Death out of Thin Air Read Online Free

it?”
    Diavolo’s answer was positive. “I am. Exactly that.”
    â€œBut there was no one in here with the girl except the two of you. What are you doing? Confessing you did it?” The Inspector’s gun swerved slightly toward Don.
    â€œNo. I didn’t do it. I never saw the girl before.”
    â€œThen who do you want me to think did, for the gossake?” Church asked. “And don’t mention bats!”
    Diavolo made a nonchalant, somewhat absent-minded gesture with his empty hand and produced from the thin air at his fingertips, a lighted cigarette — a long Cuban one. He puffed at it thoughtfully a moment. Then he said. “There was someone — or something — else in this room.”
    Woody Haines sat on the divan staring with an odd look at Diavolo. But he said nothing.
    Inspector Church growled, “Okay. There was someone else here. All right. You’re the magician who thinks he’d like to escape from the Tombs. You tell me yourself that only three people know how that door unlocks — yourself, Chan and a guy named Hartz. If this other person that was here went out by the door Hartz must be it.”
    Diavolo shook his head. “No, Karl didn’t do it. You wouldn’t say that if you knew him, Inspector.”
    â€œI’ll decide what he did or didn’t do for myself, but as long as you don’t want it to be him — and you do want me to believe someone else was here, suppose you tell me how he got out.”
    Diavolo indicated the open window. “That was closed when Chan and I came in,” he said. “It was open when we found the girl. He must have both come and gone that way.”
    â€œIn what?” Church demanded, “A balloon?”
    Don shrugged and, going to the window, looked out again. “That’s the trouble. It’s five stories up and there’s hardly foothold for a fly. He’d have to be an acrobat Alpine climber who didn’t care a damn. I think perhaps I could manage it — I climbed a building that was nearly this bad for a movie once — but we had nets.”
    â€œIf I had a net now,” Church said scornfully, “I’d give it to you and you could go chase some butterflies! So she was killed by a movie stunt-man, was she? A human-fly who climbs straight up the sides of buildings!”
    Behind them a voice said, “That’s right, Inspector, I saw him!”
    Diavolo, Chan, Woody, and especially Inspector Church all whirled toward the voice. Patricia Collins, the Princess who had vanished with the elephant, stood just within the door. She came toward them, her graceful figure dressed now in the black, brief costume that she wore through the remainder of the Scarlet Wizard’s act.
    Inspector Church roared — like Niagara Falls! “How the blue blazes did you get through that door!” He turned to Don angrily. “ So! A lot of people can work the trick lock, can they?”
    Patricia said, “You left the door ajar yourself, Inspector — when Don opened it for you and you sent for Jerry.”
    Woody Haines who had jumped from the divan as she entered took her arm. “Pat,” he asked quickly. “What did you see?”
    She answered, speaking to Church. “My dressing room is around a bend in the corridor. My window is at right angles to this one and I saw a — a man. At least it was as large as a man. He climbed out the window and straight down the side of the building!”
    Woody asked. “You don’t seem too sure that it was a man, Pat. What did he look like? What—”
    Pat’s eyes which had been round and troubled grew darker. “He wore a long black cape. And a dark turned-down hat. But just once as he went past the window of the floor below and the light touched him — I glimpsed his face….”
    Outside in the street below, a police siren screamed.
    â€œYes?” Woody prompted, as