The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries

by Ashley, Mike;

  Sims-Danton frowned. “Surely, Sir James, you don’t suspect that the victim was poisoned.”

  Sir James looked back at the glass. “Oh.” He nodded and replaced the glass. “Of course not. How silly of me.” He turned to Nathan. “Well, Nate, it looks as though you’re a member of Slaughterhouse. We all seem to be baffled. Please accept my congratulations.”

  Nathan shook the hands that were extended toward him, his face wreathed in smiles. “Thank you. Should I demonstrate now?”

  Sims-Danton patted his forehead with a handkerchief and nodded. “Please do.”

  Nathan walked to the side of the bed. “I suppose that all I have to do is to account for those five seconds?”

  Sims-Danton replaced his handkerchief. “That is correct.”

  Nathan nodded. “Jim, old boy, if you would time what I do, I’d like someone else to time how long the lock on the door is open.”

  Sims-Danton pushed back his sleeve, uncovering the watch on his left wrist. “Any time, Mr Griever.”

  Nathan smiled, rubbed his hands together, and nodded. “Go!” Nathan turned from the bed, uncapped the bottle of nose drops, put the end of the dropper into the water and whiskey, and sucked up barely enough to fill it past the tapered tip. Then he held the dropper over the push button, squeezed out four drops, and replaced the cap on the bottle as the liquid seeped into the space between the button and case, and shorted out the circuit. Nathan replaced the bottle as the solenoid buzzed and clicked open. “Of course the timing might be a bit off since I am using a different push button,” he said.

  A moment later the buzzing stopped and the bolt shot back out. Sims-Danton looked up from his watch. “Seven seconds. That would enable him to get through the door with time to spare.”

  Sir James nodded. “I have five seconds on the nose, Nate. Bravo! That accounts for the missing time, lets you absent the premises, baffles the police – and gets you into Slaughterhouse.”

  Nathan beamed. “You see, when my wife was in the hospital, I was able to try out a variety of liquids and numbers of drops. As chance would have it, four drops of her favorite drink did the trick. All I had to do was wait for the maid to be settled down in the kitchen. My wife always had a drink on the night stand.”

  Jordon nodded. “Excellent.”

  “Four drops is just enough to short out the push button. Between the short, evaporation opens the circuit in just a little—”

  Malcolm Jordon slapped Nathan on the back, took his elbow, and steered him toward the door. “Come, we must celebrate!”

  Stepany, Humpheries, and Baines followed the pair through the door and down the stairs.

  Sir James turned to his companion. “I almost muffed it, didn’t I, Lieutenant Danton?”

  Danton nodded as he removed his handlebar moustache. “You had me worried, Inspector Cockeral, no doubt about that.”

  Cockeral nodded. “Of course your laboratory found nose drops in the glass and whiskey in the nose drops.”

  “Yes. As soon as we got the results, we knew how he had done it. The problem was getting him to admit it. The District Attorney was certain he’d never be able to convince a jury that Nathan Griever could be that imaginative. The defense could easily produce a thousand bits of evidence that his client is about as sharp as a pound of wet silage.”

  “Still, it is rather imaginative.”

  Danton nodded. “Twenty-three million dollars can mother a lot of invention.”

  Cockeral nodded his head toward the door. “What happens to him now?”

  “First, a party welcoming him to the club. Then, an epic pub crawl will begin that will end with his delivery back at the Los Angeles airport, where he will be arrested.”

  Cockeral shook his head. “Pity. The fellow did so want to belong.”

  “Oh, he’ll belong – and wait till he gets a load of his new clubhouse.” Danton turned and walked toward the door. Cockeral followed.

  “You must have been awfully certain he would fall for your charade.”

  Danton smiled. “I studied Nathan Griever very carefully. He’s nothing but a small-time grifter who only made one clever score in his entire life. Can you imagine how frustrated he must have felt not being able to tell his story? All we did was provide an audience worthy of his confidence.”

  “Danton, what about the strange amount for the initiation fee? The $13,107.17?”

  Danton shrugged. “Proposition Thirteen.”

  “Eh?”

