The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes

by Mike Ashley

  “Quite right!” Sanchez seemed to be almost enjoying himself. “But Sir George Borgham was not a good man.” Again the Spaniard’s eyes narrowed. “But tell me, Professor, as one old colleague to another, how you found me out, for to me, as a scientific man, it would be interesting. Tell me that,” he repeated, “and I will gladden the heart of our official friend here” – he looked towards Mirch – “and save him a lot of trouble by making a full confession.”

  “Shall I?” asked Golbourne, looking towards Mirch. The inspector nodded.

  “Well, Sanchez,” said Golbourne, after a moment’s hesitation, “I came to the obvious conclusion that someone had killed Sir George Borgham. I made experiments. I found that it was impossible for Sir George to have been killed by a man stabbing him through the car window, or even getting into the car. There are certain heights – my knowledge of mathematics tells me that – from which a blow must descend in order to ensure a death such as that suffered by Sir George Borgham, and in this case the raising of the arm to the necessary height would have been impossible, as it would have been stopped by the roof of the car, and the blow could not have descended with sufficient force. I proved that by means of an ingenious little instrument which measures the speed and strength of the slightest stroke, either downwards or upwards. I carried through the experiment with the aid of my friend here.”

  Mr Bowen nodded, remembering the little instrument which had been fastened to his forearm, which Golbourne had procured from a maker of scientific instruments in Guildford Street.

  “And the blow was not delivered slantwise, but straight – absolutely straight, according to the evidence of witnesses who saw the dead body – therefore it must have been dealt from straight in front, and unless the murderer had sat in the car on the right side of Sir George, such a blow would have been impossible of delivery.”

  “It might have been dealt from the seat opposite Sir George, though, Professor,” suggested Sanchez, coolly.

  “No man could have got into that car and out again without being observed. Therefore the murder must have been committed by someone outside the car; that was my conclusion. Also, it was impossible that the blow could have been delivered by the chauffeur, or anybody sitting by his side. Therefore the weapon, that piece of steel, must have come in through the window in front on the left of the driver, which was open. I say ‘come in,’ by which I mean in some way projected in.”

  “That seems quite reasonable; indeed, quite clever, Professor!”

  “To be propelled with sufficient force, then, I calculated that there must have been some tremendous power behind it, some power greater than would be possible if it were thrown by hand. By the weight of it, one ounce including the cork loaded with shot – clever that, Sanchez! – I decided that the missile must have been, shall we say fired from a distance of not more and not less than ten feet, to admit of the terrific force necessary to drive such a light weapon into a man’s body. I know that there is no gun in the accepted sense of the word which could fire such a missile, nor is there any explosive which could be used for such a purpose, and memory at once took me back to my work at the Admiralty with you, Sanchez, when there was placed before us – you and me only, mind you, with the exception of the First Lord – a secret idea for the discharge of projectiles of any kind by means of—”

  “By means of compressed air,” broke in Sanchez. “A wonderful idea, smokeless, noiseless, on an entirely different principle to the famous Maxim noiseless gun! And it was claimed by the inventor, now dead” – Golbourne nodded – “that it could be adapted for use by any sized gun. Well, I worked at the idea in my spare time, and at length I succeeded to my own satisfaction in producing a serviceable weapon.”

  “And that’s it, I suppose,” said Golbourne, pointing to the article resembling a black walking-stick, which still lay on the floor by the inspector’s chair.

  “Yes, that’s it.” Sanchez drew his chair a little closer to his desk in order to rest his elbow on it, watched all the time by the inspector. “Quite an interesting little scientific chat, Mr Policeman, isn’t it?” He smiled at Mirch. “I bear no grudge; at least, not much of a one, towards the professor, who will doubtless now proceed with his narrative.”

  “I worked it all out,” went on Golbourne, “by the rules of trajectory, velocity, weight, impetus, impact, and the effect, if any, of the wind on the missile at the time of flight when it was fired. These calculations told me that the weapon was dispatched from a distance of ten feet and a height of eight.”

