“No. But I still like this illusion business. Tell me—think back. Was there anything about that yellow figure that you saw that was—well, wrong?”
Matt looked down at the glowing tip of his cigarette and tried to see again the thing in the yellow robe. At last he said, “Yes. One thing, though I don’t see where it helps. He didn’t have on his gloves.”
Matt had finished the cigarette when the Lieutenant stopped swearing. “Didn’t have on his gloves!” he concluded. “It’s preposterous! It’s fantastic! You mean those yellow gloves that Ahasver always wears?”
“Yes.”
“But they’re an intrinsic part of his costume. Whether it was Ahasver or somebody made up like him, still … God alone knows how many times a murderer has put on gloves to commit his crime, but this will echo down the casebooks of the future as the first murder on record in which the murderer took off his gloves!”
“I’m sorry. But as I think back that’s what I see—a flesh-colored hand resting on the desk.”
Marshall snorted. “I try to straighten this mess out, and I just get in deeper. I try to find a hint of an illusion that will smooth out everything, and instead I discover a gloveless murderer who leaves no fingerprints. Well, then, the light arrangement kills visual illusion; and if the illusion was anything solid, we’re up against the same problem as with a murderer. So Point Number Five, Impersonation and/or Illusion, out. Next:
6. It is a murder which, although committed by somebody outside the room at the time, nevertheless seems to have been committed by somebody who must have been inside.
This one is tricky as all hell, and some of the gags propounded as examples might well work. At least I know they’d worry the hell out of a medical examiner. But most of them are stabbings or bludgeonings and irrelevant to our case. Now why couldn’t this crime have been committed by someone outside of the room?”
“Two reasons. A, the powder burns on Harrigan’s face establish that the murderer must have been close to him. B, the gun ballistically proved to have fired the bullet was in the room. I’ll admit you could maybe work out some fantastic idea of the shot having been fired in at an incredible angle through the rat hole or the crack in the fireplace, but neither of those holes is conceivably large enough to admit the gun itself.”
“All right. Point Number Six, Murder from Outside, out.
7. This is a murder depending on an effect exactly the reverse of number 5. That is, the victim is presumed to be dead long before he actually is.
In other words, the victim is only unconscious—say, drugged—while all the battering on the locked door goes on. The door is broken in, and the actual murder takes place in all the attendant confusion. Objections?”
“No one but the police was in that room between the breaking down of the door and the finding of the corpse. Besides, I saw Wolfe lying dead before we broke in.”
“That might have been the unconscious stage.”
“But I saw his face. … Still, even discounting that, if we accept this idea the murderer must have been one of the officers summoned by chance, which, as we used to say in geometry, is absurd.”
“Right. Point Number Seven, Murder After the Fact, out And that, my dear Watson, ends the list of situations in which no murderer was actually in the room. Are you quite satisfied that none of them applies?”
“I was to start with. We know the murderer was in the room.”
“All right. Now the grumpy and splendiferous Dr. Fell gives us his list of the ways a murderer can hocus a door after his escape, to make us think it was locked on the inside. He starts:
1. Tampering with the key which is still in the lock.
Several pretty examples with pliers and string.”
“But none of the openings to the study had a key in its lock.”
“Right. That’s out. Next:
2. Simply removing the hinges of the door without disturbing lock or bolt.
What have you got against that?”
“It couldn’t be done on the French windows. Those are bolted top and bottom, so that even if you removed the hinges they’d still be firmly fixed. It couldn’t be done with the chapel door, because that entrance is closed not only by a lock but by a witness.”
“That leaves the hall door. Why not that?”
“Time. The murderer would have had to come out into the hall, remove the hinges, go back into the room, turn the bolt, squeeze out into the hall again, and replace the hinges. And between the time I was hammering on that hall door and the time I came out of the chapel into the hall again—well, I can’t say exactly, but it couldn’t possibly be over a minute.”
“I don’t know. If the hinges are clean—that could be prepared beforehand—you can take them apart in about three seconds fiat. I wouldn’t be too sure on the time element alone. But there’s another point that queers it: the hinges on that door are on the inside of the room. So Point Number Two, Hinges, is out. The next two are:
3. Tampering with the bolt. String again.
4. Tampering with a falling bar or latch.
We went over all the bolts and latches in that room and disproved those possibilities. There remains:
5.An illusion, simple but effective. The murderer, after committing his crime, has locked the door from the outside and kept the key.
He then reintroduces the key to the room after it’s been broken into, in such a way that we police, who seem to swallow anything, think that it’s been there all along. Objection?”
“Keys don’t interest us. They’ve no bearing on the situation.”
“Exactly. Well, my friend, there, according to what Leona assures me is the foremost fictional authority on the subject, is your list of all the possible solutions to a locked room. And where are we?”
Matt took another drink without bothering to answer the rhetorical question. From the kitchen came the sound of Leona’s approaching footsteps.
Hastily Lieutenant Marshall drew a small metal lid from his pocket and clamped it on his pipe. “Keeps the coals in,” he explained. “Leona doesn’t like holes in the furniture or my suits.”
“But you’ve been smoking all this time without it.”
