She looked down at the glass counter top, but without seeing the curious objects displayed there. “I must reach him,” she said earnestly. “I must talk to him — before tonight. Can you try again? Please. It’s very important.”
“Well — yes. But he’s hard to track down. He should be at Madison Square Garden. He’s practically been living there all week. But—”
“Oh. The circus. I might have guessed.” She thought a moment. “I’ll go over. I must find him. But will you try, too? If I miss him I’ll come back.”
“Hadn’t you better wait here?” Burt suggested. “That’s a lot of circus. And if he is there, he might be anywhere — backstage, up on a catwalk, sitting on the ‘blues’ with a bag of peanuts, or making friends with a lion.”
Merlini, with all that pink lemonade running in his veins and the circus performers swinging from every branch of his family tree, reverts to type every spring.
Miss Verrill produced half a smile. It was nice, what there was of it. “I know my way around a circus,” she said. “And I know Merlini. He’s probably with the elephants. But phone, too, and try hard. We must get him.”
Burt took the phone, his masculine defenses obliterated by that half-smile.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. And thanks. If I can’t find him, and if you do get him, hang on to him. I’ll be back. Five-thirty.”
I was busy watching the way she walked toward the door, and I didn’t start up until it had closed behind her.
“You might have introduced me, Burt,” I said, leaving. “It would have made it simpler.”
“Hey!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”
“Circus. The lady needs an escort. Lions and tigers and things, you know. Dangerous. Besides, I want to see Merlini myself.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” He leaned quickly out over the counter and caught my arm. “One more move and I turn on the jujitsu. Merlini told me to get you; and, after all the phoning I did, you don’t escape like that.”
I started to object and then heard the clang of the elevator door down the hall.
“Besides,” he went on mysteriously, “I think you’ll see her again. Tonight.”
He turned back to the phone.
“Never a dull moment,” I said. “And I get glimpses of wheels within wheels. What is going on around here? Talk.”
“I wish I knew. Hello. Men’s dressing-room, please.… Hello. Oh, it’s you, Frank. Good. Burt speaking. Haven’t you seen Merlini around there yet?… Well, try and round him up for me, will you? I’m pretty sure he’s there somewhere. It’s important. Have him call back right away.… I don’t know. Page him or something. But get him. And hurry.”
Burt replaced the receiver, scowled thoughtfully at the wall a moment, and then turned to me.
“Skelton Island,” he muttered. “Everyone wants him out there. There’s more in this haunted house than meets the eye.”
“Probably why it’s haunted,” I cracked. “Who wants him out there? What is this haunted house motif anyway? Who is the gal? What do you mean by—”
“I don’t know. Nothing, except that Merlini’s been nosing through Skelton Island history at the library all this last week. Then, because the big show hits town, he dropped everything like he does every year. And now — when he was in here for a few minutes this morning, long enough to look at the mail and dictate a letter to that amateur magician in El Paso who couldn’t escape from the milk can we sent him — Colonel Watrous blows in. Remember him?”
I nodded.
“Sure. The eminent spook authority. But—”
“They went into a huddle and I overheard stray words like ‘haunted house’ and ‘Skelton Island.’ Ten minutes after Merlini and the Colonel go out Miss Verrill phones. She gives me her number — East River exchange. That’s Skelton Island again. I wish I were going out there tonight with you.”
“With who?”
“You. Merlini left orders to locate you, and tell you to meet him at nine sharp, East River, foot of 44th Street. You’re to wear dark clothes, bring your camera loaded with infra-red film and this.” He took a suitcase from the floor behind the counter and pushed it at me. “You’ll find some of those extra high-powered flash bulbs in there — the ones Merlini uses for séance work. You’re to fit your flash gun with the Wratten 82-A filter and—” The phone rang, and Burt jumped for it.
“Maybe that’s him now.”
“If it is,” I said, “I want to talk to him. I can’t put a foot off Broadway until after that show opens. About as much chance as this rabbit has of pulling Merlini out of a top hat. It can’t be done!”
Burt, at the phone, smiled and glanced up at Merlini’s business slogan tacked on the walclass="underline" Nothing Is Impossible. Then, listening, he scowled and after a moment spoke into the phone. “Yes. He was here, but he may have gone. Just a minute. I’ll see. Who’s calling?” He put a hand over the mouthpiece, hesitated a fraction of a second, and then turned to me slowly. “It’s for you. The theater. But — before you take it — Merlini said you were to bring this, too.”
From beneath the counter near the cash register he brought out a shiny black object and slid it toward me across the counter.
It was a .32 automatic.
“And be careful,” he added. “It’s loaded.”
I blinked at it and then at Burt. “Dammit, I can’t—”
Burt cut me off. “Miss Verrill,” he said slyly. “Haunted houses are lots more dangerous than circuses. Lions and tigers aren’t in it.”
I hesitated and was lost.
Burt spoke into the phone again, one eye on me. “Mr. Harte’s gone. I tried to catch him at the elevators but just missed him. … No, he didn’t say. … Yes. I’ll tell him if he should come back.”
I put the gun in my pocket.
Chapter Two:
TREASURE TROVE
I tried hard to pump more information from Burt, but he insisted he had told me all he knew. “Merlini,” he said, “likes to spring his own surprises, you know that.”
He had me there; so I gave up. Besides the whole affair had rather the flavor of my favorite shocker plot, the one that begins when the mysterious, shapely, heavily veiled damsel slips the Rajah’s rubies or maybe the Coast Defense plans into the hero’s hand, whispers throatily, “Tonight. The password is Caviar”—and promptly vanishes. In such cases it doesn’t do to know too much at the start; it might spoil the story.
I stopped at a photographic supply store on 42nd Street and got a roll of Infra-D film and the filter Burt had specified. These two uncanny examples of modern black magic make possible the paradox of photography in complete darkness. The filter absorbs all the visible light, allowing only that from the invisible infra-red band of the spectrum to pass through. The film, sensitized for that special purpose, registers this “black light” that the human eye cannot see.
I wondered if Merlini expected to meet an infra-red ghost.
When I reached my apartment on East 40th Street, I tested out my flash gun, loaded the film into my Contax, and added them, with a roll or two of Super XX and some ordinary No. 2 flash bulbs, to the contents of the suitcase. I found that Merlini’s other contributions consisted of flashlights, lampblack, a ball of twine, thumbtacks — ghost-laying equipment evidently — a quart of Scotch, soda siphon, a nested set of cups, and a box lunch. It looked as if he intended to make a night of it, and I realized that a few hours of shut-eye would be a smart opening gambit on my part.
The phone rang as I was undressing and continued to do so for nearly five minutes. When it had stopped, I removed the receiver from the hook and got into bed. There were only four hours until nine o’clock, instead of the 14 I needed. I made the most of them.