“Impossible,” said the Great Man. “Bess expects me to be there.” He raised himself fully upright. “In all our married years together, I have never disappointed my wife, Inspector.”
Marsh smiled. “That does you great credit, Mr. Houdini,” he said. “But I regret to tell you that no one will be permitted to leave Maplewhite until such time as the preliminary investigation has been concluded.”
Impatience had become disbelief. “ Permitted?”
“Harry,” I said.
Marsh said, “Sergeant Meadows and I-”
“Inspector,” said the Great Man. “You fail to understand the situation. My wife is arriving. In London. In the morning. I will be there.”
“Mr. Houdini,” said Marsh.
The Great Man spoke slowly, to make sure that Marsh understood. “Inspector, do you know who I am?”
“Oh yes,” said Marsh, smiling brightly. “I could hardly fail to understand that, could I? Not a day goes by that I don’t admire those colorful advertisements of yours. They’re posted all over London, aren’t they? Ubiquitously, one might say.”
“Then perhaps it has occurred to you,” the Great Man pronounced, “that I am not without influence, even here in England.
I feel I must warn you-”
“ Harry.” I stood up. “Come on, Harry. Outside. Let’s talk.
We’ll be back in a minute, Inspector.”
He turned to me. “But Phil-”
“Come on.” I took him by the arm. He resisted, his muscle bunching under my hand. He held his head up, his gray eyes glaring at Marsh. Marsh was smiling up at him, pleasantly.
I tugged at the arm. “Harry, come on. We’ll get this straightened out.”
Reluctantly, his head high, he came along.
“The man is insane, Phil!”
“He’s a cop, Harry.”
“He is an imbecile!”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you heard me explain. He refuses to listen!”
“Harry, he’s just doing his job.”
“But permitted! How dare he? Bess will be in London tomorrow!” We were in the hallway outside the library. The Great Man was pacing up and down the parquet floor, waving his arms. I was leaning against the wall. My own arms were crossed.
“Why not call her back?” I said. “Ask her if she can take a later train. Tomorrow, maybe.”
He stopped pacing and turned to me and put his hands on his hips. “I refuse. Absolutely. I have given my word.” He stood upright again. “And Houdini never goes back on his word.”
“Harry, you’re just being stubborn. You’re angry at Marsh.”
“I have every reason to be angry.”
“Marsh needs to talk to everyone. He needs to figure out what’s going on.”
“ What?” He leaned toward me. “ What, Phil? What is this oh-so-important thing he needs to ‘figure out’?”
“Harry, I told you.” You had to be patient with him. “Someone tried to stab Miss Turner last night. Maybe it was the same person who fired that shot yesterday. And maybe he’ll try again-Miss Turner is in danger, Harry, until someone finds out what’s happening. And maybe all that-the rifle shot, the knife maybe it’s all connected to the Earl somehow. To the Earl’s death. I still don’t like the idea of suicide.”
He shook his head. “We have discussed this, Phil. It must have been suicide. No one could possibly have opened that door. I examined it with the utmost care.”
“And what was going on with the Earl? Why was he wandering around, playing ghost in the middle of the night?”
He shook his head. “The Earl was paralyzed, Phil.”
“He said he was paralyzed. He acted like he was paralyzed. But I told you, Harry, Miss Turner found those things in his room.”
“Someone placed them there, of course.”
“Why?”
“To discredit him.”
“She found them by accident. And what’s the point of discrediting the Earl?”
“I have no idea.”
“Yeah. Neither do I.”
He opened his mouth and then shut it. He took a deep breath. He looked out the casement window and he frowned. He cocked his head to the side. “I could simply leave,” he said suddenly. He was talking more to himself than to me. “Who would stop me?”
“Marsh would,” I said. “He’d call ahead, he’d set up roadblocks. That Lancia is a hard car to miss, Harry. You’d be arrested. And then you’d be in jail. Bess would love that.”
He turned to me, his back stiff. “No jail in the world can hold Houdini.”
“Swell. You escape from jail. Then they shoot you. And then you’re catching bullets, like Chin Soo. But not with your teeth.”
He frowned again and turned away. He took another deep breath and then he pounded his fist against the stone of the window sill. “I refuse to be trapped here.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he glared out through the panes of glass at the grounds of Maplewhite. In the sunlight, the lines around his mouth seemed deeper and darker.
“Harry,” I said, “it probably won’t take all that long. Let Marsh poke around, ask his questions. Let him get a grip on all this.”
He snorted. “If we wait for Marsh to get a grip, we will be here until the snow falls.” He shook his head. Absurd, he told the windowpane. “Houdini, imprisoned.”
“Give him a chance, Harry. Maybe it won t take more than a couple of hours.”
He turned back to me, his eyes narrowed. “Aha,” he said.
“Aha?”
He nodded sagely. “Now I understand.”
“What?”
“You wish to ‘get a grip’ on this yourself, do you not, Phil? He slid his hands from his pockets and he crossed his arms. “You are curious, are you not? As a Pinkerton, you are intrigued. And you are concerned, perhaps, about Miss Turner.”
“Naturally I’m curious, but-”
“But Phil. You were not hired to be curious about Maplewhite. Is that not the truth?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Nor to be concerned about Miss Turner.”
“No.”
“Tell me this, Phil. Let us say that I was allowed to leave. Permitted to leave. Within half an hour, let us say. Would you come with me? Back to London?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though, by leaving, you might never ‘get a grip’? Even though Miss Turner might remain in danger?”
“I signed on to do a job.”
“But-and be honest with me, Phil-you would not be happy about leaving now.”
“I’m not paid to be happy.”
He shook his head. “Honestly now, Phil.”
“Honestly, Harry?” I shrugged. “I’d try to talk you out of it.”
“As you are doing now.”
