"Bad luck," said Mr. Graff.
"My dear sirs," said our drunken friend in the opposite cell, "once again I feel compelled to-"
"Silence!" Harry snapped.
Mr. Graff and I looked at one another. Not another sound was heard for a good ten minutes or so.
"Well, Harry," I said at fast. "It's getting quite late. Shall I call for Sergeant O'Donnell?"
"Indeed not," my brother said. "If you would be so good as to hand me the lock-pick, I shall begin again."
IV: Turning the Tip
Harry made three more attempts to escape from the lockup that night, and failed each time. He kept his arms folded and his mouth shut when Sergeant O'Donnell finally came to release us, and would not even return my "good night" when I dropped him at home. I hoped a night's sleep would restore him to his usual bull-headed arrogance.
In those days, Harry and Bess were living in my mother's flat on East Sixty-ninth Street, an arrangement that appealed to him for two reasons-it was cheap and it kept him close to Mama. There would have been room for me, too, but I fancied myself as a bit of a man about town, and imagined living at home might cramp my style. I kept a room in Mrs. Arthur's boarding house, only seven blocks away, where I very occasionally enjoyed an evening of whist and cigars with my fellow lodgers. Apart from this, I might just as well have been living in a monastery.
Harry and Bess were seated at the breakfast table when I arrived, while Mother busied herself at the stove. Harry still looked a bit crestfallen.
"My darling Theo!" Mother called as I came through the kitchen door. "Sit down! I will bring you a little something!"
"No, thank you, Mama," I said, removing my trilby. "I have already breakfasted with Mrs. Arthur. Good morning, Bess."
"Hello, Dash," my sister-in-law said. "You boys were out a bit late last night, weren't you?"
"Speak to your husband about that," I answered. "I would rather have been home sleeping."
"You say you've had breakfast?" Mother asked. "It cannot have been enough. You look thin! Sit!"
"I'm fine, Mother. I'll take a cup of tea, if there is any left."
I sat down at the breakfast table while she began clattering around in the cupboards. I couldn't tell you how many days began that way in those years, with Harry and Bess sitting at their places and my mother darting from table to stove. I once had occasion to visit Professor Einstein at his laboratory in Princeton, and I must report that it seemed quite a modest affair compared with my mother's kitchen. She never used one pot where three would do; she never finished serving one meal before starting preparations on the next. One navigated the room as though crossing a busy thoroughfare, bobbing and weaving amongst the simmering goulashes, cooling breads, whistling kettles, and clattering cake pans. Many times I would call at the house on a summer afternoon to take my mother for a drive, only to find that she could not leave her stewpot and basting spoon. "You go along, Theo," she would invariably say. "The pot needs minding."
As for my brother, he was never happier than when our mother was clucking over him. He sighed with sat-
isfaction whenever she placed a dish of his beloved Hungarian pepper roast in front of him. His face glowed as she poured out his tea, giving him a peck on the forehead as she did so. From my vantage across the table, however, I would often see a flicker of despair pass over my sister-in-law's face whenever Mama tucked Harry's napkin under his chin, or cut up his kippered herring into bite-sized pieces. I resolved that it would be different for me, if I were ever fortunate enough to marry.
I had arrived just as Harry was buttering his first slice of brown toast, an operation of enormous delicacy. Harry required three coatings of paper-thin butter slices to achieve the required perfection, and each of these had to be spread to the very edge of the bread-but not beyond-in precise, surgical strokes. "Have you seen The Herald?" Harry asked, pausing in his exertions long enough to pass the newspaper to me. He had folded the front page to an item in the third column.
MAGNATE FOUND DEAD
Millionaire Wintour Poisoned
at Fifth Avenue Home
"Horrible! Horrible!" cries Distraught Wife
Wealthy manufacturer Branford Howard Wintour, the reclusive patron of the arts, was found dead at his home late yesterday, the apparent victim of a bizarre poisoning. Police would not confirm whether a strange mischance or a sinister murder plot had claimed the life of the famed businessman.
Mr. Wintour, a collector of rare toys, evidently succumbed to the deadly toxin while examining a recent acquisition. As of last night, the nature and source of the poison were unknown. Although police would not confirm foul play in the matter, a suspect has been taken into custody.
The item continued for several paragraphs, detailing the dead man's long record of philanthropy and public service, but adding little to what Harry and I had learned the previous evening.
"It is an obscenity, is it not?" Harry declared as I lowered the newspaper.
"Tragic, certainly," I answered.
"It is an offense against decency." He took an angry bite of his now-perfected toast.
Ah, I said to myself, Harry's not referring to Win-tour's death. He's referring to the fact that the newspaper failed to mention his name.
"Strange mischance," I said, quoting from the account. "They seem to be allowing for the possibility that Wintour's death was accidental."
"Ridiculous! The police merely wish to give themselves an excuse if they fail to unmask the murderer."
"I don't know about that," I said. "If Le Fantфme had actually killed Mr. Wintour, I suppose it's possible that his death might have been an accident."
"The device might accidentally have fired a poison dart?"
"Suppose some earlier owner had altered the mechanism to shoot a dart instead of a red blotch. Maybe this person wanted it to be a different sort of trick. Instead of marking a card, maybe he wanted to have it puncture a balloon. And maybe the dart wasn't poisoned at all- or not intentionally, anyway. Maybe it was simply coated with some resin or adhesive that happened to be poisonous. It could have happened that way, couldn't it?"
"Seems a bit far-fetched," Harry said. "Far-fetched? A famous millionaire has been found in his locked study with a dart in his neck. All bets are off."
"Yes," Harry said. "It is quite a puzzle. That is why it appeals to the Great Houdini. He is a master of puzzles."
"When were you planning to unravel this puzzle?" Bess asked. "Aren't we still working the ten-in-one?"
"Dash will do some scouting around during the day," Harry told her. "He will be my eyes and ears. Then we will report our conclusions to the police."
"Harry, I don't think the police are interested in receiving any further assistance from the Brothers Houdini. Thank you, Mama," I said, as she set a cup of tea before me.
"You? are content to leave Josef Graff in jail?"
"Of course not. But I'm confident that the police will get to the bottom of the crime eventually, and that Mr. Graff will be released."
"Possibly," said Harry. He picked up a second slice of toast and resumed the intricate buttering maneuver. My mother, meanwhile, had placed a soft-boiled egg before me.
"There you are, Theo," she said happily. "Just as you like it."
"Mama, I told you-"
"That looks delicious, Dash," Harry said.
"But-"
"So kind of Mama to prepare it for you."
With a sigh, I picked up the egg spoon she had laid for me. Many times in my career I have allowed myself to be chained and roped and tossed into the frigid waters of the Hudson River. It is an experience I much prefer to soft-boiled eggs.
"Besides," said Harry, noting my squeamishness with quiet amusement, "you saw for yourself that the police were completely misled by Le Fantфme. It is a wonder they did not handcuff the little doll and cart it off to jail along with poor Mr. Graff."