The prime suspect is Dante’s beautiful assistant, (real name: Mabel Higgins), who was supposed to release the safety catch on the blade. She swears she did, but the catch was found locked. Also in the wings: the jealous stage manager Horace Pringle , who hated Dante’s arrogant demands; a rival illusionist known as The Great Aldini , who attended the rehearsal disguised as a reporter; and Dante’s estranged wife, Evelyn Ripley , who recently discovered he’d faked his own death in a train wreck five years ago to collect insurance.

In the darkened theatre, alone on stage, a single playing card flips over by itself: the ace of spades.

The killer is Horace Pringle —not out of jealousy, but because he was the real Arthur Ripley’s twin brother, abandoned as a child. Horace had tracked Dante down after the train hoax left their elderly mother destitute. The “rip” in the trick’s name was a taunt to Horace: “death to him.” But Horace turned the trick into a true death rip—using the tank’s water pressure to hold the wire taut while Dante was paralyzed, then releasing it as the blade descended to mask the sound.