Read Online Death from Nowhere by Clayton Rawson - Free Book Online

Church and Brophy,” Diavolo explained. “That wasn’t too tough. I had to get out of regulation police cuffs six times a day when I was working that escape routine on the R.K.O. circuit two years ago. I had that licked by the time we reached the lobby.
    â€œThen, when your colleagues made a wild dash for us, they diverted the Inspector’s eagle eye for a moment and I backed into the elevator again, threw the operator out, and slammed the door. I looped the wire you concealed in the hat around the lever that operates the door and tied it to that decorative grille-work in the car’s top. That kept the door closed so I could use both hands to vanish. You see?”
    Woody scowled at him. “You know darned well I don’t. Get on with it. And don’t tell me you needed your hands to make mystic passes or that you crawled into a hole and pulled it in after you.”
    â€œCrawling into a hole and pulling it in after me is just about what I did do,” Don said. “Every elevator has a concealed exit so that if anything goes haywire and the car is trapped between floors its occupants can be released. The one in this car was in the ceiling. I got it open and pulled myself through, and I kept talking every minute so that Church would be sure I was still inside. I knew that once he thought I had gotten out, he’d think of the trap himself. And I didn’t want a welcoming party ready for me on the second floor.
    â€œOnce on the roof of the car, my head still down through the trap so that my voice still seemed to come from inside, I untied the wire and held it tight. Then I told Church he could come in on the count of three. At two I pulled the wire up after me. At three I pulled in my head like a turtle and closed the trap. Then I made tracks.”
    â€œOut the elevator doors on the second floor?”
    â€œYes, and down the corridor, through the Emperor Theater’s scene-design department, up over a drafting table, and out the window on to the marquee. I’m afraid I left a footprint on the master sketch for the backdrop of next week’s stage show. It’s one of those wacky surrealist affairs and, since the scene painter will never guess it’s not part of the original design, Inspector Church will have a ten by twenty foot footprint for a clue! Did you reach Chan?”
    â€œYes. He said he’d meet us at 46th and 11th with your car. I think that’s him up ahead in the next block.”
    It was, but he wasn’t alone. The Horseshoe Kid and the twins, Patricia and Mickey Collins, Don’s two young lady assistants, were also with him. The girls, better known as Pat and Mike, were so identical in appearance that even Woody who was in love with Pat had trouble trying to tell them apart.
    The girls, mirror-images of each other, shared the same shade of golden yellow hair. Don Diavolo, so as not to broadcast the fact that he had twins in his employ, had insisted that one of them must always wear a black wig whenever they appeared together in public. The trouble was that he had failed to specify which of them should wear it. Woody, as a consequence, was never quite sure if Pat was the light or the dark one. And when Mickey, who loved to tease Pat’s boy friend as sisters do, acted as she did now, it left Woody completely baffled.
    Simultaneously with Pat she gave the reporter a bright welcoming smile and said, “Hello, darling!” Then she turned toward Pat just as the latter faced her. Their voices came together, both using exactly the same words in the same tone of injured surprise.
    â€œMickey! Just whose boy friend do you think he—”
    â€œThe old, gag,” Woody said. “I’ll attend to you two later. Business comes before pleasure.” He left them, running for a phone.
    â€œChan,” Don demanded. “Who are all these people? We’re not going on a picnic. I’m a fugitive from a chain