The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  Kane stared at him blankly. We all did.

  “The police can find out easily enough,” Merlini added. “So you might as well answer.”

  Kane thought about it. Then he nodded slowly. “I was born there. But what has that to do with anything?”

  “There’s something on the floor of the workshop that may answer that for you. Take a look.”

  Kane scowled, got slowly to his feet, and walked to the door. He stood there a moment looking in, then turned and came back. His face was blank, his voice flat. “Sorry. I don’t get it.”

  “We found three more such prints,” Merlini explained, “on top of the filing cabinets in this room, made by a two-foot, three-toed something-or-other from another world. But similar prints have turned up before in a sprinkling of flour on the floor of a séance room. Those prints had the customary five toes, and the inference was that they were made by astral visitors summoned from the spirit world.”

  Merlini gazed thoughtfully at Kane, then continued: “The convincer was the fact that the prints seemed to be those of child spooks, all much too small to have been made by the medium. But in Rochester one night some skeptic smuggled in a flashlight and turned it on unexpectedly. The newspaper account of that séance has a special place in my files because it is the only mention of this particular dodge I’ve ever found.”

  Merlini took a sheet of notepaper from a drawer of the desk and nodded at the fingerprint man to whom he had spoken earlier. The latter stepped forward and placed a glass plate bearing a film of ink before the magician.

  “The medium made the prints,” Merlini said. “But not with her feet.”

  He made a fist of his right hand and then rolled the edge of the hand opposite the thumb across the inked plate. He repeated the action on the notepaper. The edge of his hand and the side of his curled little finger left an irregularly shaped impression whose conformation and creases bore an astonishing resemblance to those made by the sole of a bare foot. Then he added toeprints using a thumb and forefinger, and the similarity was complete.

  “You can, of course, give the print as many or as few toes as you like.”

  Doran said, “And when we compare the toeprints we found with Kane’s fingerprints—”

  Merlini shook his head. “No. He knew those footprints would get a close examination. He moved his finger slightly on each impression so that the ridge markings are sufficiently smudged to prevent identification.”

  He looked at Kane as if waiting for confirmation. He didn’t get it.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Kane said. “Those prints may have been there for days. Anybody could have made them. Even if you could prove I made them it still wouldn’t mean that I killed North.”

  “Perhaps not,” Merlini said, “but it saves the Police Department having to track down a suspect through outer space. You didn’t really expect them to swallow a two-foot high, three-toed Martian anyway. That was simply misdirection. As long as those footprints remained unexplained we had something to worry about that helped obscure the real problem. We thought we had to solve the mystery of a vanishing gun—a question whose answer is relatively unimportant because it is the wrong question.”

  “Now wait!” Gavigan exploded. “You said you knew what happened to the gun.”

  “No. I merely said I knew what happened. Suppose we start at the beginning.” Merlini turned to Kane. “When you came in here with North, the first thing you did was knock him out. Most offices are equipped with an impromptu sandbag that leaves no marks—the telephone directory. Then you put the footprints on the filing cabinets, and burned the script in the wall with the soldering iron. Next, you undressed.”

  Kane grinned skeptically. “And rebuttoned my clothes so a crew of homicide detectives would believe they had passed through some fourth-dimensional hyperspace. Am I crazy?”

  Merlini nodded. “Like a fox. Your real reason for stripping was to make it obvious immediately and beyond any doubt that there was no gun on your person. And you knew that when we failed to find one anywhere, no jury would convict you, and even your arrest was unlikely … Then you shot North.”

  “And what did happen to the gun?”

  “As I said, that’s the wrong question. The real problem is not how did a gun vanish into thin air, but how did you shoot North—without using a gun!”

  For a long moment the silence was complete.

  Merlini picked up the soldering iron. “You used this. The powder in a cartridge is usually exploded by percussion, but heat will do just as well. I tried it. I borrowed a cartridge from Doran, put it in the vise on North’s workbench, and touched the base of the cartridge with the point of the hot iron. That was the shot you heard.”

