by Ellery Queen
“The window?”
“The window was open, granted. But the room is on the second floor. Anyway, you may dismiss the window. I remember the old lady saying there were bars across it, and that nobody could have squeezed through.”
Oakes’s eyes glistened. “What was the cause of death?” he asked.
Mr. Snyder coughed. “Snake bite,” he said.
Oakes’s careful calm deserted him. He uttered a cry of astonishment. “Why, that’s incredible!”
“It’s the literal truth. The medical examination proved that the fellow had been killed by snake poison—cobra, to be exact, which is found principally in India.”
“Cobra!”
“Just so. In a Southampton boardinghouse, in a room with a door locked on the inside, this man was stung by a cobra. To add a little mystification to the limpid simplicity of the affair, when the door was opened there was no sign of any cobra. It couldn’t have got out through the door, because the door was locked. It couldn’t have got out of the window, because the window was too high up, and snakes can’t jump. And it couldn’t have got up the chimney, because there was no chimney. So there you have it.”
He looked at Oakes with a certain quiet satisfaction. It had come to his ears that Oakes had been heard to complain of the infantile nature of the last two cases to which he had been assigned. He had even said that he hoped someday to be given a problem which should be beyond the reasoning powers of a child of six. It seemed to Mr. Snyder that Oakes was about to get his wish.
“I should like further details,” said Oakes, a little breathlessly.
“You had better apply to Mrs. Pickett, who owns the boarding-house,” Mr. Snyder said. “It was she who put the case in my hands. She is convinced that it is murder. But if we exclude ghosts, I don’t see how any third party could have taken a hand in the thing at all. However, she wanted a man from this agency, and was prepared to pay for him, so I promised her I would send one. It is not our policy to turn business away.”
He smiled wryly. “In pursuance of that policy I want you to go and put up at Mrs. Pickett’s boardinghouse and do your best to enhance the reputation of our agency. I would suggest that you pose as a ship’s chandler or something of that sort. You will have to be something maritime or they’ll be suspicious of you. And if your visit produces no other results, it will, at least, enable you to make the acquaintance of a very remarkable woman. I commend Mrs. Pickett to your notice. By the way, she says she will help you in your investigations.”
Oakes laughed shortly. The idea amused him.
“It’s a mistake to scoff at amateur assistance, my boy,” said Mr. Snyder in the benevolently paternal manner which had made a score of criminals refuse to believe him a detective until the moment when the handcuffs snapped on their wrists. “Crime investigation isn’t an exact science. Success or failure depends in a large measure on applied common sense and the possession of a great deal of special information. Mrs. Pickett knows certain things which neither you nor I know, and it’s just possible that she may have some stray piece of information which will provide the key to the entire mystery.”
Oakes laughed again. “It is very kind of Mrs. Pickett,” he said, “but I prefer to trust to my own methods.” Oakes rose, his face purposeful. “I’d better be starting at once,” he said. “I’ll send you reports from time to time.”
“Good. The more detailed the better,” said Mr. Snyder genially. “I hope your visit to the Excelsior will be pleasant. And cultivate Mrs. Pickett. She’s worthwhile.”
The door closed, and Mr. Snyder lighted a fresh cigar. Dashed young fool, he thought and turned his mind to other matters.
A day later, Mr. Snyder sat in his office reading a typewritten report. It appeared to be of a humorous nature, for, as he read, chuckles escaped him. Finishing the last sheet he threw his head back and laughed heartily. The manuscript had not been intended by its author for a humorous effect. What Mr. Snyder had been reading was the first of Elliott Oakes’s reports from the Excelsior. It read as follows:
“I am sorry to be unable to report any real progress. I have formed several theories which I will put forward later, but at present I cannot say that I am hopeful.
“Directly I arrived I sought out Mrs. Pickett, explained who I was, and requested her to furnish me with any further information which might be of service to me. She is a strange silent woman, who impressed me as having very little intelligence. Your suggestion that I should avail myself of her assistance seems more curious than ever now that I have seen her.
“The whole affair seems to me at the moment of writing quite inexplicable. Assuming that this Captain Gunner was murdered, there appears to have been no motive for the crime whatsoever. I have made careful inquiries about him, and find that he was a man of 55; had spent nearly 40 years of his life at sea, the last dozen in command of his own ship; was of a somewhat overbearing disposition, though with a fund of rough humour; he had travelled all over the world, and had been a resident of the Excelsior for about ten months. He had a small annuity, and no other money at all, which disposes of money as the motive for the crime.
“In my character of James Burton, a retired ship’s chandler, I have mixed with the other boarders, and have heard all they have to say about the affair. I gather that the deceased was by no means popular. He appears to have had a bitter tongue, and I have not met one man who seems to regret his death. On the other hand, I have heard nothing which would suggest that he had any active and violent enemies. He was simply the unpopular boarder—there is always one in every boardinghouse—but nothing more.
“I have seen a good deal of the man who shared his room—another sea captain named Muller. He is a big silent person, and it is not easy to get him to talk. As regards the death of Captain Gunner he can tell me nothing. It seems that on the night of the tragedy he was away at Portsmouth. All I have got from him is some information as to Captain Gunner’s habits, which leads nowhere.
