The Seven of Calvary

by Anthony Boucher

  “Oh, well, I can wait,” Martin muttered with an assumed indifference.

  “But let me be at least more helpfully cryptic, Mr. Lamb, and direct your attention to these points.” Ashwin ticked them off on his fingers as he enumerated them.

  “A: THE POINT OF THE FATHER’S RELIGION.1

  B: THE POINT OF THE SUPERFLUOUS ALIBI (which is two points).2

  C: THE POINT OF THE FORTUNATE STUMBLE.3

  D: THE POINT OF THE DISPUTED THEORY.4

  E: THE POINT OF THE VARYING WEAPONS.5

  F: THE POINT OF THE SEVILLIAN TIRADE.6

  G: THE POINT OF THE EYE AND THE TOOTH.7

  And above all—

  H: THE POINT OF THE SEVEN OF CALVARY.8

  “You see,” Dr. Ashwin concluded, “I am well conversant with my Stuart Palmer and my Earle Stanley Gardner, to say nothing of my never-to-be-sufficiently-praised John Dickson Carr.”

  “You are a help,” added Martin disgruntledly, and left.9

  The ferry ride to San Francisco Tuesday morning was, as it always is, a pleasant interval of quiet surcease. Martin had bought a copy of Variety to enjoy on the trip, but it lay neglected beside him as he sat on the front of the upper deck and watched the San Francisco skyline materialize into clarity. The morning was at once cold and warm; the sun was bright, and a chill breeze blew across the bay.

  Martin left the Ferry Building, besieged by the usual swarm of newsboys and taxi drivers, and walked leisurely up Mission Street. At last he paused before a store bearing the inscription, “I. Goldfarb, Theatrical Accessories.”

  A little Jewish clerk beamed at Martin from behind a long glass counter containing everything from crepe hair to collapsible daggers. “Yes, sir? What can we do for you?”

  “Do you carry sound-effect records—phonograph transcriptions for offstage noises?”

  “Yes, sir. Just what would you be wanting?”

  “Do you have a record of typing?”

  “Yes, sir. A very good one. If you’ll just step this way, sir—”

  He led Martin into a small room containing an electric phonograph, vanished a moment, and reappeared with a record. “Here you are, sir,” he announced. “Recorded in a genuine office, thirty typewriters going at once.”

  Martin’s face fell. “You don’t have a record of just one typewriter?”

  “Sorry, sir, we don’t. No call for it. For just one machine, it’s easier and cheaper to use a real typewriter. You want it for amateur theatricals, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, take my advice and have your prop man use a real typewriter offstage. If there was much professional demand out here, we might carry it—using a genuine typewriter would mean another union man—but you amateurs don’t have to worry about that.”

  And the clerk continued a discourse on the troubles of union regulations in the theatre as he bowed Martin out. “You might try Zolotoy’s,” he concluded. “About two blocks west; they carry anything.”

  Somewhat less hopefully, Martin approached the white-haired old man at Zolotoy’s with the same opening gambit. He was surprised by the result of his question; the old man smiled a very broad smile and seemed secretly pleased about something.

  “I told him,” he chuckled. “Many’s the time I’ve told him. He wouldn’t believe me, but I’m right. He’ll see.” He continued muttering as he led Martin into another little room almost identical with that at Goldfarb’s. “You’re sure it’s one typewriter you want?”

  “Yes. One.”

  “Just a moment, young man, just a moment. I’ll have it right here for you.”

  He returned promptly and started the record. It was an excellent transcription, sharp and clear, and the record was so unusually free from surface noises as to be completely convincing. Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-ping! Martin was again drinking his bourbon and reading The Boat Train Murders. The rate was the same—just a little better than Paul Lennox’s normal speed.…

  Martin shuddered.

  The old man stopped the record. “Would that be satisfactory now, young man?”

  “Too damned satisfactory.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. But I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “All right.” The old man sat down and devoted himself to a venerable and oddly colored clay pipe. “What is it, young man?”

  “You see,” Martin began, “I’m from the U. C. Experimental Theatre in Berkeley. We used a record just like that in our last show. Now somebody’s been playing around with the books of the theatre, doctoring up expense accounts and whatnot, and I’m trying to check up on things. Could you tell me if our record was rented here?”

