Free Death out of Thin Air by Clayton Rawson

Saylor,” he said. “But I can’t promise you anything at all — considering the information you’ve given us. I’ll make my report to the commissioner. I think it’s very likely that he’ll want to see you himself.”
    Mrs. Saylor could see his point. The mysterious manner of the theft had her dumbfounded, too. But she didn’t like the hint in the captain’s words that he hadn’t been told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “The Commissioner,” she insisted frigidly. “will hear exactly what you have heard. Those jewels were put in that safe last night. I locked it myself. No one but my husband and myself knew that combination. Tonight, when I opened it, the safe was empty.”
    The captain was tired of hearing that story. He said, “Yes, ma’am,” politely but hopelessly and went out. What he couldn’t understand was why she should be lying to him. It couldn’t be an insurance swindle because the most valuable stone in the collection, The Star of Persia , had only just been purchased by Mrs. Saylor and had not yet been insured. Even so they couldn’t have hoped to collect from an insurance company on the story they were dishing out. It didn’t make sense any way you looked at it.
    Ogden Saylor was a lean, athletic, handsome man of about thirty — some ten years younger than his wife. Diavolo had seen his pictures in the papers often, a few years ago. His swimming and diving exploits had made headline news. The bored look that was on his dissipated face most of the time his wife was talking told Don that, whether or not he had married her for her money, it was now obviously the only reason he was still around.
    He turned to Diavolo as if he wasn’t interested in the disappearance of the money, since there was lots more where that came from. He said, “Avery Chandler tells us that you are familiar with the occult and that you will be going with us to the séance tonight.”
    The Maharajah bowed. “Yes. In my country many strange things happen. It is one of the earliest homes of magic and psychic phenomena. I have always been deeply interested. The Count has had, I understand, some very remarkable results.”
    Ogden Saylor gave the Maharajah a penetrating look. “That,” he said, “is putting it mildly. The Indian Rope Trick is simple parlor magic by comparison.”
    Diavolo smiled. “Perhaps, like the Indian Rope Trick — the Count’s phenomena never really happened at all.”
    Mrs. Saylor objected to that. “My dear Maharajah,” she said, somewhat awed by the presence of an Indian prince who was reputed to be even wealthier than she herself. (She didn’t meet many people like that.) “You would not say that, if you had seen what we have seen. Many strange things are hidden behind the occult veil. All things, on the Astral Plane, are possible. Now and then, through the medium of a few favored persons such as Marie Zsgany, those secrets manifest themselves and are made clear.”
    â€œSecrets like Gilles de Rais?” Diavolo asked in polite skepticism. “The vampire-ghost of a murderer who has been dead five hundred years?”
    Estelle Saylor frowned, one hand went to her throat, around which she wore a narrow black silk band. “There are evil things as well as good in the world of the spirit, evil things which sometimes gain ascendancy and which must be destroyed. Tonight—”
    The butler entered at that moment and announced Miss Inez LaValle and Avery Chandler.
    Diavolo, when he saw the girl, suppressed a start. She too wore a narrow silken band around her neck. Don edged over toward Mickey and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “What is this neckwear? The latest style from Paris?”
    Mickey shook her head. “If it is,” she replied, “all the fashion magazines I read missed out on it this month. It’s a new