by Otto Penzler
“Can you add anything to the occasion?” I asked her.
She smiled very sweetly at me and shook her head.
“All right, bum,” I said. “You’re pinched. Let’s go.”
Then it seemed she could add something to the occasion. She had something to say, quite a few things to say, and they were all about me. They weren’t nice things. In anger her voice was shrill, and just now she was madder than you’d think anybody could get on short notice. I was sorry for that. This job had run along peacefully and gently so far, hadn’t been marred by any rough stuff, had been almost ladylike in every particular; and I had hoped it would go that way to the end. But the more she screamed at me the nastier she got. She didn’t have any words I hadn’t heard before, but she fitted them together in combinations that were new to me. I stood as much of it as I could.
Then I knocked her over with a punch in the mouth.
“Here! Here!” Bill Garren yelled, grabbing my arm.
“Save your strength, Bill,” I advised him, shaking his hand off and going over to yank the Eveleth person up from the floor. “Your gallantry does you credit, but I think you’ll find Blanche’s real name is Tom, Dick, or Harry.”
I hauled her (or him, whichever you like) to his or her feet and asked it: “Feel like telling us about it?”
For answer I got a snarl.
“All right,” I said to the others, “in the absence of authoritative information I’ll give you my dope. If Blanche Eveleth could have been the robber except for the beard and the difficulty of a woman passing for a man, why couldn’t the robber have been Blanche Eveleth before and after the robbery by using a—what do you call it?—strong depilatory on his face, and a wig? It’s hard for a woman to masquerade as a man, but there are lots of men who can get away with the feminine role. Couldn’t this bird, after renting his apartment as Blanche Eveleth and getting everything lined up, have stayed in his apartment for a couple of days letting his beard grow? Come down and knock the job over? Beat it upstairs, get the hair off his face, and get into his female rig in, say, fifteen minutes? My guess is that he could. And he had fifteen minutes. I don’t know about the smashed nose. Maybe he stumbled going up the stairs and had to twist his plans to account for it—or maybe he smacked himself intentionally.”
My guesses weren’t far off, though his name was Fred—Frederick Agnew Rudd. He was known in Toronto, having done a stretch in the Ontario Reformatory as a boy of nineteen, caught shoplifting in his she-make-up. He wouldn’t come though, and we never turned up his gun or the blue suit, cap, and black gloves, although we found a cavity in his mattress where he had stuffed them out of the police’s sight until later that night, when he could get rid of them. But the Toplin sparklers came to light piece by piece when we had plumbers take apart the drains and radiators in apartment 702.
THE EPISODE OF THE TORMENT IV
OF THE MERE SEVEN volumes of detective fiction that Charles Daly King (1895–1963) produced in his lifetime, his undoubted masterpiece is the short-story collection The Curious Mr. Tarrant. Although King was an American, the book was first published in England in 1935 and was among the rarest mystery books of the twentieth century until Dover issued the first American edition as a paperback in 1977.
Because of their uneven nature and occasional long, boring passages, King’s novels are not often read today, despite the ingenuity of their plotting. In Obelists at Sea (1932), four psychologists, each a specialist in a different area of study, investigate a murder from their perspective and knowledge; all are proved wrong. In Arrogant Alibi (1938), the nine suspects for two murders all have impeccable, unshakable alibis. Trevis Tarrant, the amateur detective in the eponymous story collection, is a wealthy, cultured gentleman of leisure who believes in cause and effect; they “rule the world,” he says. He takes it on himself to explain locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes that involve such improbabilities as mysterious footsteps by an invisible entity heard even in broad daylight, horrible images of a hanged man haunting a modern house, headless corpses found on a heavily traveled highway, as well as dealing with apparent ghosts and other supernormal happenings. It entertains him to bring his gift of being able to see things clearly and solve mysteries by the use of inarguable logic. He is accompanied at all times by his valet, Katoh, a Japanese doctor and spy.
