The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries Part 49

"Dave Hooker?"

"Correct. By process of elimination. It's not too surprising when you come to think about it. Hooker is good-looking, in a fuzzy sort of way. But he has a way of making himself well, sort of invisible; it takes a real effort of concentration to pay attention to him when he talks. So it's really no wonder that Kimball picked the wrong man."

"Did Bailey communicate his discovery to his client?"

"No. Bailey's instructions were to avoid any contact until seven this morning, at which time he planned to present his evidence and watch Kimball's jaw drop. But somebody got to Kimball before he did."

Sheilan raised his eyebrows. "The question being who? Whom do you favor, Jerry? The so-called Invisible Man, with his shining motive? Leo Gurney, with his sinister past? Or Margaret Kimball, with her ironclad alibi? How did they stand up under questioning?"

"A more nerveless bunch of suspects I never saw," said Doran, "I questioned them individually and collectively for three solid hours without extracting one useful piece of information. Hooker and his lady friend expressed no regrets about their activities; she remained calm the whole time, and he was even helpful. Suggested I look for some way the knife could have been fired like a bullet from a gun-" Doran made vague, harpoon-like gestures " and reeled back on a string through one of the air vents in the car. I informed him that the air vents were covered with a fine wire mesh which showed no signs of tampering; he shrugged and grinned and looked oh so apologetic.

"Gurney grinned the whole time, like a d.a.m.ned orangutan. Volunteered nothing, swore he'd never had a thing to do with Kimball's wife, and didn't bat an eye when I brought up the little matter of his record." Doran grimaced and took a pull at his drink. "Dead end," he said, "to an embarra.s.sing afternoon. Bailey sat in on the whole interrogation, wooden-faced as a cigar-store Indian. I gather that his opinion of the abilities of the force have been confirmed in spades." But then Doran saw that his host wasn't listening.

Sheilan had moved from his chair and was standing in front of one of the big windows. Outside, the twilight had vanished and been replaced by blind darkness.

Doran was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Well, the force is asking for a second opinion. What do you make of it?"

Sheilan turned and looked at him speculatively. "I make a great deal of it," he said, "Before I can be sure, you'll have to answer three questions."

"Three questions," said Doran, settling back, "Fire away."

"One: can you tell me what floor of the hotel each of the three suspects was staying on?"

Silently Doran pulled out his notebook and consulted it. "The Kimb.a.l.l.s had a room on the eleventh floor," he said. "Gurney and Hooker had single rooms on the ninth and fifth floors, respectively."

"Excellent," said Sheilan. "Question Number Two: can you tell me something more about the elevator? The outer doors not what you called the inner doors, but the ones on the various floors how can they be opened?"

"They open automatically, of course, when the elevator comes to rest at each floor. When the elevator is on some other floor, they can be opened from the outside with a key, and from the inside by exerting pressure on a lock-bar-"

"And Question Number Three," Sheilan interrupted, rubbing his palms together. "Is there a laundry chute?"

Doran blinked. "I'll have to use your phone," he said. And a few minutes later, in a brief conversation with the hotel manager, Doran established that there was no laundry chute in the Hotel Bowman.

Sheilan seemed satisfied. "Just a frill," he explained, "but a possibility that had to be considered. If there had been a laundry chute, it would have spoiled the logical symmetry of my deductions."

"I'm listening," said Doran.

"I should hope you would be," said Sheilan. "Now, to begin with, you will have noticed the imprint of a magician on this murder. A very special kind of legerdemain was required to bring off the elevator trick. Does that suggest anything to you?"

"Not much," said Doran. "Our suspects are really a trio of magicians. Leo Gurney knows every trick of the trade, so does Dave Hooker, and for that matter, so does Margaret Kimball, who was her husband's a.s.sistant for a number of years-although as you pointed out she does have an ironclad alibi."

"Now that you mention it," said Sheilan, "there's a very close resemblance between the Problem of the Hermetically Sealed Room and the Problem of the Ironclad Alibi. No, I'm not talking about Margaret Kimball not, for that matter, any of your trio of magician-suspects."

"Do you mean there's someone else? A fourth magician?"

"Precisely. A fourth magician who has played the Invisible Man much better than Dave Hooker and completely eluded your hawk-like instincts. Someone who had a better motive for murder than Margaret Kimball, Dave Hooker, and Leo Gurney all rolled into one. Someone who is apparently safe from suspicion-"

"Bailey!" breathed Doran. "The one person-"

"Bailey!" Sheilan let out a snort. "Let's not be fantastic! He and the desk clerk alibi each other. No, the person I am referring to is safe from suspicion for a very convincing reason he happens to be dead. That's right, the person I'm talking about is Charles Kimball."

