Death From a Top Hat

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There were times during the investigation of the case of the Dead Magicians when the New York Police Department’s official attitude toward the infernal arts of witchcraft and sorcery was damnably inconvenient. It had the annoying disadvantage of leaving us with no explanation at all.

Some of the evidence in the case would have seemed vastly more appropriate had it been reported from the forbidden interior of Tibet or from that other famous home of magic, mystery, and tall stories — India. A murderer who apparently leaves the scene of his crimes by walking straight through solid walls of brick and plaster and by floating in midair out of second story windows would, however, be uncanny enough even in Lhassa or Hyderabad. In modern Manhattan he becomes doubly incredible and rather more frightening.

As recently as two hundred and fifty years ago the authorities would have ended the matter by simply applying those bloody and infamous instruments for crime detection, the pincers and the rack, and obtained a confession of sorcerous activity from the nearest innocent bystander. But this easy technique was denied us, and we were left, armed with logic alone, to do battle with irrational dragon shapes.…

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