The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "Fewer than we would like. Not many meet the criteria."

  "So how many is that?"

  "Currently, five."

  "Oh— as few as that?"

  "We're small and exclusive."

  "I can't think why you invited me."

  "It will become clear."

  More questions from Duncan elicited little else, except that club had been in existence for over a hundred years. He assumed— but had the tact not to ask— that he would be invited to join if the members approved of him that evening. How he wished he was one of those people with a fund of funny stories. He feared he was dull company.

  In just under the hour, the car came to a halt and the chauffeur opened the door. Duncan glanced about him as he stepped out, wanting to get some sense of where he was. It was dark, of course, but they were clearly in a London square— with street lights, a park in the centre, and plane trees at intervals in front of the houses. He couldn't put a name to it. The houses were terraced, and Georgian, just as they are in almost every other London square.

  "Straight up the steps," said David. "The door is open."

  They went in, through a hallway with mirrors, brightly lit by a crystal chandelier. The dazzling effect, after the dim lighting in the car, made him blink. David took Duncan's coat and handed it to a manservant and then opened a door.

  "Gentlemen," he said. "May I present our guest, Mr. Duncan Driffield."

  It was a smallish anteroom, and four men stood waiting with glasses of wine. Two looked quite elderly, the others about forty or so. One of the younger men was wearing a kilt.

  The one who was probably the senior member extended a bony hand. "Joe Franks. I'm president, through a process of elimination."

  There were some smiles at this that David didn't fully understand. Joe Franks went on to say, "I qualified for membership in 1934, when I was only nineteen, but I didn't officially join until after the war."

  David, at Duncan's side, murmured something that made no sense about a body left in a trunk at Brighton railway station.

  "And this well set-up fellow on my right," said Joe Franks, "is Wally Winthrop, the first private individual to put ricin to profitable use. Wally now owns one of the largest supermarket chains in Europe."

  "Did you say rice?" asked Duncan.

  "No, ricin. A vegetable poison."

  It was difficult to see the connection between a vegetable poison and a supermarket chain. Wally Winthrop grinned and shook Duncan's hand.

  "Tell you about it one of these days," he said.

  Joe Franks indicated the man in the kilt. "Alex McPhee is our youngest member and our most prolific. Is it seven, Alex?"

  "So far," said McPhee, and this caused more amusement.

  "His skene-dhu has more than once come to the aid of the club," added Joe Franks.

  Duncan wasn't too familiar with Gaelic, but he had a faint idea that the skene-dhu was the ornamental dagger worn by a Highlander in his stocking. He supposed the club used this one as part of some ritual.

  "And now meet Michael Pitt-Struthers, who advises the SAS on the martial arts. His knowledge of pressure points is unrivalled. Shake hands very carefully with Michael."

  More smiles, the biggest from Pitt-Struthers, who squeezed Duncan's hand in a way that left no doubt as to his expertise.

  "And of course you've already met our doctor member, David Hopkins, who knows more about allergic reactions than any man alive."

  With a huge effort to be sociable, Duncan remarked, "Such a variety of talents. I can't think what you all have in common."

  Joe Franks answered, "Each of us has committed a perfect murder."

  Duncan played the statement over in his head. He thought he'd heard it right. It had been spoken with some pride. This time no one smiled. More disturbingly, no one disputed it.

  "Shall we go in to dinner, gentlemen?" Joe Franks suggested.

  At a round table in the next room, Duncan tried to come to terms with the sensational claim he had just heard. If it was true, what on earth was he doing sharing a meal with a bunch of killers? And why had they chosen to take him into their confidence? If he shopped them to the police, they wouldn't be perfect murderers any longer. Maybe it was wise not to mention this while he was seated between the martial arts expert and the Scot with the skene-dhu tucked into his sock.

  The wineglasses were filled with claret by an elderly waiter.

  "Hungarian," Joe Franks confided. "He understands no English." He raised his glass. "At this point, gentlemen, I propose a toast to Thomas de Quincey, author of that brilliant essay, "On Murder, Considered as one of the Fine Arts", who esteemed the killing of Sir Edmund Godfrey as the finest work of the eighteenth century for the excellent reason that no one was able to determine who had done it."

  "Thomas de Quincey," said everyone, with Duncan just a half-beat slower than the rest.

  "You're probably wondering what brings us together," said Wally Winthrop across the table. "You might think we'd be uncomfortable sharing our secrets. In fact, it works the other way. It's a tremendous relief. I don't have to tell you, Duncan, what it's like after you commit your first— living in fear of being found out, waiting for the police siren and the knock on the door. As the months pass, this panicky stage fades and is replaced by a feeling of isolation. You've set yourself apart from others by your action. You can only look forward to keeping your secret bottled up for the rest of your life. It's horrible. We've all been through it. Five years have to pass— five years without being charged with murder— before you're contacted by the club and invited to join us for a meal."