"I see," said Doran slowly.

"No, I'm afraid you don't," said Sheilan, "It's a complicated business. Charles Kimball is dead, but he is still the only murderer we have to deal with. Jerry, you've been holding this puzzle upside down.

"Suppose I take it from the beginning and reconstruct. Didn't it strike you as strange that Kimball should carry a gun with a silencer? If he were carrying a gun for protection against a person or persons unspecified, surely he'd want noise, wouldn't he? He'd have nothing to hide; on the contrary, he'd want people to hear the shots and come running to help him, wherever and whenever he was attacked. No, the silencer indicated a guiltier purpose."

"I see what you mean," said Doran. "You mean Kimball was going to commit a murder."

"Exactly," said Sheilan, "and all that abracadabra with the elevator was arranged by Kimball to give himself an alibi. But that alibi backfired and presented you with an impossible situation.

"The person Kimball was planning to murder was obviously the man he suspected of being his wife's lover-Leo Gurney. He had no way of knowing, of course, that Dave Hooker was really the culprit, and that he was planning to kill the wrong man."

"But if that was the case," said Doran, "why didn't he wait for confirmation from Bailey?"

"Two reasons. First, because it would look better for Kimball if the murder took place before he received confirmation from Bailey. That was why he instructed Bailey to avoid making contact with him before the time set for the appointment. Who would suspect that a man would hire a detective to investigate his wife's infidelity and then murder the lover even before the investigator made his report? The second reason is more important: Bailey wasn't hired as a detective at all; he was hired as part of the murder plan because Kimball needed an unsuspecting, unimpeachable witness for his alibi.

"Kimball knew he would be suspected immediately if Gurney were found murdered, so he set about creating a foolproof alibi. He did it the same way he would create an illusion for his show, making full use of his talents as an acrobat and escape artist.

"The crux of your impossible situation, you see, is that you were looking at it the wrong way. It was a closed circle with no way for a murderer to get in, but the circle could be broken if the 'victim' got out.

"The plan was probably suggested to him when he saw that the elevator door on the eleventh floor was directly across from his room. His first step was to hire Bailey and arrange for him to be waiting in the lobby on the morning of the murder. Then he acquired a gun and waited. The telltale symptoms of nervousness which were so widely misinterpreted were just that the nervousness of a man about to engage in the most dangerous of enterprises-committing a murder.

"When he came back to the hotel last night, he did two things. First, he picked the padlock on the trap door and left it open, arranging the lock so that it would appear as usual to any ordinary inspection. Then, before he went to bed, he set his watch ahead about fifteen minutes.

"He got up early this morning and deliberately awakened his wife so that she would testify that she'd been with him from, say, 6:30 to 7:02. He asked her to hand him the watch so that the false time would be fixed in her mind. Kimball actually left the room a good ten minutes before seven, not a few minutes after.

"He was certain she would be sufficiently curious about his hints of 'secrets' to follow him to the elevator door and try to get some idea of where he was going. And so she watched the indicator and saw that he went straight down to the lobby.

"Or rather, the car traveled straight down. The escape panel was already open; all Kimball had to do was climb through and stay perched on top of the car. The car reached the lobby, but it seemed to arrive empty, and Bailey, the carefully planted witness, noticed nothing.

"In the meantime, Kimball stepped from the roof of the car up to the second floor a short enough distance-forced the outer door in the manner you indicated was possible, and got out. Then he simply turned around, pushed the b.u.t.ton for the elevator again, and rode back up to the ninth floor to complete his plan. On the way up he erased any traces of the deception by setting his watch back and padlocking the trap door again.

"The rest was simple. He picked the lock of Gurney's door, stepped inside, intending to put a bullet through Gurney's head. It was still early in the morning and Kimball, expecting his victim would still be asleep, did not even consider the possibility of encountering resistance. By the time he'd get back to the elevator and ride down to meet Bailey, no more than ten minutes would have elapsed.

"Bailey would be waiting with the evidence which presumably would confirm his suspicions of Gurney. Kimball could then play the outraged husband and ask Bailey to accompany him to Gurney's room and stage a confrontation.

