„I got a set of plans and crate of props,“ said Nick Prado.
Franny Futura was nodding. „I got Max’s pendulum illusion. I’m going to do it in Oliver’s little theater.“
Mallory’s partner smiled to say, There goes your new theory – endgame.
Not yet, Riker. „But the illusions were left to you in Oliver’s will.“ Mallory was not asking them, she was telling them. „None of you knew what the invitation meant – not till after he died.“ She looked at Riker, ripping her game point back from his side of the table.
„Oh, I knew what it meant,“ said Nick Prado. „That invitation is months old. The instructions for my illusion arrived long before I left Chicago.“
The others were nodding in agreement. So they had also received the explanatory letters and illusions before Oliver died. Well, maybe one of them was lying – or all of them were.
„Of course,“ said Futura, „I can’t do the pendulum illusion with Oliver’s plans. I’m afraid he botched it – just like he screwed up the trick that killed him.“
Without looking at Riker, she knew he was grinning, a prelude to laughing out loud. He must be loving this, watching her get everything wrong. But he was at a disadvantage: he didn’t know there was a gunman at the parade this morning. If he had believed her, he wouldn’t have confiscated her favorite revolver.
And Riker wondered why she didn’t like to share.
Now she did look at him, surprised that he was not smiling as he stubbed out his cigarette. „You can’t win ‘em all, kid.“
Mallory nodded. Yeah, right. Did he really believe she would take the fall for the balloon shooting and face a charge of reckless endangerment? Not a shot in hell, Riker.
She moved on to another prospect for her gunman, the man missing from this company, the one who lived with a dead woman. Though lunatics seldom made her short list, she was already planting the blame on Malakhai. How did your wife die, old man? And where were you when that gun went off this morning?
Chapter 4
This morning, in a rare departure from his Harvard Club uniform, Charles Butler was not wearing a three-piece suit and tie. His blue jeans and denim shirt were a concession to practicality; wading through three decades of dust would be a dirty job.
Mallory pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Because firearms made civilians nervous and she wore no blazer to cover the holster, she had left her police-issue.38 in the upstairs office. This was a severe breach of her own dress code, which usually included a larger gun.
The rectangle of harsh light from the stairwell extended across four feet of the basement floor, and beyond that was impenetrable darkness. Mallory continued their yearlong argument. „Why don’t I just rewire the wall switch?“
„All that trouble? What for?“ He reached up to the top of the fuse box and pulled down a flashlight. „I think it’s charming this way.“
Yeah, right.
Charles the antique lover thought every broken old thing was charming, even the electrical wiring. Mallory decided to refrain from any more suggestions. It was better to simply wait for him to trip and break his neck in the dark. She was that patient with her friends.
Guided by the flashlight, they walked down a haphazard corridor of packing crates and trunks. The yellow beam roved over a broken rocking ; chair, which might be the source for a trace of wood rot in the air. The smell of dust was everywhere, and now she detected a whiff of mold. Stacks of barrels and cardboard boxes massed in dark towers on all sides. As she skirted around a headless dressmaker’s dummy, part of her mind was still working on the wiring problem.
Originally, this space had been a manufacturing plant with the proportions of a hotel ballroom. But Charles, the giant hobbit, longed for cozier human scale. Maybe he preferred to use the flashlight because it didn’t show the true size of the basement.
„I pulled out the crates last night,“ he said. „All the major parts are accounted for. I couldn’t find the leg irons, but I’m sure they’ll turn up. The platform has to be assembled. That might take a while.“
„I’ve got lots of time. Jack Coffey put me on indefinite leave.“ She didn’t mention that the lieutenant had also taken away her favorite gun. That was still a source of humiliation.
„Not a vacation, I take it.“
„No, but we’re calling it that.“ She followed him to the wall of tall wooden panels joined by hinges. It spanned the entire basement and closed off the area where Max Candle’s illusions were stored – and where the electricity still worked.
Charles stood before the two center panels that passed for a doorway.
They were chained together and padlocked. „The platform hasn’t been unpacked since Cousin Max died. That was thirty years ago. The mechanisms may not be in very good shape.“
Mallory stared at the lock with disdain. It was an oversized antique as large as an alarm clock. „I just want to see how the trick works.“
„I can’t help you with that.“ Charles worked a key in the lock, and the freed chains slid through circles in the wood. „No one knows how the trick was done. That’s why they call it the Lost Illusion.“
He used both hands to spread the pleated segments of the wall. The panels creaked as they shifted back on metal tracks, accordion style, opening to a cavernous space. A gray diffusion of morning light came from a window set high in the wall and level with the floor of the air shaft. Beyond the dirty glass and the iron bars, trash cans of a neighboring building were spilling over with garbage – rodent heaven. One small dark animal slithered up to the window for a better look at her. This creature was too bold to go on living, and Mallory resolved to continue another argument with Charles over the traps that would break this rat’s back.
„There was only one performance with all four crossbows in play,“ said Charles. „That was the out-of-town tryout.“
She turned away from the dark thing at the window. „So it was a bad act?“
„A dangerous act.“ He bent down and touched a globe. It came to life with a soft yellow glow. Alternating current made it grow bright and dim in the natural rhythm of breathing. Above the globe, a painted dragon flowed across three rice paper panels of a folding screen. By a trick of oscillating lamplight, the dragon’s breath was a flickering fire.
Twenty feet away, in a shallow canyon of shelves and cartons, a vertical row of tiny stars were shimmering, forming a bright crack in a patch of solid black shadow. While Charles walked around the dragon screen, Mallory drifted toward the sparkles. Pausing by a floor lamp with a fringed shade, she pulled its chain to cast a circle of light around an old wardrobe trunk standing on end. It had been opened to expose a narrow slit of flashing sequins. Its cracked leather exterior was papered with the faded colors of foreign shipping labels.
The cover of an old record album lay over the opening at the top of the wardrobe. Judging by the even coat of thick grime on the rotting cardboard and the surface of the trunk, neither had been disturbed in decades. At her feet were impressions of large squares. Their wide, hard-edged tracks led off across the floor to the area behind the screen, where Charles was turning on more lamps. So the narrow opening had been protected by the crates he had moved last night. That would explain why the sequins still shimmered, when they should be dulled with a film of dust.
Mallory put her hands into the opening of the wardrobe and spread the sides, using force, for the hinges were frozen with rust. Inside the left half of the trunk was a narrow chest of drawers, and on the right was a rack of tightly packed clothing on hangers. Her eyes passed over gaudy colors and Dangles to settle on the plainest material. She pulled a suit from the rack nd held it up to the light of the floor lamp. The off-white satin had not yellowed, but it did seem richer for the aging. The jacket and trousers were styled for a man, but altered and refitted to a slender figure with a small waist. She looked at the stitching. This was the work of a very good tailor. It rivaled every bit of clothing in her closet.