Death Locked In

by Douglas G. Greene (ed)

  “Our plan had been that Smith the stoker should chloroform John Slater the driver, and so that he should vanish with the others. In this respect, and in this respect only, our plans miscarried—I except the criminal folly of McPherson in writing home to his wife. Our stoker did his business so clumsily that Slater in his struggles fell off the engine, and though fortune was with us so far that he broke his neck in the fall, still he remained as a blot upon which would otherwise have been one of those complete masterpieces which are only to be contemplated in silent admiration. The criminal expert will find in John Slater the one flaw in all our admirable combinations. A man who has had as many triumphs as I can afford to be frank, and I therefore lay my finger upon John Slater, and I proclaim him to be a flaw.

  “But now I have got our special train upon the small line two kilometers, or rather more than one mile in length, which leads, or rather used to lead, to the abandoned Heartsease mine, once one of the largest coal mines in England. You will ask how it is that no one saw the train upon this unused line. I answer that along its entire length it runs through a deep cutting, and that, unless someone had been on the edge of that cutting, he could not have seen it. There was someone on the edge of that cutting. I was there. And now I will tell you what I saw.

  “My assistant had remained at the points in order that he might superintend the switching off of the train. He had four armed men with him, so that if the train ran off the line—we thought it probable, because the points were very rusty—we might still have resources to fall back upon. Having once seen it safely on the side line, he handed over the responsibility to me. I was waiting at a point which overlooks the mouth of the mine, and I was also armed, as were my two companions. Come what might, you see, I was always ready.

  “The moment that the train was fairly on the side line, Smith, the stoker, slowed-down the engine, and then, having turned it on to the fullest speed again, he and McPherson, with my English lieutenant, sprang off before it was too late. It may be that it was this slowing-down which first attracted the attention of the travelers, but the train was running at full speed again before their heads appeared at the open window. It makes me smile to think how bewildered they must have been. Picture to yourself your own feelings if, on looking out of your luxurious carriage, you suddenly perceived that the lines upon which you ran were rusted and corroded, red and yellow with disuse and decay! What a catch must have come in their breath as in a second it flashed upon them that it was not Manchester, but Death which was waiting for them at the end of that sinister line. But the train was running with frantic speed, rolling and rocking over the rotten line, while the wheels made a frightful screaming sound upon the rusted surface. I was close to them, and could see their faces. Caratal was praying. I think—there was something like a rosary dangling out of his hand. The other roared like a bull who smells the blood of the slaughter-house. He saw us standing on the bank, and he beckoned to us like a madman. Then he tore at his wrist and threw his dispatch-box out of the window in our direction. Of course, his meaning was obvious. Here was the evidence, and they would promise to be silent if their lives were spared. It would have been very agreeable if we could have done so, but business is business. Besides, the train was now as much beyond our control as theirs.

  “He ceased howling when the train rattled round the curve and they saw the black mouth of the mine yawning before them. We had removed the boards which had covered it, and we had cleared the square entrance. The rails had formerly run very close to the shaft for the convenience of loading the coal, and we had only to add two or three lengths of rail in order to lead to the very brink of the shaft. In fact, as the lengths would not quite fit, our line projected about three feet over the edge. We saw the two heads at the window; Caratal below, Gomez above; but they had both been struck silent by what they saw. And yet they could not withdraw their heads. The sight seemed to have paralyzed them.

  “I had wondered how the train running at a great speed would take the pit into which I had guided it, and I was much interested in watching it. One of my colleagues thought that it would actually jump it, and indeed it was not very far from doing so. Fortunately, however, it fell short, and the buffers of the engine struck the other lip of the shaft with a tremendous crash. The funnel flew off into the air. The tender, carriages, and van were all smashed into one jumble, which, with the remains of the engine, choked for a minute or so the mouth of the pit. Then something gave way in the middle, and the whole mass of green iron, smoking coals, brass fittings, wheels, woodwork, and cushions all crumbled together and crashed down into the mine. We heard the rattle, rattle, rattle, as the debris struck against the walls, and then quite a long time afterwards there came a deep roar as the remains of the train struck the bottom. The boiler may have burst, for a sharp crash came after the roar, and then a dense cloud of steam and smoke swirled up out of the black depths, falling in a spray as thick as rain all round us. Then the vapor shredded off into thin wisps, which floated away in the summer sunshine, and all was quiet again in the Heartsease mine.

