The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits (Mammoth Books)

by Ashley, Mike;

  “It wasn’t really the fifty bucks,” I told them. “It was the way I saw him treat my wife at the fight. Nobody hits Millie like that and gets away with it.”

  The Broadcast Murder

  GRENVILLE ROBBINS

  The early 1920s saw a Radio Craze in Britain and America. The first commercial radio broadcast began in 1920 from Station SMK in Detroit, and the BBC began broadcasting over Station 2LO in London in 1922. And this story, written and published in 1928 is, so far as I know, the first radio murder mystery – certainly the first “locked room” one. Robbins was a newspaperman who wrote for The Times. He was also a writer for radio, and though he had no books published (leastways, not under that name) he had several unusual stories in the popular magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, several of which I hope to resurrect in later anthologies.

  The Oxford voice from the wireless loud speaker, to which I had been listening, suddenly stopped in the middle of a word. There was silence for a second, and then a terrifying yell rang through the room. It came from the loud speaker. I jumped up and gaped at it in frozen astonishment.

  “Help!” gasped the voice. “The lights have gone out. Someone’s trying to strangle me. I—”

  There was another terrible shriek, an agonizing gurgle, and then all was silence. There seemed no doubt whatever that the announcer, whoever he was, was either unconscious or dead. And the whole thing had not taken more than a second. He had been strangled, alone, and with no one to save him, while hundreds of thousands of people, who were unable to help him, had been listening to every sound.

  While I was still gaping at the loud speaker, I heard the sound of a scuffle come from it. Then there was a crash, as though the microphone had been upset, and then there was the sound of someone coming into the room. Help had come at last and, from the ominous silence, it had come too late. Then the machine went “dead”, and I knew that the apparatus had been cut off.

  I turned off my set almost automatically.

  And that was how I came to be in at the beginning of the great “Wireless Murder”. “Great”, not because the crime and its unravelling were so out of the ordinary, but because the circumstances were so exceptional.

  It was certainly the first time that so many people had been present at the beginning of a crime of this kind. Thousands and thousands of people knew about it at the very moment of its being done. Thousands knew about it before even the newspapers could tell them. Thousands, in short, had listened in to a new kind of programme, such as even the newly constituted Government Broadcasting Corporation had not contemplated.

  For some months before this there had been a great outcry as to the need for more “reality” in the wireless programmes. They had given us reality this time with a vengeance.

  I was sitting in my lodgings at Birchester, when the thing happened. What Birchester thinks today, as everybody knows, London thinks tomorrow, or never thinks at all, which is sometimes just as lucky for London. Anyway, Birchester is one of our largest provincial cities and is not slow to be proud of the fact.

  I, “James Farren, 33, hazel eyes, florid complexion, scar over – ” and so on, as the police might say if advertising for me, was in a nice, comfortable position on its leading newspaper. And everyone knows that the Birchester Mercury makes papers like The Times and the Manchester Guardian look like poorly produced pamphlets.

  I was single then, and, as I was still living in lodgings, had turned on the loud speaker while I was having a lonely early dinner before I turned out to start my evening’s more or less honest toil, which was usually devoted to misinforming the minds and inflaming the passions of the inhabitants of Birchester. Throughout the meal, the immaculate Oxford voice at the other end of the loud speaker had been droning on methodically. It was the time of the local news bulletin. We had already had the weather from London with its local depressions. Now we were hearing the local woes from the local studio.

  A Mrs Jones had apparently mislaid a baby while shopping. “Would anyone,” the voice was saying, “who finds the lost child, restore it to its parents at—”

  It was there that the voice stopped and the scream rang out.

  Now, I am no wireless “fan” myself, but I knew that most of my readers were, and that they would all want to hear more about this unusual crime on the morrow. So I rang up the office at once and had a couple of my sprightliest young men put on to it, to go into the matter as deeply as they could for the edification of the public.

  A second telephone call, preceded by an unmannerly altercation with the exchange, who informed me that my number was engaged before I had mentioned it, got me in touch with the chief police station, and in another minute I was on my way there in a taxi.

  I must say that I was very lucky throughout all this business in having a friend at court. He was a friend, too, in spite of being a relation. William Garland, the gentleman in question, was some vague kind of a cousin – and a jolly good fellow to boot. He was also a jolly good detective, although he was never called anything so obvious as that. He had a kind of roving commission in the Birchester police force.

  I knew that, if he were about, he would be the first to be sent by the police to the scene of the crime, and, when I rang up, he was just off in answer to an urgent message from the broadcasting people. He told me to buzz round to the police station at once. I took his advice and “buzzed”.

  He was standing on the pavement when my taxi got to the police station, and, ordering it to go on to the broadcasting studio, which was about a mile away, he jumped in and we were off again.

  “Not in the way, I hope?” said I politely.

  “Not more so than usual,” he answered, and I knew that he was glad to see me.