“I know. But Leona doesn’t know that.” The Lieutenant picked up The Three Coffins again and stared at it as though illumination were bound somehow to filter out of its covers.
“Now me,” said Leona a little later, when the two men had given her an outline of their fruitless efforts, “I like a locked room. I’ve got the advantage over both of you. I’m not tied up with the people involved, and my job doesn’t depend on solving it.”
“I might remind you, darling,” said Marshall gently, “that your livelihood does.”
“I know, but that doesn’t seem so immediate, somehow. I can just look at your locked room as though it were a puzzle in a Carr book; and from that point of view, let me tell you it’s a honey. Now locked rooms are my special weakness in mysteries. I don’t care about terrific alibis that take a two-page timetable to explain, or brilliant murder-devices that need machine-shop diagrams or involve the latest scientific developments in the use of insulin; but give me a locked room and I’m happy.”
“Not that I grudge you your happiness,” said her husband, “but if, out of your vast experience with locked rooms, you might give us humble mortals some small hint …”
“Isn’t he ponderous when he’s sarcastic, Mr. Duncan? You can hear the floor creak.—You surely can’t expect me to help you, darling, if that Carr chapter doesn’t turn the trick. That’s the last and definitive word on the subject. But I could suggest a different classification.”
“Go on. Anything to give me a lead.”
“All right. The Locked Room (my, I wish I could bumble like Dr. Fell) falls into three categories:
A: The murder was committed before the room was locked.
B: The murder was committed while the room was locked.
C: The murder was committed after the room was broken into.
Does that help?”
“It’s a start,” Marshall grunted. “Go on.”
“Now in your case we can strike out C right away. The only persons who had a chance to commit murder after the room was broken into are the men from the radio car.”
“Check.”
“B means murder from a distance, murder by mechanical device, or murder by suggestion.”
“We’ve gone into each of those,” said Matt. “They’re no good.”
“All right then. You’re left with A. The murder was committed before the room was locked. Why shouldn’t it have been? You don’t know the exact time of death, do you?”
“That damned fire spoiled our chances on that. It could have been any time.”
“Well? What’s wrong with it? Isn’t it a logical conclusion by elimination? There’s a start for you.”
“I hate to discourage my wife when she’s being helpful, but that’s out too. That room was actually ‘locked,’ as you say—‘sealed’ might be better—when Ellen Harrigan went into the chapel. At least five minutes thereafter, Duncan and Joseph saw the robed figure in the study. I’ll admit that the murder an sich, the murder qua murder—”
“Oxford,” Leona whispered to Matt. “It happens sometimes—like a tic.”
“All right. The just plain old murder then, if you like that better, may have happened before the room was sealed. Quite possibly it did. But someone in a yellow robe was in that room afterwards; and the problem of how he got out is the same whether the murder took place when Duncan saw him or half an hour earlier.”
“I’ve got a wonderful husband,” Leona sighed. “He has just finished proving to his complete satisfaction that his locked-room crime did not take place before, during, or after the time the room was sealed. Isn’t it marvelous?”
“What’s marvelous,” the Lieutenant growled, “is that you’ve got me all excited about this locked-room business. The obvious answer, to any common or garden cop, is that Miss Harrigan did see somebody come out of that room and is keeping quiet about it.”
“But—” Matt started.
“But nothing. That somebody can’t have been Ahasver or the Swami or any other cult faker, or Ellen wouldn’t be protecting him. It can’t have been you, Duncan, or Joseph, because you two were together. So. What’s left? It was either Arthur or Concha Harrigan. The whole damned problem is as simple as that if you look at it right.”
“But, Terence!” Leona protested. “That isn’t cricket. Mr. Carr wouldn’t like it. You build up a sealed room and then just say, ‘Aha! It wasn’t sealed at all. Fooled you!’ It’s worse than a secret passageway.”
“The ethics of mystery novels are no concern of mine. Haven’t we just got through proving that your locked-room conventions can’t possibly apply here? But, hell, if I only knew some way of tackling the Harrigan woman … You can’t just up and grill her the way you would a burglary suspect or a gunman’s moll.”
“But Sister Ursula claims,” Matt insisted, “that Miss Harrigan’s evidence is the one certain thing in the whole set-up.”
“She does, does she? And what does Sister Ursula know about it?”
“I forgot to tell you. She’s going to solve the case.” And Matt, half-smiling and half-serious, told of Sister Ursula’s ideas and ambitions.
“Hm,” Marshall reflected. “Could be. Stranger things have happened. A fellow lieutenant of mine had a case solved for him last summer by the dumbest sergeant on the force, and if our own sergeants are going to solve cases I wouldn’t put it past a nun. And that was a good tip she gave me about the dart, even though nothing came of it.”
“I don’t know about that. She looked at that crusade book and it seemed to mean a lot to her. She was horrified—stricken dumb for a minute. Then she said the only remaining problem was how the murderer got out.”
“Good Lord! What did she mean?”
“She wouldn’t say. Just told me that you should remember the name of the nuns’ new memorial chapel.”
“Their new memorial chapel? God in heaven, how should I remember that? I never even heard it.”
