Ketty was standing next to me, observing everything I did.
I indicated the slightly larger cabinet, at the back. Its door was closed.
‘May I have a look at this one?’ I said.
‘I can open it and you can inspect it. But don’t touch anything. This one has a self-operating mechanism, which goes suddenly into action. Three years ago a child, brought in by one of the visitors, had an accident. Since then we always have to supervise.’
At that moment the door to the museum opened, admitting a shaft of brilliant sunlight. One of the engineers I had seen earlier was standing there. The welding mask was tipped back above his head.
‘Ketty, a big party of visitors have arrived,’ he said. ‘They would like you to open up the Scrambler and a couple of sideshows.’
She responded immediately.
‘I’ll be right there, Vejo,’ she said, and the welder withdrew. Ketty turned to Spoder and me, looking indecisive. ‘I have to go. You ought to wait outside – I shouldn’t leave anyone alone in here.’
‘We’re just looking around,’ I said.
‘All right. I’ll come back shortly. If you want to finish in here, let yourselves out and I’ll close the building later.’
She took a key from her pocket, an ordinary key, the sort used to open house doors. She slid it into a recessed lock on the side frame of the third cabinet, and the front screen of the cabinet opened silently. She passed the key to me.
‘The important thing to remember is that the front screen of this cabinet will close automatically after three minutes. It’s designed to do that, but the hydraulics are powerful. Be careful not to have your hand or anything else in the gap. It’s safe only to look. When the screen closes you can open it again as many times as you like with the key.’
Then she hurried away.
Spoder walked across to the door of the building and made sure it could still be opened from inside. I would not have checked that myself, but I was glad he did. He went to stand beneath one of the wall lights and pulled some papers from his file.
‘I think I understand how Antterland was killed, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s no mystery about the actual cause of death. His assailant shot him using a semi-automatic pistol, a handgun. The bullet went into his chest, close to his heart, and death would have followed almost immediately, within ten to fifteen seconds. There’s a full autopsy report here. The weapon was found: the killer had cleaned off all fingerprints, and left it behind in here when he was eventually released from the building.’ He licked his finger and thumb, and pulled another sheet of paper from the file. ‘Ballistic evidence established beyond doubt that the bullet had been fired from the gun found in here.’
‘It was a simple shooting?’ I said. ‘You made me think it was more complex than that. And what do you mean, the killer was eventually released?’
‘The shooting was the cause of death, but there are extra features which make this murder exceptional. The killer having to be released from a locked room is part of that.’
‘So what else haven’t you told me?’
‘Two matters are unusual. The first is that no body was discovered. The building was locked, the killer was inside, but there was no hint a murder had taken place. The people who were running the park ten years ago discovered the building had self-locked with someone trapped inside. As they were opening up the park the next morning they heard shouting and banging coming from in here. In those days there was no override on the door lock, so it had to be broken down with physical force. They found a man trapped inside. He was distraught. He claimed he was an ordinary visitor who had been accidentally locked inside. He said he had been trapped for several hours, and had gone all night without food or water. The park owners were obviously alarmed that they might be sued by this man, but his main concern appeared to be to leave at once.’
While Spoder was speaking he had to raise his voice. The screech of over-amplified pop music started up again, from close to the museum. There was also a grinding of machinery and metal wheels grating on metal runners. After a moment people started to shout and scream with excitement. I remembered that the Scrambler ride was positioned against the side of the museum.
Coming closer to me and raising his voice, Spoder went on: ‘At first no one realized a murder had taken place. The noise of these rides is deafening – even if you were close to this building it would be hard to notice the sound of a shot inside. The Sekonda police eventually realized that this unknown man must have shot Antterland, but they weren’t on the scene until a few hours later. Once the staff forced the main door, but long before the police were involved, the killer departed. No one realized what he had done. There is a receipt from a taxi company in the file – it looks as if the park owners were so eager to placate the man that they paid for him to take a cab back to town. Afterwards, people tried to describe him, but their memories were dominated by the fact that he looked wild, untidy and unshaven. When those were factored out he answered to a general description that would fit a hundred thousand other men.’
‘So when was Antterland’s body discovered?’ I asked.
‘The notes here say that it was later the same day. It took them all that time to realize that Antterland himself was missing.
‘This is the second unusual feature. There were no reports of suspicious activity, no hint of trouble, no dead body, no sign of a weapon lying around, a trapped man who claimed to have been accidentally locked in – who would suspect a murder? But after the man had made his getaway it was soon clear Antterland, Willer the Wonder, was nowhere to be found. Once the police started searching it took another twenty-four hours before they found his body. It was discovered in what they describe as the basement area of the theatre. He had been shot in the chest. They launched a search for the weapon, and it was eventually discovered stuffed inside the cushion of one of the audience seats.’
I said: ‘He was found in a basement? Here – in this building?’
The layout of the room was plain: the four walls, a carpeted floor. There was no sign of a staircase, or any other way down.
