She went into a back office while the machinery downstairs clattered on. I wondered how anyone could get work done with that sort of noise nearby, but then the whole city was full of workshops and small factories. It was hard to find a quiet backwater like Patchin Place.

Mr. Goldblum looked tired and stooped. “You’re asking about Houdini, miss?”

“I am. I know he wrote regular articles for your magazine. I have the latest edition but I wondered if there were any articles you’ve received from him that are not yet published.”

“We have an edition going to press, even as we speak. You can hear the noise, no doubt.” He gave a tired smile. “And, yes, he has an article that will appear in that edition.”

My hopes rose. “May I see it?”

“It would still be down with the typesetters, but I expect I could retrieve it. But may I ask on whose authority you are here and what you hope to achieve?”

“I’m here with the full backing of the Houdini family and the police,” I said, although this wasn’t quite true. In fact, Daniel had said in no uncertain terms that this wasn’t my case any longer, but Chief Wilkie and the Secret Service counted as police, didn’t they? “And as to what I hope to achieve—we can leave no stone unturned to find Mr. Houdini. It’s just possible that something he saw or did in Germany has put him into this current danger. Some kind of feud with another magician, maybe.”

“I see.” He frowned. “I remember reading the article and it seemed perfectly harmless to me. But I’ll go and see if I can retrieve it for you. Anything to help Houdini’s family—and the police, of course.”

He was gone quite a while. Nobody offered me a seat, and indeed there didn’t seem to be an extra chair in that outer office. The girl had gone back to her filing duties and nobody else appeared. At last Mr. Goldblum came up the stairs, huffing and puffing a bit.

“Not as young as I used to be,” he said. “Here you are. Here is Houdini’s article, literally hot off the press.”

I read it, my disappointment growing. It was little more than a list of which performers were touring the Continent from America and where Houdini himself would be playing when he returned. “And I expect to have some new tricks up my sleeve when I return,” he concluded. “There are some kinks to be worked out but I think you’ll all be suitably surprised and impressed.”

The amazing underwater trick, I thought. He was going to perfect it. Was it unique enough to make someone kill him to get their hands on it? I handed the paper back to Mr. Goldblum.