by Otto Penzler
But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend lashed so savagely. I could, however, see that his face was deadly pale, and filled with horror and loathing.
He had ceased to strike, and was gazing up at the ventilator, when suddenly there broke from the silence of the night the most horrible cry to which I have ever listened. It swelled up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled in the one dreadful shriek. They say that away down in the village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts, and I stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it had died away into the silence from which it rose.
“What can it mean?” I gasped.
“It means that it is all over,” Holmes answered. “And perhaps, after all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we shall enter Dr. Roylott’s room.”
With a grave face he lit the lamp, and led the way down the corridor. Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his heels, with the cocked pistol in my hand.
It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a dark lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott, clad in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upwards, and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
“The band! the speckled band!” whispered Holmes.
I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.
“It is a swamp adder!” cried Holmes—“the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another. Let us thrust this creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter, and let the county police know what has happened.”
As he spoke he drew the dog whip swiftly from the dead man’s lap, and throwing the noose round the reptile’s neck, he drew it from its horrid perch, and, carrying it at arm’s length, threw it into the iron safe, which he closed upon it.
Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a narrative which has already run to too great a length, by telling how we broke the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow, of how the slow process of official inquiry came to the conclusion that the Doctor met his fate while indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet. The little which I had yet to learn of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled back next day.
“I had,” said he, “come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of the word ‘band,’ which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door. My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this ventilator, and to the bell rope which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole, and coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the Doctor was furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner indeed who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the whistle. Of course, he must recall the snake before the morning light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned. He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the rope, and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner or later she must fall a victim.
“I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his room. An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of standing on it, which, of course, would be necessary in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her father hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the creature hiss, as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the light and attacked it.”
“With the result of driving it through the ventilator.”
“And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master at the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home, and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott’s death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience.”
THE WRONG PROBLEM
THERE HAS NEVER BEEN, nor can there be, any argument that the greatest practitioner of the locked-room mystery is John Dickson Carr (1906–1977), the American (born and raised in Pennsylvania) who was described as more English than any English author of his time. On a trip abroad, he fell in love with an English girl and moved there because he thought it the ideal place in which to write detective fiction. He wrote so prolifically that he created the pseudonym Carter Dickson (originally Carr Dickson until Harper, his American publisher, objected) for the overflow. Soon after World War II broke out, he produced propaganda programs for the BBC. When a left-wing government was voted into power, Carr returned to the United States to “escape socialism,” as he wrote. After the Labour Party was defeated in 1951, he moved back to England until 1958, when it again took office; he then returned to America permanently.
His most famous detective creation as Carr was Dr. Gideon Fell, who appeared in two dozen novels and numerous short stories. Based on one of Carr’s literary heroes, G. K. Chesterton, Fell is a long-time policeman who has seen so much that the only crimes that interest him are those that have the appearance of being impossible. Carr’s work was so quickly recognized as being superior that he was elected to England’s prestigious Detection Club in 1936 after only a few years in England. He was honored as a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the Mystery Writers of America in 1963.
“The Wrong Problem” was first published in the August 14, 1936, issue of the London Evening Standard. It was first published in the United States in slightly altered form in the July 1942 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. It was first collected in Dr. Fell, Detective (New York, Mercury, 19
47). Note: All printings of this story except the first follow the text of the EQMM appearance.
JOHN DICKSON CARR
AT THE DETECTIVES’ CLUB it is still told how Dr. Fell went down into the valley in Somerset that evening and of the man with whom he talked in the twilight by the lake, and of murder that came up as though from the lake itself. The truth about the crime has long been known, but one question must always be asked at the end of it.
The village of Grayling Dene lay a mile away towards the sunset. And the rear windows of the house looked out towards it. This was a long gabled house of red brick, lying in a hollow of the shaggy hills, and its bricks had darkened like an old painting. No lights showed inside, although the lawns were in good order and the hedges trimmed.
Behind the house there was a long gleam of water in the sunset, for the ornamental lake—some yards across—stretched almost to the windows. In the middle of the lake, on an artificial island, stood a summerhouse. A faint breeze had begun to stir, despite the heat, and the valley was alive with a conference of leaves.
