Now You See It... Part 40

Visualize the scene, dear reader. (a.s.suming that anyone ever reads mis.)

A wager had been made.

For money? Not so simple. Far more deadly and bizarre.

The location of a corpse.

Sheriff Plum and Ca.s.sandra Delacorte engaging in a chal- lenge-he concedingly, she with resentful anger.

Puzzle?

Where was Harry Kendal's body in The Magic Room?

Remember the description now,

The room was twenty by thirty, high-ceilinged, many- windowed, including me picture window affording a view of the lake. Luxurious appointments, built-in bookshelves, a fieldstone fireplace and wall, the French desk, seven feet

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by four feet The bra.s.s-and-teakwood bar, two easy chairs with end tables, the large antique g,lobe, the display poster, the Egyptian burial case, the suit of armor, the casket, the guillotine; you remember all that, don't you?

Where would you begin to search for a corpse?

Play detective with Ca.s.sandra and Plum (unholy she and roly-poly he).

With the prior knowledge that no matter what solution you come up with, you will almost certainly be wrong.

Searching for a dead man.

My son's idea of "fun" (G.o.d help him).

What was he thinking as he crossed to the desk and sat on it, legs dangling while Ca.s.sandra and die Sheriff began their search?

Ca.s.sandra first examined the walls, of course; the obvi- ous choice. She knew about one secret panel at least. Per- haps there were others she didn't know about; I didn't know about.

Plum, meantime, had moved to the Egyptian burial case and opened it.

"My wife already looked in there," Max told him with a smile.

"How do you know?" countered Plum. "You weren't here."

"Of course I was," Max said. He pointed, "m the suit of armor."

Plum grunted, checking the interior of the burial case anyway.

"Thoroughness," said Max. "I love it." He smiled gen- . ially. "Search every spot twice," he said. "Who knows what was missed the first time."

"You closed it up," says Plum. "I'm wondering why."

Max looked impressed; I knew he wasn't. "Good think- ing, Grover," he said. "Wrong, but good."

Ca.s.sandra, by then, had looked behind the drapes and up

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the fireplace; elementary steps. Now she was examining the chairs and end tables.

"You think he's in the end tables/ love?" Max inquired/ chuckling. '

She glared at him. "Be amused," she said. "We'll find him."

Max bowed, smiling.

^Tell you what I'm going to do, Grover," he said to Plum.

"Sheriff," Plum reminded him.

"Yes, of course," Max said. "Tell you what I'm going to do. Sheriff. While you're searching, I'll describe some of my various escapes to entertain you. I'll even tell you how they work."

It is me measure of me, I confess, that I felt as much con- cern over that as 1 did about Harry Kendal's body.

Reveal how they work?

My effects? The ones I'd labored so long to develop and perfect?

Profanation.

"No loss," Max was saying, making it even worse for me.

"I'm never going to use them again anyway." (Until that moment, I hadn't known the full extent of his hopelessness.)

"At any rate, they're too outdated, aren't they, Ca.s.san- dra?" he said, his smile gone dead. "They're not today."

Ca.s.sandra only pressed her lips together- She would not respond.

"The Paper Bag Release!" cried Max. (Don't do it. Son, I thought.)

"A man-sized bag shaped like a giant fool's cap, a gummed seal at its top.

"I get inside, they seal it carefully and place a screen in front of it. Impossible to escape from without tearing the paper, you say?"

He cupped a hand behind his right ear as though an-

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tic.i.p.ating a reply from them. They said nothing. I watched, heartsick.

"You don't say," Max went on. "Nonetheless, I'll tell you.

(Max!)