with two binding posts-which the girls used to signal Jack. Centered on the under
side of the bar was a hundred-and-fifty watt bulb hooked in on its own line separate
from the rheostat. Except for the line to this light all the wires from all the
equipment disappeared into a steel conduit underneath the bar. It was this light
which had dazzled me during the
eleven o’clock show. It seemed excessive; a pear bulb would have been more
appropriate. Apparen Jack liked lots of light.
I explained the controls to Spade, then gave hin dry run. First I switched
the rheostat back to “Hou~ and threw off the bypass switch, leaving the roc brightly
lighted and the Magic Mirror dark. “The tii is five minutes of twelve. Hazel leaves
me to go i. stairs. I shift around to the bar stool just oppos where I am now
standing. At midnight Jack comes and asks me if I’ve heard the buzzer. I say ‘No.’ I
fiddles around a bit, clearing away glasses and t like. Then come two beeps on the
buzzer. He picks the microphone but he doesn’t announce the show a few seconds-he’s
just noticed Hannegan and Fe stein. Hannegan gives him the high sign and he gc
ahead.” Then I picked up the mike myself and spc into it:
“We now present the Magic Mirror!”
I put down the mike and flipped on the turntal
switch. The same platter was on and the juke h
started playing Valse Triste. Hazel looked up at i
sharply, from where she had been resting her head
her arms a few tables away. She looked horrified, a
the reconstruction were too much for her stomacF I turned the rheostat slowly from
“House”
“Stage.” The room darkened and the stage lit r “That’s all there was to it,” I said.
“Hazel sat do~ beside me just as Jack announced the show. As lights came on she
screamed.”
Spade scratched his chin. “You say Joy was star ing in front of you when the
buzzer signal came fr upstairs?”
“Positive.”
“You gave him a motive-the war he was havi with Estelle. But you’ve given
him an alibi too.”
“That’s right. Either Estelle punched that buz:
herself, then lay down and stabbed herself, or she ‘~ murdered and the murderer
punched it to cover i
then ducked out while everybody had their eyes on the Mirror. Either way I had Jack
Joy in sight.”
“It’s an alibi all right,” he conceded. “Unless you were in cahoots with
him,” he said hopefully.
“Prove it,” I answered, grinning. “Not with him. I think he’s a jerk.”
“We’re all jerks, more or less, Eddie my boy. Let’s look around upstairs.”
I switched the bypass on, leaving both stage and house lighted, and followed
him. I pointed out the buzzer to him, after searching for it myself. A conduit came
up through the floor and ended in a junction box on the wall, from which cords ran
to the flood lights. The button was on the junction box. I wondered why it was not
on the “altar,” then saw that the altar was a movable prop. Apparently the girls
punched the button, then fell quickly into their poses. Spade tried the button
meditatively, then wiped print powder off on his trousers. “I can’t hear it,” he
said.
“Naturally not. This stage is almost a soundproof booth.”
He had seen the egg timer but I had not told him until then about seeing the
last of the sand run out. He pursed his lips. “You’re sure?”
“Call it hallucination. I think I saw it. I’ll testify to it.”
He sat down on the altar, avoiding the blood stain, and said nothing for
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quite a long time. Finally he said, “Eddie my boy-”
“Yes?”
“You’ve not only given Jack Joy an alibi, you’ve damn’ near made it
impossible for anyone to have done it.”
“I know it. Could it have been suicide?”
“Could be. Could be. From the mechanics angle but not from the psychological
angle. Would she have started that egg timer for her own suicide? Another thing.
Take a look at that blood. Taste it.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t throw up. Smell it then.”