The Last Illusion

“I see,” I said. “Then maybe we are looking in quite another direction. Houdini is an Italian name, isn’t it? Could this be somehow tied to a Sicilian gang to whom your husband might owe money?”


She looked at me and laughed. “Oh, that’s real funny,” she said. “Harry isn’t Italian in any way. He’s Jewish, and he was born in Hungary. His real name is Ehrich Weiss. And I’m German Catholic from Brooklyn. So it’s not likely we’d have dealings with any of these new Italian gangsters.”

“Not all gangsters are Italian,” I pointed out. “I’ve had to deal with a brutal gang on the Lower East Side and they were not at all Italian. Are you sure your husband doesn’t owe money, or hasn’t run foul of the criminal classes?”

She thought about this, then shook her head. “No, Harry’s not like that. The only times he’s borrowed money have been from friends and family. And he’s always good about repaying it. We don’t live beyond our means, Miss Murphy. We still stay at cheap boarding houses and travel third class, even though Harry’s making good money now. Of course he sends a big chunk home to support his mother, like he promised his father he would. He plans to buy her a house pretty soon.”

I didn’t know whether gang members demanded protection money from stage performers. Since these performers were not confined to one area but were constantly on the move, I thought this was unlikely.

“So not a gang member then. What did this man look like?”

“Nothing special. The type of guy you’d pass in the street and not look at twice.”

“Well dressed?”

She frowned as if trying to remember. “Respectable. Like a clerk maybe. Wore a derby. Nothing flashy.”

“So probably not a gang member nor an entertainer,” I said.

She thought about this. “Probably not.”

“Did he actually say anything that you could possibly think was a death threat?”

She thought again, then shook her head. “I can’t say that he did.”

“Then maybe you’re reading more into this than you need to. Maybe your nerves are still upset from what happened the other night after all the travel you’ve been doing recently and the voyage home from Germany.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Oh, sure, seeing that poor girl all sliced open like that did upset my nerves. I mean who wouldn’t be upset when they saw something like that? It’s enough to turn the strongest stomach. But the voyage home was as smooth as anything and Harry was in good spirits, and all.”

“And what about when you were on the Continent? Did you get any feeling of danger over there?”

She thought about it, then shook her head. “Not in the same way. Of course I’m always nervous when we’re away from home—especially on the Continent, you know. The people don’t speak our language and I don’t like the food, and those types over there give Harry the most impossible challenges he should never accept. But he won’t turn them down. He won’t be defeated, no matter what.” And she continued to toy with her skirt, plucking at it, smoothing it. I thought of her hysterics the other night and the way Houdini had babied her. So it was possible that these death threats were all in her overactive imagination. And it was also possible that if that proved to be the case, Houdini, who controlled the purse strings, wouldn’t want to pay me.

“Mrs. Houdini,” I said. “I have heard nothing yet that convinces me that anybody wants to kill your husband. Are you sure you’re not imagining things?”

“Harry’s jumpy too,” she said. “Oh, he’d deny it if you asked him, but something’s not right. He was looking forward to coming home so much, but then I’ve woken at night to see him pacing the room, or sitting at the table scribbling away. And when I ask him what he’s doing, he says working on a new illusion.”

“Well, there you are then. He’s concentrating hard on working it out in his own mind and he won’t be satisfied until he’s got it down on paper.”

“I suppose so,” she said, “but we were out walking once and he looked across the street and grabbed my arm and changed direction. Then he hailed a cab and off we went. And when I asked him what it was about he said he’d seen someone he’d rather not have to talk to.”

This enforced my suspicion about a gang connection. And something of this nature was out of my league.

But at that moment she leaned forward and grasped my hands. “He means everything in the world to me, Miss Murphy. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Please say you’ll help us.”

My sensible side wanted to say no, but a voice in my head was shouting, “This is Houdini, you dolt. Crack this case and you’ll be famous.” Who knows, maybe in solving this, I’d be able to solve the Scarpelli incident as well. I could legitimately be at the theater, snooping around, without having to tell Daniel. All in all an exciting challenge for a detective. Better than divorce cases, anyway. And certainly better than no cases at all.