The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  “Mark and Jenny from publicity; the guides; myself and my secretary. At first he would let people in very grudgingly, but a couple of months ago he decided that he was sick of interruptions so he locked himself in and refused to open the door at all. But as he only worked here two mornings a week it wasn’t a major problem.”

  “Did anyone go up there this morning?”

  “If anyone had attempted to knock at that door, Inspector, someone would have heard Pleasance hurling his usual quota of abuse. People learned to steer well clear on the mornings he was in.”

  “Did Pleasance keep the key to the tower room?”

  “No. There’s only one key and it’s kept in the cupboard by the staff entrance. Pleasance always picked it up on his way in. He’ll have been locked in that room alone, Inspector,” said Samuels convincingly.

  “Pleasance died at around nine o’clock. What time do your staff arrive?”

  “Most of them come in at eight forty-five but the guides arrive a little later, about quarter-past nine. All the staff sign in: you can check if you like.”

  “And Pleasance?”

  “He usually came in just before nine o’clock. And before you ask, I didn’t see him this morning.”

  “Was the key in its cupboard when you arrived at eight-thirty?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve no idea.”

  Anastasia Hardy stood up and slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Thank you for your help, sir.”

  After Petroc Samuels had seen them to the door, all cooperation, the good citizen anxious to help the police, Anastasia marched swiftly away from his office and down the magnificent staircase, thinking fleetingly how satisfying it would be to sweep down those stairs in an elegant period costume. She turned to Calthwaite who was trailing behind, deep in thought. “I think it’s time we spoke to those children, Calthwaite. Do you know where they are?”

  “They should be back in the Great Hall by now.” He hesitated. “Er … do you mind if I go and have a word with the car park attendant, ma’am. I noticed him outside when we arrived. It’s just an idea I’ve got.”

  “In that case I’ll have to tackle 8C on my own,” she said, hugging her handbag defensively to her chest. “Don’t be long will you.”

  As Anastasia reached the bottom of the stairs, the noise which oozed from the Great Hall sounded like the relentless buzz of bees in a particularly busy hive. She had found 8C.

  She took a deep breath before she entered the Hall. She had faced murderers and armed robbers in her time but the prospect of facing thirty exuberant adolescents played havoc with her nerves. As she walked in she could tell that 8C were in high spirits, chattering merrily; the newly broken voices of some of the boys echoing up to the great hammer-beam roof. Anastasia made straight for their teacher who was standing by the massive stone fireplace talking to a middle-aged woman in Elizabethan costume.

  “Mrs. Vine? I’m so sorry you’ve had to wait,” Anastasia said with a disarming smile. “I’ll get one of my constables to take names and addresses then you’ll be able to go.” Vicky Vine looked relieved as she glanced at her restless charges.

  The costumed woman standing beside her fiddled nervously with the jewel which hung around her neck. “Muriel Pablos?” asked Anastasia. The woman nodded. “I’m afraid we need a statement from you. We’re interviewing all the staff: it’s nothing to worry about.”

  PC Joe Calthwaite chose that moment to march into the hall and the children fell silent for a few short moments at the sight of a uniformed police officer.

  Anastasia watched Vicky Vine greet the constable like an old friend. “Joe. You do look smart,” she said, touching his blue serge sleeve. “Enjoying the police force are you? It’s what you’ve always wanted to do isn’t it … ever since you discovered who started that fire in the school chemistry lab. Joe was one of my prize pupils, Inspector,” she told Anastasia with professional pride as the young constable blushed.

  Joe grinned modestly and turned to Muriel Pablos. “Hello again, Mrs. Pablos. I didn’t have a chance to ask you earlier. How’s Francesca?” Muriel Pablos smiled weakly but didn’t answer.

  Anastasia’s attention began to wander and her sharp eyes spotted a huddle of conspiratorial boys standing near the window. They were up to something. And it wasn’t long before she found out what it was.

  “Miss,” said a whining female voice from the centre of the room. “Darren’s got matches, miss … and a candle.”

