After one or two wrong turns in the confusing hallways of the mansion, I finally arrived at the spot marked on the map.
Right away, I recognized the four people already waiting in the hall outside the parlor. I had seen them on the ferry ride over.
There was the nervous, twitchy businessman named Virgil Gates. He had spent most of the boat trip with his head over the rail, feeding his lunch to the fish. At the moment, Virgil was gazing adoringly at his gorgeous girlfriend, Asyla Notabe, who wore a dress made of long, sparkly silver tassels. Asyla leaned her perfectly sculpted back against the wall, looking bored and stroking her long black hair as if it were a cat. An elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kartier, were dressed like royalty. Mrs. Kartier wore a tiara in her silver hair, and Mr. Kartier had a kingly red sash across his tuxedo jacket.
Before I could say hello to anyone, a raspy voice called from the shadows of a nearby parlor.
“Enter! All who vish to speak vith ze dead, come and enter!”
Who could resist an invitation like that? The five of us stepped into the darkened room. Once we were inside, the oak door slammed shut with a bang, and Virgil Gates cried out.
“What a sap!” Asyla hissed and pushed past him, sauntering like a film star. She was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I had heard about Asyla from the society pages and from my parents. They'd first met her years ago on a train trip across the United States. After that, Asyla's life had been one long streak of bad luck. When Asyla was a teenager, her mom was sent to prison.
Beautiful Asyla
She later escaped and went into hiding, without Asyla. No other family members had come forward to claim her, so Asyla had been raised in an orphanage in Chicago. That's why my parents were so curious about how Asyla was now able to afford to travel in such high style. They had heard rumors that her mom had started a new life of crime and was secretly sending Asyla money.
Now I was meeting her in person!
Our little group gathered around a large table in the center of the room, which was crowded with antique furniture. The flame of a single candle cast sinister shadows on our faces. And a large crystal ball shone dully, resting on a brass stand next to a violin.
Asyla was to my right. To my left, Mrs. Kartier gripped her husband's arm and made squeaking sounds like a frightened chipmunk.
That's just what Judge wanted…for us to be scared. It was a perfect night for a séance, I thought. Lightning flashed on gargoyles, making them look alive as they peered through the windows.
Judge got the idea for a séance from this ad.
Then, across the wood table, a man stepped into the dim light of the candle, and I knew at a glance we were in for a letdown.
“I am Mang ze Magnifico!” the tall man announced in what sounded like a French accent by way of New York. He had a long black beard and wore a purple cape emblazoned with gold stars and moons.
I guess for dramatic effect, Mang began flapping his arms wildly to make the cape ripple up and down. This only made him look like a deranged bat—and sent dust flying off his blue tuxedo.
Mang ze not-so-Magnifico!
Virgil Gates waved the air before his thin, pointy nose. “Allergies! Allergies!” he cried between massive sneezes.
Sweeping back her long hair, Asyla Notabe giggled merrily. Like a queen amused by a jester, she pointed at Mang's slightly tattered outfit. “Mr. Magnifico, you might want to contact a good tailor rather than the dead.” I felt my heart skip a beat as Asyla turned to me and asked. “ Am I right or what?”
She was talking to me! Excited, I opened my mouth to answer her. But something sparked in Asyla's eyes. “Why am I asking you, Fitszmorgan?” She spat out my name as if it were disgusting and turned away.
My face burned from her unexpected hostility. I said, “Excuse me—“
Mang interrupted me. He was glaring at Asyla. “Laughter? You produce ze laughter? What I do is deadly serious!” Mang flapped his arms again and bellowed, “I am a spiritualist!”
For a second, Asyla stared at Mang and then burst out laughing. “Oh, dry up, vould you?” Asyla said, mocking Mang's accent.
While Asyla's giggles and Virgil's sneezes filled the room, Mang dragged over a small square table. He held up his right hand to show us that he was not concealing anything in his palm.
“Vitness my power!” he shouted and brought his palm down on the flat surface of the small table with a smack. Mang's eyes rolled into the back of his head. He lifted his hand and the table rose with it—as if the wood and his skin had magically fused together.
Asyla gasped, virgil stopped sneezing, and Mr. and Mrs. Kartier appeared to have stopped breathing.
Child's play, I thought. I had hoped Mang would prove to be more of a challenge. I wanted to try out the detective skills I'd learned from studying Houdini.
TEC TIP
HOW TO FOOL SITTERS AT A SÉANCE
TABLE LIFTING
Find an old table—make sure it's small, light, and no one wants it anymore.
Hammer a nail with a small head into the top of table.
Put a loose ring on a finger and slide your hand along the surface until the ring slides over the head of the nail. (It might help to cut a slot into the ring.)
Keep your hand flat on the table surface and lift it from the floor.
I wrote a letter to Herry Houdini, and this is what's got back. It's just a form letter probably written by his secretary, but I still darry it with me.
