst in through the front doors.
“Up here, men,” Daniel called. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Off you go, then,” he said.
I had no choice but to leave just when things were getting interesting.
The cab took me safely back to my little house on Patchin Place. I made myself a cup of tea, then went up to bed. The window was open, letting in the summer breeze, scented with the roses growing over my garden wall. I stood at the window and took deep breaths, trying to shake the horrifying image from my mind. Suddenly I felt horribly alone and vulnerable. I had always considered myself to be a strong and independent woman until now. I had been in no hurry to get married and give up my independence. But at this moment I longed for strong arms around me and thought how reassuring it would be to fall asleep in his arms feeling safe and protected. Then, of course I reminded myself that I would be marrying someone whose own life would be forever tinged with danger. Like Bess Houdini, I’d be constantly worrying about my husband every time he came home late.
I slept at last and woke to a glorious summer morn with the sun streaming in through my window and the net curtain flapping idly in the breeze. The terrors of the night were dispelled. I got up, dressed, and was ready to start the day when there was a knock at my front door. I rather hoped it might be Daniel, stopping by on his way to work to give me the details of what transpired at the theater after I went home. Instead it was my neighbor Augusta Walcott, of the Boston Walcotts, usually known by the irreverent nickname of Gus. She had a basket over one arm.
“Good morning,” she said. “I’ve just been to the bakery on Greenwich Avenue and I’ve returned with croissants hot from the oven. Come and have breakfast with us. We are dying to hear your impression of this man Houdini.”
“As to that, I didn’t have a chance to see him perform,” I said. “I take it you haven’t read this morning’s Times yet.”
“No, I haven’t. It’s lurking at this moment in the basket with the rolls. Besides, Sid always likes to read it first. Houdini didn’t perform after all then?”
“There was a horrible accident in the act preceding his,” I said. “The illusion was supposed to be sawing a girl in half. But something went wrong and she really was sliced with the saw.”