"And what would they find in Gurney's room? Gurney with a bullet in his head. To Bailey's professional eye it would be clear that Gurney had been killed only minutes before. And Kimball would have an indisputable alibi. From 6:30 to 7:02 he had been with his wife in their room. At 7:02 he had left his wife and ridden straight down to meet Bailey, who would then supply him with the rest of his alibi. In short, it would be an illusion-exactly the kind of production by which Kimball made his living and on which he would be perfectly willing to stake his life. If the illusion succeeded, he would have gotten away with murder.

"But, unfortunately for Kimball, the magician paid more attention to the mechanics of the illusion than to the mechanics of the murder itself. What must have happened when Kimball got to Leo Gurney's room seems clear enough. Kimball went there to kill Gurney, but because of stupidity, jitters, or just plain bad luck the attempt backfired and Kimball died instead.

"We can infer that, for some reason or other, Leo Gurney was not asleep when Kimball got to his room; if he had been, he would be dead now, not Kimball. And it certainly seems likely, judging from his record, that Gurney was a man who knew how to protect himself, that he would be able to get the gun away from his attacker before he had a chance to fire. Then again, it would be very much in character for a man like Gurney to carry some sort of weapon a switchblade knife, say, that could cause a wound like the one which killed Kimball.

"So Kimball is disarmed, but he is still determined. He attacks with his bare hands, overcomes Gurney a much smaller man and begins to choke the life out of him. Gurney manages to pull out his knife, and using his right hand he hacks twice at Kimball's left arm in an attempt to dislodge his grip. Then, in desperation, and as they are struggling, Gurney aims to kill, burying the blade in his opponent's back. Kimball died instantly.

"All speculation, of course, but soundly based on the known facts. The next part, however, is a logical certainty. Gurney has a choice to make: he can plead self-defense or he can try to conceal the crime. Since he has remained silent, we know that he must have panicked and chosen the more dangerous second course. Once he had made his decision, he was faced with one inescapable necessity to get rid of the body, as soon as possible.

"If the body were found, not just in his room but anywhere on the ninth floor of the hotel, where he alone of the Sata.n.u.s troupe was staying, it would be extremely dangerous for him. But how was he to get rid of it? Carry it up two flights of stairs to Kimball's floor, or down four flights to Hooker's floor? Any trip up or down the stairway, carrying a bulky corpse, would be much too risky. A laundry chute in the hall would have been safer but there was no such chute.

"There was only one other possibility, and that was, as luck would have it, the easiest of all: the self-service elevator. Gurney acted quickly. He made sure the coast was clear, lugged the corpse to the elevator, pressed the b.u.t.ton for the car, dumped the body in, and sent the car down to the lobby.

"Bear in mind that Gurney knew nothing of Kimball's planned alibi for himself, or of the witness waiting in the lobby; he was simply disposing of the body as quickly and as safely as he could. But the result turned into a perfect illusion. A little over ten minutes had elapsed since Kimball said goodbye to his wife, his first witness, and stepped into the elevator on the eleventh floor. Now it was two or three minutes past seven, and the elevator was on its way to the lobby and its rendezvous with Bailey, the second witness, who would a.s.sume the car had just come from the eleventh floor. The closed circle was complete; the incontrovertible alibi was forged. The only discrepancy was that Gurney, the intended victim, was alive, while Kimball, the murderer, was dead."

"Well," Doran exploded, "I'll be a double-dyed prestidigitator!"

Sheilan shrugged modestly. "It's not really so amazing. Once you tumble to the significance of the silencer on the gun, the rest follows inevitably from the logic of the so-called 'impossible situation'."

Doran grinned. "I suppose, in keeping with h.o.a.ry tradition, the wise old detective will now insist that it was all the work of a celestial Fifth Magician who stood back in the shadows, invisible and omniscient, pulling the strings-"

"Oh, yes," said Sheilan, "I believe in that, most definitely. Fate does work startling tricks at times. In fact," he said, smiling, "that's the only kind of magic I do believe in."

The Stuart Sapphire Peter Tremayne Peter Tremayne (b. 1943) is best known for his series of historical mystery novels set in seventh century Europe and featuring Sister Fidelma. The first of them was Absolution by Murder (1994) and you will find several impossible mysteries amongst the novels and stories. Under his real name, Peter Berresford Ellis is a noted Celtic scholar, author of such books as The History of the Irish Working Cla.s.s (1972), The Celtic Dawn (1993) and The Ancient World of the Celts (1999). He has also written biographies of the authors H. Rider Haggard, W.E. Johns and Talbot Mundy. The following story features a puzzle involving the last of the Stuart Pretenders to the throne of Great Britain.

