Cassandra began to answer Plum, then hesitated, looking at Max as though she sought a confirmation in his face. Then she looked around the room as if searching for potential evidence.
“What think?” Max asked her.
She paid no attention to him, looking at the Sheriff.
“Yes, I do think he’s telling the truth,” she said. “I think he’s gone so crazy that he’s hidden Harry’s body in this room … to torment me and to make a fool of you.
“To prove he’s still The Great Delacorte, even though the world at large knows he isn’t anymore.”
She glared at Max, still speaking to the Sheriff. “Get your warrant,” she said. “Tear the room apart.”
“Oh. Come on now, Grover,” Max said in a pouting voice. (He still has that at his command as well! I thought, incredulous.) “Don’t do it that way. What fun is it to tear a room apart? That’s no challenge.”
He pointed at Plum, a look of provocation on his face.
“But to find it yourself,” he said, “with your own wits.”
He threw down the gauntlet.
“Come on, Grover,” he said, “be a sport. How hard can it be to find one measly agent in a room this size?”
The Sheriff stared at Max. Remarkably, he seemed to be considering the offer.
“I have always dared my audience to find me out,” Max said. (True; for both of us.) “I dare you now.” He actually looked excited. “He’s here, Grover,” he promised. “I guarantee you.”
The Sheriff remained quiet, regarding Max without expression.
“You wouldn’t want to deprive my father of watching you meet the challenge, would you?” asked Max. “If you take me in, he has nothing.”
My mind was split. Max, I’d rather have nothing, half of it said.
Go for it, Sonny! the other half was shouting. Shamefaced, but shouting.
“Sheriff, get the warrant,” Cassandra said. She stared at him in disbelief.
“You aren’t actually considering—”
She could not complete the statement.
“All right,” said Plum. “As long as you realize that because of your confession to me, you’re already in deep shit.”
Max beamed.
“A predicament not unknown to me,” he said.
“Sheriff—” Cassandra looked astounded.
Plum held up his right hand to stop her from speaking.
“I like a puzzle as well as the next man,” he told her. “And it’s a slow day at the office, nothing going on in town. They’ll telephone if anything important comes up.” He looked at Max.
“I accept your challenge,” he said.
chapter 18
Max looked euphoric.
“Capital!” he cried.
His ebullience was not transferable. True, I did feel a sense of anticipation regarding what was about to happen. At the same time, however, the deep-set apprehension remained fixed in place. After all, he wasn’t speaking about giving a show, he was speaking about murder.
“I’m going to find that body,” Plum was telling him while I was ruminating. “And when I do—” his voice hardened “—I’ll see to it personally that your ass is nailed to a cross.”
Max looked at him with mocking admiration—but he must have felt at least a twinge of uneasiness.
Obviously, Cassandra still didn’t believe that this was really taking place.
“I can take him in anytime, Mrs. Delacorte,” Plum told her, “and I must say, I don’t understand your objection. You’re the one who said we should find the body first.”
Touché, Grover, I thought.
Cassandra’s teeth were bared. “All right,” she said. “Play his stupid little game, then.”
“I’ll need your help,” said Plum.
“Oh, now wait a mo,” objected Max. “That’s not fair. She knows this room better than you do.”
“That’s right,” said Plum. His smile was thin and smug.
Cassandra looked at Max with sudden, vengeful pleasure.
“You think you’re going to get away with this, don’t you?” she said. “You know very well that this room is almost as strange to me as it is to him.”
She pointed at Max, smiling now. Or was it leering?
“I’m not without means, however,” she told him.
“Not without means at all!” cried Max.
He clapped his hands three times quickly as though announcing the commencement of a tourney.
“C’est merveilleux!” he cried. “What fun we’re going to have!”
Thus the nightmare continued.
Visualize the scene, dear reader. (Assuming that anyone ever reads this.)
A wager had been made.
For money? Not so simple. Far more deadly and bizarre.
The location of a corpse.
Sheriff Plum and Cassandra Delacorte engaging in a challenge—he concedingly, she with resentful anger.
Puzzle?
Where was Harry Kendal’s body in The Magic Room?
Remember the description now.
The room was twenty by thirty, high-ceilinged, many-windowed, including the picture window affording a view of the lake. Luxurious appointments, built-in bookshelves, a fieldstone fireplace and wall, the French desk, seven feet by four feet. The brass-and-teakwood bar, two easy chairs with end tables, the large antique globe, the display poster, the Egyptian burial case, the suit of armor, the casket, the guillotine; you remember all that, don’t you?
Where would you begin to search for a corpse?
Play detective with Cassandra and Plum (unholy she and roly-poly he).
With the prior knowledge that no matter what solution you come up with, you will almost certainly be wrong.
Searching for a dead man.
My son’s idea of “fun” (God help him).
What was he thinking as he crossed to the desk and sat on it, legs dangling while Cassandra and the Sheriff began their search?
Cassandra first examined the walls, of course; the obvious choice. She knew about one secret panel at least. Perhaps there were others she didn’t know about; I didn’t know about.
Plum, meantime, had moved to the Egyptian burial case and opened it.
