The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes

by Mike Ashley

  Chase had risen from the piano bench and taken two long strides toward the window when the room’s freshly restored silence was shattered by the shrilling of a telephone bell. Chase whirled and started toward the machine, but his associate had lifted the delicate French-styled instrument from its cradle. She murmured into it, paused, then added a few words and held the instrument silently toward her companion.

  “Yes.” He held the instrument, his eyes glittering with interest. He raised his free hand and brushed a fingertip along the edge of his moustache. After a time he murmured, “Definitely dead? Very well. Yes, you were right to re-seal the room. I shall come over shortly. Now, quickly, the address.” He continued to hold the telephone handset to his ear, listening and nodding, then grunted and returned it to its cradle.

  “Delacroix, I am going to the city. Please fetch your wrap, I shall need you to drive me to the dock. And perhaps you would care to assist me. In that case, I urge you to dress warmly, as a light snowfall has been falling for several hours – a most unusual event for San Francisco.” Without waiting for a response he strode to his own room, hung his dressing gown carefully in a cedar-lined closet and donned his suit coat.

  Claire Delacroix awaited him in the flagstone-floored foyer. She had slipped into a sable jacket and carried an elegant purse woven of silvery metal links so fine as to suggest cloth. Chase removed an overcoat from a rack beside the door, slipped into its warm confines, and lifted hat and walking stick from their places.

  Shortly a powerful Hispano-Suiza snaked its way through the winding, darkened roads of the Berkeley hills, Claire Delacroix behind the wheel, Abel Chase seated beside her, a lap robe warming him against the wintry chill.

  “I suppose you’d like to know what this is about,” Chase offered.

  “Only as much as you wish to tell me,” Claire Delacroix replied.

  “That was Captain Baxter on the telephone,” Chase told her.

  “I knew as much. I recognized his gruff voice, for all that Baxter dislikes to speak to women.”

  “You misjudge him, Delacroix. That’s merely his manner. He has a wife and five daughters to whom he is devoted.”

  “You may be right. Perhaps he has his fill of women at home. I suppose he’s got another juicy murder for you, Abel.”

  Chase’s moustache twitched when Claire Delacroix called him by his familiar name. He was well aware that it would have been futile to ask her to address him by his given name, Akhenaton, and Claire Delacroix knew him far too intimately to refer to him as Doctor Chase. Still, “Abel” was a name few men were permitted to use in conversation with him, and no woman save for Claire Delacroix.

  “The man is distraught. He seems to think that a vampire has struck in San Francisco, draining the blood of a victim and leaving him for dead.”

  Claire Delacroix laughed, the silvery sound snatched away on the wind. “And will the victim then rise and walk, a new recruit to the army of the undead?”

  “You scoff,” Chase commented.

  “I do.”

  There was a momentary pause, then Chase said, “As do I. Baxter is at the site. He has studied the circumstances of the crime and concluded that it is impossible, by any normal means. Therefore and ipso facto, the solution must be supernatural,”

  “You of course disagree.”

  “Indeed. The very term supernatural contradicts itself. The natural universe encompasses all objects and events. If a thing has occurred, it is necessarily not supernatural. If it is supernatural, it cannot occur.”

  “Then we are confronted with an impossible crime,” Claire Delacroix stated.

  Abel Chase shook his head in annoyance. “Again, Delacroix, a contradiction in terms. That which is impossible cannot happen. That which happens is therefore, by definition, possible. No,” he snorted, “this crime is neither supernatural nor impossible, no matter that it may seem to be either – or both. I intend to unravel this tangled skein. Remain at my side if you will, and be instructed!”

  The dark, winding road had debouched by now into the town’s downtown district. On a Saturday night during the academic year warmly clad undergraduates stood in line to purchase tickets for talkies. The young intellectuals in their cosmopolitanism chose among the sensuality of Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, the collaborative work of the geniuses Dali and Buñuel in L’Age d’Or, the polemics of the Ukrainian Dovzhenko’s Zemlya, and the simmering rage of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar.