The last light showed that all the windows of the house, except one, had little lozenge-shaped panes. The one exception was a window high up in a gable, the highest in the house, looking out over the road to Grayling Dene. It was barred.
Dusk had almost become darkness when two men came down over the crest of the hill. One was large and lean. The other, who wore a shovel-hat, was large and immensely stout, and he loomed even more vast against the skyline by reason of the great dark cloak billowing out behind him. Even at that distance you might hear the chuckles that animated his several chins and ran down the ridges of his waistcoat. The two travelers were engaged (as usual) in a violent argument. At intervals the larger one would stop and hold forth oratorically for some minutes, flourishing his cane. But, as they came down past the lake and the blind house, both of them stopped.
“There’s an example,” said Superintendent Hadley. “Say what you like, it’s a bit too lonely for me. Give me the town—”
“We are not alone,” said Dr. Fell.
The whole place had seemed so deserted that Hadley felt a slight start when he saw a man standing at the edge of the lake. Against the reddish glow on the water they could make out that it was a small man in neat dark clothes and a white linen hat. He seemed to be stooping forward, peering out across the water. The wind went rustling again, and the man turned around.
“I don’t see any swans,” he said. “Can you see any swans?” The quiet water was empty.
“No,” said Dr. Fell, with the same gravity. “Should there be any?”
“There should be one,” answered the little man, nodding. “Dead. With blood on its neck. Floating there.”
“Killed?” asked Dr. Fell, after a pause. He has said afterwards that it seemed a foolish thing to say; but that it seemed appropriate to that time between the lights of the day and the brain.
“Oh, yes,” replied the little man, nodding again. “Killed, like others—human beings. Eye, ear, and throat. Or perhaps I should say ear, eye, and throat, to get them in order.”
Hadley spoke with some sharpness.
“I hope we’re not trespassing. We knew the land was enclosed, of course, but they told us that the owners were away and wouldn’t mind if we took a short cut. Fell, don’t you think we’d better—?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the little man, in a voice of such cool sanity that Hadley turned round again. From what they could see in the gloom, he had a good face, a quiet face, a somewhat ascetic face; and he was smiling. “I beg your pardon,” he repeated in a curiously apologetic tone. “I should not have said that. You see, I have been far too long with it. I have been trying to find the real answer of thirty years. As for the trespassing, myself, I do not own this land, although I lived here once. There is, or used to be, a bench here somewhere. Can I detain you for a little while?”
Hadley never quite realized afterwards how it came about. But such was the spell of the hour, or of the place, or the sincere, serious little man in the white linen hat, that it seemed no time at all before the little man was sitting on a rusty iron chair beside the darkening lake, speaking as though to his fingers.
“I am Joseph Lessing,” he said, in the same apologetic tone. “If you have not heard of me, I don’t suppose you will have heard of my stepfather. But at one time he was rather famous as an eye, ear, and throat specialist. Dr. Harvey Lessing, his name was.
“In those days we—I mean the family—always came down here to spend our summer holidays. It is rather difficult to make biographical details clear. Perhaps I had better do it with dates, as though the matter were really important, like a history book. There were four children. Three of them were Dr. Lessing’s children by his first wife, who died in 1899. I was the stepson. He married my mother when I was seventeen, in 1901. I regret to say that she died three years later. Dr. Lessing was a kindly man, but he was very unfortunate in the choice of his wives.”
The little man appeared to be smiling sadly.
“We were an ordinary, contented, and happy group, in spite of Brownrigg’s cynicism. Brownrigg was the eldest. Eye, ear, and throat pursued us: he was a dentist. I think he is dead now. He was a stout man, smiling a good deal, and his face had a shine like pale butter. He was an athlete run to seed; he used to claim that he could draw teeth with his fingers. By the way, he was very fond of walnuts. I always seem to remember him sitting between two silver candlesticks at the table, smiling, with a heap of shells in front of him, and a little sharp nut-pick in his hand.