  “I found them, miss,” Darren cried in his defence. “I found them in that window seat. I wasn’t going to keep them, miss.”

  Vicky Vine confiscated the objects of desire with a weary sigh and handed them to Muriel Pablos; a small box of matches and a chubby, half-burned church candle with a blackened wick …

  Joe leaned towards Anastasia and whispered in her ear. “Ma’am, can I have a quick word outside?”

  Watched by thirty pairs of curious eyes, Anastasia followed the constable into the entrance hall, intrigued. “Ma’am,” he said as they stood beneath a pair of watching statues. “I’ve just spoken to the car park attendant … he told me something interesting.” He paused. “I think I know who killed Jonathan Pleasance. And now I think I know how they did it.”

  Anastasia stared at him. “Well I’m baffled. A man dies at nine o’clock in a locked room then jumps or falls from the window half an hour later with the only key still in his pocket. But come on, Sherlock. Was the suit of armour computer operated? Or was the murder committed by the resident ghost? Let’s hear your brilliant theory.”

  He looked at Anastasia Hardy and saw a sceptical smile on her lips. “I’ll have to ask you to do something for me first, ma’am. Something that would be … er … better coming from a woman.”

  “What is it?” she asked, warily.

  When Calthwaite told her she raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am.”

  “Right, Calthwaite, you lead the way. And let’s just hope this doesn’t lead to questions being asked in high places.”

  They re-entered the hall. This time the children seemed quieter, more subdued.

  “Mrs. Pablos, could we have a word outside in the entrance hall, please?” said Anastasia sweetly. Muriel Pablos glanced at Vicky Vine and followed Anastasia from the room, her long skirts rustling against the stone floor. “If you’d be good enough to lift your skirts up,” she said when they were outside.

  Muriel looked at her in horror. “This is outrageous …”

  “I’m not suggesting a strip search, Mrs. Pablos. Just lift your skirts up. It’ll only take a moment. Constable,” she said firmly to Joe. “Stand by the door and make sure no one comes in.”

  Muriel Pablos looked round in helpless terror. Then she slowly raised her skirts to her knees showing a shapely pair of suntanned legs.

  “A little higher, please, Mrs. Pablos.”

  Muriel Pablos was about to refuse. Then, as though she knew she was defeated, she lifted the skirts higher to reveal a length of red silken rope, coiled about her body.

  “Untie the rope, please Mrs. Pablos.”

  Muriel Pablos slowly uncoiled the rope and it fell to the ground. It was in two sections, each with a burned end. Anastasia summoned PC Joe Calthwaite back and he stood, staring at the rope as though the sight amazed him.

  “Well, Constable,” said Anastasia. “Are you going to tell us how it was done?”

  Calthwaite took his notebook from his top pocket and pulled himself up to his full height. “Well, ma’am, I first became suspicious of Mrs. Pablos when the car park attendant told me that her car was already in the visitor’s car park when he arrived this morning at eight forty. He said he saw it later in its usual place in the staff car park, and I found that she’d signed in for work as normal at quarter-past nine. We were told by Mr. Samuels, the curator, that Jonathan Pleasance locked himself in the tower room when he was working and didn’t let anyone in, so then I began to think. If nobody was let in t
hen the killer must already have been there, probably hidden in the chapel. Pleasance arrived before nine o’clock so his killer must have been there earlier, already hidden. The key was only used by Pleasance—nobody else bothered locking the room—so it was easy. All the killer had to do was wait, kill Pleasance with the sword, lock the door as he or she left, drive round into the staff car park and then arrive for work as normal.”

