EQMM, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Needless to say, the question of marriage was at the root of the quarrel. As the colonel rejected his arguments with a cold authority, Philip had tried to keep his composure while pacing to and fro. Eventually he couldn't take any more of the biting comments and, reconciled to defeat but shaking with anger, was about to leave the study when it happened. He was facing the door and the colonel was standing at the other end of the room with his back to the window, seemingly studying the kandjar and the fateful gong on the side wall. Suddenly Philip heard a curious sound, like a booming vibration. He thought immediately of the gong because of the legend Rose had recently told him about. He turned around and saw Henry Strange staggering and trying to clutch at the wall for support, in a vain attempt to remain upright. But, before Philip could reach him, he collapsed on the carpet. It was only then that Philip noticed the arrow in Henry's neck. Because the window was open, he immediately thought that the shot had come from outside and went over to take a look. There was nothing, not so much as a cat. The street was silent and deserted. A solitary bronze street lamp illuminated the scene and created a sheen on the surface of the snow, which he could see was unmarred by footprints or marks of any kind. Opposite him was an unbroken brick wall without a single nook or cranny. Where could any mysterious archer have hidden to fire the deadly shot? There was nowhere. It slowly dawned on Philip that all the evidence pointed to him being the only one who could have committed the murder."

  The eminent criminologist paused for dramatic effect. After favouring him with a rather cynical look, the superintendent commented:

  "An intriguing problem, I must say. If Philip was indeed innocent, which you seem to be implying, there are a couple of unexplained phenomena. First, obviously, there's the gong that reverberated all of its own accord by way of announcing an imminent death. Secondly, there's Colonel Strange's abrupt demise in seemingly impossible circumstances. Perhaps you could elaborate on the latter?"

  "Of course,” agreed Twist with an ironic smile. “And I'll try to be objective even though I already know the solution. First, I must tell you about the snowman at the end of the cul-de-sac, made by some schoolboys during that same afternoon. They had decorated it with whatever had come to hand: an old broom; the traditional carrot for its nose; a battered old hat on its head; and an orange on top of the hat. With regard to the layout of the street: Starting from the T junction formed by the cul-de-sac and the main road to the south, it was a good thirty yards north to the wall at the end where the snowman stood guard. The high wall ran the full length of the west side and on the east there were three houses next to one another side by side, that of the Stranges being the last. Its front door was therefore some twenty yards from the T junction, with the street lamp almost opposite providing bright illumination for the whole street. There were three windows looking onto the cul-de-sac: that of the study, adjacent to the front door, and two others belonging to a larger room—the dining room, I believe. If you leant out of the study window you would see, slightly to the left, the street lamp and, five or six yards to the right, the wall at the end of the cul-de-sac. Are you with me so far?"

  "Absolutely,” replied Charles Cullen, who had been concentrating with his eyes closed.

  "Jasper had had the presence of mind to call the police and they arrived quickly. At first they concentrated on the virgin snow in the street, hoping to find incriminating footprints. Philip's statements were so absurd that they believed he must be innocent—at least at first. The only footprints they could find were made by John Buresford, which went from the front door of the house to the T junction. They were very clear because the snow had stopped around the time he had left. There was nothing suspicious about them: Their general direction, depth, and—above all—their angle relative to the study window ruled out the possibility of a shot from that particular path. When the colonel's body had been found, it was several feet from the window. Furthermore, Philip—who had nothing to gain by pointing it out—insisted that Colonel Strange was not at the window at the fatal moment. He was standing by the gong just before Philip briefly turned his back on him.

  "The police examined various potential lines of fire from outside the house, but in all cases the marksman would have to have been positioned close to the wall opposite the window, and within an area less than thirty feet wide. Furthermore, from the angle of the arrow in the victim's neck, the shot must have been pretty well horizontal. Now, from a careful examination within the designated thirty-foot limit, there wasn't the minutest aperture in the wall—not even a loose brick—and, as I've already noted, not a single incriminating mark in the snow on the street or on the window sill. It was seemingly impossible for the crossbowman—for the initial theory was that the arrow had been fired from a crossbow—to have taken his shot from outside the house.

  "That left only the study itself, which narrowed the possibilities to just two: Either the colonel had been killed by the only other person in the room at the time, or by a cunningly concealed mechanical trap. Given the absence of any evidence of the latter, it seemed inescapable that Philip was the guilty party."

  "How did he do it, then?” asked Cullen. “Did they find a crossbow in the study?"

  "No."

  "So where the devil did he hide it after he'd fired it?"

  A mischievous gleam appeared behind the pince-nez of the famous detective.

  "In fact, at this point the authorities were by no means totally convinced that the arrow had been fired from a crossbow. After examining the body, the medical examiner had some questions about the wound. It seemed to be consistent with the cause of death, yet didn't seem to be a clean enough wound to be completely natural. The skin appeared to have been torn. On questioning, Philip recalled having tried in vain to pull the arrow out of the fallen victim, but quickly realized his host was dead. He now realized it was a mistake, but it was a reflex action, done in a moment of panic. The explanation was plausible, according to the examiner, but it was only one of several possibilities and still didn't explain how the shot was fired.

