by Marvin Kaye
“If I were an interpreter or a psychologist,” said Helen, “I’d explain that Snake’s trying too hard to say it’s been over for us for a long time.”
Kelly examined Helen. No, she wasn’t of Troy, but her face could launch at least a dozen ships.
“I’ve got a couple of after-jam dates, so let’s get back to rehearsing,” said Snake. “But first I gotta go take a smoke.”
As he disappeared behind the stage, the other four returned to their instruments. Helen picked up her electric guitar and started to tune it.
Suddenly the huge light in the warehouse went out.
III
When the darkness fell, Kelly’s survival instincts took over. She dropped to all fours and, crawling, began retracing her steps into the warehouse. She hadn’t noticed the windows blackened when she had first arrived, but they must have been as no light penetrated the room. Unused to pitch darkness, Kelly had a difficult time telling from where the various shouts, some for help and some cursing, originated.
Just as she butted her head against the warehouse door, the light suddenly returned. Across the room the figures resembled a tableau, most frozen in the spot they had been when darkness hit.
“Are you all right, Kelly?” Matt Locke yelled as he spotted her.
“Fine,” said the news anchor, disregarding the oil stains that had appeared on her sweat suit.
As her dad grabbed her elbow and led her back toward the group, Kelly let go of her anger and let her thoughts grapple with the pattern she saw emerging.
“No,” screamed Gypsy Rose, “it can’t be.” She pointed to the park bench Kelly had been sitting in. Propped against it was Helen, her eyes closed and a spilt Thermos cup at her side.
“Helen, get up,” urged Rocket Givan.
Kelly noticed that his shirt was also wet. Could the same liquid on Helen have been spilled on him?
Squatch Sanders knelt beside the fallen woman and put his fingers to her neck. “I can’t feel her pulse.”
“Get your hands off her, you filthy pig,” screamed Gypsy Rose. “Tonight she was going to come out…and announce we were a couple.”
Suddenly Kelly started laughing. It started as a giggle and then she became almost hysterical. Then she turned to her father and jabbed her right index finger in his chest. “It’s all your fault, Dad. You caused all this to happen.”
Matt Locke stared at his daughter incredulously. Then a broad smile broke across his face. “I confess. Indeed I did it.”
Kelly began to circle her father as though she were interrogating a suspect. “I should have figured all this out earlier. I think my mind was clouded by memories of Mom when I should have been thinking more of the moment or in the moment.”
Matt Locke looked at his daughter. “What have you and I done every time on the night of your birthday?”
Kelly froze. “Gone out to eat.”
“Right,” said her father, “so this year I decided to do something special for you, something different.”
Helen suddenly sat up in the park bench as though she had been raised from the dead.
Kelly jumped involuntarily.
“When did you know?” prodded her father.
“For a woman whom you’ve told everyone is the avatar of the Great Detective himself,” Kelly admitted, “not as soon as I should have. And the clues were so obvious.”
“I’m disappointed,” said Helen. “I thought we’d written and produced a great mystery for you, what with all the twisted relationships.”
“I told your troupe in the beginning she was a formidable opponent,” said Matt Locke.
“A ‘real challenge for Mystery Ink’ I believe is how you phrased it,” said Gypsy Rose.
“No, no,” said Kelly. “Helen was really good. I mean, for a while there I really believed she and my dad had a thing going.”
“Who’s to say we don’t?” Matt Locke sat down beside Helen and put his arm around her.
“Dad!” said Kelly.
“So tell me the clues,” said Matt Locke, covering his daughter’s embarrassment. “I should have known we couldn’t fool you.”
“Well, the whole day started unusually with you barging into my condo quite early in the morning. Then there was the victim, a terrified woman named Helen who had lost her parents…the reference to Leatherwood…Stoner…India…Helen inheriting her parents’ money…Roy and Lottie Moran…Helen’s living with her uncle in the country.” Kelly looked at the group. “It’s Conan Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’ with everything but the speckled band—unless you count Helen’s bandana.”
“Originally we were going to call our supposed rock group The Speckled Band,” said Gypsy Rose, “but that seemed too obvious.”
