EQMM, January 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I saw no damage to the display case,” Simon noted.

  "There was no damage,” she replied. “And the key never left my neck."

  "Tell me the whole thing."

  "The golden egg went on display a week before Christmas. We had lots of press coverage, even though Melissa and her gang of eco-terrorists were picketing out front. Everything was fine at first. We averaged around eight hundred people a day coming in to look at the egg, and our ad campaign for the contest was all set to roll. Then, early Friday morning—"

  Pete Barker took up the story. “Lenore lives here in her apartment. My brother is married and lives at home, but there's a spare apartment I sometimes use."

  "To entertain his lady friends,” Lenore scoffed. “The security camera is hooked up to televisions in his apartment and mine, so we could check on the golden egg day or night."

  "It sounds as if you work all the time,” I remarked.

  Lenore Barker smiled. “I figure the chickens work 24/7, so I work 24/7."

  "And what happened Friday morning?” Simon asked.

  Pete took up the story again. “I always wake up early, just after six. I turned on the TV to look at the egg and it was gone. The straw seemed untouched, but there was no egg visible. I ran upstairs to my sister's apartment and rang the bell until I woke her up."

  Lenore nodded. “I went to the door in my nightgown, still half asleep, and he told me to turn on the closed-circuit channel. The golden egg was gone! I think I screamed when I saw that. He said maybe it rolled under the straw, so I gave him the key to check it out while I dressed."

  "I'd like to see that security tape,” Simon told her.

  "Certainly. I have it right here. The camera took a new shot every fifteen seconds. This is the segment where the egg disappeared.” She slid a tape into the VCR and turned on the monitor.

  There was the golden egg with its diamond initials, glistening in the spotlight. By looking closely I could just make out the time and date at the top of each photo. Dec 22 01:15:00 A.M. She skipped ahead until the time was 06:01:45 A.M. “See? It's still there at 6:03, but it's gone in the next photo, taken fifteen seconds later."

  "And the alarm wasn't sounded?"

  She shook her head. “We had no knowledge of it until Pete happened to turn on the closed-circuit channel about ten minutes later."

  Simon turned to the younger brother. “What did you find when you checked the case?"

  "Everything was perfectly normal. The lock hadn't been tampered with and the alarm hadn't gone off. But the golden egg was gone. I unlocked the case and felt around in the straw, just to make sure.” Lenore advanced the tape some more and we saw his hand reaching into the straw.

  "No egg,” she commented. “What happened to it?"

  Simon Ark frowned at the monitor. “Do you still have the key?"

  Pete Barker dug into his pocket. “It's here someplace.” He pulled out the key on its chain along with some coins, a little silver dog, and a cell phone. “The dog's because my name is Barker. Someone's idea of a joke."

  Simon examined the thick tubular key. “No way of copying this,” he agreed, handing it to Lenore. “Tell me about this woman, Melissa Frank."

  "She's an eco-terrorist,” Lenore said, reverting to her favorite description. “She's been picketing the building off and on ever since we had her arrested for trespassing on one of our egg farms. The golden egg disappeared on Friday morning, and later that day she called a TV station to give an interview. She announced that she had the egg, and had magically freed it from our captivity just as she tried to free the chickens at our farm."

  "Did she actually show the egg?"

  "Only a brief glimpse on television. I'd have to examine it to know if it's the real thing. She wants me to appear with her on live TV to accept the egg. I'm trying to have her arrested, but the police say if she returns the egg there's no crime—and if there was, I can't show how it was done."

  "When is this meeting to take place?"

  "Tomorrow morning on their local news hour."

  Simon nodded. “Perhaps I can speak with Miss Frank before then and try to get to the bottom of this affair."

  * * * *

  That evening we went in search of Melissa Frank, the woman with the magical powers. They knew her around town and she wasn't hard to find, but she was something of a surprise, at least to me. Seated in a booth at the Three Rivers Lounge with a blond young man, she looked like a typical college girl wearing jeans and a white turtleneck against the December wind. Somehow I'd imagined her all in black, with black lipstick to complete the Goth look.

  "You're Simon Ark?” she asked me.

  "No, he is."

  She shifted her gaze to Simon, perhaps surprised that he seemed so old. “You're Lenore Barker's consultant?"

  "Correct. I'm here to resolve this dispute between you two. May we join you?"

  "Sure! This is Angel, one of our group. He's the one who actually stole the egg."

  Simon slid into the booth opposite them. “How did you do it?” he asked the young man.

