The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  When, later, Valda tripped into the ring Mona gasped and clutched my arm. “It’s her,” she said.

  “Looking exactly like you, only in pink tights,” I whispered.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said, her eyes on the ring. “Now, listen, Rodney, if she starts performing catherine wheels you must stop the show.”

  “I’ll do nothing of the kind,” I said. “Besides, she isn’t going to perform catherine wheels.”

  Valda had advanced to the centre of the ring followed by Cincotta. The latter cupped his hand and into it she placed a pink-slippered foot. Her hands grasped a hanging rope and she began to climb. At the tent top she rested a moment on a trapeze and then, while Mona protested so audibly that even Nell shushed her, she began posing on the rope. Cincotta, from the ring below, pulled upon the end so that Valda, clinging now by her feet, now by her hands, swayed gently while a spotlight picked up her rounded figure and the band played “Dreaming.”

  Mona said: “It’s ghastly. She’ll be dashed to pieces.”

  It would be a nasty drop, I thought, but there was nothing harmful in the exercises themselves even if, sooner or later, she was going to have a baby.

  When it was over and Valda had bowed herself out of the ring, Mona said indignantly: “And that’s what that white-slaver calls a simple little act? Butchering her to make a Roman holiday! Making her swing in mid-air with a breaking heart!”

  In bed that night Mona tossed and turned and suddenly was wide-awake, sitting up so abruptly that, startled, I switched on the light.

  “I’ve just remembered,” she said. “That fat gipsy mistook me for someone. He thought I was Valda. They’d prophesied misfortune for her.”

  “What of it?” I asked. “They were right for once. Her man’s run away.”

  “Listen, Rodney,” my wife said, “You can turn over and go to sleep in cold blood if you like, but there was something foreboding about that gipsy. There was death in his eye.”

  “You’ve been dreaming,” I said.

  “Anyway,” she said, settling down, “tomorrow you’re driving us to the gipsies’ camp. I’m going to see what I can find out. It’s high time Nell had her fortune told.”

  “Maybe Nell doesn’t want to know her fate.”

  “Nonsense,” Mona said. “Everyone should know their fate. How else can they guard against it?” And with that piece of logic ringing in my ears I fell asleep.

  The gipsy camp looked deserted but when I hallooed, the paunchy Romany we had met previously appeared. He was flashily dressed with an opal tie-pin and several rings on fingers more bronzed by dirt than nature.

  “Remember me?” Mona said, using the smile Nell calls male-bait.

  “Could I forget, lady?” he responded, and Mona looked pleased.

  She pointed to Nell. “This lady wants to cross your palm, but first I want to ask you something. Yesterday you mistook me for someone.”

  I fancied the man’s eyes narrowed.

  “You said,” Mona went on, “ ‘Have you come back for more back luck?’ Please, I want to know. Did you prophesy something bad for the lady like me? I will pay, just as if you were telling her fortune again.”

  The gipsy smiled. “If someone else asked me,” he said, “I would never tell. For you, it is different. You are so lovely.” Mona cast down her eyes. “To you I say the woman is like you only in face. Her ways are dark ways. Her fate is a dark fate. For you there is love and happiness and children—let me see! How many?”

  “Really, I think that will do, thank you very much,” Mona said in a rush. “My husband’s a doctor, you see,” she added with seeming irrelevance. “Now you can tell my sister all about some tall dark man.” She smiled at him, bewitchingly.

  As I walked discreetly away, I heard Nell giggle. “Goodness! I don’t believe a word of this but I hope it will be good.”

  They were so long about the business that, becoming restless, I sauntered back. “I don’t want to interfere with fate,” I began, “but—”

  “Pooh!” Mona interrupted. “It’s quite early.” She rested her hand on the Romany’s sleeve as if she’d known him for years. “What time is it, Mr. er—?”

  “Rialando,” he volunteered, his eyes avid. Somehow she seemed to have hypnotized the fellow for, without a by-your-leave, she took hold of his massive gold chain and jerked his watch from his pocket. She released the spring and the lid flew open. “Why, it’s only three,” she said, snapping it shut and thrusting it back. It was an outrageous familiarity and it angered me to see the gipsy pass his tongue over his thick lips; but Mona seemed oblivious and Nell was laughing.

