“Sounds complicated to me,” Lissner remarked.
“Not really. This is the way I think it happened. The murderer, posing as a telephone repairman, arrives in the stolen truck ostensibly to fix the phone. Earlier he had put an out-of-order sign on the booth to keep it free for his use. He then attaches his blowgun – a light-weight cylinder of some kind, probably cardboard or plastic, and about five inches long – to the underside of the telephone book shelf with some electrical tape, so that it hangs just slightly below the shelf and points to a predetermined spot which he is sure will coincide with the victim’s heart. The shelf is just slightly lower than the shoulder blade of a man of Townsend’s height. The killer inserts the ice pick into the tube, which is just a fraction wider than the diameter of the handle. Hanging phone books effectively conceal the device from anyone entering or standing in the booth.”
Stone paused to see if Curtis or Lissner wanted to make a comment. Neither did.
“Attached to the closed end of the cylinder is a length of transparent flexible tubing – probably plastic – which the killer runs through the rear ventilation opening at the bottom of the booth. He uses a couple of short pieces of electrical tape to hold the thin hose against the framework, where it is virtually invisible. Then he goes over to the air and water island, connects his tubing to an air hose, and pretends to be checking his tires. A few seconds later Townsend enters the death chamber. The killer uses the free compressed air supplied by Lew to blow his ‘dart’ into Townsend’s back. He gives a hard tug on the tubing; the cylinder comes loose from the shelf and drops to the floor. The killer pulls it and the tubing over to his truck and drives off just as Lew and the other witnesses are rushing to the booth. Unfortunately for the murderer, one small piece of his tape remains in the booth. Any questions?”
Lissner was dubious and blunt. “Well, it’s a helluva lot more complicated than my suicide theory, but I’ll have to admit, it does account for all those bothersome little details.”
Curtis went further. “Okay, suppose we agree that the phony repairman is the killer. How do we find out who he is? He wasn’t recognized and left no fingerprints.”
The reaction of the two officers to his splendid deductions was not as enthusiastic as Stone would have liked. To give them time to appreciate his mental efforts, he got up and walked to the window. The view wasn’t good – the police parking lot with a couple of billboards thrown in for good measure. He turned to face his subordinates.
“I know,” he teased. “Don’t you?”
Both shook their heads.
“I take it we agree that Townsend was murdered. Okay, then we have to accept as fact that the murder was conceived to lead the police to label it suicide, just as you did, Fred. The murderer has to be someone who knew Townsend might have a reason to kill himself and make it appear to be murder.”
Jumping to conclusions was one of Curtis’s weaknesses. “Dr Wagner! He was the only one who knew Townsend had a tumor. And he had possession of the poison. He could easily have faked that robbery. He could get his hands on the insurance money by marrying the widow.”
“Wagner knew Townsend was going to die,” Stone said, “but I don’t believe he knew about the insurance, since he was aware Townsend was not insurable. And even if he did know about it, he had no motive to kill Townsend, since the man was going to die in a few months. Now, we know that Townsend didn’t tell his family about his illness, and Wagner says he told no one. I believe him. But Townsend himself may have told another person, and I’m certain he did.”
Curtis and Lissner sat there with open mouths.
“Fred, get a warrant and search for rubber or plastic tubing, red paint, and electrical tape. Also check the area where the telephone truck was abandoned. The blowgun device may have been discarded near there. I’d sure like to get a look at that thing. Harve, you bring in the suspect for questioning.”
“Who?” both detectives asked.
“Hall Harris.”
By five in the afternoon proof that Stone’s deductions were amazingly accurate started coming in. A search of Harris’s garage yielded some plastic tubing, a can of paint that matched that on the ice pick handle, and a roll of tape like the piece found in the booth. Detective Lissner even managed to come up with the death device Harris had put together. It was found by neighborhood youngsters in a trash dumpster a few blocks from where the phone truck had been abandoned. Lissner had enlisted the kids in the search and it had paid off for both the detective and the children. It had cost him twenty dollars in rewards, but it was well worth the money, for Harris’s fingerprints were all over the gimmick. The device looked almost exactly as Stone had envisioned it – a five-inch piece of PVC sprinkler pipe on one end of a forty foot length of quarter-inch plastic tubing and a connecting tire valve on the other. The files at Harris’s office contained a copy of the medical report supposedly signed by Dr Wagner. It was an obvious forgery.