  "Easy,” Angel replied with a grin. I realized now that he was Latin, and the hair was bleached. “But my method is secret. We may want to use it again."

  "You're ready to return the egg to Lenore Barker?"

  "Certainly,” Melissa told us. “We only want the publicity, not the egg."

  Which was, I knew, exactly what Barker & Brothers didn't want. Simon spread his hands on the table. “Suppose I suggest a deal. If I can determine how the egg was stolen, before TV time tomorrow morning, you'll return it without publicity."

  Angel and Melissa exchanged glances. “Sure,” she said with a slight smile. “That's fair enough. Can I buy you two a drink to seal the deal?"

  "A handshake will suffice,” Simon assured her, reaching out to grasp the hand she offered, unadorned except for an animal-charm bracelet around her wrist.

  "The TV interview is set for eight-fifteen. The Pittsburgh station is sending a crew out here to do it right in front of the Barker building, weather permitting."

  "We'll be here at eight,” Simon told her. He nodded toward Angel as he slid out of the booth.

  Outside, I took a deep breath of the December air and said, “You certainly talk a good game, Simon. They never would have agreed to that except that they know you're bluffing."

  "Of course I'm bluffing, my friend, but only for the moment. Once they admitted the theft was a trick and not mere magic, I was certain I could reason it out."

  "By eight tomorrow morning?"

  "We shall give it a try. Let us return now to the Barker building and exercise our powers of reasoning."

  He reported back to Lenore Barker, who was waiting nervously for our return. Her brother Wayne lounged on the sofa with a beer in one hand and a cell phone to his ear, while Pete tapped out something on his laptop computer. I felt as if we were checking in with a political candidate or a touring rock star.

  "A friend of Miss Frank's, known as Angel, has admitted stealing the egg but won't say how he accomplished it,” Simon told them. “They are willing to return the golden egg to you tomorrow morning in front of the local television cameras, at eight-fifteen."

  Lenore made no effort to hide her anger. “I'd rather lose the egg than give that bitch one minute of publicity!"

  "You don't mean that,” Wayne said, snapping shut his cell phone. “We'd have to junk our whole ad campaign for the contest. And we couldn't collect insurance on the egg if she was willing to give it back."

  "I suggested a way to resolve this,” Simon went on. “If I can explain how the egg was stolen by eight o'clock tomorrow morning, she'll return it without a press conference."

  "Can you do it?"

  Simon sat down in one of the comfortable armchairs. I could see him settling in, so I sat down too. Wayne got up and brought us a couple of beers. “The problem of your Christmas egg is no different from a standard locked-room mystery. There are only three time frames during whic
h the egg could have been stolen—before it was placed in your locked display case, while it was in the case, or after the case was opened."

  "All are impossible,” Lenore insisted.

  Ignoring her, Simon pressed on. “Since you placed the golden egg in the case yourself, if it was stolen before that, you had to take it yourself, substituting a fake of some sort that would dissolve under the hot lights."

  "That's preposterous!” she objected.

  "Of course it is. If the egg started to dissolve, it would have been obvious on the security camera. And you had no possible motive for stealing your own egg. You wouldn't have done it for publicity, since any publicity it garnered would have been bad for your company and the contest.” Simon paused and took a sip of his beer. “We come next to a theft while the egg was locked in its case. Once again, only you could have done it. By your own account, the only key to the case, a one-of-a-kind key, was worn around your neck at all times, even when you slept. Once again, you had no motive for stealing the egg yourself. Could you have been drugged or hypnotized or walked in your sleep? No, no, and no, because we learn from the security-camera pictures that the egg vanished only moments before Pete awakened you to report its loss."

  "So where does that leave us?” she asked.

  "Could the egg have been stolen after the case was unlocked?"

  "Of course not! It was already gone before I gave Pete the key."

  Simon Ark smiled. “And there we come to the crux of the problem. The only magic involved in the theft of your golden egg was technological, not supernatural. By eliminating all other possibilities, the only time the egg could have been stolen was after the case was unlocked."

  Pete Barker was on his feet. “You're crazy! How could this Angel character have stolen it then? I was the one with the key."

  "Ah, the unreliable confession! It was not Angel but you who took the egg when you unlocked the case. What your sister saw on the TV monitor in her apartment was a photo taken by the security camera just before the egg was placed there days earlier. You scanned that frame into your computer and then downloaded it onto the video feed, overriding the live signal from the security camera. The time and date at the top of the picture were so small as to be virtually unreadable, especially when her attention was distracted by the missing egg."