  “Quite correct,” agreed Sanchez nodding. “And can you tell us how it was actually discharged?”

  “Yes, I think so. I believe that you, Sanchez, were in a fruit van bearing your name. During that block in the traffic just close by Wellington Street, Strand, yesterday, the body of the van was about four feet, perhaps a little more, from the ground, and you were in a crouching position, with your walking-stick gun levelled over a box or two, or at any rate concealed in some way. That would bring the distance of the weapon from the ground to about eight feet. You had been awaiting an opportunity for two or three days to get in front of the judge’s car, and there bide your time until you should be within reasonable distance, and the chauffeur’s attention should be otherwise engaged. I take it, therefore, that you discharged your gun when the chauffeur’s head was turned from the car.”

  “Yes, you’re right in practically every detail,” admitted Sanchez.

  The two might have been discussing some subject of interesting mathematical concern, instead of a grim murder.

  “I run an orange business at Covent Garden,” he went on. “And I had carefully thought out the means which you have disclosed, Professor, of killing Sir George Borgham. Now I come to think of it, I ought to have used another van, but I thought it safer to be in my own, as I so often drive to and from the market in it, and I thought, therefore, that no suspicion would attach to my being in it at any time, of course, with a driver who was used to having me with him, and whose back was naturally turned to me while I sat inside the van, and – well, the rest you know.”

  “And why did you kill that good man?” at length asked the Inspector.

  “Because he was a swine!” was the astounding answer. “Five years before the then Mr George Borgham returned to England to study for the Bar, he ran a rubber plantation in Brazil. My two brothers and I were peons then.”

  Mirch looked a bit puzzled, so Sanchez explained.

  “A peon is a low-bred South American, a day labourer, sometimes, working off a debt by bondage. My brothers and I were in bondage – oh, yes, almost slaves! – on George Borgham’s estate. He treated us more than brutally, he treated us vilely, and he killed my two brothers by his treatment of them. And there was a girl; she was of our class, too, and I loved her, and George Borgham took her from me – ah, you don’t know what rubber plantations were like then – when I was sick with fever, and my brothers were dead. But I never forgot the girl, and I never forgot George Borgham. After George Borgham returned to England I was befriended by kind and good people, was educated, highly educated, and eventually worked my way to a professorship in mathematics.”

  Sanchez was speaking with his eyes fixed on the wall opposite, as if looking into the darkness of the dreadful past.

  “As soon as I could I retired from my professorship and came to England. Here I embarked in business, the orange trade, and all the while I waited and watched Sir George. I meant to kill him in such a manner that no one should know how he came by his death. And you know, gentlemen, how the means and the opportunity came to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I had known,” murmured Golbourne, while Mirch fidgeted a little in his chair, and the clergyman put his hand to his face, for the situation was harrowing.

  Suddenly, before Mirch could spring at him, Sanchez had pointed something at his forehead, and –

  The three men turned sick as the body of Sebastian Sanchez, with the head a terrible bleeding mass, swayed an
d toppled to the floor.

  The tale had to be told, and it was told exclusively to The Wire.

  But when the members of the Murder Club met to dine a few days later, there was no feeling of triumph.

  “A wonderful man was Sanchez, a wonderful man!” said Golbourne. “The pistol with which he blew his own head away was a marvellous adaptation of the rough idea which was originally set before the two of us. A clever idea originally, it required a genius, as Sanchez undoubtedly was, to bring it so such perfection. And by his will, found in his desk, he has left all particulars to the heirs of the original inventor.”

  “Yes, he was a clever man,” said Brinsley. “Still, the law says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ But hang it all,” the newspaper man gave a little thump to the table, “if Sir George Borgham did what Sanchez said he’d done, he deserved all he got, and more. I’ve cabled over to my South American correspondents to trace back his career, and I’ll print and publish every item of it. Professor, here’s your cheque for £500 from The Wire.”