  “Proposition Thirteen. Money is very, very tight, and the only way I could get my superiors to go along with this was if it didn’t cost us anything. $13,107.17 was the exact cost of the charade. We could have gotten more from him, of course, but it wouldn’t have been sporting to make profit, don’t you agree?”

  The Birdman of Tonypandy

  Bernard Knight

  Bernard Knight (b. 1931) was for many years a Home Office Pathologist and is Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology at the University of Wales College of Medicine. He has written such key texts as Forensic Medicine (1985), Lawyer’s Guide to Forensic Medicine (1982) and the definitive Knight’s Forensic Pathology, now in its third edition (2004). Knight has also turned his talents to fiction and is the author of the historical mystery series featuring the twelfth-century coroner Sir John de Wolfe, which began with The Sanctuary Seeker (1998). Knight had previously written fiction under the alias Bernard Picton, starting with The Lately Deceased (1963). He also contributed several story lines to the TV series, The Expert, which ran from 1968 to 1974, and adapted a novel based on the series in 1976. But perhaps his main claim to fame will be that Knight oversaw the recovery of all twelve bodies of the victims from the garden of Fred and Rosemary West in Gloucester in 1994.

  If anyone could concoct the undetectable perfect crime, Bernard Knight is surely our man. Maybe I ought to preface the following with “don’t try this at home”.

  He laid his binoculars on the window ledge and decided that it was time that he murdered his wife.

  Pondering for a few minutes, Lewis Lloyd reviewed the various methods that had been going through his mind for the past few weeks. He had more or less decided on one, the prime considera tion being that he should never be convicted of the crime. There was no doubt that he would be strongly suspected – and if his luck was out, he might even be brought to trial, given their past record of domestic discord.

  But found guilty – never!

  Having made the decision, Lloyd gave a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the window. Picking up his glasses again, he trained them at the line of scraggy rowan trees and stunted oaks that rimmed the top of the mountain, high above his hut. He watched a group of magpies strutting about under the trees, until his attention was diverted by a pair of buzzards soaring high over the old coal tip, beyond the ruined lime-kiln.

  Lewis Lloyd loved birds and this ramshackle hut was his only refuge from the nagging and abuse that he suffered down in the valley bottom. He often came up early in the morning, or when the pub was shut in the afternoon. Sometimes he even stayed overnight, in winter huddled over the little pot-bellied stove, blissful in his solitude.

  Lewis smiled complacently behind his binoculars, thinking that when the deed was done, he could come up even more often, with no Rita to screech objections at him.

  Yes, it was high time to put Plan A into action.

  “Bloody nonsense!” growled Mordecai Evans, tossing the letter on to his cluttered desk. “We’ve got enough aggravation already without daft women writing us letters.”

  “Mind you, boss, that family’s got a bit of previous,” murmured his sergeant, peeved that Mordecai had dismissed his offering in such a cavalier fashion. The detective-inspector, a squat bruiser who could have doubled for John Prescott, scowled up at Willy Williams.

  “What previous? A bit of form for couple of domestics?”

  “Lloyd broke her arm once – and another time she got a couple of busted ribs,” said Willy defensively. “The
beak gave him six months, suspended on account of provocation.”

  “Big deal!” sneered the DI. “So we’re supposed to take her seriously, are we?”

  He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed the crumpled letter from the desk, going to the window for better light. Though he was reluctant to admit it, he couldn’t see so well these days and a visit to Specsavers was on the cards soon. Peering at the cheap notepaper in the grey light that managed to percolate through the dark clouds looming over Pontypridd, he glowered at the unwelcome message.

  “How did you come by this, Willy?”

  “Eddie Morgan, the desk sergeant at the nick up in Ton Pentre gave it me yesterday, when I was up there about the break-in at the Co-op.”

  “And where did he get it?” grumbled Mordecai, slumping back into his chair.

  “Rita Lloyd brought it in a few days ago. Apparently, she bent his ear something terrible, saying her old man was threatening to kill her, so she was making an official complaint.” The detective-sergeant delivered this with some relish. “Eddie said he forgot all about it, knowing what a nutter Rita was – but as I was there, he said he thought he’d better pass it on to us.”

  “Oh, Gawd!” sighed Mordecai. “Was she battered and bruised this time?”

