The Great Merlini (Clayton Rawson)

Chap 6: Merlini and the Lie Detector

A CIRCLE OF ONLOOKERS CROWDED THREE DEEP AROUND TWO MEN sitting at a table in the bar of the Overseas Press Club. One was a Police Inspector, the other a lean and nimble-fingered gentleman with a sardonic smile and a lively twinkle in his eye. The latter held a deck of playing cards in his right hand, and said, "This next demonstration shows how the dark powers of the occult might be used by up-to-date police departments. Inspector, please note and remember any one of these cards." The deck he held sprang suddenly to life as the cards arched through two feet of space, one following the other like well-trained seals into his left hand. "Did you choose one?"

Inspector Gavigan nodded, then reached for the deck. "I'll shuffle them," he said.

The Great Merlini smiled and gave him the deck. "A policeman's lot is not a trusting one." He lifted his empty highball glass. "This," he added, "once contained spirits. One—an invisible genie—may still remain. Let us see." His right hand reached into the air and a silver dollar appeared from nothing at his fingertips. He dropped it into the glass and then placed a saucer over its top. "Now give me ten or a dozen cards, with the one you chose among them. And watch the coin in the glass!"

Merlini took the cards and flipped the first one face up on the table.

"Answer no to each question. Is this your card?"

Gavigan shook his head. "No."

Merlini dealt another and got another denial. On the sixth card, just as the Inspector said "No," the imprisoned coin, propelled by some invisible force, bounced into the air, turned over, and jingled in the glass.

"The genie says you lied just now," Merlini announced. "Is he right?"

Gavigan nodded, reaching for the saucer. Merlini lifted the glass, poured out the coin, flipped it into the air, caught it, and gave both the coin and glass to the Inspector. "No police department should be without them."

Through the ripple of applause a woman's voice asked eagerly, "Do you read palms too?"

Merlini shook his head. "No, but I sometimes see things in a crystal ball—or even in a glass of water."

"Will this do?" a reporter asked, placing his daiquiri on the table.

"That's harder," Merlini said. "The vision is often obscured by pink elephants. But I'll try." He leaned forward and stared intently into the liquid, and suddenly his face became solemn.

"I'm not going to play the straight man for this one," Gavigan said. "Excuse me." He rose and started for the bar. But he didn't get far.

Merlini's voice stopped him. "I see the motionless body of a man lying on the floor. Near his head is a silvery, shining statuette of a nude male figure holding a sword—an Academy Award Oscar. Its base is splotched with a dark wet stain..."

Gavigan spoke in spite of himself. "I'll call your bluff on that one," he said. "I've got a ten spot that says you can't tell where this dead man is."

The Great Merlini lifted the glass, swirled the liquid, and continued. "I see a street sign ... Lexington and 44th Street. And now ... an apartment building near the corner. On its marquee the numerals ... five ... three ... five."

One of the reporters said, "What are we waiting for?" and the circle of onlookers melted.

Gavigan scowled after the departing newspapermen. "Okay," he said slowly. "So there is a body. You wouldn't let a practical joke backfire the way this one could if those reporters don't find one." His last words came back over his shoulder as he too made for the door.

Merlini drank the daiquiri, stood up, and followed. In the lobby outside he found Gavigan eyeing three wire-service teletype machines that clacked noisily and spewed forth long paper strips. "Crystal gazing, my eye!" Gavigan growled. "You got that flash here when you made a trip to the men's room a few minutes back."

"I plead guilty, Inspector," Merlini grinned. "These mechanical Delphic Oracles did help. But I saw something more. You're going to be paged any minute. It's an important murder. The victim is the movie and TV producer, Carl Todd."

The door to the street opened and Gavigan's driver entered right on cue. "Radio call for you, Inspector. Headquarters—"

"—reports a homicide at 535 East 44th," Gavigan said. "Let's go." The driver goggled.

"And who," Merlini asked as they went through the door, "is playing practical jokes now?"

