"Well, it was an idea."
"Not a very good one. It's too fancy, even if it was possible."
"I guess you're right."
"I don't think we're dealing with a mastermind here," he said. "I've talked to the suspects and there's not one of them with an IQ over a hundred and twenty."
I turned away from the door. "Is it all right if I prowl around in here, look things over for myself?"
"I don't care what you do," he said, "if you end up giving me something useful."
I wandered over and looked at one of the two windows. It had been nailed shut, all right, and the nails had been painted over some time ago. The window looked out on an overgrown rear yard-eucalyptus trees, undergrowth and scrub brush. Wisps of fog had begun to blow in off the ocean; the day had turned dark and misty. And my mood was beginning to match it. I had no particular stake in this case, and yet because Eberhardt had called me into it I felt a certain commitment. For that reason, and because puzzles of any kind prey on my mind until I know the solution, I was feeling a little frustrated.
I went to the desk beneath the second of the windows, glanced through the cubbyholes: correspondence, writing paper, envelopes, a packet of blank checks. The center drawer contained pens and pencils, various-sized paper clips and rubber bands, a tube of glue, a booklet of stamps. The three side drawers were full of letter carbons and folders jammed with facts and figures about pulp magazines and pulp writers.
From there I crossed to the overstuffed chair and the reading lamp and peered at each of them in turn. Then I looked at some of the bookshelves and went down the aisles between the library stacks. And finally I came back to the chalk outline and stood staring down again at the issues of Clues, Keyhole Mystery Magazine and Private Detective.
Eberhardt said impatiently, "Are you getting anywhere or just stalling?"
"I'm trying to think," I said. "Look, Eb, you told me Murray was stabbed with a splinter-like piece of steel. How thick was it?"
"About the thickness of a pipe cleaner. Most of the 'blade' part had been honed to a fine edge and the point was needle-sharp"
"And the other end was wrapped with adhesive tape?"
"That's right. A grip, maybe."
"Seems an odd sort of weapon, don't you think? I mean, why not just use a knife?"
"People have stabbed other people with weapons a hell of a lot stranger," he said. "You know that."
"Sure. But I'm wondering if the choice of weapon here has anything to do with the locked-room angle."
"If it does I don't see how."
"Could it have been thrown into Murray's stomach from a distance, instead of driven there at close range?"
"I suppose it could have been. But from where? Not outside this room, not with that door locked on the inside and the windows nailed down."
Musingly I said, "What if the killer wasn't in this room when Murray died?"
Eberhardt's expression turned even more sour. "I know what you're leading up to with that," he said. "The murderer rigged some kind of fancy crossbow arrangement, operated by a tripwire or by remote control. Well, you can forget it. The lab boys searched every inch of this room. Desk, chairs, bookshelves, reading lamp, ceiling fixtures-everything. There's nothing like that here; you've been over the room, you can tell that for yourself. There's nothing at all out of the ordinary or out of place except those magazines."
Sharpening frustration made me get down on one knee and stare once more at the copies of Keyhole and Private Detective. They had to mean something, separately or in conjunction. But what? What?
"Lieutenant?"
The voice belonged to Inspector Jordan; when I looked up he was standing in the doorway, gesturing to Eberhardt. I watched Eb go over to him and the two of them hold a brief, soft-voiced conference. At length Eberhardt turned to look at me again.
"I'll be back in a minute," he said. "I've got to go talk to the family. Keep working on it."
"Sure. What else?"
He and Jordan went away and left me alone. I kept staring at the magazines, and I kept coming up empty.
Keyhole Mystery Magazine.
Private Detective.
Nothing.
I stood up and prowled around some more, looking here and there. That went on for a couple of minutes-until all of a sudden I became aware of something Eberhardt and I should have noticed before, should have considered before. Something that was at once obvious and completely unobtrusive, like the purloined letter in the Poe story.