“The dead man seldom drank, except at night when he would take some whisky. His head was not strong, and a little of the spirit was enough to make him semi-intoxicated, when he would be hilarious and often insulting. I gather that Muller found him a difficult roommate, but he is one of those placid persons who can put up with anything. He and Gunner were in the habit of playing draughts together every night in their room, and Gunner had a harmonica which he played frequently. Apparently he was playing it very soon before he died, which is significant, as seeming to dispose of any idea of suicide.
“As I say, I have one or two theories, but they are in a very nebulous state. The most plausible is that on one of his visits to India—I have ascertained that he made several voyages there—Captain Gunner may in some way have fallen foul of the natives. The fact that he certainly died of the poison of an Indian snake supports this theory. I am making inquiries as to the movements of several Indian sailors who were here in their ships at the time of the tragedy.
“I have another theory. Does Mrs. Pickett know more about this affair than she appears to? I may be wrong in my estimate of her mental qualities. Her apparent stupidity may be cunning. But here again, the absence of motive brings me up against a dead wall. I must confess that at present I do not see my way clearly. However, I will write again shortly.”
Mr. Snyder derived the utmost enjoyment from the report. He liked the substance of it, and above all he was tickled by the bitter tone of frustration which characterized it. Oakes was baffled, and his knowledge of Oakes told him that the sensation of being baffled was gall and wormwood to that high-spirited young man. Whatever might be the result of this investigation, it would teach him the virtue of patience.
He wrote his assistant a short note:
“Dear Oakes,
“Your report received. You certainly seem to have got the hard case which, I hear, you were pining for. Don’t build too much on plausible motives in a case of this sort. Fauntleroy, the London murderer, killed a woman for no other reason than
that she had thick ankles. Many years ago I myself was on a case where a man murdered an intimate friend because of a dispute about a bet. My experience is that five murderers out of ten act on the whim of the moment, without anything which, properly speaking, you could call a motive at all.
Yours very cordially,
Paul Snyder
P.S. I don’t think much of your Pickett theory. However, you’re in charge. I wish you luck.”
Young Mr. Oakes was not enjoying himself. For the first time in his life the self-confidence which characterized all his actions seemed to be failing him. The change had taken place almost overnight. The fact that the case had the appearance of presenting the unusual had merely stimulated him at first. But then doubts had crept in and the problem had begun to appear insoluble.
True, he had only just taken it up, but something told him that, for all the progress he was likely to make, he might just as well have been working on it steadily for a month. He was completely baffled. And every moment which he spent in the Excelsior boardinghouse made it clearer to him that that infernal old woman with the pale eyes thought him an incompetent fool. It was that, more than anything, which made him acutely conscious of his lack of success.
His nerves were being sorely troubled by the quiet scorn of Mrs. Pickett’s gaze. He began to think that perhaps he had been a shade too self-confident and abrupt in the short interview which he had had with her on his arrival.
As might have been expected, his first act, after his brief interview with Mrs. Pickett, was to examine the room where the tragedy had taken place. The body was gone, but otherwise nothing had been moved.
Oakes belonged to the magnifying-glass school of detection. The first thing he did on entering the room was to make a careful examination of the floor, the walls, the furniture, and the window sill. He would have hotly denied the assertion that he did this because it looked well, but he would have been hard put to it to advance any other reason.
If he discovered anything, his discoveries were entirely negative and served only to deepen the mystery. As Mr. Snyder had said, there was no chimney, and nobody could have entered through the locked door.
There remained the window. It was small, and apprehensiveness, perhaps, of the possibility of burglars had caused the proprietress to make it doubly secure with two iron bars. No human being could have squeezed his way through.
It was late that night that he wrote and dispatched to headquarters the report which had amused Mr. Snyder. . .
Two days later Mr. Snyder sat at his desk, staring with wide unbelieving eyes at a telegram he had just received. It read as follows:
HAVE SOLVED GUNNER MYSTERY. RETURNING. OAKES.
Mr. Snyder narrowed his eyes and rang the bell.
“Send Mr. Oakes to me directly he arrives,” he said.
He was pained to find that his chief emotion was one of bitter annoyance. The swift solution of such an apparently insoluble problem would reflect the highest credit of the agency, and there were picturesque circumstances connected with the case which would make it popular with the newspapers and lead to its being given a great deal of publicity.
Yet, in spite of all this, Mr. Snyder was annoyed. He realized now how large a part the desire to reduce Oakes’s self-esteem had played with him. He further realized, looking at the thing honestly, that he had been firmly convinced that the young man would not come within a mile of a reasonable solution of the mystery. He had desired only that his failure would prove a valuable educational experience for him. For he believed that failure at this particular point in his career would make Oakes a more valuable asset to the agency.
But now here Oakes was, within a ridiculously short space of time, returning to the fold, not humble and defeated, but triumphant. Mr. Snyder looked forward with apprehension to the young man’s probable demeanor under the intoxicating influence of victory.