  “No sign of it, he said. But half-pissed, as usual.”

  Wearily, the DI pulled a stack of case folders across the desk towards him. “Well, I haven’t got bloody time to waste on that now. If she comes in with two black eyes, we’ll have a word with her, otherwise it goes in my ‘pending’ file.” He opened the top folder and peered myopically at the first page of endless police bumf, so his sergeant took the hint and sloped off to the canteen for his refreshments.

  Ten minutes later, his lanky ginger-haired figure slid back through the door and he came to stand in front of the desk, his knuckles resting on the edge.

  “I think you’d better have another read of that letter, boss,” he said in sepulchral tones. “I just had a cup of tea with the coroner’s officer. He happened to mention that Rita Lloyd was found dead yesterday morning!”

  “Nothing! What d’you mean, nothing?” demanded Mordecai Evans. “There must be something, for God’s sake!”

  On hearing his sergeant’s news, the DI had gone storming downstairs to the little room where the coroner’s officer presided, Willy trailing in his wake. He stood over Jimmy Armstrong, a large, placid man who had been a police officer before he returned after retirement to the same job as a civilian.

  Jimmy shook his head sadly. “Sorry, guv, we got nothing. There was a post-mortem this morning and the doc found nothing that could have killed her. He’s kept some samples for analysis, just in case.”

  Mordecai brandished Rita’s letter under Armstrong’s nose. “She wrote to us, saying her husband was threatening to kill her, man! Now she’s dead!”

  The coroner’s officer shrugged. “Don’t blame me, I’m just the dogsbody round here. Perhaps you’d better have a word with the coroner.”

  “Damn right I will,” muttered the detective. “And a few words with the flaming husband as well.” His irritation subsided as the possible consequences of this affair began to sink in. He sat on one of the hard chairs provided for grieving relatives when being interviewed by Armstrong and stared pensively at the coroner’s officer.

  “You live in Tonypandy, Jimmy. What’s the gossip on these Lloyds these days?”

  Armstrong, whose tweed suit and tidy grey hair made him look like everyone’s favourite uncle, clasped his hands as if in prayer.

  “Queer pair, a disaster waiting to happen, I reckon.”

  “He still runs the pub? I thought he’d have had the sack, after his run-in with the law,” growled the DI.

  “It’s a Free House, he’s not just a manager,” cut in the sergeant. “The Elliot Arms is a bit of a dump, but we don’t get much trouble there. It’s too old-fashioned to attract the yobs, no strippers or live music, just a quiz-night once a week.”

  “Why were he and his missus at each other’s throats then?” demanded Mordecai.

  Armstrong shrugged his big shoulders. “Incompatible, they are! He’s a quiet sort of bloke, until he gets his rag out, then he’s got a terrible temper. She’s an old slag-booze, bingo and blokes. Rita’ll go for anything in trousers – at least, when she’s sober enough to stand up.”

  The DI grunted and hauled himself to his feet. He tapped the letter. “So there might be something in this, eh?”

  The coroner’s officer held up his hands defensively. “Don’t ask me, that’s your job. But I’d have a word with my boss first.”

  The coroner was a local solicitor who conducted his business from his offices above a shoe shop in Pontypridd’s Taff Street, a few hundred yards from the Divisional Police Headquarters. Mordecai Evans and his sergeant took a walk there, pushing impatiently through the ambling throng in the narrow road, which was the town’s main shopping street.

  They turned in at a door on which a worn brass plate declared “Thomas, Evans and Rees – Solicitors” though these gentlemen were long dead and the present senior partner was Mr David Mostyn, Her Majesty’s Coroner for East Glamorgan.

  In a seedy reception area at the top of a narrow flight of stairs, a girl with a bad head-cold showed them into his office. Mostyn was a rotund man with a shiny bald head and a round, pink face that always seemed to have a smile on it, even when he was discussing death in all its often horrible forms. He ushered the two detectives to hard chairs and sat down again behind his paper – infested desk.

  “My officer has told me about the situation over the phone,” he began, picking up a form from a pile in front of him. “We already had a bit of a problem in that Doctor Carlton hasn’t yet been able to give me a cause of death.” He gave them a cheery grin, as if he had just won the Lottery.