HOUDINI
278 WEST 113TH STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Dear Fan,
Thank you for your interest in my life. Here are a few facts you might not know.
I was born Ehrich Weiss in Hungary in 1874. Four years later, my family moved to Wisconsin. I tried working as a trapeze artist but later turned to magic. I read a book by Jean Eugene Robert- Houdin, an amazing French magician from the 1800s. He was the first one to use real science in his act—something I wanted to do. In honor of him, I changed my name to Harry Houdini.
I'm the most famous magician in the world today. But that's not all I do. I've starred in silent movies. And lately, I've worked hard against fake mediums and phony mind readers who give illusionists like me a bad name. I attend séances disguised in a fake beard and eyeglasses. I've become an expert at detecting the hidden motions of the medium's hands, feet, and body that would produce the sounds and actions of spirits. I shine a light during the séance to show the sitters the trick. I then tear off my disguise and reveal myself as the great Houdini!
In fact, I'm not looking for fakes, but for a medium who can do what he or she claims.
Yours in magic,
Mang lowered the small table to the floor with a flourish. In a stern voice, he told us that he would allow no further interruptions. He instructed us to sit at the large table and hold hands. Asyla took one of my hands and Mrs. Kartier took the other.
“Ve shall now contact ze dead!” Mang said.
“Everyone watch ze ball of crystal and concentrate… concentrate!” The reflection of the candle burned in his eyes. “Now repeat after me, ‘Join us, spirit of ze dead’” It was piffle, but we repeated, “Join us, spirit of the dead” over and over.
Mang threw his head back and shouted into the air, “Spirit! Spirit! Are you in ze room?” His head jerked back down. “Ah, yes, I feel it! I feel ze presence!”
Virgil's eyes bulged slightly. “How do you know?” he whispered fearfully.
Mang calling a spirit
“Is it my sister Estelle?” Mrs. Kartier said to Mang. “If it's Estelle, will you ask her where she hid the gold teakettle?”
Mang seemed annoyed by the questions and asked the air, “Are you Estelle? Lift the table twice if no!”
There was a pause, and just as the others started to relax, the table leaped up as if on its own. It did so once—and then again. Mrs. Kartier screamed. Blinding light exploded into the room as lightning crashed all around the mansion.
Mang smiled. “Very goodly. No, not Estelle.Zhank you, spirit, for clearing zat up—“ He was interrupted as the violin suddenly skipped along the surface of the table and flew into the air, with the bow following after. Mrs. Kartier screamed again, and her husband joined her.
The instrument swung over our head. Then the bow crashed into the strings of the violin and scraped across them, producing a sound like twelve cats in excruciating pain. And just as violently, the violin clattered back to the surface of the table and was still.
The violin played—badly!
“Ze spirit of ze famous French pirate Jean-Claude Noir iz here!” Mang announced. “And he has ze questions por one of you!”
With eyes burning brighter than ever, Mang shot out his index finger and pointed it at Virgil. “You!” Mang boomed. “Ze spirit has ze questions por vous, Mr. Virgil Gates.”
Asyla inched away from Virgil, who looked ready to run screaming from the room. “For me?” He squeaked.
“Yes!” Mang said. “He vants to know vhat it iz you are doing here in ze mansion!”
These words seemed to push Virgil closer to some kind of attack.
Enough was enough. Judge wouldn't want this. The séance had gone way beyond fun entertainment.
”These people are terrified,” I said to Mang.
Mang was furious at the interruption. “Silence!” he hissed.
Virgil
I kept my eyes on Virgil, pointing at Mang. “This man is an illusionist—“
“I am not! I am a spiritualist!” Mang screamed. “I demand silence!”
“—and not a very talented illusionist, either,” I continued, ignoring him.
Like a drowning man grasping at a lifeline, Virgil grabbed at my words. “But the spirit…”
“A spirit didn't do anything. It was all Mang.” I hated to ruin a fellow magician's act. But Mang was giving all illusionists a bad name by scaring these people.
Virgil's eyes started to lose their panicked glow. “The table! How did it leap up on its own? Mang was holding hands with us…”
“He could have moved the table with his legs.” I demonstrated by jamming my thighs up against the table. It jumped slightly.
“Ach! Ze insults ze child heaps upon me!” Mang cried. But Virgil was listening to me. His face wasn't nearly as red and I could see he was embarrassed to have caused a scene in front of Asyla. “And what about the violin?” he asked.
“The violin is controlled by wires, I'm certain,” I said. “If there were lights in this room, you'd see them. Holding hands keeps the sitters from reaching out in the darkness and discovering hidden wires, which Mang controls with his leg.”
This time Mang didn't protest. He just kept glaring at me.
“And this.” I picked up the heavy crystal ball from its stand.
“This is just a big ball of—“
Lightning flashed. Then I saw it. My mouth snapped shut.
