“When Carson leaves,” said the voice of the Great Man, “I unlock the door and I prepare everything-the bar, the lock. It is a matter of seconds only. Then I slip from the room. By the time he returns to it, I am safely away.”
I saw a. 45 auto, 30.30 Remington, 9-millimeter Parabellum. A metal canister holding black powder. And, toward the rear, a box of. 38s. I glanced at the wall.
Lord Bob: “And you’re saying that’s what bloody happened?”
The Great Man: “Not at all, Lord Purleigh. Sir Arthur asked me how it could have happened. I was merely explaining this.”
I walked over to the scoped Winchester lever-action rifle on the wall. I leaned forward, sniffed at the ejection port.
“In my opinion,” said the Great Man, “nothing like this took place. There would have been indications, you see.”
“Indications?” said Doyle.
I put my right hand beneath the rifle’s butt plate, used my left to grip the tip of the barrel, and lifted the weapon from its supports on the wall. I sniffed the muzzle.
“On the key, for example,” said the Great Man. “The key is copper, a soft metal. Had anyone used a pick on it, he would have left marks on the key’s bit.”
I turned around to face them. I waited for the Great Man to finish. Lord Bob saw me holding the Winchester, frowned briefly, looked back at the Great Man.
“The key,” said the Great Man, “landed on the floor on its right side. Its left side, of course, was facing up. It is on the left side of the bit that marks would have been left, had someone used a pick. I examined it and saw that there were no marks. You will find, however, when the key is turned over, the marks I left when I opened the lock.”
He took a sip of water. “I also examined the wooden frame of the door. Had someone used a wire to lower the bar, the wire would have left a very narrow groove in the wood. I found no such groove. It is therefore obvious to me that no one used this method. Or, for that matter, any of the other methods that might have been employed. It is perfectly clear to me that the Earl did, in fact, commit suicide.”
“There you are,” said Lord Bob triumphantly to Doyle. “ Suicide. Plain and simple.”
“Sorry,” I said. They turned to me. “It’s not all that simple.”
It was Doyle who spoke. “What do you mean?”
“I could be wrong,” I said, “but I think this is the rifle that was fired at Houdini today.”
The three of them stared at me. Once again it was Doyle who did the talking. “Surely you’re not suggesting that Chin Soo came in here to obtain a rifle.”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “I’m saying I think this is the rifle. It’s been fired, and fairly recently. Probably today.”
Still holding the rifle’s barrel in my left hand, I jammed the butt plate against my stomach and I used the knuckles of my right hand to throw its lever open. The action was smooth and the lever moved easily, almost silently, and from the ejection port popped the long lethal shape of a 30.30 cartridge. The cartridge sailed in an arc to my right and then fell and thumped against the Oriental carpet and rolled up against the wall.
Part Two
Chapter Eighteen
'Impossible,” said lord Bob, glaring at the Winchester rifle as though it had just passed gas.
Holding the rifle by its butt plate and the tip of its barrel, I carried it around the table and set it down carefully on the wooden tabletop, between Doyle and Lord Bob on one side, and the Great Man and me on the other. “Impossible or not,” I said, “that rifle’s been fired today.”
I sat back down in my chair.
Lord Bob reached out for the rifle. Doyle said warningly, “Lord Purleigh.”
Lord Bob froze and glanced over at Doyle.
“Fingerprints,” Doyle told him.
Lord Bob scowled and withdrew his hand. “But damn it, Doyle,” he said. “It’s bloody impossible. No one could simply dash in here and grab the bloody thing!”
I said, “Harry? Could Chin Soo have gotten into Maplewhite?”
The Great Man frowned. “Get in? Yes, certainly.” He turned to Lord Bob. “The locks here are very fundamental, Lord Purleigh.”
“Impossible,” said Lord Bob, and looked down at the rifle. He swallowed some brandy.
I asked Lord Bob, “When was the last time the gun was fired? That you know of.”
Still staring at the Winchester, he said, “No idea. Spring sometime.” He looked up at me. “Target practice out on the lawn. Had some guests here, they wanted to give it a go.”
Doyle turned to me. “You said that you still possess the slug that was fired this afternoon. There are scientific tests that can determine whether it was fired from this weapon.”
“That won’t work here,” I told him. “The slug was too damaged. But the caliber is right.”
Lord Bob turned to Doyle. “How could he possibly have known where the guns were kept?”
Doyle puffed at the pipe, took it from his mouth. “Well, Lord Purleigh, there are written accounts of Maplewhite, you know. Descriptions of its rooms, its architecture.”
Lord Bob’s furry eyebrows shot skyward. “You mean the filthy bugger investigated me? Investigated my bloody home? Is that what you’re saying?”
Doyle shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose.”
“The swine.” Lord Bob snatched up the decanter of brandy, splashed a couple of inches into his glass.
Doyle frowned. “But would he’ve had the time to do so, I wonder?” He turned to me. “As I understand it, Chin Soo couldn’t have known until this morning that Houdini would be at Maplewhite this weekend. It was this morning that the article appeared in the Times. Even if he read it first thing in the day, would he have had time enough to study the accounts of the house and appear here as quickly as he did?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “Maybe Chin Soo had already figured out that Harry would be here.”
Doyle raised his left eyebrow. “How so?” he asked.
I asked, “How long have you known you’d be coming here, Sir Arthur? For the seance.”
He stroked his mustache with the mouthpiece of the pipe as he thought about it. “Since Monday last,” he said finally. “Lady Purleigh asked me then, over the telephone, whether Madame Sosostris might be available this weekend. I rang up Madame and I asked her. She was available, she said, and she agreed to come. I telephoned Lady Purleigh and accepted her invitation, on both our behalfs.”
Suddenly he smiled at me. “I see. Yes, of course. There was something in the Times on Wednesday, an article about Spiritualism. It mentioned my forthcoming visit to Maplewhite, and the seance here. Houdini’s name wasn’t mentioned-” He turned to the Great Man. “I didn’t discuss it with you until Thursday, did I?”
“Thursday, yes,” said the Great Man. “Exactly.”
Doyle looked back at me. “But it’s common knowledge that he and I are friends, that we attend seances together.”
“And Chin Soo knows,” I said, “that Harry is in England. It’d make sense to him that Harry would show up at Maplewhite.”
Doyle nodded thoughtfully. “He should have had ample time, then, to study the accounts of the building.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And he could’ve arrived here anytime over the last week, from Wednesday on.” I turned to Lord Bob. “He could’ve been in and out of this place twenty times.”
Lord Bob slammed his fist against the table. “Rotten stinking sod!”
Doyle asked me, “But wouldn’t someone have noticed that the rifle was missing?”