“My wife already looked in there,” Max told him with a smile.
“How do you know?” countered Plum. “You weren’t here.”
“Of course I was,” Max said. He pointed. “In the suit of armor.”
Plum grunted, checking the interior of the burial case anyway.
“Thoroughness,” said Max. “I love it.” He smiled genially. “Search every spot twice,” he said. “Who knows what was missed the first time.”
“You closed it up,” says Plum. “I’m wondering why.”
Max looked impressed; I knew he wasn’t. “Good thinking, Grover,” he said. “Wrong, but good.”
Cassandra, by then, had looked behind the drapes and up the fireplace; elementary steps. Now she was examining the chairs and end tables.
“You think he’s in the end tables, love?” Max inquired, chuckling.
She glared at him. “Be amused,” she said. “We’ll find him.”
Max bowed, smiling.
“Tell you what I’m going to do, Grover,” he said to Plum.
“Sheriff,” Plum reminded him.
“Yes, of course,” Max said. “Tell you what I’m going to do, Sheriff. While you’re searching, I’ll describe some of my various escapes to entertain you. I’ll even tell you how they work.”
It is the measure of me, I confess, that I felt as much concern over that as I did about Harry Kendal’s body.
Reveal how they work?
My effects? The ones I’d labored so long to develop and perfect?
Profanation.
“No loss,” Max was saying, making it even worse for me. “I’m never going to use them again anyway.” (Until that moment, I hadn’t known the full extent of his hopelessness.)
“At any rate, they’re too outdated,
aren’t they, Cassandra?” he said, his smile gone dead. “They’re not today.”
Cassandra only pressed her lips together. She would not respond.
“The Paper Bag Release!” cried Max. (Don’t do it, Son, I thought.)
“A man-sized bag shaped like a giant fool’s cap, a gummed seal at its top.
“I get inside, they seal it carefully and place a screen in front of it. Impossible to escape from without tearing the paper, you say?”
He cupped a hand behind his right ear as though anticipating a reply from them. They said nothing. I watched, heartsick.
“You don’t say,” Max went on. “Nonetheless, I’ll tell you. (Max!)
“All I have to do is slit the bag along the top with a razor blade, conveniently hidden on my person.
“I pop out and make a new flap with gum and brush, also conveniently secreted on myself. The screen is removed—
“—et voila! The bag appears untouched, pristine.
“No one ever notices, you see, that the bag is two inches shorter. They don’t look for that sort of thing.”
Well, that trick’s shot to hell now, I thought gloweringly.
The Sheriff had, while Max was speaking, left the mummy case behind and approached the lobby-display poster to look behind it.
Max snickered at that.
“He’s not back there,” he said. He stroked his chin reflectively. “Although I might have laminated him into the wood, I suppose.”
The Sheriff touched the heart area of the poster figure.
“Someone’s thrown a knife in here,” he said.
“Oh,” responded Max in a voice of pseudo-awe. “I can see why you’re the Sheriff of Medfield County, Grover.”
Plum turned to him with a smile most icy and atypical, I thought.
“You think this is a grand game,” he said.
“Completely grand,” Max agreed.
“Well, what you don’t know,” the Sheriff said, “is that I’m going to nail you good.”
Max extended his arms to each side, head dropped forward.
“To the cross, don’t forget,” he reminded Plum.
Then he lifted his head, grinning.
“The only fitting expiration for a saint,” he said.
“A snake, you mean,” Cassandra told him.
Max clucked and shook his head. “How disparaging,” he muttered.
He put both palms down on the desk behind him and leaned back with a contented sigh. (I could not believe he was really contented, though.)
“Both of you are cold, you know,” he said. “Virtually North Polish, if you want to know the truth.”
“You really believe we’re not going to find him, don’t you?” Cassandra asked with a cold smile.
“You’re not,” he replied. “You especially, you’re bordering on the frigid.”
“Only with you, lover,” she jeered.
That blow hit home. I saw it clearly as Max regarded her with malignance.
Then he turned from her to observe the Sheriff, who was at the fireplace, patting and running his hands over the stonework as though in search of another hidden panel.
Max watched with hooded eyes.
“Having a good time, Grover?” he asked.
The Sheriff did not reply; he continued what he was doing.
“The Iron Box Escape!” cried Max. (Not again, I thought, despairing. How can he do this?)
“The box is heavy—solid—riveted—the lid held down by bolts.”
My stomach sank. He really was going to do it.
“I’m locked inside,” he described. “The box is bolted shut. The good ol’ screen is set in place for several minutes.
“I appear. The screen is withdrawn. The box is untouched, all bolts secure. Impossible, you say?”
I saw myself on stage performing the trick. To reveal its secret was unthinkable to me!
The Sheriff was by the picture window now, looking out at the lake.
“What’s that out there?” he asked.
“That is a gazebo, Grover,” Max told him.
“I don’t mean that,” said the Sheriff.
Cassandra joined him quickly. “Where?” she asked.
“Grover,” scolded Max. “I told you; he’s in this room.”
