Elementary s05e20 Episode Script
The Art of Sleights and Deception
1 HOLMES: Previously on Elementary I'm gonna have to comb through this all night if I'm gonna make my deadline.
That's the life of a superstar A.
D.
A.
, right? Can I get a rain check? Of course.
What the hell, man? How about I buy you another one? Oh, you got something for me, cop? The guy you hit, his name was Roy Booker.
He's my ex-husband.
It was a setup.
Roy makes a scene in Chantal's office, the D.
A.
thinks she's distracted, pulls her off the case.
And I played right into the plan.
And then you took early retirement on a disability claim, right? Said you tore your right rotator cuff? So? So the claim is bogus.
You're gonna steer clear of her, forever.
(speaking inaudibly) Hey.
What's going on? You saw? It's kind of hard to miss.
Who were those guys? Tall one's my union delegate.
The one who looks like he's making diamonds in his colon is Internal Affairs.
Last night, I was driving home, when some guy pulled up next to me at a light, started leaning on his horn.
So I roll down my window.
He says that I cut him off a few blocks back.
Which I didn't.
So I tell him he's got the wrong car.
Light turns green.
I drive off.
This morning, I get a call from I.
A.
They say, âBe here by 8:00 and bring your union rep.
â The guy from last night called 911, gave 'em my plate number.
Said that when I lowered my window, I drew my weapon on him.
What? Guy's insane.
Obviously.
But try telling that to I.
A.
They say it's my word against his.
So what happens now? They haven't decided yet.
They could put me on modified assignment till they sort it all out.
Which is a nice way of saying âchained to a desk.
â Things go really sideways, the D.
A.
could decide to hit me with criminal charges.
That's not gonna happen.
People know you.
People here know me.
To the rat squad, I'm just another opportunity.
You said the D.
A.
could press charges.
Maybe Chantal could help? Uh, I'm gonna call her.
But I got to think they'll ask my girlfriend to sit this one out.
Whatever happens, we're here for you.
Whatever you need, you let us know.
Hey.
You okay? Not now.
You want to tell me what the (gasps) What the hell just happened? Magic.
Thank you, Bethesda.
That'll be all.
Did you want a turn? Got anything bigger? Stay weird, sweetie.
I'll call you when I'm back from Rome.
(door opens) (door shuts) First of all Ow! Stop it.
You think that was funny? Making me think you were about to get your head blown off? The trick you just saw is known as a bullet catch.
More specifically, it is the signature trick of a lauded New York City street magician named Razr.
Come on.
This is from a performance of his several weeks ago.
RAZR: Raise the pistol.
Aim directly at my mouth.
I'll raise this hand, I'll count two, motion three.
Are you ready? One, two (gunshot) It looks dangerous, but, in reality, it's no more hazardous than brushing your teeth.
The bullet is never placed in the gun's chamber, you see? It is palmed, and then a slug is hidden beneath the magician's tongue.
The blank is fired, head goes back, and then, voilà , bullet catch.
That's great.
And why the hell were you doing it? I was attempting to estimate the minimum amount of time Razr's bullet was in his mouth the last time he performed the catch.
I was hoping it would help me to determine what kind of poison was used before the M.
E.
What poison? What are you talking about? Razr, aka Claude Rysher, was performing his favorite trick onstage the other day when he suddenly turned blue and died.
He collapsed at the same time the gun was fired, leaving many in the audience to think he'd been shot.
As you can see, he was not.
The M.
E.
who performed the autopsy found a bullet lodged squarely in his throat.
She recorded the death as accidental, believing that he had choked.
I found that hard to believe.
- Why? - For a brief spell in London, I was the carnal cohort of a magician named Glorious Galinda.
I learned repeatedly and to my great satisfaction that there is no muscle more useful to the skilled illusionist than his or her tongue.
It comes into play in any number of tricks and is exercised constantly.
In Galinda's case, it was as if she had a third hand living in her mouth I get it.
So you didn't think someone as skilled as Razr would've fumbled the slug he was hiding.
I was right to be suspicious.
Mr.
Rysher died from organophosphate poisoning.
All indications are that the bullet was soaked in it.
That's why he turned blue.
He must have inhaled the bullet when he was struggling to breathe.
This is the first time in my career that a bullet has taken a life without being fired.
Elementary 5x20 The Art of Sleights and Deception (creaking) Oh.
This is nice.
Must've been for one of his tricks.
Or not.
One thing practitioners of magic tend to have in common is a fascination with the macabre.
Depictions of death.
Torture devices.
Instruments of the occult.
These things find their way not only into the magician's act but into his or her way of life.
You look at the iron maiden and you think, âHow awful.
â Mr.
Rysher probably looked at it and thought, âIf only I could find the matching Judas Cradleâ" It's a pyramid of iron set atop a stool.
The victim is disrobed and then lowered via harness until We got it.
Don't look at me.
I've been to your place.
I'm surprised you guys don't have one of these.
So, this lock was picked quite recently.
Presumably when the killer broke in to poison Mr.
Rysher's bullet.
The work is sloppy.
I could say with certainty that the person we're looking for is left-handed.
BELL: I'll get CSU over here to dust for prints.
Think maybe you should leave the firearms to me? It's not real.
It's plastic.
Ooh, check this out.
âRazr-- Stop stealing other people's tricks.
Or else.
Anubis.
â That's got to be another magician, right? (phone chimes) It's Chantal.
I asked her to tell me when the guy who filed the complaint against you was giving his statement at the D.
A.
's office.
She said he just got there.
You know neither one of you can be a part of that meeting, right? I just want to take a look at him.
Joan Listen, I promise I will tread lightly.
In the meantime, maybe you and Sherlock can find out who Anubis is.
(indistinct chatter) Joan.
Over here.
Hey.
Did I miss it? Doesn't take long to tell a bunch of lies.
That's our guy over there.
Titus Gorham.
He's the one on the right.
I recognize the cop he's with.
Internal Affairs, right? Yeah.
I guess if they like your story enough, they'll help you hail a cab.
He probably told them he was afraid Marcus would show up here.
Did you hear what he said when he gave his statement? According to my colleague, Mr.
Gorham picked Marcus out of a photo array and told him the same story he told I.
A.
-- that Marcus cut him off, they got in a shouting match, and Marcus pulled his weapon.
He gave a lot of detail.
If I didn't know he was lying, I'd say he'd make a hell of a witness at trial.
This is everything I was able to dig up on him.
His record's clean, but maybe you can find something I didn't.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I recognize this letter.
Because I'm the one who wrote it.
Not sure I'd call it a letter.
Or do you send all your mail in guns? Ms.
Newsome, as you may have guessed, we were able to identify you from your stage name, Anubis.
You're a magician also.
Quite an angry magician, judging by that note.
Claude and I used to date.
We were together for about a year.
I'd go to his shows, he'd come to mine.
A few months after we broke up, I heard that he was doing a bunch of my tricks, including the bullet catch.
It hurt.
Magicians don't do that to each other.
BELL: So you sent him a warning.
He didn't listen.
He caught bullets till the bitter end.
This is insane.
I called 911 to help, not to be accused of murder.
911? Yeah.
When I heard that Claude had choked, I didn't believe it.
I got referred to a cop and I told him that Claude was the master at the catch.
Even better than me.
I figured someone must have messed with his bullet.
Sprayed Teflon on it to make it harder to manipulate or poisoned it somehow.
The cop that I spoke to, he didn't tell anybody that I called, did he? If you spoke to the police, this is the first we're hearing about it.
I knew he wasn't taking me seriously.
His name was Lassetter.
He's a detective at the 21st Precinct.
Talk to him.
He'll tell you that I called.
And if he doesn't, maybe I will kill someone.
Ms.
Newsome Everyone said that what happened was an accident.
If I was the one responsible, why would I try to tell the police otherwise? If we're able to confirm your story and if you didn't kill Claude, who do you think did? Claude liked to gamble.
Poker, mainly.
You think he got in over his head? Racked up a debt he couldn't pay back? No.
The opposite.
Before he stole all of my tricks, his act was mostly card-based.
He could do anything with them.
Including cheat at poker.
Maybe somebody finally got tired of losing to him.
(phone chimes) Angela Newsome's story checks out.
She did call 911, and she was transferred to a Detective Lassetter.
Doesn't prove she's not our killer But it lowers the odds.
Sorry to hear about your troubles with Internal Affairs.