  “When was your show?”

  “Friday, April sixth.”

  “Just a minute, young man.” The stooped figure disappeared into an inner office and returned with a ledger marked Sound Transcriptions, N—Z. After a few moments’ search he announced, “Here we are: No. T321. Single typewriter. Rented April 5. Returned April 7. I guess that’s the one you want. Here, you can copy it down if you need it for your books.”

  Martin jotted down the entry and noticed the renter’s name—Frank Hellmuth. Grudgingly, he applauded Paul for avoiding the usual obvious self-betrayals made by those who choose false names.

  “Will that be all?” the old man was saying.

  “One thing more. I’m not sure it was really Frank who rented this record; there’ve been some funny things happening in our theatre, and I just want to check.” He took up his briefcase and extracted a group of photographs—mostly snaps, but good ones. Several of them were blanks—people, that is, quite unconnected with the case—but among them Ashwin had insisted, for some strange reason, on including Alex Bruce as well as Paul Lennox.

  The old man looked over the photos slowly, sucking on the clay. The first two he discarded instantly (one of them was Boritsin). Over the third, that of Alex, he paused, and thoughtfully laid it aside. The next three he skipped over without interest. Then he seized on Paul’s, and let fall two more that he had not even glanced at.

  “This is the one,” he said definitely. “Is that your Frank, young man?”

  “No,” said Martin truthfully. “There’s something funny here. How can you be so sure? How can you remember one rental weeks ago so clearly?”

  “Ah.” A long puff on the clay. “Now you’re asking something. Well, young man, I’ll tell you.” A still longer puff. “Two years ago we got that record. I wanted to get it; I thought it’d be useful maybe. But the boss he was against it; he said people could use a typewriter if they wanted a typewriter. Well, I ordered the record without telling him, see; and when it came he kicked up hell. And for two years we didn’t rent it. Every time I gave him any advice about anything he’d say, ‘Oh yeah? You knew about that typing record too, didn’t you?’ So you can see why I remembered it when I finally rented the record. I told that young man in the picture all about the boss and he laughed and we was what you might call chummy about it; so I remember him.” He settled back to relight his pipe after so long a speech.

  Martin picked up Alex’s picture. “Then why did you set this one aside? It doesn’t look anything like the other.”

  “Because I’ve seen him too, only not then. I couldn’t think where, but now I remember. He come in here about a week after the other one, and did pretty much like you did. First he wanted to know did we have a record like that, and then had anybody rented it lately, and then what kind of a looking person it was. He didn’t talk about no theatre, though.”

  “And you told him?”

  “Just what I told you, young man, only no pictures.”

  “Thanks.” Martin repacked his briefcase. “I’m afraid I won’t want the record after all, but you needn’t tell your boss that. Here—have a couple of beers on me and forget the boss.”

  The old man glowed contentedly and puffed firmly at the clay. “Thanks, young man,” he grinned. “Any time I can do anything for
you—”

  Martin walked slowly down to the Embarcadero and over to Bernstein’s for lunch. Today’s discoveries seemed at first almost to make things more complicated. And then, as he attacked an excellent lobster louie, reinforced by beer, he remembered the seventh of Ashwin’s cryptic points.

  Things began to grow clearer.

  Turning his swivel-chair away from the desk, Dr. Ashwin faced the little group assembled in his room on Wednesday evening. Martin was in his usual chair, and Alex Bruce sat in another and equally stiff one. Dr. Griswold had made himself fairly comfortable at the head of the couch, and Kurt Ross sat awkwardly at its foot. Ashtrays and glasses of Scotch were disposed hospitably beside each of them, save for the abstemious professor of Spanish.

  “You all know,” Ashwin began in his most rounded voice, “why we are gathered together here. Three sensational crimes have been committed on or near the campus of this University, and no plausible explanation of them has been publicly advanced. I have, to my own satisfaction, evolved a complete solution of this series of crimes, and I have asked you gentlemen to hear and criticize my explanation.

  “You, Dr. Griswold, I ask to serve as a check-and-balance to myself. You other three represent indirectly or, in one case, directly, the three victims, and as such representatives are entitled to know my construction of the facts. When you have heard that construction, we can, as a group, decide what use to make of it.”

