Then we fell into our parade formation with Schell leading the way and Antony in the rear, lugging the trunk. We made our slow, ceremonious exit from the dining room to the hallway and toward the front door. On the way to the exit, we encountered the doctor, standing off to the side of the hall, smoking a cigar.
"Good evening, Dr. Greaves," said Schell and extended his hand.
"Keep walking," said Greaves. "I've nothing to say to you."
Schell withdrew his arm and we continued.
Two miles down the road from the Barnes mansion, Antony turned into the parking lot of a grocery and drove around behind the building, where he stopped. We all got out of the car and went quickly to the back compartment of the Cord and retrieved the prop trunk. Laying it carefully on the ground, Antony unlatched the clasps and opened it. Schell reached in and took out the easel, the folding table, the candles, etc., handing each item to me in turn.
Once the trunk was empty, Schell took out his knife. Releasing the blade, he ran its tip along the bottom side of the trunk. A moment later what had seemed to be the bottom opened outward like the cover of a book to reveal a hidden compartment filled with the contorted body of Vonda, the Rubber Lady. She looked like a woman who had fallen into a car compactor.
Antony reached into the trunk and lifted her twisted form up into his arms, holding her as one would hold a child. Very slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, she began to open outward like a folded paper figure placed in a bowl of water. While this remarkable transformation took place, Schell and I replaced the false bottom of the trunk and began refilling it with our sйance implements.
Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, Vonda turned into a slight but perfectly normal-size woman in Antony's arms. As soon as the metamorphosis was complete, she said, "Okay, Henry, you can put me down."
As her feet touched the ground, she reached up and whipped off the curly wig she'd worn to effect the guise of Charlotte Barnes. I'd only met her once before, and briefly at that, at Morty's funeral. Now I could tell, even through the makeup job Schell had done on her to get her to look like a little girl, that she was a good-looking woman. Her own blonde hair was gathered in a tight bun on her head. She was thin but had a fine figure, and her face was youthful for someone who I knew to be only a few years younger than the big man. Despite what seemed to be a lazy left eye, Antony had done very well for himself.
"Are you feeling good?" asked Antony, gently touching her back.
"A little dizzy," she said. "It'll pass."
"You were in that trunk for a long time," I said, "I don't know how you did it."
"It wasn't the trunk, kid," she said, "that's a piece of cake. It was that fucking stuff you guys had burning on the back of that chair. It nearly gassed me. What is that shit? It smelled like dirty feet."
Antony must have been satisfied that she was back to normal, because he smiled broadly and bent over to give her a hug.
"Great work," said Schell. "Come on, we've got to beat it."
The trunk got loaded back into the Cord, and Schell gave Vonda the front seat so she could ride next to Antony. We pulled back out onto the road and made for home.
"Diego," Schell said, "did you remember to take the drawing? I doubt any of them would figure it out, but in the event someone analyzed it, we'd be sunk."
"Yeah," said Antony, "like that doctor. I wasn't feeling the warmth from him."
"That's what happens when you're educated in the sciences," said Schell. "You lose that charming quality of naive acceptance."
"All you ever talk to me about is getting a college degree," I said.
Schell laughed. "I'm talking about our marks, Diego. It's okay for us."
"Wait a second, there," said Antony. "I think Barnes went to Havard."
"That doesn't count," said Schell. "Absolute wealth befuddles absolutely."
"I did take the picture," I said and reached up to retrieve the folded piece of drawing paper from beneath my turban.
"How about the scream that old broad let out when the drawing disappeared?" said Antony.
"I heard that in the trunk," said Vonda. "It almost busted my glass eye."
"I love that effect," said Schell.
"I know you guys were saying the drawing appears and disappears, but how do you do it?" she asked.
"The boss never gives away his secrets," Antony said to her.
"It's all right, Antony," said Schell. "Since Vonda did such a marvelous job, and she has close personal connections to the operation, I'll reveal this one, but you must promise not to tell anyone."
"Yeah, yeah," said Vonda and turned slightly to look into the backseat.
I was glad she asked, because although it had actually been Isabel who'd originally drawn the portrait of the phantom with a solution that Schell had concocted, I had no idea what that special ink had been made from.
"Cobalt oxide dissolved in nitric acid," said Schell. "You could also use hydrochloric acid instead of the nitric. You render the writing or drawing with this solution on a piece of white paper and it's completely undetectable. When it comes in close proximity to heat, like the candle flames we placed directly in front of it, the drawing appears in blue lines. Breathe on it, as Mrs. Charles and Collins and the others were doing when inspecting it, and it disappears again. I got that one from Morty."
"Jeez," said Vonda and shook her head.
"And I apologize for the ill effect of the incense, but without it I was afraid it wouldn't have been dark enough for you to get in and out of the trunk undetected," said Schell.
"Forget it," said Vonda. She turned to Antony and lightly punched him in the arm. "Baby, give me a cigarette," she said.
HERE'S A CLUE
Living with Schell often made me forget that the country was suffering the stupidity of Prohibition, for he had an endless supply of alcohol and not the bathtub swill that Grace served at the Paradise. Once every few months, he and Antony would drive over to the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey, and visit a particular longshoreman named Gallagher. It never failed that they would return with a stash of European champagne, wine, and liquor. To celebrate our successful bamboozlement of the Barneses and their guests, Schell had pulled, from some secret compartment in his room, two bottles of French cognac. We all crowded into the Bugatorium, and the party took wing.
That night my glass was refilled with each round, and I was not held to my usual one-drink limit. My role had somehow changed. I no longer felt like an apprentice but as a full partner in the sйance operation, on equal footing with Schell and Antony. I could only think this was due to the presence of Isabel, looking beautiful in Morgan's paisley wrap. As simpleminded as it sounds, I had my arm around a woman and a drink in my hand, and I mistakenly thought as I'm sure many have, What, if not this, is evidence of being a man in the great United States?
My participation in the conversation was no longer merely to ask questions, to sit back and listen, to act the student, so I held forth on my own personal ideas as to the ultimate moral nature of the confidence scheme. Everyone was in a good mood, though, and when I went on too long, the others simply turned away and smaller conversations broke out around my own monologue. Eventually Antony said, "Kid, give it a rest," and I laughed. Isabel did too, and kissed me on the cheek. I felt as though I had made some definitive move toward adulthood.
Schell recounted the goings-on at the Barnes mansion for Morgan and Isabel; the whole affair and how it played out-our entrance, the trunk, the guests, etc. Although Isabel nodded with interest, I knew that privately she disapproved of our con every step of the way. Morgan had a beatific smile on her face and appeared to hang on Schell's every word. When Schell got to the part where Doctor Greaves leaped out of his seat to rescue Mrs. Barnes and I tripped him, Antony said, "That guy had a doodlebug in his ass."