by Otto Penzler
“Zombies. Dead men brought to life by voodoo in the West Indies to work in the fields. And dreams, too. I know all about prophetic dreams.”
Clobber was almost spitting with rage. “What do you mean, you know? What are you getting at?”
“I’ll tell you some other time,” said Heston. “Here’s the station wagon, and I’m in a hurry.”
Joubert said: “And the next time he mentioned a dream to you was to tell you he wouldn’t reach the lower station alive?”
“Yes.”
“And now do you believe in prophetic dreams?”
“It’s got so I don’t know what to believe.”
Joubert rose. “Well, I do. There are no prophesies and nothing here except a cleverly planned murder, and God help you if you did it, Clobber—because I’m going to smash your alibi.”
“You can’t smash the truth,” said Clobber. “In any case, why should I be the one under suspicion?”
“One of the reasons,” said Joubert, “is that you wear gloves.”
Clobber grinned for the first time. “Then you’ll have to widen your suspect list. We all wear them up here. Dimble has a pair. Ben, too. And, yes, Mrs. Orvin generally carries kid gloves.”
“All right,” said Joubert savagely. “That’s enough for now. Tell Ben we want to see him.”
Ben came, gave his evidence, and went.
“If I could prove that he and Clobber were collaborating,” Joubert started, but Rolf stopped him with a shake of his head.
“No, Dirk. There is nothing between them. I could see that. You could see it, too.”
“We’re stymied,” said Johnson. “Apparently nobody could have done it. I examined the cable-car myself, and I’m prepared to swear there’s no sign of any sort of apparatus which could explain the stabbing of a man in mid-air. He was alive when he left the top, and dead at the half-way mark. It’s just … plain impossible.”
“Not quite,” said Joubert. “We do know some facts. First, this is a carefully premeditated crime. Secondly, it was done before the car left the summit—”
Rolf said: “No, Dirk. The most important facts in this case lie in what Heston told Clobber—his dream of death—his thirty-first birthday—”
“What are you getting at, Oom?”
“I think I know how and why Heston was killed, Dirk. It’s only a theory now, and I do not like to talk until I have proof. But you can help me get that proof …”
The word went round. A reconstruction of the crime. Everyone must do exactly as he did when Heston was killed.
Whispers.
“Who’s going to take Heston’s place?”
“The elderly chap with a beard: le Roux I think his name is. The one they call Oom Rolf.”
“Do you think they’ll find out anything? Do you think—?”
“We’ll know soon enough, anyway.”
On the lower station Joubert rang the signal for the reconstruction to start. Dimble, Mrs. Orvin, and Skager went towards the bottom car. Sergeant Botha went, too.
Rolf le Roux came through the door of the upper landing platform, and looked at Ben sweeping out the empty car.
He said: “Baas Heston spoke to you, and you stopped sweeping?”
“Yes. And then I came out of the car, like this.”
“And then?”
“Then we talked.”
“Where did Baas Heston stand?”
He got into the car, and stood near the door. “Yes, just about there.” He paused. “Do you think you will find out who killed him?”
“It is possible.”
“I hope not, Baas. This Heston was a bad man.”
“All the same, it is not right that he should be killed. The murderer must be punished.”
Two sharp bells rang in the driver’s cabin. The car began to move. Ben went through the door up the stairs and stood in the cabin with Clobber and Johnson. They saw Rolf lean over and wave with an exaggerated gesture.
Clobber reached to lift a pair of binoculars, but Johnson gripped his arm. “Wait. Did you pick them up at this stage the first time?”
“No. I only used them after the emergency brake was applied.”
“Then leave them alone now.”
They watched the two cars crawling slowly across space towards each other.
In the ascending car Dimble peered approvingly at the one which was descending. “That’s right,” he said to Botha. “He’s leaning over the door exactly as Heston … Good God!”
He pulled the emergency brake. Mrs. Orvin sobbed and then screamed.