Thanks.
You need me to assist Watson? No.
I'm pretty sure a homicide trumps a phony complaint to I.
A.
On the off chance that you do find yourself deskbound I'll understand if you want to see other detectives.
There.
This won't take long.
(door closes) You look like a man who could use some furniture.
Looking for a table, actually.
I got some great pieces right over here.
What I want's in the back.
Hey.
You can't be back here.
That's funny.
Neither can this.
All right.
Leave.
Now, or I call the cops.
Well, as luck would have it, there's a detective from the Major Case squad sitting right outside.
You could invite him in, but then you'd have to admit that you've been running an illegal card room.
I've confirmed it with multiple sources.
What do you want? A man named Claude Rysher was one of your regulars.
Also knows as âRazrâ" Yeah, I know him.
So? So he's dead.
Murdered, to be precise.
I'm exploring the possibility that his killer was someone that he cheated at cards.
Cheated? (scoffs) No, no way.
No.
I run a clean game here.
Well, I know from personal experience that people like you vet your customers thoroughly, so I refuse to believe that you were unaware that your game was being frequented by a magician whose specialty was card manipulation.
Claude paid me to look the other way when he played.
I'm gonna need a list of the names of all of your regular players.
No, you won't.
He wasn't cheating everyone, just one guy.
It was like he was, I don't know, targeting him.
The guy ended up owing Claude a fortune.
Does this guy have a name? Hey.
Where's Sherlock? Conference room.
Guy Claude Rysher was fleecing got here early.
I was just getting him some water.
Before we go in there we should talk about Titus Gorham.
I missed him at the D.
A.
's office, so I went to the place where he works.
And? Chantal said he had his story down pat.
She was right.
He had answers for everything.
A lot of detail, too.
Too much detail, if you ask me.
What do you mean? Well, when I asked him about your gun, he said it was a Glock 19 nine millimeter.
That's not just right, it's specific.
You and I both know that you didn't point your gun at him, so how did he know the model and the make? He also talked about how you were in âplain clothesâ" That's cop talk.
So what are you saying? I'm saying that it sounded like he was coached on what to say by a cop.
You think Internal Affairs No.
Not them.
Chantal's ex.
Roy.
Listen, I can't be sure, but look at what he tried to do to her a few months ago.
You really think he's above getting someone to file a false complaint against you? Mr.
Keating here was just absorbing the news of Claude Rysher's death.
I didn't do it.
I might have also mentioned that he's a suspect.
It's our understanding you owed Claude a lot of money.
Mmm.
I did, but I settled up with him weeks ago.
We were square.
Then I'm sure you won't mind showing us your personal financial records.
You can identify the payment you issued him.
I would, only I didn't pay him in cash.
I paid him in information.
He came to see me at my office.
I had about a-a third of what I owed him.
I told him I'd get him the rest by the end of the month.
But he said he didn't want it.
He didn't even want the money I had.
Then what did he want? I'm a private client banker at Sequoia Liberty.
Claude was interested in this old publishing house that used to do business with us, Turnleaf Books.
He wanted me to unseal and copy all of their ledgers from 1963.
Why? He wouldn't say.
I pulled up everything I could find from '63 and made copies.
I sent boxes of the stuff to Claude's apartment, at least a dozen.
We were there this morning.
We didn't see any boxes.
Well well, then, he must have moved them someplace else.
I think it's more likely they were taken by the person who killed him.
Can I have a word? Obviously, you buy what that guy is selling.
Why? Well, firstly, he's right-handed.
And the person who picked Claude Rysher's lock was a lefty.
Speaking of, I now think that the culprit broke into Rysher's home twice.
Once to douse his bullet, and another time after he was dead, to relieve him of Turnleaf's bank records.
Well, if Keating is telling the truth, why would Rysher care about 54-year-old bank records? You're puzzling as to why he would forgive a six-figure debt for them.
I think the answer's quite simple.
He believed that the records held a secret worth seven figures.
(sighs) The Art of Sleights and Deception.
Oh, it's a magician's how-to book.
Check the publisher and year of publication.
Farraday, 1963.
The original publisher was the other company that Mr.
Keating mentioned, Turnleaf Books.
And that book is no mere how-to.
It is, in fact, widely considered to be the magician's bible.
Well, it looks mostly like card tricks to me.
You were expecting a section on how to saw a woman in half? The book is meant to teach the fine art of prestidigitation.
The magic of the hands.
Making your audience look over here when your trick is happening over here.
Is that my credit card? I didn't have any cash for the book.
Anyway, the book is a bible, and it's very hard to find a magician who doesn't own a copy.
Claude Rysher had his on a shelf in his living room.
I, myself, perused a copy when I was younger.
It was supposed to have a helpful chapter on lock-picking, but as it turned out, I was light-years ahead of anything the book could have taught me.
Do you want to tell me how Turnleaf's old bank records were gonna make Claude Rysher millions, or not? Who wrote The Art of Sleights and Deception? Walker Elmsley.
Walker Elmsley is a pseudonym.
Theories abound as to why the author wanted to keep his identity a secret, but the most likely is that he feared retribution from the mob.
There are numerous âwinksâ in the book that suggest his methods of card manipulation could be used to cheat at their casinos.
Practitioners of magic are obsessed with discovering the author's true identity, but none more so than a man named Quinn Malcolm.
The Quinn Malcolm? You're familiar? He used to have specials on TV when I was a kid.
He made the tip of the Empire State Building disappear once.
I think he has a nightly show now in Atlantic City.
I came across his name the same way I came across Sleights and Deception, by Googling âTurnleafâ and â1963.
â Uh, right here.
Thank you.
So four-plus decades in magic have made Quinn Malcolm as wealthy as he is eccentric.
So in 2007, he offered a standing price of $2 million to anyone who could solve magic's most enduring mystery: Who wrote his favorite book? So you figure that Claude Rysher thought the answer was in Turnleaf's old bank records? If a competitor agreed, it's possible that he or she killed him in order to procure them.
So I texted Galinda.
As it turns out, she opened for Mr.
Malcolm on several occasions when he toured the U.
K.
She gave me his information, and I left a message, asking if he could think of any especially aggressive seekers of his prize.
And he responded with this address.
A greengrocer? Well, like I said, he's eccentric.
I'm just gonna text him, tell him we're here.
(phone chimes) âRegrettably , I will not be able to meet you and your partner.
But would she be so kind as to tell me her favorite melon?â Obviously, he's messing with us.
Well, like I said, he's eccentric.
Eccentric, I know, but this is stupid.
Would you just Okay, honeydew.
Just tell him honeydew.
Honeydew.
(phone chimes) He wants you to pick one from the display.
(sighs) What the hell? The man is good.
So good.
(speaking Tagalog) Are you being free Like the wind? What would you recommend here? You can never go wrong with a burger.
You don't seem surprised to see me.
You are the one behind this mess with Titus Gorham.
That a name I'm supposed to know? He's the guy you got to file a false complaint against me.
He say he know me? No.
But it's just a matter of time before I find the connection.
Hmm.
Well, if you say so.
(sighs) What are you doing, man? Just paying for my lunch.
No.
I mean with Gorham.
You know that I know you faked your disability claim with the department.
I tell them, they'll pull your pension.
(laughs) Roy.
Couple of weeks ago, I went to see a new doctor.
He confirmed what the first one said, my rotator cuff is no good.
I got the MRI to prove it.
So you got another doctor to lie for you.
So what? Well, this new guy, he's the one the department would ask to examine me if you try to mess with my pension.
Turns out I'm not the first ex-cop that he's seen with my condition.
You mean you're not the first cop who was willing to pay him more.
Whatever you thought you had on me, made you think you could push me around? You don't.
As it rolls down You really got my name from Quinn Malcolm? GREGSON: We really did.
Along with all those e-mails.
Surely you recognize your own correspondence.
Oh.
Uh, I do.
It's just, he never wrote back.
I wasn't sure these were even getting through to him.
HOLMES: In the beginning, your tone is very friendly.
You were keeping him abreast of your progress as you searched for the real Walker Elmsley.
But over the last 18 months, you've become a little more obsessed.
Bellicose, even, regarding the $2 million that Malcolm was offering.
He became worried about your state of mind.
You're not the only competitor he was worried about, but you are the only one we found in Claude Rysher's phone records.
You called him on five different occasions last month.
Now, we're pretty sure he was after the same prize that you were, and now he's dead.
