The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  “Thorman and I were of the same weight and build; I put on his shoes, which I found fitted well enough; and then I set out for the shore. The tide was just right, and I walked out to those rocks—limping, of course, for I remembered Thorman’s ankle. My wife followed in the machine, and lowered the body to me on the winch.

  “I restored the shoes and made the various dispositions which you found—and which you were meant to find, Appleby, for I had noticed your regular morning walk.

  “Then I went up the rope and we flew home. We thought that we had achieved our aim: to make it appear irrefutable that poor Arthur Thorman had committed suicide—and in circumstances which, although mysterious, were wholly unconnected with any suspicion of treason.”

  When Appleby had concluded his narrative, neither of his hearers spoke.

  “My dear Appleby,” the Vicar said presently, “you were in a very difficult position. I shall be most interested to hear what your decision was.”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.” And Appleby smiled at the astonishment of his friends. “Did you ever hear of Arthur Thorman?”

  The Doctor considered. “I can’t say that I ever did.”

  “Or, for that matter, of the important Sir Charles Tumbril?”

  The Vicar shook his head. “No. When you come to mention it——”

  And Appleby picked up his novel again. “Didn’t I say,” he murmured, “that I was going to tell you a story? And there it is—a simple story about footprints on the sands of Thyme.”

  THE FLYING DEATH

  A PROLIFIC WRITER of fiction and once one of America’s most popular authors, Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) was also a noted muckraking journalist whose investigations into patent medicines and medical quackery were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first Pure Food and Drug Act.

  Born in Dunkirk, New York, he received BA and LHD degrees from Hamilton College but was not ambitious, preferring to fish and search for antiques. When he turned to journalism, his ability to popularize research in science and medicine brought him great success. He used the background of phony medical practices for many of the stories in his highly regarded detective story collection, Average Jones (1911), a series he abandoned when he was unable to come up with additional plots. His only other mystery-related books were The Secret of Lonesome Cove (1912) and a chapter of The President’s Mystery Plot (1935), a round-robin mystery by seven authors based on a plot idea by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among his many non-mystery stories, the most notable is “Night Bus,” which was made into the motion picture classic It Happened One Night (1934), starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Other films based on Adams’s work were The Gorgeous Hussy (1936), starring Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore, and The Harvey Girls (1946), starring Judy Garland.

  “The Flying Death” was first published in the January and February 1903 issues of McClure’s; it was later expanded into a full-length novel of the same title (New York, McClure, 1908).

  THE FLYING DEATH

  Document No. 1.—A letter of explanation from Harris Haynes, Reporter for the New Era, New York, off on Vacation to his Managing Editor.

  Montauk Point, L. I., Sept. 20th, 1902. Mr. John Clare, Managing Editor, the New Era, New York City.

  MY DEAR Mr. Clare,—here is a case for your personal consideration. At present it is—or, at least, it would appear on paper—a bit of pure insanity. Lest you should think it that, and myself the victim, I have two witnesses of character and reputation who will corroborate every fact in the case, and who go further with the incredible inferences than I can bring myself to do. They are Professor Willis Ravenden, expert in entomology and an enthusiast in every other branch of science, and Stanford Colton, son of old Colton, of the Button Trust, and himself a medical student about to obtain his diploma. Colton, like myself, is recuperating. Professor Ravenden is studying the metamorphosis of a small, sky-blue butterfly species of insect with a disjointed name which inhabits these parts.

  We three constitute the total late-season patronage of Third House, and probably five per cent of the population of this forty square miles of grassland, the remainder being the men of the Life Saving Service, the farmer families of First, Second, and Third Houses, and a little settlement of fishermen on the Sound side.

  This afternoon—yesterday, to be accurate, as it is now past midnight—we three went out for a tramp. On our return we ran into a fine, driving rain that blotted out the landscape. It’s no trick at all to get lost in this country, where the hillocks were all hatched out of the same egg and the scrub-oak patches out of the same acorn. For an hour or so we circled around. Then we caught the booming of the surf plainly, and came presently to the crest of the sand-cliff, eighty feet above the beach. As the mist blew away we saw, a few yards out from the cliff’s foot and a short distance to the east, the body of a man lying on the hard sand.

