Death from a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson Read Free Book Online Page B

them.
    “Quite a professional assortment,” Gavigan said. “Let’s hear about them.”
    “Poor Dave even has circumstance working against him. They’re his. I borrowed them Saturday night to work on a trunk whose key I had mislaid. I intended to return them to him tonight. Perhaps you’ll see that he gets them.”
    “He’ll see them all right. And now the gun, please.”
    “I’ve a permit for that, Inspector.”
    “Let’s see it.”
    “It’s at my hotel.”
    “Okay, then I want the gun.” Gavigan’s hand went out again. “You can have it back when I see the permit.”
    Tarot shrugged and held it out. “I hope you’ll leave me some small change, Inspector. I need carfare. Anything else?”
    Without replying, the Inspector crooked his little finger through the trigger guard and with the gun hanging crossed the room and placed it carefully on the blotter pad at the desk.
    “Yes,” he answered, “leave your fingerprints with Brady across the hall on your way out. I’ll expect you back after the broadcast, and don’t stop to look in any store windows on the way. Understand? Hunter,” Gavigan raised his voice, “go downstairs and tell the boys to let Mr. Tarot out.”
    Hunter’s voice came from outside, “Right,” and we heard him go down the hall.
    Tarot nodded. “Okay, Inspector. I wish you luck.” He bowed slightly, stepped quickly through the door, and pulled it to after him.
    Gavigan scowled at the place where he had been and said, “Damn him anyway! I wonder if he did that purposely.”
    I didn’t get it for a moment; then I remembered Gavigan’s orders, delivered in Tarot’s presence, that the door was not to be touched.
    “Janssen,” Gavigan ordered, “you go tail him. I want a full and detailed report, and God help you if you lose him.”
    “Yes, sir.” Janssen started off in high, then stalled as the Inspector warned, “Careful of that knob!”
    The detective turned the knob carefully, grasping the shank between forefinger and thumb.
    “Well, Doc,” Gavigan began, “what’s the…” He stopped short as if someone had clapped a hand over his mouth. I have since seen the Inspector conceal his surprise, and I have seen him when he couldn’t conceal it, but this was the only time I’ve even seen his jaw literally hanging. It sagged as if the maxillary muscles had suddenly been severed. I looked where he was looking and understood. Sabbat’s body lay on the davenport, and Dr. Hesse, standing near it, held a playing card, the ace of spades, between his right forefinger and thumb. Watching it intently, he made a quick throwing gesture and the card vanished, his open, empty palm stretched flat. He reached down and pulled the card from behind his right knee. With grave concentration he repeated the maneuver, twice more.
    Gavigan bellowed, “Dr. Hesse! What the blazing hell are you doing?”
    The card, which the doctor was again producing from behind his right knee, slipped from his startled fingers and fell to the floor. Dr. Hesse looked up foggily and said, “What?”
    The Inspector couldn’t think of any more words, and Hesse, noting the amazement in his face, realized its cause.
    “Sorry, Inspector,” he said, a bit shamefacedly. “I couldn’t refrain from practicing that one while it was fresh in my mind. Standing behind Tarot as he produced those cards, I could see some things that you couldn’t. I noticed that he has an original variation on the basic sleight used in that manipulative series, an improvement on the standard Thurston method. It’s so simple I can’t think why it had never occurred to me…”
    “But that card…what…where?”
    “Oh, I always have a deck in my pocket. Sleight of hand is my hobby. Nothing unusual in that, you know. The medical profession is represented in the ranks of amateur conjurers to a greater degree than any other, more doctors being enrolled in the Society of American Magicians than any other single profession. The practice