A full-grown man in the grip of uncontrolled panic is not a pleasant sight. Worse still, was the sight of His Majesty, James II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Duke of York, Earl of Ulster and Duke of Normandy, wringing his hands, his lips quivering and eyes flitting from side to side in fear, pacing the entrance hall of Dublin Castle.

"Are the horses ready yet?" he paused and demanded of Henry Fitzjames, the Lord Grand Prior of England, who stood nervously near the great doors that opened onto the cobbled courtyard. It was not for the first time that he had asked his son the same question in petulant, fearful tone.

"Your Majesty's Life Guards are not yet fully a.s.sembled."

"G.o.d rot them! What ails them to be so negligent of the safety of their King at such an hour?"

"Sire, it is hard to obtain fresh horses in the city at this time. His Grace, the Duke of Powis, has scoured every stable unsuccessfully for fresh mounts."

"It is already dawn." The King pointed with shaking hand to the early morning light outside. "Have I not been given intelligence that my son-in-law's army," he referred to William, Prince of Orange's relationship to him, with a sneer, "that his piquets have already marched within cannon shot of the outer defences of the city?"

"A report greatly exaggerated, sire. My brother, His Grace of Berwick, has his regiments encamped far to the north and there are no rumours of any alarums."

The King was not listening.

"Men of the like that flock to the banners of the Prince of Orange captured, tried and executed my poor father when I was but sixteen years old. They cut off his head in front of his own palace of Whitehall. I do not intend to suffer the same fate. We must mount immediately and ride for the coast, fresh horses or not. See that it is so!"

The Lord Grand Prior left to obey his father's orders.

Her Grace, Lady Frances, the d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnell, had roused herself in the early morning hours to witness the King's departure from the city of Dublin. Now she stood watching him with a look of contempt. With her in the hall was the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Terence McDermott, while at her side stood Father Taafe, her husband's chaplain who had just arrived in the city. Her husband, Richard, was James' Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was even now in continued danger at the head of his cavalry regiment somewhere between Dublin and the River Boyne, facing the Prince of Orange's army. Her Grace had tried her best to calm the panic of the King.

"Majesty, our Irish troops will hold the army of the Prince of Orange long before they reach the city. You are safe as yet."

"Hold them?" The King sneered, turning an ugly countenance to her. "Did they hold them at Oldbridge, madam, when the Prince of Orange and his men swarmed across the Boyne River? Cowards, every one. They fled before William like greyhounds in a race. Your countrymen, madam, can run well."

Her Grace of Tyrconnell's lips twitched in anger. She was not Irish. She had been born near St Albans in Hertfordshire but she felt a desire to defend her husband, the Duke of Tyrconnell, and his countrymen against this insult.

"Not so well as your majesty," she snapped back, "for I see that you have won the race."

Her companions could not disguise the smiles that sprang to their lips, for King James had been in continued panic since he had galloped into the city at midnight, directly from an engagement at the Boyne, shouting that all was lost.

"The horses are ready, Your Majesty," cried the Lord Grand Prior, coming swiftly back into the hall and saving the King from trying to think of a suitable retort.

James turned quickly, without even bidding farewell to the wife of his Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Tyrconnell. The King seemed to have forgotten her presence and those of her companions as he scuttled towards the doors. Then a thought seemed to strike him. He paused and crashed one pale fist into the palm of his hand.

"Pox take me! Have I no one to remind me?"

The Lord Grand Prior looked in bewilderment as his father turned and almost ran towards the room where he had spent the last few hours. It was a small study in which he had previously been engaged in writing his final orders to the Comte de Lauzun, commander of his army. The King hurried to the desk. Ah, thank G.o.d he had remembered. A small metal box stood on the desk where he had left it. He picked up the heavy object, unlocked and pushed back the lid. It was filled with jewellery. On top of the diamonds and emeralds and a.s.sorted jewels lay a glittering blue stone about one and a half inches in length by an inch wide. The Stuart Sapphire was the pride of his collection. His brother, Charles II, had saved it from falling into Cromwellian hands after his defeat at Worcester. It was worth a king's fortune; it was the fortune of this King, anyway. These were all that were left of the Crown Jewels of the Stuart Dynasty. He snapped the lid shut and turned the key again.

"This casket is to stay with me at all times. It is the guarantee of the survival of the House of Stuart," he grunted at his bewildered son, the Lord Grand Prior. "Now, let us ride for Waterford with all speed."

Without another word, he swept by Lady Tyrconnell, who performed a courtly curtsey; her every movement was filled with irony. Her companions merely inclined their heads.

