I’ve heard people refer to him as conceited, and I suppose I can understand their confusion. But as I see it, his assurance is but the supreme selfconfidence of a unique individual who has, through a God-given gift, overcome the boundaries of time and space.”
He looked over at me, smiling. “But you know all this, of course. You know the man. You’ve traveled with him. No doubt you’ve actually seen him dematerialize.”
“Dematerialize.”
“I envy you, I must say. I’ve read through the literature, it goes without saying. Comprehensively. The accounts in the Bible. The stories of Daniel Dunglas Home. And of Mrs. Guppy-you know that she actually teleported herself from Highbury to Bloomsbury? How I should’ve loved to see that!” He unclasped his hands, slipped them into his pants pockets, shook his big head a few times, then looked over at me. “But to live, as you’ve been doing, at close quarters with such a marvel. I truly envy you, Mr. Beaumont.”
He looked down, at the gravel walkway, and he sighed.
“Sir Arthur,” I said.
“Hmm?”
“Harry doesn’t dematerialize.”
He looked over at me and he furrowed his wide brow. And then, after a moment, he smiled at me, the way a father smiles when his son tells him that the missing cookies were stolen by a band of gypsies. “Come now,” he said.
“He’s a magician, Sir Arthur. Those are tricks up there, on stage. Good tricks. But tricks.”
For another few moments he stared at me. Then, once again, he smiled. He nodded sagely. “I understand completely. Not another word.”
I didn’t have any other words. Neither of us spoke any until we reached the entrance to the manor house.
“And here we are,” he said. “Back again.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “I do hope this Chin Soo business won’t affect the seance tonight. Madame Sosostris is acutely sensitive, you know. Her abilities may be impaired by all the ill will drifting about.”
He looked around him and then up at the sky, as if the ill will might have gathered into storm clouds up there.
He turned to me. “You’ll find her remarkable, I’m sure. She’ll be joining the rest of us for tea. Well, I believe I’ll rest for a bit. Long drive from London. It’s been delightful talking with you.” He held out his hand. I gave him mine and let him crush it for a while.
Chapter Fifteen
The Great Man wasn’t in his room when I returned to our suite. I looked at my watch. Three-thirty, and tea was at four. I undressed and took a quick shower. I put on clean underwear and a clean shirt.
My suit had been harvesting fruits of the forest all day-twigs and leaves, a thorn or two. I brushed them off and then I climbed back into it. The. 32 Colt was still in my jacket pocket and it was going to stay there until I left Maplewhite.
I left the room. I was opposite the door to the suite that held Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner when Cecily Fitzwilliam sailed around the corner up ahead. She was walking toward me and she was wearing some clothes this afternoon, a long-sleeved red dress.
I stopped.
“Mr. Beaumont!” she smiled. “What a wonderful coincidence.
I was just coming to see you.” She stopped and curled up her shoulders in a soft quick shrug, then put her hands together below her stomach, left hand cupping right. “How are you?” She looked sweetly up at me as if she expected a kiss on her pert little mouth.
I tried to remember the jaded young thing who had drawled at me in the drawing room last night.
“Bringing back the key to your handcuffs?” I asked her.
She frowned, puzzled. “But what… You have the key. I put it'-she glanced quickly around, lowered her voice-“I put it on your bed.”
I shook my head.
She nearly stamped her foot. “But I did,” she said. “I found it under the bed, after you left, and I put it exactly in the center of the mattress. Where you’d be certain to find it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But that’s impossible. You did look?”
“I looked. How’d you manage to get back to your room without anyone seeing you?”
“The front stairs.” With a nod of her head she indicated the end of the corridor, behind me. “Mr. Beaumont, I swear to you, I put the key on the bed. I’d never have left you…” She shrugged, smiled. “Well… you know… stranded like that.”
“Okay,” I said. “You put the key on the bed.”
Her smile vanished, buried beneath a pout. “I did.”
“Okay,” I said. She hadn’t asked me how I’d gotten out of the cuffs. Probably she was too busy thinking about whatever it was that had brought her here.
She glanced around again, leaned slightly toward me. She fluttered her eyelashes a few more times and she smiled again. A coy smile. “You didn’t tell anyone about last night, did you?” This was why she’d come-to learn if I’d been spilling any beans lately.
“I told Mr. Houdini,” I said.
She leaned back and her face went suddenly stiff and red. “How could you?” she said.
“I needed to get the cuffs off.”
Her brow puckered up, her lower lip dropped. “But I left you the key.” A wail was quavering just behind her voice.
“I never found it,” I said. “Look. Don’t worry. I told him you wanted to talk. I told him you brought the handcuffs because you thought he might want to see them.”
“But you told him I was there!”
“He won’t repeat it.”
Some kind of understanding flashed across her face. “Is that why he was avoiding me? Just now? Every time I came near him, he was blinking like a madman. And then he went racing away.” Her eyes opened wide in horror. “He thinks I’m a nymphomaniac!”
I smiled. “He doesn’t think-”
“I’m not a nymphomaniac!”
At that moment, the door opened to my left. Miss Turner stood there, looking out at us with her mouth turned down in disapproval. Her hair was wrung back behind her head again and she was wearing another shapeless dress. Brown, this time.
For a second or two she stood there and those wide blue eyes silently stared. And then she flinched and her long body jerked abruptly forward, as though she had been whacked in the back. The voice of Mrs. Allardyce shrilled out-“Get along with you, Jane, don’t dawdle so.” And then both of them were out in the hallway and Mrs. Allardyce was coming around Miss Turner like a hungry crab scuttling around a pearl. She clutched her purse against her stomach as though it were a shield. A broad eager smile was pasted to her round shiny face. “Why, Cecily. How very lovely you look.” The smile slipped only a bit when she nodded to me. “And good day to you again, Mr. Beaumont.”
I nodded. Politely.
“Aren’t you taking tea, dear?” Mrs. Allardyce asked Cecily, and put her hand on Cecily’s forearm. Cecily seemed to shrink away, but Mrs. Allardyce didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She said, “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to meeting Sir Arthur. I adore his work, just adore it. I saw Mr. Gillette in that wonderful Sherlock Holmes play at the Lyceum and he was simply brilliant! He’s so terribly handsome, isn’t he? So terribly distinguished. ' She edged her bulk closer to Cecily. “And tell me, dear. Has Sir Arthur brought along that medium of
