‘There’s a big hole cut right out of the iron in the top, sir,’ put in Somers. ‘If he used a blow-pipe, it’s the neatest acetylene-cutting job I ever saw. He—’

  ‘He didn’t use a blow-pipe,’ said Hadley. ‘It’s neater and easier than that. This is the Krupp preparation. I’m not strong on chemistry, but I think this is powdered aluminum and ferrous oxide. You mix the powder on top of the safe, you add – what is it? – powdered magnesium, and set a match to it. It doesn’t explode. It simply generates a heat of several thousand degrees and melts a hole straight through the metal . . . See that metal tube on the table? We have one at the Black Museum. It’s a detectascope, or what they call a fish-eye lens, with a refraction over half a sphere like the eye of a fish. You can put it to a hole in the wall and see everything that’s going on in the next room. What do you think of this, Fell?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the doctor, with a vacant stare as though all this were of no importance; ‘I hope you see what it suggests. The mystery, the— But where’s that rope? I’m very much interested in that rope.’

  ‘Other room, sir. Back room,’ said Somers. ‘It’s got up in rather grand style, like an Eastern . . . you know.’

  Presumably he meant divan; or even harem. There was a spurious Turkish floridity and mysteriousness about the rich-coloured couches and hangings; the tassels, gimcracks, and weapon-groups; yet your eye was almost startled into belief by finding such things in such a place. Hadley flung back the curtains. Bloomsbury intruded with winter daylight, making sickly the illusion. They looked out on the backs of the houses along Guilford Street, on paved yards below, and an alley winding up towards the back of the Children’s Hospital. But Hadley did not consider that for long. He pounced on the coil of rope that lay across a divan.

  It was thin but very strong, knotted at intervals of two feet apart; an ordinary rope except for the curious device hooked to one end. This looked like a black rubber cup, something larger than a coffee-cup, of great toughness and with a grip edge like a car tire.

  ‘Wow!’ said Dr Fell. ‘Look here, is that—’

  Hadley nodded. ‘I’ve heard of them, but I never saw one before and I didn’t believe they existed. See here! It’s an air-suction cup. You’ve probably seen the same sort of thing in a child’s toy. A spring toy-pistol fires at a smooth card a little rod with a miniature suction-cup in soft rubber on the end. It strikes the card, and the suction of the air holds it.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Rampole, ‘that a burglar could force that thing against the side of a wall, and its pressure would hold him on the rope?’

  Hadley hesitated. ‘That’s how they say it works. Of course, I don’t—’

  ‘But how would he get it loose again? That is, would he just walk away and leave it hanging there?’

  ‘He’d need a confederate, naturally. If you pressed the edges of this thing at the bottom, they would let the air in and destroy the grip. Even so, I don’t see how the devil it could have been used for—’

  O’Rourke, who had been eyeing the rope in a bothered way, cleared his throat. He took the pipe out of his mouth and cleared his throat again for attention.

  ‘Look, gents,’ he said in his hoarse, confidential voice. ‘I don’t want to butt in, but I think that’s all bunk.’

  Hadley swung round. ‘How so? Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘I’ll make you a little bet,’ nodded the other, and poked at the air with his pipe-stem for emphasis, ‘that this thing belonged to Loony Fley. Give it to me for a second and I’ll see. Mind, I don’t swear it belonged to Loony. There are plenty of queer things in this joint. But—’

  He took the rope, and ran his fingers gently along it until he reached the middle. Then he winked and nodded with satisfaction. He twirled his fingers, and then suddenly held his hands apart with the air of a conjuror. The rope came in two pieces.

  ‘Uh-huh. Yes. I thought it was one of Loony’s trick ropes. See this? The rope’s tapped. It’s fitted with a screw in one side and a thread in the other, and you can twist it together just like a screw in wood. You can’t see the joint; you can examine the rope all you like, and yet it won’t come apart under any pressure. Get the idea? Members of the audience tie the illusionist, or whatdyecallum – tie him up tight in his cabinet. This joint of the rope goes across his hands. The watchers outside can hold the ends of the rope tight to make sure he don’t try to get out of it. See? But he unscrews the thing with his teeth, holds the rope taut with his knees, and all kinds of hell start to pop inside the cabinet. Wonder! Mystification! Greatest show on earth!’ said O’Rourke, hoarsely. He regarded them amiably, put the pipe back in his mouth, and inhaled deeply. ‘Yes. That was one of Loony’s ropes, I’ll bet anything.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ said Hadley. ‘But what about the suction-cup?’