  "The police inspector had another theory which, in fact, explained the mystery completely. The fatal wound was inflicted by the suspect not with a crossbow arrow at all, but with a dagger. At the height of their quarrel, Philip grabbed the first weapon to hand: the kandjar. After stabbing the colonel, and noticing a crossbow arrow in the room, he tried to make it appear as though the shot came from outside. All he had to do was remove the kandjar, wipe it down and put it back on the wall, drive the arrow all the way into the wound, and then open the window. There was just one small detail that tripped him up: There were no incriminating footprints anywhere in the cul-de-sac. Everything thus pointed to Philip, and he was arrested the following day. It proved a devastating shock to Rose, even though she had been half expecting it."

  "They could scarcely have done otherwise,” observed the superintendent. “People have been hanged for a lot less. But weren't there any other witnesses?"

  "There were indeed. Fortunately for Philip, the inspector wasn't entirely satisfied with his own theories; everything seemed too pat. Besides, not a single trace of blood had been found on the kandjar. Would Philip really have had time to clean it so thoroughly and come up with an explanation, no matter how implausible? There had barely been a couple of minutes between the end of the quarrel and the discovery of the tragedy. Would that have been enough?

  "The inspector pursued his enquiries and eventually found two witnesses who, according to a local innkeeper, had left his establishment around the time of the crime. On their way home they had passed by the top end of the cul-de-sac, where the police had in fact found two sets of muddled footprints in the snow at the T junction. This was quite understandable, given that they had left the pub in a highly inebriated state, having passed the evening in a celebration of some sort. Apparently they were simply passing through. They weren't locals, and one of them was carrying a suitcase. This helped the inspector to trace them and bring them in for questioning. They
both claimed to have seen nothing, but the inspector detected a certain nervousness in their demeanour. Had they noticed something they were afraid to talk about? Had the alcohol affected them to the point of seeing ghosts?"

  "Maybe they saw the snowman at the other end of the street."

  "And you think he might have been the phantom archer?” asked Dr. Twist scornfully. “Well, why not? At least that would be a murderer out of the ordinary."

  Charles Cullen shrugged his shoulders. “No, of course not, but I think there's a glimmer of a clue there."

  "You're very warm, but that's not the answer. Still, I think I've given you enough information to solve the puzzle. Any thoughts?"

  Cullen emptied his glass before answering:

  "Sorry to disappoint you, but despite all the interesting snippets, I still feel it was the chief suspect. Mainly because of the window. You haven't told me why it was open like that on a winter evening. It doesn't make sense. Unless Philip himself had an explanation?"

  "As a matter of fact, the inspector did ask him and it's very simple. After Colonel Strange had flown off the handle, he opened the window wide so as to get some fresh air and try to cool down."

  "And what about the study door being locked? Did he have an explanation for that? Did the colonel also do that?"

  "Yes. As soon as Philip had explained the subject of the meeting, Colonel Strange made a show of locking the door and declaring that nobody would leave until the matter was settled. According to Rose, that was completely in character."

  The superintendent shook his head in defeat.

  "Well, in that case, I give up. Jasper, the servant, has a cast-iron alibi because he was with Rose at the time of the crime. And that, of course, eliminates her as well. That leaves the young officer who lost a hand on the Belgian front. One can readily imagine him falling for the girl even on the very first night, but it's quite a stretch to imagine that he immediately set about trying to rid himself of her fiancé by killing the colonel and framing his rival. And how could he have shot the fellow as he was leaving? From your own account, the angle of flight rules out the arrow having been fired from anywhere near the front door. And anyway, how could he have manipulated a crossbow with just one hand? It's completely impossible, just like everything else in this damned story . . . arrows appearing from nowhere and gongs sounding all by themselves!"

  Dr. Twist smiled knowingly. “But in fact, the solution to the whole mystery lies in those two elements. Remember the circumstances: It was just after hearing the sound that Philip saw the colonel collapse, mortally wounded by a crossbow arrow. Think carefully, that wasn't a coincidence: There was a clear connection between the strange noise and the arrow."

  Charles Cullen looked perplexed.

  "Quite frankly, I don't see it. If anything, the problem is more complicated than ever. Am I supposed to believe the legend whereby the sound of the gong presages death and disaster? Or that someone familiar with the gong's deadly powers succeeded in invoking them?"

  The celebrated detective shook his head. “No, of course not. You're not looking at this the right way. I'm afraid you're allowing the legend to influence your thinking. Once again, think how short a time elapsed between the sound and the fatal wounding of the colonel."

  "Put me out of my misery,” announced Cullen, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Just tell me what happened."

  "Philip was exonerated,” replied Twist reflectively. “He escaped the rope, but not his fate. One month after his release, he was killed in an accident at the factory."

  "Well, that's all very sad,” observed the superintendent. “But what about the solution to the puzzle?"