“You told me a lot of things,” Plum said in a deprecating voice. He pointed. “That thing out there. Like a mound.”
Cassandra blew out a breath disgustedly. “It’s just a pile of stones,” she told the Sheriff.
“It was there before?” he asked.
“Yes.” She turned away.
“Good try, Grover,” said Max. “My respect for you is mounting by the moment.”
“Why don’t you just shut up?” snapped Plum.
“Haven’t finished my description of the Iron Box Escape,” Max responded cheerfully. (Oh, for God’s sake, Max, I thought.)
“The bolts I pushed out from the inside to have the nuts fastened to them are not the original bolts, you see; the ones examined by the judges. (Damn you, Max!)
“These bolts—secreted on my person, of course—have nuts on the inside of the box as well.
“I remove these inside nuts, push out the bolts, emerge, replace the original bolts with the expeditious use of string—that’s the tricky part—et voila!”
Thanks a lot, Son, I thought. Another pile of years and effort down the tube.
While Max was talking, Plum had gone to check one of the built-in bookcases, running his fingers along the decorative moldings to see if anything occurred.
Occur it did.
As the Sheriff touched what appeared to be a scalloped inlay on the molding, he (and I—and Cassandra, I imagine) heard a clicking sound.
The bookcase section hinged out by several inches. “Ah,” the Sheriff said.
chapter 19
Cassandra hurried over as the Sheriff tried to pull the bookcase open. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.
Has the search already ended? I wondered.
Plum hissed as he broke a nail. “What is this, anyway?” he demanded.
“Nothing, Sheriff,” said Max. He looked disturbed.
“Nothing, Max?” Cassandra goaded.
Seeing how the bookcase edge had sprung open several inches, she made a sound of vengeful satisfaction.
“Now we’ve got you,” she said.
“I’m telling you, Sheriff, it’s nothing,” Max insisted.
“You hear?” Cassandra said. “He wouldn’t say that if it was really nothing.”
She looked at Plum.
“What were you doing?” she asked. “What did you touch?”
“This molding here,” he answered, pointing.
Cassandra pressed her thumb along the molding designs. I felt my heartbeat thumping. What was behind there?
When Cassandra touched the scalloped inlay, she said excitedly, “It’s going in!”
She looked at Max accusingly.
“Now we’ve got you, you son of a bitch,” she said.
She held the scalloped inlay in and quietly, with well-oiled gears, the bookcase section started to revolve.
Cassandra and the Sheriff stepped back quickly, and I braced myself (as much as that was possible) for what I might see. Harry’s corpse?
The bookcase section turned all the way around and stopped.
No Harry’s corpse.
Books.
On the reverse side was another bookcase filled with them.
“What the hell is this?” the Sheriff asked.
Max smiled cutely (that smile again), a small shrug hunching up his shoulders.
“I told you it was nothing,” he said. “I wish I could tell you that I’d fooled you, but I can’t. It’s just a protected place where I keep my more valuable books on magic.”
So that’s where they are, I thought. I’d noticed they were gone, but had assumed they were upstairs in Max’s bedroom.
“For Christ’s sake,” muttered the Sheriff. He bit off the s
hredded nail’s edge and spat it out in disgust.
“Good moment though, you must admit,” said Max. (It was, I thought.)
He looked at Cassandra disdainfully.
“Better luck next time,” he said.
He slid off the desk and walked to the bookcase, pressing in the scalloped inlay.
“Wait a second,” said Cassandra.
Now what? I thought.
Max kept the inlay depressed with his thumb. Cassandra grabbed his arm and pulled it from the molding.
“I said wait a minute,” she told him.
“What is it?” asked the Sheriff.
“Why is he so anxious to close it up?” she demanded.
Max made a weary sound.
“Give it up, Cassandra,” he said. He depressed the scalloped inlay, and the bookcase started revolving again.
“Stop him, Sheriff,” said Cassandra.
“Hold it,” ordered Plum.
Max looked aggrieved. “For God’s sake, Grover,” he complained.
“I said hold it,” said the Sheriff.
Max removed his thumb from the inlay.
“I’d like to know why you’re so anxious to close it, too,” said Plum.
“I told you,” Max replied, a little testy now. “I like to keep a tidy household.”
He jerked around, a look of anger flaring on his face as Cassandra shoved him aside and pressed at the scalloped inlay once again.
“Don’t try to stop her,” the Sheriff warned.
Motionless, Max watched as the bookcase closed all the way; then, as Cassandra kept the inlay depressed, it revolved once more. Again, the collection of Max’s more valuable volumes of magic (my volumes, really) faced outward.
“Now,” said Cassandra.
“Leave it alone,” Max told her. All geniality had vanished from his voice now; he was deadly serious. Is this it? I wondered.
Cassandra began to examine the bookcase.
Max moved to stop her.
Sheriff Plum stepped forward and restrained him.
I sat, lumplike, watching.
Max glared at the Sheriff. “This has nothing to do with Harry Ken—”
His voice broke off as Cassandra found a middle joint on the bookcase and began to pull open one side of it.
“Damn it!” said Max.
Both bookcase halves started to glide apart on rollers.