The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries Part 46

The two soldiers posted outside the company office rendered smart rifle salutes to Captain Coughlin as he and Private Train returned. The captain motioned Train to sit opposite him, then picked up a telephone and placed a call. He picked up a pencil and scribbled a few notes, then grunted into the receiver and hung it up.

"McWilliams and Dillard both drove off post last night. McWilliams left around 2300 hours. Returned at 0400 this morning. Dillard left at 2346 hours and returned shortly after 0500. There's no record of my leaving the post, and in fact I did not. What do you make of it, Train?"

"I don't know, sir."

Train followed Coughlin's glance to a wall-mounted clock. It was well into the afternoon. He and Captain Coughlin had missed the noon meal. Train's barracks-mates would be on the practice range, throwing dummy hand grenades at cardboard targets.

From outside the building, Train heard a familiar voice. It was Lieutenant McWilliams, dressing down the two soldiers for what Train knew would be some petty offense. A moment later, McWilliams strode into the office and halted before Captain Coughlin's desk. He snapped a sharp salute and all but clicked his heels, Gestapo-fas.h.i.+on.

"Sit down, Lieutenant," Coughlin instructed. "Good. Make yourself comfortable. Don't worry about sitting next to an enlisted man, you won't catch a disease."

McWilliams sent a filthy glare at Train.

"Where were you last night, Lieutenant?"

"I was here, sir. In the company office. Catching up on paperwork, looking over training schedules."

"Right. And then?"

'Then, sir?"

"Then, Lieutenant. You didn't spend the night here, did you?"

"No, sir."

"Well, where did you go?"

"I went to my quarters, sir. I got a good night's sleep, then I went to the mess hall and met you there for breakfast."

"Right."

Coughlin picked a sheet of paper off his desk, fingered it briefly, then dropped it again.

"Gate guards indicate that you left the post at 2300 hours last night and returned at 0400."

"Oh. Yes, sir. That's true."

"That's all right, Lieutenant. You're an officer and a gentleman. You don't have to stand bed check. So long as you're present for all duties, you can come and go as you please. That's per regulations."

"Yes, sir."

"Where were you, though?"

"Am I required to answer that, sir?"

"I am directing you to answer, yes, Lieutenant."

McWilliams had removed his visored cap and was holding it in his lap. "Sir, I met some friends and enjoyed a social visit."

"Right. And where was that?"

"Columbus, sir."

"Broad Street?"

"Yes, sir."

"You get laid, McWilliams?"

"Sir!"

"Jesus Christ, man, you have a pair of gonads, don't you? What did you do, pick up a woman in a bar? Do you have a steady girlfriend? Go to a wh.o.r.ehouse? This isn't a Sunday School cla.s.s, Lieutenant, we've had a murder and robbery here. Where were you last night?"

"The, ah, that one, Captain."

There was another boom. It was louder than the howitzer booms, but in fact it seemed to be a smaller explosion, sharper, closer to the company area.

"Which one?"

"Ah, the last one, sir."

"Please, McWilliams, let's have it in plain English."

"All right, sir. I was at the Cardinal Hotel."

"Okay. We all know what that place is. I just hope you were careful, Lieutenant."

"I was, sir."

The young officer's face was crimson.

"All right. One more thing. I want to inspect your vehicle."

"Yes, sir."

"Right now, McWilliams." The captain turned to Nick Train. "Did your police training include checking out vehicles for contraband, Private?"

"It did, sir."

Train wound up inspecting Lieutenant McWilliams's 1942 Packard Darrin One-Eighty. The convertible came up spotlessly clean and innocent, inside and out. McWilliams stood by fuming, Captain Coughlin watched noncommittally. Nothing under the hood but a perfectly maintained straight-eight engine. Nothing in the trunk but a jack, a tire-iron, a tool kit, and a spare tire. At the end, Train crawled out from under the car, dusted himself off and presented himself to Coughlin.

"Nothing, sir."

"All right, Train. Lieutenant McWilliams, you hurry out to the grenade range and have a look-see. That was a nasty pop a little while ago. I hope somebody didn't set off a real grenade. Train, you come with me. We're going to have a look at Corporal Miller's vehicle. McWilliams, you don't mind if we borrow your tire iron, do you? Just in case we need it to pry open Miller's car?"

But Miller's little '36 Nash 400 had been left unlocked. The True Believer in All Things Holy had trusted his fellow man to that extent. Or maybe he had nothing worth stealing. There was no trunk lid in the odd little car. Train scrambled over the seat to get into the trunk. The car wasn't as well maintained mechanically as McWilliams's Packard, nor was the interior quite as clean and innocent.

Train emerged with a half-empty bottle of Bourbon in one hand and a stack of ratty publications in the other. "Girly books," he grinned, offering the loot to Captain Coughlin.

The captain grinned and shook his head. "So little Miller had a pair of gonads, too." He brushed his hand across his forehead. "Well, we'll just toss that stuff. No need to upset his family, they've got grief enough coming. No Missal, though?"

"No, sir."

"Okay, soldier. On to Sergeant Dillard's wagon."

