The Statue of Three Lies

by David Cargill

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream".

  Edgar Allan Poe

  The Prof couldn’t quite figure out what had caused the overwhelming feeling of tiredness that had come over him when he got back to the Berkeley’s place in Commonwealth Avenue.

  He remembered indulging in a few more drinks after Sergeant Anderson of the BPD had left following his tale of a dealer’s illusion in a hotel room. There was almost a feeling of anti climax when, at long last, he knew the secret that Jack Ramsden took with him on his return to Maskelyne Hall after the magicians’ convention.

  The celebratory drinks had been a little premature - he admitted that to himself - for knowing what he did now and being in possession of many missing clues did not, necessarily, give him the complete picture. There was still work to be done but there seemed to be no harm in a little indulgence in the company of his two hosts particularly as he’d achieved so much on his first full day in Boston.

  No, it couldn’t have been the alcohol that made him so tired - he remembered leaving the hotel and the doorman calling a taxicab; the doorman wasn’t Eddie though, he’d never seen him before in his life, but logic told him the Statler Hilton had more than one doorman. In fact he thought he could remember seeing several of them all lined up at the entrance just as he was bundled into the cab.

  Back at “chez Berkeley” gallons of black coffee accompanied by a showing of the late night movie, Hitchcock’s “Vertigo", made for a perfect end to the evening. A.B. reckoned that the Thanksgiving holiday allowed them to relax at the end of an exhausting day and enjoy a long lie in bed on the following morning when he would take Giles over to Cambridge and Harvard University, after which they could all engage in a bit more sleuthing - the word association game being of particular interest to the criminologist.

  The Prof couldn’t be positive he’d watched the end of the film but there was no doubt he’d fallen asleep immediately his head touched the pillow...but where was he now? He thought he could feel a current of air on his face but his shoes didn’t have the grip on the opposite wall that would make him feel secure.

  He was slipping! He looked down but couldn’t see anything. It was much too dark! The semicircular canals in his inner ear were experiencing a problem. He was beginning to suffer vertigo. He shouldn’t have looked down. Jimmy Stewart’s role in the movie should have told him that. Oh, God, he knew where he was - he was in an airshaft and one that ran the entire height of the hotel, about 150 feet or more. Was the sensation of dizziness due to disease of the inner ear or were parts of his brain deteriorating?

  There was something else seriously wrong - he was unable to get out of the shaft. Please, God, don’t let him stay entombed...like Poe’s Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado! Surely there was an audience waiting for him to appear from behind a blanket - or was it a large Japanese fire screen in front of a safe?

  Safe? Was that possible? Could he be safe? A light filtered across his face - a door was opening and that meant.?

  ‘Come on, sleepyhead! Rise and shine like our Boston weather! I fear it may not last much longer!’ Abe’s melodious tone was a welcome relief from a long lingering.?

  The Prof joined the others and had a refreshing glass of orange juice.

  ‘I think it’s a good job you woke me out of my nightmare,’ he said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. ‘I couldn’t get that death-defying stunt in the airshaft out of my subconscious - no wonder Jack Ramsden returned to Scotland with tremendous plans for his future illusions.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ A.B. said, padding around in his bare feet. ‘Anyway I have a suggestion to make. What about going out for breakfast this morning? Jenny wants us out from under her feet today -she has some catching up to do on legal work and, when little Millie comes in later, the two of them intend to get everything ready for Thanksgiving Dinner.’

  ‘Sounds fine by me!’ said Giles.

  ‘Sounds swell by me as well!’ said Jennifer Berkeley.

  ‘You were on a first, Giles, when you visited the library yesterday, the first free library in the United States, so here’s the plan; this morning we’ll travel to Cambridge on what was the first subway in the U.S.’

  ‘Yeah, ya can’t pahk ya cah in Harvihd Yahd!’ Jennifer quipped, with a nod and a wink.

  Everyone fell about laughing.