The telephone rang. Botha clapped the instrument to his ear.
“Everything OK?” asked Johnson.
“No!” said Botha, “no! Something’s happened to Rolf. There’s a knife sticking out of his back. It looks like the same knife …”
From the lower station Joubert cut in excitedly. “What are you saying, Botha? It’s impossible …”
“It’s true, Inspector. I can see it quite clearly from here. And he’s not moving …”
“Get him down here,” said Joubert. “Quick!”
The cars moved again.
In the driver’s cabin Johnson, through powerful binoculars, watched the car with the sagging figure go down, down, losing sight of it only as it entered the lower station.
Joubert, with Brander, stood on the landing-stage watching the approaching car. He felt suddenly lost and bewildered and angry.
“Oom Rolf,” he muttered.
Brander’s eyes were sombre with awe. “The Lord has given,” he said, “and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
He and Joubert stepped forward as the car bumped to a stop.
The head of the corpse with the knife in its back suddenly twisted, grinned, said gloatingly: “April fool!”
Brander shivered into shocked action. His arms waved in an ecstacy of panic. His bandaged left hand gripped the hilt of the knife held between Rolf’s left arm and his body, and raised it high in a convulsive gesture. Rolf twisted away, but his movement was unnecessary. Joubert had acted, too.
Brander struggled, but only for a second. Then he stood meekly, peering in myopic surprise at the handcuffs clicking round his wrists.
“And that is how Heston was killed,” said Rolf. “He died because he remembered today was April the first—All Fools Day—and because he had that type of mind, he thought of a joke, and he played it to the bitter end. A joke on Clobber, on the people in the ascending car, on Brander.
“But to Brander it was not a joke—it was horror incarnate. A dead man come to life. This was infinitely more terrible than the dream he feared of a knock from a coffin. This was like the very lid being suddenly flung open in his face. And his reaction was the typical response to panic when there is no escape—a wild uncontrollable aggression, striking out in every direction—as he struck out at me when the unthinkable happened again.
“The first time he plunged the knife into Heston. The joke became reality. The dead stopped walking.”
“And now you see why there were no fingerprints on the knife. Brander is left-handed—he reached for the hot iron with that hand, remember. So it was burnt and bandaged. Bandages—no fingerprints. The way Heston was crouched, too, explains the angle of the wound.”
Joubert said: “So it was not premeditated after all.” Then, to Brander: “Why did you not tell the truth?”
Brander said, meekly: “Who would believe the truth?” Then, louder, with undertones of a new hysteria: “The dead are dead. They must rest in peace. Always rest. They are from hell if they walk …”
Then he mumbled, and his voice trailed off as he raised his eyes, and his gaze saw far beyond the mountain and the blue of the sky.
*Afrikaans: “Good day.”
* Afrikaans: “Scram!”
*Curved Boer pipe.
THE CROOKED PICTURE
HAD HE BEEN BORN a few decades earlier, John Thomas Lutz (1939–) would have been a star in the pulp world. With
more than forty novels and two hundred short stories to his credit, he has demonstrated both the ingenuity and work ethic of those early writers who turned out readable, entertaining prose year after year. Born in Dallas, Texas, Lutz moved to St. Louis when young and has lived there ever since. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1975, he had jobs as a construction worker, theater usher, warehouse worker, truck driver, and switchboard operator for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. His writing career is as varied as his background, producing private eye stories, political suspense, humor, occult stories, psychological suspense, tales of espionage, historical works, futuristic writings, police procedurals, and urban suspense fiction. His first series character, Alo Nudger, who made his debut in Buyer Beware (1976), may be the least likely private eye in the mystery genre. He is so compassionate that he is downright meek, a borderline coward who is an out-and-out loser paralyzed by overdue bills, clients who refuse to pay him, and a blood-sucking former wife. A more traditional character is the Florida-based P.I. Fred Carver, a former cop forced off the job after a Latino street punk kneecaps him; his first appearance was in Tropical Heat (1986). Lutz’s most commercially successful book is probably SWF Seeks Same (1990), a suspense thriller that served as the basis for the 1992 movie Single White Female starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Lutz has served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and has been nominated for four Edgar Awards, winning in 1986 for best short story for “Ride the Lightning.”
