The Dime Museum Murders by Daniel Stashower Read Free Book Online

here, and then leave it behind
wnen I made my escape."
    My
curiosity got the better of me. "How was he killed, Lieutenant?"
    "That's
why I asked you here. He was killed with this.
With the doll."
    Harry's
eyes widened. "Killed with Le
Fantôme! How
is it possible?"
    "Somebody
hit him over the head with it?" I asked. "No, the doll
itself—I'll get the doc to explain. Dr. Peterson?"
    A
short, stocky man with an impressive mane of white hair had been
busying himself near the white hospital screens, jotting notes with a
gold pencil in a leather notebook. He turned toward us and withdrew a
folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. "He was killed with
this," he said, unfolding the white cloth.
    "With
a handkerchief?" Harry asked.
    "Look
closer," Peterson said.
    "It's
nothing. A splinter."
    "A
splinter tipped with poison, unless I'm very much mistaken. I took it
from the dead man's neck."
    "How
did it get there?"
    Lieutenant
Murray gestured at Le
Fantôme. "That
thing."
    "I'm
not sure I get you," I said. "It plays the flute. It
doesn't kill people."
    The
detective shook his head. "That thing in its hand is a blow gun,
not a flute."
    I
looked at Harry. He nodded.
    "The
way we figure it," Murray continued, "Mr. Wintour had
locked himself into his study to have a look at his latest
acquisition. While he was poking around, the gears suddenly started
cranking and it raised the blow gun to its lips and shot a poison
dart into his neck."
    Harry
opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again, apparently lost
in thought. Slowly, he circled the desk, examining the automaton from
all sides. Then he peered behind the hospital screens to have another
look at the unfortunate Mr. Wintour. Emerging again, he dropped to
his knees and began a minute examination of the Oriental rag.
Occasionally he issued a soft grant of surprise or satisfaction, but
gave no other clue as to what he might be doing.
    "Mr.
Houdini?" Lieutenant Murray stepped back as Harry, still on his
hands and knees, rounded a corner of the dead man's desk. "Mr.
Houdini? Is there something in particular you're looking for down
there?"
    Harry
simply granted and continued his circuit of the desk. I looked at the
Chesterfield, where the two men in evening dress were looking on with
great amusement.
    "Harry,"
I said, "this might not be the proper time for—"
    "Silence,
Dash! I am like a bloodhound on the scent!"
    "Look,
Mr. Houdini," Lieutenant Murray said with some asperity. "We
don't need you to tell us whether Wintour is dead or not. We figured
you'd know something about how the doll worked, seeing as how you and
this Robert-Houdin have the same name."
    Harry
ignored the remark. "Dr. Peterson?" he called from the
floor. "Was Mr. Wintour already dead when he was found?"
    "Oh,
absolutely," answered the police physician. "Though perhaps
you should ask my colleague Dr. Blanton. He examined the body before
I did."
    "Dr.
Blanton?" Harry asked, his head bobbing up from behind the desk.
"Who is Dr. Blanton?"
    One
of the dinner guests rose from a club chair. He was a small, rotund
man perhaps sixty years of age, with heavy dewlaps and large, moist
eyes. His long, delicate hands seemed to be in constant motion,
whether fiddling with the pearl buttons of his waistcoat or adjusting
the pince nez he wore at the end of a chain. "I'm Percy
Blanton," he said, clipping the spectacles onto his nose. "I've
been a friend of Bran's for more years than I care to count. I was
just arriving when—how shall I say it?— when the door to
the study was opened, so of course I was the first to examine the—let
me see—so of course I was the first to examine the subject."
    Harry
sprang to his feet. "And was Mr. Wintour dead when you examined
him?"
    "Mr.
Houdini—," Lieutenant Murray stepped between my brother
and Dr. Blanton.
    "No,
it's quite all right, Lieutenant," the doctor said. "I
don't mind repeating my account."
    "That's
kind of you, sir, but this man is not an investigator."
    It
finally dawned