  “I couldn’t take it,” said Golbourne.

  And Brinsley, like a wise man, didn’t press the matter, but tore the cheque up, and after a pause the silence was broken by Crimp, the little journalist.

  “What about that piece of red tape round Sir George’s finger?” he said. “We’ve forgotten all about that.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Bowen, with a faint smile – the first that evening, “I can explain that! While I was chatting with him at the Athelonian Club the night before his death, he took it out of his pocket, and with a joke about red tape being appropriate for a lawyer, he tied it round his finger to remind him to buy a certain book he wanted for reference the next day. ‘My memory’s shockingly short for trifles,’ he said. ‘I shall go to bed with that on my finger, and wear it again in the morning, and I shall remember.’”

  “Oh, so that was all!” said Crimp.

  And at his disappointed tone a real laugh went round the table.

  A few weeks later England was startled by the authentic and guaranteed story of the brutalities in early life of Sir George Borgham, which had lain hidden for so many years.

  HEARTSTOPPER

  Frank M. Robinson

  Frank M. Robinson (b.1926) is probably best known today as the coauthor (with Thomas Scortia) of The Glass Inferno (1974), one of the books from which the blockbuster film The Towering Inferno (1974) was made. Robinson’s first novel was The Power (1956), about a malignant superman, which was filmed in 1967. Most of Robinson’s work is either science fiction or technothriller, though he has also written more straightforward thrillers as with Death of a Marionette (1995), with Paul Hull. The following story was specially written for this anthology.

  Maxwell Harrison sat at his teakwood desk wearing a ratty cotton bathrobe, his scrawny hands hanging limply at his side. His head was face down on the leather-trimmed blotter, a loose strand of silver hair moving slightly in the breeze from an unseen air-conditioner. A morning newspaper had been opened to the financial section and was lying on top of the desk, carefully aligned to the left edge. A rolodex in a leather holder kept it company. The phone was carefully aligned on the right side of the desk. In the middle a tablet of ruled yellow paper served as a pillow for Harrison’s head. So far as I could see, the tablet was blank.

  There were no stab or bullet wounds – again, that I could see, no purple bruise marks on his throat, no pudding of matted hair, blood, and brains covering the back of his head.

  Nevertheless, Harrison was quite dead.

  O’Brien, the fat little coroner, fussed around the body, making absolutely sure of what was already obvious. He shifted the chair back slightly and tilted Harrison’s torso so that his head lolled against the back of the chair.

  We both stared.

  Harrison had died with a smile on his face. Quite a broad one, as a matter of fact, with just a suggestion of having been startled. Death had caught him unaware.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Heart attack.”

  “Probably,” O’Brien said. “Maybe poison, but unlikely. Not with that smile.” He stared a moment longer, then reached over and closed the eyes.

  “He had a history,” the secretary said casually. “He kept some pills in the top middle drawer – I had it refilled yesterday.”

  I reached around the body, located the small plastic bottle and passed it over to O’Brien without comment. The secretary and the chauffeur were standing by the huge mahogany entrance doors to the library, trying hard to hide their nervousness. The secretary’s name was Sally – how long had it been since “Sally” was a popular name? – Fitzgerald. She was blondish, mid-thirties, just beginning to plump up though the formal cut of her suit hid it well. Not too much makeup, hair coiled at the back of her head. I guessed “Efficiency” was her middle name.

  Mike Breall, the chauffeur, was in his mid-twenties, dark haired with a thin, handsome face. Cut his hair right and he might have modelled for Calvin Klein underwear, or maybe perfume. I guessed he didn’t like being there, but then who would? I was there as insurance against rumours. San Joselito – little San Jose – is in the heart of Silicon Valley where there are more millionaires than plumbers. Somebody from homicide always teams up with the coroner to make sure “no signs of foul play” is prominent in news stories when somebody rich bites it.