  Martin looked around the group. It was an uneasy lot of people, realizing that they were assembled on a matter of life and death and worrying as to what decision it might fall to their lot to make.

  Dr. Ashwin resumed his prefatory discourse. “The basic facts of these crimes are, I believe, known to all of you, at least since I spent the greater portion of the afternoon relating them to Dr. Griswold. Certain other less known facts will be brought out in my discussion, for many of which I am indebted to Mr. Lamb’s sometimes purposeful but more often accidental researches. These will clarify themselves as the occasion arises.

  “On Sunday last I told Mr. Lamb that my reconstruction of the case still needed the answers to three questions. The first answer I received Monday in an express package from the head librarian of the University of Chicago. In a way, it was anything but satisfactory. I had committed the grievous error of underestimating the astuteness of the murderer; I had hoped for a far simpler clue than he had left me. But that I shall explain further at the proper time.”

  “Never underestimate a murderer, Dr. Ashwin,” Alex observed quietly.

  “I assure you, Mr. Bruce, I shall avoid that fault in the future. The answer to my second question Mr. Lamb found in San Francisco on Tuesday; this too we shall take up in its proper place. This answer, I may add, serves strongly to corroborate my theory. There remains but one question before I can feel upon sure ground and continue my exposition; that question, Mr. Bruce, I must ask of you.”

  Alex lifted his glass and took a quick drink of the Scotch. “Yes?” he said.

  “I think you will find it best to answer me truthfully, Mr. Bruce, although the question may seem a random shot.” Dr. Ashwin paused. “Mr. Bruce, were you secretly married to Cynthia Wood?”

  Alex dropped his glass to the floor and let the whiskey flow unheeded. For a moment he was silent, and then gasped, “How did you know?”

  Kurt and Martin looked at each other in speechless amazement. Dr. Griswold stroked his beard unmoved and seemed to wonder quietly what could happen next.

  Dr. Ashwin settled back in the swivel-chair and again surveyed the group. “The third question is answered satisfactorily. Now, Mr. Bruce, with your permission, I shall proceed to explain why you poisoned Paul Lennox.”

  ____________

  1 P. 73.

  2 Pp. 158 ff.

  3 P. 45.

  4 P. 137.

  5 Pp. 246 f.

  6 P. 186.

  7 Passim.

  8 Passim.

  9 I feel that this brief list provides the proper place to issue a challenge to the reader, in the manner of the admirable Ellery Queen. To be sure, all the essential facts had been told when Martin challenged me after dinner to equal Ashwin’s solution; but it was not until I had, between mouthfuls of French toast, heard these eight points that I suddenly understood the tangled web of plot that lay behind the deaths of Dr. Hugo Schaedel and Paul Lennox. Here, then, I challenge my readers (in a confident plural), and urge them on to check their solutions against the obvious certainty of Dr. John Ashwin.—A. B.

  CHAPTER XI

  The Naked Truth

  There was a moment of tense silence. Even Dr. Griswold leaned forward in surprise. Kurt started from the couch with clenched fists, then sank back, swearing beneath his breath. Martin watched Alex closely.

  Whatever reaction he might have expected from a man suddenly accused of murder, he did not perceive the slightest discomposure. Ashwin’s abrupt question had moved Alex far more than the subsequent accusation.

  The young chemist leaned over and picked up his glass. “I shall be curious to hear your reasoning, Dr. Ashwin,” he said softly. “When you have quite finished and the others of the group have made their comments, then I shall reply as I see fit. In the meanwhile, do you mind if I refill my glass?”

  “Not at all.” Dr. Ashwin handed him the bottle. “A mere accusation of murder, Mr. Bruce, should never stand in the way of hospitality.”

  Alex filled his glass, emptied it swiftly, refilled it, and returned the bottle. “Go on,” he said.

  “You gentlemen will understand,” Ashwin began, “that whatever is said in this room tonight is to remain forever a secret among the five of us, unless we should jointly decide otherwise. Now, in order to explain how I reached this conclusion which has so startled three of you, I believe I shall find it best to rehearse the case from its very beginning, and explain what seemed obvious at every step. This matter of obviousness is, as Mr. Lamb well knows, my idée fixe. It was my belief in it that tempted me to theorize when your uncle, Mr. Ross, was found murdered; and it is my pursuit of this belief that has drawn me now so deeply into this strange series of crimes.