The result of all this evidence was that Hal Harris, after having been questioned for more than two hours in the presence of his attorney, calmly dictated and signed a full confession. It was probably his best move, for by doing so he was certain to avoid the death penalty.
At six in the evening Sergeant Ray Stone sat in an upholstered chair in front of Captain Jack Parker’s desk. Parker wanted some personal explanations. “I still don’t see how you knew it was Harris.”
“It had to be Harris or Wagner. Those were the only two who knew of Townsend’s impending death. Wagner had no reason to murder Townsend. Harris was the only one with a motive. Townsend was blackmailing him.”
Parker leaned forward eagerly. “How’d you figure that out?”
“Townsend managed to get a whopping big insurance policy when he had only a short time to live. Dr Wagner said he didn’t give Townsend an insurance physical, yet Harris told me Townsend came in with a clean bill of health from Wagner. He was lying. No doctor lets the patient carry the exam report back to the company. He sends it. Harris had to have forged the examination report that was sent in with the policy application. It wasn’t worth the risk to do that unless someone forced him. That someone could only have been Townsend.”
This explanation did not completely satisfy Parker. “What did Townsend know that enabled him to blackmail Harris?”
“It’s not so much what he knew, but what he guessed,” Stone replied. “Those two letters we found in Townsend’s files put me onto it. Harris was filing false claims and pocketing the proceeds. Townsend threatened to tell Harris’s parent companies to examine his claims for fraud unless Harris got the policy approved. Townsend, normally a very nice and honest guy, was not concerned for himself when he learned of his terminal illness. He wanted his family to be without financial worries after he was gone. That’s why he felt forced to blackmail Harris.”
Stone leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Any more questions, Jack, or have I completely satisfied your curiosity?”
“Not quite,” Parker said. “How did Harris get Townsend to go to the telephone booth? After all, he was the blackmailer. You’d think he’d set up the meeting.”
“We got the answer from Harris himself. Townsend wasn’t able to come up with the third month’s premium, so he asked Harris to give him a receipt stating the premium had been paid. Now Harris began to sweat. If Townsend didn’t die soon – and many who are given months hang on for years – he was afraid he would be paying all the future premiums for Townsend. He had to come up with a way to get rid of Townsend and have the policy canceled without an extensive investigation. ‘Suicide’ was the answer. It would appear as if Townsend were trying to bilk the insurance company by faking his own murder.”
Stone’s pausing briefly caused Parker to blurt out, “So what did Harris do?”
“He telephoned Townsend and suggested that for formality’s sake the premium should be sent to the main office. He persuaded Townsend to go to Lew’s station at nine o’clock that night and make a phone call fro
m the booth there. Harris told Townsend that when he got back to his car he would find the necessary cash in an envelope on the front seat. Then all Townsend would have to do was to deposit the money in his account and send in a check for the premium.”
“You know, Ray, Harris’s plan was ingenious,” Parker remarked. “It would have succeeded, too, if it hadn’t been for your keen observations.”
“Could be,” Stone said. “It was an almost perfect crime.”
The X Street Murders
Joseph Commings
Joseph Commings (1913–92) was one of the masters of the impossible crime story. He started his career in the old pulp magazines in the 1940s. He stockpiled stories written during the Second World War and some of these, possibly rewritten, did not appear in magazines until well into the 1950s. Most feature the larger-than-life and frequently over-bombastic character of Senator Brooks U. Banner. Banner has an uncanny knack of stumbling across baffling crimes of which the following is generally regarded as his masterpiece. Amazingly, although he later sold a number of erotic novels, Commings never published a collection of his stories. Fortunately for impossible-crime enthusiasts, Robert Adey assembled a collection called Banner Deadlines, published in 2004, which contains plenty more like the following.
