The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  THE PHANTOM MOTOR

  WHILE VIRTUALLY EVERY READER of detective fiction is familiar with Jacques Futrelle’s (1875–1912) brilliant debut, “The Problem of Cell 13,” the central figure, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, better known as The Thinking Machine, appeared in forty-four other stories, some of which are first-rate, and “The Phantom Motor” is one of the best. Most of the early Van Dusen stories involve investigations of “impossible” (a word despised by the professor) crimes, while his later stories generally deal with bizarre, seemingly inexplicable, situations without falling into the former subgenre.

  Born in Georgia of French Huguenot ancestry, Futrelle became a newspaperman, first in Richmond, Virginia, then in Boston, where he worked on the Boston American, which published much of his fiction as well as his reportage. He married L. May Peel in 1895. To celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday, the Futrelles left the children home and took a romantic cruise on the infamous maiden voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic. After the ship crashed into an iceberg and began its trip to the bottom of the icy sea, Futrelle forced his wife into one of the lifeboats and helped other women as well, refusing to board himself, dying in the tragedy.

  Although his career as a fiction writer was relatively short, he wrote more than sixty stories and several novels popular in their time but forgotten today, including light romances and crime stories, the best of which are The Diamond Master (1909) and My Lady’s Garter (1912), which features The Hawk, a gentleman thief.

  “The Phantom Motor” was first published in the Boston American in 1905; it was first collected in book form in The Thinking Machine (New York, Dodd, Mead, 1907).

  JACQUES FUTRELLE

  TWO DAZZLING WHITE eyes bulged through the night as an automobile swept suddenly around a curve in the wide road and laid a smooth, glaring pathway ahead. Even at the distance the rhythmical crackling-chug informed Special Constable Baker that it was a gasoline car, and the headlong swoop of the unblinking lights toward him made him instantly aware of the fact that the speed ordinance of Yarborough County was being a little more than broken—it was being obliterated.

  Now the County of Yarborough was a wide expanse of summer estates and superbly kept roads, level as a floor and offered distracting temptations to the dangerous pastime of speeding. But against this was the fact that the county was particular about its speed laws, so particular in fact that it had stationed half a hundred men upon its highways to abate the nuisance. Incidentally it had found that keeping record of the infractions of the law was an excellent source of income.

  “Forty miles an hour if an inch,” remarked Baker to himself.

  He arose from a camp stool where he was wont to make himself comfortable from six o’clock until midnight on watch, picked up his lantern, turned up the light and stepped down to the edge of the road. He always remained on watch at the same place—at one end of a long stretch which autoists had unanimously dubbed The Trap. The Trap was singularly tempting—a perfectly macadamized road bed lying between two tall stone walls with only enough of a sinuous twist in it to make each end invisible from the other. Another man, Special Constable Bowman, was stationed at the other end of The Trap and there was telephonic communication between the points, enabling the men to check each other and incidentally, if one failed to stop a car or get its number, the other would. That at least was the theory.

  So now, with the utmost confidence, Baker waited beside the road. The approaching lights were only a couple of hundred yards away. At the proper instant he would raise his lantern, the car would stop, its occupants would protest and then the county would add a mite to its general fund for making the roads even better and tempting autoists still more. Or sometimes the cars didn’t stop. In that event it was part of the Special Constable’s duties to get the number as it flew past, and reference to the monthly automobile register would give the name of the owner. An extra fine was always imposed in such cases.

  Without the slightest diminution of speed the car came hurtling on toward him and swung wide so as to take the straight path of The Trap at full speed. At the psychological instant Baker stepped out into the road and waved his lantern.

  “Stop!” he commanded.