I came to a standstill, frowning, and my mind began to crank out an idea. I did some careful checking then, and the idea took on more weight, and at the end of another couple of minutes I had convinced myself I was right.
I knew how Thomas Murray had been murdered in locked room.
Once I had that, the rest of it came together pretty quick. My mind works that way; when I have something solid to build on, a kind of chain reaction takes place. I put together things Eberhardt had told me and things I knew about Murray, and there it was in a nice ironic package: the significance of Private Detective and the name of Murray's killer.
When Eberhardt came back into the room I was going over it all for the third time, making sure of my logic. He still had the black briar clamped between his teeth and there were more scowl wrinkles in his forehead. He said, "My suspects are getting restless; if we don't come up with an answer pretty soon, I've got to let them go on their way. And you, too."
"I may have the answer for you right now," I said.
That brought him up short. He gave me a penetrating look, then said, "Give."
"All right. What Murray was trying to tell us, as best he could with the magazines close at hand, was how he was stabbed and who his murderer is. I think Keyhole Mystery Magazine indicates how and Private Detective indicates who. It's hardly conclusive proof in either case, but it might be enough for you to pry loose an admission of guilt."
"You just leave that part of it to me. Get on with your explanation."
"Well, let's take the 'how' first," I said. "The locked-room angle. I doubt if the murderer set out to create that kind of situation; his method was clever enough, but as you pointed out we're not dealing with a mastermind here. He probably didn't even know that Murray had taken to locking himself inside this room every day. I think he must have been as surprised as everyone else when the murder turned into a locked-room thing.
"So it was supposed to be a simple stabbing done by person or persons unknown while Murray was alone in the house. But it wasn't a stabbing at all, in the strict sense of the word; the killer wasn't anywhere near here when Murray died."
"He wasn't, huh?"
"No. That's why the adhesive tape on the murder weapon-misdirection, to make it look like Murray was stabbed with a homemade knife in a close confrontation. I'd say he worked it the way he did for two reasons: one, he didn't have enough courage to kill Murray face to face; and two, he wanted to establish an alibi for himself."
Eberhardt puffed up another great cloud of acrid smoke from his pipe. "So tell me how the hell you put a steel splinter into a man's stomach when you're miles away from the scene."
"You rig up a death trap," I said, "using a keyhole."
"Now, look, we went over all that before. The key was inside the keyhole when we broke in, I told you that, and I won't believe the killer used some kind of tricky gimmick that the lab crew overlooked."
"That's not what happened at all. What hung both of us up is a natural inclination to associate the word 'keyhole' with a keyhole in a door. But the fact is, there are five other keyholes in this room."
"What?"
"The desk, Eb. The roll top desk over there."
He swung his head around and looked at the desk beneath the window. It contained five keyholes, all right-one in the roll top, one in the center drawer and one each in the three side drawers. Like those on most antique roll top desks, they were meant to take large, old-fashioned keys and therefore had good-sized openings. But they wer
e also half-hidden in scrolled brass frames with decorative handle pulls; and no one really notices them anyway, any more than you notice individual cubbyholes or the design of the brass trimming. When you look at a desk you see it as an entity: you see a desk.
Eberhardt put his eyes on me again. "Okay," he said, "I see what you mean. But I searched that desk myself, and so did the lab boys. There's nothing on it or in it that could be used to stab a man through a keyhole."
"Yes, there is." I led him over to the desk. "Only one of these keyholes could have been used, Eb. It isn't the one in the roll top because the top is pushed all the way up; it isn't any of the ones in the side drawers because of where Murray was stabbed-he would have had to lean over at an awkward angle, on his own initiative, in order to catch that steel splinter in the stomach. It has to be the center drawer then, because when a man sits down at a desk like this, that drawer-and that keyhole-are about on a level with the area under his breastbone."
He didn't argue with the logic of that. Instead, he reached out, jerked open the center drawer by its handle pull and stared inside at the pens and pencils, paper clips, rubber bands and other writing paraphernalia.
