The Mystery of the Merry Magician (17 page)

“What tunnel?” Inspector Queen demanded.

“I’ll show you.” Gully dashed down the gangplank, followed by the others.

He stopped at the section of the dock which had been repaired.

“This is a trap door. Pick it up.”

Two policemen groped around the edge. Then, finding handholds, they raised the fresh planks.

“Fisty, show them the way.”

“Sure, stand back.” Grinning, the boy lowered himself through the opening to the underwater platform.

“He’s standing on water!” Velie exclaimed. “Just like the story Winkle got …”

“Come on, Sergeant. Follow me,” Fisty called up. “There’s a platform here, floating just under the surface.”

Inspector Queen nodded approval and Velie dropped through the opening to stand beside Fisty. A policeman followed them. The three splashed away toward the foot of the dock.

“We can meet them at the other end,” Gully said, turning to his grandfather.

“You men come with me.” Inspector Queen motioned to several policemen. “Lead the way, Gully.”

A crowd, attracted by the shooting, had gathered outside the pier. As they pushed their way through, Gully heard his name called. Peggy, holding Banjo in her hands, ran up to him.

“Come on, Peggy. I can’t talk to you now …”

He dashed across West Street, followed by the police and half the crowd.

“Through here,” Gully pointed, reaching the door of Sandro’s store.

One of the policemen kicked in the door. They crowded inside.

“Get the crowd away,” Inspector Queen ordered the police.

“Close the door and be quiet.” Then he turned to Gully. “Where is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Gully said, looking about the empty room. “Somewhere here.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you said …”

Part of the floor suddenly was thrown back. Velie poked his head through the opening.

“Hello, Inspector. Did you get him?”

“No, we must have been too late.”

Velie, Fisty and the policeman climbed out and let the trapdoor fall back into place.

“Well, he’s gone.” Inspector Queen looked angry.

“Wait a minute,” Gully said. He called to Peggy. “Put Banjo down.”

The little dog trotted up to Gully, who patted it on the head.

“Magnus Merlin, Banjo. Find Magnus Merlin.”

With a happy bark, Banjo ran to the wall and began to scratch at it. Gully leaped after the dog. He felt the wall carefully with his hands, then pushed.

A door swung open. Banjo dashed through. Gully followed. Suddenly there was a scurrying of feet and loud barking.

“There he goes!” Gully was pointing at Sandro working frantically to unlock the street door.

“Hold it!” Velie ordered sharply. He had his gun aimed at the man.

Sandro raised his hands. “You can’t blame me for trying,” he snarled.

He was handcuffed and led out of the place.

“I guess that about wraps it up, eh?” Inspector Queen smiled at Gully. “You’ve got the makings of a pretty good detective, Gully.”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m no detective, grandpa.” Gully shook his head. “I just did what Uncle Ellery told me to. Wrote down all the facts in my notebook.”

“Still you’ve solved this case. Even caught the leader.”

“Oh, he’s not the real leader, grandpa.”

“No?” Inspector Queen looked surprised. “Where is the leader?”

Gully looked about the room. They were in Merlin’s store. On the counter a number of magic tricks were on display. To one side stood an empty telephone booth. Banjo was sitting before it, looking up, his tongue hanging out.

Gully walked up to the booth.

“I think he’s in here,” he said.

“I can see the booth is empty,” Velie said, looking at the glass window.

Gully pointed at Banjo. “He doesn’t think so.” He pulled the door open.

Velie exclaimed, “Hey! That’s a picture of an empty telephone booth pasted on the glass window.”

“And here is Mr. Merlin,” Gully said as the pudgy magician came out.

“Thank goodness you’ve come, Gully. I thought the thugs had returned. I was afraid and hid in my escape booth …”

“It won’t work, Mr. Merlin.”

The magician looked at Gully in shocked surprise. “It won’t work? What won’t work?” he asked, confused. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. “See? I’ve been guarding the diamonds from them …”

“How did you know the bag had diamonds in it, Mr. Merlin?”

“Why I looked and—”

“No, yesterday when I gave it to you, you knew the bag contained diamonds. But I didn’t open it or tell you what was inside.”

“Hey! That’s right,” Fisty exclaimed.

“Those are only imitations, Mr. Merlin. Not the real diamonds. I used them to trap you.”