  The crackling-chug came on, heedless of the cry. The auto was almost upon him before he leaped out of the road—a feat at which he was particularly expert—then it flashed by and plunged into The Trap. Baker was, at the instant, so busily engaged in getting out of the way that he couldn’t read the number, but he was not disconcerted because he knew there was no escape from The Trap. On the one side a solid stone wall eight feet high marked the eastern boundary of the John Phelps Stocker country estate, and on the other side a stone fence nine feet high marked the western boundary of the Thomas Q. Rogers country estate. There was no turnout, no place, no possible way for an auto to get out of The Trap except at one of the two ends guarded by the special constables. So Baker, perfectly confident of results, seized the phone.

  “Car coming through sixty miles an hour,” he bawled. “It won’t stop. I missed the number. Look out!”

  “All right,” answered Special Constable Bowman.

  For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes Baker waited expecting a call from Bowman at the other end. It didn’t come and finally he picked up the phone again. No answer. He rang several times, battered the box and did some tricks with the receiver. Still no answer. Finally he began to feel worried. He remembered that at that same post one Special Constable had been badly hurt by a reckless chauffeur who refused to stop or turn his car when the officer stepped out into the road. In his mind’s eye he saw Bowman now lying helpless, perhaps badly injured. If the car held the pace at which it passed him it would be certain death to whoever might be unlucky enough to get in its path.

  With these thoughts running through his head and with genuine solicitude for Bowman, Baker at last walked on along the road of The Trap toward the other end. The feeble rays of the lantern showed the unbroken line of the cold, stone walls on each side. There was no shrubbery of any sort, only a narrow strip of grass close to the wall. The more Baker considered the matter the more anxious he became and he increased his pace a little. As he turned a gentle curve he saw a lantern in the distance coming slowly toward him. It was evidently being carried by some one who was looking carefully along each side of the road.

  “Hello!” called Baker, when the lantern came within distance. “That you, Bowman?”

  “Yes,” came the hallooed response.

  The lanterns moved on and met. Baker’s solicitude for the other constable was quickly changed to curiosity.

  “What’re you looking for?” he asked.

  “That auto,” replied Bowman. “It didn’t come through my end and I thought perhaps there had been an accident so I walked along looking for it. Haven’t seen anything.”

  “Didn’t come through your end?” repeated Baker in amazement. “Why it must have. It didn’t come back my way and I haven’t passed it so it must have gone through.”

  “Well, it didn’t,” declared Bowman conclusively. “I was on the lookout for it, too, standing beside the road. There hasn’t been a car through my end in an hour.”

  Special Constable Baker raised his lantern until the rays fell full upon the face of Special Constable Bowman and for an instant they stared each at the other. Suspicion glowed from the keen, avaricious eyes of Baker.

  “How much did they give you to let ’em by?” he asked.

  “Give me?” exclaimed Bowman, in righteous indignation. “Give me nothing. I haven’t seen a car.”

  A slight sneer curled the lips of Special Constable Baker.

  “Of course that’s all right to report at headquarters,” he said, “but I happened to know that the auto came in here, that it didn’t go back my way, that it couldn’t get out except at the ends, therefore it went your way.” He was silent for a moment. “And whatever you got, Jim, seems to me I ought to get half.”

  Then the worm—i.e., Bowman—turned. A po
lite curl appeared about his lips and was permitted to show through the grizzled mustache.

  “I guess,” he said deliberately, “you think because you do that everybody else does. I haven’t seen any autos.”

  “Don’t I always give you half, Jim?” Baker demanded, almost pleadingly.

  “Well I haven’t seen any car and that’s all there is to it. If it didn’t go back your way there wasn’t any car.” There was a pause; Bowman was framing up something particularly unpleasant. “You’re seeing things, that’s what’s the matter.”

  So was sown discord between two officers of the County of Yarborough. After awhile they separated with mutual sneers and open derision and went back to their respective posts. Each was thoughtful in his own way. At five minutes of midnight when they went off duty Baker called Bowman on the phone again.

  “I’ve been thinking this thing over, Jim, and I guess it would be just as well if we didn’t report it or say anything about it when we go in,” said Baker slowly. “It seems foolish and if we did say anything about it it would give the boys the laugh on us.”

