“All right,” I said, “I’ll use my wiles to convince the cops to allow you to go ahead. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I always know what I’m doing.”
“Ninety percent of the time, anyway.”
“Ask Ardis to come in here,” Steele said. “I’ll have to tell her what effects we’re doing now, and in what order.”
“You wouldn’t want to give me some idea of what’s going on, would you?”
Steele smiled a gentle, enigmatic smile. “It is now quarter to twelve, Matthew. I would like the show to begin at exactly midnight.”
Which meant that he had said all he intended to say for the time being, and I was therefore dismissed. So I went back out into the club where Captain Dickensheet was still sitting at our table with Jan and Ardis; Cedric had also returned, and had brought with him the dark, intense-looking inspector-in-charge, Lupoff.
When I got to the table I told Ardis that Steele wanted to see her. Immediately, she hurried to the stage left dressing room. I sat down and put on my best PR smile for Lupoff and Dickensheet.
“I have a request from Christopher Steele,” I said formally. “He wants to be allowed to do his midnight show.”
Both cops frowned, and Lupoff said, “I’m in no mood for levity.”
“Neither is Steele. He wants to do the show, he says, in order to name the murderer and explain how the vanishing act was done.”
Everyone at the table stared at me, Cedric and Jan looking relieved. Lupoff and Dickensheet, on the other hand, looked angrily disbelieving. The inspector said, “If Steele knows how and who, why the hell doesn’t he just come out here and say so?”
“You have to understand him,” I said. “He’s an artist, a showman. He thinks only in theatrical terms.” I went on to tell them about Steele’s idiosyncrasies, making it sound as though he were a genius who had to be treated with kid gloves — which was true enough. “Besides, if he solves the case for you, what can it hurt to let him unmask the killer in his own way?”
“The murderer is still here, then?” Cedric asked.
“I think so,” I said. “Steele didn’t really tell me much of anything, but that’s what I would assume.” I returned my gaze to the two cops. “You’ve got the Cellar sealed off, right? The killer can’t possibly escape.”
“I don’t like it,” Lupoff said. “It’s not the way things are done.”
I had to sell them quickly; it was nearing midnight. I decided to temporize. “Steele needs the show in order to expose the guilty man,” I said. “He’s not sure of the killer’s identity, but something he has planned in the show will pin it down.”
“How does he know it will work?” Dickensheet asked. Then he scowled. “He wouldn’t be wanting to do this show of his just for publicity, would he?”
“Listen, Captain,” I said, “the publicity won’t be very good if he blows it. I’d say Steele’s pretty sure of himself.”
Cedric nodded eagerly; he knew, as I did, that if Steele came through as usual, it would turn a possibly harmful blow to the Cellar’s image into a potential drawing card. He said, “I’ve known Christopher Steele for a long time, and I’ll vouch for what Mr. Booth says. If Steele claims to know what happened here tonight, then he does know. I think you ought to go along with him.”
Lupoff and Dickensheet held a whispered conference. Then they both got up, told us to wait, and went back-stage, no doubt to confront Steele. Three minutes later they came out again, still looking dubious — but knowing Steele as I did, I could tell even before Dickensheet confirmed it that they had given him the go-ahead.
Midnight.
The civilian audience had been fidgeting in their seats for a couple of minutes, since Cedric had announced to them over the loudspeaker that Steele was going to do his midnight show. The contingent of police were also fidgeting, owing to the fact that none of them had any idea, either, of what was about to happen. I was alone at the table, Jan having gone back to the bar and Cedric off to work the light board.
The house lights dimmed, and the curtain rolled up. Steele stood motionless at center stage, the rose-gelled spots bathing him in soft light; his work clothes, a black suit over a dark turtleneck, gave him a sinister-somber look. He bowed slightly and said, “Good evening.”
The last murmur died away among the audience, and two hundred people silently watched for whatever miracle Christopher Steele, Master of Illusion, was about to perform.
“We have, all of us,” he said, “just witnessed a murder, and a murder is a horrible thing. It is the one irremediable act, terrible in its finality and inexcusable in any sane society. No matter how foul the deeds or repugnant the actions of another human being, no one has the right to take from him that which cannot be given back: his life.
“But the murder itself has been overshadowed by the miraculous disappearance of the killer, seemingly before our very eyes. He ran into that dressing room—” Steele gestured to his left, “—which has only two exits, and apparently never came out. The room has been thoroughly searched, and no human being could possibly remain concealed therein. A vanishing act worthy of a Houdini.”
Steele’s eyes peered keenly around at the audience. “I am something of an authority on vanishing—”
Suddenly the lights went out.
There was an immediate reaction from the audience, already edgy from the past hour-and-a-half’s happenings; no screams, but a nervous titter in the dark and the sound of chairs being pushed back and people standing.
Then the lights came back on, and Steele was still there, center stage, facing the audience. “Accept my apologies,” he said. “Please, all of you be seated. As you can see—” he indicated the two police officers standing one on each side of the stage, “—there is nowhere I could go. As well, the lights were off then for a full five seconds, which is much too long for an effective disappearance. A mere flicker of darkness, or a sudden burst of flame, is all that is needed.
“I shall now attempt to solve this mystery, which has so baffled my friends on the police and the rest of us. I’m sure you will forgive me if, in so doing, I create a small mystery of my own.”
Steele clapped his hands together three times, and on the third clap there was a blinding flash of light — and the stage lights went out again — and came back on almost instantly.
Steele was gone.
In his place stood the beautiful Ardis, in her long white stage gown, her arms outstretched and a smile on her lips. “Hello,” she said.
The audience gasped. The thing was done so neatly, and so quickly; Steele had turned into Ardis before their eyes. Someone tentatively applauded, as much in a release of tension as anything else, but there was no doubt that the audience was impressed.
Ardis held up her hands for silence. “What you have just seen is called a transference,” she said when the room grew still again. “Christopher Steele is gone, and I am here. And now I, too, in my turn, shall leave. I shall go into the fourth dimension, and you shall all observe the manner of my going. Yet none of you will know where I have gone. Thus — farewell.”
There was another bright flash, and the lights once more went out; but we could still see Ardis before us as a kind of ghostly radiance, her white dress almost glowing in the dark. Then she dwindled before our eyes, as though receding to a great distance. Finally, the lights came on to stay, and the stage was empty, and she was gone.
There was a shocked silence, as though the audience was collectively holding its breath. In that silence, a deep, imperious voice said, “I am here!”