Escape Artist

“Well, thank you.”

“I wasn’t intending it as compliment.” I was emboldened. “So far as suspects go, Mr. Timm, you have to admit that you are near the top of the list.”

More confident now, Homer shifted his position to the left, and all eyes focused on the poster of Houdini. Homer followed our eyes and seemed uncomfortable next to the imposing photograph. He sucked in his cheeks and glanced at Gustave. “Indulge me, please. Explain your nonsense. Tell me. To me, an innocent man.”

I suddenly was reluctant to accuse, but staring at the brothers, I went on. “Here’s what I know or, at least, suspect. Frana was seeing an older man, someone obviously familiar with the layout of the high school. That storeroom, though unused, wasn’t so difficult to spot or maneuver. Lord, it’s just a room, not a medieval vault. The sports teams and student actors lounged around in that hallway, up and down those stairs, as you know. In and out of the janitor’s room. The cigar wrapping on the landing is nothing, admittedly. That could be years old, in fact, or from yesterday; or even from Amos Moss or August Schmidt. I mention it only because it seemed to bother you, got you agitated.”

“I told you. You startled me.”

“I gather you called Frana into your office often.”

“That’s my job, Miss Ferber. Frana flaunted rules. Of course, I talked to her.”

I faltered. “But maybe things were said.”

“Yes, reprimands, not…not enticement…”

I ignored that. “Frana was seeing an older man who made her promises, a man who gained her trust, someone she met in some position of authority. Someone who used her naivete to…to seduce…”

“Good God,” Homer breathed in, blanching.

“Frana was carrying some man’s baby…”

Mildred gasped and Sam Ryan tsked. My remarks were unseemly but necessary.

“I’m not naming you a murderer, Mr. Timm.”

“But you’re coming mighty close to doing so,” Gustave spoke in defense of his brother. “Really, Miss Ferber.”

Mildred echoed, “Really.”

I had been watching Homer’s face as I outlined the pitiful, meager evidence, and something of his bluster seemed to dissipate, the color draining from his cheeks. For a second he closed his eyes, his shoulders sagging, and he lost energy. He looked beaten. A whipped child on a playground, slapped down one too many times. I feared he might slip to the floor.

“What?” I asked him.

He shook his head and started to tremble. Gustave whispered, “Homer.”

Mac had stepped back from Homer but now he rested a long arm on the man’s shoulder, stabilizing him. Homer’s eyes were vacant, wide with fright.

What had I done?

Silence in the room.

I felt faint, dizzy. As I stared at Homer, he seemed far away, seen through a telescope, a man stuck against a shimmering black background; then, as I watched, everything seemed to reverse itself, like an hourglass upturned and plunked down before me. His tiny distant face loomed large and ballooned, closer and closer, up against mine.

Then everything cleared. I found myself staring at Homer, who hadn’t moved. Everyone was silently watching me, all of us bunched together in that lobby, Houdini’s eyes watching us. A clock tick-tocked on the wall, a heartbeat. Sam expressed concern. “Miss Ferber, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.” I spoke into the dry space.

Everyone waited.

Cyrus P. Powell scowled.

I turned to look at Sam, then at Mac. Then at Gustave Timm. I said, “Mr. Timm, why did you kill Frana Lempke?”

Pandemonium. Mac stepped back and knocked into Mildred Dunne, who’d started to rush toward Gustave. She fell back into the doorway. Sam belched and apologized. Homer gasped. Only Gustave seemed not to have heard me clearly. “What did you say?”

My voice was hoarse. “I’ve been accusing the wrong brother.”

Sam leaned into me. “Miss Ferber, be careful here.”

In a stronger voice, “Suddenly it’s clear to me.”

I held up my hand. I spoke to Homer. “I’m sorry, sir. I truly am. But it seems to me that you are still partly to blame here, at least for covering up for your brother.”

Homer looked at his brother, then back at me. He closed his eyes.

“I thought so.”

Gustave suddenly moved, backing toward the stage door, his eyes white-rimmed, wild. Mac stepped behind him. Gustave froze. “You’re simply accusing men willy-nilly, Miss Ferber. After you’re through lambasting me, will you move on to, say, Mr. Ryan here? How about Mad Otto the Prophet, screaming Biblical quotations?”

Leaning against the doorjamb, Mildred was clutching the Niagara Falls brochure so tightly it crumpled in her hand.

“It suddenly makes sense to me. Of course, it wasn’t Homer Timm. He’s married. Everyone knows that Homer Timm has a wife and children back East. Frana knew that, too. So if she was seeing an older man, especially a man who, as she said over and over, planned to marry her, would take her back East to marry her, she wouldn’t listen to the attentions of Homer Timm, a married man. Gustave, now, you are notoriously unmarried.”

Mildred snapped, “Are you aware, Miss Ferber, that Gustave and I are to be married this September?”

I ran my tongue into my cheek. “But you’re not married yet.”

Gustave scoffed. “And on the basis of that you accuse me?” He looked at Cyrus P. Powell. “Why not Mr. Powell? He’s unmarried.”

Powell grunted. “Hardly a crime.”

“Other things point to you, sir.” I looked into Gustave’s eyes. “A second ago it came to me when I was thinking about Frana wanting to be an actress. You might have promised her that life. She couldn’t stay away from the Lyceum, true, but you made a point of telling me that you’d discouraged her a number of times. You said she often came with Kathe Schmidt. Well, it just hit me. Kathe told me she’d been here once, a visit that so unsettled her she wouldn’t go again with Frana. Yet you said she came a number of times. I’m thinking that Frana came alone, pleaded with you. A gorgeous girl, and attractive to you, Mr. Timm. Prettiness means a lot to you. The way you flirted with my friend Esther that time we stopped in at Houdini’s rehearsal, telling her she should be an actress. Outrageous.”

“Miss Ferber.”

“Let me finish my thought,” I insisted, fiercely. “I came away from that evening angry, thinking you shallow. I think you have a penchant for pretty girls, and Frana was certainly that.” I glanced at Mildred, who’d turned pale. “Alone-no Kathe with her-you flattered and eventually seduced her, promised her escape. That unbelievable tale of the man with the New York apartment. You’re the ideal older man. In theater. A young girl’s dream come true.”

“But you have no proof.” He was looking at Mildred.

“True, but I always thought it curious that you and Homer Timm didn’t live together. Then I understood the tension between you two, the dislike. Two brothers ending up in Appleton, both coming out of the East, yet not living together. Homer chose Mrs. Zeller’s rooming house; you chose a solitary cottage by the river, out on the Flats, isolated, in the shadows of the mills. Homer would have difficulty conducting an illicit affair at the rooming house, especially under the eagle eye of Mrs. Zeller. You, Gustave Timm, had privacy galore.”

“Nonsense!”

“Miss Ferber,” Mildred interrupted, “Gustave and I are together constantly. I think I’d have known if he…he wandered…”

“And just how would I have arranged to meet that young girl in that storeroom? Lord, the day before I was in