EQMM, March-April 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Their carriage now set off for the Auberge de L'Aiglon, a hotel on the slope of Mt. Cenis some fifteen kilometers away. It would be their command center.

  On the way LeGrand said, “We will use the Right-Headed League.” This alliance of top-lofty organizations sought the improvement of the human race, some, like the Polyhymnia Club, by promoting classical music; others through physical fitness; others by church work, whether by distributing tracts or forming soup societies to feed the needy. The league's leadership had recently pledged to work in concert whenever the need arose.

  Ganelon had never taken sides in the great debate over whether making people happy would make them good, or making them good would make them happy. But he knew the more people involved, the more chance Fong, who had eyes and ears everywhere, would find out about it. So he insisted that the Right-Headed League's people must converge on the site simultaneously and all the ivory must be extracted and transported away in a single day.

  When they reached the hotel they set telegraph wires humming across Europe.

  * * * *

  The night before the recovery operation Ganelon and his companion went to bed early for they had to rise by dawn to oversee the moving of the ivory.

  But just before midnight a caravan of diligences arrived at the hotel, disgorging a horde of noisy men and women guests who took up quarters on the floor above them and shouted and sang drunkenly into the early morning.

  The last time the revels woke Ganelon he heard a small carriage stop beneath his window. After a few minutes a door slammed above him, then another and then another. The noise diminished with each slam until the floor above was totally silent. The hair on the back of Ganelon's head stirred. Something told him that he and Ludwig Fong, his archrival, were staying at the same hotel.

  * * * *

  Ganelon and LeGrand, deep in woolly capes smelling strongly of sheep and shepherds, stood on the valley rim in the early morning chill as contingents of the Right-Headed League arrived: Here the young men of the Mens Sana in Corpore Sano Verein in lederhosen singing songs of wandering which they could not bring down into the valley with them for fear of triggering avalanches; there a seminary rifle club called Sharpshooters for Peace, whom Ganelon assigned to lookout posts and to guard the ivory when it was brought out of the valley; next the Excelsior Society, mountain climbers for a better world. Now came the sturdy nuns from the nearby Convent of Saint Goliath, who rescued snowbound travelers from the mountain slopes in winter. After them strode the soup-society ladies dressed in skirted bloomers, warm gloves, and hats and climbing sticks. Manhandling sacks of onions and potatoes and sides of mutton for their nourishing soup kettles made these ladies well fitted for the work at hand.

  A rope was doled out to the valley floor. Then began the job of collecting the tusks and passing them up from shoulder to shoulder to the valley rim. There they were loaded onto the sleighs of Les Amis du Saint Bonhomme-de-Neige, The Friends of Saint Snowman, French Canadian teamsters in gray homespun and bright toques and sashes who happened to be in Europe for the Tour de Suisse sleigh races. Their conveyances would take the ivory over to the recently built light railroad through the Mt. Cenis Pass and down to Italian trains for transportation to San Sebastiano.

  By midmorning the work was done. Just as a sleigh sped away with the last of the ivory, the wigwag semaphore from the Sharpshooters’ lookout sprang to life. Ganelon took out his telescope. Coming over the rim on the other side of the valley he saw a strange column of people. The men came first, overweight, stoop-shouldered, pigeon-chested, with unhealthy, indoor faces, blinking in the glare off the snow. He watched as they slid and stumbled down in striped and checked trousers, narrow shoes, and tight jackets unequal to the weather: pimps, cat's-paws, cut-purses, and pool sharks marching to the noise of their own barking coughs and phlegmatic wheezing. Next came their female counterparts beneath the Heart-of-Gold banner of the Sisterhood of the Ladies of the Night, all powdered and rouged in their soiled finery and bright, impractical parasols.

  Turning his telescope back to the top of the valley, Ganelon saw Fong himself dressed in furs with one arm in a black sling, his free hand holding a riding crop, frowning down on this ragtag collection of late risers, the best he could put together at a moment's notice to race the Right-Headed League to the elephant graveyard.