  Lenore was listening to it all with rapt attention. Now she interrupted to ask, “Then what did he do?"

  "Those cameras have a little red light that comes on when the picture is snapped, so Pete had fifteen seconds to unlock the case, steal the egg and lock it again before the next photo. He waited a few minutes and then let his hand be photographed feeling around the straw. He used his computer to pull the earlier photo off the override and the live shots returned to the monitor. When the tape was viewed later, only the live shots with their times appeared."

  She was livid now. “Are you telling me that my own brother is in league with that—that eco-terrorist? You'll have to prove that to me."

  "I'll let you prove it to yourself,” Simon told her. “In his pocket your brother Pete carries a little silver image of a dog. He said a friend gave it to him because his name is Barker. Tomorrow morning when you meet with Melissa Frank look at the animal-charm bracelet that she wears. I'm willing to bet the dog charm is missing."

  * * * *

  That was pretty much the end of it. Lenore met with Melissa Frank the following morning in private, out of range of the TV cameras. She complimented the woman on her charm bracelet and then told her that Pete had confessed everything after Simon's accusation. Melissa returned the golden egg as she'd agreed to do, and Lenore, in a gesture to the holiday season, promised that Barker & Brothers would be making a donation to Melissa's wildlife organization.

  "A happy ending for everyone,” I told Shelly when I returned home. “No one got killed and Lenore is even willing to forgive her brother."

  But this brought only a snort from Shelly. “I told you from the beginning that the brothers resented her position and one of them stole the egg. If you and Simon would listen to me, you'd save yourself all this travel."

  ©2007 by Edward D. Hoch

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider

  While it's not yet January, you're holding the January issue of EQMM in your hands. Time, then, to make a New Year's Resolution for 2009: Read more blogs.

  A good place to begin might be Small Crimes(smallcrimesnovel.blogspot.com), the blog of EQMM author Dave Zeltserman, who's also the publisher of the soon-to-be defunct online zine Hardluck Stories(www.hardluckstories.com) and the author of several novels, the latest also titled Small Crimes. Zeltserman's blog covers a number of things, but of most interest to readers is probably a continuing series of posts on “Lessons Learned from the Trenches,” which focuses on Zeltserman's writing and publishing career. It's worth looking through the entire blog to read these posts about a writer's trials and successes.

  Last month I mentioned some sites with Old Time Radio shows. If you're interested in listening to something a good bit different, try Seth Harwood's Crimewav.com(crimewav.com), where you can hear podcasts of writers reading their own stories. The site has a warning that “the content of these podcasts is intended for adults.” The stories posted so far, by writers like Gary Phillips, Vicki Hendricks, Jason Starr, and others definitely aren't cozy.

  A group blog, First Offenders(firstoffenders.typepad.com) is by “four mystery writers [who] share their journey.” Lori G. Armstrong, Jeff Shelby, Alison Gaylin, and Karen E. Olson are the bloggers, and you never know what they might come up with, from “Hot Gossip Week” to interviews with writers like Daniel Judson to presenting guest bloggers like Chris Grabenstein. Or maybe someone will talk about writing erotic romance novels. It's not predictable, but it's fun.

  And then there's Mysterious Matters (mysteriousmatters.typepad.com), a blog by an anonymous male whose intent is “to educate and entertain both writers and readers of mystery and suspense novels with tips, comments, and the inside story of the mystery publishing business.” You should read the blog's “Mission Statement” first. After that, you can read the meaty, thoughtful posts on both writing and publishing, including comments on politics in the mystery, backstory, characters, and other topics dear to the hearts of readers and writers. That's it for now: Don't break your resolution!

  ©2008 by Bill Crider. Visit his blog at billcrider.blogspot.com

  Visit his blog at billcrider.blogspot.com

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  ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Vol. 133, No. 1. Whole No. 809, January 2009. ISSN 0013-6328, USPS 523-610. Dell GST# R123054108. Published monthly except for combined March/ April and September/ October double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. 1-year subscription $55.90 in U.S. and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Subscription orders and mail regarding subscriptions should be sent to Ellery Queen, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855, or call. 800-220-7443. Editorial Offices, 475 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016. Executive Office, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855-1220. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. ©2008 Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention and the Pan American Copyright convention. ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE(r) is the registered trademark of Ellery Queen. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Quebecor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4. For back issues, send your check for $5.50 (U.S. funds) to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Suite SM-100, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855-1220. Please specify the issue you are ordering. Add $2 per copy for delivery outside the U.S.

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