  “But the key was found on the body …”

  “I’ll be coming to that, ma’am. Next I tried to work out exactly how it was done; how it was made to look as though Jonathan Pleasance had fallen from the window. Then I saw the lengths of rope stored in the chapel and an odd number of candles on the altar … three … so it was possible that one was missing. I found some candle wax on the floorboards in the middle of the tower room and I started to think. What if the body had been held by the open window with a length of rope secured to, say, that heavy oak side table: then if a lighted candle was placed under the rope so that it burned through slowly to give the murderer plenty of time to establish an alibi. Then the murderer would need some excuse to get away in order to hide the rope and candle once the body had fallen. That’s where the miniature tape recorder came in. The curator uses one to dictate letters and his secretary said that she’d mislaid it for a while. I think the killer borrowed it and recorded a bloodcurdling scream to be played at the appropriate moment in front of a full audience to provide the perfect alibi. Nobody else in the building heard it because the tape was only played in the great hall. Then the killer ran upstairs to call the police. But first she made a detour and unlocked the tower room to deal with the incriminating evidence; she hid the burned candle and matches in those big padded sleeves where she’d hidden the tape recorder. Then she put them in the window seat until they could be disposed of properly. It’s a pity 8C had to find them and give the game away isn’t it, Mrs. Pablos? And the rope … well what better place to hide it than underneath a huge Elizabethan skirt. Am I right so far, Mrs. Pablos?”

  Muriel Pablos looked at him, pleading. “You knew my Francesca at school, Joe. You know what a lovely girl she is. She met this older man at work in the museum: she was besotted with him, completely infatuated, but she wouldn’t tell me his name … I never guessed it was Jonathan Pleasance. Then one day he saw me alone and he started to talk about their relationship. The things he said … the way he talked about Francesca. He was just using her and he said he intended to end their affair soon because she was getting too possessive … too clinging. He said that if she made things awkward for him, he’d make sure she lost her job at the museum: he was going to tell lies about her … say she was incompetent. I couldn’t just stand by and watch him ruining her career … her life. I did it for my daughter.”

  Anastasia nodded, wondering how she would have felt if such a thing had happened to her own daughter. Then she dismissed the thought and reminded herself of her profession. “Is there anything else you want to say before I arrest you, Mrs. Pablos?” she asked sympathetically before reciting the familiar official words.

  “I came in at eight this morning and parked in the public car park at the back so none of the staff would see me,” Muriel began quietly. “The tower room wasn’t locked—only Pleasance ever locked it—so I hid myself in the chapel. When he came in just before nine I killed him. Then I rigged up the rope and the candle, locked the door behind me, got into my car and arrived for work as usual. I had taken pieces of rope home and experimented so that I could time his fall for when I was showing Vicky’s class round. When I went upstairs to call the police I made a detour to the tower room like Joe said. I wiped the tape on my way up and put the recorder back on Mrs. Barker’s desk when I went in to tell her what had happened.”

  “But the room was locked and the only key was found on the body. According to everyone’s statements you never went out into the courtyard … never went near the body,” said Anastasia, puzzled. Muriel Pablos stood silent. She was saying nothing.

  As Muriel was led to a waiting police car, PC Joe Calthwaite walked round to the back of the house where 8C were boarding their coach. He waited patiently until their teacher had counted them on before he spoke to her.

  “You were always fond of Francesca weren’t you, Mrs. Vine,” he began gently. “Francesca was brilliant at history, your star pupil. You must have been delighted when she got that job at the museum. I think Mrs. Pablos told you about Pleasance and Francesca. I think you helped her. When she came downstairs again you left her looking after your class while you went to check the body for signs of life before the ambulance arrived. I think she’d locked the tower room door behind her and then she passed you the key. While you were bending over the body you put the key in his pocket. Is that right, Mrs. Vine?”

  Vicky Vine smiled and shook her head. “I couldn’t stand by and watch that man hurt Francesca. I had to help somehow.” She took a deep breath. “What gave us away?”

  “Do you remember when the chemistry lab burned down? I smelled petrol on the culprits’ clothes.”

  “How could I forget.”

  “Well this time it was candles … I kept smelling candles. I’ve always had a good sense of smell.”

  As Joe Calthwaite put an arresting hand on her shoulder, his old teacher looked into his eyes and smiled.

  THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD OAK TREE

  THERE CAN BE NO DISPUTE that the master of the impossible-crime puzzle is John Dickson Carr; both under his own name and as Carter Dickson, he tirelessly published in this most difficult genre from 1931 to 1972. There can also be no argument that the closest in reputation and achievement is Edward Dentinger Hoch (1930–2008), who wrote nearly as many of these brain twisters during a career that spanned more than a half century (1955–2008). Most detective story writers shied away from this type of tale after Carr established himself as the lord of the locked-room mystery, conceding that just about every possible variation had been employed. Hoch not only accepted the challenge but created a series character, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, whose every mystery featured an impossible crime. His first case was “The Problem of the Covered Bridge” in the December 1974 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

  Hawthorne is a retired old (he was born in 1896) country doctor who practiced in a small town from the 1920s through the 1940s and reminisces about the improbable murders that occurred during the years in which he tended to the townspeople.

  Hoch’s most famous stories, not about Hawthorne, are the frequently anthologized “The Oblong Room” (1967), for which he won the Edgar Award, and “The Long Way Down” (1965), in which a man goes out the window of a skyscraper but doesn’t land for two hours; it was the basis for a two-hour episode of the television series McMillan and Wife titled “Freefall to Terror,” which aired on November 11, 1973. Hoch was named a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the Mystery Writers of America in 2001.

  “The Problem of the Old Oak Tree” was first published in the July 1978 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; it was first collected in Diagnosis: Impossible (Norfolk, Virginia, Crippen & Landru, 1996).

  EDWARD D. HOCH

  DR. SAM HAWTHORNE poured a little brandy from the decanter and settled back in his chair. “September of ’27 is a time I ’specially remember, because that’s when the folks came to make a talking picture in Northmont. And that’s also when a man was apparently strangled to death by an oak tree. But I’m getting ahead of my story. First I should tell you something about the movies in those days, and ’specially about talking pictures.”

  We didn’t get to see many movies around Northmont in those days (Dr. Sam continued) because there weren’t any theaters. Viewing the popular silent films of the day meant a drive into Springfield or Hartford, or even all the way to Boston. A few people had made the trip the year before to see John Barrymore in Don Juan, the first film with synchronized sound effects, and people were already talking about The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson. Its New York opening was only a few weeks away that
September, and the advance publicity promised Vitaphoned songs and some stretches of dialogue in sound for the first time.

  So it wasn’t surprising that movie-makers around the country were jumping on the talkie bandwagon. Nor was it surprising that some of them wanted to make movies about aviators. The silent film Wings had opened in August to critical and popular acclaim, and would go on to capture the first Academy Award for best picture of the year. And Lindbergh’s triumph was still very much in the news.

  That was why Granger Newmark came to Northmont—to make the first talking picture about fliers. Not the World War I aces of Wings, but the barnstorming pilots who turned up at county fairs and rural weekends to risk their lives for a few dollars’ pay. Granger Newmark was very much a product of Hollywood, where motion-picture studios were beginning to congregate after their early years in New Jersey. He arrived in my office that first afternoon wearing riding britches and leather boots, with a zipper jacket topped by a white silk scarf around his throat. And I’ll admit I didn’t know quite what to make of him at first.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” I asked, showing him to my office chair. “Sore throat?”

  “Hardly! I’ve come here because they tell me you’re the only doctor in this burg.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I’m producing and directing the barnstorming film being shot near here. You probably recognized my name.”

  I’d heard of the film but that was about all. “I’ve been too busy this week to read the papers, Mr. Newmark. You’ll have to forgive me.”

  “I see.” He sighed and took out a slim black cigar. “Well, I can see I’ll have to educate you. I’m filming the first sound motion picture about barnstorming pilots. We needed a country setting for some of the outdoor scenes and we chose Northmont.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “I drove through here last year and liked the area. That big open field north of town is ideal for a small landing strip, and I obtained permission from the owner to use it.”