  There was something in the huddled posture that struck the eye with a shock as of violence. With every reason for assuming at first sight the body to have been washed up, I somehow knew that the man had not met death by the waves. Where we stood the cliff fell too precipitously to admit of descent, but opposite the body it was lower, and here a ravine cut sharply through a dip between the hills at right angles to the beach. We half fell, half slipped down the cliff, made our way to the gully’s opening, and came upon a soft and pebbly beach only a few feet wide, beyond which the hard, clean level of sand stretched to the receding waves. As we reached the open a man appeared around a point to the eastward, saw the body, and broke into a run. Colton had started toward the body, but I called him back. I didn’t want the sand marked just then. Keeping close to the cliff’s edge, we went forward to meet the man. As soon as he could make himself heard above the surf he hailed us.

  “How long has that been there?”

  “We’ve just found it,” said Colton, as we turned out toward the sea. “It must have been washed up at high tide.”

  “I’m the coastguardsman from the Bow Hill Station,” said the man.

  “We are guests at Third House,” said I. “We’ll go through with this together.”

  “Come along, then,” said he.

  We were now on a line with the body, which lay with the head toward the waves. The coastguardsman suddenly checked his steps and exclaimed, “It’s Paul Serdholm.” Then he rushed forward with a great cry, “He’s been murdered!”

  “Oh, surely not murdered,” expostulated the Professor, nervously. “He’s been drowned, and——”

  “Drowned!” cried the other. “And how about that gash in the back of his neck? He’s the guard from Sand Spit, two miles below. Three hours ago I saw him on the cliff yonder. Since then he’s come and gone between here and his station. And”—he gulped suddenly and turned upon us so sharply that the Professor jumped—“what’s he met with?”

  “The wound might have been made by the surf dashing him on a sharp rock,” I suggested.

  “No, sir,” said the coastguardsman, with emphasis. “The tide ain’t this high once in a month. It’s murder, that’s what it is—foul murder,” and he bent over the dead man with twitching shoulders.

  “He’s right,” said Colton, who had been hastily examining the corpse. “This is no drowning case. The man was stabbed and died instantly. Was he a friend of yours?” he asked of the guard.

  “No; nor of nobody’s, was Paul Serdholm,” replied the man. “No later than last week we quarrelled.” He paused, looking blankly at us.

  “How long would you say he had been dead?” I asked Colton.

  “A very few minutes.”

  “Then get to the top of the cliff and scatter,” I said; “the murderer must have escaped that way. From the hilltop you can see the whole country. Keep off that sand, can’t you? Make a detour to the gully.”

  “And what will you do?” inquired Colton, looking at me curiously.

  “Stay here and study this out,” I replied, in a low tone. “You and the Professo
r meet me at Sand Spit in half an hour. Guard, if you don’t see anything, come back here in fifteen minutes.” He hesitated. “I’ve had ten years’ experience in murder cases,” I added. “If you will do as you’re told for the next few minutes we should clear this thing up.”

  No sooner had they disappeared on the high ground than I set myself to the solution of the problem. Inland from the body stretched the hard beach. Not one of us had stepped between the body and the soft sand into which the cliff sloped. In this soft, pebbly mass of rubble footprints would be indeterminable. Anywhere else they should stand out like the stamp on a coin. As we approached I had noticed that there were no prints to the east. On the side of the sea there was nothing except numerous faint bird tracks extending almost to the water. Taking off my shoes I followed the spoor of the dead man. It stood out plain as a poster, to the westward. For a hundred yards I followed it. There was no parallel track. To make certain that his slayer had not crept upon him from that direction, I examined the prints for the marks of superimposed steps. None was there. Three sides, then, were eliminated. My first hasty glance at the sand between the body and the cliff had shown me nothing. Here, however, must be the evidence. Striking off from the dead man’s line, I walked out upon the hard surface.

