Then at last I asked my uncle what it was all about. In reply he handed me a newspaper clipping, and I read:
“CAN DO INDIAN ROPE
TRICK,” SAYS SAVANT
LAYS CLAIM TO $500,000
REWARD
San Francisco, July 6 – It was announced at Western University today that an attempt to claim the $500,000 reward offered by the late Richard Welton to anyone who can perform the Indian Rope Trick will be made in the Republic of Del Rio. The claimant is a Dr Clive Marlin, self-styled student of the occult, who has resided in Central America for a number of years.
Richard Welton, who died three years ago, provided in his will that the reward could be claimed outside the United States in some country which had no income tax.
Mr Welton, a life-long student of spiritualism, considered that a successful performance of the Indian Rope Trick under test conditions would be an absolute proof of the genuineness of psychic phenomena, as even Houdini-exposer of many fraudulent mediums-never attempted it.
As often described, but never by an eye witness, the “Indian Rope Trick” is supposed to be a demonstration of mind over matter. The yogi causes a rope to rise in the air by supra-normal means; then a boy climbs to the top of the rope and vanishes, to be rematerialized a mile or more away.
Harry Price, the English expert, once offered a similar reward for anyone who could perform the trick, but no one ever tried to claim it. But Mr Welton thought that a much larger reward might be more effective.
I put the clipping down. “Welton must have been crazy,” I said.
“The courts said not, Jimmy… He was eccentric-no doubt of that – but still legally sane.”
“But how does this concern us?”
“Directly, Jimmy. Mr Welton left two million dollars to Western University, but on the condition that we administer this $500,000 fund. I, myself, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, have the sole discretion to grant or withold the reward to any claimant.”
“So that’s why we’re going to Del Rio?” I said.
“Yes. It’s all nonsense, of course, but under the terms of the trust I have to make this trip. Crazy or not, Dr Marlin has the right to attempt his demonstration.”
A thought came to me. “This Dr Marlin may be sane but crooked,” I said. “Not knowing you, he may try to bribe you with part of the reward to give a false report on the test.”
“No, Jimmy, if he had that in mind, he would have tried it before he put up the thousand-dollar forfeit. The will requires one to keep the University from being bothered by cranks.”
I smiled to myself at the idea of anyone trying to offer my uncle a bribe. A slight man in early middle-age, partly bald with a fringe of dark curly hair, he had keen blue eyes that usually managed to see everything going on. By profession he was a geologist, who might have made a fortune in mining but who preferred to retire on a moderate income to devote himself to scientific studies and to his duties at Western University as Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
“No doubt you’re right,” I said; “but why has Dr Marlin stipulated that only two persons watch his demonstration?”
“He says that more might set up too many conflicting thought waves and make his success more difficult.”
“I wonder,” I said. “He may be an expert magician who thinks he can deceive two persons easier than a crowd.”
“I doubt it, Jimmy, If even Houdini couldn’t work the rope trick, I don’t think this Dr Marlin can.”
The next morning my uncle and I left the American Consulate in Del Rio City, and in a hired car drove for half an hour along a desolate coast to Dr Marlin’s coffee finca (plantation). The house was on a slight rise near a secluded bay with a small island about two miles off-shore. At hand was a wharf with a motor-boat moored to it. Dr Marlin’s house, to my surprise, was a white two-storied mansion suggesting the Southern United States rather than Central America.
As our car pulled up, we saw three figures awaiting us on the veranda. One, slightly in the lead, a European wearing a white linen suit, stepped forward and introduced himself as the claimant, Dr Clive Marlin. I looked at him with interest mixed with apprehension, but his manner was perfectly normal. He was a tall, distinguished-looking man of about fifty with thick iron-grey hair and a clipped moustache. A monocle was in his right eye, and his speech was apparently that of a cultured Englishman. But I thought I noticed just a trace of some foreign accent.
After a few words to us, Dr Marlin beckoned the other two forward and presented them as his assistants, Mustapha and his son Ali. My uncle and I spoke to them in Spanish, but the two only bowed and Dr Marlin explained that they only understood Hindustani.
Except that the two both seemed Hindus, I found it hard to believe that they were father and son. Mustapha was a big man, as tall as Dr Marlin but thicker. He wore a white Oriental costume with a turban, and most of his brown face was covered by a dark beard. His son Ali (seemingly about twenty) was shorter and very thin. I could see the ribs under his dark skin, for, unlike his father, he wore only a loin-cloth. He had no hair on his face, wore no turban, and his entire head was shaved so that his scalp glistened like rubber in the sun.
“I suppose,” my uncle said, “Ali is the lad who will climb the rope?”
“That is correct,” said Dr Marlin. “But not today. First you must witness the pouring of the concrete.”
“Concrete?”
“Yes, Mr Dobbs, we don’t want to leave any room for doubt. Today I am laying a concrete pavement over the testing-ground so that no one can claim later that Ali vanished into a trap-door under the rope.”
We had been following Dr Marlin as he spoke, and a short distance from the house we came to a level field of about an acre, surrounded, except for two gaps, by a thick, six-foot hedge.
In the centre were four iron poles, six feet high, set in the ground so as to form a twenty-foot square. The poles were connected at the tops by four wires designed to hold curtains.
About a dozen native workmen surrounded a bin filled with a freshly mixed concrete. At Dr Marlin’s command they poured it on the ground, and smoothed it until the entire square between the poles was covered to a depth of two or three inches.
“Now,” said Dr Marlin, “just as a check, will you gentlemen write your names in the concrete? It is very rapid setting, and will be hard to-morrow.”
We did so. Before we left, my uncle managed to get a few words in private with Juan, the overseer; but Juan declared that he and all the rest of the workmen had only been there two weeks, and they knew nothing of Dr Marlin. We had already heard from the American Consul that Dr Marlin had bought his finca three years ago; he seemed to be an Englishman with plenty of money; but, aside from that, nothing was known of him.
My uncle and I were up early the next morning, and drove to Dr Marlin’s after breakfast. I took my pistol and had a small but excellent camera hidden in my pocket. My uncle had accepted the offer of a loan of another camera from Dr Marlin the day before. But this was only misdirection. Secretly I was to take the pictures.
We found everything ready for us. Dr Marlin escorted us to the field, after offering us cigarettes. We each took one, but when his back was turned we exchanged them for two of our own brand.
The concrete was hard and we verified our signatures. At the sides of the poles were curtains ready to enclose the pavement. Now, however, they were open. On the pavement was Ali, clad only in a white loin-cloth.
“Where’s the rope?” I asked.
“Mustapha will bring it shortly,” Dr Marlin replied. “Here he comes now.”
Through the gap in the hedge appeared a motor-tricycle. On it was Mustapha clad in his white robe and turban. He drove up on the pavement, dismounted, and from an open wire basket on the handlebars (the machine did not have a rear compartment of any kind) produced a coiled rope about twenty feet long, with a large knot on one end and a snaphook on the other. He uncoiled it and fastened the hook to an iron ring set in the centre of the concrete.