Read Online Death out of Thin Air by Clayton Rawson - Free Book Online Page B

out front looks as if a police and detective convention was being held there. So does the alleyway in back.”
    â€œI know,” Don said, “but when you can’t go forward or backward the thing to do is go sideways. Confucius or somebody probably said that. We’re going up and then sideways. The houses on this street are all joined together and they have nice flat roofs. We’ll come down to the street a block away and there’ll be a cab waiting for us.”
    He took up the phone and arranged for that. “You’re coming with us, too, doctor. I don’t want the police force to see you walking out of the Reverend’s parish house. One of them might be bright enough to add two and two and get four.”
    Don’s plan worked without a hitch. The Maharajah, his Maharanee and the doctor reached the taxi with no more adventures on the way. Karl, who had slipped out during the Inspector’s most recent explosion, found them there. Dr. Graf left them after wishing them good luck.
    â€œIf you need me,” he said, “just say so. And don’t let anyone jab you with any hypo needles filled with scopolamine. A magician who couldn’t tell anything but the truth would be out of a job! And you might watch out for nicotine too. I couldn’t reach you in time to do any good if I was more than ten feet away!”
    The cab moved smoothly away from the curb and rolled uptown.
    After Don had given him his secret sailing orders, Karl left the taxi at Sixtieth and Park. Don and Mickey continued on Park a dozen blocks or so. They got out of the taxi before the Saylor mansion and once more found themselves completely surrounded by cops.
    But, strangely enough, this set of law officers was not interested in the Maharajah. They weren’t even interested in murder. They were members of the Safe and Loft Squad and for the last three hours had been investigating a burglary. They had heard nothing of a wanted East Indian potentate.
    Furthermore, the burglary was one that was giving them all the food for thought they could stomach — and then some. They had their hands full-all six of them.
    Five hundred thousand dollars worth of jewels, including the famous Star of Persia diamond, was missing from the wall safe in the Saylor bedroom. Mrs. Saylor swore that the combination of the safe had been changed no longer than a week ago, and that only two people in the world knew it — herself and her husband. Ogden Saylor swore exactly the same thing.
    Yet there was no evidence whatsoever that the safe had been opened since she had locked the jewels in it on the previous night. Tonight she had simply spun the dial, opened the safe, and found it empty.
    Quite empty indeed, without any qualifications at all.
    Jewel thieves refer to jewels, particularly diamonds as “ice.” But if these jewels had really been ordinary ice and if they had melted within the safe, they would at least have left a puddle of water.
    These jewels — diamonds at that, which are as little given to melting away as anything you can find — had nevertheless, apparently done just that! A half million dollars worth of them had melted away without leaving the slightest trace!
    The detectives had so far found only one thing — a few small scratches in the brickwork of the wall on the outside of a third story bedroom window.

C HAPTER X
    The Puzzle of the Penthouse
    M RS . O GDEN S AYLOR was an enormously wealthy woman who had never in her life done anything more strenuous than lift a Manhattan or step into her gold-crested Cadillac and say, “Home, James.” Her favorite recreation was dithering. She dithered now. And for once she really had something to get excited about. The loss of five hundred thousand dollars was no joke even to her.
    The captain of detectives who had had to listen to her ravings for the past few hours nodded wearily as he made ready to leave.
    â€œWe’ll do our best, Mrs.