Carroll Lockyear came out of the attache’s private office at the New Zealand Legation on X Street, Washington, D.C. He was tall and skinny. The sallow skin of his gaunt face was drawn tight over his doorknob cheekbones like that of an Egyptian mummy. The resemblance to a mummy did not end with the tightness of his skin. Sticking out from his sharp chin, like a dejected paintbrush, was a russet-colored King Tut beard. He looked like a well-dressed beatnik. In his left hand he carried a brown cowhide briefcase, his long fingers curled under the bottom of it.
The secretary in the reception room, Miss Gertrude Wagner, looked up at him. He approached her desk and laid his briefcase carefully down on it, then towered over it toward her.
“Yes, Mr Lockyear?” she said.
“I have another appointment with Mr Gosling on next Tuesday, Miss Wagner.”
Gertrude penciled a line in an appointment pad.
“Good day,” said Lockyear. He picked up his briefcase and walked out.
Gertrude smiled thinly at the Army officer waiting on the lounge. He was reading a copy of the Ordnance Sergeant, but it wasn’t holding his attention as much as it should. He wore a green tunic with sharpshooter medals on the breast, and his legs, in pink slacks, were crossed. Gertrude stopped her professional smile and picked up the earpiece of the interphone and pressed a button.
“Mr Gosling,” she said, “Captain Cozzens is waiting to see you.” She held the earpiece to her head for a moment, then lowered it. “Captain,” she said. Cozzens looked up with bright expectancy from his magazine. “Mr Gosling wants to know if you’d mind waiting a minute.”
“Not at all,” said Cozzens, eager to agree with such a good-looking girl. No doubt, visions of dinners for two were dancing in his head.
Gertrude stood up suddenly and tugged her skirt straight. She had black hair cut in a Dutch bob and dark blue eyes. The austere lines of her blotter-green suit could not entirely disguise her big-boned femininity. She gathered up a steno pad and a mechanical pencil and started to walk toward the closed door of Mr Gosling’s private office. Glancing at the slim bagette watch on her wrist, she stopped short. It was as if she had almost forgotten something. She went back to her desk. On it lay a sealed large bulky manila mailing envelope. A slip of paper had been pasted on its side. Typed in red on the paper was the Legation address and:
Deliver to Mr Kermit Gosling at 11:30 a.m. sharp.
Gertrude grasped the envelope by the top and proceeded into Gosling’s office, leaving the door open. This private office, it was carefully noted later, was on the third floor of the building. It had two windows and both these windows were protected by old-fashioned iron bars. It was a room in which an attaché might consider himself safe.
Captain Cozzens had been following Gertrude’s flowing progress with admiring eyes. Those narrow skirts did a lot for a girl if she had the right kind of legs and hips. And Gertrude definitely had the right kind.
Another man sitting near Cozzens was watching her too. He was red-haired and young, with a square face and a pug nose. The jacket of his black suit was tight across his shoulders. He was Alvin Odell and it was his job to watch what went on in the office. He was an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But he too was watching Gertrude with more interest than his job called for.
From where Cozzens and Odell sat they could see the edge of Gosling’s desk. They saw the closely observed Gertrude stand before it, facing across it, and she held the bulky envelope up waist-high.
There was a slight pause.
Then three shots spat harshly.
Cozzens and Odell, shocked at the sudden ripping apart of their daydreams by gunfire, saw Gertrude flinch before the desk. Then the two men sprang up together and rushed in to her side.
Gosling, a heavy-featured man with limp blond hair, was tilted sideways in his desk chair. Blood stained his white shirt front, Odell stared at the three bullet holes under the left lapel of the grey business suit.
Captain Cozzens’ voice was hoarse. “Those three shots – where did they come from?”
