“Jackson. I want you to telephone HQ and put out a general alert. I want men at the train stations and ferry docks and the newspapers informed. I want the whole city searching for Houdini and I want him found right away.

“Now let’s get on with it,” Daniel said. “MacAffrey, I’d like you to start interviewing these people. Begin with Mr. Robinson and the sword swallower fellow. We need everyone’s movements from the moment they entered the theater tonight and what they observed backstage. I’m going to go to the manager’s office to interview this young woman.”

I saw MacAffrey eyeing me with interest. “What exactly was her part in this?”

“That’s what I’m about to find out,” Daniel said dryly. “But it seems that she was acting as Houdini’s assistant. I noticed she was the one who brought the trunk onto the stage.” He gestured to me. “Please come with me, miss.”

I followed him. He said nothing as he stalked ahead of me. I started feeling sick, like a small child who knows it has done wrong and is about to feel the wrath of a parent. Down a dark hallway Daniel led me, and into a small office that smelled of stale cigar smoke. The moment he shut the door he grabbed me by the arms and spun me to face him. His eyes were blazing with anger. “Now, do you mind telling me what the devil is going on here? I come home early from the country because I think my poor fiancée is working hard and I’d like to surprise her with the two tickets I have managed to obtain to tonight’s show. Only she isn’t home. So I go alone and what do I find but this same future wife parading around in a costume that leaves little to the imagination and apparently taking part in a murder.”

I had been feeling guilty but suddenly I’d had enough. “Don’t be ridiculous. Taking part in a murder, indeed.” I glared at him, eye to eye. “Look, I’m sorry if you’re offended, Daniel,” I said. “I couldn’t tell you what I was doing because I was on an assignment. I can now let you know that I was supposed to be guarding Houdini.”

“You, a bodyguard? You’ve now expanded your detective services, have you? A strange choice, wouldn’t you say?”

We were inches away from each other, still glaring.

“Bess Houdini hired me because she believed someone was trying to kill her husband and she wanted me to find out who it was.”

“That’s hardly a matter for a private investigator, is it?” Daniel said coldly.