  “Just as you say,” responded Bowman.

  Relations between Special Constable Baker and Special Constable Bowman were strained on the morrow. But they walked along side by side to their respective posts. Baker stopped at his end of The Trap; Bowman didn’t even look around.

  “You’d better keep your eyes open tonight, Jim,” Baker called as a last word.

  “I had ’em open last night,” was the disgusted retort.

  Seven, eight, nine o’clock passed. Two or three cars had gone through The Trap at moderate speed and one had been warned by Baker. At a few minutes past nine he was staring down the road which led into The Trap when he saw something that brought him quickly to his feet. It was a pair of dazzling white eyes, far away. He recognized them—the mysterious car of the night before.

  “I’ll get it this time,” he muttered grimly, between closed teeth.

  Then when the onrushing car was a full two hundred yards away Baker planted himself in the middle of the road and began to swing the lantern. The auto seemed, if anything, to be traveling even faster than on the previous night. At a hundred yards Baker began to shout. Still the car didn’t lessen speed, merely rushed on. Again at the psychological instant Baker jumped. The auto whisked by as the chauffeur gave it a dextrous twist to prevent running down the Special Constable.

  Safely out of its way Baker turned and stared after it, trying to read the number. He could see there was a number because a white board swung from the tail axle, but he could not make out the figures. Dust and a swaying car conspired to defeat him. But he did see that there were four persons in the car dimly silhouetted against the light reflected from the road. It was useless, of course, to conjecture as to sex for even as he looked the fast-receding car swerved around the turn and was lost to sight.

  Again he rushed to the telephone; Bowman responded promptly.

  “That car’s gone in again,” Baker called. “Ninety miles an hour. Look out!”

  “I’m looking,” responded Bowman.

  “Let me know what happens,” Baker shouted.

  With the receiver to his ear he stood for ten or fifteen minutes, then Bowman hallooed from the other end.

  “Well?” Baker responded. “Get ’em?”

  “No car passed through and there’s none in sight,” said Bowman.

  “But it went in,” insisted Baker.

  “Well it didn’t come out here,” declared Bowman. “Walk along the road till I meet you and look out for it.”

  Then was repeated the search of the night before. When the two men met in the middle of The Trap their faces were blank—blank as the high stone walls which stared at them from each side.

  “Nothing!” said Bowman.

  “Nothing!” echoed Baker.

  Special Constable Bowman perched his head on one side and scratched his grizzly chin.

  “You’re not trying to put up a job on me?” he inquired coldly. “You did see a car?”

  “I certainly did,” declared Baker, and a belligerent tone underlay his manner. “I certainly saw it, Jim, and if it didn’t come out your end, why—why—”

  He paused and glanced quickly behind him. The action inspired a sudden similar caution on Bowman’s part.

  “Maybe—maybe—” said Bowman after a minute, “maybe it’s a—a spook auto?”

  “Well it must be,” mused Baker. “You know as well as I do that no car can get out of this trap except at the ends. That car came in here, it isn’t here now and it didn’t go out your end. Now where is it?”

  Bowman stared at him a minute, picked up his lantern, shook his head solemnly and wandered along the road back to his post. On his way he glanced around quickly, apprehensively three times—Baker did the same thing four times.

  On the third night the phantom car appeared and disappeared precisely as it had done previously. Again Baker and Bowman met half way between posts and talked it over.

  “I’ll tell you what, Baker,” said Bowman in conclusion, “maybe you’re just imagining that you see a car. Maybe if I was at your end I couldn’t see it.”

  Special Constable Baker was distinctly hurt at the insinuation.

  “All right, Jim,” he said at last, “if you think that way about it we’ll swap posts tomorrow night. We won’t have to say anything about it when we report.”

  “Now that’s the talk,” exclaimed Bowman with an air approaching enthusiasm. “I’ll bet I don’t see it.”