“The Episode of the Torment IV” was first published in The Curious Mr. Tarrant (London, Collins, 1935).
C. DALY KING
Characters of the Episode
JERRY PHELAN, the narrator
VALERIE PHELAN, his wife
MORGAN WHITE, their host
LESTER BLACK, a neighbour
AMELIE BLACK, his wife
JULIE BLACK, their daughter
TOM CONSTABLE, Black’s cousin
TOM CONSTABLE, JUN., his son
MARGARET CONSTABLE, his widow
JIM DUFF, hired man
TREVIS TARRANT, interested in puzzles
WE WERE driving straight towards horror. Though we didn’t know it yet.
Valerie said, “Darling, I do hope Trevis’s friend has a decent place. I want a big room, with blinds to make it dim, and none of those awful New Hampshire spiders. And I want a nice, long bath.”
“Oh, I guess his place is all right. Nothing much any one can do about New Hampshire spiders, though; they’re big and nasty. But there won’t be any in our room. The fellow probably has a good enough shack. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Ugh! … Spiders.” Valerie grimaced. “Yes, I suppose it’ll be a good house. Trevis is rather tasteful about places himself.”
We were motoring down from Canada and had arranged to pick up Tarrant at Winnespequam Lake where he had been staying with a friend named Morgan White, whom neither Valerie nor I had met. Tarrant planned to come along with us to New York a couple of days later, for White had been good enough to write, asking us to break our trip at his place for a day or so. We had gotten well along now, had passed Lancaster and were scooting through the Crawford Notch as fast as we could. It was as hot as blazes.
I said, “Another hour and a half will get us there. Then a swim, before anything else. I feel like a strip of wilted cardboard.”
“I want a nice, long bath,” Valerie repeated.
Ahead of us a small truck and a touring car loaded with about eighteen sweating travellers in their shirt sleeves were creeping along the hot asphalt through the centre of the valley. I gave the horn some lusty digs and we swerved past them.
And that, though we didn’t know it, either, was our introduction to the episode of Torment IV.
“The most intriguing problem I have ever heard of,” said Tarrant, “is the mystery of the Mary Celeste. It is practically perfect.”
As he spoke, he leaned back in the hammock chair an the moonlight glinted through dusk against the sharp lines of his lean, strong face. Across the water came the twinkle of little twin lights, red and green, where a motor-boat, a mere shadow on the darkening lake, put out from the opposite shore.
Valerie and I had arrived, hot and tired, about five in the afternoon. And I had had a most refreshing swim. Winnespequam, as a good many people know, is a New Hampshire lake. It is typical. Surrounded by hills, it has gathered around itself an almost unbroken line of the estates of prosperous merchants and professional men whose winter homes are in New York and Philadelphia. Some of the natives, too, boast modest bungalows nestling near the water, to which they repair during the summer months from their more permanent quarters in the little town that runs down to the northern tip of the lake. Even the motor highway that circles the shore travels chiefly between forested slopes and does little to disfigure the scene. It is a pleasant and carefree resort.
White, a big man and a good host, grunted, “Don’t know it. I’m sure you do. What’s the Mary Celeste?”
“You don’t know the Mary Celeste?” Tarrant was plainly surprised. “Why, it’s the perfect problem of all time. Dozens of people have had a whack at it,
including some fairly clever ones, but it remains to-day as unsolved and apparently insoluble as it was sixty years ago.”
