"Begin with Jacob Philadelphia," Harry said. "Well," I said again, "there was a magician named Jacob Philadelphia who was active in the eighteenth century, and he-"
"Born in 1734," my brother said. "Thank you, Harry, that was very illuminating. This magician liked to display automatons-or automata, if you will. Little clockwork figures like this one. These figures, which resembled ordinary dolls, could move and perform in amazingly lifelike ways. At the magician's command, they did tricks for the audience. One changed water into wine; another gave answers to mathematical problems. Sometimes these figures were designed to look like animals. There was a very famous peacock that strutted around the stage, spread its feathers, and even gave a nice little screech."
I paused and surveyed the room. People appeared to be listening, so I continued. "Bear in mind, many of the people who came to see these devices had never seen a mechanical device more sophisticated than a clock. So a little doll that could play cards, or a monkey that could smoke cigarettes, would have seemed quite miraculous. Jacob Philadelphia made a good living with his automatons, and they didn't require a whole lot of effort from him. He basically turned a key, set the machines going, and collected his money."
I glanced around again to take the crowd's pulse. There was a regal-looking lady sitting on one of the Chesterfields who kept nodding and smiling, as though giving encouragement to a clumsy piano student. I took a deep breath. "Sometimes these devices weren't all they seemed," I continued. "There was a German magician named Herr Alexander who had a magic bell. You asked it a question-for instance: 'What's two plus two?'-and the bell would chime out the answer. Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, came to believe that Alexander had devised some new telegraphic system. Actually, the bell was rung by a bird hidden inside the workings."
This drew an appreciative smile from the Chesterfield, so I persevered. "Then there was the Kempelen Chess Player, from Austria. It looked like a much larger version of our friend here," I pointed at the device on the desk, "but it had Turkish robes and a turban. There was a chess board on top of the gear cabinet, and the figure sat behind it. At the turn of a key the figure not only pushed its own chess pieces across the board, but also moved its head to follow the play of opponents. Benjamin Franklin played it twice-and lost. Edgar Allen Poe was so impressed that he wrote a long article trying to explain how it worked. Poe guessed wrong on some of the finer points, but his basic theory was correct-a human chess player, hidden inside the cabinet, controlled the movements."
Lieutenant Murray looked at his watch. "This is all very edifying, young man, but we have a body decomposing here, and I'd really like-"
"You must forgive my brother," Harry said, breaking in. "Sometimes he forgets himself." He turned to me as if reprimanding a schoolboy. "Dash, tell them about the Frenchman."
I shrugged. "Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin was a French magician-"
"Born in 1805," said Harry. "-born in 1805-who started out as a clock maker.,He was a genius with mechanical apparatus, and his effects made use of electricity and modern innovations in a way no one had ever seen before. At the time, magicians tended to wear long Merlin robes and conical hats, as though they were sorcerers of some kind. Robert-Houdin appeared in normal dress clothes, and presented himself as a man of science, rather than superstition. Over the course of his career he amassed an enormous collection of automatons. He was fascinated by them and studied their workings to help create his own mysteries."
I could see Lieutenant Murray's eyes glazing over, so I tried a different tack. "Imagine if Thomas Edison had a big warehouse and he gathered up historical inventions like Alexander Graham Bell's telephone and Samuel Morse's telegraph. The objects would be important and valuable for their own sake, but all the more so because Edison had taken inspiration from them. That's what Robert-Houdin's collection was like, and that's why people are so fascinated by it."
Lieutenant Murray glanced at the little Japanese figure on the dead man's desk. "So where is this collection now?"
"That's just it. It's supposed to have been destroyed. Near the end of his life, Robert-Houdin's workshop burned down. It's believed that the entire collection was lost."
"Or so they say," Harry added. “There were rumors at the time that the fire had been set by a jealous rival, who stole the collection and set the fire to cover his tracks. Any time an automaton turns up that's known to have belonged to Robert-Houdin, it sends up those rumors all over again."
"And this one belonged to him?" Murray asked. "Absolutely," said Harry. "It's called Le Fantфme. One of Robert-Houdin's jewels. Le Fantфme in French means-"
"The phantom," Murray said, bending over the little figure. "Strange thing to call it. It looks Oriental to me. Japanese."
"But Robert-Houdin was French." "Ah. And was he a relation of yours, Mr. Houdini?" Harry bristled at the suggestion. "He was perhaps the greatest charlatan in all of-''
"No relation," I said, quickly. It had been a touchy point for some little while. Robert-Houdin had, in fact, been my brother's boyhood idol, ever since the fateful day when a copy of the Frenchman's memoirs fell into Harry's hands. But as he got older, and his ego reached its maturity, he came to regret having chosen his stage name to appear "like Houdin." In time he would write a book about Robert-Houdin intended to expose the Frenchman as "a mere pretender, a man who waxed great on the brainwork of others, a mechanician who had boldly filched the inventions of the master craftsmen among his predecessors." These sorts of things mattered very deeply to Harry, if not to anyone else.
"Tell me something," Lieutenant Murray continued. "Are these things really so valuable? If this French guy's collection still exists, what would it be worth today?"
Harry considered for a moment. "Possibly as much as ten or twelve thousand dollars." A respectful silence fell over the room. "Perhaps that was the motivation for his murder," Harry said.
Lieutenant Murray looked at Harry with amused delight. "1 don't know, Mr. Houdini. If I were the murderer, it would seem a waste of effort to kill Mr. Wintour over the phantom doll here, and then leave it behind wnen I made my escape."
My curiosity got the better of me. "How was he killed, Lieutenant?"
"That's why I asked you here. He was killed with this. With the doll."
Harry's eyes widened. "Killed with Le Fantфme! How is it possible?"
"Somebody hit him over the head with it?" I asked. "No, the doll itself-I'll get the doc to explain. Dr. Peterson?"
A short, stocky man with an impressive mane of white hair had been busying himself near the white hospital screens, jotting notes with a gold pencil in a leather notebook. He turned toward us and withdrew a folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. "He was killed with this," he said, unfolding the white cloth.
"With a handkerchief?" Harry asked.
"Look closer," Peterson said.
"It's nothing. A splinter."
"A splinter tipped with poison, unless I'm very much mistaken. I took it from the dead man's neck."
"How did it get there?"
Lieutenant Murray gestured at Le Fantфme. "That thing."
"I'm not sure I get you," I said. "It plays the flute. It doesn't kill people."
The detective shook his head. "That thing in its hand is a blow gun, not a flute."
I looked at Harry. He nodded.