The Great Merlini (Clayton Rawson)

Chap 7: Merlini and the Vanished Diamonds

THE BLACK POLICE CAR HESITATED BRIEFLY ON 42ND STREET NEAR Times Square. A tall, lean figure stepped in and the car catapulted forward like a scared jackrabbit, its siren rising in a banshee howl.

"Merlini," Inspector Gavigan said, "the gentleman whose lap you just landed in is George Hurley. He's chief of the Division of Investigation and Patrol of the Customs Service, and he wants to ask you a question."

The gnome-like little man who appeared as Merlini moved over had a neat military moustache, a mild pleasant voice, and cold blue eyes. "I want to know," he said flatly, "how you would go about making nearly half a million dollars disappear?"

It is no easy matter to startle a magician, but that did it. The Great

Merlini blinked, hesitated, then said, "That sounds like fun. Where do I get

—"

"If s not cash," Gavigan put in. "It's ice."

"Nearly half a million? Did somebody steal the North Pole?"

"No jokes, please. To the crooks George and I associate with, ice means jewels—and you know it."

"In this case," Hurley explained, "diamonds. An Amsterdam dealer gave us the tip-off and we've had the suspect under observation ever since. A Customs Agent came across on the same boat. Last night he searched the man's cabin and the stones were there then. The suspect had no visitors after that and didn't leave his cabin until the boat docked this morning. Three agents went up the gangplank the moment it hit the pier and covered him right from his cabin door to the customs inspection. No diamonds were listed on his declaration form, so we grabbed him. He got the A-One treatment—and there were no stones in his bags or on his person."

"A search by Customs men who are sure they smell contraband," Inspector Gavigan added, "is something to see. Hurley's boys are experts. They also took the cabin apart in case he hid the stuff there, intending to pick it up by coming back as a visitor on the next sailing day."

"That's an old one," Hurley said. "Most of the dodges are. I've found contraband in babies' milk bottles, wooden legs, phony rolls of camera film, fountain pens, chocolate creams, tulip bulbs, beards, a woman's hairdo, ear trumpets, hearing aids, mounted insect specimens, a shipment of boa constrictors, even on a corpse ..."

"A corpse?"

"Yeah. One character kept bringing in relatives who had died abroad, always using a different port of entry. The day we got him, the body of his deceased sister—stolen from some French cemetery—was wrapped in a good many yards of Brussels lace and wearing $140,000 in gems."

"How big a package," Merlini asked, "does nearly a half million dollars worth of diamonds make?"

"These are all top quality blue-white stones. They crossed the Atlantic in his suitcase inside a silver cigarette lighter. Dimensions, two inches by three inches by one-quarter inch. When we opened it at inspection we found —just cotton and lighter fuel. What worried us is his profession."

"He sounds," Merlini guessed, "like a magician."

"And that," Gavigan announced,"wins you the trip to Hollywood, the automatic dishwasher, and one hundred pounds of soap flakes. He calls himself Aldo the Enigma. Know him?"

"Pierre Aldo. Yes. He's been playing the Continental music halls with a smooth card manipulation act."

"Cards!" Hurley almost snorted. "I've seen enough card tricks today to last me a lifetime. He's been doing them all morning. Says he has to practice because American cards are bigger than the ones he's been used to."

"They're quite a bit larger," Merlini said. "And there are only thirtytwo cards in Écarté and Pique decks. He'd need a bit of practice to get the feel of an American fifty-two-card Poker-size deck."

"I'll give him a passing grade right now," Hurley said glumly. "I wouldn't sit in on any game that had him in the same room."

"The Sûreté doesn't recommend it," Gavigan added. "They report he's been booked twice on crooked gambling charges and once did a two-year stretch on a confidence rap."

"Merlini," Hurley said, "the Inspector tells me he's seen you make an elephant disappear. So, if you'll explain how a magician would go about making a small parcel of diamonds vanish into thin air, the Customs Service will give you a medal."

As the car stopped in front of a pier entrance, Merlini pushed his lighted cigarette into his closed left fist, blew a cloud of smoke at it, then slowly opened his fingers. The cigarette was gone.

"When I do that," he said, "I don't usually let a crew of Customs men search me. And when I make an elephant disappear I don't let the audience take the theater apart the way you must have done with Aldo's luggage and cabin. I can see I'm going to enjoy meeting the enigmatic Pierre. He may have a new one up his sleeve."