“Big ball of what?” Virgil whined, growing anxious again.
Asyla noticed my frozen stare. “What's eating you?” But I couldn't speak. In the flash of lightning I had spotted something in the corner of the parlor. Something that made my blood run cold.
A shadowy figure had been standing there. Its hand had reached out—then with a blue flash, the strange ghostlike shape vanished.
Too bad they don't work!
By the time the others followed my gaze, the figure was gone.
I could explain a lot. A moving table, a floating violin, mysterious messages from the grave—but this…this was something no illusionist I'd ever encountered could create. The figure I spotted had simply disappeared into thin air. Was this a spirit after all?
The shock took a moment to set in. Suddenly I jerked backward. I toppled over in my chair. The crystal ball I'd been holding shot up into the air, high over Virgil's head. He was too panicked to move. The crystal ball arced…it was about to crash down on top of Virgil's skull—
Virgil was saved!
When two hands shot out and snatched the crystal ball out of the air.
“There's a difference between using this ball to contact the spirits and using it to join them,” a voice said. I instantly felt better.
Standing over me was a glamorous woman who stood nearly six feet tall in high heels. Her blond hair was cut in a fashionable bob, and she wore a sleeveless dress covered with glittering purple rhinestones.
It was Judge!
Holding the crystal ball, she peered down at me, where I still lay on my back on the floor. “G. Codd, what is it?”
“I thought…,” I stammered, taking her outstretched hand and climbing to my feet.
“What? Tell me.” Judge's green eyes were full of concern.
When I didn't answer her, I watched Judge do what she does best. She took charge of the situation.
She put the crystal ball back in its stand and turned her attention to Mang. “What's going on? I hired you to show the guests a good time, not shock them into a stupor.”
Mang shrugged sheepishly and seemed to wither under her gaze.
It sounds ridiculous, but I was shaking. “I saw someone…something…in the corner.”
This is where the figure vanished.
Judge looked at me. Her face softened as she said, “Not to worry, my friend.”
The rhinestones on her dress clicked as Judge strode to the wall and flipped a switch. The room was suddenly ablaze with the light from two mammoth crystal chandeliers. Judge pulled on the velvet cord to call the butler as Mang scurried about tucking wires beneath his cape. But I was no longer interested in him. I had seen something, something that could not have been created by moving knees and thin wire.
“Come over here, G. Codd, and let's see what we can see,” she said. She was standing in the corner where I had everything, trying to detect something suspicious. “Nothing's here. Just a pile of presents for my engagement party.”
Charles rushed into the room, a smile on his face showing he was eager to help.
“Why on earth are these presents in here?” Judge asked him.
The butler's smiled disappeared. He looked terrified of Judge. She can have that effect on people—without even realizing it.
“I am so sorry, Miss Pinkerton,” Charles stammered. “The parlor maid found a large crate near the cellar door and brought it and the others in here.”
“Someone should tell our Miss Pinkerton that it's tacky to argue with the help,” Asyla whispered loudly to Virgil. He chuckled as if she were the epitome of humor, and the two left the room.
Judge ignored them. “It's fine, Charles,” she said, some of the familiar lilt back in her voice. “Would you take them up to my room when you have moment, please?”
Charles picked up as many of the packages as he could carry and left the packages as he could carry and left the room.
Mang had packed up his things and made a hasty exit with the kartiers.
Judge must have seen I still had a case of the heebie-jeebies. She stepped closer and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Remember a few years ago when were talked about Occam's razor? Maybe that philosophy can help you now.”
There were two explanations for the vanishing figure in the corner: It was a ghost of a long-dead pirate called Jean-Claude Noir or it was just a trick of the light. I wasn't completely out of my mind—so it was obvious which explanation was the simplest.
TEC TIP
OCCAM'S RAZOR
William of Occam was a master of logic from the Middle Ages who wrote, “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.” Hid Latin translates roughly as: Of two competin theories of explanations, all other thing being equal, the simpler one is preferred.
That means: Don't make life more complicated than it needs to be. Most of the time, the simple answer is the right one.
“G. Codd, you've got one of the best young detective minds I know. I trust in your ability to see through illusion. You should do the same.” She gave my combed hair a good tussle. “Sorry about your surprise. I know Houdini's hero of yours. This séance was supposed to be something you'd remember from this weekend.”
“Thanks, Judge,” I said. y heartbeat had slowed from its breakneck pace. Maybe Occam's razor was a form of denial, but it did make me feel better. I smiled other. “And don't worry. I don't think I'll forget this night anytime soon.”
“Bully for you! Judge grinned. She took my arm and led me toward the door. “Now come on,” she cried. “I'm so excited about my future with John. And I want us to have fun at the party!”
As we left the parlor, I mad e myself happy for Judge. But I couldn't shake the feeling that what I had seen was more than a trick of the light.
The Great Hall