I understand why you would want to talk to me.
I did get obsessed with finding out who really wrote Sleights and Deception.
But I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Claude.
I quit the contest months ago.
I had to.
It was December.
I'd started thinking the best way to identify the real Elmsley was through his illustrator, the one who drew all his diagrams.
Hal Posoyan? I wasn't the first one to try and solve the mystery that way, but most people followed a trail that led to a Harold Posoyan, this cartoonist who died in the Vietnam War.
But not you.
I realized there was an âH.
Posoyanâ living at a retirement community in Phoenix, but I couldn't get anyone there to tell me anything about him, not even what the âHâ stood for.
So, I went to Phoenix.
I approached him outside of his apartment complex and started asking questions.
He tried to walk away, but I wouldn't let up.
I followed him.
And then he fell.
Broke both his hips.
I spent that night in jail, and for whatever reason, that name kept running through my head-- Hal Posoyan.
Hal Posoyan, Hal Posoyan.
All of a sudden, it hit me.
It's an anagram.
You rearrange the letters, and you get âAlso A Phony.
â I had the wrong guy.
There is no âHal Posoyan.
â The name is made-up.
Which means that the identity of the person who illustrated Sleights and Deception is as big a mystery as Walker Elmsley's.
I did call Claude, but it was only to tell him I was done.
I offered to sell him the research I'd accumulated.
I knew he was an Elmsley hunter, and I needed the money.
He ended up writing me a check for $2,000.
Ask one of our banks to dig up a copy.
You'll see.
He wrote âHappy Retirementâ in the memo section.
Pick a card, any card.
What is all this? Earlier today, the captain and I met with Quinn Malcolm's favorite suspect.
As it turned out, she was able to alibi herself for the window of time in which Claude Rysher's bullet was poisoned.
So, naturally, you went out and bought a few thousand playing cards.
CCS is currently working to locate the Christian names and the physical addresses of other people who have corresponded with Malcolm over the years.
In the meantime, I thought I would try and solve the mystery of who wrote The Art of Sleights and Deception myself.
I'm your partner, so I assume that you'll split the $2 million with me.
You can have all of it.
The important thing is that the competition ends, 'cause once it's over The killer won't have reason to hurt anyone else.
Well, it's only stumped people for 54 years.
How hard could it be? That's the spirit.
You still haven't explained the cards.
It was suggested this afternoon that the name of the person who illustrated the book is also a fake.
I wonder what that might mean, if anything.
But a closer look at their handiwork seemed warranted.
On the left, an illustration from Sleights and Deception.
On the right, a card from a Samuels & Sons 1959 Courtesan deck of playing cards.
Do you know why the King of Hearts is called âThe Suicide King?â Because of the way he holds his sword.
It looks like it's going through his head.
Yes.
Now this is true of virtually all traditional playing cards produced over the last 200 years.
Equally true is that the sword is held in the left hand.
But look at the illustration.
Sword is in his right hand.
Yeah.
I find this odd.
I wanted to know, is this a quirk of a particular card, or was it something more? That meant identifying the card used by the author in 1963.
I was able to determine the brand, Samuels & Sons, from the pattern on the back.
Determining the set-- that was another story.
So you bought a bunch of sets that they made before 1963, you saw that this card was a Courtesan.
I compared cards from that set to other illustrations in the book, and I found more design reversals.
The Queen looking left when she should be looking right.
The Jack holding his scepter in the wrong hand.
Devotees of Sleights and Deception have always assumed that the illustrator was hired to draw the hands of the author as he performed the tricks, but if that were the case, why would any of the elements in the cards be reversed? Well, they wouldn't, unless the illustrator was drawing his own hands in the mirror.
You think that he and the author were the same person.
It feels like a breakthrough, but it puts us no closer to the man's name.
What? It's probably nothing, but these lines here-- they show up in every drawing.
It could just be the way the illustrator draws hands.
Or? They're scars from surgery to correct carpal tunnel syndrome.
The thing is, carpal tunnel wasn't surgically correctable until the late 1950s.
But if the author underwent the procedure back then, he was probably part of a medical study, which would mean That his name would be recorded somewhere.
Find the records from the right study, find the real Walker Elmsley.
I think you were right.
The author of Sleights and Deception did participate in a study of carpal tunnel surgery in the late 1950s.
(sighs) Oh, good morning to you, too.
There were three happening at the time-- one in Houston, one in Minneapolis, and one in New York.
I started with the one in New York, because that's where the book was published.
Okay.
The study was conducted at Stuyvesant Memorial.
All documentation was relegated to a storage facility in Queens in 1984.
(sighs) I'll get dressed.
No need.
Look in the folder.
The storage unit which held the records was gutted by a fire a decade ago.
It was confirmed as arson, but a culprit was never identified.
Curiously, the fire took place less than one month after Quinn Malcolm said he would pay $2 million for Walker Elmsley's real name.
Curiouser still, whoever started the fire picked the lock on the storage unit with their left hand.
Just like the person who broke into Claude Rysher's apartment.
Our killer/arsonist isn't interested in solving the mystery of who wrote Sleights and Deception.
Quite the opposite.
They want to keep the author's secret a secret.
Detective Bell? Ballard Clifton.
These are my colleagues-- Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson.
My assistant tells me you have some questions about a book we published, The Art of Slights and Deception.
HOLMES: We do.
Specifically, whether it led one of you to murder a street magician named Claude Rysher.
No, this is a joke.
Mr.
Clifton, you head up Farraday's specialty books division, correct? Slights and Deception is one of your perennial money-makers.
It is.
HOLMES: Thanks to the author being unknown, you've been in the enviable position of never having to pay a cent in royalties.
But, by the same token, if his identity were uncovered, his estate could sue Farraday Publishing for past and future payments.
WATSON: We have reason to believe that Claude Rysher was killed because he was getting close to finding out who the real author was.
(chuckles) So you think someone here Something funny? CLIFTON: I'm sorry.
I know someone was murdered and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we don't owe back or future royalties to anyone.
And we know who wrote The Art of Slights and Deception, and we've been paying his estate all along.
HOLMES: If you're saying there are heirs, I'd very much like to meet one.
Well, you just did.
I'm the author's grandson.
My grandfather's name was Albert Lange.
This is the original signed contract with Turnleaf Books back in 1963.
You can see there's language that shows both parties agree that his book will be published under the pseudonym âWalker Elmsley.
â And, to make sure that there's no paper trail, Turnleaf would send him checks for a book that he would never actually write.
âTurnleaf's Field Guide to North American Waterfowl.
â (Clifton chuckles) Turnleaf did right by my grandfather.
And when Farraday bought Turnleaf, they did the same.
Hell, he's the reason why I have a job here.
Me and my family have had a relationship with this company for decades.
Why didn't he want his real name on the cover? Honestly? He thought it'd be good for sales.
This book is about magic, and magic is about mystery.
At least that's what he used to say.
Mr.
Clifton, did your grandfather have carpal tunnel syndrome? You noticed the scars? The ones on the hands in the book? (chuckles) That's as close as he ever came to actually signing his work.
But people never really seemed to see it, they think they're just creases in the poems.
Who else knows the truth about your grandfather? Well, well, uh, my mother, my sister, a few of the higher-ups here at Farraday.
Why? You said he thought the mystery was good for sales? If that's still true today Wait, you're wondering if someone would kill to keep it going? No.
No way.
(chuckles) We have run the numbers, okay? I mean, the secret of who really wrote the book is good for business, absolutely.
But someone solving it would be just as good.
When Quinn Malcolm offered $2 million for Walker Elmsley's real name, sales of the book spiked.
We'll get another spike when someone claims it.
Mystery kept, mystery solved, it all balances out financially.
I don't know who hurt Claude Rysher.
but it wasn't any of us.
Hey, you guys finding anything in Ballard Clifton's box of old junk? Just a lot of evidence that he wasn't lying.
He even included a boyhood picture of himself playing âGo Fishâ with his grandfather.
HOLMES: Hardly seems fair, a legendary card shark, against a doltish child.
The funny thing is, Albert Lange wasn't even a professional magician, he was a print ad artist for a small advertising firm.
Magic was just a hobby.
On the bright side, I guess we could go claim Quinn Malcolm's $2 million prize.
It's actually quite a setback.
Our theory of motive has been punctured.
I may have a new one.
Report from CCS on Rysher's laptop came back.