  “You might even be some faint help,” he went on, puffing at his pipe. “You newspaper men are so used to inventing things that you might be able to invent a solution to a crime. Were you listening in?”

  “Yes.”

  “So was I, as it happened. Horrible row, wasn’t it? Sounded as if he were throttled to death.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Name of Tremayne,” he answered. “Their principal announcer. Didn’t know him myself, except by his voice, and that wasn’t anything unusual.”

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well. Why don’t you know?”

  “Because they didn’t know,” he answered placidly.

  “Don’t be a fool,” I said impatiently. “They must know.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he answered. “They don’t.”

  “But don’t you even know if he’s dead or not?”

  “No. He’s vanished.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, vamoosed from a hermetically sealed studio.”

  “Good God!”

  “And after being strangled pretty thoroughly, too.”

  “They must be all mad,” I said.

  “I wonder,” he said, thoughtfully puffing at his pipe.

  A policeman was already stationed outside the door of the studio when we arrived, and he saluted us when he saw who my companion was. Inside the vestibule a youngish man was fidgeting. We soon found out that this was the chief of the studio. Stephen Hart was his name. He was a comparative newcomer to the establishment, and I had not met him before, but he struck me very favourably. He was probably thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, and was not only good-looking but also obviously endowed with a good deal of intelligence.

  When he saw us, he came forward eagerly.

  “Mr Garland?” he said with a quick smile. “I am the chief here. I rang up the police station directly the – thing – happened. I’ve heard of you, sir. I’m so glad you were able to come.”

  William introduced me, and we all shook hands.

  “I suppose,” went on Hart, “that you’d like to go straight to the studio. Nothing’s been touched, except the telephone, and I
answered that when the poor chap’s wife rang up. Naturally she was very frightened. I told her to stay at home, in case the police wanted to see her. Was that all right?”

  “Quite,” answered Garland. “There’s a telephone actually inside the studio then, is there?”

  “Yes. It’s not often used, but occasionally, when the broadcasting isn’t actually going on, we want to get in touch with someone in the studio.”

  “I see. Well. Shall we go straight up?”

  Hart led the way. We mounted a couple of flights of stairs and passed through an open door into a typical broadcasting studio. In the middle of the room was the overturned microphone and by it an overturned wooden chair. That was all the furniture. The place was brilliantly lighted, and otherwise was quite bare. The lights were high up in the middle of the ceiling, and were turned on and off by a couple of switches just by the door. On the other side of the door was the telephone. In one corner was a thing rather like a telephone box. It was, I gathered, soundproof, and, when necessary, it was used to check the performance that was going on in the studio. There was no furniture inside it. Nothing but a pair of earphones. On the floor of the studio was a thick carpet. The walls, which were bright yellow in colour, were covered by thin curtains. That was all.

  “Would you mind shutting the door?” said William to Hart. He did so. It closed automatically with a spring lock and fitted flush into the wall.

  “You have a key, of course,” went on William.

  “Yes, and there are two or three others belonging to the staff. It is shut like that to prevent the possibility of any stranger barging in in the middle of a performance. Of course, it’s not likely—”

  “It seems to have happened tonight all right,” said the other dryly.

  “Yes,” agreed Hart. “I can’t understand it.”

  “Well, Mr Hart,” said my friend, after he had had a quick but thorough glance round the room. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course not.”

  “We both of us heard what happened from our end of the wireless. I suppose that was Tremayne’s voice all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see him come in?”

  “Yes. He came in about ten minutes before he started doing the local announcements. My office is just outside, you know. He came in to say good evening, and left his hat and coat there as he usually does. They’re still there.”

  “And then he went into the studio?”

  “Yes. We chatted for a few minutes. I gave him the announcements that were to be read and then he came in here.”

  “The lights were on?”

  “Yes. I came in with him. The place was just the same as it always is.”

  “I see. And then you left him here alone?”

  “Yes. With the average performer we have someone in that box through his performance. Either I or poor Tremayne used to do that, to keep a check on the performance, but, of course, we’ve never done it with our own announcers. We always assume that they’ll be all right.”

  “Does Tremayne do all the announcing?”

  “He used to do most of it. In fact, he did it all, unless he were away on holiday. It’s not a big staff here. It’s mainly a relay station, you see.”

  “I see. And so you left him in here alone?”

  “Yes. When I went out, he was sitting at the microphone. I left him there and shut the door behind me. Then I went to my office to do a bit more work. It’s the end of the month and I was in rather a rush. I had been in my office most of the day.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Well, I had the loud speaker in my office turned on, as usual. It provides another check on the performance. I get so used to it, too, that I scarcely pay any attention to it. At least, until today.”

  Here he was obviously overcome by emotion.

  “After a few minutes,” he went on at last, “I heard exactly what you and everyone else heard.”

  “I see. You heard Tremayne call out that the lights had gone out and that he was being strangled?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You couldn’t hear it directly, of course?” went on the detective.

