by Andre Norton
Anybody could see plainly what the setup was. If one jiggled the wires, the mechanism would be set off; if one unplugged the wall socket, the residual currents would cease and the switch would trip, and, of course, the same thing would happen if the wires were cut. A technician, studying the thing a bit more deeply would also reason that bringing any tools near the box would also set off the mechanism. And he’d be right.
Commissioner Morley snorted. “The most asinine thing I ever saw. It’s so obvious.”
Chief Davis smiled tightly. “You don’t like it? I thought it was a rather good psychological challenge.”
“And shutting down all the other protective equipment? It seems you’re practically inviting the “Ghost’ to help himself.”
“I’m accepting the responsibility,” replied Davis. He took the last cigarette from the gay-colored plastic package, crumpled the container and tossed it on the floor. Morley shook his head disgustedly and started out. “Be with you in a minute,” Davis called out, “I want to give the thing a final check.” The policeman saw Morley’s back turn toward him. Quickly he checked over the mechanism. He wanted to be very certain of one thing.
That the gun wasn’t loaded!
It was a rather impudent bit of business.
The money, of course, was gone.
It did not require a great deal of detective work to figure out how it had been accomplished. The burglar, working with remarkable skill had simply unscrewed the plate glass cover from the firing mechanism attached to the ancient riot gun. The nonmetallic screw driver he had used still lay on the table. Jammed between the trigger and its guard, effectively preventing any motion of the trip, were rolled-up bits of a plastic cigarette package.
Nor was the final touch missing. The heavy enameled wire was twisted in curlicues across the table top. It read:
THANK YOU
Commissioner Morley’s face was grave as he filed into Chief Davis’ office at the head of a line of commissioners. He got right to the point. “Davis, we’ve all seen this morning’s telecast of the failure of your absurd protective system.”
Davis seemed quite at ease. “Sit down, gentlemen. Now what is it you wanted?”
The byplay annoyed Morley. “That’s not all. This trick of shutting down the protective body-wave field has annoyed the Elusian envoy. He says it makes it pretty obvious that no Terran or Martian is suspected and that his people are highly incensed at the implication.”
“He is, is he?”
“Don’t try to make light of it.” Morley’s face was dark.
“Tell him to relax. It wasn’t an Elusian, it was a Terran. One of my boys picked him up an hour ago.” Chief Davis grinned, “A very clever lad. He was a specialist in protective devices. He had rigged himself a body-wave transformer that altered the human pattern to that of an Elusian.” He helped himself to a cigarette, glanced from the plastic package to Morley, then back again and chuckled. “A very clever chap, but he spilled it all under a shot of pentathol. The story will be on the views at the next flash.” Morley was plainly relieved, but just as plainly puzzled. “I don’t see how such a cockeyed setup as that gun and wire business—” he broke off.
“You don’t?” Davis asked. He studied his fingernails in leisurely fashion. No point in rushing it. Give the commissioners a chance to see they had a very capable chief of police. That was a good title. He was glad he’d be keeping it. Finally he said: “Simple. Sometimes it’s much easier to catch a smart crook than a dumb one.” He buffed his nails on the desk blotter and looked up at them. “Very simple. He tried to pass money with holes in it.”
2. The “locked room murder” is a device much loved by mystery-story writers. And Detective Inspector Colder, a quiet reader of such masters of the distant past as Rex Stout, applied what he had learned in such study to solve a “perfect” crime of the far future.
KENDALL FOSTER CROSSEN
The Closed Door
ALISTER CHU, manager of the Planetary Rest Hotel, was a much disturbed man. The Galactic Acrylic Convention was in full swing, which meant that he hadn’t slept for two days. When he wasn’t rushing to answer the demands of a convention committee, he was busy soothing the complaints of non-convention guests. At the moment, he was trying to estimate the damage resulting from the latest cocktail party, while a group of Acruxians sang their national anthem in the corridor and two delegates from Canopus were in the Solar Room hammering out a Nocturne that had been especially arranged for poli’dactylic pianists. And then his visiphone buzzed.