  Suddenly a loud fit of coughing rose up from Fong's men and echoed across the valley. A moment later a large shelf of snow above them broke off from the main and came crashing down, engulfing the front of the column.

  The women in the rear immediately turned around and started back up to the top of the valley where Fong stood, raging and threatening them with his riding crop. But the women furled their parasols and gripped them firmly as they came within striking distance. Daunted, Fong stood aside.

  Then the arch-villain looked over sharply, as if feeling the weight of the telescope's gaze. When he saw Ganelon, his face went white with rage. To Ganelon, Fong always looked his most German when angry. But now as he watched he saw the villain's expression turn abruptly Oriental. Ganelon knew Fong was scheming something. He wondered what.

  * * * *

  Back in San Sebastiano, with LeGrand's piano atelier humming again, Ganelon returned to pondering cases during long walks, “constitutionals” as the English were starting to call them. Not long afterwards he received by special messenger an ebony walking stick with a golden five-fanged dragon's-claw pommel. The shaft of the stick concealed a two-foot sword blade of Damascus steel. In the accompanying note Ludwig Fong urged him to accept the gift. “Now that you are moving abroad again, I fear someone may succeed in an attack on your life before I can make time in my busy schedule to kill you myself."

  Smiling, Ganelon decided yes, he'd use the walking stick. It was a handsome piece. And the dragon's claw, Fong's emblem, would focus his mind on his rival.

  One afternoon later that week, Ganelon decided to buy a newspaper and sit on a particular bench in the cliff-side Parc Belvedere above the Mediterranean, whose blue, local legends say, was so beautiful the very sky stole it for its own. In the newspaper he happened on an account of Swiss missionaries in German East Africa who were trekking to a new parish. As they passed a herd of elephants their cart hit a pothole, causing a cuckoo clock among their belongings to strike the hour. This alien sound so startled the elephants that they stampeded northward out of sight.

  As he smiled at the story Ganelon noticed a bent-over man as gray as an apparition coming up the path toward him. Reaching Ganelon's bench, the man stopped and introduced himself. “Mr. Ganelon, my name is Leander Crisp,” he said, presenting a visiting card which described him as a “Jocular Archaeologist."

  Now Ganelon placed the man. Crisp was the author of a book called Chuckling Down Memory Lane: Knee-Slapping Jokes and Riddles From Our Grandsires’ Day that had been severely handled by reviewers. For his part, Ganelon saw little point in rooting around in the slagheap of old jokes. Only the fittest of such things survive. Whatever has not come down to us, ought not come down to us.

  Mr. Crisp took a seat beside him and said, “You are a solver of riddles, I believe, sir. Here is one you should enjoy: Why is the city of Rome like a candlewick?"

  "Like a—"

  "Like a candlewick. The city of Rome,” repeated Crisp, waiting. Then he stood up. “Perhaps you need time to consider my little riddle. Let us meet here again."

  After the man had gone, Ganelon sat there on the bench for some time, puzzling over the riddle. Then he walked home shaking his head, embarrassed that he, the great detective, didn't know the answer.

  That evening at dinner when Madame commented on his lack of appetite he told her, “Here's a riddle for you. Why is the city of Rome like a candlewick?” She thought for a moment before starting to clear the table.

  Later Ganelon played his oboe for several hours, something he only did when trying to solve a most difficult case. But he went to bed that evening and tossed and turned, the riddle unsol
ved.

  Early the next morning Ganelon went directly to the park bench, hoping Crisp might reappear. By noon the sky turned gray and a light rain began to fall. Ganelon stayed until the rain grew brisker. He returned home sopping wet, unsure what he hated most, Crisp, the city of Rome, or candlewicks.

  After another bad night, he woke feeling he was coming down with a cold. Nevertheless, he made his way back to the park bench, ready to admit that the damned puzzle had him stumped and to have Crisp tell him the answer.

  Near eleven in the morning, Ganelon saw Crisp coming up the path and his heart quickened. The archaeologist of the jocular seemed pleased with himself as he approached Ganelon, who sat with his walking stick between his legs.