Gavigan opened the car door. "Let's go. Hurley can only hold this bird for twenty-four hours and there's not much of it left."

A Customs Agent stood on guard before a door on A deck. "That's his cabin," Hurley said, "but all the movable furniture, bedding, and such stuff is in here." He opened the door of the cabin just opposite. Three chairs, a mattress, sheets, pillows, two lamps, a writing desk, and several dresser drawers occupied the center of the room. The bottom coverings of the chairs had been removed exposing the springs; the lamps had been disassembled.

"He watched your examination?" Merlini asked.

Hurley nodded. "That's standard practice. It's the suspect who gives us the most help. When he's calm and relaxed we know we're looking in the wrong places. But when he begins to get nervous it means we're getting warm. I once examined three trunks, four suitcases, and a couple of hatboxes, and found a pearl necklace inside a bottle of suntan oil in under five minutes just by keeping one eye on the woman. But Aldo doesn't seem to have nerves. He just sits there dealing himself pat Poker hands and grinning every time we draw a blank. He's been grinning a lot." Hurley waved a hand at the furniture. "You want to give this stuff a once-over?"

"I doubt it," Merlini said. "Let's take a look at Pierre. But don't tell him I'm a magician."

The writers of advertising copy who describe the luxurious cabin appointments for the cruise folders would have been shocked at the bare, cheerless aspect of Aldo's cabin. The only remaining decoration, if you could call him that, was a tired and very glum Customs Agent who leaned against one wall. He was scowling at a fat, round-faced little man sitting cross-legged on the floor—a man no movie director would have ever cast as a cardsharp, and one no card player would have ever suspected of possessing the ability he was now demonstrating.

His right hand, holding a deck of cards, moved up and down in a blur of motion, shuffling the cards off into his left. Then, with the rapid precision of a well-oiled automaton, he dealt five hands of Poker. He looked up at the glum Customs Agent and grinned broadly.

"Okay?"

The Agent grunted. "I didn't see anything wrong with the deal, but then I'm no slow-motion camera. My money says the best cards are in your hand again."

Aldo laughed. "I do not play cards for money. If I win everyone thinks

I cheat. If I lose they say I am a no-good magician."

In one continuous fluid movement Aldo's right hand gathered the cards he had dealt to himself, turned them face up, and spread them in a neat fan. He had a Full House—three Aces and two Kings.

"But if the sucker doesn't know you're a magician," Hurley said from the doorway, "you take him to the cleaners."

Aldo scooped up the remaining cards and shuffled the deck again. "Cleaners?" he asked, still grinning. "What is that?" He began dealing again, this time with one hand only.

"Enjoying himself, isn't he?" Gavigan said.

Hurley nodded. "He's acting much too damned pleased with himself. And that means the stuff is here somewhere—right under our noses."

Aldo said nothing. He smiled enigmatically and turned up a Royal Flush in Spades.

Merlini looked down at the open empty suitcase on the floor near the foot of the bed. Its contents had been laid out neatly beside it. "You find some odd things in a magician's luggage, don't you?"

Hurley grunted. "Colored silk handkerchiefs by the yard, a couple hundred feet of rope, a bird cage, a dozen billiard balls—"

Merlini picked up one of the balls and hefted it. "These are all solid?"

"Yeah." Hurley pointed to a small red-lacquered box bearing Chinese characters. "That has a secret compartment, but it's empty. We took all this stuff and the clothes he's wearing down to Varick Street and gave them a fluoroscopic examination. That doesn't spot diamonds too well—they're nearly transparent to X-rays—but it'll show cavities in objects that should be solid."

Inspector Gavigan picked up a book, La Prestidigitation Sans Appareils, and riffled the pages.

"No hollowed-out books," Hurley said. "We cut his soap into little pieces, squeezed out all his toothpaste and shaving cream, cut open every last pill in half a dozen medicine bottles, took his pen and wrist watch apart. His teeth and eyes are his own."

"Teeth and eyes?"

"False teeth made to hold gems aren't too uncommon, and an importer once got past us declaring all his diamonds except the big one inside his glass eye."

Gavigan looked into the bathroom. "Plumbing?" he asked.

"We took most of it apart; the rest we probed."

Aldo dealt himself four Aces. "Les flics," he said, "sont formidables. They miss nothing."

"And what," Merlini wanted to know, "was the searching routine on our nimble-fingered friend here?"