  Doran scowled. “The slug that killed North had rifling marks on it. Made by a .32 Smith & Wesson.”

  Merlini nodded. “Of course. Kane had to supply rifling marks. Otherwise Ballistics would have known at once that a gun had not been used. But supplying rifling marks is not difficult.”

  “A slug that had been fired before,” Gavigan said slowly. “And he refitted it with a new cartridge case and new powder load.”

  “I see,” Kane said, “that I’m being framed by experts. And how do you answer this one? I’m no ballistics man, but I am an engineer. The function of a gun barrel is to contain the gases long enough for them to exert propelling force on the bullet and give it velocity and penetrating power. The firing method you’ve dreamed up wouldn’t give the bullet enough punch to get it through a paper bag.”

  “That’s right,” Merlini admitted. “I had a little talk with Ballistics on the phone and got the same objection. But the slug that killed North was held close against him—it was fired into his ear. A barrel only an inch or so long would be ample.”

  Merlini got up, went into the workshop, and came back carrying a drawer from North’s supply cabinet. “This contains odds and ends of hardware—nuts, bolts, washers, screws, angle irons, a hinge or two—and this.”

  He took from the drawer a two-inch length of brass pipe. “It’s just the right size. A .32 cartridge fits into it neatly.”

  “Showing,” Kane said a bit grimly, “how I might have killed North doesn’t prove that’s what I did. And you haven’t one iota of concrete evidence that does.”

  “One is all we need,” Merlini said. “A small one we haven’t yet looked for—the cartridge case. Add that to the slug and the brass pipe and we have a complete weapon. The cartridge case will also show whether it was exploded by the hammer of a gun or with the soldering iron.”

  Kane said, “Perhaps you’d better start looking for it.”

  “You don’t think we’ll find it?”

  “I didn’t shoot North with a soldering iron and a piece of brass pipe, so there can’t be any cartridge case that says I did.”

  “You could also be gambling on the fact that such a small object would, if carefully hidden, be hard to find. Now, however, we know just what we’re looking for.” Merlini stood up, walked around the desk and sat on its edge, facing Kane. “Have you any idea how thorough a competent police search can be? We’ll take North’s workshop apart piece by piece. His tools will be examined for hollow handles. We’ll look inside cans of paint, tubes of glue. The workbench and woodwork will be gone over inch by inch in case you drilled a hole, inserted the case, and sealed it in with plastic wood.

  “This room will get the same treatment. The upholstery on the furniture will be removed, the filing cabinets emptied. Miss O’Hara’s typewriter will be taken apart. Even the telephone. Every single object larger than a cartridge case will be examined inside and out. We couldn’t possibly miss it.”

  Kane’s grin wasn’t a happy one, but still he grinned. “Good. Apparently that’s the only way I’ll ever convince you you’re wrong.”

  “And you’ll be searched again,” Merlini went on. “Including an x-ray examination because a cartridge case is small enough to swallow. The living room will also get the full treatme
nt. Also Miss O’Hara and Dr. Price, in case you passed it to one of them.”

  I knew now what Merlini was trying to do. There is a mind-reading effect in which the magician asks his audience to hide some small object, usually a pin, while he is out of the room. When the magician returns he finds it, apparently by mind reading, but actually because the spectators’ attitudes, as they watch him hunt, tell him when he is hot or cold. They give him what the psychologist calls unconscious cues.

  Since even persons who are not emotionally involved cannot repress such cues, Kane, if guilty, would certainly react if Merlini, listing the possible hiding places, hit upon the right one.

  But it obviously wasn’t working.

  Kane was still relaxed, smiling.

  Merlini looked at Gavigan unhappily. “It’ll have to be done, but I’m beginning to think you won’t find it. Kane seems to be telling the truth.”

  Gavigan stared at him. “He’s—what?”

  “He knows,” Merlini said, “that if we find it he’s done for. And since he’s so sure we won’t find it here, apparently it’s not here.”