“Oh …” the magician looked pained. “I risked everything for … imitation diamonds?”

“Yes,” Gully said. “Why didn’t you run away when the shooting started?”

“Banjo. I was looking for him for hours,” the magician said quietly. He bent down and patted the dog. “I couldn’t leave him behind. We’re such good friends.” He looked up at Gully. “You’ll take care of him?”

“I will, Mr. Merlin.”

“Take him away, Velie.”

“Yes, sir.” He clicked a pair of handcuffs on Merlin’s wrists.

“You know I can get out of these very easily …”

“Sure,” Velie said. He called a policeman over. “Stand behind him and if he tries any funny business, clonk him on the head with your stick.”

“In that case,” Merlin said, “I’ll come along peacefully.” To Gully he added, “Take good care of Banjo.”

He walked out, followed by the policeman with the nightstick.

L
ATER
in the afternoon, a merry group gathered on the after-deck of the barge at Pier A. Bowls of fruit and candies were on the table, plates with cakes and cookies, pitchers with iced tea, chocolate milk and lemonade.

Sergeant Velie sprawled out on a deck chair, puffing on a thick, black cigar, sighed, “I’m so stuffed, Peggy, I couldn’t eat another thing even if I was starving.”

“Velie,” Inspector Queen’s voice rasped. “Do you know what you just said?”

“Certainly. I was telling Peggy I’ve had a good time, Inspector. That’s all.”

“I understood him perfectly,” Peggy laughed.

It was the end of a hurriedly prepared party that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Even Banjo, curled up under the table, was contentedly gnawing on a rubber bone, a gift from Peggy.

Captain Foster, smoking his pipe, suggested, “How about a song or two, Peg? Haul out that guitar of yours.”

“Not now, grandpa,” the girl answered. “Inspector Queen promised to tell us what happened at Police Headquarters.”

“Yeh, Inspector. Did Merlin spill everything?” Fisty was sitting cross-legged on the deck, holding a glass of lemonade in one hand, a piece of cake in the other.

“He did,” Inspector Queen said. He leaned over the table and poured himself a glass of iced tea. “After he read the statement you and Gully gave us.”

“A neat little racket he had, too,” Velie broke in. “He supplied weapons for gunrunners. They paid him with diamonds they smuggled into this country.”

“It wasn’t a
little
racket, Velie.” Inspector Queen was annoyed with the sergeant for the interruption. “Big money was involved.”

“I only meant …”

“
I’m
telling the story, Velie,” the Inspector snapped.

“Yes, sir.” Velie took his cigar out and studied it carefully, avoiding his superior’s angry look.

“Go on, grandpa,” Gully said. “There are some things I don’t understand.”

Inspector Queen sipped his drink slowly, holding the suspense as long as he could while all eyes were fixed on him.

“He started in New Orleans, smuggling small things into the country disguised as magic tricks. Then he went into bigger projects. But the government began to investigate the New Orleans waterfront, so he came to New York.”

“Gosh!” Gully exclaimed. “I wonder if that’s the case Uncle Ellery was called in to solve.”

“Could be,” the Inspector murmured. He glanced at his grandson, his eyes shiny with pride. “That would be a joke on Ellery. He’s been down there chasing ghosts while you’ve been solving the case for him right here.”

Velie started to laugh, slapping himself on his knee until he suddenly began to cough, choking on cigar smoke.

“Hey! That’s a good one on the maestro!” he gasped.

“Here in New York, Merlin studied old historic maps of Manhattan,” Inspector Queen continued, ignoring the sergeant. “He found a number of old canal ditches that had been covered over. This part of the city has many of them.”

“Yeah,” Velie agreed, nodding his head knowingly.

“Merlin arranged to have the
Fiji Islander
use Pier B through his partner, Sandro. Then he rented the stores across the street and dug out one of the old canals. It made a perfect tunnel under West Street.”

“They could bring the crates of guns on board and not even the longshoremen would know anything about it,” Velie said.

“The strange noises we heard during the night,” Peggy said. “They made them digging?”

“Probably,” Inspector Queen said. He sipped his drink, frowning. “Merlin couldn’t understand how a boy like Gully was able to see through the scheme.”

“Blow me down if I can,” Captain Foster growled.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Fisty boasted. “It’s all in that little notebook of his.”