  Young celebrants gestured and exclaimed at the unusual sight of snowflakes falling from the January sky. Their sportier (or wealthier) brethren cruised the streets in Bearcats and Auburns. The Depression might have spread fear and want throughout the land, but the college set remained bent on the pursuit of loud jazz and illicit booze.

  Claire Delacroix powered the big, closed car down the sloping avenue that led to the city’s waterfront, where Abel Chase’s power boat rode at dock, lifting and falling with each swell of the bay’s cold, brackish water.

  Climbing from the car, Chase carefully folded his lap robe and placed it on the seat. He turned up the collar of his warm overcoat, drew a pair of heavy gloves from a pocket and donned them. Together, he and Claire Delacroix crossed to a wooden shed built out over the bay. Chase drew keys from his trouser pocket, opened a heavy lock, and permitted Claire to enter before him. They descended into a powerful motor boat. Chase started the engine and they roared from the shed, heading toward the San Francisco Embarcadero. The ferries had stopped running for the night. Tramp steamers and great commercial freighters stood at anchor in the bay. The powerboat wove among them trailing an icy, greenish-white wake.

  Steering the boat with firm assurance, Chase gave his assistant a few more details. “Baxter is at the Salamanca Theatre on Geary. There’s a touring company doing a revival of some Broadway melodrama of a few years back. Apparently the leading man failed to emerge from his dressing room for the third act, and the manager called the police.”

  Claire Delacroix shook her head, puzzled. She had drawn a silken scarf over her platinum hair, and its tips were whipped by the night wind as their boat sped across the bay. “Sounds to me like a medical problem more than a crime. Or maybe he’s just being temperamental. You know those people in the arts.”

  Chase held his silence briefly, then grunted. “So thought the manager until the door was removed from its hinges. The actor was seated before his mirror, stone dead.” There was a note of irony in his soft voice.

  “And is that why we are ploughing through a pitch black night in the middle of winter?” she persisted.

  “The death of Count Hunyadi is not a normal one, Delacroix.”

  Now Claire Delacroix smiled. It was one of Abel Chase’s habits to drop bits of information into conversations in this manner. If the listener was sufficiently alert she would pick them up. Otherwise, they would pass unnoted.

  “Imre Hunyadi, the Hungarian matinee idol?”

  “Or the Hungarian ham,” Chase furnished wryly. “Impoverished petty nobility are a dime a dozen nowadays. If he was ever a count to start with.”

  “This begins to sound more interesting, Abel. But what is this about a vampire that makes this a case for no less than the great Akhenaton Beelzebub Chase rather than the San Francisco Police Department?”

  “Ah, your question is as ever to the point. Aside from the seemingly supernatural nature of Count Hunyadi’s demise, of course. The manager of the Salamanca Theatre states that Hunyadi has received a series of threats. He relayed this information to Captain Baxter, and Baxter to me.”

  “Notes?”

  “Notes – and worse. Captain Baxter states that a dead rodent was placed on his dressing table two nights ago. And finally a copy of his obituary.”

  “Why didn’t he call the police and ask for protection?”

  “We shall ask our questions when we reach the scene of the crime, Delacroix.”

  Chase pulled the powerboat alongside a private wharf flanking the San Francisco
Ferry Building. A uniformed police officer waited to catch the line when Chase tossed it to him. The darkly-garbed Chase and the silver-clad Claire Delacroix climbed to the planking and thence into a closed police cruiser. A few snowflakes had settled upon their shoulders. Gong sounding, the cruiser pulled away and headed up Market Street, thence to Geary and the Salamanca Theatre, where Chase and Delacroix alighted.

  They were confronted by a mob of well-dressed San Franciscans bustling from the theatre. The play had ended and, as with the younger crowd in Berkeley, the theatregoers grinned and exclaimed in surprise at the falling flakes. Few of the men and women, discussing their evening’s entertainment, hailing passing cabs or heading to nearby restaurants for post-theatrical suppers, took note of the two so-late arrivers.

  A uniformed patrolman saluted Abel Chase and invited him and Claire Delacroix into the Salamanca. “Captain Baxter sends his compliments, Doctor.”

  “Nice to see you, Officer Murray. How are your twins? No problems with croup this winter?”