  “I’ll believe that,” Gavigan growled, “after we’ve looked.”

  Slowly, talking to himself, Merlini added, “If it isn’t here, then obviously it must be somewhere else.”

  “Sure,” Gavigan said skeptically, “only it couldn’t have left this room.”

  Suddenly Merlini smiled. “I’m not so sure.” Then, watching Kane, he said, “Doran, phone the Morgue. I want to talk to Peabody.”

  That did it.

  The smile was still on Kane’s face, but it was suddenly forced—the self-confidence behind it had drained away. When Merlini spoke again, the smile collapsed.

  “One thing was taken out of this apartment—North’s body. On it somewhere, in his clothes or in something he carried …”

  The search was almost unnecessary. The look on Kane’s face was that of a man already convicted.

  Then, explosively, he moved. Suddenly he was on his feet, lunging toward Merlini, snarling.

  Doran moved equally fast. His foot shot out, hooked Kane’s ankle, and the man fell, his arms still reaching out toward Merlini. He smashed solidly at full length against the floor, and then Doran was on him, his knee planted firmly in Kane’s back.

  Peabody found the cartridge case inside the cap of North’s fountain pen.

  WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, SAM SPADE?

  CHOOSING THE RIGHT NAME for a series hero is a tricky business and many authors have spent a great deal of time and energy coming up with just the right one, but when William John Pronzini (1943–) created his popular and long-running San Francisco private detective he decided to give him no name at all; the “Nameless Detective” series began in 1971 with The Snatch and continues to the present day, having appeared in more than thirty novels and scores of short stories. The lack of a name, combined with a less-than-flashy appearance and lifestyle (he’s middle-aged and overweight, and a happy evening is drinking a cold beer and reading one of the pulp magazines from his extensive collection) make him the true Everyman mystery protagonist.

  Born in Petaluma, California, where he still lives, Pronzini worked such odd jobs as salesman, sports reporter, and civilian guard with the U.S. Marshal’s office before becoming a full-time writer in 1969. He has had a prodigious output, under both his own name and many pseudonyms, including Jack Foxx, William Jeffrey, Alex Saxon, and Robert Hart Davis. He has written literally hundreds of detective, suspense, and western short stories, yet somehow managed to find the time to edit scores of anthologies as well, mainly in the mystery genre, but also collections of horror, western, and military fiction. Among his outstanding nonfiction titles are 1001 Midnights (1986, written with his wife, mystery writer Marcia Muller), reviews of 1001 volumes of detective fiction; Gun in Cheek (1982), a hilarious history of the worst writing in mystery fiction; its sequel, Son of Gun in Cheek (1987); and Six-Gun in Cheek (1997), an overview of the worst western fiction—all of which are produced with obvious affection for the authors and books that have been skewered. He was named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America in 2008.

  “Where Have You Gone, Sam Spade?” was first published in the January 30, 1980, issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; it was first collected in Case File (New York, St. Martin’s, 1983).

  BILL PRONZINI

  I.

  THE BRINKMAN COMPANY, Specialty Imports, was located just off the Embarcadero, across from Pier Twenty-six in the shadow of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It was a good-sized building, made out of wood with a brick facade; it didn’t look like much from the outside. I had no idea what was on the inside, because Arthur Brinkman, the owner, hadn’t told me on the phone what sort of “specialty imports” he dealt in. He hadn’t told me why he wanted to hire a private detective either. All he’d said was that the job would take a full week, my fee for which he would guarantee, and would I come over and talk to him? I would. I charged two hundred dollars a day, and when you multiplied that by seven it made for a nice piece of change.

  It was a little after ten a.m. when I got there. The day was misty and cold, whipped by a stiff wind that had the sharp smell of salt in it—typical early-March weather in San Francisco. Drawn up at the rear of the building were three big trucks from a waterfront drayage company, and several men were busily engaged in unloading crates and boxes and wheeling them inside the warehouse on dollies and hand trucks. I parked my car up toward the front, next to a new Plymouth station wagon, and went across to the office entrance.

