The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories

by Talley, Marcia

  “Is it all right?” Across the table, his wife wrinkled her forehead.

  “Excellent,” he nodded, scanning the wine list again, guilty for not having paid the proper attention. He would undoubtedly have chosen the ’91 Pouilly-Fuissé, he thought, closing the menu, and cringed when he saw a bottle of it standing at the Boxer’s elbow, which rested on the table as if it belonged.

  The fish course appeared next, the red and white lobster centered in a creamy yellow sauce, with the leeks laid in a tick-tack-toe pattern across it and the pâté placed delicately to the side. He ordered a bottle of Pellegrino water from the waiter and sipped the honey again, watching the Boxer point his cigar at his dinner companion and imbibe his own wine with obvious pleasure. The waiter had served the four of them their lobster and Brutus continued to rail on as he ate. Edward could see the flesh of the lobster as the man chewed and talked, and as the meal wore on into the next course, Edward watched the lamb and the potatoes turn into a mash between his teeth. At one point, the Boxer’s mouth was so full as he spoke that a chunk of lamb flew from his mouth and landed on the table. “Woops,” he said, bringing his hand up in a puerile gesture of covering his mouth. Behind it, his lips were stretched into a schoolboy’s grin. Felicia popped his arm lightly with her fist.

  “What are you thinking about?” asked Caroline. “You’ve hardly said a word all dinner and you’ve barely touched your food.”

  Edward turned back to look at his wife and in a glance detected that she was as crestfallen as he was. Her eyes, fairly shining with disappointment, seemed to plead with him for something that he feared he couldn’t provide. “I had just wanted this evening to be perfect,” he said and knew that there was nothing to be gained by ordering another bottle of wine this late in the meal—that there were no other tables to move to and no possibility of asking Brutus to cease his ill manners.

  Caroline reached across and took his hand. “Everything’s fine.” Her touch was warm but he could hear her lack of conviction, and he wished again that they were continuing to Venice. Those fortunate passengers were already moving through the first dining car on their way to the second seating. They were all dressed in crisp tuxedos and evening gowns, and two Scotsmen had worn dinner jackets over bright formal kilts. Edward was certain that the dinner for the people continuing to Italy would be different and that the extra time aboard the train would give the journey time to redeem itself. But it was too late now to change their plans; someone had already claimed their cabin for the balance of the journey, and Edward and Caroline had months before made their own reservations at the Ambassador in Paris.

  “I had just planned,” he sighed again, “on everything being so perfect.”

  The chestnut pancake arrived then: a crepe-thin puff folded up like a flowerbud and drizzled with a light orange syrup. As the dessert was served, the chef entered the car in his dress whites and moved from table to table greeting the guests. Edward lacked the enthusiasm to ask his wife for the book but she was already handing it across.

  “Le diner, c’est merveilleux,” Edward told the chef with a good show of sincerity. He handed the book to him. “Votre signature, s’il vous plaît. Pour souvenir.”

  The man glanced at the title and smiled, his tall white hat bobbing with his nod.

  Pour souvenir. Le chef de cuisine, Ch. Bodiguel, Edward read after it was handed back and the chef had moved to the next table. He glanced over the other names from the afternoon: Alan, their waiter on the Pullman, who said he traveled to the States once a year for the Kentucky Derby; the Shrimptons, who had offered Best Wishes from 25 Years Ahead and signed their names David and Rosemary.

  He turned to the title page then, because he had heard Brutus call out “What’s ’at?” and wanted to wait for him to ask a second time. Even without looking, he could see in his mind the Boxer pointing his fork at the book, a grotesque image of smacking lips and teeth dripping with the pancake’s orange syrup. As he reread the title a fourth and then a fifth time, he entertained the thought that there would be a murder and Brutus the victim. When he asks me again, I’ll tell him that we call it a book, he thought and he overenunciated the word in his mind. And then if he’s insolent enough to ask the name, I’ll pass it across to Caroline without showing it and tell him it’s The Origin of Species and that he should be familiar with it. Edward was well into the copyright page when he thought that the sarcasm might be too subtle and then he realized that the dining car had gone quiet and slowly became aware that the Boxer had begun to choke.