  "All right,” said the detective. “Why is the damn city of Rome like a damn candlewick?"

  Crisp beamed triumphantly. “Because it's in the middle of grease,” he said.

  Ganelon blinked. Then he understood and shouted, “But Rome isn't in the middle of Greece. It's in the middle of Italy!"

  Crisp's pitying look threw Ganelon into a rage. He realized all the time he'd wasted over this geographic ignoramus's silly riddle. Suddenly he heard a click. Looking down, he saw he'd released the button on the sword cane and drawn the blade six inches out of its scabbard. In horror, he slammed the sword cane shut again.

  The noise brought two plain-clothed policemen rushing out from behind some nearby trees. As they grabbed the protesting Crisp, one of them told Ganelon, “Sir, we were alerted this morning by telegram from Berlin that this man intended to murder you."

  "You were misinformed,” Ganelon replied. “He was to be the murder victim and you the witnesses. Escort him to the border and let him go.” Then, as the policemen marched Crisp away Ganelon shouted after them, “But if he tries to tell you a riddle along the way, feel free to shoot him down like a dog."

  When he was alone, Ganelon crossed the park and stood at the cliff's edge shaking his head. A moment ago he had almost killed a man. Now he knew what his archenemy had been scheming back up there in the Alps. Fong wanted to make Ganelon a murderer, to make the two of them brothers in spirit. And he had almost succeeded.

  Cursing his own frailty, his face burning with humiliation, Ganelon grabbed the sword cane by its ferrule end, swung it around, and threw it out into the air as far as he could. Then he watched as it fell into the blue water below.

  Copyright (c) 2007 by James Powell

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  THE OLD WIFE'S TALE by Gillian Roberts

  Gillian Roberts won the Anthony Award for Best First Mystery in 1988 for her novel Caught Dead in Philadelphia, and in the years since has written a dozen more delightful, witty mysteries at novel-length. Formerly an English teacher in Philadelphia, Ms. Roberts now lives in California. Her latest book, released in January of 2007 by Ballantine, is All's Well That Ends.

  I cry at weddings. All weddings, even for people I don't know. Even for weddings I don't attend.

  Even for weddings that haven't happened yet.

  Opening the paper and looking at the list of people applying for marriage licenses is enough to start the waterworks.

  In a world this evil, with so many people doing such terrible things to each other, the idea of two people innocently and with all their hearts and souls promising to be true to one another forever, till death parts them—I mean, how can a person not weep at the pure beauty of that?

  But also, how can we not weep in a different sort of way, knowing the dangers ahead, the serious difference between a wedding and a marriage?

  The poor brides and grooms are like innocent and idealistic recruits being sent to battle by seasoned warriors who know the odds are stacked against them. That, in fact, they're doomed.

  George—George Edward Alexander, a man of three first names—and I made our death-do-us-part vows years ago. Even thinking about that day makes my eyes tear, but not completely with joy. George is the love of my life. He always was, he still is, and he always will be. I've made sure of that. Love is not the problem.

  Marriage is.

  The vows are strong. If only men were too. Consider yourself as modern as you like, but I say some things don't change. I am a liberated woman, a woman of her times, but I can be any kind of woman I decide to be and George will still be a man, and there's pretty much only one kind of that.

  That's another reason I cry.

  Things were okay the first three years, when George was in law school. Maybe not entirely okay, but like they say, the wife is always the last to know, and ignorance was bliss. We were a team, both of us working hard for the sake of our future, of our marriage. I abandoned my dreams of the stage—too risky when we desperately needed funds. Instead, I taught elementary school art. I was a traveling “specialist,” which meant I drove all over the district to scrape out a living. By the end of the day, I didn't have the energy to wonder if George actually needed to burn as much midnight oil elsewhere as he did.

  Besides, classmates could help him in ways I couldn't, so he studied with them, late into the night. It wasn't completely his fault if some of them were attractive.