  Again O’Rourke bent slightly backwards to give room for his gestures.

  ‘We-el, Loony was as secretive as they make ’em, of course. But I haven’t been around with magic acts and the rest of that stuff without keeping my eyes peeled . . . Wait a minute; don’t get me wrong! Loony had tricks that were GOOD, and I mean good. This was just routine stuff that everybody knew about. Well. He was working on one . . . You’ve heard of the Indian rope trick, haven’t you? Fakir throws a rope up in the air; it stands upright; boy climbs up it – whoosh! he disappears. Eh?’

  A cloud of smoke whirled up and vanished before his broad gesture.

  ‘I’ve also heard,’ said Dr Fell, blinking at him, ‘that nobody has ever yet seen it performed.’

  ‘Sure! Exactly! That’s just it,’ O’Rourke returned, with a sort of pounce. ‘That’s why Loony was trying to dope out a means of doing it. God knows whether he did. I think that suction-cup was to catch the rope somewhere when it was thrown up. But don’t ask me how.’

  ‘And somebody was to climb up,’ said Hadley, in a heavy voice; ‘climb up, and disappear?’

  ‘We-el, a kid—!’ O’Rourke brushed the idea away. ‘But I’ll tell you this much: that thing you’ve got won’t support a full-grown man’s weight. Look, gents! I’d try it for you, and swing out the window, only I don’t want to break my goddam neck; and besides, my wrist is out of kilter.’

  ‘I think we’ve got enough evidence just the same,’ said Hadley. ‘You say this fellow’s bolted, Somers? Any description of him?’

  Somers nodded with great satisfaction.

  ‘We shouldn’t have any difficulty in pulling him in, sir. He goes under the name of “Jerome Burnaby,” which is probably a fake; but he’s got a pretty distinctive appearance – and he has a club foot.’

  XIV The Clue of the Church Bells

  The next sound was the vast, dust-shaking noise of Dr Fell’s mirth. The doctor did not only chuckle; he roared. Sitting down on a red-and-yellow divan, which sagged and creaked alarmingly, he chortled away and pounded his stick on the floor.

  ‘Stung!’ said Dr Fell. ‘Stung, me bonny boys! Heh-heh-heh. Bang goes the ghost. Bang goes the evidence. Oh, my eye!’

  ‘What do you mean, stung?’ demanded Hadley. ‘I don’t see anything funny in getting our man dead to rights. Doesn’t this pretty well convince you that Burnaby’s guilty?’

  ‘It convinces me absolutely that he’s innocent,’ said Dr Fell. He got out a red bandana and wiped his eyes as the amusement subsided. ‘I was afraid we should find just this sort of thing when we saw the other room. It was a little too good to be true. Burnaby is the Sphinx without a secret; the criminal without a crime – or at least this particular sort of crime.’

  ‘If you would mind explaining . . .?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the doctor, affably. ‘Hadley, take a look around and tell me what this whole place reminds you of. Did you ever know of any burglar, any criminal at all, who ever had his secret hideaway arranged with such atmospheric effect, with such romantic setting? With the lockpicks arranged on the table, the brooding microscope, the sinister chemicals and so on? The real burglar, the real criminal of any kind, takes care to have his haunt looking a little more respectable than a churchwarden’s. This display doesn’t even remind me of somebody playing at being a burglar. But if you’ll think for a second you’ll see what it does remind you of, out of a hundred stories and films. I know that,’ the doctor explained, ‘because I’m so fond of the atmosphere, even the theatrical atmosphere, myself . . . It sounds like somebody playing detective.’

  Hadley stopped, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He peered round.

  ‘When you were a kid,’ pursued Dr Fell, with relish, ‘didn’t you ever wish for a secret passage in your house? – and pretend that some hole in the attic was a secret passage, and go crawling through it with a candle, and nearly burn the place down? Didn’t you ever play the Great Detective, and wish for a secret lair in some secret street, where you could pursue your deadly studies under an assumed name? Didn’t somebody say Burnaby was a fierce amateur criminologist? Maybe he’s writing a book. Anyhow, he has the time and the money to do, in rather a sophisticated way, just what a lot of other grown-up children have wished to do. He’s created an alter ego. He’s done it on the quiet, because his circle would have roared with laughter if they had known. Relentlessly the bloodhounds of Scotland Yard have tracked down his deadly secret; and his deadly secret is a joke.’

