his 1904 handcuff escape in London had strong parallels with Devereaux’s vanishing of the Arc de Triomphe. Plus, like Devereaux’s, his mother had been a Jewish immigrant.
The problem was, Houdini had seven letters, not five—and on top of that, it wasn’t even his real name. Weisz, the name on his birth certificate, fit the bill—but the spelling had later been changed to Weiss, which also had five letters. We had gone round and round, finally deciding on W-E-I-S-Z because it was the most authentic.
Now, though, it felt like we’d made it too complicated. Like there was something stupid and obvious we had overlooked. But we’d agonized over it for hours, and this was the best answer we had come up with. I had to trust it.
I closed my eyes. Took two deep breaths. Reached out my hand—
And froze.
Dad whispered, “What is it?”
“What was Dante’s real name?” I said. “His birth name.”
Dad frowned. “It was Jansen. Harry August Jansen.” His eyes drifted slightly out of focus.
“Harry,” I said. “Harry Jansen, Harry Blackstone, Harry Houdini.”
Dad looked at me, his expression blank. “How did we miss that?”
“What do you think? It’s stupid, right?”
His shook his head. “Do it.”
I blew out a breath, licked my lips, and typed:
4-2-7-7-9 (H-A-R-R-Y)
The green LED went solid, and the door clicked open.
Breath rushed out of me in a gust, and I slumped against the wall. Higgins pumped a fist in triumph.
Dad smiled. “Showtime.”
CHAPTER 25
IT WAS PITCH-BLACK INSIDE, SO I turned on my phone’s flashlight. We were standing at the base of a long, enclosed ramp with no lamp or light switch in sight. The place was eerily quiet; it reminded me of haunted houses back in Fort Wayne where you paid ten bucks to be chased through a strobe-lit labyrinth.
Higgins whispered, “What now?”
“Now we find the storage area.”
“And what are we looking for, exactly?” There was a sparkle in Higgins’s eye, as if he thought I was about to reveal some part of Devereaux’s secret to him.
“A big road case, probably,” I said, enjoying watching Higgins’s smile turn into a scowl. “It’ll probably have DEVEREAUX stenciled on it. And, if we’re lucky, FLYING, or something to that effect.”
I shone my phone light around to confirm there was only one way forward. “Looks like we stick together for now. Come on.”
I took the lead, walking as softly as I could. The ramp turned out to be a switchback, and the pathway took two sharp U-turns before coming to a T intersection. One way continued upward, and the other broke off right and sloped down.
“We’ll cover more ground faster if we split up,” I said. “Higgins, do you have a light?” He held up his phone and turned on the flash. “Okay. You two stick together.” Dad started to protest, but I cut him off; there was no time to argue. “If you find something, text me.” I gestured to the descending ramp. “I’ll take this one.”
As I made my way downward, I heard their footfalls above and hoped no one else was listening. Higgins was big and far from stealthy; if there was attention to be drawn, he would draw it. As I moved forward, I felt a slight breeze, and then the passageway opened up. I stopped and shone my light around again.
I was in a very wide room, at least fifty feet high and twice as long, the ceiling getting lower as it stretched away from the outer wall of the building. It looked like I was underneath a set of bleachers, or maybe the terraced house of a theater. I saw no boxes or road cases, just a nest of snakelike cables running to electrical panels mounted on the walls. There was nothing to find down here. I turned and headed back up the ramp, hoping to catch up with Dad and Higgins. After a minute or so, a haze of indirect light came into view, and I switched off my phone.
A pair of voices drifted toward me, but they didn’t belong to Dad or Higgins. They reverberated as if the people speaking were standing on the floor of a large auditorium. I paused at the mouth of the passage, listening. Someone was giving instructions. Someone else was laughing.
As quietly as I could, I stepped out of the tunnel. There were Dad and Higgins, standing six feet away with their backs to me. I approached.
We were looking down from the back of a huge black-box theater. Plywood tiers packed with rows of folding chairs stepped down