Chapters (39)
- Cover
- Title
- TheLastIllusion
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- HISTORICAL NOTE
I could see that. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m not. He was horribly boring, if you want to know.”
“So you’ve no idea where he lives now?”
“None at all.”
“Thank you anyway.” I started for the door.
“Stay and have breakfast with me,” he said. “I may force myself to eat.”
“I’d love to but I’m in the middle of a case.”
“Always rushing around. It’s not healthy.”
“Sid and Gus said the same thing.”
“Dear Sid and Gus. I must go to visit. They’ll cheer me up if nobody else can. I haven’t been out for days.”
“Then you won’t have heard any gossip about what happened to Houdini?” I asked cautiously.
He shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to a soul,” he said.
“If you do speak to a soul in the near future, do try to find out what the theater people think has happened to him,” I said,
Ryan shrugged. “As I told you before. He is vaudeville, I am legit. Never the twain shall meet, my dear. Now I’m feeling weak again and must take to my bed, if you don’t mind.” He lay down with great drama and I made my exit.
I tried to control my frustration as I came out and went to sit in Washington Square for a few minutes to calm down. Nothing seemed to be working out today. I turned the pages of the scrapbook, staring at the pictures and willing the words to make sense. Here and there I picked out a name, but it seemed that in German half the words in a sentence started with a capital letter. Houdini shaking hands with the Kaiser. That much I could understand, and some kind of picture of a courtroom, under which he had written, “Houdini triumphs again.”
The branches of the tree above me moved in a sudden breeze and the sun shone full on the page of my book, bringing the characters in the sketch on the page into harsh focus for me. It was a group standing onstage and a face at the back of that group stirred something in my memory. I had seen that face recently, or a face that resembled it. Somewhere else in the scrapbooks, perhaps? I flicked through page after page, but the face didn’t appear again. I scanned the article, trying to pick out a name I recognized but in the end I had to give up, frustrated. So I’d have to wait for Leopold to translate for me this evening after all. And I never was good at being patient.
Twenty-eight 