“I don’t know myself,” Gully said honestly. “I only did what Uncle Ellery told me to. I wrote down all the facts I could discover. It didn’t make much sense at first. And then suddenly, the day I went to Police Headquarters to give you the diamonds …”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Velie laughed. “And made poor Sergeant Winkle think he was going crazy …”

“Is that when you solved the mystery?” asked Peggy admiringly.

“I didn’t really solve anything,” Gully said, flushing slightly. “It’s just that … that the facts began to fit together.”

He took the notebook out of his pocket and offered it to his grandfather. Inspector Queen brushed it aside.

“Tell us in your own words, Gully.”

The boy opened the notebook and looked over some of his notes.

“The first thing that made me suspicious was that Mr. Merlin lied …”

“Lied?” Inspector Queen raised a puzzled eyebrow.

“Yes, sir. He told Fisty and me that he rented the store about two weeks ago. But Velie found out he rented it two months before …”

“That’s right,” Velie nodded.

“What about him getting conked on the head by Sandro?” Fisty asked.

“I think he made up that story to scare us away.”

“You know what?” Fisty grinned. “It did scare me.”

“Then, as I read the notebook again, I noticed that Mr. Merlin was the only one we told that the night watchman was suspicious. Right after that Mr. Ryan was almost killed. …”

“I had word from the hospital,” Inspector Queen interrupted. “He’s regained consciousness and will be all right soon.”

“I’m glad,” said Peggy.

“Then,” Gully went on, studying the pages of his notebook, “he told us he was taking Banjo for a walk the night he showed Velie his tricks …”

“Yeah, I remember,” Velie said in a low voice, sheepishly glancing away.

“But Banjo wasn’t with him!” Peggy cried. “That was the night Ryan was attacked! You did suspect him then, Gully. You told me.”

“But right after that Thundero cleared him and we were sorry for suspecting Mr. Merlin,” Fisty shook his head. “Boy, we sure were fooled.”

“I’ve got a lot more clues here in the notebook. Only I didn’t realize they were clues until I read through my notes a few times,” Gully continued. “I remembered one thing, though. These crooks didn’t trust each other. They were always afraid of being cheated. One of them even said that the stuff wouldn’t be delivered until the boss had the payment in his hand …”

Fisty nodded. “I remember we talked about that. Trying to figure out what the stuff was and who the boss was.”

“Well, I remembered that when I saw costume jewelry displayed in a store. That’s when I got the idea to
make
the payment. I bought a bagful of false diamonds and gave them to Mr. Merlin. That night Fisty and I swam out to Pier B and saw they were delivering the crates …”

“Yeah, and got caught.”

“You took a terrible chance,” Peggy said. “You could have told me.” She frowned in annoyance. “Didn’t you trust me?”

“It wasn’t that at all, Peggy,” Gully began.

“You would have wanted to come along,” Fisty said. “And we didn’t want you in danger.”

A cream-colored convertible with its top down moved slowly along West Street and stopped at the foot of the pier.

Velie stared at the car and the man who got out of it. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Look who’s here! The maestro himself.”

Gully leaped to his feet, waving his hand frantically.

“Uncle Ellery! Uncle Ellery!”

Ellery Queen came smiling toward them. He was dressed in slacks and a colorful sports shirt open at the throat.

“Hi,” he called out gaily, then jumped to the deck of the barge. “I thought I’d find you here.”

“Ellery, meet an old friend of mine, Captain Eban Foster … his granddaughter Peggy …”

“Glad to meet you.” Ellery shook hands with them.

“… and a client of yours, Fisty Jones.”

“A client?” Ellery looked at the grinning boy as they shook hands. “I didn’t know I had a client at the moment.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Fisty said, casually waving aside possible questions with a flick of his hand. “Gully took care of everything nicely.”

“He did?” Ellery stared at the group for a moment, clearly puzzled by their attitude. Then he smiled and shrugged. “Gully, I packed our things in the car as soon as I came back from New Orleans. We can start on our camping trip right now …”

“Oh, yes?” Inspector Queen seemed to be gloating. “How did you make out with the smuggling case in New Orleans?”

“Well, I found it
was
smuggling, but they had cleared out—” Ellery Queen gave his father a quick look. “How did you know it was a smuggling case?”

“He read it in the papers,” Velie chuckled quietly.