  “Let us begin with the death of Dr. Schaedel. Here was a man, as Mr. Lamb has assured me and as you, Mr. Ross, are doubtless equally convinced—a man, I say, utterly free from guile, a noble, admirable, even lovable man, who had led a clear, uncomplicated life. And this man was found foully murdered. As his letter to Mr. Ross fortunately proved, only certain worthy Swiss institutions stood to profit financially by his death. When I first approached this problem, I did so, as Mr. Lamb will remember, by means of a famous list of the possible motives for murder: Gain, Jealousy, Revenge, Elimination, Lust for Killing, and Conviction. Of these, the first four were obviously inapplicable in the case of Dr. Schaedel. Lust for Killing I frankly chose not to consider, for no amount of mental ingenuity can discover the obvious when dealing with a psychopathic criminal; if the murderer was a lust-killer, my reasoning efforts would then be clearly futile.

  “There remained, to be sure, murder from conviction—a theory substantiated by the symbol found beside the body and by Mr. Lennox’s later revelations concerning that symbol. But even from the first I was skeptical of the Vignards. That a man should live in Switzerland almost all of his life, and be slain by a Swiss sect only when he arrives in Berkeley is a concept to strain one’s credulity; and the utter ignorance of Vignardism on the part of Mr. Ross and of the Swiss Consulate confirmed me in my disbelief. Later events, of course, eliminated the Vignards completely—to my great relief.

  “The crime itself, you will remember, left no hint of the murderer’s identity. The weapon bore no fingerprints and was itself unidentifiable; and Mr. Ross, the only eyewitness, gave such a vague description of his uncle’s assailant that almost anyone short of my corpulence might have been suspect. The police were, in the classic phrase, baffled. Here we were with the corpse of a man whom no one could want to kill and with no trace of the identity of his killer.


  “It was then that the first obvious point in this case occurred to me; and I simply asserted to Mr. Lamb and Mr. Bruce, whom the most melodramatic of the fates must have sent to my room that night, that the wrong man had been killed. The question then to be answered was, ‘Who was the right man?’ We could make no guesses as to the identity of the murderer until we knew that of his intended victim.

  “Now the requirements for the right man were these: He must be of average height and build. He must, at least frequently, wear a gray suit and hat. And, most essential, he must be a fairly regular visitor of Cynthia Wood’s. Only if these conditions were fulfilled could Dr. Schaedel, so built, so garbed, and leaving Miss Wood’s door at eleven-thirty, have been mistaken for him. Two men and only two answered all of these requirements. Those two were Alex Bruce and Paul Lennox.”

  Dr. Ashwin paused for a drink and a fresh cigarette. “I fear,” he smiled, “that this is becoming the longest monologue I have ever delivered or any of you have ever heard. How are you holding up?”

  “Go on,” said Kurt. “It is of great importance to me that I know how my uncle was killed.” And he cast a glance of hate at Alex.

  “I too find it intensely interesting. Do go on,” from Alex.

  Dr. Griswold smiled and blinked. “It reminds me very much of the method which I used in disproving the authenticity of certain plays supposedly by Lope de Vega. I shall continue to listen with great interest if only I may have a glass of water. Your admirable hospitality of whiskey and tobacco is of little use to me.”

  At a nod from Ashwin, Martin left the room and fetched a glass of water, which seemed almost sacrilege beneath the Ashwinian roof. When he returned, the exposition had already been resumed.

  “Meanwhile,” Ashwin was saying, “my attention had been strongly attracted by the very curious fact that two people entirely unconnected with Dr. Schaedel had perfect alibis for the time that he was killed, alibis, moreover, whose perfection had been quite needlessly emphasized. Miss Wood had urgently begged her friend Mary Roberts to visit her that evening. The extreme urgency of this request struck Miss Roberts as unusual, and was never explained. Also at the exact moment of the murder Paul Lennox was typing within earshot of Mr. Lamb. His excuse for this sudden spurt of industry seemed trumped-up, and he was very careful to call Mr. Lamb’s attention to the clock immediately before and after the typing period.