‘Somewhere here. Probably beneath where the stage used to be.’ Spoder walked across to where I was standing by the cabinets. ‘There must be a secret hatch of some kind.’
First glancing back towards the main door, presumably wary of Ketty returning, he bent low and looked carefully at the base of all three cabinets. He rolled the one on castors a short distance to one side. He tapped the floor hard, listening with his head pressed against the carpet.
As he was doing this the screen door on the cabinet I was standing next to silently closed. It was in the under-lit part of the museum, and it gave me an uneasy feeling that some hidden supernatural power had moved the screen.
‘If there’s a basement, it must be beneath that cabinet,’ Spoder said. ‘Open it up again.’
I used the key and the cabinet screen door instantly re-opened.
Spoder said: ‘The pathology report says that when he was shot, Willer, as they call him in this report, Willer stumbled backwards. The impact of the bullet alone would have thrust him violently back. There were impact bruises on his head, on one of his arms, on his back. So he crashed into something, or fell heavily. He was shot at close range, from the front. There was evidence of powder burns around the entry point of the bullet. He was in deep shock, on the point of death. So how did he manage to get to the basement, and where is it?’
He moved forward excitedly, shoving past me. He leaned forward into the cabinet, his weight on his hands, gripping each side of the entrance.
‘Spoder, be careful! You heard what Ketty said.’
‘I’m just looking. If he was thrown or he collapsed back into this cabinet, then there must be some sort of concealed entrance to the basement.’
His voice was muffled, and because of the noise coming from outside I barely heard what he said. He stepped further forward, one foot balancing his weight inside the cabinet. Then he took a second step
and was completely inside.
The music from the Scrambler changed abruptly: a heavy rock number began, with a screaming, insistent lead guitar. A singer yelled out vocals. The shouting and whooping of the people enjoying the thrill of the ride increased by a decibel or two. The racket of their fun was barely diminished by the wooden walls of the museum.
I moved back a little, watching what Spoder was doing. I knew the front screen of the cabinet would be closing again soon, but I did not know how to prevent that. All I could do was re-open it once it had closed.
‘There’s nothing to see here,’ he said. I leaned forward to hear him better. ‘I thought there might be a way of triggering the mechanism. Some hidden pedal, or a switch—’
He had turned around, facing away from me. His hands were reaching up towards the top of the cabinet, where there appeared to be some soft material where the wall met the internal ceiling of the cabinet. I saw him pressing against it.
The front of the cabinet closed silently. There was a sudden thud, and I sensed a heavy movement as well. I grabbed the key, thrust it into the lock. The cabinet opened again. In the space of two or three seconds Spoder had disappeared.
In the indirect light at the back of the museum the black-painted inside walls of the cabinet gave away no details. I knelt down and reached forward, groping for some clue as to what had happened. This cabinet was slightly more spacious than the one I had investigated a few minutes earlier, but felt just as solidly, unshakably built.
‘Spoder?’ I shouted, feeling foolish because I was certain he must be concealed somewhere behind a false, movable wall. ‘Where are you?’
I heard a voice, but with the music still throbbing in from outside I couldn’t make out what he said.
‘Say again!’ I shouted.
‘Down here, sir!’ I heard him gasping. ‘It was a trapdoor – I fell through. I’ve hurt my leg, my ankle. I’m in the dark – let me out!’
He started banging on the base of the cabinet, from below.
‘I can’t see how to open it!’ I said loudly.
‘There’s no air down here. It’s as hot as an oven. I’m having to crouch and I can hardly move my arms.’
‘The trapdoor must slide,’ I said. ‘Try moving it to one side.’
‘Which side?’
‘Try them all. I will too.’ I was still on my knees, at the wrong attitude to exert much force, but pressing and pushing I tried to shift the wooden floor. Or the trap cover, as I had to assume. I felt it move slightly. ‘Try that again!’ I yelled down to Spoder.
The screen at the front of the cabinet started to close. It had real pressure behind it, the hydraulics irresistible. I scrambled backwards urgently, dreading what would happen if I too was caught in the mechanism. The screen closed.
I searched for the key, suddenly panicking that I might have dropped it irretrievably inside the cabinet. Then thankfully I found it, re-opened the screen.
Spoder’s head was surprisingly now visible in the main part of the cabinet. It was all I could see of him. The rest of him was below ground level.
‘Please help me out of here, sir!’
He managed to disentangle one of his arms and pushed it up. After a painful struggle he brought up the second one. In the confined space as I leaned into the cabinet it was almost impossible to get a lifting grip on him, but I pulled as I could while Spoder struggled below. He was much heavier than I had imagined, and his constant bellowing of frightened orders at me, and struggling with his elbows and arms, multiplied the problem of trying to hold and lift him.
Finally it was done somehow, and Spoder and I pushed back and away from the cabinet and sprawled together on the hard carpeted floor. One of his bare legs ended up beside me. I saw a smear of something old, brown and powdery, on his skin. When he saw me looking he sat up and brushed it away with a hand. He stood up, favouring his left leg. He rubbed his right ankle.