Turns out he'd been poking around the dark Web, hunting for-- get this-- Nazi memorabilia.
That's sick.
But you saw his place, knick-knacks from the Third Reich would fit right in.
Yeah, but there was something specific he was after, an anatomy book written by a doctor who was stationed at a concentration camp.
Apparently everything he wrote was based on autopsies of people who died there.
Wow, suddenly I'm not so sure I care who killed Claude Rysher.
Well, two weeks ago, someone listed a copy of the book in an online auction.
Rysher was the winner.
You think perhaps he was killed by someone he outbid.
Let's just say I think the people who try to buy Nazi crap on the Internet are capable of all sorts of things.
I don't know what you heard, but I haven't laid a hand on a passenger since that ghetto trash got in my face back in October.
Mr.
Frye Look, the judge told me to take my probation seriously, and I have.
That's great, but we didn't ask you down here to talk about you beating up people on your bus.
We're here to talk about a murder.
You were involved in an online auction couple weeks ago.
You were trying to buy an anatomy book that was published in Germany during World War II.
So what? I'm allowed to do that.
We don't ban books in this country yet, do we? WATSON: I get the sense that the irony of that statement is lost on you, but no, we don't care that you bid on that book.
We care that the guy who won the auction, Claude Rysher, got murdered.
You think I did it? HOLMES: You have connections to a long list of Neo-Nazi organizations.
Your own personal history of violence is quite impressive.
The assault on the aforementioned bus passenger is only the most recent assault of which we're aware.
You and Mr.
Rysher had been going at each other during the bidding.
Got pretty heated.
You told him he'd regret it if he didn't back off.
Yeah, I did.
But there's a big hole in your theory.
Why would I kill a guy over a book when I could just go buy another copy? WATSON: Because the book you wanted is rare, and, for obvious reasons, it was discontinued after the Second World War.
Yeah.
But ârareâ doesn't mean there's just one in the whole world.
When I lost that first auction, I went and found another one.
And I won it.
Go look at my Web history.
Better yet, I can bring you the book I bought, and you can see it for yourself.
I didn't kill anyone.
You want some of my Szechuan shrimp? Marcus.
Hmm? Where'd you go? (sighs) Sorry.
I, uh I was gonna wait till after dinner.
What is it? I, uh I went to see Roy yesterday.
I looked him in the eye.
Asked him about the report that got filed against me.
He put Gorham up to it.
No question in my mind.
The whole thing's a setup.
God.
How does he even know this guy? I don't know.
I looked at every command Roy ever worked, every place Gorham lived I just can't figure out how the two of them connect.
I can't prove it.
You don't have to prove anything to me.
I know what he's capable of.
You know, we never talked about him.
You're such a good person.
I like to think you have good taste in men.
But your ex is a piece of garbage.
And I just don't understand how you two were ever a couple.
He wasn't always this way.
I mean, when we met, I was an intern in the D.
A.
's office.
He was a uni.
Neither of us had two dimes to rub together.
I was living with roommates, paying off student loans.
He was sleeping on his sister's floor in Stuy Town.
He wasn't a raging idiot then? No.
It was good for a while.
Then it wasn't.
Our careers went off in different directions.
I sort of flew up the ladder.
And Roy failed his Sergeant's exam.
Got passed up on promotions.
I don't know.
It soured him.
In the end, he started to resent me.
Like I said.
Raging idiot.
You said he used to live in Stuy Town? That's not in his files.
Yeah.
It was an illegal sublet.
He didn't want it in his file, so Do you remember the building? That's the anatomy book from that bus driver? It feels dirty just to hold it.
Is that your way of telling me you want me to look at it? No, I looked at it for both of us.
Knowing how the book was made, the experience is as nauseating as you would imagine.
And yet, one good thing has come from studying it.
I stared into the abyss, Watson, and the abyss told me who killed Claude Rysher.
Sure.
Let me call you back.
Detective Bell.
My assistant didn't tell me you were here.
Yeah, we told her not to.
You never know how a murderer's going to react when they hear a cadre of police is here to see them.
You could try poisoning their bullets, but I don't fancy your chances.
(sighs) We have been over this.
No one at this company has any reason to kill anyone.
Especially me.
Your division here at Farraday is âspecialty books.
â Well, what do you think of that one? We borrowed that from a Neo-Nazi.
Not quite the same as a Nazi Nazi, but I think that he and your grandfather would have got along swimmingly.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm talking about the illustrations of human anatomy in that book.
When I forced myself to crack its spine last night, I could tell right away that they were the work of Albert Lange.
I've been scrutinizing his work in Sleights and Deception, you see.
The similarities in style were unmistakable.
And as it turns out, they were the work of âA.
Lange.
â I don't know what to tell you.
That's not my grandfather.
BELL: But he was German, right? He emigrated here in the late '40s? He did, but not all Germans are Nazis.
We're pretty sure your grandfather was.
We've reached out to the Office of Special Investigations at the Department of Justice to confirm it.
If we're right, gotta think it's gonna deal a blow to the sales of his other book.
HOLMES: Sleights and Deception aside, what will people think of you and your family? What will they think of Farraday Publishing? You've all been profiting off the work of a Nazi for decades.
BELL: That's why you killed Claude Rysher, isn't it? Somehow, you realized how close he was getting to exposing your granddad.
Or maybe he reached out to you, and maybe it got back to you that he was poking around in Turnleaf's old records, so you broke into his apartment, and you sabotaged his favorite magic trick.
Then, after he died, you went back and took the records, along with any other research he'd gathered.
HOLMES: Including his copy of the offending anatomy book.
(scoffs) Maybe you can prove your claims about my grandfather's past, but there's no way you can prove I killed anyone.
HOLMES: Actually, we can.
Because after you stole Claude Rysher's book, which he obtained via auction on the dark Web, you were foolish enough to go right back and sell it yourself.
It's rare, after all, and a few thousand bucks is a few thousand bucks.
Your commitment to profiting from your Nazi grandfather's exploits is quite remarkable.
(scoffs) No.
That's crazy.
The guy who loaned us that book said it wasn't as hard as we thought to find other copies.
When we looked into that, we saw one had just been sold with basically the same item description as the one that Mr.
Rysher bought.
It listed damage to the lower spine and a water stain on the cover, so we paid the buyer a visit.
This book-- the one she got from you-- has your prints and Rysher's all over it.
Now, if you can explain that without copping to his murder, you're a better magician than your grandfather was.
This is an interrogation room, isn't it? Just somewhere where we can talk, Mr.
Gorham.
Nothing to worry about this time.
What do you mean âthis timeâ? I mean if you don't want to have to come back here of a more official conversation, then sit down and listen up.
When I asked you if you knew Roy Booker the other day, you said you didn't.
But from 2006 to 2009, you lived in adjacent apartments in a building in Stuy Town.
Okay.
I still don't know who he is.
I couldn't tell you the name of my next-door neighbor now.
WATSON: In 2008, police came to your apartment because a woman was making a scene.
She said that you refused to pay her for a massage.
When police ran her name, they saw she had a record.
You were about to be charged with patronizing a prostitute, but your next-door neighbor was a cop, and he stepped in to help smooth things over, didn't he? WATSON: That was Roy Booker, and thanks to him, none of this ever made it into the official record.
We're guessing that your wife never found out about it either.
GREGSON: The thing is, I asked around at the 15th, and there was a cop there who remembered the incident.
And the way he tells it, you and Booker were real pals.
You felt like you owed Roy.
When he asked you to make up a story about a detective pointing a gun at you, you did.
I think I need to speak with a lawyer.
That's one option.
Or you could realize that we're throwing you a lifeline.
Grab it.
When the connection between you and Roy comes up, you will be charged with falsely reporting an incident.
The truth about the call girl will also become public.
Or you could get in front of this while you still can.
Recant your story and give us a new statement.
WATSON: Either way, Roy is gonna be arrested for conspiracy and criminal solicitation.
So it's your choice whether or not you want to go down with him.
It's over? WATSON: Roy was arraigned and released, pending trial.
So as far as you and I are concerned, yeah, it's over.
I owe you big time.
My next call was gonna be to Chantal, unless you want to give her the good news.
Matter of fact, I just got to her place.
I'll tell her everything.
All right, I'll see you tomorrow.
See you then.
I get drunk off one sip Chantal? I want the entire street out of town Just so I can be alone with you Now go when you're ready My head's getting heavy (line ringing) (cell phone ringing nearby) Chantal? I do adore you I adore you (ringing)
That's the life of a superstar A.