  Flustered, the officer managed to stammer, “No, sir, no problems this year. But how did you—?”

  Before Murray could finish his question he was interrupted by a stocky, ruddy-complexioned individual in the elaborate uniform of a high-ranking police officer. The Captain strode forward, visibly favouring one leg. He was accompanied by a sallow-faced individual wearing a black tuxedo of almost new appearance.

  “Major Chase,” the uniformed police official saluted.

  Chase smiled and extended his own hand, which the Captain shook. “Clel. You know Miss Delacroix, of course.”

  Claire Delacroix extended her hand and Captain Cleland Baxter shook it, lightly and briefly.

  “And this is Mr Quince. Mr Walter Quince, wasn’t it, sir?”

  Walter Quince extended his own hand to Chase, tilting his torso at a slight angle as he did so. The movement brought his hatless, brilliantined head close to Chase, who detected a cloying cosmetic scent. He shook Quince’s hand, then addressed himself to Baxter.

  “Take me to the scene of the incident.”

  Baxter led the Chase and Delacroix through the now-darkened Salamanca Theatre. Quince ran ahead and held aside a dark-coloured velvet curtain, opening the way for them into a narrow, dingy corridor. Abel Chase and Claire Delacroix followed Baxter into the passage, followed by Quince.

  Shortly they stood outside a plain door. Another police officer, this one with sergeant’s chevrons on his uniform sleeve, stood guard.

  “Hello, Costello,” Chase said. “How are your daughter and her husband doing these days?”

  “Doctor.” The uniformed sergeant lifted a finger to the bill of his uniform cap. “They’ve moved in with the missus and me. Times are hard, sir.”

  Chase nodded sympathetically.

  “This is Count Hunyadi’s dressing room,” Quince explained, indicating the doorway behind Costello.

  Chase asked, “I see that the door was removed from its hinges, and that Captain Baxter’s men have sealed the room. That is good. But why was it necessary to remove the hinges to open the door?”

  “Locked, sir.”

  “Don’t you have a key, man?”

  “Count Hunyadi insisted on placing a padlock inside his dressing room. He was very emphatic about his privacy. No one was allowed in, even to clean, except under his direct supervision.”

  Abel Chase consulted a gold-framed hexagonal wristwatch. “What time was the third act to start?”

  “At 10:15, sir.”

  “And when was Hunyadi called?”

  “He got a give-minute and a two-minute call. He didn’t respond to either. I personally tried to summon him at curtain time but there was no response.”

  Abel Chase frowned. “Did you then cancel the rest of the performance?”

  “No, sir. Elbert Garrison, the director, ordered Mr Hunyadi’s understudy to take over the role.”

  “And who was that fortunate individual?”

  “Mr Winkle. Joseph Winkle. He plays the madman, Renfield, And Philo Jenkins, who plays a guard at the madhouse, became Renfield. It was my duty to take the stage and announce the changes. I made no mention of Count Hunyadi’s – illness. I merely gave the names of the understudies.”

  “Very well. Before we proceed to examine the victim and his surroundings, I will need to see these so-called threatening notes.”

  Captain Cleland Baxter cleared his throat. “Looks as if the Count was pretty upset by the notes. Everybody says he destroyed ’em all. He complained every time he got one but then he’d set a match to it.”

  An angry expression swept across Chase’s features.

  Baxter held up a hand placatingly. “But the latest – looks like the Count just received it tonight, Major – looks like he got riled up and crumpled the thing and threw it in the corner.”

  Baxter reached into his uniform pocket and extracted a creased rectangle of cheap newsprint. “Here it is, sir.”

  Chase accepted the paper, studied it while the others stood silently, then returned it to the uniformed captain with an admonition to preserve it as potentially important evidence.

  Next, he removed the police seal from the entrance to the dressing room and stepped inside, followed by Claire Delacroix, Captain Baxter, and the theatre manager, Walter Quince.

  Chase stood over the still form of Imre Hunyadi, for the moment touching nothing. The victim sat on a low stool, his back to the room. The head was slumped forward and to one side, the forehead pressed against a rectangular mirror surrounded by small electrical bulbs. His hands rested against the mirror as well, one to either side of his head, his elbows propped on the table.