But before they got to that vehicle, a soldier in olive fatigues came panting up, perspiring profusely despite the winter chill. Train recognized the ruddy complexion and the curly rust-colored hair sticking out from under the man's fatigue cap. It was Aaron Hirsch. He wasn't crying, just sweating.

He managed to pull himself together and salute the captain.

"Sir, Lieutenant McWilliams sends his respects and a message for the captain."

"Yes, yes." Coughlin returned the salute. "What is it, Hirsch?"

"It's Sergeant Dillard, sir."

"What happened?"

"He was demonstrating grenade technique, sir. He had a practice grenade. It was painted the way they are, to show they're not armed. He pulled the pin and counted down to show us how long it took for the fuse to burn. It went off, sir. It wasn't a practice grenade. It was a live grenade. He it went off, sir. It blew him to bits, sir."

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Jesus. The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He must have known the jig was up. All right, here comes McWilliams now."

And Lieutenant McWilliams arrived, polished shoes covered with red Georgia dust even in winter, uniform spotless and pressed, every bra.s.s b.u.t.ton glittering in the December sunlight. Even before McWilliams got off his salute, Captain Coughlin barked at him.

"You've sent for the medics, of course."

"Yes, sir."

"Cancelled the rest of the session and sent the men to barracks."

"Under command of Private Schulte, sir. A fine soldier, I can see that already."

"I'm sure of it. All right, McWilliams. Let's have a look in Sergeant Dillard's vehicle."

They found it concealed inside the spare tire in Dillard's Ford. Miller's missing Missal. The annotations were in a simple code; the Provost Marshal's men and the CID investigators would have no problem cracking it. Poor innocent Miller, the payroll clerk had made notes to himself in the Missal, notes that gave the key to his carefully maintained records. It was obvious that he never thought anyone would see the contents of the Missal except himself and his G.o.d.

Everything was there. The ident.i.ties of the gamblers, the amounts they owed. The monthly payroll would have got a lot of military men out of debt with whoever held their IOU's. A lot of military men including Sergeant Dillard and Corporal Miller. And Lieutenant McWilliams.

"You, Lieutenant? That's hard to believe. You drive that Packard, you wear custom-tailored uniforms, you're from old money, McWilliams. How could you get in so deep? Why didn't you just ask your family to bail you out?"

"You wouldn't understand, Captain. With due respect to your rank, sir, you really wouldn't understand. I couldn't go to my family. I had to work this out myself."

Captain Coughlin moaned, as if he and not Lieutenant McWilliams had been caught. "It was the Army-Navy game that did it, wasn't it? Loyal to the old school, you went double-or-nothing on everything you owed, and Navy whipped Army again, didn't they? You poor sap, McWilliams. You poor, poor sap."

The captain drew in a deep breath. Then he said, "I take it you and Sergeant Dillard and Corporal Miller were all in this together? Who was your bookie, that's not in Miller's book. Was it Jackalee Jennings in Columbus? Or somebody in Phoenix City? Big Mike Norris? Larry Sunday? You know, those fellows don't keep their operations very secret, they're pals with the sheriffs on both sides of the river. Who was it, son?"

McWilliams looked angry for a moment when he heard Captain Coughlin use that last word. Then he shook his head. "I don't think I should say anything, Captain. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice I have the right to a civilian attorney and I will ask my family to provide one. That much, I will accept from them."

"Did you kill him, McWilliams? Tell me that much. Was it you or was it Dillard? Which one of you killed Miller?"

"I'm not going to answer any questions, sir."

"Dillard is dead now. Very convenient, McWilliams. You can lay it all on his grave. I suppose that's what your lawyer will do, isn't it?" He looked up, looked over McWilliams's cap with its glittering eagle ornament and its polished leather visor. Train wondered what Captain Coughlin saw. He couldn't guess. Coughlin said, "All right, Lieutenant. Report to the Provost Marshal and tell him to place you under arrest pending investigation."

Nick Train watched Lieutenant McWilliams salute, execute a smart about face, and march off like a good little soldier.

"Where did they get the poison?" Captain Coughlin asked. He didn't direct the question to anyone in particular, but Private Train and Private Hirsch were both within earshot.

"Foxglove is common," Train said, "it grows in every ditch in the State of Georgia."

"Lot of it in Spain, too," Hirsch volunteered. "I was there with the Lincolns, you know. Saw plenty of Foxglove."

Captain Coughlin said, "All right, boys, you go back to your barracks and polish your boots."

The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem C. Daly King Ellery Queen, or at least the Frederick Dannay half of that writing team, regarded the collection The Curious Mr Tarrant (1935) as containing "the most imaginative detective short stories of our time." The book, rather oddly, was published first in Britain, and that first edition is regarded as one of the rarest volumes of 20th century detective fiction. It was not until 1977 that it saw its first American edition, and more recently it has been augmented with later stories in The Complete Curious Mr Tarrant (2003). The author, Charles Daly King (18951963) was a psychologist who used his understanding of the workings of the mind in creating often quite simple puzzles but which utterly perplex the reader. He completed six novels, all of which were also first published in Britain, featuring police detective Michael Lord and his psychologist a.s.sistant Dr Rees Pons. If you like murders on trains, then Obelists en Route (1934) is worth tracking down. The following doesn't involve a train but it does include one of those puzzles that seems so simple when explained but is otherwise so completely baffling.