Gertrude’s blue eyes, dazed, searched Cozzens’ face as if she had never seen him before. Dumbly she lifted up the heavy envelope.
Before Cozzens could move, the FBI man was faster. Odell snatched the envelope out of her hand.
It was still tightly sealed. There were no holes or tears in it. Odell started to rip it along the top. A wisp of bluish smoke curled up in the still air.
Odell tore the envelope wide open and out of it onto the desktop spilled a freshly fired automatic pistol.
Heavy blunt-tipped fingers on speckled hands turned over the brown State Department envelope. It was addressed to Honorable Brooks U. Banner, M. C, The Idle Hour Club, President Jefferson Avenue, Washington, D.C.
The addressee was a big fat man with a mane of grizzled hair and a ruddy jowled face and the physique of a performing bear. He wore a moth-eaten frock coat with deep pockets bulging with junk and a greasy string tie and baggy-kneed grey britches. Under the open frock coat was a candy-striped shirt. On his feet were old house slippers whose frayed toes looked as if a pair of hungry field mice were trying to nibble their way out from inside. He was an overgrown Huck Finn. Physically he was more than one man – he was a gang. Socially and politically he didn’t have to answer to anybody, so he acted and spoke any way he damned pleased.
He was sipping his eighth cup of black coffee as he read the letter.
It was from the Assistant Secretary of State. In painful mechanical detail, it reported the murder on X Street with as much passion as there is in a recipe for an upside-down cake. Toward the end of the letter, the Assistant Secretary became a little less like an automaton and a little more human. He confessed to Banner that both the State Department and the FBI were snagged. They couldn’t find an answer. And considering the other harrowing murder cases that Banner had solved, perhaps he could be of some help in this extremity.
Banner crumpled the letter up into a ball and stuck it into his deep pocket. Thoughtfully his little frosty blue eyes rested on the white ceiling. He had read about the case in the newspapers, but the account had not been as full as the State Department’s.
He pulled the napkin from under his chin, swabbed his lips, and started to surge up to his feet. He looked like a surfacing whale.
A waiter hurried up with a tray. On it were three more cups of black coffee, “Aren’t you going to drink the rest of your coffee, sir?” asked the waiter in an injured tone.
“Huh?” said Banner absently. Already his mind was soaring out into space, grappling with the murder problem. “I never touch the stuff,” he said and went lumbering out.
Jack McKitrick, who looked like a jockey trainer, was an FBI department
chief. He stood near Captain Cozzens in the New Zealand Legation office. When Banner came trotting in the door McKitrick said sideways to Cozzens: “That’s Senator Banner. They don’t come much bigger.”
Cozzens shook his head as he eyed the impressive hulk that rumbled forward.
“Morning, Senator,” said McKitrick to Banner.
Banner grunted an answer, mumbling words around a long Pittsburgh stogie clamped in his teeth.
“Senator,” continued McKitrick, “this is Captain Cozzens of the Ordnance Division, U.S. Army.” The two men clasped hands. “Cozzens is a small firearms expert.”
“Mighty fine,” said Banner.
“You were an Army officer yourself, weren’t you, Senator?” said Cozzens.
Banner truculently chewed on the stogie. “Yass. I never got above the rank of shavetail. We were the dogfaces who gave ’em hell at Chateau Thierry. But I’ll tell you all about my war experiences later, Cap’n. We’ll all work together on this. Not nice seeing our New Zealand friends getting bumped off. Not nice at all.”
“No, certainly not,” said Cozzens.
Banner struck an attitude of belligerent ease. “Waal, I’m listening, Cap’n. You were one of the witnesses to this murder. What were you doing at the Legation?”
Cozzens frowned. “I was here by appointment, Senator. Mr Gosling wanted me to suggest a good handgun for his personal use and to give him instructions in how to handle it.”
“Why?”
“I think,” said Cozzens slowly, “he wanted to use it to protect himself.”
The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries Page 4