“So we settled on the speckled serpent on Snake’s motorcycle jacket,” said Helen, giving Kelly a hug.
For a split second Kelly caught a whiff of tobacco.
“Speaking of ‘Snake’,” said Squatch without his Tennessee twang, “where is he?”
“I’ll check.” Gypsy Rose walked back toward the storage room. Finding the door locked, she stood on her tiptoes and peered through the window. “Helen, oh, my gosh!”
“What is it, Gypsy?” called Squatch.
“It’s Snake,” replied Gypsy Rose, “and he’s sprawled out on the floor not moving and there’s blood dripping all over his face.”
IV
Kelly turned to her father. “Really, Dad, you didn’t have to add more. Act I was an excellent birthday present.”
“Kelly,” said Matt Locke gravely, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I know, this is real.”
“It’s got to be just another twist in Mystery Ink’s script…Act II,” argued Kelly.
“Why do you say that?” asked the Chief of Detectives.
“Listen to your little acting troupe. Even though the mystery was supposedly over and they came out of character, they’re still calling each other by their noms du guerre—Helen, Snake, Squatch.”
“Those,” said Rocket Givan, “are our real names.”
Matt Locke looked through the bathroom window, then shouldered the door open. Feeling the prostate figure’s jugular, he announced, “No pulse.” Stubbing out a still-burning cigar, he hurried from the room and pulled out his cellphone. “Locke, badge 1219. I’ve got a 10-100.” Then he gave the warehouse’s address and turned to Kelly. “Would I call this one in if it weren’t real?”
Kelly glanced at her father’s face. The only time she ever saw that determined look was when he was on a case.
Squatch tried to enter the bathroom. Matt Locke pushed him back, then shut the door. “The techs’ll be here any minute,” he announced. “We’ve got to keep the crime scene pure.”
Kelly’s elation quickly turned to chagrin. “I’m sorry…I thought…”
Matt Locke took his daughter aside. “I’m sorry your birthday party and fake murder turned into a real homicide.” Then he addressed to the group. “I want everybody on stage. Nobody is leaving.”
The players slowly trudged to the platform. Everyone was being quiet until Gypsy Rose suddenly confronted Helen. “You couldn’t stand it that he dumped you for another woman, could you?”
Helen jabbed her finger in the woman’s chest. “Are you trying to tell me you’re the other woman?”
“What if I were?” Gypsy Rose chest-bumped the blonde.
“Then I’d be really upset,” said Rocket Givan. “Gypsy Rose and I are together.”
“Is that why you and Snake were in each other’s face before practice?” said Squatch.
Givan turned on him. “Well, we all know that if anyone needed Snake alive, it was you. I mean, without him you’d have to get a new connection.”
Gypsy Rose interrupted. “You got something there, Rocket. Snake’s been complaining all nigh
t that Squatch is into him for some serious bread, and I don’t mean the kind you butter.”
“So,” concluded Kelly, “it sounds like you all had a motive to turn this quintet into a quartet.”
Matt Locke came over to his daughter. “Any ideas?”
As she stood there, she caught a faint whiff of tobacco. “Absolutely.”
Kelly asked the four to line up in a single file. Then she walked past Helen, Gypsy Rose, Squatch, and Rocket Givan. In the distance shrilled the nearing sound of police sirens. “Dad,” Kelly announced, “arrest Helen. All of them had motive, means, and opportunity, but she’s the only one with evidence on her…except you, of course.”
“Are you saying I killed my ex-boyfriend?” Helen blurted out.
“What do you mean, except me?” asked the Chief of Detectives.
“When you went into the storage room earlier, Dad,” Kelly explained, “I caught a trace of cigar smoke in your hair from the cigar Snake had been smoking, and I know you too well to suspect you’d kill the ex-lover of your new girlfriend.”
“Thank you for that confidence,” said Matt Locke.
“But earlier I smelled that same scent on one of those four, something I just confirmed. Like you, Helen has the scent trapped in her hair, a scent she is the only one to have, and the only way she could have picked it up was by sneaking into the storage room to kill Snake when the light went out.”
“That’s kind of flimsy,” said Helen smugly. “Besides, by the time the police get here that scent will have disappeared.”