The episode of the nail and the requiem was one of the most characteristic of all those in which, over a relatively brief period, I was privileged to watch Trevis Tarrant at work. Characteristic, in that it brought out so well the unusual apt.i.tude of the man to see clearly, to welcome all the facts, no matter how apparently contradictory, and to think his way through to the only possible solution by sheer logic, while everyone else boggled at impossibilities and sought to forget them. From the gruesome beginning that November morning, when he was confronted by the puzzle of the sealed studio, to the equally gruesome denouement that occurred despite his own grave warning twenty-four hours later, his brain clicked successively and infallibly along the rails of reason to the inevitable, true goal.

Tarrant had been good enough to meet us at the boat when Valerie and I had returned from our wedding trip; and a week later I had been delighted with the opportunity of spending the night at his apartment, telling him of the trip and our plans and hearing of his own activities during the interval. After all, he was largely responsible for my having won Valerie when I did; our friends.h.i.+p had grown to intimacy during those few days when the three of us, and Katoh too, had struggled with the thickening horror in Valerie's modernistic house.

It was that most splendid time of year when the suburban air is tinged with the smoke of leaves, when the country beyond flaunts beauty along the roads, when the high windows of the city look out every evening through violet dusk past myriad twinkling lights at the gorgeous painting of sunset. We had been to a private address at the Metropolitan Museum by a returning Egyptologist; we had come back to the apartment and talked late into the night. Now, at eight-thirty the next morning, we sat at breakfast in Tarrant's lounge while the steam hissed comfortably in the wall radiators and the brisk, bright sky poured light through the big window beside us.

I remember that we had nearly finished eating and that Tarrant was saying: "Cause and effect rule this world; they may be a mirage but they are a consistent mirage, everywhere, except possibly in subatomic physics, there is a cause for each effect, and that cause can be found," when the manager came in. He wore a fas.h.i.+onable morning coat and looked quite handsome; he was introduced to me as Mr Gleeb. Apparently he had merely dropped in, as was his custom, to a.s.sure himself that all was satisfactory with a valued tenant, but the greetings were scarcely over when the phone rang and Katoh indicated that he was being called His monosyllabic answers gave no indication of the conversation from the other end he finished with "All right; I'll be up in a minute."

He turned back to us. "I'm sorry," he said, "but there is some trouble at the penthouse. Or else my electrician has lost his mind. He says there is a horrible kind of music being played there and that he can get no response to his ringing at the door. I shall have to go up and see what it is all about."

The statement was a peculiar one and Tarrant's eyes, I thought, held an immediate gleam of curiosity. He got out of his seat in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on, however and declared: "You know, Gleeb, I'd like a breath of fresh air after breakfast. Mind if we come up with you? There's a terrace, I believe, where we can take a step or so while you're untangling the matter."

"Not at all, Mr Tarrant. Come right along. I hardly imagine it's of any importance, but I can guarantee plenty of air."

There was, in fact a considerable wind blowing across the open terrace that, guarded by a three-foot parapet, surrounded the penthouse on all sides except the north, where its wall was flush with that of the building. The penthouse itself was rather small, containing as I later found, besides the studio which comprised its whole northern end, only a sleeping room with a kitchenette and a lavatory off its east and west sides respectively. The entrance was on the west side of the studio and here stood the electrician who had come to the roof to repair the radio antenna of the apartment house and had been arrested by the strange sounds from within. As we strolled about the terrace, we observed the penthouse itself as well as the wide view below. Its southern portion possessed the usual windows but the studio part had only blank brick walls; a skylight was just visible above it and there was, indeed, a very large window, covering most of the northern wall, but this, of course, was invisible and inaccessible from the terrace.

Presently the manager beckoned us over to the entrance door and, motioning us to be silent, asked: "What do you make of that, Mr Tarrant?"

In the silence the sound of doleful music was more than audible. It appeared to emanate from within the studio; slow, sad and mournful, it was obviously a dirge and its full-throated quality suggested that it was being rendered by a large orchestra. After a few moments' listening Tarrant said: "That is the rendition of a requiem ma.s.s and very competently done, too. Unless I'm mistaken, it is the requiem of Palestrina . . . There; there's the end of it . . . Now it's beginning again."

"Sure, it goes on like that all the time," contributed Wicks, the electrician. "There must be someone in there, but I can't get no answer." He banged on the door with his fist, but obviously without hope of response.

"Have you looked in at the windows?"

"Sure."

We, too, stepped to the available windows and peered in, but beyond a bedroom that had not been used, nothing was visible. The door from the bedroom to the studio was closed. The windows were all locked.

"I suggest," said Tarrant, "that we break in."

The manager hesitated. "I don't know. After all, he has a right to play any music he likes, and if he doesn't want to answer the door-"

"Who has the penthouse, anyhow?"