  Suddenly everyone was standing, either moving toward the flailing man or stepping back in horror. Felicia was screaming and jumping up and down, her face twisted in shock, her arms flailing helplessly as her body shook in fear. The Boxer’s arms were spinning as well, striking the glasses from the table, thrashing at the people around him, on his right hand a single finger sticking out like it was pointing at something in the air.

  “Heimlich maneuver,” shouted Edward. “A doctor, a doctor.” The wine steward had already managed to wrap his arms around the Boxer, and he lifted the bulky man up in the air, jarring his body, pulling and pulling against his chest until finally, a lump of pancake flung itself forth from his mouth. But Edward could see from the Boxer’s color and his puffy face that help had come too late.

  * * * *

  Soon, they were back in their cabin. Caroline sat by the window, staring out at the lights which passed so slowly in the distance. Edward had opened the cabinet again and was washing his hands in the small porcelain basin. In the mirror, he caught sight of himself and noticed that his hair was going prematurely gray.

  Brutus was dead, and Edward, despite all of his attempts at rational thinking, had been unable to dismiss his sense of responsibility for the death. He could see it no other way, given the malice he had felt and the timing. The dead man had been choked in trying to wash down his pancake with the wine which Edward had envied so greatly—choked while trying to ask a question which Edward had pretended not to hear—and Edward felt sure that the Boxer’s pointing finger had been aiming for him. The Boxer’s real name, it turned out, was Henry Doppler and Felicia’s name was Margaret and they had just been married. She had still been in hysterics when Edward and Caroline left the car and no one had been able to learn any more than that.

  Edward could not help but feel guilty, and neither could he escape the thought, obviously secondary, that he had not only killed a man but in doing so, had ruined his and Caroline’s special evening completely. His selfishness in thinking this sent him into an even deeper state of guilt and he feared, for a moment, that he would be unable to find his way out. But they would be in Paris soon, he thought, pulling into the Gare de L’Est, taking the cab to the Opera Quarter, walking under the chandeliers of the Hotel Ambassador, and he felt a little strengthened by these images and hopeful that the darkness of the evening would disappear against the glitter of the city.

  “Do you think he was poisoned?” asked Caroline, and he realized the question carried the first words she had spoken since they had returned to their room.

  He wiped his hands and turned to look at her. Even from that distance, he could see the strange twinkle in her eye.

  “I don’t know why,” she went on. “I guess it was his looks, the shape of his head, and the way he acted, and my reading that book on the plane—but I had a notion from the first moment I saw him that he was a British gangster and that the woman with him was his moll. I thought that the other couple in the bar car were a part of his gang or the other man the leader of a friendly gang and that they were planning something together. And when he began to choke and point that finger like a gun, I was certain that it was a double-cross and that the other man had poisoned his food while he asked you about the book. Or maybe the chef was really with British Intelligence and had himself laced the dessert with arsenic before it ever came out. After all, didn’t you think it tasted more like almonds than chestnuts?”

  She stood up then and r
ushed quickly to hug him.

  “Oh, darling, I’m sorry he’s dead, but wouldn’t it have been romantic if we had gone on to Venice and the murder had happened in the Alps and the train had been stuck in the snow and the murderer still on board. And you could have solved it! Or we could have solved it together! Or we could have just stayed in our cabin until they interrogated us, caught up helplessly in the drama of it all.”

  She looked up at him then and he saw a thrill in her features that he had never seen before. She seemed transported by what had happened.

  “Can you believe it?” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I even made names for them. He was called Guido and she was Delores.”