“The Crooked Picture” was first published in the November 1967 issue of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine.
JOHN LUTZ
THE ROOM was a mess. The three of them, Paul Eastmont, his wife, Laura, and his brother, Cuthbert, were sitting rigidly and morosely. They were waiting for Louis Bratten.
“But just who is this Bratten?” Laura Eastmont asked in a shaking voice. She was a very beautiful woman, on the edge of middle age.
Cuthbert, recently of several large eastern universities, said, “A drunken, insolent sot.”
“And he’s a genius,” Paul Eastmont added, “in his own peculiar way. More importantly, he’s my friend.” He placed a hand on his wife’s wrist. “Bratten is the most discreet man I know.”
Laura shivered. “I hope so, Paul.”
Cuthbert rolled his king-size cigarette between thumb and forefinger, an annoyed look on his young, aquiline face. “I don’t see why you put such stock in the man, Paul. He’s run the gamut of alcoholic degeneration. From chief of homicide to—what? If I remember correctly, you told me some time ago that they’d taken away his private investigator’s license.”
He saw that he was upsetting his sister-in-law even more and shrugged his thin shoulders. “My point is that he’s hardly the sort of man to be confided in concerning this.” He looked thoughtful. “On the other hand, half of what he says is known to be untrue anyway.”
The butler knocked lightly, pushed one of the den’s double doors open, and Louie Bratten entered. He was a blocky, paunchy little man of about forty, with a perpetual squint in one eye. His coarse, dark hair was mussed, his suit was rumpled, and his unclasped tie hung crookedly outside one lapel. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of a hurricane.
“Bratten!” Paul Eastmont said in warm greeting. “You don’t know how glad I am to have you in on this!”
Cuthbert nodded coldly. “Mr. Bratten.”
Laura stared intently at her hands, which were folded in her lap.
“Give me a drink,” Bratten said.
Paul crossed to the portable bar and poured him a straight scotch, no ice.
Bratten sipped the scotch, smacked his lips in satisfaction, and then slouched in the most comfortable leather armchair in the den.
“Now, what’s bugging you, Paul?” he asked.
Cuthbert stood and leaned on the mantel. “It’s hardly a matter to be taken lightly,” he said coldly.
“How in the hell can I take it lightly,” Bratten asked, “when I don’t even know what the matter is?”
Paul raised a hand for silence. “Let me explain briefly. Several years ago, before Laura and I had met, a picture was taken of her in a very—compromising pose. This photo fell into the hands of a blackmailer named Hays, who has been milking us for two hundred dollars a month for the past four years. Recently Hays needed some cash badly. He offered to give me the photo for five thousand dollars.”
Paul Eastmont glanced protectively at his embarrassed wife. “Naturally I agreed, and the deal was made. The negative, incidentally, was destroyed long ago, and I happen to know that the photo wasn’t reproduced at any time since by taking a picture of it. That was part of the original blackmail arrangement. It’s the only picture in existence, an eight-by-ten glossy.”
“Interesting,” Bratten said.
“But Hays turned out to be a stubborn sort,” Paul went on. “He gave me the photograph yesterday, and like a fool I didn’t destroy it. He saw me put it in my wall safe. Last night he broke in here and tried to steal it back.”
“And did he?”
“We don’t know. Clark, the butler, sleeps in that part of the house, and he heard Hays tinkering about. He surprised him as he ran in here.”
“Terrific scotch,” Bratten said. “Did he have the photo?”
“Yes. It wasn’t in the wall safe. As you can see, he hurriedly rummaged about in this room, lifting cushions, knocking over the lamp, we think looking for a place to hide the photo. Then he leaped out the window.”