  David Hopkins briskly took up the conversation. "It's such a break in the clouds, to discover that you're not alone in the world. To find that what you've done is valued, in some circles, as an achievement which can be openly discussed. Wonderful. After all, there is worth in having committed a perfect murder."

  "How do you know you can trust each other?" Duncan asked, without giving anything away.

  "Mutual self-interest. If any one of us betrayed the others, he'd take himself down as well. We're all in the same boat."

  Joe Franks explained, "It's a safeguard that's worked for over a hundred years. One of our first members was the man better known as Jack the Ripper, who was, in fact, a pillar of the establishment. If his identity could be protected all these years, then the rest of us can breathe easy."

  "That's amazing. You know who the Ripper was?"

  "Aye," said McPhee calmly. "And no one has ever named the laddie."

  "Can I ask?"

  "Not till you join," said Joe Franks.

  Duncan hesitated. He was about to say he had no chance of joining, not having committed a murder, when some inner voice prompted him to shut up. These people were acting as if he was one of them. Maybe, through some ghastly mistake, they'd been told he'd once done away with a fellow human being. And maybe it was in his interest not to disillusion them.

  "We have to keep to the rules," Wally Winthrop was explaining.

  "Certain information is only passed on to full members."

  Joe Franks added, "And we are confident you will want to join. All we ask is that you respect the rules. Not a word must be spoken to anyone else about this evening, or the existence of the club. The ultimate sanction is at our disposal for anyone foolish enough to betray us."

  "The ultimate sanction— what's that?" Duncan huskily enquired.

  No one answered, but the Scot beside him grinned in a way Duncan didn't care for.

  "The skene-dhu.…?" said Duncan.

  "…or the pressure point," said Joe Franks, "or the allergic reaction, or whatever we decide is tidiest. But it won't happen in your case."

  "No chance," Duncan affirmed. "My lips are sealed."

  The starters were served, and he was pleased when the conversation shifted to murders in fiction, and some recent crime novels. Faintly he listened as they discussed The Silence of the Lambs, but he was trying to think what to say if someone asked
about the murder he was supposed to have committed. They were sure to return to him before the evening ended, and then it was essential to sound convincing. If they got the idea he was a mild man who wouldn't hurt a fly he was in real trouble.

  Towards the end of the meal, he spoke up. It seemed a good idea to take the initiative. "This has been a brilliant evening. Is there any chance I could join?"

  "You've enjoyed yourself?" said Joe Franks. "That's excellent. A kindred spirit."

  "It will take more than that for you to become a member," Winthrop put in. "You've got to provide some evidence that you're one of us."

  Duncan swallowed hard. "Don't you have that? I wouldn't be here if you hadn't found something out."

  "There's a difference between finding something out and seeing the proof."

  "That won't be easy."

  "It's the rule."

  He tried another tack. "Can I ask something? How did you get on to me?"

  There were smiles all round. Winthrop said. "You're surprised that we succeeded where the police failed?"

  "Experience," Joe Franks explained. "We're much better placed than the police to know how these things are done."

  Pitt-Struthers— the strong, silent man who advised the SAS— said. "We know you were at the scene on the evening it happened, and we know no one else had a stronger motive or a better opportunity."

  "But we must have the proof," insisted Winthrop.

  "The weapon," suggested McPhee.

  "I disposed of it," Duncan improvised. He was not an imaginative man, but this was an extreme situation. "You would have, wouldn't you?"

  "No," said McPhee. "I just give mine a wee wipe."

  "Well, it's up to you, old boy," Winthrop told Duncan. "Only you can furnish the evidence."

  "How long do I have?"

  "The next meeting is in July. We'd like to confirm you as a full member then."

  The conversation moved on to other subjects and then a lengthy discussion ensued about the problems faced by the Crown Prosecution Service.

  The evening ended with coffee, cognac and cigars. Soon after, David Hopkins said that the car would be outside.

  On the drive back, Duncan, deeply perturbed and trying not to show it, pumped David for information.

  "It was an interesting evening, but it's left me with a problem."

  "What's that?"

  "I— eh— wasn't completely sure which murder of mine they were talking about."

  "Do you mean you're a serial killer?"

  Duncan gulped. He hadn't meant that at all. "I've never thought of myself as one." Recovering his poise a little, he added, "A thing like that is all in the mind, I suppose. Which one do they have me down for?"

  "The killing of Sir Jacob Drinkwater at the Brighton Civil Service Conference in 1995."

  Drinkwater. He had been at that conference. He remembered hearing that the senior civil servant at the Irish Office had been found dead in his hotel room on that Sunday morning. "That was supposed to have been a heart attack."

  "Officially, yes," said David.

  "But you heard something else?"

  "I happen to know the pathologist who did the autopsy. A privileged source. They didn't want the public knowing that Sir Jacob had actually been murdered, and what means the killer had used, for fear of creating a terrorism panic. How did you introduce the cyanide? Was it in his aftershave?"

