“A search by Customs men who are sure they smell contraband,” Inspector Gavigan added, “is something to see. Hurley’s boys are experts. They also took the cabin apart in case he hid the stuff there, intending to pick it up by coming back as a visitor on the next sailing day.”
“That’s an old one,” Hurley said. “Most of the dodges are. I’ve found contraband in babies’ milk bottles, wooden legs, phony rolls of camera film, fountain pens, chocolate creams, tulip bulbs, beards, a woman’s hair-do, ear trumpets, hearing aids, mounted insect specimens, a shipment of boa constrictors, even on a corpse...”
“A corpse?”
“Yeah. One character kept bringing in relatives who had died abroad, always using a different port of entry. The day we got him, the body of his deceased sister — stolen from some French cemetery — was wrapped in a good many yards of Brussels lace and wearing $140,000 in gems.”
“How big a package,” Merlini asked, “does nearly a half million dollars worth of diamonds make?”
“These are all top quality blue-white stones. They crossed the Atlantic in his suitcase inside a silver cigarette lighter. Dimensions, two inches by three inches by one-quarter inch. When we opened it at inspection we found — just cotton and lighter fuel. What worries us is his profession.”
“He sounds,” Merlini guessed, “like a magician.”
“And that,” Gavigan announced, “wins you the trip to Hollywood, the automatic dishwasher, and one hundred pounds of soap flakes. He calls himself Aldo the Enigma. Know him?”
“Pierre Aldo. Yes. He’s been playing the Continental music halls with a smooth card manipulation act.”
“Cards!” Hurley almost snorted. “I’ve seen enough card tricks today to last me a lifetime. He’s been doing them all morning. Says he has to practice because American cards are bigger than the ones he’s been used to.”
“They’re quite a bit larger,” Merlini said. “And there are only thirty-two cards in Ecarté and Pique decks. He’d need a bit of practice to get the feel of an American fifty-two-card Poker-size deck.”
“I’ll give him a passing grade right now,” Hurley said glumly. “I wouldn’t sit in on any game that had him in the same room.”
“The Sûreté doesn’t recommend it,” Gavigan added. “They report he’s been booked twice on crooked gambling charges and once did a two-year stretch on a confidence rap.”
“Merlini,” Hurley said, “the Inspector tells me he’s seen you make an elephant disappear. So, if you’ll explain how a magician would go about making a small parcel of diamonds vanish into thin air, the Customs Service will give you a medal.”
As the car stopped in front of a pier entrance, Merlini pushed his lighted cigarette into his closed left fist, blew a cloud of smoke at it, then slowly opened his fingers. The cigarette was gone.
“When I do that,” he said, “I don’t usually let a crew of Customs men search me. And when I make an elephant disappear I don’t let the audience take the theater apart the way you must have done with Aldo’s luggage and cabin. I can see I’m going to enjoy meeting the enigmatic Pierre. He may have a new one up his sleeve.”
Gavigan opened the car door. “Let’s go. Hurley can only hold this bird for twenty-four hours and there’s not much of it left.”
A Customs Agent stood on guard before a door on A deck. “That’s his cabin,” Hurley said, “but all the movable furniture, bedding, and such stuff is in here.” He opened the door of the cabin just opposite. Three chairs, a mattress, sheets, pillows, two lamps, a writing desk, and several dresser drawers occupied the center of the room. The bottom coverings of the chairs had been removed exposing the springs; the lamps had been disassembled.
“He watched your examination?” Merlini asked.
Hurley nodded. “That’s standard practice. It’s the suspect who gives us the most help. When he’s calm and relaxed we know we’re looking in the wrong places. But when he begins to get nervous it means we’re getting warm. I once examined three trunks, four suitcases, and a couple of hat-boxes, and found a pearl necklace inside a bottle of suntan oil in under five minutes just by keeping one eye on the woman. But Aldo doesn’t seem to have nerves. He just sits there dealing himself pat Poker hands and grinning every time we draw a blank. He’s been grinning a lot.” Hurley waved a hand at the furniture. “You want to give this stuff a once-over?”
“I doubt it,” Merlini said. “Let’s take a look at Pierre. But don’t tell him I’m a magician.”
The writers of advertising copy who describe the luxurious cabin appointments for the cruise folders would have been shocked at the bare, cheerless aspect of Aldo’s cabin. The only remaining decoration, if you could call him that, was a tired and very glum Customs Agent who leaned against one wall. He was scowling at a fat, round-faced little man sitting cross-legged on the floor — a man no movie director would have ever cast as a cardsharp, and one no card player would have ever suspected of possessing the ability he was now demonstrating.
His right hand, holding a deck of cards, moved up and down in a blur of motion, shuffling the cards off into his left. Then, with the rapid precision of a well-oiled automaton, he dealt five hands of Poker. He looked up at the glum Customs Agent and grinned broadly.
“Okay?”
The Agent grunted. “I didn’t see anything wrong with the deal, but then I’m no slow-motion camera. My money says the best cards are in your hand again.”
Aldo laughed. “I do not play cards for money. If I win everyone thinks I cheat. If I lose they say I am a no-good magician.”
In one continuous fluid movement Aldo’s right hand gathered the cards he had dealt to himself, turned them face up, and spread them in a neat fan. He had a Full House — three Aces and two Kings.
“But if the sucker doesn’t know you’re a magician,” Hurley said from the doorway, “you take him to the cleaners.”
Aldo scooped up the remaining cards and shuffled the deck again. “Cleaners?” he asked, still grinning. “What is that?” He began dealing again, this time with one hand only.
“Enjoying himself, isn’t he?” Gavigan said.
Hurley nodded. “He’s acting much too damned pleased with himself. And that means the stuff is here somewhere — right under our noses.”
Aldo said nothing. He smiled enigmatically and turned up a Royal Flush in Spades.
Merlini looked down at the open empty suitcase on the floor near the foot of the bed. Its contents had been laid out neatly beside it. “You find some odd things in a magician’s luggage, don’t you?”
Hurley grunted. “Colored silk handkerchiefs by the yard, a couple hundred feet of rope, a bird cage, a dozen billiard balls—”
Merlini picked up one of the balls and hefted it. “These are all solid?”
“Yeah.” Hurley pointed to a small red-lacquered box bearing Chinese characters. “That has a secret compartment, but it’s empty. We took all this stuff and the clothes he’s wearing down to Varick Street and gave them a fluoroscopic examination. That doesn’t spot diamonds too well — they’re nearly transparent to X-rays — but it’ll show cavities in objects that should be solid.”
Inspector Gavigan picked up a book, La Prestidigitation Sans Appareils, and riffled the pages.
“No hollowed-out books,” Hurley said. “We cut his soap into little pieces, squeezed out all his toothpaste and shaving cream, cut open every last pill in half a dozen medicine bottles, took his pen and wrist watch apart. His teeth and eyes are his own.”
“Teeth and eyes?”