“Caught?”
“Hurt himself when he landed and couldn’t run fast enough. Shot dead by the police just outside the gate. And he didn’t have the photo on his body, nor was it on the grounds.”
“Hays was a smart blackmailer,” Bratten said. He squinted at Paul. “You left the room as it was?”
Paul nodded. “I know your peculiar way of working. But the photo must be in this room. We looked everywhere, but we didn’t disturb anything, put everything back exactly the way we found it.”
“Ah, that’s good,” Bratten said, either of the scotch or of the Eastmonts’ actions. “Another drink, if you please.” He handed the empty glass up to Cuthbert, who was the only one standing.
“Really,” Cuthbert said, grabbing the glass. “If I had my way we wouldn’t have confided this to you.”
“We never did hit it off, did we?” Bratten laughed. “That’s probably because you have too much education. Ruins a man sometimes. Restricts his thinking.”
Cuthbert reluctantly gave Bratten his fresh drink. “You should be an expert on ruination.”
“Touch. That means touché in English.” Bratten leaned back and ran his tongue over his lips. “This puts me in mind of another case. One about ten years ago. There was this locked-room-type murder—”
“What on earth does a locked-room murder have to do with this case?” Cuthbert interrupted in agitation.
“Everything, you idiot.”
Paul motioned for Cuthbert to be silent, and Bratten continued.
“Like they say,” Bratten said, “there’s a parallel here.” He took a sip of scotch and nonchalantly hung one leg over an arm of his chair. “There were these four brothers, rich, well bred—like Cuthbert here, only with savvy. They’d made their pile on some cheap real estate development out West. The point is, the business was set up so one of the brothers controlled most of the money, and they didn’t get along too well to start off with.”
He raised his glass and made a mock bow to Cuthbert. “In language you’d understand, it was a classic sibling rivalry intensified by economic inequality. What it all meant was that if this one brother was dead, the other three would profit a hell of a lot. And lo and behold, this one brother did somehow get dead. That’s when I was called into the case by a friend of mine, a local sheriff in Illinois.
“Seems one of the brothers had bought a big old house up in a remote wooded area, and six months later the four of them met up there for a business conference or something. The
three surviving brothers’ story was simply that their brother had gone into this room, locked the door, and never came out. Naturally not, lying in the middle of the floor with a knife in his chest.”
“I fail to see any parallel whatever so far,” Cuthbert said.
“The thing of it was, this room was locked from the inside with a sliding bolt and a key still in the keyhole. The one window that opened was locked and there wasn’t a mark on the sill. It was summer, and the ground was hard, but I don’t think we would have found anything outside anyway.”
“Secret panel, no doubt,” Cuthbert said.
“Nope. It did happen to be a paneled room, though. We went over that room from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. There was no way out but the door or the window. And to make the thing really confusing, the knife was wiped clean of prints, and there was nothing nearby the dying man could have used to do that, even if he’d been crazy enough to want to for some reason. There was no sign of a struggle, or of any blood other than what had soaked into the rug around the body.
“Without question the corpse was lying where it fell. On the seat of a chair was an open book, and on an end table was a half-empty cup of coffee with the dead man’s prints on it. But there was one other thing in the room that caught my attention.”
“Well, get it over with and get to the business at hand,” Cuthbert said, trying to conceal his interest. “Who was it and how was it done?”
“Another drink,” Bratten said, handing up his glass. “Now here was the situation: dead man in a locked room, three suspects with good motives who were in the same house at the time of the murder, and a knife without prints. The coroner’s inquest could come to no conclusion but suicide unless the way the murderer left the room was explained. Without that explanation, no jury could convict.”
Bratten paused to take a long pull of scotch. “The authorities thought they were licked, and my sheriff friend and I were walking around the outside of the house, talking about how hopeless things were, when I found it.”
“The solution?” Cuthbert asked.