His apprehensions were well grounded. He had barely finished the third of the series of cigars which, like milestones, marked the progress of his afternoon, when the door opened and young Oakes entered. Mr Snyder could not repress a faint moan at the sight of him. One glance was enough to tell him that his worst fears were realized.
“I got your telegram,” said Mr. Snyder.
Oakes nodded. “It surprised you, eh?” he asked.
Mr. Snyder resented the patronizing tone of the question, but he had resigned himself to be patronized, and managed to keep his anger in check.
“Yes,” he replied, “I must say it did surprise me. I didn’t gather from your report that you had even found a clue. Was it the Indian theory that turned the trick?”
Oakes laughed tolerantly. “Oh, I never really believed that preposterous theory for one moment. I just put it in to round out my report. I hadn’t begun to think about the case then—not really think.”
Mr Snyder, nearly exploding with wrath, extended his cigar case. “Light up and tell me all about it,” he said, controlling his anger.
“Well, I won’t say I haven’t earned this,” said Oakes, puffing away. He let the ash of his cigar fall delicately to the floor—another action which seemed significant to his employer. As a rule his assistants, unless particularly pleased with themselves, used the ashtray.
“My first act on arriving,” Oakes said, “was to have a talk with Mrs. Pickett. A very dull old woman.”
“Curious. She struck me as rather intelligent.”
“Not on your life. She gave me no assistance whatever. I then examined the room where the death had taken place. It was exactly as you described it. There was no chimney, the door had been locked on the inside, and the one window was too high up. At first sight it looked extremely unpromising. Then I had a chat with some of the other boarders. They had nothing of any importance to contribute. Most of them simply gibbered. I then gave up trying to get help from the outside and resolved to rely on my own intelligence.”
He smiled triumphantly. “It is a theory of mine, Mr. Snyder, which I have found valuable, that in nine cases out of ten remarkable things don’t happen.”
“I don’t quite follow you there,” Mr. Snyder interrupted.
“I will put it another way, if you like. What I mean is that the simplest explanation is nearly always the right one. Consider this case. It seemed impossible that there should have been any reasonable explanation of the man’s death. Most men would have worn themselves out guessing at wild theories. If I had started to do that, I should have been guessing now. As it is—here I am. I trusted to my belief that nothing remarkable ever happens, and I won out.”
Mr. Snyder sighed softly. Oakes was entitled to a certain amount of gloating, but there could be no doubt that his way of telling a story was downright infuriating.
“I believe in the logical sequence of events. I refuse to accept effects unless they are preceded by causes. In other words, with all due respect to your possibly contrary opinions, Mr. Snyder, I simply decline to believe in a murder unless there was a motive for it. The first thing I set myself to ascertain was—what was the motive for the murder of Captain Gunner? And after thinking it over and making every possible inquiry, I decided that there was no motive. Therefore, there was no murder.”
Mr. Snyder’s mouth opened, and he obviously was about to protest. But he appeared to think better of it and Oakes proceeded: “I then tested the suicide theory. What motive was there for suicide? There was no motive. Therefore, there was no suicide.”
This time Mr. Snyder spoke. “You haven’t been spending the last few days in the wrong house by any chance, have you? You will be telling me next that there wasn’t any dead man.”
Oakes smiled. “Not at all. Captain John Gunner was dead, all right. As the medical evidence proved, he died of the bite of a cobra. It was a small cobra which came from Java.”
Mr. Snyder stared at him. “How do you know?”
“I do know, beyond any possibility of doubt.”
“Did you see the snake?”
Oakes shook his h
ead.
“Then, how in heaven’s name—”
“I have enough evidence to make a jury convict Mr. Snake without leaving the box.”
“Then suppose you tell me this. How did your cobra from Java get out of the room?”
“By the window,” replied Oakes impassively.
“How can you possibly explain that? You say yourself that the window was too high up.”
“Nevertheless, it got out by the window. The logical sequence of events is proof enough that it was in the room. It killed Captain Gunner there and left traces of its presence outside. Therefore, as the window was the only exit, it must have escaped by that route. Somehow it got out of that window.”
“What do you mean—it left traces of its presence outside?”
“It killed a dog in the back yard behind the house,” Oakes said. “The window of Captain Gunner’s room projects out over it. It is full of boxes and litter and there are a few stunted shrubs scattered about. In fact, there is enough cover to hide any small object like the body of a dog. That’s why it was not discovered at first. The maid at the Excelsior came on it the morning after I sent you my report while she was emptying a box of ashes in the yard. It was just an ordinary stray dog without collar or license. The analyst examined the body and found that the dog had died of the bite of a cobra.”
“But you didn’t find the snake?”
“No. We cleaned out that yard till you could have eaten your breakfast there, but the snake had gone. It must have escaped through the door of the yard, which was standing ajar. That was a couple of days ago, and there has been no further tragedy. In all likelihood it is dead. The nights are pretty cold now, and it would probably have died of exposure.”
“But I just don’t understand how a cobra got to Southampton,” said the amazed Mr. Snyder.
