Second murder committed with a revolver fitted with a silencer. A silencer is particularly ineffective on a revolver.
When illusionist Gideon Latimer points to the portrait of his magician-ancestor, it's actually a very famous portrait of the composer Franz Liszt.
The scene of crime officer explains that the rope used to keep up the perspex box showed traces of nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is an extremely unstable explosive which detonates at the slightest agitation, and would be totally unsuitable for any sort of sabotage. In fact, it would have blown the ropes apart the moment the box was first hauled into position.