  “And now, having carried out our plans so successfully, it only remained to leave no trace behind us. Our little band of workers at the other end had already ripped up the rails and disconnected the side line, replacing everything as it had been before. The funnel and other fragments were thrown in, the shaft was planked over as it used to be, and the lines which led to it were torn up and taken away. Then, without flurry, but without delay, we all made our way out of the country, most of us to Paris, my English colleague to Manchester, and McPherson to Southampton, whence he emigrated to America. Let the English papers of that date tell how thoroughly we had thrown the cleverest of their detectives off our track.

  “You will remember that Gomez threw his bag of papers out of the window, and I need not say that I secured that bag and brought them to my employers. It may interest my employers now, however, to learn that out of that bag I took one or two little papers as a souvenir of the occasion. I have no wish to publish these papers; but, still, it is every man for himself in this world, and what else can I do if my friends will not come to my aid when I want them? Messieurs, you may believe that Herbert de Lernac is quite as formidable when he is against you as when he is with you, and that he is not a man to go to the guillotine until he has seen that every one of you is en route for New Caledonia. For your own sake, if not for mine, make haste, Monsieur de —, and General—, and Baron— (you can fill up the blanks for yourselves as you read this). I promise you that in the next edition there will be no blanks to fill.

  “P.S.—As I look over my statement there is only one omission which I can see. It concerns the unfortunate man McPherson, who was foolish enough to write to his wife and to make an appointment with her in New York. It can be imagined that when interests like ours were at stake, we could not leave them to the chance of whether a man in that class of life would or would not give away his secrets to a woman. Having once broken his oath by writing to his wife, we could not trust him any more. We took steps therefore to insure that he should not see his wife. I have sometimes thought that it would be a kindness to write to her and to assure her that there is no impediment to her marrying again.”

  Off The Face of the Earth by Clayton Rawson (1906-1971)

  Clayton Rawson was an illustrator, a magazine editor, a professional magician, and the creator of the magician-detective, The Great Merlini. In Death from a Top Hat (1938), one of the great first novels, Rawson paid a tribute to John Dickson Carr’s analysis of locked-room methods. Soon Carr and Rawson, along with Anthony Boucher and Frederic Dannay (half of Ellery Queen), began discussing the care and feeding of miracle crimes, at first by correspondence and later in all-night sessions at the Westchester homes of Carr and Dannay. Early in their acquaintance, Carr set Rawson a challenge: “A man walks into a telephone booth to make an ordinary call, and vanishes. The booth is not prepared in any way. Work that one out.’’ Work it out Rawson did in brilliant fashion in “Off t
he Face of the Earth.’’

  THE lettering in neat gilt script on the door read: Miracles for Sale, and beneath it was the familiar rabbit-from-a-hat trademark. Inside, behind the glass showcase counter, in which was displayed as unlikely an assortment of objects as could be got together in one spot, stood The Great Merlini.

  He was wrapping up half a dozen billiard balls, several bouquets of feather flowers, a dove pan, a Talking Skull, and a dozen decks of cards for a customer who snapped his fingers and nonchalantly produced the needed number of five-dollar bills from thin air. Merlini rang up the sale, took half a carrot from the cash drawer, and gave it to the large white rabbit who watched proceedings with a pink skeptical eye from the top of a nearby escape trunk. Then he turned to me.

  “Clairvoyance, mindreading, extrasensory perception,” he said. “We stock only the best grade. And it tells me that you came to pick up the two Annie Oakleys I promised to get you for the new hit musical. I have them right here.”