  “I can’t believe it,” she was saying, “Five children!” And then, suddenly, I remembered what I had seen. The highly-colored picture of some saint pasted inside the lid of the gipsy’s watch!

  “I knew it,” Mona exclaimed when, later, I told her about the picture and Cincotta’s reference to Varella’s superstition. “The gipsies lured him to the camp, robbed and murdered him, and heaved his body into that paddock.”

  “My dear girl,” I remonstrated, “why will you persist in associating Mr. Varella with the corpse? In the first place, Joe was a man with whiskers and rings in his ears.…”

  “There!” Mona cried, excitedly. “I knew there was something. That body had had rings in its ears. Don’t you remember how I told Nell we’d found a dead gipsy? I’d forgotten, but now I remember. Surely you noticed his ears had been pierced?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said, a little sulky. Then I shook my head. “It won’t do. It’s purely coincidence. Cincotta didn’t recognize the body. And your gipsy friends are not so strong they could heave a corpse thirty feet. No, Mona my love, they’d have had to drag him and they’d have left traces. And don’t forget, my precious, he wrote a valedictory message to Valda.”

  “I told you he can’t write,” she countered.

  “Well, got someone to write for him. And while your naked friend was in the morgue the bareback rider was in the city sending a telegram to Mr. Cincotta instructing him to salve Valda’s feelings with ten pounds.”

  “I don’t care,” Mona said, obstinately. “I think we should tell the policeman.”

  “I’ll tell him about the watch,” I said, “but I don’t expect him to do anything about it. That is, unless there’s been a complaint that it was stolen.” I put my arms around her. “Don’t let this thing get you down, my pet. The circus has gone. Cincotta has gone. Valda has gone. And Varella has gone. Stop being Mrs. Sherlock and be the doctor’s wife.”

  “I suppose I should,” she said, “but I can’t help thinking of that poor girl hanging by her toes.”

  “Actually, you’re being sorry for yourself,” I said. “Because Valda resembles you, you put yourself in her place. If she’d been a frowsy little imitation blonde you’d have forgotten her long ago.”

  “You can be terribly wise, Rodney,” she said, meekly, then kissed me excitingly. “If ever I run away, be sure to smack me when I come back.”

  When I awoke next morning she’d gone. An envelope stuck on the mirror bore the dramatic message, FAREWELL, in Mona’s characteristic scrawl.

  I was at the door in a bound, shouting for Nell. She appeared at once.

  “Now, don’t get excited,” she said. “She’s only eloped.”

  “What is this joke?”

  “She’s motored to the city with Tommy Stewart,” she informed me in mock horror, then grinned impishly. “Tommy’s wife went with them.”

  I suppose I looked a little sheepish for she patted my arm. “There,” she said, consolingly. “It takes time getting used to Mona. You’ve only had her two years. I’ve known her a lifetime.”

  When Mona came back she looked radiant. “Darling,” she cried, throwing her arms about me, “I hope you were frantic. But I was quite safe. Tommy drives beautifully and his wife kept her eye on him all the time.”

  “And that’s all the explanation I get?”

  “For the present, D
r. Fusspot.” She was thoughtful a moment. “Could you find out where the circus is?”

  “No, I can’t,” I said. “I’m sick of the circus.”

  “Then I shall ask that nice policeman, Mr. Cobblestone.”

  “Copestone,” I corrected, and added, ungraciously, “What is it you want him to do?”

  “Get a circus pass for you and me. You know—a free ticket. Admit Two.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mona, be sensible,” I said. “The circus is probably a hundred miles away. We’ve seen it, and we don’t want to see it again. Even if we did we could afford to pay. We don’t want a free ticket.”

  “Ah, but we do, darling,” she replied. “Just an admit-two from that white-slaver.”

  “Cincotta is not a white-slaver.”

  “Well, he looks like one,” Mona said, unperturbed. “Another thing! I want that poor girl taken off the trapeze and brought here.”

  I sat down heavily and she caressed my hair. “Darling,” she said, “you weren’t really upset about my clearing out with Tommy, were you? I’ll get you some aspirin.”