Then, after a moment, I saw his eyes change and understanding come into them.
"Rubber band," he said.
"Right." I picked up the largest one; it was about a quarter-inch wide, thick and strong-not unlike the kind kids use to make slingshots. "This one, no doubt."
"Keep talking."
"Take a look at the keyhole frame on the inside of the center drawer. The top doesn't quite fit snug with the wood; there's enough room to slip the edge of this band into the crack. All you'd have to do then is stretch the band out around the steel splinter, ease the point of the weapon through the keyhole and anchor it against the metal on the inside rim of the hole. It would take time to get the balance right and close the drawer without releasing the band, but it could be done by someone with patience and a steady hand. And what you'd have then is a death trap-a cocked and powerful slingshot."
Eberhardt nodded slowly.
"When Murray sat down at the desk," I said, "all it took was for him to pull open the drawer with the jerking motion people always use. The point of the weapon slipped free, the rubber band released like a spring, and the splinter shot through and sliced into Murray's stomach. The shock and impact drove him and the chair backward, and he must have stood up convulsively at the same time, knocking over the chair. That's when he staggered into those bookshelves. And meanwhile the rubber band flopped loose from around the keyhole frame, so that everything looked completely ordinary inside the drawer."
"I'll buy it," Eberhardt said. "It's just simple enough and logical enough to be the answer." He gave me a sidewise look. "You're pretty good at this kind of thing, once you get going."
"It's just that the pulp connection got my juices flowing."
"Yeah, the pulp connection. Now, what about Private Detective and the name of the killer?"
"The clue Murray left us there is a little more roundabout," I said. "But you've got to remember that he was dying and that he only had time to grab those magazines that were handy. He couldn't tell us more directly who he believed was responsible."
"Go on," he said, "I'm listening."
"Murray collected pulp magazines, and he obviously also read them. So he knew that private detectives as a group are known by all sorts of names-shamus, op, eye, snooper." I allowed myself a small, wry smile. "And one more, just as common."
"Which is?"
"Peeper," I said.
He considered that. "So?"
"Eb, Murray also collected every other kind of popular culture. One of those kinds is prints of old television shows. And one of your suspects is a small, mousy guy who wears thick glasses; you told me that yourself. I'd be willing to bet that some time ago Murray made a certain obvious comparison between this relative of his and an old TV show character from back in the fifties, and that he referred to the relative by that character's name."
"What character?"
"Mr. Peepers," I said. "And you remember who played Mr. Peepers, don't you?"
"Well, I'll be damned," he said. "Wally Cox."
"Sure. Mr. Peepers-the cousin, Walter Cox."
At eight o'clock that night, while I was working on a beer and reading a 1935 issue of Dime Detective, Eberhardt rang up my apartment. "Just thought you'd like to know," he said. "We got a full confession out of Walter Cox about an hour ago. I hate to admit it-I don't want you to get a swelled head-but you were right all the way down to the Mr. Peepers angle. I checked with the housekeeper and the niece before I talked to Cox, and they both told me Murray called him by that name all the time."
"What was Cox's motive?" I asked.
"Greed, what else? He had a chance to get in on a big investment deal in South America, and Murray wouldn't give him the cash. They argued about it in private for some time, and three days ago Cox threatened to kill him. Murray took the threat seriously, which is why he started locking himself in his Rooms while he tried to figure out what to do about it.
"Where did Cox get the piece of steel?"
"Friend of his has a basement workshop, builds things out of wood and metal. Cox borrowed the workshop on a pretext and used a grinder to hone the weapon. He rigged up the slingshot this morning-let himself into the house with his key while the others were out and Murray was locked in one of the Rooms."
"Well, I'm glad you got it wrapped up and glad I could help."
"You're to be even gladder when the niece talks to you tomorrow. She says she wants to give you some kind of reward."