  But his occult powers slipped a bit. He looked in all his coat pockets one after another, found an egg, a three-foot length of rope, several brightly-colored silk handkerchiefs, and a crumpled telegram reading: NEED INVISIBLE MAN AT ONCE. SHIP UNIONTOWN BY MONDAY.—NEMO THE ENIGMA. Then he gave a surprised blink and scowled darkly at a sealed envelope that he had fished out of his inside breast pocket.

  “That,” I commented a bit sarcastically,” doesn’t look like a pair of theater tickets.”

  He shook his head sadly. “No. It’s a letter my wife asked me to mail a week ago.”

  I took it from him. “There’s a mail chute by the elevators about fifteen feet outside your door. I’m no magician, but I can remember to put this in it on my way out.” I indicated the telegram that lay on the counter. “Since when have you stocked a supply of invisible men? That I would like to see.” Merlini frowned at the framed slogan: Nothing Is Impossible which hung above the cash register. “You want real miracles, don’t you? We guarantee that our invisible man can’t be seen. But if you’d like to see how impossible it is to see him, step right this way.”

  In the back, beyond his office, there is a larger room that serves as workshop, shipping department and, of occasion, as a theater. I stood there a moment later and watched Merlini step into an upright coffin-shaped box in the center of the small stage. He faced me, smiled, and snapped his fingers. Two copper electrodes in the side walls of the cabinet spat flame, and a fat, green, electric spark jumped the gap just above his head, hissing and writhing. He lifted his arms; the angry stream of energy bent, split in two, fastened on his fingertips, and then disappeared as he grasped the gleaming spherical electrodes, one with each hand.

  For a moment nothing happened; then, slowly, his body began to fade into transparency as the cabinet’s back wall became increasingly visible through it. Clothes and flesh melted until only the bony skeletal structure remained. Suddenly, the jawbone moved and its grinning white teeth clicked as Merlini’s voice said:

  “You must try this, Ross. On a hot day like today, it’s most comfortable.”

  As it spoke, the skeleton also wavered and grew dim. A moment later it was gone and the cabinet was, or seemed to be, empty. If Merlini still stood there, he was certainly invisible.

  “Okay, Gypsy Rose Lee,” I said. “I have now seen the last word in strip-tease performances.” Behind me I heard the office door open and I looked over my shoulder to see Inspector Gavigan giving me a fishy stare. “You’d better get dressed again,’’ I added. “We have company.”

  The Inspector looked around the room and at the empty stage, then at me again, cautiously this time. “If you said what I think you did—”

  He stopped abruptly as Merlini’s voice, issuing from nowhere, chuckled and said, “Don’t jump to conclusions, Inspector. Appearances are deceptive. It’s not an indecent performance, nor has Ross gone off his rocker and started talking to himself. I’m right here. On the stage.”

  Gavigan looked and saw the skeleton shape taking form within the cabinet. He closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked again. That didn’t help. The grisly specter was still there and twice as substantial. Then, wraithlike, Merlini’s body began to form around it and, finally, grew opaque and solid. The magician grinned broadly, took his hands from the electrodes, and bowed as the spitting, green discharge of energy crackled once more above him. Then the stage curtains closed.

  “You should be glad that’s only an illusion,” I told Gavigan. “If it were the McCoy and the underworld ever found out how it was done, you’d face an unparalleled crime wave and you’d never solve a single case.”

  “It’s the Pepper’s Ghost illusion brought up to date,” Merlini said as he stepped out between the curtains and came toward us. “I’ve got more orders than I can fill. It’s a sure-fire carnival draw.” He frowned at Gavigan. “But you don’t look very entertained.”

  “I’m not,” the Inspector answered gloomily. “Vanishing into thin air may amuse some people. Not me. Especially when it really happens. Off stage in broad daylight. In Central Park.”