  Inside, there was a small anteroom with a desk along the left-hand wall and two closed doors along the right-hand wall. A glass-fronted cabinet stood between the doors, displaying the kinds of things you see on knick-knack shelves in some people’s houses. Opposite the entrance, in the rear wall, was another closed door; that one led to the warehouse, because I could hear the sounds the workmen made filtering in through it. And behind the desk was a buxom redhead rattling away on an electric typewriter.

  She gave me a bright professional smile, finished what she was typing and said, “Yes, may I help you?” in a bright professional voice as she rolled the sheet out.

  Along with a professional smile of my own, I gave her my name.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “Mr. Brinkman is expecting you.” She stood and came around from behind the desk. She had nice hips and pretty good legs; chubby calves, though. “My name is Fran Robbins, by the way. I’m the receptionist, secretary, and about six other things here. A Jill-of-all-trades, I guess you could say.”

  The last sentence was one she’d used before, probably to just about everyone who came in; you could tell that by the way she said it, the faint expectancy in her voice. She wanted me to appreciate both the line and her cleverness, so I said obligingly, “That’s pretty good—Jill-of-all-trades. I like that.”

  She smiled again, much less impersonally this time; I’d made points with her, at least. “I’ll tell Mr. Brinkman you’re here,” she said, and went over and knocked on one of the doors in the right-hand wall and then disappeared through it.

  The anteroom was not all that warm, despite the fact that a wall heater glowed near Miss Robbins’s desk. Instead of sitting in the one visitor’s chair, I took a couple of turns around the room to keep my circulation going. I was just starting a third turn when the left-hand door opened and Miss Robbins came back out.

  With her was a wiry little man in his mid-forties, with colorless hair and features so bland they would have, I thought, the odd reverse effect of making you remember him. He looked as if a good wind would blow him apart and away, like the fluff of a dandelion. But he had quick, canny eyes and restless hands that kept plucking at the air, as if he were creating invisible things with them.

  He used one of the hands to pat Miss Robbins on the shoulder; the smile she gave him in return was anything but professional—doe-eyed and warm enough to melt butter. I wondered if maybe the two of them had something going and deci
ded it was a pretty good bet that they had. My old private eyes were still good at detecting things like that, if not much else.

  Brinkman came over to me, gave me his name and one of his nervous hands, and then ushered me into his office. It wasn’t much of an office—desk, a couple of low metal file cabinets, some boxes stacked along one wall and an old wooden visitor’s chair that looked as if it would collapse if you sat in it. That chair was what I got invited to occupy, and it didn’t collapse when I lowered myself into it; but I was afraid to move around much, just the same.

  Sitting in his own chair, Brinkman lit a cigarette and left it hanging from one corner of his mouth. “You saw the trucks outside when you got here?” he asked.

  I nodded. “You must be busy these days.”

  “Very busy. They’re bringing in a shipment of goods that arrived by freighter from Europe a few days ago. Murano glass from Italy, Hummel figurines from West Germany, items like that.”

  “Are they the sort of things you generally import?”

  “Among a number of other items, yes. This particular shipment is the largest I’ve ever bought; I just couldn’t pass it up at the bulk price that was offered to me. Deals like that only come along once in ten years.”

  “The shipment is valuable, then?”

  “Extremely valuable,” Brinkman said. “When those trucks deliver the last of it later today, I’ll have more than three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of goods in my warehouse.”

  “That’s a lot of money, all right,” I agreed.

  He bobbed his head in a jerky way, crushed out his cigarette and promptly lit another one. Chain-smoker, I thought. Poor bastard. I’d been a heavy smoker myself up until a couple of years ago, when a lesion on one lung made me quit cold turkey. The lesion had been benign, but it could just as easily have gone the other way. For Brinkman’s sake, I hoped he had the sense to quit one of these days, before it was too late.

  “The goods will be here in about a week,” he said. “It will take that long to inventory them and arrange for the bulk of the items to be shipped out to my customers.”