  “I don’t want aspirin,” I said. “All I want is some sense out of what you’re saying. All this nonsense about bringing Valda back! Why?”

  “Why?” she repeated in surprise. “To identify Mr. Varella’s body. It’s still here, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I said, “they’ve taken it to the city. And it isn’t Varella. Varella is alive and probably kicking. I’m not going to Copestone with any cock-and-bull story.”

  “You don’t have to talk about cocks and bulls at all,” Mona retorted with spirit. “All right,” she added, “we’ll forget about it. Every single thing.”

  From experience I knew that was just what she was not going to do.

  We had barely finished dinner when a goggling maid informed us that the policeman wanted Mona on the phone. She rose hurriedly and we heard her honey-sweet voice. “Oh, that’s splendid, Mr. Cob—Copestone. I think you’re wonderful. We’ll be right over.”

  Nell raised her eyebrows. “Here we go,” she said. “Plunging into crime again.”

  Mona bustled in as if we were all dying for a good old romp with a corpse. “Mr. Copestone says we can go over at once,” she said, her eyes shining. “It won’t take a minute. Just fancy, Rodney, he remembered that the white-slaver gave him a pass for the sanitary inspector and the sanitary inspector’s wife was having a ten-pound baby girl and couldn’t go so he’s still got it.”

  On our way I said: “Listen, Mona. I haven’t a notion what this is all about.”

  “Oh, but you have, darling,” she said in genuine surprise. “It’s about the admit-two and the telegram the white-slaver got from Varella.”

  “Don’t keep on calling Cincotta a white-slaver,” I said sternly, as a passer-by, who had caught the word, turned and stared.

  “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll just say W. S. and you’ll know.”

  Copestone made quite a fuss over Mona, settling her in the best chair, then dived into a drawer. “There you are, ma’am,” he said. Mona took the pasteboard he produced. It was characteristic of her that she gave him a dazzling smile before she looked at the card on which she had built high hopes. When at last she looked at it she said, “Yes, it’s the same,” and from her bag produced a folded paper, spreading it before us.

  The paper was a telegraph form—one that had been handed in for transmission. It read: “I admit nothing but give Valda ten pounds for me.”

  “What is this?” Copestone asked.

  “That,” Mona said, with a little note of triumph, “is the telegram Mr. Varella sent to the W. S.—I mean to Cincotta—after he died.”

  “Died?” Copestone exclaimed. “How could he send it if he was dead?”

  “He didn’t,” Mona explained. “Cincotta sent it himself to make it look as if Mr. Varella was alive.”

  I studied the form with new interest, recalling how Cincotta had thrust the message into my hand impressing upon me it had been sent that morning.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked Mona.

  Just for a moment she appeared confused. “Well, dear,” she said. “I suddenly remembered Leo White. He’s something awfully important in the head post office. I knew he could get it for me.” She hurried on. “You remember Leo, surely, dear? The tall dark boy who took me to the theatre on nights when you had to study.”

  “I don’t understand,” Copestone said. “Who is Varella?”

  “He’s the dead man in the paddock,” Mona said, promptly.

  “Nothing of the sort, Sergeant,” I objected. “She’s guessing.”

  “Varella was a circus man?” Copestone asked.

  “With rings in his ears and whiskers. Cincotta shaved them off—the whiskers I mean—and put him in the paddock,” my wife told him.

  “Mona!” I exclaimed. “This is outrageous. We have nothing against Mr. Cincotta. All the experts say the body fell from an airplane.”

  “That’s right, ma’am,” the policeman said. “It’s the only conclusion you could come to. There were absolutely no signs of anyone ever being near the body.”

  “Well,” Mona said, “I don’t know how it got there but I am sure Cincotta did it.”

  “He didn’t recognize the body,” Copestone said, heavily.

  “Well, you wouldn’t expect him to bound in and say, ‘Oh, goody, here’s the man I murdered,’ now would you?” Mona smiled.

  “But,” I objected, “we don’t even know he sent the wire.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” she replied. “But we wouldn’t have found out if Mr. Copestone hadn’t so cleverly remembered about the sanitary man’s free pass.” She took up the pasteboard. “See, it says, Admit Two. Look at the ‘Admit.’ Now look at the ‘Admit’ on the telegraph form.”