  “Surely that’s unusual in itself, sir?” muttered Mordecai, picking at a pimple on his neck.

  The coroner shook his head happily. “Not that unusual, Inspector. Especially if tablets or alcohol are involved, nothing may be found at the post-mortem, but the answer may come later from laboratory tests.”

  The DI delved into his inside pocket and pulled out Rita Lloyd’s letter, now encased in a clear plastic envelope. He handed it across the desk.

  “You see our problem, sir. I get this this morning, then I’m told she’s already dead!”

  David Mostyn scanned through the single page of writing, then handed it back and rubbed his bald head as an aid to thought.

  “It certainly requires us to proceed with caution, officer. What do you know about this pair?”

  Mordecai motioned with his head towards his sergeant. “Williams here knows them best, he comes from that part of the valley.”

  Willy cleared his throat and began to speak as if he was in the witness box, though he managed to avoid phrases like, “I was proceeding in a northerly direction.”

  “Sir, Lewis and Rita Lloyd have been known to me for a long while. In fact, I arrested him some time ago for assaulting his wife. He is the owner and licensee of the Elliot Arms in Tonypandy, a free house where he lives with the now deceased.”

  The coroner nodded, his benign smile still firmly in place. “Have you spoken to him about this yet?”

  Mordecai shook his head. “We’ve only known about this for an hour, sir. It was only by chance that Lewis Armstrong mentioned to my sergeant that she was dead.”

  The coroner stared down at the paper he held in his hand.

  “All I’ve got is Lewis’s daily notification to me. It just says that the family doctor was called to the house-Dr Battachirya, that would be – who then phoned in to say he was reporting a death, as he couldn’t give a certificate. The woman was found dead in bed by the husband at seven-thirty yesterday morning.”

  Mordecai Evans’s pugnacious face stared at David Mostyn.

  “That’s all you have, sir?” he demanded, as if he suspected that the coroner was holding out on him.

&n
bsp; “At this stage, yes. If the p.m. had shown a natural cause of death, like a coronary or a stroke, I would have issued a disposal certificate and that would be an end of it. As it is, I have to wait for the pathologist, Dr Carlton, to come back to me eventually with an update based on the results of the tests he sent away.”

  “How long will that take, sir?” ventured Willy Williams.

  Mostyn beamed back at him. “Varies a lot, sergeant. Some things, like alcohol and carbon monoxide, he can have done in his own hospital the same day. More complicated tests for drugs have to be sent away and can take weeks.”

  The inspector glowered at the coroner as if it was his fault. “We may not be able to wait that long, sir. I’ve spoken to my Superintendent and he’s told me to see the husband and if I feel there’s any doubt, to proceed as if it’s a criminal investigation.”

  David Mostyn’s smile faded a little. “And what would that entail in this case?”

  Mordecai shrugged his bull-like shoulders. “We may have to call in the Scenes-of-Crime team to the pub, sir. And possibly ask the Home Office pathologist to carry out a second autopsy-with your consent, of course.”

  He could almost see the figures ringing up like a cash register in the coroner’s eyes, as Mostyn calculated the extra cost to the budget he received from the local authority. However, he rallied and with his grin at maximum rictus, he agreed with good grace.

  “Well, have a talk with this Lloyd chap, Inspector – and keep me informed as to what’s happening.”

  The Elliot Arms was an ugly red-brick building on the main road through the Rhondda Valley, a twisting, congested route lined with terraced houses, betting shops and Chinese take-aways. Built in 1900 to wash the coal-dust from the throats of thousands of miners, the public house had fallen on hard times, now that not a single pit remained in the valley. Lewis Lloyd had managed to survive by accepting a frugal life-style, most of his custom coming from the old colliers whom came to the Elliot mainly out of habit. There was also a hard core of pigeon fanciers, whose Club met once a week in the barren room above the Public Bar. Lewis was himself a pigeon man, with a large loft out in the backyard where he kept a dozen cherished Fantails. He also had a moderate lunch-time trade in ham-rolls and pasties bought mainly by the workers from a small plastics factory further up Mafeking Terrace, the side street on the corner of which his pub was situated.