The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead

Author:Tom Mead [Mead, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

HE FADED INTO AIR

I am the very slave of circumstance

—Lord Byron, Sardanapalus, Act IV, Scene I

The illusionist must play many roles.

—The Master of Manipulation, “The Role of the Magician”

CHAPTER NINE

DR. ANNE L. SURAZAL

As the police van carried him through the cold London night, Edmund Ibbs could scarcely raise his head. He was trapped in his own mind, staring down at his cuffed wrists and running again and again through the night’s events in sequence. He barely noticed when the van coasted to a halt.

He was marched through more corridors, paraded past the disinterested eyes of various desk sergeants, then deposited in a square grey cell somewhere in the bowels of the earth. Just before the cell door slammed he mustered sufficient presence of mind to turn to the uniformed jailers and say: “It’s a mistake.”

“Course it is, chum.”

Slam.

He wasn’t alone for long though. After what seemed like an hour, Joseph Spector put in an appearance, accompanied by Martha.

The guard—who knew Spector by sight—saluted and leapt from his seat to unlock the cell door.

“Thank you, Henry,” said Spector, “and remember—not a word to the guv’nor, eh?”

“Right you are, Mr. Spector. Ibbs! Visitor for you.”

By then Ibbs was on his feet, heart racing. “Mr. Spector! You’ve got to believe me when I tell you I didn’t kill Paolini. I would never . . .”

Spector held up his hand for silence. It was a practised gesture he used to use on the music hall stage. And it worked. “I don’t know you well, Mr. Ibbs, but my—let’s call it ‘experience’—tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye. Don’t think too harshly of Flint, though. The poor fellow’s just doing his job.”

“You believe me, then?”

“My dear fellow, of course I believe you. Even the most elementary logic dictates that a killer does not adhere the weapon to his own hand, seal himself in the room with his victim, and then knock himself unconscious. But there are two details that do not look so good. One is that a single shot was fired. That is evidenced by the revolver itself, which is missing a single bullet, not to mention the sound of a gunshot that we heard in the corridor.”

“It’s a conspiracy,” Ibbs said. “It’s all to do with The Master of Manipulation. You see, the name on Master of Manipulation is Doctor Anne L. Surazal, which is ‘Lazarus Lennard’ spelled backward. Now all we need to do is to find Lazarus Lennard and we’ll have our first clue as to who would want Paolini dead. . . .”

“Calm yourself, Edmund. We’ve found him.”

That stopped Ibbs in his tracks. “You have?”

Spector nodded. Then he turned to Martha. “Haven’t we?”

She looked decidedly embarrassed. “Uh, yes,” she sighed. “I wrote The Master of Manipulation.”

Ibbs was aghast. “You . . . you what?”

Spector closed his eyes and intoned: “He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.

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