  ‘But, sir—!’ protested Somers, in a kind of yelp.

  ‘Stop a bit,’ said Hadley, meditatively, and gestured him to silence. The superintendent again examined the place with a half-angry doubt. ‘I admit there’s an unconvincing look about the place, yes. I admit it has a movie-ish appearance. But what about that blood and this rope? This rope is Fley’s, remember. And the blood . . .’

  Dr Fell nodded.

  ‘H’mf, yes. Don’t misunderstand. I don’t say these rooms mightn’t play a part in the business; I’m only warning you not to believe too much in Burnaby’s evil double-life.’

  ‘We’ll soon find out about that. And,’ growled Hadley, ‘if the fellow’s a murderer I don’t care how innocent his double-life as a burglar may be. Somers!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Go over to Mr Jerome Burnaby’s flat – yes, I know you don’t understand, but I mean his other flat. I’ve got the address. H’m. 13A Bloomsbury Square, second floor. Got it? Bring him here; use any pretext you like, but see that he comes. Don’t answer any questions about this place, or ask any. Got that? And when you go downstairs, see if you can hurry up that landlady.’

  He stalked about the room, kicking at the edges of the furniture, as a bewildered and crestfallen Somers hurried out. O’Rourke, who had sat down and was regarding them with amiable interest, waved his pipe.

  ‘Well, gents,’ he said, ‘I like to see the bloodhounds on the trail, at that. I don’t know who this Burnaby is, but he seems to be somebody you already know. Is there anything you’d like to ask me? I told what I knew about Loony to Sergeant, or whatever he is, Somers. But if there’s anything else . . .?’

  Hadley drew a deep breath and set his shoulder back to work again. He went through the papers in his briefcase.

  ‘This is your statement – right?’ The superintendent read it briefly. ‘Have you anything to add to that? I mean, are you positive he said his brother had taken lodgings in this street?’

  ‘That’s what he said, yes, sir. He said he’d seen him hanging around here.’

  Hadley glanced up sharply. ‘That’s not the same thing, is it? Which did he say?’

  O’Rourke seemed to think this a quibble. He shifted. ‘Oh, well, he said that just afterwards. He said, “He’s got a room there; I’ve seen him hanging around.” Or something. That’s the honest truth, now!’

  ‘But not very definite, is it?’ demanded Hadley. ‘Think again!’

  ‘Well, hell’s bells, I am thinking!’ protested O’Rourke in an aggrieved tone. ‘Take it easy. Somebody reels off a lot of stuff like that; and then afterwards they ask you questions about it and seem to think you’re lying if you can’t repeat every word. Sorry, partner, but that’s the best I can do.’

  ‘What do you know about this brother of his? Since you’ve known Fley, what has he told you?’

  ‘Not a thing! Not one word! I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. When I say I knew Loony better than most people, that don’t mean I know anything about him. Nobody did. If you ever saw him, you’d know he was the last person you could get confidential with over a few drinks, and tell about yourself. It would be like treating Dracula to a couple of beers. Wait a minute! – I mean somebody who looked like Dracula, that’s all. Loony was a pretty good sport in his own way.’

  Hadley reflected, and then decided on a course.

  ‘The biggest problem we have now – you’ll have guessed that – is an impossible situation. I suppose you’ve seen the newspapers?’

  ‘Yes.’ O’Rourke’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why ask me about that?’

  ‘Some sort of illusion, or stage trick, must have been used to kill both those men. You say you’ve known magicians and escape artists. Can you think of any trick that would explain how it was done?’

  O’Rourke laughed, showing gleaming teeth under the elaborate moustache. The wrinkles of amusement deepened round his eyes.