  “No. The studio’s absolutely sound-proof. I dashed to the door at once. It was still locked. My own door was open, and I can swear that no one had opened the studio door, come out, and closed it behind them. I’m sure it would have been quite impossible. Then I found that in my excitement I had left the key of the studio door on my table in the office. I dashed back and got it, opened the door – and found the place in darkness.”

  “That’s curious,” commented Garland.

  “It was,” said Hart. “There wasn’t the slightest sound. I groped for the switch at the door. It had been turned off. I switched on the lights and they came on all right. I thought at first that they might have fused and that Tremayne had had a kind of fit. But even that wouldn’t have explained his — Oh well! And that’s all I know. The room was just as you see it now. Absolutely empty.”

  “Extraordinary!”

  “It is. I do hope you can do something. I’m terribly worried.”

  Here he broke down altogether.

  “Cheer up,” said Garland. “There must be some explanation. I’ll just have a bit of a look round. I wonder if you would mind getting his hat and coat from your office. I’d like to have a look at them. By the way, was there anyone else who would have seen him coming to work tonight?”

  “Yes. Sergeant Jones, the commissionaire at the front door.”

  “Oh, yes. Would you mind sending him up? I’ll see the rest of the staff later. How many are there?”

  “About a dozen.”

  And with that he went out, looking thoroughly miserable.

  When he had gone we both had a thorough search of the room. We found absolutely nothing. The walls were solid everywhere. The only opening was the door. The floor under the carpet we soon found to be made of solid concrete. Any entrance or escape through the ceiling was out of the question. Even if there had been a trap (which there wasn’t) no one could have dropped through, strangled Tremayne, and got back again (even if he had had a ladder) in the time between the crime and the entrance of Hart.

  “Very baffling,” said William, with a queer smile.

  “Very,” I agreed.

  The commissionaire at the front door came in at that moment. A typical army man was Sergeant Jones.

  Yes. He had seen Tremayne come in earlier in the evening. He arrived at his usual time. He would know him out of a thousand. Very peculiar walk he had. Coat collar turned up as usual. Glasses? Yes, everything quite ordinary and as usual.

  He was dismissed with a benediction.

  A clerk was then produced who had passed him coming up the stairs. He, too, was dismissed with thanks.

  Sergeant Jones, recalled, said that, even supposing a body had been carried past Mr Hart’s office without being noticed, it would not go into the street without him, Sergeant Jones, seeing it. Most indignant he was about this. Of course, the thing was impossible. He was there to watch people coming in and going out, and, if he didn’t notice a body going out, he wasn’t worth his money.

  “Why,” he went on, “I could tell you every movement of every member of the staff today.”

  And he went on to enumerate a long list, finishing with Tremayne, who had come in at 5.30, and Mr Hart, who had come in at noon, and not left the office since.

  Garland scratched his head thoughtfully at this information, and decided that he had learnt enough here.

  “I’m going round to see Mrs Tremayne,” he said to me. “And I’m sure that one’s enough for an interview with an hysterical woman who’s probably a widow. You run back to your office. I’ll give you a ring if anything else happens tonight.”

  With that he left me, and I walked thoughtfully back to my office.

  He didn’t ring me up that night, and when I went to bed I was still as puzzled as ever by the mystery. My two reporters,
good boys both, had done their best, and produced some very readable stuff, but they had not been allowed much scope by the local police, who knew their job much too well. All the newspapers could get was a very little fact and a great amount of conjecture.

  And it was not an easy case to conjecture about. I, for one, was hopelessly baffled. The wife of the vanished announcer had been interviewed by my reporter as well as by the detective, and she swore that it was her husband’s voice she had heard from the loud speaker. And there was no doubt that she ought to know.

  It was really most amazing. Tremayne had been attacked in an empty and unapproachable room, and then had been spirited away – all in a space of less than two minutes.

  No wonder that next day all the newspapers were full of it. One after another they gave the case flaring headlines. Some went so far as roundly to declare that the whole thing was due to magic.

  The thing was so surprising that it might have been considerably more than a seven days’ wonder; but the newspapers this time were not to have a long drawn out mystery, for by the following evening Garland had drawn the net tight and all was over, bar the shouting – and the scaffold. It made the story even more surprising but, as a journalist myself, I could not help thinking regretfully of the cleverness of this relative of mine, which had so soon ended the newspaper sensation of years.

  I was down at the office that afternoon when the telephone bell rang. It was Garland. He wanted to see me, and I told him to come along. In a very few minutes he was shown in. He looked tired – and, to my trained eye, immoderately triumphant.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Very,” he answered. “I want to relieve my brain, so I’ll talk to you for a few minutes. You will admit, won’t you, that it’s impossible for a man to be strangled in an empty sealed room, and also impossible for him, when he’s been strangled, to vanish from that room?”