  "Trade secret," Duncan answered cleverly.

  "Of course the security people in their blinkered way couldn't imagine it was anything but a political assassination. They didn't know you'd had a grudge against him dating from years back, when he was your boss in the Land Registry."

  Someone had their wires crossed. It was a man called Charlie Drinkwater who'd made Duncan's life a misery and blighted his career. No connection with Sir Jacob. Giving nothing away, he said smoothly, "And you worked out that I was at the conference?"

  "Same floor. Missed the banquet on Saturday evening, giving you a fine opportunity to break into his room and plant the cyanide. So we have motive, opportunity…"

  "And means?" said Duncan.

  David laughed. "Your house is called The Laurels, for the bushes all round the garden. It's well known that if you soak laurel leaves and evaporate the liquid, you get a lethal concentration of cyanide. Isn't that how you made the stuff?"

  "I'd rather leave you in suspense," said Duncan. He was thinking hard. "If I apply to join the club, I may give a demonstration."

  "There's no if about it. They liked you. You're expected to join."

  "I could decide against it."

  "Why?"

  "Private reasons."

  David turned to face him, his face creased in concern. "They'd take a very grave view of that, Duncan. We invited you along in good faith."

  "But no obligation, I thought."

  "Look at it from the club's point of view. We're vulnerable now. You're dealing with dangerous men, Duncan. I can't urge you strongly enough to cooperate."

  "But if I can't prove that I killed a man?"

  "You must think of something. We're willing to be convinced. If you cold shoulder us, or betray us, I can't answer for the consequences."

  A sobering end to the evening.

  For the next three weeks he got little sleep, and when he did drift off he would wake with nightmares of fingers pressing on his arteries or skene-dhus being thrust between his ribs. He faced a classic dilemma. Either admit he hadn't murdered Sir Jacob Drinkwater— which meant he was a security risk to the club— or concoct some false evidence, bluff his way in, and spend the rest of his life hoping they wouldn't find him out. Faking evidence wouldn't be easy. They were intelligent men.

  "You must think of something," David Hopkins had urged.

  Being methodical, he went to the British Newspaper Library and spent many hours rotating the microfilm, studying accounts of Sir Jacob's death. It only depressed him more, reading about the involvement of Special Branch, the AntiTerrorist Squad and MI5 in the official investigation. Nothing he had read, up to and including the final pronouncement in the papers that the death had been ruled a heart attack and the investigation closed, proved helpful to him. How in the world would he be able to acquire the evidence the club insisted on seeing?

  More months went by.

  Duncan weighed the possibility of pointing out to the members that they'd made a mistake. Surely, he thought (in rare optimistic moments), they would see that it wasn't his fault. He was just an ordinary bloke caught up in something out of his league. He could promise not to say anything to anyone, in return for a guarantee of personal safety. Then he remembered the eyes of some of those people around the table, and he knew how unrealistic that idea was.

  One morning in May, out of desperation, he had a brilliant idea. It arose from something David Hopkins had said in the car on the way home from the club: "Do you mean you're a serial killer?" At the time it had sounded preposterous. Now, it could be his salvation. Instead of striving to link himself to the murder of Sir Jacob, he would claim another killing— and show them some evidence they couldn't challenge. He'd satisfy the rules of the club and put everyone at their ease.

  The brilliant part was this. He didn't need to kill anyone. He would claim to have murdered some poor wretch who had actually committed suicide. All he needed was a piece of evidence from the scene. Then he'd tell the Perfectionists he was a serial killer who dressed up his murders as suicides. They would be forced to agree how clever he was and admit him to the club. After a time, he'd give up going to the meetings and no one would bother him because they'd think their secrets were safe with him.

  It was just a matter of waiting. Somebody, surely, would do away with himself before the July meeting of the club.

  Each day Duncan studied The Telegraph, and no suicide— well, no suicide he could claim was a murder— was reported. At the end of June, he found an expensive-looking envelope on his doormat and knew with a sickening certainty who it was from.

&nbs
p; The most perfect club in the world takes pleasure in inviting

  Mr. Duncan Driffield

  a prime candidate for membership to present his credentials after dinner on July 19th, 7:30 for 8 pm

  Contact will be made later

  This time the wording didn't pamper his ego at all. It filled him with dread. In effect it was a sentence of death. His only chance of a reprieve rested on some fellow creature committing suicide in the next two weeks.

  He took to buying three newspapers instead of one, still with no success. It seemed as if there was no way out. Mercifully, and in the nick of time, however, his luck changed. News of a suicide reached him, but not through the press. He was phoned on the afternoon of the 19th by an old civil service colleague, Harry Hitchman. They'd met occasionally since retiring, but they weren't the closest of buddies, so the call came out of the blue.