  ‘Oh, well! That’s different! That’s a lot different. Look, I’ll tell you straight. When I offered to swing out the window on that rope, I noticed you. I was afraid you were getting ideas. Get me? I mean about me.’ He chuckled. ‘Forget it! It’d take a miracle man to work any stunt like that with a rope, even if he had a rope and could walk without leaving any tracks. But as for the other business . . .’ Frowningly O’Rourke brushed up his moustache with the stem of his pipe. He stared across the room. ‘It’s this way. I’m no authority. I don’t know very much about it, and what I do know I generally keep mum about. Kind of’ – he gestured – ‘kind of professional etiquette, if you get me. Also, for things like escapes from locked boxes, and disappearances, and the rest of it . . . well, I’ve given up even talking about ’em.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said O’Rourke, with great emphasis, ‘most people are so damned disappointed when they know the secret. Either, in the first place, the thing is so smart and simple – so simple it’s funny – that they won’t believe they could have been fooled by it. They’ll say, “Oh, hell! don’t tell us that stuff! I’d have seen it in a second.” Or, in the second place, it’s a trick worked with a confederate. That disappoints ’em even more. They say, “Oh, well, if you’re going to have somebody to help—!’ as though anything was possible then.’

  He smoked reflectively.

  ‘It’s a funny thing about people. They go to see an illusion; you tell ’em it’s an illusion; they pay their money to see an illusion. And yet for some funny reason they get sore because it isn’t real magic. When they hear an explanation of how somebody got out of a locked box or a roped sack that they’ve examined, they get sore because it was a trick. They say it’s far-fetched when they know how they were deceived. Now, it takes BRAINS, I’m telling you, to work out one of those simple tricks. And, to be a good escape-artist, a man’s got to be cool, strong, experienced, and quick as greased lightning. But they never think of the cleverness it takes just to fool ’em under their noses. I think they’d like the secret of an escape to be some unholy business like real magic; something that nobody on God’s earth could ever do. Now, no man who ever lived can make himself as thin as a postcard and slide out through a crack. No man ever crawled out through a key-hole, or pushed himself through a piece of wood. Want me to give you an example?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Hadley, who was looking at him curiously.

  ‘All right. Take the second sort first! Take the roped and sealed sack trick: one way of doing it.’1 O’Rourke was enjoying himself. ‘Out comes the performer – in the middle of a group of people, if you want him to – with a light sack made out of black muslin or sateen, and big enough for him to stand up in. He gets inside. His assistant draws it up, holds the sack about six inches below the mouth, and ties it round tightly with a long handkerchief. Then the people watching can add more knots if they want to, and seal his knots and theirs with wax, and stamp ’em with signets . . . anything at all. Bang! Up goes a screen round the performer. Thirty seconds later out he walks, with the knots still tied and sealed and stamped, and the sack over his arm. Heigh-ho!’

  ‘Well?’

  O’Rourke grinned, made the usual play with his moustache (he could not seem to leave off twisting it), and rolled on the divan.

  ‘Now, gents, here’s where you take a poke at me. There’s duplicate sacks, exactly alike. One of ’em the performer’s got all folded up and stuck inside his vest. When he gets into the sack, and he’s moving and jerking it around, and the assistant is pulling it up over his head – why, out comes the duplicate. The mouth of the other black sack is pushed up through the mouth of the first, six inches or so; it looks like the mouth of the first. The assistant grabs it round, and what he honest-to-God ties is the mouth of the duplicate sack, with such a thin edge of the real one included so that you can’t see the joining. Bang! On go the knots and seals. When the performer gets behind his screen, all he does is shove loose the tied sack, drop the one he’s standing in, stick the loose sack under his vest, and walk out holding the duplicate sack roped and sealed. Get it? See? It’s simple, it’s easy, and yet people go nuts trying to figure out how it was done. But when they hear how it was done, they say, “Oh, well, with a confederate—!”’ He gestured.

  Hadley was interested in spite of his professional manner, and Dr Fell was listening with a childlike gaping.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the superintendent, as though urging an argument, ‘but the man we’re after, the man who committed these two murders, couldn’t have had a confederate! Besides, that’s not a vanishing-trick . . .’

  ‘All right,’ said O’Rourke, and pushed his hat to one side of his head. ‘I’ll give you an example of a whopping-big vanishing-trick. This is a stage illusion, mind. All very fancy. But you can work it in an outdoor theatre, if you want to, where there’s no trap-doors, no wires from the flies, no props or funny business at all. Just a stretch of ground. Out rides the illusionist, in a grand blue uniform, on a grand white horse. Out come his gang of attendants, in white uniforms, with the usual hoop-la like a circus. They go round in a circle once, and then two attendants whisk up a great big fan which – just for a moment, see? – hides the man on the horse. Down comes the fan, which is tossed out in the audience to show it’s OK; but the man on the horse has vanished. He’s vanished straight from the middle of a ten-acre field. Heigh-ho!’