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They both turned to face Max, who stood only a few feet away from them. He was in front of an antiquated cabinet about the size of an old-fashioned phone booth. There was a curtain in place of a door, and it was opened so you could see inside. The interior had alternating stripes of purple and light red that went up vertically from the bottom of the box.
“So you don’t believe he got the plans for Prism? Then I’ll prove it.” Max stepped on a nearby foot pedal.
The two oblong prisms began to spin.
“Max, that’s not going to help,” Pro yelled, but both she and Tom took a step back.
There was a strange “whirring” noise and a high-pitched screech pulsated through the room, which made Pro and Chu cover their ears.
With one simple gesture, Max threw the open handcuffs to Pro’s feet and held his arms aloft…
And was gone.
The effect was so startling that both Pro and Chu, their hands still over their ears, blinked in astonishment.
Pro quickly traced the foot pedal cord that Max had stepped on. It went to a small box with a blinking light. She went around the rapidly rotating prisms and followed the wire to a metal box with lights. It looked like some kind of pre-made utility box one would use for a home electronics project.
Still, she located a small red toggle switch, and with a flick of her hand, turned the unit off. The blinking light went out, and the high-pitched whine ceased.
The spinning crystals began to slow, and Chu moved into the place Max had stood. “Where did he go?”
Suddenly, the door was pulled open forcibly, and there stood Malcolm Shaut. He was breathing hard, as he obviously had just ran out of the house, down the stairs, and to the door.
“What are you doing here?” he panted as sweat rolled down the side of his face.
16. Cabinet Escape
Uniformed officers were out front of the brownstone, and several forensic investigators were checking the scene carefully.
Upstairs on the first floor, Pro and Chu sat across from Malcolm Shaut as he looked from detective to detective.
“So you are [email protected],” Pro accused.
“I have no idea what you are talking about!”
“We cracked your use of the Houdini code. Honestly, do
you think we’re stupid?”
Shaut looked desperately at Chu. “Has she lost her mind?”
“And then you hacked the NYPD servers and erased the message.” Pro pulled a folded paper from her pocket and slapped it down onto the desk. “Here! Read it yourself!”
“I’m a software developer, not a hacker, and I haven’t hacked anyone!” Shaut carefully picked up the creased sheet and opened it. He looked at it for a moment, then tentatively put it down and glared at Pro. “I didn’t write this or send it.”
“Oh, I see,” Pro demanded angrily. “So why did you neglect to let us know you had a working prototype of Prism?”
Chu cleared his throat. “It does seem odd, Mister Shaut, that you were trying to get plans for the trick while you have a working version in your basement.”
“Look, I’m telling you, I didn’t write that email, and I don’t even have an email account like that. As far as what I have in the basement, that was me tinkering away. Floss gave me a rough idea of the size of the prisms used in the effect and the spinning platforms, so I had those made. I also figured out the control box with my assistant. We hooked up the electronics to make the platforms rotate. But, I couldn’t get the trick to work.”
“We just saw it work,” Pro said while gesticulating wildly. “It made Max disappear!”
“All I can think is that he got it functioning somehow. You said you found him there. Do you have any idea how long he’d been there? I only came down because of the noises I heard. I recognized that high-pitched whine from the previous tests we had done.”
“So where did Mister Martin go?” Chu demanded.
“I have no idea. From what I was told by Floss, it doesn’t really make anyone disappear; it somehow bends light around a center point.”