“Harvey Junior was the next. They were right to call him Junior; he was of the striding sort, brisk and high-colored and likable. He never sat down in a chair without first turning it the wrong way round. He always said ‘Ho, my lads!’ when he came into a room, and he never went out of it without leaving the door open so that he could come back in again. Above everything, he was nearly always on the water. We had a skiff and a punt for our little lake—would you believe that it is ten feet deep? Junior always dressed for the part as solemnly as though he had been on the Thames, wearing a red-and-white striped blazer and a straw hat of the sort that used to be called a boater. I say he was nearly always on the water: but not, of course, after tea. That was when Dr. Lessing went to take his afternoon nap in the summerhouse.”
The summerhouse, in its sheath of vines, was almost invisible now. But they all looked at it, very suggestive in the middle of the lake.
“The third child was the girl, Martha. She was almost my own age, and I was very fond of her.”
Joseph Lessing pressed his hands together.
“I am not going to introduce an unnecessary love story, gentlemen,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Martha was engaged to a young man who had a commission in a line regiment, and she was expecting him down here any day when—the things happened. Arthur Somers, his name was. I knew him well; I was his confidant in the family.
“I want to emphasize what a hot, pleasant summer it was. The place looked then much as it does now, except that I think it was greener then. I was glad to get away from the city. In accordance with Dr. Lessing’s passion for ‘useful employment,’ I had been put to work in the optical department of a jeweler’s. I was always skillful with my hands. I dare say I was a spindly, snappish, suspicious lad, but they were all very good to me after my mother died, except butter-faced Brownrigg, perhaps. But for me that summer centers around Martha, with her brown hair piled up on the top of her head, in a white dress with puffed shoulders, playing croquet on a green lawn, and laughing. I told you it was a long while ago.
“On the afternoon of the fifteenth of August we had all intended to be out. Even Brownrigg had intended to go out after a sort of lunch-tea that we had at two o’clock in the afternoon. Look to your right, gentlemen. You see that bow window in the middle of the house, overhanging the lake? There was where the table was set.
“Dr. Lessing was the first to leave the table. He was going out early for his
nap in the summerhouse. It was a very hot afternoon, as drowsy as the sound of a lawn mower. The sun baked the old bricks and made a flat blaze on the water. Junior had knocked together a sort of miniature landing-stage at the side of the lake—it was just about where we are sitting now—and the punt and the rowing-boat were lying there.
“From the open windows we could all see Dr. Lessing going down to the landing-stage with the sun on his bald spot. He had a pillow in one hand and a book in the other. He took the rowing-boat; he could never manage the punt properly, and it irritated a man of his dignity to try.
“Martha was the next to leave. She laughed and ran away, as she always did. Then Junior said, ‘Cheerio, chaps’—or whatever the expression was then—and strode out leaving the door open. I went shortly afterwards. Junior had asked Brownrigg whether he intended to go out, and Brownrigg had said yes. But he remained, being lazy, with a pile of walnut shells in front of him. Though he moved back from the table to get out of the glare, he lounged there all afternoon in view of the lake.
“Of course, what Brownrigg said or thought might not have been important. But it happened that a gardener named Robinson had taken it into his head to trim some hedges on this side of the house. He had a full view of the lake. And all that afternoon nothing stirred. The summerhouse, as you can see, has two doors, one facing toward the house, the other in the opposite direction. These openings were closed by sun-blinds, striped red and white like Junior’s blazer, so that you could not see inside. But all the afternoon the summerhouse remained dead, showing up against the fiery water and that clump of trees at the far side of the lake. No boat put out. No one went in to swim. There was not so much as a ripple, any more than might have been caused by the swans (we had two of them), or by the spring that fed the lake.
“By six o’clock we were all back in the house. When there began to be a few shadows, I think something in the emptiness of the afternoon alarmed us. Dr. Lessing should have been there, demanding something. He was not there. We halloo’d for him, but he did not answer. The rowing-boat remained tied up by the summerhouse. Then Brownrigg, in his cool fetch-and-run fashion, told me to go out and wake up the old party. I pointed out that there was only the punt, and that I was a rotten hand at punting, and that whenever I tried it I only went ’round in circles or upset the boat. But Junior said, ‘Come-along-old-chap-you-shall-improve-your-punting-I’ll-give-you-a-hand.’