I looked again into those expressive eyes. I should have liked to say many things. I might have told her, for instance, that I would have rejoiced to hear that her engagement to Lord Wycliffe had been broken. I might also have revealed that I planned one day to be a wealthy man, and headline an act that would tour all the major capitals of Europe. And I might even have added that I shared her fondness for the poems of Mrs. Browning, especially the one that began "How do I love thee?"
I told her none of these things. Instead, I simply folded my arms and said, "I'll see what I can do."
VI: The King of Kards
"That woman killed Branford Wintour," my brother said. "There can be no doubt."
"How do you figure that, Harry?" I asked.
"Because she's trying to get a gullible, love-struck young swain to cover her tracks," he answered. "That would be you, Dash. She's playing you for a fool."
"That thought had occurred to me, Harry," I said. "But it doesn't necessarily follow that she killed Mr. Wintour."
We were crowded behind the scenery flats at Huber's Museum, where Harry and Bess still had two more rotations of the ten-in-one ahead of them. In between shows I filled Harry in on the Wintour funeral and my visit to the Hendricks mansion. My brother listened with keen attention, though the details of my encounter with Miss Katherine left him indignant.
"Certainly she killed him," Harry insisted. "What other explanation can there be?''
"I can think of several," I said, "including the one she gave."
"You believe that?" Harry scoffed. "She wrote this
man an indiscreet letter in a moment of weakness and she needs us to recover it? Absurd! She wrote to arrange a secret meeting. Wintour gladly assented, hoping to renew their illicit acquaintance. Once inside the study, unobserved by anyone in the house, she killed him. Simple as that."
"How did she get out again? The room was locked from the inside, as you'll recall."
Harry leaned in toward the mirror of his makeshift dressing table, dabbing at his eyebrows with a heavy pencil. "I haven't worked that out yet," he admitted. "But I will. Women are not to be trusted, not even the best of them."
"What a perfectly horrible thing to say!" cried Bess, who had been listening intently while she repaired a hole in one of her ballet slippers.
Harry turned to her and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry, my dear. It was a remark of Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
"Mr. Holmes never married, I take it?"
"Regrettably, no." He turned away from the mirror as Miss Missy, the Armless Wonder, appeared nudging her little tea trolley before her. Of necessity, Missy supplemented her meager salary from Huber's by selling tea and cakes outside the theater after each show. She never failed to attract a long line of customers, most of them drawn by the sheer novelty of a tea lady who gripped the dainty china handles of the pot and cups with her feet. When her customers had gone, Missy made the rounds of the other performers. With her cheery disposition and pleasing smile, Missy was one of the most winning women I've ever known. She also happened to brew the worst tea in New York, but she needed the extra pennies so badly that no one ever had the heart to refuse a cup.
"I have a little trouble picturing Miss Hendricks as the murderer," I said, watching as Missy poured out three cups of tea. "In the first place-yes, Missy, I'll take milk. Lots of it. In the first place, I'm hard pressed to see a motive for such a thing." I reached over for my cup. "Furthermore, if she did kill him, she would have been perfectly able to remove the incriminating letters herself. Yes, Missy. Delicious, as always."
"Perhaps she was interrupted before she had a chance to recover the letters," Harry said.
"It's possible," I admitted, "but it hardly seems likely."
"I think that we should speak with this Lord Randall Wycliffe," Harry said. "Perhaps Miss Hendricks is trying to shield him. Perhaps he's a jealous type, and Miss Hendricks had written to warn Mr. Wintour. That would incriminate him if the letters were discovered. Lord Wycliffe could well be the true murderer."
"Harry, according to you, half of New York is under suspicion."
"I still think we should speak with him."
"What's the point? After tonight, you and I are no longer in the detective business. Remember our agreement? We'll go to the Toy Emporium this evening to see if Mr. Harrington appears. After that, we're done."
"But until then, you have agreed to help me gather information, have you not?"
"I agreed to see Biggs," I said. "I even checked out the lay of the land with Hendricks and his daughter. But I'm not about to-"
"Only until this evening," he said, cutting me off. "After the last show, we shall call on the young aristocrat." He stood up and started off toward the performance platform. "But first, my public awaits."
"Tell me again how we're going to get into the Cairo Club, Harry?"
"It is a gambling club, and I am the King of Kards. What could be simpler?"
"I see. Wouldn't it be easier to call on Lord Wycliffe at his hotel? I believe he's taken a suite at the Belgrave."
"No, we must not put him on his guard. That is why I asked young Jack Hawkins to shadow his movements. A messenger boy attracts very little attention, but he sees a great deal. Jack tells me that Lord Wycliffe departed for the Cairo less than an hour ago. We have the opportunity to observe him going about his business, unaware that he has come under the watchful eye of the Great Houdini."
"But we're not members of the Cairo. It's rather exclusive."
"Something will present itself. We must be prepared to seize our opportunity when it comes."
"Harry-"
"Trust me, Dash. As you say, it will all be over after this evening."
We were standing in the kitchen of the apartment on Sixty-ninth Street, and we were wearing nothing but our undergarments. After the last show, Harry and I had taken Bess back home and wolfed down a couple of bowls of borscht with brown bread. Then Harry led me into the back room where our old costume trunk was stored. After a fair bit of rummaging, he located the old tailcoats we used to wear as the Brothers Houdini. We would need our evening clothes, he explained, in order to present ourselves as a pair of young gadabouts seeking diversion in one of the swankier gambling establishments. I looked at our wrinkled old costumes, with their worn knees and shiny elbows, and doubted that anyone would mistake us for young gadabouts. My impressions were confirmed by our mother, who refused to let us out of the house in such shabby-looking garments. She insisted on touching up the old costumes with a hot iron, which left us standing in front of the kitchen fire in our linen, waiting for her to finish her ministrations.
"Uh, Harry," I said, "have you ever been to the Cairo?"
"Of course not. It is a club where men go to smoke and gamble. I do neither. Why should I go there?"
"Actually, Harry, it's a place where men do many other things in addition to smoking and gambling, and I just sort of thought it might not be the ideal setting for an encounter with young Lord Wycliffe."
"Ah! I see what you mean!" He tapped his forehead with an index finger. "There is drinking, as well! That might possibly work to our advantage!"
"That's not precisely what I meant, Harry. Some of the men who go to the Cairo are looking for-" I broke off as Bess wandered into the kitchen. "Er, Bess, I wonder if you wouldn't mind-?"
"Come, now, Dash," she laughed. "I've seen a man in his underthings before."
"Well, yes, but-"
"For goodness sakes, Dash. Harry thinks nothing of stripping down to a loin cloth when he does a bridge leap-"
"It is a swimming costume," Harry interjected, quietly.
"-but you're embarrassed to be seen in your long-drawers. Sometimes I wonder how the two of you came to be in the same family."
"But I was only-"
She put her finger to my lips to silence me. "Harry," she said, "I think what Dash is trying to tell you is that the Cairo caters to a certain class of young men who are not quite as virtuous as you are."