  Property values are very important in San Joselito.

  “When did you find him, Miss Fitzgerald?”

  “Around eleven, he usually gave me instructions for his brokers then. I called in Mike – Mr Breall – immediately. Then we phoned you people.” She hesitated. “Mr Harrison was . . . just like that.”

  “Neither of you touched him?”

  They shook their heads in unison.

  “You didn’t see him earlier?”

  “Matty – she’s the cook – brought him his orange juice and toast at nine and I came in with her to get the servant assignments for the day. Mr Breall usually goes out to the driveway to pick up the morning paper and he came in about the same time.”

  I couldn’t get over the smile.

  “And between nine and eleven?”

  “We met in the kitchen right after nine and had a little brunch and I passed out the assignments for the day.”

  “And all of the servants were there?”

  She nodded, only slightly curious.

  “So nobody else came in between nine and eleven?”

  “I don’t see how they could have. All the servants were in the kitchen and there are dogs on the grounds. We would have known if anybody had come to the door . . . or if there were prowlers.”

  “I should send in the crew,” O’Brien said. “You through?” I nodded. Miss Harrison and Breall started for the door and I said, “Please don’t leave – wait for me in the living room. And tell the cook to wait as well. It won’t take long.”

  I paused at the door for one last look before the coroner’s men with the gurney showed up. Maxwell Harrison was an anomaly in town. Early eighties – far older than the young computer mavens who had struck it rich and settled there. Harrison was the Old Money in town and could probably have bought and sold any two or three of the youngsters. Wife had died years before; he lived alone except for the servants. So far as anybody knew, he kept busy clipping coupons and watching over his investments – and there were a lot of them.

  I walked back to the desk and took another look at the broad smile on his face. Smiles have classifications and the one I would have compared his to was the smile on a football coach when his team has just made it to one of the bowl games. Or that of a stockbroker who just sold short and made another million or two.

  It was a fleck of white that caught my eye, something I had missed the first time. I pried the small piece of folded paper from his stiffening fingers, glanced at it and slipped it in my pocket. No help there, just a scrawled bunch of numbers. Then I picked up the newspaper and stuck it under my arm – save the trouble of buying one on the way home.

>   It turned out they were all the evidence there was. And all the evidence that was needed. At least for justice, if not for law.

  The cook was in her sixties, slightly deaf, and had worked for Harrison less than six months. Yes, all the servants had met in the kitchen after nine and yes, it had turned into something of a kaffeklatsch that had lasted until eleven. Had she liked Mr Harrison as an employer? She shrugged and I gathered he was no better nor worse than a dozen others she’d worked for. I took down her address and phone number, asked her to keep in touch and to let the department know if she moved from the area.

  Sally Fitzgerald was hardly more informative.

  “You’ve worked for Mr Harrison for how long?” Slog work – no smart questions, no special insights, simple Q and A.

  “Fifteen years—” A moment of thought. “Closer to sixteen.”

  “And you’re—?”

  A flash of . . . what?

  “Thirty-eight.”

  Which made her twenty-two when she started. Not impossible but . . . a little young for a secretary. Maybe she’d been hired as something else. “Paid companion” as the tabloids might say. Harrison would have been in his late sixties, just becoming aware that life and love and lust were passing him by. By the time the arrangement had devolved to the hand-holding stage, she had become his secretary. On-the-job training.

  And I could be doing her a deep injustice and have it all wrong. She was smart for her years, she’d gone to secretarial school, he was in the middle of acquisitions and mergers and she was just what the entrepreneur in him had ordered.

  Curse me for being a dirty-minded, middle-aged man.

  “He was a generous employer?”

  “I never had any complaints.” Very cool.

  “He was a fucking old miser,” Breall broke in, angry.

  Sally glanced at him with just a trace of contempt. Very, very cool.

  I raised an eyebrow and Breall said, “He only cared about money. It’s all the old bastard ever talked about.”