"Hell, that's not necessary."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth-to coin a phrase. Listen, I owe you something myself. You want to come over tomorrow night for a home-cooked dinner and some beer?"
"As long as it's Dana who does the home cooking," I said.
After we rang off I thought about the reward from Murray's niece. Well, if she wanted to give me money I was hardly in a financial position to turn it down. But if she left it up to me to name my own reward, I decided I would not ask for money at all; I would ask for something a little more fitting instead.
What I really wanted was Thomas Murray's run of Private Detective.
Dead Man's Slough
I was halfway through one of the bends in Dead Man's Slough, on my way back to the Whiskey Island marina with three big Delta catfish in the skiff beside me, when the red-haired man rose up out of the water at an islet fifty yards ahead.
It was the last thing I expected to see and I leaned forward, squinting through the boat's Plexiglas windscreen. The weather was full of early-November bluster-high overcast and a raw wind-and the water was too cold and too choppy for pleasure swimming. Besides which, the red-haired guy was fully dressed in khaki trousers and a short-sleeved bush jacket.
He came all the way out of the slough, one hand clapped across the back of his head, and plowed upward through the mud and grass of a tiny natural beach. When he got to its upper edge where the tule grass grew thick and waist-high, he stopped and held a listening pose. Then he whirled around, stood swaying unsteadily as if he were caught in a crosscurrent of the chill wind. He stared out toward me for two or three seconds; the pale oval of his face might have been pulled into a painful grimace, but I couldn't tell for sure at the distance. And then he whirled again in a dazed, frightened way, stumbled in among the rushes and disappeared.
I looked upstream past the islet, where Dead Man's Slough widened into a long reach; the waterway was empty, and so were the willow-lined levees that flanked it. Nor was there any sign of another boat or another human being in the wide channel that bounded the islet on the south. That was not surprising, or at least it wouldn't have been five minutes ago.
The California Delta, fifty miles inland from San Francisco where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers merge on a course to San Francisco Bay, has a thousand miles of waterways and a network of islands both large and s
mall, inhabited and uninhabited, linked by seventy bridges and a few hundred miles of levee roads. During the summer months the area is jammed with vacationers, water skiers, fishermen and houseboaters, but in late fall, when the cold winds start to blow, about the only people you'll find are local merchants and farmers and a few late-vacationing anglers like me. I had seen no more than four other people and two other boats in the five hours since I'd left Whiskey Island, and none of those in the half-mile I had just traveled on Dead Man's Slough.
So where had the red-haired man come from?
On impulse I twisted the wheel and took the skiff over toward the islet, cutting back on the throttle as I approached. Wind gusts rustled and bent the carpet of tule grass, but there was no other movement that I could see. Ten yards off the beach, I shut the throttle all the way down to idle; the quick movement of the water carried the skiff the rest of the way in. When the bow scraped up over the soft mud I shut off the engine, pocketed the ignition key and moved aft to tilt the outboard engine out of the water so its propeller blades wouldn't become fouled in the offshore grass. Then I climbed out and dragged half the boat's length onto the beach as a precaution against it backsliding and drifting off without me.
From the upper rim of the beach I could look all across the flat width of the islet-maybe fifty yards in all-and for seventy yards or so of its length, to where the terrain humped up in the middle and a pair of willow trees and several wild blackberry bushes blocked off my view. But I couldn't see anything of the red-haired man, or hear anything of him either; there were no sounds except for the low whistling cry of the wind.
An eerie feeling came over me. It was as if I were alone on the islet, alone on all of Dead Man's Slough, and the red-haired guy had been some sort of hallucination. Or some sort of ghostly manifestation. I thought of the old-timer who had rented me the skiff on Whiskey Island a sort of local historian well versed on Delta lore and legends dating back to the Gold Rush, when steamboats from San Francisco and Sacramento plied these waters with goods and passengers. And I thought of the story he had told me about how the slough got its name.
Scenarios nd-29 Page 4