  It was at that moment that Edward felt released from the crime and forgiven of his guilt and, what was greater, believed himself a success once more. He didn’t know how he had done it, but he was suddenly glad that he had killed the young man. He felt more alive because of it, more gallant, more virile—so much so, in fact, that he felt sure he would have taken his new wife right then and there if the train hadn’t been pulling into the station, if the cabin steward hadn’t been just outside the door.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Art Taylor’s short fiction has appeared in several national magazines, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and North American Review; online at Fiction Weekly, Prick of the Spindle, and SmokeLong Quarterly; and in various regional publications. His story “A Voice from the Past” was an honorable mention for the 2010 Best American Mystery Stories anthology. He regularly reviews mysteries and thrillers for the Washington Post and contributes frequently to Mystery Scene. For more information: www.arttaylorwriter.com.

  THE STOLEN VENUS, by Darrell Schweitzer

  (From the Previously Unpublished Correspondence of the Younger Pliny)

  1. Pliny to the Emperor Trajan

  You have asked me, Sir, to keep you informed of my progress through the province of Bithynia as I might write to a friend, rather than merely as an official might report to his emperor, and so I shall be, as requested, fulsome in the details.

  Having concluded our business in Heracleia Pontica, my party has turned inland, toward Claudiopolis, where there is much to occupy my attention: accounts in arrears and possible civil disturbances.

  Unfavorable winds prevent us from sailing up the local river (Sangarius), and so we proceed over rough roads by carriage. The heat oppresses us. My assistant, Servilius Pudens, became ill for a time, but my Greek physician, Arpocras, yet again proved himself invaluable.…

  * * * *

  2. Trajan to Pliny

  Your own well-being, my dear Pliny, and that of your party remain foremost in my thoughts. I am glad that the invaluable Arpocras has cured Pudens of his illness. You are wise to adapt your travel to local conditions. Report to me in detail what you find in Claudiopolis, as the disturbances there have the potential of creating a greater danger.

  * * * *

  3. Pliny to Trajan

  … It begins with two crows.

  I call them my two crows, from the way they squawk at one another. Servilius Pudens and Arpocras (whose name means “Crow” in Greek, I remind myself) remain the best of friends, despite their constant arguments about anything and everything. At times this even resembles genuine philosophical debate, and might occasionally produce a flash of wisdom, like a spark from an anvil.

  As we three lay back in our carriage, bumping over the hot, dusty roads, and the subject of current contention was whether or not each of us resembles, either in his name or person, some kind of animal. Indeed, Arpocras, the Crow, is a thin, beak-nosed man whose hair was once dark, while Pudens, so said the Greek in a jesting mood, more resembles a walrus, a fabulous, flabby beast reputed to inhabit northern seas; which is ridiculous, and maybe even insulting, as Pudens more resembles a somewhat over-fed but still quite formidable bull.

  I might have put a stop to this, but I dozed off instead, and when I awoke the conversation had somehow turned to theology.

  “Are you saying, then, Greek”—Pudens put a sneer into that word, which he would not have done if they were not friends—“that the forms of the gods and goddesses do not matter, and Mars does not look like a warrior and Venus does not look like, well, Venus?”

  “I suggest,” said Arpocras slowly, as if explaining something to a dull-witted schoolboy, “that the true forms of the gods are ineffable, incomprehensible, not something which can be imitated by human art. Therefore, when the sculptor carves a statue of Venus, the goddess may inspire him, but the result exists for the benefit of mankind, as a focus of devotion, but not as a literal representation.”

  Pudens rummaged about and produced an apple and a small knife. He cut a slice out of the apple, ate it, then contemplated the apple. “You’re saying then that if I carve this apple into a face and call it a goddess, it’s just as valid a statue by Phidias?”

  The Greek snatched the apple and the knife before the astonished Pudens could react, cut the apple in half, then impaled both pieces on the blade, and handed the result back to him.

  “Theoretically, yes, but somehow I doubt that you are inspired by any other than the goddess of food. Now, finish your deity.”

  Pudens ate the apple.