  The sand was deeply indented beyond the body, where the three men had hurried across to begin the hunt. But no other footmark broke its evenness. Not until I was almost on a line between the corpse and the mouth of the gully did I find a clue. Clearly imprinted on the clean level was the outline of a huge claw. There were the five talons and the nub of the foot. A little forward and to one side was a similar mark, except that it was slanted differently. Step by step, with starting eyes and shuddering mind, I followed the trail. Then I became aware of a second, confusing the first, the track of the same creature. At first the second track was distinct, then it merged with the first, only to diverge again. In this second series the points of the talons were toward the cliff. From the body to the soft sand stretched the unbroken lines. Nowhere else within a radius of many yards was there any other indication. The sand lay blank as a white sheet of paper; as blank as my mind, which struggled with one stupefying thought—that between the dead life-saver and the refuge of the cliff no creature had passed except one that stalked on monstrous clawed feet!

  My first thought was to preserve the evidence for a more careful examination. I hastily collected some flat rocks and had covered those marks nearest the soft sand when I heard a hail. For the present I didn’t want the others to know what I had found. I wanted to think it out, undisturbed by conflicting theories. So I hastily returned, and was putting on my shoes when the Bow Hill coastguardsman—his name was Schenck—came out of the gully.

  “See anything?” I called.

  “Nothing to the northward. Have you found anything?”

  “Nothing definite,” I replied. “Don’t cross the sand there. Keep along down. We’ll go to the Sand Spit Station and report this.”

  But the man was staring out beyond my little column of rock shelters.

  “What’s that thing?” he said, pointing to the nearest unsheltered print. “Heavens! It looks like a bird track. And it leads straight to the body,” he cried, in a voice that jangled on my nerves. But when he began to look fearfully overhead into the gathering darkness, drawing in his shoulders like one shrinking from a blow, that was too much. I jumped to my feet, grabbed him by the arm, and started him along.

  “Don’t be a fool,” I said. “Keep this to yourself. I won’t have a lot of idiots prowling around those tracks. Understand? You’re to report this murder and say nothing about what you don’t know. Later we’ll take it up again.”

  The man seemed stunned. He walked along quietly, close to me, and it was no comfort to feel him now and again shaken by a violent shudder. We had nearly reached the station when Professor Ravenden and Colton came down to the beach in front of us. But they had nothing to tell.

  Before we reached the station I cleared another point to my satisfaction.

  “The man wasn’t stabbed; he was shot,” I said.

  “I’ll stake my life that’s no bullet wound,” cried Colton, quickly. “I’ve seen plenty of shooting cases. The bullet never was cast that made such a gap in a man’s head as that. It was a sharp instrument, with power behind it.”

  “To Mr. Colton’s opinion I must add my own for what it is worth,” said Professor Ravenden.

  “Can you qualify as an expert?” I demanded, with the rudeness of rasped nerves and in some surprise at the tone of certainty in the old boy’s voice.

  “When in search of a sub-species of the Papilionidae in the Orinoco region,” said he, mildly, “my party was attacked by the Indians that infest the river. After we had beaten them off it fell to my lot to attend the wounded. I thus had opportunity to observe the wounds made by their slender spears. The incision under consideration bears a rather striking resemblance to the spear-gashes which I then saw. I may add that I brought away my specimens of Papilionidae intact, although we lost most of our provisions.”

  “No man has been near enough the spot where Serdholm was struck down to stab him,” I said. “Our footprints are plain; so are his. There are no others. The man was shot by someone lying in the gully or on the cliff.”

  “I’ll bet you five hundred to five dollars that the post-mortem doesn’t result in the finding of a bullet,” cried Colton.