“I suspect the techs could still find it, but they won’t need to.” Kelly pointed at the wet spots on her own sweat suit knees. “Oil. I got it when I started crawling around this warehouse in the darkness. See the wet spot on your clothes, Helen? When I noticed it during Act I, I thought it was poison or something from the thermos beside your body, but I’m betting now it’s oil you got when you crawled on the same floor I did, crawled over to the storage room, where you murdered Snake.”
“I hated that SOB,” confessed Helen. “That self-satisfied smirk on his face really got to me more than it should have.”
Matt Locke took out his handcuffs.
“There’s just one thing wrong with your theory,” said Helen.
“What’s that?” said Kelly, certain she had covered everything.
“Me. I’m still alive.” A triumphant Snake emerged from the storage room as though he were a leather-jacketed Lazarus.
A bewildered Kelly looked around the warehouse, where the cast of Murder Ink was all smiles.
“You are as good as advertised,” said a beaming Matt Locke, handing Helen a check. “Happy birthday again, honey.”
“You guys got me,” admitted Kelly, hugging her dad.
“The twist of Act II usually does,” said the very-alive Snake.
Kelly looked up at her father. “After all those crimes I’ve helped you solve, I think I needed this come-uppance.”
“This wasn’t a come-uppance, honey,” said her father. “It was a comedy, an attempt to entertain my only daughter and give her the best birthday present ever.”
“So this ‘relationship’ with Helen was also part of the act,” guessed Kelly.
“Just like the fake phone call and phony police sirens,” said the Chief of Detectives. “Your mother…well, to Matt Locke ‘she is always the woman’.”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mrs Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely. I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him.
The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent. Knowing how genuine was her regard for him, I listened earnestly to her story when she came to my rooms in the second year of my married life and told me of the sad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.
“He’s dying, Dr Watson,” said she. “For three days he has been sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones sticking out of his face and his great bright eyes looking at me I could stand no more of it. ‘With your leave or without it, Mr Holmes, I am going for a doctor this very hour,’ said I. ‘Let it be Watson, then,’ said he. I wouldn’t waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him alive.”
I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not say that I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I asked for the details.
“There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought this illness back with him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. For these three days neither food nor drink has passed his lips.”
“Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?”
“He wouldn’t have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I didn’t dare to disobey him. But he’s not long for this world, as you’ll see for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.”
He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart. His eyes had the brightness of fever, there was a hectic flush upon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips; the thin hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was croaking and spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.
“Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,” said he in a feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.
“My dear fellow!” I cried, approaching him.
“Stand back! Stand right back!” said he with the sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis. “If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house.”
“But why?”
“Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?”
Yes, Mrs Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.
“I only wished to help,” I explained.
“Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told.”
“Certainly, Holmes.”
He relaxed the austerity of his manner.
“You are not angry?” he asked, gasping for breath.
Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight before me?
“It’s for your own sake, Watson,” he croaked.
“For my sake?”
“I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra—a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.”
He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and jerking as he motioned me away.
“Contagious by touch, Watson—that’s it, by touch. Keep your distance and all is well.”
“Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs with
me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?”
Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.
“If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the room.”
I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I least understood them. But now all my professional instincts were aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at least was his in a sick room.
“Holmes,” said I, “you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child, and so I will treat you. Whether you like it or not, I will examine your symptoms and treat you for them.”
He looked at me with venomous eyes.
“If I am to have a doctor whether I will or not, let me at least have someone in whom I have confidence,” said he.
“Then you have none in me?”
“In your friendship, certainly. But facts are facts, Watson, and, after all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no choice.”
I was bitterly hurt.
“Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. It shows me very clearly the state of your own nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I would not intrude my services. Let me bring Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best men in London. But someone you must have, and that is final. If you think that I am going to stand here and see you die without either helping you myself or bringing anyone else to help you, then you have mistaken your man.”
“You mean well, Watson,” said the sick man with something between a sob and a groan. “Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption?”
“I have never heard of either.”
“There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities, in the East, Watson.” He paused after each sentence to collect his failing strength. “I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. It was in the course of them that I contracted this complaint. You can do nothing.”