D.
A.
, right? Can I get a rain check? Of course.
What the hell, man? How about I buy you another one? Oh, you got something for me, cop? The guy you hit, his name was Roy Booker.
He's my ex-husband.
It was a setup.
Roy makes a scene in Chantal's office, the D.
A.
thinks she's distracted, pulls her off the case.
And I played right into the plan.
And then you took early retirement on a disability claim, right? Said you tore your right rotator cuff? So? So the claim is bogus.
You're gonna steer clear of her, forever.
(speaking inaudibly) Hey.
What's going on? You saw? It's kind of hard to miss.
Who were those guys? Tall one's my union delegate.
The one who looks like he's making diamonds in his colon is Internal Affairs.
Last night, I was driving home, when some guy pulled up next to me at a light, started leaning on his horn.
So I roll down my window.
He says that I cut him off a few blocks back.
Which I didn't.
So I tell him he's got the wrong car.
Light turns green.
I drive off.
This morning, I get a call from I.
A.
They say, âBe here by 8:00 and bring your union rep.
â The guy from last night called 911, gave 'em my plate number.
Said that when I lowered my window, I drew my weapon on him.
What? Guy's insane.
Obviously.
But try telling that to I.
A.
They say it's my word against his.
So what happens now? They haven't decided yet.
They could put me on modified assignment till they sort it all out.
Which is a nice way of saying âchained to a desk.
â Things go really sideways, the D.
A.
could decide to hit me with criminal charges.
That's not gonna happen.
People know you.
People here know me.
To the rat squad, I'm just another opportunity.
You said the D.
A.
could press charges.
Maybe Chantal could help? Uh, I'm gonna call her.
But I got to think they'll ask my girlfriend to sit this one out.
Whatever happens, we're here for you.
Whatever you need, you let us know.
Hey.
You okay? Not now.
You want to tell me what the (gasps) What the hell just happened? Magic.
Thank you, Bethesda.
That'll be all.
Did you want a turn? Got anything bigger? Stay weird, sweetie.
I'll call you when I'm back from Rome.
(door opens) (door shuts) First of all Ow! Stop it.
You think that was funny? Making me think you were about to get your head blown off? The trick you just saw is known as a bullet catch.
More specifically, it is the signature trick of a lauded New York City street magician named Razr.
Come on.
This is from a performance of his several weeks ago.
RAZR: Raise the pistol.
Aim directly at my mouth.
I'll raise this hand, I'll count two, motion three.
Are you ready? One, two (gunshot) It looks dangerous, but, in reality, it's no more hazardous than brushing your teeth.
The bullet is never placed in the gun's chamber, you see? It is palmed, and then a slug is hidden beneath the magician's tongue.
The blank is fired, head goes back, and then, voilà , bullet catch.
That's great.
And why the hell were you doing it? I was attempting to estimate the minimum amount of time Razr's bullet was in his mouth the last time he performed the catch.
I was hoping it would help me to determine what kind of poison was used before the M.
E.
What poison? What are you talking about? Razr, aka Claude Rysher, was performing his favorite trick onstage the other day when he suddenly turned blue and died.
He collapsed at the same time the gun was fired, leaving many in the audience to think he'd been shot.
As you can see, he was not.
The M.
E.
who performed the autopsy found a bullet lodged squarely in his throat.
She recorded the death as accidental, believing that he had choked.
I found that hard to believe.
- Why? - For a brief spell in London, I was the carnal cohort of a magician named Glorious Galinda.
I learned repeatedly and to my great satisfaction that there is no muscle more useful to the skilled illusionist than his or her tongue.
It comes into play in any number of tricks and is exercised constantly.
In Galinda's case, it was as if she had a third hand living in her mouth I get it.
So you didn't think someone as skilled as Razr would've fumbled the slug he was hiding.
I was right to be suspicious.
Mr.
Rysher died from organophosphate poisoning.
All indications are that the bullet was soaked in it.
That's why he turned blue.
He must have inhaled the bullet when he was struggling to breathe.
This is the first time in my career that a bullet has taken a life without being fired.
Elementary 5x20 The Art of Sleights and Deception (creaking) Oh.
This is nice.
Must've been for one of his tricks.
Or not.
One thing practitioners of magic tend to have in common is a fascination with the macabre.
Depictions of death.
Torture devices.
Instruments of the occult.
These things find their way not only into the magician's act but into his or her way of life.
You look at the iron maiden and you think, âHow awful.
â Mr.
Rysher probably looked at it and thought, âIf only I could find the matching Judas Cradleâ" It's a pyramid of iron set atop a stool.
The victim is disrobed and then lowered via harness until We got it.
Don't look at me.
I've been to your place.
I'm surprised you guys don't have one of these.
So, this lock was picked quite recently.
Presumably when the killer broke in to poison Mr.
Rysher's bullet.
The work is sloppy.
I could say with certainty that the person we're looking for is left-handed.
BELL: I'll get CSU over here to dust for prints.
Think maybe you should leave the firearms to me? It's not real.
It's plastic.
Ooh, check this out.
âRazr-- Stop stealing other people's tricks.
Or else.
Anubis.
â That's got to be another magician, right? (phone chimes) It's Chantal.
I asked her to tell me when the guy who filed the complaint against you was giving his statement at the D.
A.
's office.
She said he just got there.
You know neither one of you can be a part of that meeting, right? I just want to take a look at him.
Joan Listen, I promise I will tread lightly.
In the meantime, maybe you and Sherlock can find out who Anubis is.
(indistinct chatter) Joan.
Over here.
Hey.
Did I miss it? Doesn't take long to tell a bunch of lies.
That's our guy over there.
Titus Gorham.
He's the one on the right.
I recognize the cop he's with.
Internal Affairs, right? Yeah.
I guess if they like your story enough, they'll help you hail a cab.
He probably told them he was afraid Marcus would show up here.
Did you hear what he said when he gave his statement? According to my colleague, Mr.
Gorham picked Marcus out of a photo array and told him the same story he told I.
A.
-- that Marcus cut him off, they got in a shouting match, and Marcus pulled his weapon.
He gave a lot of detail.
If I didn't know he was lying, I'd say he'd make a hell of a witness at trial.
This is everything I was able to dig up on him.
His record's clean, but maybe you can find something I didn't.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I recognize this letter.
Because I'm the one who wrote it.
Not sure I'd call it a letter.
Or do you send all your mail in guns? Ms.
Newsome, as you may have guessed, we were able to identify you from your stage name, Anubis.
You're a magician also.
Quite an angry magician, judging by that note.
Claude and I used to date.
We were together for about a year.
I'd go to his shows, he'd come to mine.
A few months after we broke up, I heard that he was doing a bunch of my tricks, including the bullet catch.
It hurt.
Magicians don't do that to each other.
BELL: So you sent him a warning.
He didn't listen.
He caught bullets till the bitter end.
This is insane.
I called 911 to help, not to be accused of murder.
911? Yeah.
When I heard that Claude had choked, I didn't believe it.
I got referred to a cop and I told him that Claude was the master at the catch.
Even better than me.
I figured someone must have messed with his bullet.
Sprayed Teflon on it to make it harder to manipulate or poisoned it somehow.
The cop that I spoke to, he didn't tell anybody that I called, did he? If you spoke to the police, this is the first we're hearing about it.
I knew he wasn't taking me seriously.
His name was Lassetter.
He's a detective at the 21st Precinct.
Talk to him.
He'll tell you that I called.
And if he doesn't, maybe I will kill someone.
Ms.
Newsome Everyone said that what happened was an accident.
If I was the one responsible, why would I try to tell the police otherwise? If we're able to confirm your story and if you didn't kill Claude, who do you think did? Claude liked to gamble.
Poker, mainly.
You think he got in over his head? Racked up a debt he couldn't pay back? No.
The opposite.
Before he stole all of my tricks, his act was mostly card-based.
He could do anything with them.
Including cheat at poker.
Maybe somebody finally got tired of losing to him.
(phone chimes) Angela Newsome's story checks out.
She did call 911, and she was transferred to a Detective Lassetter.
Doesn't prove she's not our killer But it lowers the odds.
Sorry to hear about your troubles with Internal Affairs.
Thanks.
You need me to assist Watson? No.
I'm pretty sure a homicide trumps a phony complaint to I.
