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

murderer with some regard for others and doesn’t want any innocent person convicted. As long as it looks impossible, we can’t even do that. Or perhaps he couldn’t manage to manufacture any proof that he was somewhere else at the proper time—he may even have been seen near here at the time of the murder. The impossibleness of the murder gets over all that.”
    “Sure, and that’s your job. Puncture the impossibility. Tell me how someone got out of this room, and it’s a ten-to-one shot we’ll know who it was.”
    “Give me a chance to warm up, will you? I’m pretty well grounded in locked room theory, and I supply the profession with escapes from leg-irons, lead coffins, strait jackets, and the like, but—well, this situation is something of a honey. All the usual locked room trimmings, plus a new one. And that’s obviously going to be the headache. Those keyholes.…” He broke off, frowning thoughtfully at the door. Then he said, “Inspector, let’s see you put on your Torquemada act. Before I hand in a report, I’d like to hear what those witnesses have to say for themselves.”
    “That’s fair enough,” Gavigan answered. “Brady, we’ll start with Rappourt. Shoo her in.”
    Brady withdrew, and the Inspector held a quick whispered conference with Malloy, who then went out, stepping aside at the door for Madame Rappourt. She glanced briefly at the covered figure and then quickly at the Inspector. Though more composed than before, she held herself stiffly alert, and her gaze was restless. Merlini, as she came in, retired suddenly to the bookcases where he began browsing.
    “Sit down,” Gavigan said, pushing forward a chair. Madame Rappourt moved her head negatively and stood, waiting.
    “How long have you known Dr. Sabbat?” the Inspector began.
    Behind me, at the desk, Quinn scribbled shorthand.
    Rappourt’s voice was deep, almost masculine, and mysteriously pleasing.
    “I’d never met him,” she said, speaking with the abnormal precision of one whose native language was not English. “We were to meet tonight for the first time.”
    “You knew of him?”
    She nodded. “Yes. I’ve read some of the things he has written.”
    “Colonel Watrous knew him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know why Mr. Sabbat invited you here?”
    “He wanted to study my trance state, I believe.”
    “I see.” Gavigan said that as if he did see. “Perhaps you know of someone who might have desired to kill Mr. Sabbat.”
    “No. I do not.”
    “Please detail your movements from say ten o’clock last night up to now.”
    Impassively and without hesitation she replied: “At ten o’clock last evening I was in my apartment at the Commodore Hotel. There were several persons present, including Colonel Watrous. They stayed until after three o’clock. I slept late this morning and did not leave my room until I came here. At four this afternoon Colonel Watrous arrived, and shortly after Mr. Tarot called for us.”
    “Who was present last night besides Watrous?”
    “Is that information quite necessary?”
    “It is.” Gavigan was polite but firmly emphatic.
    She hesitated slightly, then flatly, as if repeating a grocery order, named two Columbia University professors, a distinguished physicist, a well-known, syndicated editorial writer, and a radio news commentator.
    “You were holding a séance?” the Inspector asked.
    “We were conducting an experiment.”
    “In what?”
    “Astral duplication.”
    Gavigan sighed a bit helplessly. “What’s that?”
    “I’m not sure I could explain it so you would understand it.” The impression she gave was that, further than that, she didn’t intend to try.
    “Okay. I’m not very interested anyhow. Besides, I can ask the professors or the Colonel.”
    She made no reply to this, and Gavigan’s inquiry made a right-angle turn.
    “How did you know there was death in this room tonight before you entered it?”
    She closed her eyes. “I could feel