Lady Tyrconnell waited a few moments until she heard the clattering of horses leaving the castle yard and then her features twisted in disdain.

"I wonder if His Majesty knows what his good subjects of Ireland are already calling him?" She smiled grimly at the troubled faces of the Lord Mayor MacDermott and Father Taafe. "I learnt the Irish from my maid. Seamus an Chaca James the s.h.i.t! Methinks my sister, Sarah, the Lady Marlborough, is right when she agreed with her husband that these realms will be better off without such a petty, devious and faint-hearted man as James Stuart on the throne."

Conte Salvatore Volpe of the Ordo Equester n.o.bile de Nostro Signore, the Papal bodyguard, paused for a moment outside the tall ornate doors with their gilt covered carvings and bra.s.s fixtures. He adjusted his sword and raised a hand to ensure his cravat was in place. Then he nodded to the nervous looking sacredotti who stood ready. The young trainee priest smote the door twice and then opened it and announced in a whispering tone to the occupant: "Count Volpe, prefect commander of the Order of the n.o.ble Knights of Our Lord."

Volpe strode into an antechamber and then halted in momentary surprise. He had been expecting to be greeted by the elderly Cardinal York of Frascati but a ruddy-faced man with dark hair and clothes that bespoke more of a man of fashion and elegance greeted him. He was fair of skin and his features seemed to identify him as a foreigner but he greeted Volpe in fluent courtly Italian as one born to the language.

"I have surprised you, count," the man observed. "I am sorry but it is necessary to have a word with you before you are received by my master. I am . . ."

"The Marchese Glenbuchat." Volpe had difficulty p.r.o.nouncing the Scottish name.

"You are well informed, Conte."

"It is my duty to be so, Marchese, for I am placed in charge of the safety of all the Cardinal princes of Holy Mother Church who are gathering here."

"Then you may also know, who my master is? I want to tell you, before you speak with him, that I have met with great reluctance from him in allowing you privy to a matter, which is of the greatest gravity to him and his cause. He does not want this matter to be voiced abroad. So I must hear from you that you are willing to treat it in utmost secrecy."

"Without knowing the nature of the matter, I cannot take such an oath," replied Volpe. "But if it does not offend the holy office that I hold sacred, I will treat the matter with discretion. Perhaps I can be told the nature of this problem that your master wishes to consult me about?"

Lord Glenbuchat hesitated.

"I will leave that to him."

He crossed to a door and knocked on it discreetly, opened it and announced Volpe's presence.

Count Volpe crossed the marble tiled floor to the chair by an ornate fire carved in the same stone. The slight figure of the elderly man in the robes of a Cardinal was seated to receive him. Volpe came to a halt and bent to kiss the ring of the frail hand that the Cardinal had reached out towards him.

He wondered how he should address someone whom many recognized as the rightful King of England, Scotland and Ireland, but who was Bishop of Frascati and known to his fellow prelates as Cardinal York.

"Eminence," he managed to mutter as he bent over the bishop's ring. He paused a moment and then straightened looking into the pale face and dark haunted eyes of Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, grandson and only surviving legitimate heir of James II who had fled his kingdoms to a life of exile over a century before. Since the death of his elder brother, Prince Charles Edward in 1788, the Cardinal had been hailed as Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. The last of the Stuart claimants to the throne.

"How may I serve your Eminence?" Volpe said, taking the regulatory step backwards from the Cardinal's chair. He was aware that Lord Glenbuchat was standing anxiously behind him.

The old man sighed deeply, raising his tired eyes to gaze on the commander of the Pontifical Guard.

"You are acquainted with my family's sad history?" he asked.

"Eminence." Volpe made the word an affirmation, feeling sorry for this apparently exhausted old man. However, these were times of hardship for everyone. The armies of revolutionary France were scouring the Italian countryside, looting and plundering, and with Pius VI recently dead in Valence, after a mere six months in office, and the G.o.dless French agents suspected of complicity in his death, the Cardinals had been unable to find a sanctuary to meet to elect a new Holy Father. They had even been driven from Rome by the French invasion. Volpe was uncomfortably reminded that the old man before him had also had to flee from his villa at Frascati, when it had been attacked and sacked by the French army. Now the Cardinals were gathering on this little island in Venice, in the old Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, to enter into the conclave in the hope of electing a new Holy Father.

Count Volpe had only recently been appointed to command the old aristocratic bodyguard of the Papal successors. He was a young man and conscious of his office.