“I do, but at this moment I’d rather work with the element of surprise. I don’t want the enemy to know what we’re doing. I gather you’re well in with Houdini’s wife. He may have let slip something to her—something she’d confide to you but not to me. I want you to go through his things and bring anything suspicious to me.”

“Harry Houdini was trying to bring something to you and he wound up missing or dead,” I said. “I’d rather like to stay alive, thank you.”

A brief smile crossed his otherwise expressionless face. “Then shall we say ‘bring it to my attention?’ If you find anything you think I should know about, you will send me a wire saying ‘Thank you for birthday present,’ and sign it ‘Your niece.’ I will arrange to meet with you directly.”

“I see,” I said.

“I’ll post one of my men to keep an eye on you.”

“Not the one with the stiletto,” I said quickly.

He actually laughed this time. “Those two are on this train with us returning to Washington. No, it will be a new man, one you’ve never seen before. It doesn’t do to leave operatives in one place for too long. The opposition is too darned clever.” He paused, looking at me long and hard. “I won’t say there isn’t some degree of danger involved. But we hope that you are only seen as a friend of Bess Houdini, keeping her company. And the house will be guarded, as it is possible that someone may try to break in if they think there is something vital to be found there.”

“They did try to break in once,” I said. “Bess told me that Houdini scared a burglar off.”

“I rather wish the brother hadn’t gone back to Atlantic City,” Wilkie said. “He was a male presence in the house. An extra defense.”

“You will check into him, won’t you?” I said. “Just to put my mind at rest that he wasn’t the one working for the other side?”

“You’re saying that I should pay attention to your feminine intuition?”

“Nothing of the sort,” I replied hotly. “Just that you should pursue all suspects.”

“Spoken like a true detective. I can see that Sullivan has trained you well.”

“Indeed he hasn’t trained me at all,” I retorted. “In fact he’s desperately against my being a detective. Everything I know I’ve learned the hard way, and I still have a lot more to learn.”

“I think you’ll do splendidly,” he said.

“So does Captain Sullivan know about our meeting?” I asked. “Does he know that Houdini was working for you as a spy? Is that why you really came to New York when I met you at his apartment the other day?”