He paused; then, as we were all quiet, obviously waiting for further information, he went on again. “The Mary Celeste, sometimes wrongly called the Marie Celeste, was a two-hundred-ton brig owned by an American called Winchester. She was picked up by the barque Dei Gratia one pleasant afternoon early in December, 1872, about three hundred miles west of Gibraltar. This was what was wrong about her: there was not a soul on board and she was sailing derelict on the starboard tack against a north wind that was driving her off her course. Her chronometer, her manifest, bills of lading and register were missing. A further examination showed that a cutlass hanging in her cabin bore stains as if blood had been wiped from it; but a medical officer in Gibraltar, who subsequently analysed these stains, declared that they were not of blood. There was a deep cut in her rail, as if made by an axe; but no axe has been mentioned as having been found aboard. On both sides of the bows a small strip, a little more than an inch wide and six or seven feet long had recently been cut from her outer planking a few feet above the water line; this strip was only about three-eighths of an inch deep and had no effect upon her seaworthiness. Her log had been written up to the evening of the twelfth day previous and the slate log carried to eight a.m. of the eleventh day before. In other words the log was not up-to-date.
“But what was right about her was more astonishing. In the galley were the remains of a burnt-out fire above which stood the victuals for the crew’s breakfast. Some of their clothes were hanging upon a line to dry and their effects were in good order and undisturbed. In the master’s cabin breakfast had been partly eaten; some porridge was left in a bowl and an egg had been cut open and left standing in its holder. A bottle of cough mixture had been left on the table, its cork beside it. An harmonium stood in one corner and in a sewing machine was a child’s garment, partly sewed. None of these articles were in any way disturbed. In the first mate’s quarters, moreover, was found a piece of paper with an unfinished sum upon it, just as he had put it aside when interrupted. For the eleven days during which the log had not been kept, the weather over the course from which the point last noted in the log to the position where the Mary Celeste was found, had been mild. The cargo, some casks of alcohol for Genoa, was intact and securely stowed. The boat itself was staunch in all respects, hull, masts, and rigging. There was no sign whatsoever of fire or other hazard. And last of all, the single small boat with which the brig was equipped, was upon its davits, untouched, and properly secured.
“Those are the essential facts, as evidenced by many and reliable witnesses. They make a very pretty problem.… Of course, a good many hypotheses have been advanced. But actually not one of them is even as easy to credit as the curious state of affairs that was discovered when the Mary Celeste was boarded that December afternoon.… What could possibly have happened to make a competent crew, not to mention the captain’s wife and small daughter, abandon a perfectly sound ship in fine weather, without so much as attempting to launch her boat?…”
There was a little silence.
“Match your mystery,” White grunted. “Right here.”
Tarrant twisted round in his chair. “Yes? I think you would be put to it to find another enigma with such simple and such contradictory factors.”
“Judge for yourself,” said our host.… “The Blacks. That big place just across the lake is theirs. Closed up now. They had the Torment IV and they were——”
Struck by his unusual expression, I interrupted. “What in heaven’s name is a torment four?” I asked. “How do you mean they had it?”
“Oh, no mystery there,” he assured us. “That is the name of their motor-boat. Blacks have been coming up here for years, and a good many years ago now they got their first boat. Just when steam launches were going out and gas engines coming in. Wasn’t much of a boat; jerky and spasmodic, and among other essentials it lacked a self-starter. A fairly thorough nuisance, and they named it, quite properly, Torment.
“Presently they got another; though the second one had a self-starter it was just one more thing to be spasmodic and Torment II was a good name for that one also. The third was much better, really a proper boat, but by that time the name had become traditional. Torment III was turned in only a year ago and the new one, Torment IV, is a beauty; long, fast, polished up like a new dime. I was out in her early this summer; I remember at the time that Torment seemed a foolish title for such a beautiful piece of machinery, but now—well, I don’t know.”
He paused, and, “Yes, but what happened?” asked Valerie.
“All killed. Lester Black and his wife, Amelie, and their small daughter. Just like your captain and his family.”
“I didn’t say the captain had been killed.” Tarrant’s reservation came softly across from the railing.
“Touch,” said White. “Wrong myself. They’re dead; at least two of ’em are. Said they were killed, but I don’t even know that. No one knows what actually happened to them.”
The voice from the railing was plainly interested now. “Come on, Morgan, what did happen?”