  I accepted, and it was agreed that he should stay and report from the post-mortem. At the station I talked with several of the men, and, assuming for the time that the case presented no unusual features of murder, tried to get at some helpful clue. Motive was my first aim. Results were scant. It is true that there was a general dislike of Serdholm, who was a moody and somewhat mysterious character, having come from nobody knew whence. On the other hand, no one had anything serious against him. The four clues that I struck, such as they were, can tabulate briefly:—

  (I) A week ago Serdholm returned from Amagansett with a bruised face. He had been in a street fight with a local loafer who had attacked him when drunk. Report brought back by one of the farmers that the life-saver beat the other fellow soundly, who went away threatening vengeance. Found out by telephone that the loafer was in Amagansett as late as five o’clock this afternoon.

  (II) Two months ago Serdholm accused a local fisherman of stealing some tobacco. Nothing further since heard of the matter.

  (III) Three weeks ago a stranded juggler and mountebank found his way here and asked aid of Serdholm; claimed to be his cousin. Serdholm sent him away next day. Played some tricks and collected a little money from the men. Serdholm, angry at the jeers of the men about his relative, threw a heavy stick at him, knocking him down. As soon as he was able to walk juggler went away crying. Not since seen.

  (IV) This is the most direct clue for motive and opportunity. Coastguard Schenck (the man who met us at the scene of the murder) quarrelled with the dead man over the daughter of a farmer, who prefers Schenck. They fought, but were separated. Schenck blacked Serdholm’s eye. Serdholm threatened to get square. Schenck cannot prove absolute alibi. His bearing and behaviour, however, are those of an innocent man. Moreover, the knife he carried was too small to have made the wound that killed Serdholm. And how could Schenck—or any other man—have stabbed the victim and left no track on the sand? That is the blank wall against which I come at every turn of conjecture.

  Professor Ravenden, Schenck, and I started back, we two to Third House, Schenck to his station. Colton remained to wait for the coroner, who had sent word that he would be over as soon as a horse could bring him. As we were parting Schenck said:

  “Gentlemen, I’m afraid there’s likely to be trouble for me over this.”

  “It’s quite possible,” I said, “that they may arrest you.”

  “Heaven knows I never thought of killing Serdholm or any other man. But I had a grudge against him, and I wasn’t far away when he was killed. The only evidence to clear me is thos
e queer tracks.”

  “I shall follow those until they lead me somewhere,” said I, “and I do not myself believe, Schenck, that you had any part in the thing.”

  “Thank you,” said the guard. “Good-night.”

  Professor Ravenden turned to me as we entered the house.

  “Pardon a natural curiosity. Did I understand that there were prints on the sand which might be potentially indicative?”

  “Professor Ravenden,” said I, “there is an inexplicable feature to this case. If you’ll come up to my room I should very much like to draw on your fund of natural history.”

  When we were comfortably settled I began.

  “Would it be possible for a wandering ostrich or other huge bird, escaped from some zoo, to have made its home here?”

  “Scientifically quite possible. May I inquire the purpose of this? Can it be that the tracks referred to by the guard were the cloven hoofprints of——”

  “Cloven hoofs!” I cried, in sharp disappointment. “Is there no member of the ostrich family that has claws?”

  “None now extant. In the processes of evolution the claws of the ostrich, like its wings, have gradually——”

  “Is there any huge-clawed bird large enough and powerful enough to kill a man with a blow of its beak?”

  “No, sir,” said the Professor. “I know of no bird which would venture to attack man except the ostrich, emu, or cassowary, and the fighting weapon of this family is the hoof, not the beak. But you will again pardon me if I ask——”

  “Professor Ravenden, the only thing that approached Serdholm within striking distance walked on a foot armed with five great claws.” I rapidly sketched on a sheet of paper a rough, but careful, drawing. “And there’s its sign-manual,” I added, pushing it towards him.

  Imagination could hardly picture a more precise, unemotional, and conventionally scientific man than Professor Ravenden. Yet at sight of the paper his eyes sparkled, he half started from his chair, a flush rose in his cheeks, he looked briskly and keenly from the sketch to me, and spoke in a voice that rang with a deep under-thrill of excitement.