  * * * *

  This might have seemed too trivial an incident to report, Sir, but it proved prophetic in more ways than one. Indeed, the question of the forms that divinity might take was much on my mind in the next couple days.

  We reached Claudiopolis toward evening, and were of course admitted immediately, despite which we were unable to make our way through the crowded streets because a religious festival was in progress. The city, despite its name, despite its refounding as a colony in the time of the deified Claudius, is of a distinctly Oriental character, with many remnants of the culture and way of life that were in place before even the Greeks arrived.

  This was made all the more apparent when we came to the intersection of the two main streets of the city and, despite our imperial banners, squadron of cavalry, and large caravan of assistants, staff, and baggage, we had to pause to let the goddess Venus pass by. Goddesses outrank imperial envoys in most parts of the world, it would seem.

  It was an amazing sight, this festival, which isn’t even on our Roman calendar. It was something purely local, a gaudy affair with naked youths and maidens strewing flowers along the way, followed by musicians thundering on drums and blasting with trumpets and rattling cymbals; then came a mass of garlanded priestesses, and, finally a great, gilded car pulled by white oxen, in which rode the goddess herself in the form of an enormous marble image, far taller than a man, in the most barbarous aspect imaginable: a face like a harsh mask, with wide, blank eyes, but the body covered with hundreds of breasts, like udders, and the arms outstretched, as if to bestow blessings or (so it occurred to me) to throttle somebody.

  “Love in Claudiopolis must be a very peculiar business,” said Pudens as the thing passed.

  “Keep your voice down,” snapped Arpocras, “lest someone hear you blaspheme.”

  Pudens put his hand to his ear and shouted, “What?” Indeed it was hard to hear anything over the noise of the crowd, which was quite worked into a frenzy at this point. But if a riot were about to break out, it was clearly prevented by the presence of my troop of soldiers, and by the city watch and city officials, who came to meet us once the procession had passed.

  Eventually we found ourselves at the house of L. Licinius Aper, a leading citizen of the town, who had intrigued against several rivals (so I gathered later) for the privilege of hosting us.

  I braced myself for what was to follow. It is a ritual that recurs every place I visit, some rich person like this Aper pushing himself to the forefront to introduce himself, shower me with every flattery, boast about his own importance, protest his loyalty to Rome, etc. etc.

  They always do this because they want something. Somehow it is always the rich and powerful who are never satisfied.

  I o
f course must be impartial, and deal with local persons of importance, keeping my impressions (at least initially) to myself, but I must admit that I took an almost immediate dislike to L. Licinius Aper. He was a red-faced, balding man a little younger than me, about fifty perhaps, but if anyone resembled the fabled walrus it was he, having grown so fat with indulgence that, quite unlike Servilius Pudens, he could hardly bear his own weight. A quartet of burly slaves hauled him about in a chair most of the time.

  Nevertheless he was animated, sputtering, a ceaseless fount of information about the town and its people and their affairs. It is not actually a proverb, but should be, that a man who cannot stop talking may eventually say something useful.

  When he tried to dismiss Arpocras with a wave of his hand, the Greek stood firm, and so did I, and Licinius Aper, realizing his blunder, graciously invited the three of us to bathe and dine with him.

  He gave us a tour of the house, making sure that we noticed the images of all the deified emperors among his household gods, and that his statues of the gods and goddesses were of the conventional sort. No thousand-breasted Venuses here.

  “I hear they have something like that down in Ephesus,” said Servilius Pudens, “Only they call it Diana.”

  “That is exactly my point, my dear fellow,” said Licinius Aper, placing his had on Pudens’s shoulder with an audible thump and perhaps too much familiarity, though, to be fair, he was actually walking then and may have needed to lean on Pudens for support.

  “It is?”

  “Yes. The natives apply the names of our divinities to theirs, absurd as they might be, and that raises the question of whether they can really be considered divine at all, or just the fevered imaginings of barbarians.”