A.
On the off chance that you do find yourself deskbound I'll understand if you want to see other detectives.
There.
This won't take long.
(door closes) You look like a man who could use some furniture.
Looking for a table, actually.
I got some great pieces right over here.
What I want's in the back.
Hey.
You can't be back here.
That's funny.
Neither can this.
All right.
Leave.
Now, or I call the cops.
Well, as luck would have it, there's a detective from the Major Case squad sitting right outside.
You could invite him in, but then you'd have to admit that you've been running an illegal card room.
I've confirmed it with multiple sources.
What do you want? A man named Claude Rysher was one of your regulars.
Also knows as âRazrâ" Yeah, I know him.
So? So he's dead.
Murdered, to be precise.
I'm exploring the possibility that his killer was someone that he cheated at cards.
Cheated? (scoffs) No, no way.
No.
I run a clean game here.
Well, I know from personal experience that people like you vet your customers thoroughly, so I refuse to believe that you were unaware that your game was being frequented by a magician whose specialty was card manipulation.
Claude paid me to look the other way when he played.
I'm gonna need a list of the names of all of your regular players.
No, you won't.
He wasn't cheating everyone, just one guy.
It was like he was, I don't know, targeting him.
The guy ended up owing Claude a fortune.
Does this guy have a name? Hey.
Where's Sherlock? Conference room.
Guy Claude Rysher was fleecing got here early.
I was just getting him some water.
Before we go in there we should talk about Titus Gorham.
I missed him at the D.
A.
's office, so I went to the place where he works.
And? Chantal said he had his story down pat.
She was right.
He had answers for everything.
A lot of detail, too.
Too much detail, if you ask me.
What do you mean? Well, when I asked him about your gun, he said it was a Glock 19 nine millimeter.
That's not just right, it's specific.
You and I both know that you didn't point your gun at him, so how did he know the model and the make? He also talked about how you were in âplain clothesâ" That's cop talk.
So what are you saying? I'm saying that it sounded like he was coached on what to say by a cop.
You think Internal Affairs No.
Not them.
Chantal's ex.
Roy.
Listen, I can't be sure, but look at what he tried to do to her a few months ago.
You really think he's above getting someone to file a false complaint against you? Mr.
Keating here was just absorbing the news of Claude Rysher's death.
I didn't do it.
I might have also mentioned that he's a suspect.
It's our understanding you owed Claude a lot of money.
Mmm.
I did, but I settled up with him weeks ago.
We were square.
Then I'm sure you won't mind showing us your personal financial records.
You can identify the payment you issued him.
I would, only I didn't pay him in cash.
I paid him in information.
He came to see me at my office.
I had about a-a third of what I owed him.
I told him I'd get him the rest by the end of the month.
But he said he didn't want it.
He didn't even want the money I had.
Then what did he want? I'm a private client banker at Sequoia Liberty.
Claude was interested in this old publishing house that used to do business with us, Turnleaf Books.
He wanted me to unseal and copy all of their ledgers from 1963.
Why? He wouldn't say.
I pulled up everything I could find from '63 and made copies.
I sent boxes of the stuff to Claude's apartment, at least a dozen.
We were there this morning.
We didn't see any boxes.
Well well, then, he must have moved them someplace else.
I think it's more likely they were taken by the person who killed him.
Can I have a word? Obviously, you buy what that guy is selling.
Why? Well, firstly, he's right-handed.
And the person who picked Claude Rysher's lock was a lefty.
Speaking of, I now think that the culprit broke into Rysher's home twice.
Once to douse his bullet, and another time after he was dead, to relieve him of Turnleaf's bank records.
Well, if Keating is telling the truth, why would Rysher care about 54-year-old bank records? You're puzzling as to why he would forgive a six-figure debt for them.
I think the answer's quite simple.
He believed that the records held a secret worth seven figures.
(sighs) The Art of Sleights and Deception.
Oh, it's a magician's how-to book.
Check the publisher and year of publication.
Farraday, 1963.
The original publisher was the other company that Mr.
Keating mentioned, Turnleaf Books.
And that book is no mere how-to.
It is, in fact, widely considered to be the magician's bible.
Well, it looks mostly like card tricks to me.
You were expecting a section on how to saw a woman in half? The book is meant to teach the fine art of prestidigitation.
The magic of the hands.
Making your audience look over here when your trick is happening over here.
Is that my credit card? I didn't have any cash for the book.
Anyway, the book is a bible, and it's very hard to find a magician who doesn't own a copy.
Claude Rysher had his on a shelf in his living room.
I, myself, perused a copy when I was younger.
It was supposed to have a helpful chapter on lock-picking, but as it turned out, I was light-years ahead of anything the book could have taught me.
Do you want to tell me how Turnleaf's old bank records were gonna make Claude Rysher millions, or not? Who wrote The Art of Sleights and Deception? Walker Elmsley.
Walker Elmsley is a pseudonym.
Theories abound as to why the author wanted to keep his identity a secret, but the most likely is that he feared retribution from the mob.
There are numerous âwinksâ in the book that suggest his methods of card manipulation could be used to cheat at their casinos.
Practitioners of magic are obsessed with discovering the author's true identity, but none more so than a man named Quinn Malcolm.
The Quinn Malcolm? You're familiar? He used to have specials on TV when I was a kid.
He made the tip of the Empire State Building disappear once.
I think he has a nightly show now in Atlantic City.
I came across his name the same way I came across Sleights and Deception, by Googling âTurnleafâ and â1963.
â Uh, right here.
Thank you.
So four-plus decades in magic have made Quinn Malcolm as wealthy as he is eccentric.
So in 2007, he offered a standing price of $2 million to anyone who could solve magic's most enduring mystery: Who wrote his favorite book? So you figure that Claude Rysher thought the answer was in Turnleaf's old bank records? If a competitor agreed, it's possible that he or she killed him in order to procure them.
So I texted Galinda.
As it turns out, she opened for Mr.
Malcolm on several occasions when he toured the U.
K.
She gave me his information, and I left a message, asking if he could think of any especially aggressive seekers of his prize.
And he responded with this address.
A greengrocer? Well, like I said, he's eccentric.
I'm just gonna text him, tell him we're here.
(phone chimes) âRegrettably , I will not be able to meet you and your partner.
But would she be so kind as to tell me her favorite melon?â Obviously, he's messing with us.
Well, like I said, he's eccentric.
Eccentric, I know, but this is stupid.
Would you just Okay, honeydew.
Just tell him honeydew.
Honeydew.
(phone chimes) He wants you to pick one from the display.
(sighs) What the hell? The man is good.
So good.
(speaking Tagalog) Are you being free Like the wind? What would you recommend here? You can never go wrong with a burger.
You don't seem surprised to see me.
You are the one behind this mess with Titus Gorham.
That a name I'm supposed to know? He's the guy you got to file a false complaint against me.
He say he know me? No.
But it's just a matter of time before I find the connection.
Hmm.
Well, if you say so.
(sighs) What are you doing, man? Just paying for my lunch.
No.
I mean with Gorham.
You know that I know you faked your disability claim with the department.
I tell them, they'll pull your pension.
(laughs) Roy.
Couple of weeks ago, I went to see a new doctor.
He confirmed what the first one said, my rotator cuff is no good.
I got the MRI to prove it.
So you got another doctor to lie for you.
So what? Well, this new guy, he's the one the department would ask to examine me if you try to mess with my pension.
Turns out I'm not the first ex-cop that he's seen with my condition.
You mean you're not the first cop who was willing to pay him more.
Whatever you thought you had on me, made you think you could push me around? You don't.
As it rolls down You really got my name from Quinn Malcolm? GREGSON: We really did.
Along with all those e-mails.
Surely you recognize your own correspondence.
Oh.
Uh, I do.
It's just, he never wrote back.
I wasn't sure these were even getting through to him.
HOLMES: In the beginning, your tone is very friendly.
You were keeping him abreast of your progress as you searched for the real Walker Elmsley.
But over the last 18 months, you've become a little more obsessed.
Bellicose, even, regarding the $2 million that Malcolm was offering.
He became worried about your state of mind.
You're not the only competitor he was worried about, but you are the only one we found in Claude Rysher's phone records.
You called him on five different occasions last month.
Now, we're pretty sure he was after the same prize that you were, and now he's dead.
I understand why you would want to talk to me.
I did get obsessed with finding out who really wrote Sleights and Deception.