“Neither had I; so I asked Miss Harrigan. She donated it, you know. It’s the Rufus Harrigan Memorial Chapel.”
“Good old Rufus,” said Marshall. “The pride of Los Angeles. Came out here on an Irish work-crew building the Union Pacific. Tended bar till he’d made enough money to start buying real estate—and God did he buy it! Married late in life, when he’d become a respectable City Father, and reared this family—all just to give me a headache.”
“I know about Rufus,” said Leona quietly. “One of his deathbed acts was to pull a neat little trick which drove my father out of business. That’s what makes Flame Girls.”
“But what the sweet hell has that got to do with books on English history and locked rooms? I think that precious Sister of yours is damned well pulling my leg.”
“I don’t,” Matt maintained. “I don’t know why, but I don’t.”
“So?” Marshall rose, stood in front of the false fireplace, and stretched. “But Sister or no Sister, Rufus or no Rufus, sealed room or no sealed room, I’ve already done too damned much thinking for a man on his day off. I move we call it a day. No, don’t go home, Duncan; I didn’t mean that. But let’s just drink and talk and the hell with the murder.”
“You look very manly straddling the fireplace, darling,” said Leona, “But we like heat, too.”
Two hours later, when Matt knew more about detection, burlesque houses, and the feeding of two-year-olds than he had ever imagined there was to learn, he finally started home.
“Come again,” Leona insisted. “Even if Terence doesn’t need a stooge, you’re welcome. Come in the afternoon sometime and you can play with Terry.”
“I will if I can stay for dinner and you’ll have lamb.”
“Terence, the man loves me only for my cooking. I’m hurt.”
“Remember, honey, he saw the Flame Dance. Even your lamb couldn’t wipe out that memory. Better make it an evening, Duncan, when she has a man to protect her.”
Matt had forgotten the beard. His only thoughts as he strolled along the tree-sheltered side street were of warmth and comfort—good food, good whisky, and the vicarious happiness of domesticity. A man could even put up with a brat, he thought; maybe they grow on you.
The abrupt noise of a scuffle behind him shattered this pretty revery. He whirled about to see two figures scuffling on the ground. Two others jumped from a car parked up the street and hastened to the scene of the rumpus. So did Matt. As he drew near he saw a sudden flash and an instant later heard the shot.
* New York, Harper Bros., 1935.
Chapter 15
The struggle was over when Matt reached the spot. One of the combatants—a tall and husky individual—was supporting in his arms the limp and sagging form of the other—Matt’s beaver-shadow.
The men from the car had come up, too. “Drop that gun!” one of them snapped. “We’ve got you covered!”
“So,” said the tall figure. “It’s you, Ragland. Give me a hand with this dope. We’ll take him into the house till the ambulance comes.”
“My God, it’s the Lieutenant! Where did you come from?”
“Don’t mind me,” said Marshall. “I just live. here. Come on. Lend a hand.”
The other officer confronted Matt, gun drawn. “Well?” he snarled. “What do you want?”
“Don’t get tough,” said the Lieutenant over his shoulder, as he and Ragland carried off the unconscious beaver. “That’s the guy you were tailing. Remember? You might need him. Come along, Matt—and you might pick up that automatic. He’s been dropping them again.”
Leona’s housewifely efficiency extended even to this situation. She helped settle the beard on a sofa and then vanished, to return almost instantly with hot water and bandages. “There,” she said after a minute’s deft work. “That’ll do. Hasty sort of job, but you’ve called the ambulance, haven’t you, dear?”<
br />
“Yes, dear.”
(The two other officers exchanged a malicious grin.)
“Now” (she wiped her hands on a remaining fragment of bandage) “what on earth happened?”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing myself,” said Matt.
“All right. Have a drink, boys? I won’t report you.”
They didn’t mind if they did.
“I was curious about Duncan’s bearded shadow. I watched when Duncan left and saw this man emerge from behind a tree over there and start out after him. So I joined the procession. Then I saw something in the beaver’s hand that didn’t look healthy, so I snuck up behind and jumped him. We had a little tussle, and the damned fool shot himself through the shoulder. How does it look?”
“Nothing serious,” said Leona.
“Here’s his automatic.” Matt handed it over. “You said he’s dropping them again. Then you mean that he’s …?”
“Sure. I could stage a spectacular act and rip the whiskers off, but I’ll leave that for the emergency hospital. I’d like them to see their patient first in his full beauty. That’s your Swami, all right. Who the hell else would want to shadow you? And do it so atrociously? And if you want further proof, he started swearing in the struggle, just as you’ve described before.”
“In some strange language? What the devil is that?”
“It’s a mixture, just like the Swami himself. I’ve looked up his record. He’s half Jew and half Gypsy, for all his Hindu pretensions, and a libel on both races. And this pet language of his seems to be a mixture of Romany and Yiddish.”
“Nice guy,” said Ragland philosophically.
“I still don’t quite get his part in all this. I’d like to—”
“He’s coming around,” said Leona.
The Swami Mahopadhyaya Virasenanda cocked open one glassy eye and stared up at the Lieutenant. “Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Marshall, homicide. That make you any happier, toots?”
“You … you shot me,” the Swami faltered, horrified.
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