From the walls of the den beyond the living room the photographs of many familiar movie faces looked down on Carl Todd's body. Behind a desk in one corner a filing cabinet, drawers half open, was surrounded by a snowfall of papers.

"We got two candidates for the Murder One rap," Lieutenant Malloy reported. "Todd's producing a TV spectacular, and when we get here we find his script writer and his female lead with the body. Each one accuses the other. I was just going to hear their stories together and see what kind of sparks we get."

Helen Lowe sat on the divan in slacks and a fur jacket. Opposite her,

Don Sutton, in a gabardine raincoat, dabbed a pink-stained handkerchief across the four long scratches on his cheek.

"Let's have your story again, Miss Lowe," Malloy said. "We want to hear what Mr. Sutton thinks of it."

The girl was blonde and blue-eyed. Her soft clear voice held an undertone of desperation. "I was to meet Carl at six and after dinner here we were to drive my car up to Connecticut for the weekend. I was late. When I tried to leave the Broadway rehearsal hall at 50th Street, rain was coming down in sheets. The car was two blocks over and I'd been soaked to the skin before I'd gone twenty feet. I waited there until it stopped just after six, and got here ten or twelve minutes later. I let myself in—" "You have a key?" Gavigan asked.

"Yes. Carl and I—" she stopped, her eyes closed "—were to be married next month." Then, with an effort, she went on. "I saw his body beyond the door. I ran toward him. Just inside the den there was a man waiting, and he grabbed me. It was Don—"

Sutton stood up. He crew-cut bristled and his dark eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses flashed. "Please remember," he said in a tight voice, "that Miss Lowe is an actress—and a damned good one. She's lying in her teeth and she's doing it beautifully."

Helen moved gracefully and fast, crossing to face Sutton. "I had no reason to kill Carl! I loved him—"

Don shook his head. "That could be a reason, couldn't it? Had he found another girl? Did he tell you he was through? Or did you discover he'd been cheating—"

The slap she delivered to the side of his face rocked him. He grabbed her arms and shook her, shouting, "You can't get away with it, Helen! Tell them you killed him! Tell them—"

Malloy broke it up and Gavigan commanded, "That will be all of that! Sit down, both of you!" He faced Miss Lowe. "Sutton grabbed you as you came through the door. Then what?"

The girl's eyes remained on the script writer as she continued, "He said, 'Sorry, baby, but you shouldn't have come just now.' I thought he was going to kill me, too. I fought him and tried to get away. It was no good. Then he threw me into a chair and went to the phone there by the door. 'Maybe,' he said, 'your coming is a break after all.' He dialed the operator and told her to get the police. They got here a few minutes later."

The Inspector turned to Sutton. "Okay. It's your turn."

Don spoke to the girl. "Take a bow, Helen. The acting and writing credits on that bit are both yours. And you only had a few minutes to put it together before air time. You did fine." He looked at Gavigan. "Following her act is tough, but I'll try. I worked all day on script changes which Carl wanted to have before he left for the weekend. I finished at six and started downtown."

"In that rainstorm?" Malloy asked.

"Yes, but my car was close by and I ran for it. It was a bit like driving a submarine the first few blocks, but at 60th Street it stopped as suddenly as if some stagehand had turned it off. I managed to find a parking space four blocks over—on 40th—and walked from there. I had just reached Carl's door when it opened and Helen walked out."

"You're not a bad actor yourself, Don," Helen cut in. "Or, rather, you are."

Sutton ignored that. "She left the door wide open behind her and walked past me as though I weren't there. She didn't answer when I spoke. She moved like a sleepwalker—staring straight ahead. I don't think she saw me at all. I stepped inside, saw Carl's body, then hightailed it down the hall and caught her at the elevator. It just happens that I told a few people at rehearsal yesterday what I thought of Carl Todd. I didn't say anything nice. So I didn't care to be found here with his body. I grabbed her—that part of her story is right—and pulled her back in here. It wasn't easy." He ran his fingers over the scratches on his cheek. "Her fingernails are sharp ... Then I called the police."