But I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Claude.
I quit the contest months ago.
I had to.
It was December.
I'd started thinking the best way to identify the real Elmsley was through his illustrator, the one who drew all his diagrams.
Hal Posoyan? I wasn't the first one to try and solve the mystery that way, but most people followed a trail that led to a Harold Posoyan, this cartoonist who died in the Vietnam War.
But not you.
I realized there was an âH.
Posoyanâ living at a retirement community in Phoenix, but I couldn't get anyone there to tell me anything about him, not even what the âHâ stood for.
So, I went to Phoenix.
I approached him outside of his apartment complex and started asking questions.
He tried to walk away, but I wouldn't let up.
I followed him.
And then he fell.
Broke both his hips.
I spent that night in jail, and for whatever reason, that name kept running through my head-- Hal Posoyan.
Hal Posoyan, Hal Posoyan.
All of a sudden, it hit me.
It's an anagram.
You rearrange the letters, and you get âAlso A Phony.
â I had the wrong guy.
There is no âHal Posoyan.
â The name is made-up.
Which means that the identity of the person who illustrated Sleights and Deception is as big a mystery as Walker Elmsley's.
I did call Claude, but it was only to tell him I was done.
I offered to sell him the research I'd accumulated.
I knew he was an Elmsley hunter, and I needed the money.
He ended up writing me a check for $2,000.
Ask one of our banks to dig up a copy.
You'll see.
He wrote âHappy Retirementâ in the memo section.
Pick a card, any card.
What is all this? Earlier today, the captain and I met with Quinn Malcolm's favorite suspect.
As it turned out, she was able to alibi herself for the window of time in which Claude Rysher's bullet was poisoned.
So, naturally, you went out and bought a few thousand playing cards.
CCS is currently working to locate the Christian names and the physical addresses of other people who have corresponded with Malcolm over the years.
In the meantime, I thought I would try and solve the mystery of who wrote The Art of Sleights and Deception myself.
I'm your partner, so I assume that you'll split the $2 million with me.
You can have all of it.
The important thing is that the competition ends, 'cause once it's over The killer won't have reason to hurt anyone else.
Well, it's only stumped people for 54 years.
How hard could it be? That's the spirit.
You still haven't explained the cards.
It was suggested this afternoon that the name of the person who illustrated the book is also a fake.
I wonder what that might mean, if anything.
But a closer look at their handiwork seemed warranted.
On the left, an illustration from Sleights and Deception.
On the right, a card from a Samuels & Sons 1959 Courtesan deck of playing cards.
Do you know why the King of Hearts is called âThe Suicide King?â Because of the way he holds his sword.
It looks like it's going through his head.
Yes.
Now this is true of virtually all traditional playing cards produced over the last 200 years.
Equally true is that the sword is held in the left hand.
But look at the illustration.
Sword is in his right hand.
Yeah.
I find this odd.
I wanted to know, is this a quirk of a particular card, or was it something more? That meant identifying the card used by the author in 1963.
I was able to determine the brand, Samuels & Sons, from the pattern on the back.
Determining the set-- that was another story.
So you bought a bunch of sets that they made before 1963, you saw that this card was a Courtesan.
I compared cards from that set to other illustrations in the book, and I found more design reversals.
The Queen looking left when she should be looking right.
The Jack holding his scepter in the wrong hand.
Devotees of Sleights and Deception have always assumed that the illustrator was hired to draw the hands of the author as he performed the tricks, but if that were the case, why would any of the elements in the cards be reversed? Well, they wouldn't, unless the illustrator was drawing his own hands in the mirror.
You think that he and the author were the same person.
It feels like a breakthrough, but it puts us no closer to the man's name.
What? It's probably nothing, but these lines here-- they show up in every drawing.
It could just be the way the illustrator draws hands.
Or? They're scars from surgery to correct carpal tunnel syndrome.
The thing is, carpal tunnel wasn't surgically correctable until the late 1950s.
But if the author underwent the procedure back then, he was probably part of a medical study, which would mean That his name would be recorded somewhere.
Find the records from the right study, find the real Walker Elmsley.
I think you were right.
The author of Sleights and Deception did participate in a study of carpal tunnel surgery in the late 1950s.
(sighs) Oh, good morning to you, too.
There were three happening at the time-- one in Houston, one in Minneapolis, and one in New York.
I started with the one in New York, because that's where the book was published.
Okay.
The study was conducted at Stuyvesant Memorial.
All documentation was relegated to a storage facility in Queens in 1984.
(sighs) I'll get dressed.
No need.
Look in the folder.
The storage unit which held the records was gutted by a fire a decade ago.
It was confirmed as arson, but a culprit was never identified.
Curiously, the fire took place less than one month after Quinn Malcolm said he would pay $2 million for Walker Elmsley's real name.
Curiouser still, whoever started the fire picked the lock on the storage unit with their left hand.
Just like the person who broke into Claude Rysher's apartment.
Our killer/arsonist isn't interested in solving the mystery of who wrote Sleights and Deception.
Quite the opposite.
They want to keep the author's secret a secret.
Detective Bell? Ballard Clifton.
These are my colleagues-- Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson.
My assistant tells me you have some questions about a book we published, The Art of Slights and Deception.
HOLMES: We do.
Specifically, whether it led one of you to murder a street magician named Claude Rysher.
No, this is a joke.
Mr.
Clifton, you head up Farraday's specialty books division, correct? Slights and Deception is one of your perennial money-makers.
It is.
HOLMES: Thanks to the author being unknown, you've been in the enviable position of never having to pay a cent in royalties.
But, by the same token, if his identity were uncovered, his estate could sue Farraday Publishing for past and future payments.
WATSON: We have reason to believe that Claude Rysher was killed because he was getting close to finding out who the real author was.
(chuckles) So you think someone here Something funny? CLIFTON: I'm sorry.
I know someone was murdered and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we don't owe back or future royalties to anyone.
And we know who wrote The Art of Slights and Deception, and we've been paying his estate all along.
HOLMES: If you're saying there are heirs, I'd very much like to meet one.
Well, you just did.
I'm the author's grandson.
My grandfather's name was Albert Lange.
This is the original signed contract with Turnleaf Books back in 1963.
You can see there's language that shows both parties agree that his book will be published under the pseudonym âWalker Elmsley.
â And, to make sure that there's no paper trail, Turnleaf would send him checks for a book that he would never actually write.
âTurnleaf's Field Guide to North American Waterfowl.
â (Clifton chuckles) Turnleaf did right by my grandfather.
And when Farraday bought Turnleaf, they did the same.
Hell, he's the reason why I have a job here.
Me and my family have had a relationship with this company for decades.
Why didn't he want his real name on the cover? Honestly? He thought it'd be good for sales.
This book is about magic, and magic is about mystery.
At least that's what he used to say.
Mr.
Clifton, did your grandfather have carpal tunnel syndrome? You noticed the scars? The ones on the hands in the book? (chuckles) That's as close as he ever came to actually signing his work.
But people never really seemed to see it, they think they're just creases in the poems.
Who else knows the truth about your grandfather? Well, well, uh, my mother, my sister, a few of the higher-ups here at Farraday.
Why? You said he thought the mystery was good for sales? If that's still true today Wait, you're wondering if someone would kill to keep it going? No.
No way.
(chuckles) We have run the numbers, okay? I mean, the secret of who really wrote the book is good for business, absolutely.
But someone solving it would be just as good.
When Quinn Malcolm offered $2 million for Walker Elmsley's real name, sales of the book spiked.
We'll get another spike when someone claims it.
Mystery kept, mystery solved, it all balances out financially.
I don't know who hurt Claude Rysher.
but it wasn't any of us.
Hey, you guys finding anything in Ballard Clifton's box of old junk? Just a lot of evidence that he wasn't lying.
He even included a boyhood picture of himself playing âGo Fishâ with his grandfather.
HOLMES: Hardly seems fair, a legendary card shark, against a doltish child.
The funny thing is, Albert Lange wasn't even a professional magician, he was a print ad artist for a small advertising firm.
Magic was just a hobby.
On the bright side, I guess we could go claim Quinn Malcolm's $2 million prize.
It's actually quite a setback.
Our theory of motive has been punctured.
I may have a new one.
Report from CCS on Rysher's laptop came back.
Turns out he'd been poking around the dark Web, hunting for-- get this-- Nazi memorabilia.