  ‘After that we’ll have breakfast in a diner I use quite often,’ said A.B. wagging a finger at his wife, ‘then I’ll show you around the earliest University in North America - Harvard!’

  ‘In that case I may just use the auto and pick something up at the grocery store for this evening,’ Jennifer said. ‘Now why don’t you both get washed and dressed and get out of here before I have you arrested for loitering?’

  Less than an hour later the Professors were ordering bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast with an unlimited supply of coffee, after which, a short walk from the diner took them through the Johnston Gate, erected in 1890 and the first University structure to use handmade and wood-burned Harvard Brick to simulate the material used in earlier buildings, then on past the ivy-covered Massachusetts Hall into Old Harvard Yard. The elms in the normally leafy yard were beginning to look a little bare but in summer and fall they must have provided a wonderful area where students could meet and chat.

  A stroll across the yard brought them to the granite building of University Hall in front of which was a bronze statue of John Harvard. The seated figure of the robed benefactor appeared to be the focus of attention for graduates and visitors with cameras, and Giles was studying the bronze with interest when Berkeley took him aside and pointed to the statue.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is often nicknamed The Statue of Three Lies!’

  Giles looked at the criminologist, ‘Now that is intriguing! I’d like to know more!’ he said.

  ’Most visitors do! Lie number one: Because there were no known portraits of John Harvard, the sculptor used an undergraduate as a model when the statue was cast in 1884 - so it is not John Harvard, but a student.’

  ‘Lie number two: The inscription refers to John Harvard as the founder when he really was the first major benefactor in 1638, and certainly not the founder.’

  ‘And Lie number three: The statue refers to the founding of the College in 1638, which was the year of John Harvard’s bequest and not the founding which was two years earlier in 1636!’

  ‘Hmm! Now that is food for thought!’

  ‘You’re miles away, Giles!’

  ‘Yes, and you’re not the first person that’s told me that!’

  ‘And I probably won’t be the last either!’ said the Harvard man.

  ‘Do me a favour!’ Giles pleaded. ‘Remind me of that statue after dinner tonight. I have a strange feeling that lies, fabrications and deceptions may have played.’

  ‘There you are, Giles - you’re doing it again! You’re miles away!’

  The Prof smiled knowingly as the two men moved on and continued their tour of the historic buildings.

  Despite the excellence of the guided tour provided by A.B., Giles couldn’t get the Statue of Three Lies out of his mind; everything else seemed to take second billing until he found himself inside one of the buildings and following the criminologist into his private study.

  ‘Have a seat!’ he was told.

  A.B. then went to a bookshelf and picked out a well-thumbed copy of a novel before handing it over. It bore the title: “The Three Coffins” by John Dickson Carr and was published by Harper and Brothers.

  The Prof knew it better by the English title: “The Hollow Man” published by Hamish Hamilton, but he also had a good idea why it was in Berkeley’s study and, more importantly, why it was well thumbed and dog-eared.

  Both professors faced each other and, in perfect unison, muttered the words “The Locked-Room Lecture"! The laughter that followed was of mutual understanding.

  ’Yes, you’ve guessed it,’ the criminologist admitted. ‘I have learned that all the points made by Dr. Fell in t
he lecture provide me with excellent material to set student minds in motion.’

  ‘I agree!’ said Giles thumbing through the pages that seemed to be turning themselves. ‘The stuff to inspire budding criminologists!’

  ‘Or aspiring writers of detective fiction!’ A.B. added.

  The Prof skipped over the sections titled First and Second Coffins then on to the Third Coffin and the chapter with the heading “The Locked-Room Lecture". He scanned each page with obvious delight but his demeanour changed when he came to the end of the chapter; he paused and his eyes narrowed. He looked up at the American. ‘This is interesting,’ he declared. ‘I don’t remember this. What do you make of the title to the next chapter?’

  He pointed to the page and Berkeley looked at the words: The Chimney.

