The Unlocked Room - John F. Suter

Name of the story: The Unlocked Room

Author: John F. Suter

Source:  Crimes Across the Seas – 19^th MWA anthology edited by John Creasey

Story Number: 31

This story has two interesting features – it is a parody of Henry Merrivale and has a neat little impossible crime as its puzzle plot. Jon Dickens Carbon is a famous detective-story writer who specializes in writing locked-room stories. He is found strangled at one corner of the room, a corner completely surrounded by still-wet varnish on the floor unmarred by a single footprint. Patrolman Witmer who was on an errand to deliver a ticket to the Policeman’s Ball is on the scene of the crime within a few minutes of the tragedy. He has three suspects to deal with – Jon’s brother & niece (the 2 who would inherit the fortune equally) and the Old Man – Colonel Goliath Perrivale (his motive being that the author outright used his ides without paying him a cent) who helps the police occasionally to solve locked-room murders!

The brush used to paint the varnish is still wet in the hands of the victim, the dead man was spoken to by 2 of the witnesses just five minutes before his death, the experiment to show that the murderer could’ve painted the floor after the murder turns out to be a dead end as it takes Witmer a complete 8 minutes to achieve the task. Perrivale says that the case could be solved between Witmer and himself and he propounds a few theories to explain the impossible murder in a fashion and tone very similar to that of Merrivale. Witmer, not fooled by any of those theories, calls on his experience as an odd-jobs painter in his free time to provide the actual solution which trumps all those provided by Perrivale!

Future Imperfect - Stuart Palmer

Name of the story: Future Imperfect

Author: Stuart Palmer

Source:  Choice of Murders – 12^th MWA anthology edited by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Story Number: 30

Stuart Palmer wrote close to 20 detective novels usually featuring the spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers, who made her debut with the ‘The Penguin Pool Murder’. His other creation was the hardboiled private eye Howie Rook. Though he has written a number of short stories featuring Miss. Withers, this story doesn’t feature any detective.

Jerry Waite is a novelist who has been asked to take a vacation and come back only after he has some new and fresh ideas to offer the script writers. He is approached by an old man named Baxter in a bar in Mazatlan (on the upper west coast of Mexico) and after confirming that Jerry is indeed a novelist, tells him that he has got a story that Jerry can write and that it involves a perfect murder. The old man goes on to tell a tale about his friend Sam, who planned and murdered his wife after coming across in an old newspaper a new and original method of committing a murder, which required no complicated preparation or equipment, involved no brutality nor spilled any blood, and left absolutely no traces. The doctor does bring in a verdict of natural death due to a heart attack. Baxter says that the story should end with the explanation of the murder method, which he explains and highlights the fact that it has been used only twice: once by its inventor and the second time by Sam with each one successfully getting away with it.

The actual story continues to end in a surprising twist, which could be easily anticipated but the highlight of the story remains the unique method of murder; the author does mention in the afterword that the press clipping of a murder by this gimmick was genuine!

Murder Lock’d In - Lillian De La Torre

Story: Murder Lock’d In

Author: Lillian De La Torre

Source: The Return of Dr. Sam: Johnson

Story Number: 29

Lillian de la Torre is known for her historical mysteries which featured the 18^th century detective Dr. Sam: Johnson – where the stories are more or less based on the actual crimes of the 18^th century (solved or unsolved), with a new solution proposed by the author as befits the crime and the period in which it occurred. Even though this story appears in the third collection, it is supposed to be the first recorded case of Dr. Johnson and his biographer cum narrator, James Boswell. The same story is titled ‘The First Locked Room’ in the locked-room anthology “Death Locked In” but doesn’t feature Dr. Sam and the story has a more historical feel with different characters, a different story line set 30 years earlier but ends with the exact same solution.