That's sick.
But you saw his place, knick-knacks from the Third Reich would fit right in.
Yeah, but there was something specific he was after, an anatomy book written by a doctor who was stationed at a concentration camp.
Apparently everything he wrote was based on autopsies of people who died there.
Wow, suddenly I'm not so sure I care who killed Claude Rysher.
Well, two weeks ago, someone listed a copy of the book in an online auction.
Rysher was the winner.
You think perhaps he was killed by someone he outbid.
Let's just say I think the people who try to buy Nazi crap on the Internet are capable of all sorts of things.
I don't know what you heard, but I haven't laid a hand on a passenger since that ghetto trash got in my face back in October.
Mr.
Frye Look, the judge told me to take my probation seriously, and I have.
That's great, but we didn't ask you down here to talk about you beating up people on your bus.
We're here to talk about a murder.
You were involved in an online auction couple weeks ago.
You were trying to buy an anatomy book that was published in Germany during World War II.
So what? I'm allowed to do that.
We don't ban books in this country yet, do we? WATSON: I get the sense that the irony of that statement is lost on you, but no, we don't care that you bid on that book.
We care that the guy who won the auction, Claude Rysher, got murdered.
You think I did it? HOLMES: You have connections to a long list of Neo-Nazi organizations.
Your own personal history of violence is quite impressive.
The assault on the aforementioned bus passenger is only the most recent assault of which we're aware.
You and Mr.
Rysher had been going at each other during the bidding.
Got pretty heated.
You told him he'd regret it if he didn't back off.
Yeah, I did.
But there's a big hole in your theory.
Why would I kill a guy over a book when I could just go buy another copy? WATSON: Because the book you wanted is rare, and, for obvious reasons, it was discontinued after the Second World War.
Yeah.
But ârareâ doesn't mean there's just one in the whole world.
When I lost that first auction, I went and found another one.
And I won it.
Go look at my Web history.
Better yet, I can bring you the book I bought, and you can see it for yourself.
I didn't kill anyone.
You want some of my Szechuan shrimp? Marcus.
Hmm? Where'd you go? (sighs) Sorry.
I, uh I was gonna wait till after dinner.
What is it? I, uh I went to see Roy yesterday.
I looked him in the eye.
Asked him about the report that got filed against me.
He put Gorham up to it.
No question in my mind.
The whole thing's a setup.
God.
How does he even know this guy? I don't know.
I looked at every command Roy ever worked, every place Gorham lived I just can't figure out how the two of them connect.
I can't prove it.
You don't have to prove anything to me.
I know what he's capable of.
You know, we never talked about him.
You're such a good person.
I like to think you have good taste in men.
But your ex is a piece of garbage.
And I just don't understand how you two were ever a couple.
He wasn't always this way.
I mean, when we met, I was an intern in the D.
A.
's office.
He was a uni.
Neither of us had two dimes to rub together.
I was living with roommates, paying off student loans.
He was sleeping on his sister's floor in Stuy Town.
He wasn't a raging idiot then? No.
It was good for a while.
Then it wasn't.
Our careers went off in different directions.
I sort of flew up the ladder.
And Roy failed his Sergeant's exam.
Got passed up on promotions.
I don't know.
It soured him.
In the end, he started to resent me.
Like I said.
Raging idiot.
You said he used to live in Stuy Town? That's not in his files.
Yeah.
It was an illegal sublet.
He didn't want it in his file, so Do you remember the building? That's the anatomy book from that bus driver? It feels dirty just to hold it.
Is that your way of telling me you want me to look at it? No, I looked at it for both of us.
Knowing how the book was made, the experience is as nauseating as you would imagine.
And yet, one good thing has come from studying it.
I stared into the abyss, Watson, and the abyss told me who killed Claude Rysher.
Sure.
Let me call you back.
Detective Bell.
My assistant didn't tell me you were here.
Yeah, we told her not to.
You never know how a murderer's going to react when they hear a cadre of police is here to see them.
You could try poisoning their bullets, but I don't fancy your chances.
(sighs) We have been over this.
No one at this company has any reason to kill anyone.
Especially me.
Your division here at Farraday is âspecialty books.
â Well, what do you think of that one? We borrowed that from a Neo-Nazi.
Not quite the same as a Nazi Nazi, but I think that he and your grandfather would have got along swimmingly.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm talking about the illustrations of human anatomy in that book.
When I forced myself to crack its spine last night, I could tell right away that they were the work of Albert Lange.
I've been scrutinizing his work in Sleights and Deception, you see.
The similarities in style were unmistakable.
And as it turns out, they were the work of âA.
Lange.
â I don't know what to tell you.
That's not my grandfather.
BELL: But he was German, right? He emigrated here in the late '40s? He did, but not all Germans are Nazis.
We're pretty sure your grandfather was.
We've reached out to the Office of Special Investigations at the Department of Justice to confirm it.
If we're right, gotta think it's gonna deal a blow to the sales of his other book.
HOLMES: Sleights and Deception aside, what will people think of you and your family? What will they think of Farraday Publishing? You've all been profiting off the work of a Nazi for decades.
BELL: That's why you killed Claude Rysher, isn't it? Somehow, you realized how close he was getting to exposing your granddad.
Or maybe he reached out to you, and maybe it got back to you that he was poking around in Turnleaf's old records, so you broke into his apartment, and you sabotaged his favorite magic trick.
Then, after he died, you went back and took the records, along with any other research he'd gathered.
HOLMES: Including his copy of the offending anatomy book.
(scoffs) Maybe you can prove your claims about my grandfather's past, but there's no way you can prove I killed anyone.
HOLMES: Actually, we can.
Because after you stole Claude Rysher's book, which he obtained via auction on the dark Web, you were foolish enough to go right back and sell it yourself.
It's rare, after all, and a few thousand bucks is a few thousand bucks.
Your commitment to profiting from your Nazi grandfather's exploits is quite remarkable.
(scoffs) No.
That's crazy.
The guy who loaned us that book said it wasn't as hard as we thought to find other copies.
When we looked into that, we saw one had just been sold with basically the same item description as the one that Mr.
Rysher bought.
It listed damage to the lower spine and a water stain on the cover, so we paid the buyer a visit.
This book-- the one she got from you-- has your prints and Rysher's all over it.
Now, if you can explain that without copping to his murder, you're a better magician than your grandfather was.
This is an interrogation room, isn't it? Just somewhere where we can talk, Mr.
Gorham.
Nothing to worry about this time.
What do you mean âthis timeâ? I mean if you don't want to have to come back here of a more official conversation, then sit down and listen up.
When I asked you if you knew Roy Booker the other day, you said you didn't.
But from 2006 to 2009, you lived in adjacent apartments in a building in Stuy Town.
Okay.
I still don't know who he is.
I couldn't tell you the name of my next-door neighbor now.
WATSON: In 2008, police came to your apartment because a woman was making a scene.
She said that you refused to pay her for a massage.
When police ran her name, they saw she had a record.
You were about to be charged with patronizing a prostitute, but your next-door neighbor was a cop, and he stepped in to help smooth things over, didn't he? WATSON: That was Roy Booker, and thanks to him, none of this ever made it into the official record.
We're guessing that your wife never found out about it either.
GREGSON: The thing is, I asked around at the 15th, and there was a cop there who remembered the incident.
And the way he tells it, you and Booker were real pals.
You felt like you owed Roy.
When he asked you to make up a story about a detective pointing a gun at you, you did.
I think I need to speak with a lawyer.
That's one option.
Or you could realize that we're throwing you a lifeline.
Grab it.
When the connection between you and Roy comes up, you will be charged with falsely reporting an incident.
The truth about the call girl will also become public.
Or you could get in front of this while you still can.
Recant your story and give us a new statement.
WATSON: Either way, Roy is gonna be arrested for conspiracy and criminal solicitation.
So it's your choice whether or not you want to go down with him.
It's over? WATSON: Roy was arraigned and released, pending trial.
So as far as you and I are concerned, yeah, it's over.
I owe you big time.
My next call was gonna be to Chantal, unless you want to give her the good news.
Matter of fact, I just got to her place.
I'll tell her everything.
All right, I'll see you tomorrow.
See you then.
I get drunk off one sip Chantal? I want the entire street out of town Just so I can be alone with you Now go when you're ready My head's getting heavy (line ringing) (cell phone ringing nearby) Chantal? I do adore you I adore you (ringing)