  “We observe,” Chase stated, “that the victim is fully dressed in formal theatrical costume, complete with collar and gloves.”

  “And ye’ll note that he’s deathly pale, Major,” the police Captain put in. “Deathly pale. Drained by the bite of a vampire, I say.”

  Chase pursed his lips and stroked his dark moustache. “I would not be so quick to infer as much, Captain,” he warned. “The victim’s face is indeed deathly pale. That may be stage makeup, however.”

  Chase lifted an emery board from the dressing table and carefully removed a speck of makeup from Hunyadi’s cheek. “Remarkable,” he commented. “You see—” He turned and exhibited the emery board to the room. “It is indeed pale makeup, appropriate, of course, to the Count’s stage persona. But now, we observe the flesh beneath.”

  He bent to peer at the skin he had exposed. “Remarkable,” he said again. “As white as death.”

  “Just so!” exclaimed the Captain of homicide.

  “But now I let us examine the victim’s hands.”

  With great care he peeled back one of Hunyadi’s gloves. “Yet again remarkable,” the Abel Chase commented. “The hands are also white and bloodless. Well indeed, there remains yet one more cursory examination to be made.”

  Carefully tugging his trousers to avoid bagging the knees of his woollen suit, he knelt beside Count Hunyadi. He lifted Hunyadi’s trouser cuff and peeled down a silken lisle stocking. Then he sprang back to his full height.

  “Behold!”

  The Count’s ankle was purple and swollen.

  “Perhaps Miss Delacroix – Doctor Delacroix, I should say – will have an explanation.”

  Claire Delacroix knelt, examined the dead man’s ankles, then rose to her own feet and stated, “Simple. And natural. This man died where he sits. His body was upright, even his hands were raised. His blood drained to the lower parts of his body, causing the swelling and discoloration of the ankles and feet. There is nothing supernatural about post-mortem lividity.”

  Chase nodded. “Thank you.”

  He turned from the body and pointed a carefully manicured finger at Quince. “Is there any other means of access to Hunyadi’s dressing room?”

  “Just the window, sir.”

  “Just the window, sir?” Abel Chase’s eyes grew wide. “Just the window? Baxter—�
�� He turned to the Captain of police. “Have you ordered that checked?”

  Flustered, Baxter admitted that he had not.

  “Quickly, then. Quince, lead the way!”

  The manager led them farther along the dingy corridor. It was dimly illumined by yellow electrical bulbs. They exited through the stage door and found themselves gazing upon a narrow alley flanked by dark walls of ageing, grime-encrusted brick. To their right, the alley opened onto the normally busy sidewalk, now free of pedestrians as San Franciscans sought cover from the chill and moisture of the night. To the left, the alley abutted a brick wall, featureless save for the accumulated grime of decades.

  “There it is, sir.”

  Chase raised his hand warningly. “Before we proceed, let us first examine the alley itself,” Chase instructed. Using electric torches for illumination, they scanned the thin coating of snow that covered the litter-strewn surface of the alley. “You will notice,” Chase announced, “that the snow is undisturbed. Nature herself has become our ally in this work.”

  Chase then stepped carefully forward and turned, surveying the window. “Fetch me a ladder,” he ordered. When the implement arrived he climbed it carefully, having donned his gloves once again. He stood peering through a narrow opening, perhaps fourteen inches wide by six inches in height. A pane of pebbled glass, mounted on a horizontal hinge in such a manner as to divide the opening in half, was tilted at a slight angle. Through it, Chase peered into the room in which he and the others had stood moments earlier.

  From his elevated position he scanned the room meticulously, dividing it into a geometrical grid and studying each segment in turn. When satisfied, he returned to the ground.

  Walter Quince, incongruous in his evening costume, folded the ladder. “But you see, sir, the window is much too small for a man to pass through.”

  “Or even a child,” Chase added.

  There was a moment of silence, during which a wisp of San Francisco’s legendary fog descended icily from the winter sky. The rare snowfall, the city’s first in decades, had ended. Then a modulated feminine voice broke the stillness of the tableau. “Not too small for a bat.”