"I'll show you," Hurley said. "On your feet, wise guy."

The Cheshire-cat grin that had seemed to be permanently affixed to the magician's moon-like face vanished abruptly.

"Not the pill again! Ça, je refuse absolument!"

"No. We'll skip the cathartic this time. But start stripping."

Pierre Aldo put the deck on the floor, scooped up the Aces, turned them face down, snapped his fingers, then counted the cards face up. There were still four, but the Aces were now Kings. He dropped these on the deck, stood up, removed his coat, and began to unknot his tie.

"I do this now three times. Soon I am good enough for the Folies Bergère. Pierre Aldo—Le Prestidigitateur Nu!"

The glum Customs Agent turned the pockets of the coat inside out, then the sleeves. He felt the lining inch by inch and tossed the garment to Merlini who did the same. The man's necktie, shirt, undershirt, trousers, shoes, socks and, finally, his shorts got the same painstaking inspection.

"New heels, I see," Merlini said as he examined the shoes.

"Courtesy of the Customs Service," Hurley explained, "We replaced the ones we cut up."

"You also pay for les funérailles," Aldo asked, "when I die from la pneumonie?"

Hurley threw him his shorts. Aldo, grinning again now, climbed into them.

"Well?" Hurley eyed Merlini without much hope. "What did we miss?"

"I think," the magician said slowly, "that you saw a little too much. One thing—a small piece of misdirection—made you jump unconsciously to a hasty conclusion."

Hurley didn't believe it. "Are you telling me there is a place we haven't looked?"

"I am. As you said—right under our noses. But first I want to ask a favor. If I'm right, Pierre's next stop will be a Federal prison. Since I may not see him again very soon, I'd like to show him one trick before he goes." Aldo, who had picked up his shirt, nearly dropped it. "You are a magician?" He wasn't smiling now.

"I do a little magic," Merlini said. "I liked that Poker deal of yours, but I can top it. You shuffle, cut, and deal four Bridge hands. I won't touch the cards at all and yet I'll get a perfect hand."

"The Bridge?" Aldo said slowly. "I do not know the Bridge so well."

"Four players," Merlini told him. "The complete deck is dealt, and a perfect hand is all the cards of one suit. The odds against getting it by chance are 158,753,389,899 to 1."

Aldo sat on the floor again, picked up the deck, and began shuffling slowly. He looked thoughtful. "You want to make a little bet on that?"

"Sure," Merlini said. "At those odds I can bet you between two and three ten-thousandths of a cent against the missing half million in diamonds."

"I think," Aldo said, "that you lose." He dealt rapidly but stopped after four cards had been dealt to each hand, and turned those in front of Merlini face up. "How can you get thirteen cards of one suit when the first four are

Aces?"

"You might give me a square deal," Merlini said. "Suppose I shuffle the cards once first." He held out his hand.

Aldo wasn't interested. "Non! The trick is impossible. You are talking through the hat."

George Hurley suddenly lost patience in a battle of magicians that might even have made hocus-pocus history.

He exploded. "You can play games with this character in his cell! I want to know where this hiding place is you say we missed—and right now!"

"Pierre," Merlini said of the French magician, "is much too uninterested in the impossible trick I offered to do; any other magician or gambler would have demanded to see it at once.

And why does a card man of his calibre claim to know so little about Bridge? Most important, why is he so reluctant to finish dealing out four full hands of Bridge?"

"What's so different about Bridge?" the glum Customs Agent asked. "He's been dealing fancy Poker hands."

"Yes. Five hands of five cards each. That's less than half the deck. I want to see him deal the rest of the deck!"

"The rest of it?" Hurley said. "But... but he's been shuffling that deck all morning." The Customs chief reached for the deck and an unsmiling Aldo shrugged and let it go.

"He's been doing card tricks all the time" Merlini went on, "because he didn't want to let the deck out of his hands. The shuffling was the misdirection that made you decide, without really thinking about it, that the deck must be innocent. And yet every trick he did cried out that his shuffle couldn't possibly be legitimate."

When Hurley tried to spread the cards across the floor half of them stuck solidly together. He picked the solid half of the deck up, inserted a fingernail under the top card, and pulled. It peeled off reluctantly.

"Glued together," Gavigan said, "and hollowed out!"

The tightly-packed gems that filled the hole in the half-deck blazed brilliantly in the light.

"A perfect hand," Merlini smiled, "in diamonds!"