Free Death from a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson

it.”
    “Clairvoyance, I suppose?”
    She frowned slightly, then nodded as if she didn’t like the way he said it.
    “Could you turn some of it on now and tell us who killed Sabbat?”
    For the first time her voice was something other than flatly expressionless. There was a hint of anger in it as she said:
    “Do I look like a fool, Inspector?”
    “Meaning that you could but won’t?”
    “Meaning that you wouldn’t believe that any information I gave had been clairvoyantly obtained. Madame Blavatsky used her occult powers once in pointing out a murderer for the Russian police. Their gratitude took the form of trying to arrest her as an accessory.”
    “I suppose there’s something in that,” the Inspector admitted. “And if I promised immunity?”
    Rappourt shook her head. “I wouldn’t trust you.”
    Gavigan stepped closer to her. “You know, of course,” he said threateningly, “that I can arrest you for the séance you have admitted holding. Perhaps if you told me who the murderer was…”
    “I know nothing of the sort.” Rappourt’s shiny black eyes glistened angrily. “You are bluffing. I collected no fee.”
    “Maybe not, but you’re out to get yours one way or another. And you’ll do well to remember I’ve got an eye on you from now on. Can your guests of last evening swear that you were at the séance the whole time?”
    She smiled now, for the first time, in an unpracticed sort of way, hesitated a moment, and then with cool amusement said:
    “For two hours during the latter part of the evening I was in a deep trance.”
    “And how do I know you didn’t walk in your sleep?”
    “Because, as my guests will tell you, I was sitting in a large, thoroughly examined canvas bag, the mouth of which was drawn tightly around my neck and the drawstring tied with many knots to the back of my chair. The knots were sewn through with needle and thread and covered with sealing wax. Ropes around my legs and body outside the bag held me to the chair, and the chair was screwed to the floor of a cabinet whose door was triple locked with all the keys held by the sitters.”
    There was a slightly adenoidal expression around the Inspector’s mouth. Visibly he collected himself and started to speak, but Rappourt had not finished.
    “Tapes had been sewn and sealed about each of my wrists, and their further ends, which passed out through two small buttonhole openings in the bag and through an air vent in the door of the cabinet, were held constantly by the experimenters.”
    Gavigan glanced helplessly toward Merlini’s back, but the latter gave no indication of having heard. The Inspector nosed about for a more fruitful line of investigation. “What,” he asked Rappourt fiercely, “do those hentracks on the floor mean?”
    “They are obviously some form of invocation. Sabbat seems to have been a black magician.”
    “What other kinds are there?”
    “Black magic is occult power applied for evil; white magic is occult power applied for good. According to Manley P. Hall there also exists a gray and a yellow magic. Gray magic is the unconscious perversion of—”
    The Inspector had had enough of that. He cut in, “Who is Surgat?”
    “I don’t know that. There are many demons.”
    Gavigan turned toward Merlini, scowling. “Do you know?”
    The latter pushed a large dusty folio back into place.
    “No,” he said, and then faced us, his eyes on Rappourt. “But if we don’t find it here, this reference library isn’t as complete as I think it is. May I ask Madame Rappourt a question?”
    This, I think, was what the Inspector wanted. He nodded.
    Merlini smiled at her innocently and asked, “Was your séance—pardon me—your experiment conducted in the darkness usual to the production of that type of phenomena?”
    He had only half done when Rappourt began acting strangely. Her eyelids dropped; her arm swung up jerkily; the back of her hand pressed against her forehead. She swayed backward, and then