  "I hate to disappoint you, my dear fellow, but it's simplicity itself. When you hear it, you're going to kick yourself."

  "Well then, give me a clue, for heaven's sake."

  "Very well. You've heard of William Tell, no doubt. The Swiss archer who had to shoot an apple from the top of his son's head or die himself."

  With difficulty, the policeman controlled himself. “Of course, everyone knows the story. Get on with it!"

  "Well, it's the key to the whole mystery. Except in this case it was an orange, not an apple. An orange perched on the hat of the snowman at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. It was reminiscent of William Tell and his son, wasn't it? And it was too tempting. One of the revellers thrown out of the pub couldn't resist trying out the crossbow he'd just bought, which was in the suitcase he was carrying. On the way to the pub, he'd noticed the snowman and, in particular, the orange stuck on his head. On the way back, after he and his friend had sunk a few, he recalled that the seller had challenged him to be worthy of William Tell and spear the fruit. When next they saw the snowman, they were at the top of the cul-de-sac, about ninety feet from it—not a great distance for a crossbow. The orange on top of its head was illuminated by the light of the street lamp. And that's the solution to the mystery, because the two jokers confessed to the inspector. A simple accident, the result of a drunken bet."

  "I still don't understand,” announced the superintendent, now at the limit of his patience. “If things happened the way you describe, the archer was well outside the line of fire as defined by the police experts. Unless Colonel Strange, in direct conflict with Philip's testimony, stuck his head out of the window at that precise moment and then fell back wounded into the room."

  "You're still off the mark, even though I drew your attention to the warning sound of the Gong of Doom or, more precisely, the strange reverberations Philip heard at the moment of the killing. It was, in fact, caused by the crossbow arrow that was deflected from its course and struck its victim's neck after flying through the open window. And, as you know, a crossbow bolt, even on ricochet, retains a remarkable force and momentum."

  "But what the devil could it have struck? A brick? Ridiculous! There has to be a hard, smooth, metallic surface for that to happen and there was nothing like that in the street, according to your own account."

  "But there was! A round, smooth metallic surface as obvious as the nose on your face: the bronze lamppost which, by the way, resonates when struck—and which Philip's fervent imagination mistook for the sound of a gong. Think back to my description of the scene and envisage the respective positions of the archer, the lamppost, and the victim. Connect the dots and you have the precise path of the projectile. And you have to admit that the explanation is childishly simple."

  ©2010 by Paul Halter; translation ©2010 by John Pugmire

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department of First Stories: THE HIDDEN BALL TRICK by Patrick Glendon McCullough

  Twenty-four-year-old Patrick McCullough was brought up in Oklahoma, moved to Brooklyn four years ago, and recently retreated to Callicoon, a tiny hamlet on the Delaware River in upstate New York—in pursuit, he says, of a place that would make for better fishing than the East River. When not writing, he tells us, he likes to read Graham Greene and brew beer. Readers of his debut story may wonder at his not mentioning baseball as another of his enthusiasms.

  Being only a few seconds this side of dead, I find my thoughts turn to religion. And like any decent sportswriter who drinks most of his paycheck, religion for me is baseball.

  The annals of its history form a story that beats any other holy book the world has ever produced. One which provides an answer and precedent to everything. Dying, for example.

  You look at someone like John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who wound up getting executed. Clear strikeout.

  Abe Lincoln: sacrifice fly.

  Or you take most of the folks who work and raise a family and all that stuff and get to live to be old and die without much pain. Amounts to a respectable single. Maybe a double, depending on how your wife looks.

  Finally, you've got the home runs and the grand slams. Take a retired sportswriter I knew who had worked at the Daily News. Decades before my time, but I'd run into him at games now and then. He died in a hot tub at his ninetieth birthday party wi
th a glass of cheap rye in one hand and a girl in the other who was young enough to have been some evolved, Darwinian descendent of his own rare species.

  When I was a kid, I always kind of hoped I'd go out like that. If not a grand slam, then a triple. Heart attack in box seats at Yankee Stadium, with Boston down thirty to nothing in the first inning, my credit card bill still largely unpaid.

  But things surprise you. One day every beer seems colder than the one before it and you think that life is a pretty lucky break and the next you're looking down and seeing your insides getting their first peek at the world outside of your belly.

  I'm not speaking poetically. That gruesome latter scenario is my present situation. Sounds like a clear strikeout, right? Maybe an easy pop fly that gets caught in right field?

  Nope. Even worse.

  May 30, 1973. The shortstop for the Yankees, Gene Michael, quietly catches the ball thrown back in from the outfield following an out. Vic Harris, playing for the Rangers, is standing on second, not paying attention to anything. So he misses that Michael doesn't toss the ball to the pitcher, but instead innocently wanders toward second base. Assuming the ball is with the pitcher, Harris leads off and Michael tags him.

  The hidden ball trick.

  It doesn't happen often, but there's no more shameful way to make an exit.

  I should know. It's what did me in.