  There wasn’t the slightest doubt that the words had been written by the same hand.

  “Cincotta killed Varella,” Mona announced, definitely. “And he wants you to think Joe is alive. I bet the note Valda got was written by Cincotta, too. When I think of that poor girl going to have a baby on the high trapeze—”

  Copestone cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps you had better tell it all,” he said and spread an enormous sheaf of paper before him. Carefully he selected a nib. “Now then, nice and clear like, eh?”

  It was over at last and the sergeant said: “There’s some funny aspects but it all hinges on the identity of the corpse. Perhaps this M’lle. Valda should view the body.”

  “Yes,” my wife said, quietly. “I think that, too. It’s hateful, but she would have to know sometime.”

  “We’ll be tactful,” Copestone promised. “Now, ma’am, you’re sure you have told us everything?”

  “Why, yes,” Mona said, picking up her bag. She suddenly put it down again. “Oh, I forgot all about the gipsy and the watch.”

  “Gipsy? Watch?” Copestone blinked.

  “Yes,” Mona went on, “yesterday I went to the camp again.” She gave me an apologetic glance. “I persuaded Mrs. Stewart to have her fortune told. It was awfully good. She’s going to have three husbands. And while the woman was telling it I got that fat gipsy on one side and I told him he was going to be arrested for murder.”

  “Mona! for heaven’s sake!” I ejaculated.

  “I told him he had the corpse’s watch and I asked him if he didn’t kill him, how did he get it? He was terribly flustered.”

  “I’ll bet he was,” Nell said, dryly.

  “He told me all about it—in confidence, of course,” Mona went on. “He pinched it off Varella the night he was murdered.”

  “If he was murdered,” Copestone amended, painstakingly. “So this Varella was at the camp?”

  “Yes,” Mona said, blandly. “He was there with Mr. Cincotta.”

  I leaned across Copestone’s desk. “Mona,” I said, “don’t make such definite statements unless you’re sure.”

  “But I am sure, darling,” she said. “Didn’t the gipsy tell me?�
�� She appealed to Nell. “You know him. The fat one who told you you’d have five children. You said yourself that you thought he told the truth.”

  I hardly noticed Nell’s blush. “And Valda was there, too?”

  Mona nodded. “Varella and Valda had their fortunes told, then they all drove off in their truck.” She thrust her hand into her bag. “There’s the watch to prove it,” she said and handed it to Copestone. “Mr. Rialando says he never wants to see the damn thing again.”

  “If it wasn’t for the way the corpse was found,” Copestone said as we left, “this would look very pretty, but even if Valda recognizes the body we still don’t know how it got where Daffy found it.”

  “Did Daffy hear any plane that morning?” I enquired.

  “Yes, he heard one,” Copestone grinned, “but he also heard the Angel Gabriel.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Nell, “it was Mr. Cincotta who dropped the body from the plane.”

  Copestone dealt with the suggestion with official gravity. “No, miss, if he was at the camp as alleged, there wouldn’t have been time. You can’t pick up a plane like a taxi.”

  “Unless,” I said, “he’d arranged for one. That’s pretty flat country.”

  Copestone telephoned me late next afternoon. He’d caught up with the circus and rushed Valda to the city. No, Cincotta hadn’t objected. “But it’s no go,” the sergeant told me. “The girl couldn’t recognize the corpse.”

  When I told Mona she stared at me as if she couldn’t believe it; then she burst into tears.

  For the next two days golf had my serious and undivided attention. In the evenings my wife appeared quieter than usual but seemed to have forgotten the murder.

  It was a shock, therefore, when meeting Copestone on my first morning free from golf, he said, “If I might say so, doctor, that wife of yours is a very remarkable woman.”

  “Indeed,” I said with foreboding.

  He watched me slyly. “Says I’ll become Chief of Police.”

  I recognized Mona’s brand of flattery and sighed. “Tell me the worst, Copestone. What is she up to now?”

  “As a matter of fact, doc,” he said. “I’m running her up to Parriwatta. Cincotta’s circus is there tonight.”