“I tell you I don’t know. It was really extraordinary.… Well, here’s the story. Blacks came up early this year and so did I. It occurred about the end of June; hot spell then, if you remember, and we got it here, too. It was a beautiful, bright day and very warm for that time of year. Middle of the afternoon, Torment IV ran ashore a little way up the lake from here; that was the first we knew anything was wrong.
“Let me take your method and tell you want was right about her first. To begin with, her keel was hardly scratched and that came from her grounding, which happened by good luck on a strip of sand. Later, when the affair turned into a tragedy, I went over her carefully with the sheriff and there wasn’t another mark or dent of any kind on her. Engine, transmission, and so on, in perfect condition—ran her back to the Blacks’ dock myself after we found her. Have to tell you the cushions and pillows on the after-deck are life preservers in themselves, filled with some kind of stuff that will keep you afloat if necessary. Not one of ’em had been disturbed in any way; all present and accounted for. Not a leak, not a single miss from the motor—nothing.
“In fact, only two items were wrong. First, one of the chairs on the afterdeck was overturned; might have happened when she ran ashore. Second, no one was in her. I know, for I saw the boat a hundred yards or so off land and watched her bump.… That’s all.”
Tarrant threw the remains of his cigar in a wide arc and, three seconds later, came a tiny phizz as it struck the water below. “You mean these three people simply vanished?” he demanded. “How do you know they even went out in the boat in the first place?”
“Found that out when I took the boat back. They had gone out after lunch, apparently for a joy ride. And they were drowned somewhere in the middle of the lake—two of the bodies were recovered later, Black’s and his wife’s, not the child’s—but how or why is a complete mystery.”
“But in the middle of a bright afternoon——” Tarrant began. “There were no witnesses at all? No one saw them?”
“Well, they went up to the town dock at the end of the lake and got some gas; that was established. Then they headed out again—Lester Black was running the boat—and that is the last any one saw of them. Of course, end of June, not many people around the lake, still a bit early for the summer people. Just the same it is strange. Inquiries were made all around the lake, of course, but no one was found to throw even a glimmer on the thing.”
“H’m,” remarked Tarrant. “There was no obvious cause, I suppose? No trouble, financial or otherwise? An estrangement between husband and wife, something serious?”
“Not a chance,” White grunted. “I wasn’t an intimate friend but I’ve known them for years. Man had plenty of money, lived a leisurely life, great family man, as a matter of fact. Very fond of his wife and daughter and they of him. Last thing in the world he would
do, kill them and drown himself, if you’ve anything like that in your head.”
Tarrant, meantime, had lit a cigarette and now smoked silently for some minutes. Finally he spoke. “Still, something like that is all you leave, if your other facts are right, isn’t it? People don’t jump out of a perfectly good motor-boat in the middle of a lake for nothing. Could they swim?”
“They could all swim, though probably none of them would have been good for a mile or more. And I’ve told you about the life preservers, every one of them in the boat. We made a careful check of that, naturally.”
“Well, there you are. The more you say, the more it appears to have been a purposeful performance.… There are lots of things in people’s lives that are kept pretty well hidden.… What happened to the boat?”
“I don’t believe there was a thing in Lester Black’s life that would account for that kind of tragedy,” our host insisted. “Prosaic man, prosaic as hell. The boat was inherited by the Constables, cousins of the Blacks. Live next them up here, down the road a bit. They didn’t use the boat for some time; didn’t care to, I guess. Lately they’ve been taking her out once in a while. Boat’s really too good to throw away.”
Again there came a pause, but just as I was about to enter an opinion, Tarrant summed the matter up. “Let’s see; here it is, then. Black took his wife and daughter out for a spin on a nice, clear day. First they went to the village dock and bought gas. Then they turned out into the lake once more. From the time when they left the village—— By the way, when was that?”
“Between two and two thirty.”
“And when did the boat come ashore?”
“Just about four o’clock.”
“Then some time during that hour and a half the man and his wife went overboard and doubtless the child, too. There is no way, apparently, of fixing it closer than that?”