  ‘Another coincidence, my friend!’ A.B. remarked with emphatic conviction.

  ‘More coincidences than I know what to do with!’

  ‘The Chimney?’ said Berkeley taking hold of the novel. ‘That’s more than just interesting! But that would mean.!’

  ‘Yes I know what that would mean.!’ The Prof said, with a deep sigh. ‘If that was the way it was done it must surely mean...!’

  ‘You won’t know until you get back to Scotland and can go over everything with a fine tooth comb but, as you say, if that was the way it was done, and it would make sense, you may find you have a problem if you allow your heart to rule your head!’

  A.B. moved to a closet and brought out a box of cigars. ‘Please join me in one of my specials, Giles,’ he said. ‘I keep them for moments such as this and it will give me an opportunity to deliver my thoughts and explain why you should beware of allowing your heart to rule your head - difficult though it may be.’

  Without so much as a momentary hesitation The Prof had the cigar between his lips, had it lit and was lying back puffing the object in an almost provocative position.

  ‘I have a little story to tell that I often use in my work. I’m not aware of the origin though it may have evolved from some vaudeville routine. It concerns a small boy of a certain faith who, when told to jump off a wall and be caught by his father, is allowed to fall to the ground. When he picks himself up and dusts himself down his father tells him he has just learned one of the most important lessons in life -"Never trust anybody,” he’s told. “Not even your own flesh and blood!” I use this comparison because statistics show that in murder people, known to the victim rather than total strangers, commit the crime more often. In spite of the old adage, you are often more secure in the company of strangers than in the presence of friends or family. There are, of course, exceptions and occasionally the converse is true; it is then we have to decide what to ask and where to look - and there are times when friends or family turn out to be...not what they seem!’

  The Prof shuffled a little in his chair and knocked cigar ash into an onyx ashtray on the large desk beside him.

  ‘The problem so many investigators have when they are trying to find reasons for every action or event they happen to see or encounter is that they are inclined to create a problem where none exists. Take this cigar, for example,’ A.B. said, holding the smoking object up in the air. ‘When Freud, who smoked especially large cigars, was once asked by one of his students if there was any significance in their size, he replied that “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!” We ask the wrong questions and we dispute the answers when they are freely given. We do not see the importance of apparently meaningless gestures, expressions, comments or behaviour. We distrust the truth and accept downright fabrications. More often than not we are reluctant to suspend our disbelief. We are easily duped by the plausible; witness the accounts of the smooth talking travelling salesmen peddling their bottles of elixir - the miraculous cure-all - in the not-so-distant past!’

  ‘If we like someone we take them at face value!’ The Prof said in agreement with everything that was being expounded.

  ‘Yes! And if we love someone we refuse to believe the truth when they turn out to be a wrong’un!’ added The Harvard man, bringing his fist down hard on the leather topped desk.

  ‘I have another little tale to tell,’ A.B. said, picking the detective novel up again, ‘but, before I do, I want you to consider much of what is in Dr. Fell’s Locked-Room Lecture. There is murder that is not murder but a series of coincidences ending in an accident that looks like murder; murder that really is murder but where the victim, because of circumstances that he or she is unable to cope with mentally, is actually forced to murder himself - or herself as the case may be, in other words suicide. There is murder by mechanical means using gadgets; suicide that looks like murder; murder where time of death is confused, due to the tampering of clocks, and so providing false alibis; murder where there’s jiggery-pokery of keys, hinges, bolts, locks, doors and windows where even whole panes of glass have been removed; murder using ice as a weapon that disappears as it melts - the list is endless. We also have murder derived from illusion and impersonation and that’s where my little tale comes in.’

  The Harvard Professor slipped off his shoes, sat in a chair and placed his stocking feet on the table in front of him. He puffed at his cigar and then began his story.

  ‘A young man accepts a wager made by his friends who bet he cannot spend a night alone in a locked room with a coffin containing a dead body. When the coffin is in place, the lights switched off at the mains and the door finally locked, the young man settles down for the night confident that it is only a matter of time before he collects a substantial reward.’ The Harvard Professor took another puff at his cigar.