Without noting the origin of the call, Alister Chu flipped the switch and fairly snarled into his mouthpiece: “Well, what do you want?” Then he recognized the face on the screen. It was one of the hotel’s most important guests, and there was no doubt that he was also an angry guest. Alister quickly erased the anger from his own face and added: “Sorry, Mr. Gru, I . . . the convention is making me rather jumpy.”
“It’s making me more than that,” snapped the guest. He spoke Terran with hardly a trace of an accent. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s practical jokers. You’d better get up here at once, Chu.”
“Right away, sir. What—seems to be the trouble?”
“I’ve already told you,” the guest said. His gaze shifted away for a minute. “The Warning Red just flashed on in my room, so you’ll have to wait until your damned Mercurian stops parading up and down the hall, but I want you here immediately afterward. I will not stand—” He broke off and a startled expression came over his face. Alister Chu saw that he was staring off to one side of the visiphone, then he started to scribble madly with a pencil on the pad that was beside the phone. “I was wrong,” he said thickly. “It’s not—”
At this point, as it seemed to Chu, the guest fell apart. Not literally, of course, but there was a minute when his face seemed to be working in all directions at once, then he fell forward in front of the visiphone. From the way he fell, Alister Chu was almost certain that he was dead.
Then a gloved hand came into view on the screen, moved quickly to the phone itself, and the screen went dead.
Alister Chu went quickly from the room, stopping for a moment beside the desk of his assistant. “Something’s happened upstairs,” he said quietly. “I think you had better put in a call for the police. I’ll be on the hundred and seventieth floor. Mr. Gru’s room.” He hurried on toward the elevators, trying to look as if nothing had happened.
Chief Inspector Maiset, head of the Solar Department, Terran Division, took the call that came into the Interplanetary Criminal Police Commission. Since it was coming in over a closed circuit, he didn’t bother to activate the screen. He never did on such calls, his reason being, as he said, that he saw enough policemen without looking at another one when it was not necessary.
“Maiset here,” he said into the audiphone. He listened for a few minutes, doing nothing more than grunt occasionally to show that he was still there. “Let me see now,” he said amiably when his caller had run down, “you say the case involves suspected murder, although you’re not sure anyone is dead; a hotel full of suspects, if it is necessary to suspect anyone of anything, these being delegates from all over the galaxy. That about it? No, no, you did quite right. I expect you’ll be needing someone like Detective Inspector Calder. He’ll be right along. You’ll meet him? Good.”
Chief Inspector Maiset disconnected. He leaned over and pressed one of a number of buttons on his desk, then waited patiently.
After a moment the door to his office opened and a young man stepped inside. Being a detective, he was in plain clothes. That is, he wore an attractive one-piece suit which made him look like any one of a dozen successful young businessmen. But his face lacked the alertness of such young men, his expression usually giving the impression that he was half asleep.
“Another official call, I see,” the young man said as he came up to the chief inspector’s desk.
“That’s true,” admitted Maiset, “but how did you know?”
“Simple deduction,” the young man answered. “When it’s an official call, you never activate the screen. There is, you’ll note, a slight film of dust over the screen switch. Since you also never summon me unless there’s a case, it means you just received a plea for help from some other station. That, in turn, means a case involving either delicate interplanetary relations or murder.”
The chief inspector beamed at the young man. Detective Inspector Jair Calder was always making just such deductions as these. Although it was an age when crime was usually solved by unrelieved science, the chief inspector was a sentimental man who delighted in the old literature of crime, and therefore never ceased to be pleased by Calder’s ability.
“You’re right,” he said. “I just had a call from Sub-Inspector Aly Mordette of the Terran Provincial Police. It’s suspected murder and delicate interplanetary relations. At the new Planetary Rest Hotel. You know where it is?”