  “Oh,” Merlini said. “I see. So that’s what’s eating you. Helen Hope, the chorus girl who went for a walk last week and never came back. She’s still missing then, and there are still no clues?”

  Gavigan nodded. “It’s the Dorothy Arnold case all over again. Except for one thing we haven’t let the newspapers know about—Bela Zyyzk.”

  “Bela what?” I asked.

  Gavigan spelled it.

  “Impossible,” I said. “He must be a typographical error. A close relative of Etoain Shrdlu.”

  The Inspector wasn’t amused. “Relatives,” he growled. “I wish I could find some. He not only claims he doesn’t have any—he swears he never has had any! And so far we haven’t been able to prove different.”

  “Where does he come from?” Merlini asked. “Or won’t he say?”

  “Oh, he talks all right,” Gavigan said disgustedly. “Too much. And none of it makes any sense. He says he’s a momentary visitor to this planet—from the dark cloud of Antares. I’ve seen some high, wide, and fancy screwballs in my time, but this one takes the cake—candles and all.”

  “Helen Hope,” Merlini said, “vanishes off the face of the earth. And Zyyzk does just the opposite. This gets interesting. What else does he have to do with her disappearance?”

  “Plenty,” Gavigan replied. “A week ago Tuesday night she went to a Park Avenue party at Mrs. James Dewitt-Smith’s. She’s another candidate for Bellevue. Collects Tibetan statuary, medieval relics, and crackpots like Zyyzk. He was there that night—reading minds.”

  “A visitor from outer space,” Merlini said, “and a mindreader to boot. I won’t be happy until I’ve had a talk with that gentleman.”

  “I have talked with him,” the Inspector growled. “And I’ve had indigestion ever since. He does something worse than read minds. He makes predictions.” Gavigan scowled at Merlini. “I thought fortune tellers always kept their customers happy by predicting good luck?”

  Merlini nodded. “That’s usually standard operating procedure. Zyyzk does something else?”

  “He certainly does. He’s full of doom and disaster. A dozen witnesses testify that he told Helen Hope she’d vanish off the face of the earth. And three days later that’s exactly what she does do.”

  “I can see,” Merlini said, “why you view him with suspicion. So you pulled him in for questioning and got a lot of answers that weren’t very helpful?”

  “Helpful!” Gavigan jerked several typewritten pages from his pocket and shook them angrily. “Listen to this. He’s asked: “What’s your age?” and we get: ‘According to which time—solar, sidereal, galactic, or universal?’ Murphy of Missing Persons, who was questioning him, says: ‘Any kind. Just tell us how old you are.’ And Zyyzk replies: ‘I can’t answer that. The question, in that form, has no meaning,’” The Inspector threw the papers down disgustedly.

  Merlini picked them up, riffled through them, then
read some of the transcript aloud. “Question: How did you know that Miss Hope would disappear? Answer: Do you understand the basic theory of the fifth law of interdimensional reaction? Murphy: Huh? Zyyzk: Explanations are useless. You obviously have no conception of what I am talking about.”

  “He was right about that,” Gavigan muttered. “Nobody does.”

  Merlini continued. “Question: Where is Miss Hope now? Answer: Beyond recall. She was summoned by the Lords of the Outer Darkness.” Merlini looked up from the papers. “After that, I suppose, you sent him over to Bellevue?”

  The Inspector nodded. “They had him under observation a week. And they turned in a report full of eight-syllable jawbreakers all meaning he’s crazy as a bedbug—but harmless. I don’t believe it. Anybody who predicts in a loud voice that someone will disappear into thin air at twenty minutes after four on a Tuesday afternoon, just before it actually happens, knows plenty about it!”

  Merlini is a hard man to surprise, but even he blinked at that. “Do you mean to say that he foretold the exact time, too?”

  “Right on the nose,” Gavigan answered. “The doorman of her apartment house saw her walk across the street and into Central Park at four-eighteen. We haven’t been able to find anyone who has seen her since. And don’t tell me his prediction was a long shot that paid off.”