‘So that’s where they found Willer’s body?’ I said. Behind us the cabinet front screen was closing.
The screams from the Scrambler next door had ceased, but the music was still playing at maximum volume. After a few more seconds the grinding of machinery and metal wheels began again and so too did the delighted shrieking of the people.
‘When Willer was shot he collapsed back into his cabinet, and his body remained out of sight in what the police called a basement.’
‘So it’s just a hole, a cavity,’ I said.
‘A hiding place designed for a vanishing illusion. But using it triggered the lock to the building, which is why the killer was trapped inside.’
Spoder took a few steps experimentally. He limped exaggeratedly at first, but it was clear he had not been seriously hurt.
‘I dropped the file, sir,’ Spoder said. ‘I think it must be down there inside the cavity.’
‘Are you going to go back for it?’
‘Not ever! I can download the files again if I have to.’
‘So leave it there. Let’s get out of here.’
The lights were still on inside the museum, but the air conditioning had fallen silent. Spoder and I crossed to the exit. He was limping still.
I worked the door handle, a simple turn. It turned simply – but the door did not open. I pulled it hard. My hands were already wet with perspiration. Spoder elbowed me aside. The door was immovably closed.
‘How the devil did that happen?’
‘Ketty knows we’re in here,’ I said. ‘She’ll come soon.’
‘What did you say?’
The endless music, the grinding of the engine and the screams of the riders drowned out our voices.
‘Ketty!’ I said loudly. ‘She knows we’re here. She’ll be back soon.’
Spoder banged his fist on the thick door. ‘Let us out!’
The Scrambler motor slowed, the rolling noise of the wheels quietened. People were laughing and calling to each other, not for now screaming with enjoyable terror. The music continued at full blast. We tried shouting again.
‘In here! Ketty! We can’t get out!’
‘Help! The door’s locked!’
The Scrambler started up again. The shrieks were renewed.
Spoder said loudly: ‘Look, sir – that must be where the door was forced, after the murder.’
He was pointing at the area of the wall close to the handle and the heavy wooden frame. Although it had been expertly joined and repaired, and painted over, it was just possible to make out the irregularity, a sign of emergency renewal. Spoder was right. The door had been rammed open at some time in the past, forced violently through the frame. Long ago – maybe ten years ago?
‘That’s a weak area that we could work on . . .?’
I saw that Spoder’s face and neck were wet with sweat. My shirt was sticking to me. It was getting harder to breathe. The temperature was rising.
We turned together back to the door, hammering our fists against the door, and the wall next to it.
‘We’re still in here! The door locked itself! Get us out of here! Help!’
The music played on, unstoppably, deafeningly. The screams went on and on.
‘Help!’
18
The Alleged Safeguard
What with the various distractions that had been invading my life, since coming back from Dearth I had been lazy about opening physical mail. For many years any message of interest and importance has reached me, in the same way it reaches almost everyone else, through email or the internet. The arrival of envelopes has long been associated with energy bills, credit card offers, reminders about prescriptions, irresistible sales bargains for my household and garden, information about incontinence and impotence cures, and at certain times of year greeting cards.
The morning after I returned, late at night, from the silly incident in the holiday park on Sekonda, I woke up long after my normal time, feeling physically stiff and psychologically regretful. The experience there with Spoder meant that any career I might have been planning as a
n amateur sleuth was definitively at an end.
I put down some fresh food and water for Barmi. Knowing Jo would be back at some point, and that she would be here for only one day and a night, I tidied up and cleaned the house. After that I took the unexpectedly large heap of envelopes out to the patio, and started opening each one (a precaution against throwing away something I might actually want) before setting it aside for recycling. Somewhere in the pile I found, unexpectedly, a letter.
The envelope was addressed to Dr Todd Fremde. Inside was a letter, a real letter on paper, albeit one that had been clearly computer generated and personalized only by a scribbled pair of initials at the end. It was on the printed letterhead of the Dearth Plaza Hotel.
Dear Dr Todd Fremde,
After your recent stay here it was discovered that you did not surrender the mutability assurance key as issued to every guest, in your case identified to Room No. 627. Because this card contains confidential information, secured and encrypted, we would ask you to return it to us at the earliest possible moment. We are enclosing a pre-paid and addressed envelope for your convenience.
If you no longer have the key, would you kindly use the same envelope to inform us of its whereabouts if known, or confirm that it has been lost or destroyed. If it is still in your possession, please do not hand it to anyone else. It must be returned to us. It would be an offence to try to sell it. Please note that it is inert because of password protection, and that none of the software is usable by non-staff members.
We look forward to welcoming you to your next visit.
Yours sincerely
T.I. (or T.J. or T.T. or I.T.)
For the Dearth Plaza Hotel, Dearth City
I searched, but I could not find the promised pre-paid return envelope. I checked the heap of paper destined ultimately for the recycling depot to see if I had thrown it aside by mistake, but it was not there. I put the letter on the recycle pile with everything else.
The Evidence Page 15