Inspector Calder nodded.
“All that Mordette has done is throw an energy belt around the hotel so that no one can enter or leave. He’ll meet you on the Third Level above the hotel and key you through the belt.”
Inspector Calder nodded again and left.
A few minutes later he arrived at the Third Level in his small, inconspicuous air-car. He was broadcasting a short-wave impulse which only the police sets could pick up as a means of identification.
The police cruiser soon came alongside, then led the way down toward the hotel. Inspector Calder set his air-car down on the roof-port of the hotel, and by the time he climbed out the uniformed sub-inspector was waiting for him.
The latter was a large, abdominal man, whose light blue uniform managed to look wrinkled in spite of being manufactured from non-wrinkleable plastic. The expression on his red face indicated that the sub-inspector was a man who lived in an aura of constant suspicion.
“Inspector Jair Calder?” he asked formally as Jair stepped from his car.
“Yes,” Jair said pleasantly. “I take it you’re Sub-Inspector Mordette? A bit of a go here, eh?”
“It would seem so,” the sub-inspector said glumly. “I haven’t done a thing, you understand. The hotel is filled with all sorts of queer fish—and some of them are fish—and there’s no telling what’ll hurt their feelings. A mere sub-inspector in the Provincial Police doesn’t carry much weight, I can tell you.”
“Just so,” Jair agreed. “I expect we ought to look in on the trouble, don’t you think?”
“We’ll have to do down to the hundred and seventieth floor,” the sub-inspector said. He started for the elevators and Inspector Calder fell into step beside him. “Things haven’t changed much, I tell you, in spite of all the talk about living in a brave new galaxy.”
“How do you mean?” Jair asked.
The sub-inspector waved his hand at the hotel. “All this. Convention at a hotel. Place filled with big shots. A guy gets murdered—probably for the same sort of reason people were murdered three hundred years ago. And it’s a time for the little policeman to watch his step or some big shot will have his job. Oh, we have our Twenty-second Century gadgets, but everything works just the same as it did in the Nineteenth or Twentieth Century. You can take my word for it, Inspector.”
“I shall,” Jair said amiably.
The sub-inspector scowled uncertainly, but was silent for the rest of the trip. When they stepped out of the elevator on the hundred and seventieth floor, it seemed that the hall was filled with policemen. But finally, halfway down the corridor, Jair caught sight of an immaculately dressed man who could only be the manager of the hotel. He saw them at the same time and hurried to meet them.
“Well, I’m certainly glad that you’re here,” he said, speaking directly to Jair and ignoring the sub-inspector. “I do trust that this unfortunate matter can be handled discreetly. We have a number of important men here this week and I wouldn’t want them disturbed.”
“We shall handle them most gently,” Jair said. “I’m Inspector Calder, of Planepol. And you’re—?”
“Alister Chu,” the manager said. “I have the honor of being the manager of—”
“Of course,” Jair interrupted. “Now, what seems to be the trouble?”
The manager quickly told of the call he’d received from the guest on this floor. He explained the whole thing in great detail, including his impression of the guest’s falling apart: “Not literally, of course.” By the time he’d finished, they were standing in front of the room in question.
“Of course,” Jair said, agreeing with the impression. He glanced around the luxurious, brightly-colored corridor. “You know, this is the first time I’ve seen the Planetary Rest Hotel, although I’ve read about it. Everything is constructed of plastic, eh?”
“Oh, yes.” For a minute, pride replaced the worried look on Alister Chu’s face. “As you may know, the hotel is owned by Plasticorp and they built everything with their own products. There are two hundred and seventy-three different plastics used. Notice how springy the floor is; it cuts down fatigue by sixty per cent. The doors, for example, are of Plexilite with a tensile strength several times that of steel. Then, due to a few new formulas, we are the only hotel capable of catering to every life form in the galaxy—”
“I was wondering about that,” interrupted Jair Calder. “Do you have separate sections for the inhabitants of other planets?”