"Got anything that corroborates either story?" Gavigan asked Malloy.

"Not yet. Miss Lowe can't give me anyone who saw her waiting for the rain to stop, so she could have left the rehearsal hall earlier than she claims. Sutton's a bachelor and leaving earlier goes for him, too. We haven't found anyone who saw either of them enter this building, and the elevator is self-service."

Gavigan scowled, then marched back into the den to stand again over the body. Merlini and the Lieutenant followed.

"They both say the rain stopped just after six," the magician said.

"Anybody check that?"

"We did," Malloy said. "The Weather Bureau says it was 6:05 on the dot."

The Inspector looked at Merlini. "He doesn't miss much, does he?"

"I don't need an engraved diploma from the Police Academy," Merlini answered, "to notice that when Todd saw the blow coming, he raised his arm and got his wrist watch smashed. Since it reads 6:01, he was killed before the rain stopped."

"The one who got here first is the liar," Malloy said.

"Merlini," Gavigan said suddenly, "does that lie detector trick you did tonight ever miss?"

The Great Merlini smiled. "No. But the method won't work in this situation. I have a hunch, however, that there is an impromptu mechanical lie detector available to us and that it is hand-tailored for this case."

"Okay, wheel it out."

"I can't do that. It's downstairs. Bring your two suspects along and we'll try it. I won't guarantee anything, but we might have the answer in five minutes."

Don Sutton and Helen Lowe, escorted by Malloy and another detective, followed Merlini and Inspector Gavigan. The magician stopped by the bright-yellow Cadillac that Miss Lowe said was hers. It was neatly parked in front of a fire hydrant.

"Your keys, please, Miss Lowe," Merlini said. "I'll drive."

"Just a minute," Gavigan objected. "Where are we going?"

"Fortieth Street. Come on. You and Miss Lowe up front with me." Merlini got behind the wheel.

When the others were in, he put the key in the ignition switch and turned it. The motor started at once, purring softly like a contented cat. Merlini sat motionless for a second or two, watching a fly amble leisurely down across the windshield. Then he set the Hydramatic lever at Drive, released the brake, pressed the gas pedal, and the car pulled out smoothly.

A moment later, the car radio came to life—a band playing the last bars of Stormy Weather. The syrupy voice of an announcer trying hard to sound like Arthur Godfrey followed. "Did you get wet feet during the cloudburst? Do you want to avoid the sniffles tomorrow? Then rush out and get—"

The Inspector twisted the volume control, cutting him off.

A few minutes later the magician double-parked beside Sutton's green Plymouth on 40th Street. "All passengers change at this junction. Keys please."

Sutton handed them over.

Again Merlini sat behind the wheel, put the key in the switch, his foot on the gas. He hesitated briefly, then twisted the key. The engine purred just as smoothly as the other had done.

Gavigan, watching Merlini, turned his head and stared with the magician at the windshield.

"As an impromptu lie detector, does that tell you who arrived first?" Merlini asked.

"Yes," Gavigan agreed. "We make the arrest now."

Merlini turned in his seat to face Helen Lowe and Don Sutton. "My impromptu lie detector is a mechanical gadget found on all cars. When I started the motor of Miss Lowe's car, the radio she had neglected to turn off when she parked began to operate. When I turned the ignition key in Sutton's car, something similar but much more significant happened—the windshield wipers began working.

"If Sutton, as he claims, was twenty blocks uptown at 60th Street when the rain stopped, he'd have turned the wipers off a moment or so later. They wouldn't have sprung into action just now when I started the motor. The fact that they did means they were still turned on when he parked here—and that means he arrived before the rain stopped. He lied when he said he got here after the storm and after Todd was killed."

Sutton didn't try to deny it. He stared hopelessly at the wiper blades moving like twin robots back and forth across the dry glass, monotonously repeating their accusation of guilt.