  And the studying was worth it, because George became a brilliant attorney, ask anybody. Say his name and you'll hear nothing but lavish praise for his skill. Okay, maybe you shouldn't ask just anybody. Maybe he's not universally adored, but who is? His specialty is one that most lawyers don't want to touch—criminal law. And he's so clever, his nickname is “Loop-de-loop” for all the legal holes he finds. Some people say it's really "loup," French for wolf, but they're wrong.

  I appreciate the idea that everybody is entitled to a fair trial even if it seems that maybe sometimes the trials aren't all that fair. Odd things happen. People on the other side from George—that is, people on the wrong side—change their mind, forget what they said, disappear, but George says it is all in the name of justice. I say justice is sometimes really, really blind, not to mention deaf and brain-dead.

  I wish he'd upgrade his criminals to the ones in corporations. George laughs when I say that. He says it's part of my being a good housekeeper—I like things to be in order: neat, clean, and tidy. He says I like white-collar crime because it sounds as if it's been laundered. George is famous for his sense of humor.

  George says you make your living however you can, and since he isn't murdering people, and he isn't committing the crimes, he doesn't get to choose what kind of person he represents. He takes whoever needs him.

  And thanks to those thugs and killers (those accused thugs and killers) and George's legal skills, I long ago stopped driving from school to school, smiling at dumb dried-noodle collages and pathetic drawings. Thanks to a lot of (alleged) murderers and rapists, we live well beyond anything I ever imagined. Our children had every advantage, and now both are in college, and I am understandably proud of the job I did in raising them. I say I raised them because, in truth, George wasn't around much.

  The last to know, that's what they say. I believed him when he had those late meetings, even though most of his clients were behind bars, and prisons don't keep the same hours as cocktail lounges. But, like he said, I wasn't a lawyer and I didn't understand.

  It was a long time before I put two and two together and knew that George was usually one of the two.

  The first time it dawned on me that maybe George wasn't telling the complete truth about his whereabouts and with-whomabouts, I took it slow. I am not a lawyer, true, but I'd watched how George built up a case. I knew it would be stupid to make accusations I couldn't back up, to appear weak or ill-informed. Instead, I observed, and I collected data, and then we had it out. Actually, it wasn't angry like that sounds. I merely pointed out the fact that his activities were endangering the sacred vows of marriage, and he was in danger of losing me and his children.

  I didn't have to say that he was also in danger of losing half of every penny he'd ever made and everything he owned. He knew that part himself.

  George cried. He said sh
e meant nothing. He said he was weak—as if I needed to be informed of that—and he said it was over. He said he loved me now and forever. He bought me a diamond wedding band with eighteen square-cut diamonds ringing my finger.

  He said it would never happen again.

  It happened again.

  He bought me a Jaguar convertible.

  And again.

  He bought me diamond earrings. Large diamond earrings.

  A second home.

  A bleached gold mink full-length coat.

  A new, enormous house in the best neighborhood.

  I wasn't thrilled with the status quo, but the all-important thing was that the marriage remained intact, even if the particulars weren't exactly what the wedding vows had in mind. It was obvious that those women didn't matter to him in any big way. That didn't mean I didn't keep watching and making notes—and telling him about what I knew—but we'd reached something like a silent agreement. In fact, after a while, I didn't have to tell him a thing. I'd just maybe sigh, or be in a mood, and just like that there'd be another fabulous gift, and I knew another one of them had bit the dust.

  It was almost as if George wanted to play around—and wanted to be caught. Wanted to have an excuse to end the game, to toss away the woman of the hour.

  That was how it was and how I thought it would be forever, or as long as George could manage it. But that was before Lili Beth Warsaw. Not that I knew her name at that point, but I knew there'd been a frightening change in George. He stopped being sloppy about his whereabouts. He stopped leaving suspicious matchbooks around, never came home late enough to start me going, didn't have cryptic initials (R—3 P.M.) in his Palm Pilot. His clothing was never stained with lipstick, nor did it smell of another woman's perfume. He came to the kids’ school events. In short, he behaved like an upstanding, marriage-vow-honoring, faithful man.

  I knew it for what it was: upgraded cheating. Serious cheating. Don't-want-to-be-caught cheating.