“Oh, no. We have special rooms, of course, but they’re on the same floors. Why, there are a number of rooms for Mercurians right here on this floor.”
“Mercurians? I should think it would be dangerous for your human guests having them on the same floor.”
“No danger of that at all,” the manager said. “When the Mercurians want to leave their rooms they naturally have to come through a sort of air-lock. There are warning lights which go on in all the other rooms, in the hallway and in the elevators. This gives everyone a good thirty seconds to get out of the way.”
“What about damage to the hallway?”
“None at all,” the manager said with pride. “A Mercurian passing through the hall will raise the temperature to about two hundred degrees Centigrade, but none of the plastic used will grow soft at temperatures below two hundred and fifty degrees Centigrade. So there’s plenty of margin. And the hallway reverts to its normal temperature within thirty seconds after the Mercurian has passed. At the end of the hall there are special Mercurian elevators, taking them down to where they can enter their fire coaches.”
“All of this is very interesting,” Jair Calder said, “but I suspect we’d better get down to cases. This the room of the guest?”
“Yes.”
“His name?”
“G.G. Gru. He’s been coming here regularly since we opened, and he always reserves the same room.”
“He was not, I take it, a delegate to the convention?”
“Oh, no. In fact, he loathed the convention.”
“I see. Well, since he doesn’t answer the door, I expect you’d better open it.”
For the first time, the manager looked embarrassed. “I can’t,” he said.
Something akin to interest crept into Inspector Calder’s eyes. “Why not?”
“Well, we have two sorts of doors here. The regular doors are locked or unlocked by a combination of pressures. The combination is given the guest and then changed for the next guest. Naturally, the management has no difficulty opening those doors if circumstances demand it. But with certain regular guests—and Mr. Gru was one of these—we replace the door with a special one with a palm-lock keyed to the atomic structure of the guest. No one but the guest can either lock or unlock these doors.”
“Ah,” said Jair Calder. He was really interested now. “I presume there is interior ventilation and so no windows?”
“That is correct, Inspector.”
“And this door is the only entrance or exit?”
“Yes.”
Inspector Calder looked again at the door. It was a pl
ain plastic door, dark green in color, perfectly smooth and unbroken except for the slight impression, in the shape of a hand, which was the palm-lock.
Now the inspector, like his chief, was of a romantic turn of mind and was fond of the old literature on crime. So, perhaps, it was only natural that, staring at the door, he muttered to himself: “If Gideon Fell could have lived to see this . . .”
“I beg your pardon, Inspector?” the manager said.
“Nothing,” Jair Calder said hurriedly. “An unimportant historical allusion. Now, Mr. Chu, I believe you said that Mr. Gru was on the visiphone to you at the time he was apparently killed? And that you yourself saw another hand reach in and turn off the visiphone?”
“That’s right.”
“And you also tell me that this door—which is the only egress to this room—could not be locked or unlocked by anyone except Mr. Gru?”
“That is also correct, Inspector.”
“But then,” suddenly exclaimed Sub-Inspector Mordette, “that means the murderer is still in the room. We’d better prepare to rush him.”
“It’ll be a pity if you’re right,” Inspector Calder said. “And how do you suggest rushing into the room, Sub-Inspector?”
“Why—why—” stammered the official, “I guess we’ll just break the door down.”
“You couldn’t break that door down if you had a thousand men,” the manager said with a patronizing air.
“He’s right, you know,” said Jair. He drew a small weapon from his picket. “But I expect this will get us in. Plexilite, I believe you said?”
“What’s that?” the manager asked.
“Aromatic hydrocarbon gun,” the inspector answered. “Very useful in getting through Plexilite doors. In fact, it’s the only thing that’ll do the trick.” He aimed the gun and moved it in a half circle while holding the trigger down. The door swung open, leaving a half-moon section hanging from the lock.