  On the following night Special Constable Bowman made himself comfortable on Special Constable Baker’s camp-stool. And he saw the phantom auto. It came upon him with a rush and a crackling-chug of engine and then sped on leaving him nerveless. He called Baker over the wire and Baker watched half an hour for the phantom. It didn’t appear.

  Ultimately all things reach the newspapers. So with the story of the phantom auto. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, smiled incredulously when his City Editor laid aside an inevitable cigar and tersely stated the known facts. The known facts in this instance were meager almost to the disappearing point. They consisted merely of a corroborated statement that an automobile, solid and tangible enough to all appearances, rushed into The Trap each night and totally disappeared.

  But there was enough of the bizarre about it to pique the curiosity, to make one wonder, so Hatch journeyed down to Yarborough County, an hour’s ride from the city, met and talked to Baker and Bowman and then, in broad daylight strolled along The Trap twice. It was a leisurely, thorough investigation with the end in view of finding out how an automobile once inside might get out again without going out either end.

  On the first trip through Hatch paid particular attention to the Thomas Q. Rogers side of the road. The wall, nine feet high, was an unbroken line of stone with not the slightest indication of a secret wagon-way through it anywhere. Secret wagon-way! Hatch smiled at the phrase. But when he reached the other end—Bowman’s end—of The Trap he was perfectly convinced of one thing—that no automobile had left the hard, macadamized road to go over, under, or through the Thomas Q. Rogers wall. Returning, still leisurely, he paid strict attention to the John Phelps Stocker side, and when he reached the other end—Baker’s end—he was convinced of another thing—that no automobile had left the road to go over, under or through the John Phelps Stocker wall. The only opening of any sort was a narrow footpath, not more than sixteen inches wide.

  Hatch saw no shrubbery along the road, nothing but a strip of scrupulously cared for grass, therefore the phantom auto could not be hidden any time, night or day. Hatch failed, too, to find any holes in the road so the automobile didn’t go down through the earth. At this point he involuntarily glanced up at the blue sky above. Perhaps, he thought, whimsically, the automobile was a strange sort of bird, or—or—and he stopped suddenly.

  “By George!” he exclaimed. “I wonder if—”

  And the remainder of the afternoon he spent systematically makin
g inquiries. He went from house to house, the Stocker house, the Rogers house, both of which were at the time unoccupied, then to cottage, cabin, and hut in turn. But he didn’t seem overladen with information when he joined Special Constable Baker at his end of The Trap that evening about seven o’clock.

  Together they rehearsed the strange points of the mystery and as the shadows grew about them until finally the darkness was so dense that Baker’s lantern was the only bright spot in sight. As the chill of evening closed in a certain awed tone crept into their voices. Occasionally an auto bowled along and each time as it hove in sight Hatch glanced at Baker questioningly. And each time Baker shook his head. And each time, too, he called Bowman, in this manner accounting for every car that went into The Trap.

  “It’ll come all right,” said Baker after a long silence, “and I’ll know it the minute it rounds the curve coming toward us. I’d know its two lights in a thousand.”

  They sat still and smoked. After awhile two dazzling white lights burst into view far down the road and Baker, in excitement, dropped his pipe.

  “That’s her,” he declared. “Look at her coming!”

  And Hatch did look at her coming. The speed of the mysterious car was such as to make one look. Like the eyes of a giant the two lights came on toward them, and Baker perfunctorily went through the motions of attempting to stop it. The car fairly whizzed past them and the rush of air which tugged at their coats was convincing enough proof of its solidity. Hatch strained his eyes to read the number as the auto flashed past. But it was hopeless. The tail of the car was lost in an eddying whirl of dust.

  “She certainly does travel,” commented Baker, softly.

  “She does,” Hatch assented.

  Then, for the benefit of the newspaperman, Baker called Bowman on the wire.

  “Car’s coming again,” he shouted. “Look out and let me know!”