“You only had to watch the way she walked across the stage to know she wasn’t a professional,” Daniel said.
I thought I saw a smirk. I wanted to hit him but kept my self-control.
“And why did you hire her, Mrs. Houdini?”
“Because I thought my husband’s life was in danger.”
“And you didn’t come to the police?”
“You don’t know Harry,” she said. “He’s a proud man. He thinks he’s invincible. Besides, he wouldn’t admit there was anything wrong.”
“But then I gather you yourself almost suffered a similar fate in that trunk a few nights ago,” Daniel continued. “Something went wrong and you were trapped in there?”
“That’s right.” Bess put a handkerchief up to her mouth. “I thought I was going to suffocate.”
“Did you have any suspicion at all about who might have done this?” Daniel asked. “You say your husband’s life was in danger, but this was you who nearly died, not your husband that time.”
“I know. I thought it was maybe to give Harry a warning.”
So she was a good liar when she needed to be. I resolved to have a private word about it later with Daniel, but I kept quiet for the moment.
“Who?” Daniel asked, more sharply now. “Who wanted to give your husband such a strong warning?”
“I’ve no idea. Honestly.” She shook her head so violently I thought her hat might come flying off in the breeze.
“Yet you said that you recognized the dead man last night. He came to your house, you said, and made threats?”
“They sounded like threats to me. He asked for Harry and when I said he wasn’t home he said that Harry would know who he was and to tell him that he’d be back.”
“And what did your husband say when you related this to him?”
“He said it was nothing to worry about. Just a spot of business.”
“And he gave you no indication of the man’s name or where he came from?”
“Nothing. As I told Miss Murphy, Harry was very close about business matters. He didn’t like to bother me with details.”
“I overheard a similar conversation at the theater,” I said, leaning forward between them as we skirted the park. “Tell me, Mrs. Houdini, did you ever meet a well-dressed young man with light blond hair and light eyes and a sort of haughty air to him?”
“I can’t say that anyone comes to mind,” she said.
“Well, I overheard your husband speaking with such a man. They said something about it being ‘serious stuff’ and the other man said, ‘You can’t be too careful’ and that your husband should ‘hurry up and hand it over.’ ”
“Interesting,” Daniel said. “Did you pick up any ideas about what ‘it’ was?”
“Not at all,” I said. “And when I asked Mr. Houdini about it he said that everything would be taken care of the next day—that would have been today. So it seems that he had something that someone else wanted, and what happened last night prevented him from delivering it.”
“Or he didn’t want to hand it over, killed the messenger who came to collect it, and quietly disappeared,” Daniel said.
“No!” Bess said vehemently. “I keep telling everyone that Harry would never kill. Well, maybe to protect his mother or me, but not for any other reason.”
There. She had admitted that he was capable of killing. I really didn’t know what to believe. I knew how strong he was and thought how easily he could overpower another man, especially a man like the one in the trunk who was slight of build. Houdini had said everything would be taken care of by tomorrow. So had he been planning this all along—rigging the trunk so that the accident happened to Bess and thus making himself a more likely victim in a second accident? I thought about the first accident. Why hadn’t the key been in his pocket as usual that first night? Why had someone had to run to his dressing room for it, and . . . most damning of all, why did the King of Handcuffs, the man who could open any lock in the world, have to wait for an ax to release his imprisoned wife?
“When you feel strong enough, Mrs. Houdini,” Daniel continued in the front seat, “I’d like you to jot down a complete list of the people you know in New York and your recollections of what you have done since you arrived back in the States. We have to find out