  ‘During the night, however, he hears strange sounds coming from the direction of the coffin; the sounds are human and are followed by the creak of the coffin lid opening. Keeping his nerve he listens in the dark until he feels someone touching his arm; at that moment he tries to scream, but the scream dies in his parched throat.! In the morning when the door is unlocked the young man is found slumped in his chair - close to death.’ The American paused for effect.

  ‘He’s a changed man; his hair has turned pure white, his breathing is shallow and laboured, and his pulse is weak and irregular. When the friends, who had made the bet, open the coffin they discover the man inside is dead. He is not only dead but he is not the same man who started the night in the casket as part of the prank - he is the young man who accepted the bet! The man who had been inside the coffin to start with and had played the trick was now the one in the chair - they had changed places!’

  Giles’ face lit up. Something had stirred in his brain - a recognition ...’Do continue.’ he said with a smile.

  Abe smiled back. ‘You see after he’d climbed out of the box and touched the man trying to win the bet he discovered that the man in the chair had died from a heart attack. He put the body inside the coffin and closed the lid and settled down to spend the rest of the night alone in the room with the dead body - the tables had turned, the innocuous jest had backfired! By morning the man’s hair had turned white with shock and his cardio-respiratory system had been virtually destroyed. So beware, I say; beware the impostor! Question impersonation and substitution and don’t accept that friendships are necessarily for ever even though they last for life - or, at least, until life is...extinguished!’

  ‘No wonder your students enjoy their ABC Course as your “Bulldog” friend christened it!’ Giles said. ‘I myself wouldn’t object to being a fly on the wall at some of your lectures! It seems to ring a bell, however, the story I mean! There is something familiar about it!’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure’, said the American, ‘but the story may have been one of Carr’s creations that was broadcast as a play on the CBS Suspense radio show. Anyway it is enthused about in these circles.’

  ‘It’s not difficult to see why.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Giles, but don’t you see that your involvement in the history of magic and illusion must make you understand the importance of deception and the creation of diversion - one of
the great art forms, the Art of Misdirection. If we look in all directions and take the trouble to examine every possibility there is a good chance we may spot the vital clue that will unlock the last door to the final solution. Somewhere amidst the bits and pieces of extraneous matter there lurks a single fragment that is of monstrous importance if only we can recognise it.’

  The criminologist puffed at his cigar that had almost gone out.

  ‘We must also avoid being sidetracked...you see if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck there’s a damn good chance that, perhaps, that’s what it is - a duck! As I said before don’t let your heart rule your head and, if the bottle opener, airshaft and the coincidence regarding the chapter title The Chimney, are anything to go by, I’d say you’d be in danger of falling into that trap!’

  ‘I promise I won’t jump to any conclusions,’ Giles said with a degree of humility. ‘And I can assure you that, whatever the outcome, I will pursue the culprit without fear or favour.’

  ‘Good! After dinner I would like to examine the results of your word game and we can also explore those possible lies that our statue may have implied. Now it’s time, I think, to clear up here, make a final round of the College and then get back to Jenny and a Thanksgiving Dinner.’

  The daylight had already gone by the time the two Professors ended the tour of Harvard; a tour that included a visit to the third oldest building in the Yard, Holden Chapel, and a look at the world’s largest academic library, the Widener Library which had been constructed in 1914 and funded by Eleanor Elkins Widener in memory of her son Harry Elkins Widener, Class of 1907, who died in the Titanic disaster.

  When they arrived back at Commonwealth Avenue the mouthwatering smell of roasting turkey met them at the door.

  Inside, the table was set for three; Millie had gone home to complete preparations for her own family meal and Jennifer was in full control and had everything at the ready for the aperitifs.

  ‘Did you use the car, darling?’ A.B. asked after kissing his wife.