Mrs. Taffety has come down to meet Mrs. Duncon as per an appointment but when no one answers the door, she raises an alarm that the door is not being opened even though she knows that there are three women inside. When there is hesitation to break open the door by the Temple Watch (the supreme legal authority during that time), a charwoman says there could be another way in from her master’s chambers. She undertakes the effort to walk on the parapet from the master’s chambers, breaks the glass on the rich woman’s casement (window sash), unlocks the latch, opens the window, drops into the room and opens the door for the waiting crowd to enter. Mrs. Duncon and 2 of her maids are found dead inside the locked and bolted room – with 2 women strangled and one dead due to repeated hammer blows.

A maid is arrested (she is hanged for the murder in the actual historical case) when the hammer used for the killing is traced to her but the doctor suspects a much sinister entity when the locked bolt couldn’t be explained with the rope trick. Dr. Johnson and the narrator toss around the various possibilities and dispel them as quickly as they were thought off which finally leaves them with only one alternative - a solution however improbable, must be the truth!

In the afterword to the story, the author has this to say about the solution: “In analyzing the “locked-room mystery” and its possible solutions, with singular prescience Dr. Johnson seems to have anticipated John Dickson Carr’s “locked-room lecture” in The Three Coffins; though the solution that detector Sam: Johnson arrives at is not among those considered by Carr.”  Hmmm!

The Two Bottles of Relish - Lord Dunsany

Story: The Two Bottles of Relish

Author: Lord Dunsany

Source: 101 Years of Entertainment, The Little Tales of Smethers

Story Number: 28

Smithers is the name of a little man who sells Num-numo, a relish for meats & savories. He is also the narrator of this story. He shares his room with an Oxford educated man named Linley. Smithers observes that his roommate has a very shrewd and intelligent mind and hence asks him to have a go at solving the strange murder which has baffled the police and the Scotland Yard. He remembers the case only because the suspect had bought 2 bottles of his relish.

A small girl was seen alive for the last time with a man named Steeger when they spent 5 days together in a cottage. Steeger continues to stay in the cottage for 15 more days after the girl was seen for the last time. The local police have kept a constant vigil on this man and the cottage – he seems to be a vegetarian, he is seen cutting down every one of the 10 trees present in the cottage garden, piling them up neatly into heaps of logs, he has not left the house for those 15 days and yet there is no sign of the girl when the police enter the cottage at the end of 20 days. The girl has not been cut into pieces, she has not been burnt in a fire, she has not been buried anywhere and yet there is no trace of her. In addition to all these, the biggest stumper for the Yard is the strange behavior of Steeger in going to all that trouble of doing such hard labor to cut down all the tress.

Linley asks Smithers to have a look at the house and talk to the grocer from where Steeger bought all his food, he also asks him to find out whether he bought the 2 bottles of nun-numo together or whether it was purchased on different occasions. Based on the answer to this one question, Linley comes up with an ingenious deduction to the problem of the missing dead body!

Solved By Inspection - Ronald Knox

Story: Solved By Inspection

Author: Ronald Knox

Source: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories

Story Number: 27

Ronald Knox is probably more talked about for his Detective Decalogue than his novels of detection. Five out of his six detective novels featured the insurance investigator Miles Bredon and he is also featured in one short story which also turns out to be a locked room murder – a puzzle plot, which I found much superior to any of his novels.

Dr. Simmonds has been sent by the insurance agency to ascertain the cause of death of the eccentric millionaire Jervison. The doctor has asked Bredon to join him in his inspection. Jervison has taken an insurance policy against his death – leaving all the money to a spiritualistic group called the Brotherhood which consists of only 4 people. The cause of death is pretty straight forward – he died of starvation, not having eaten food for 10 days. But the question is why he didn’t eat the food when the room had a lot of eatables which could’ve sustained any man for those many days?

Bredon has to figure out whether it was suicide or whether it was a very clever murder as the circumstances looks highly suspicious. Jervison had locked himself in a gymnasium to conduct an experiment, he had taken a narcotic on the first day of his experiment, he had plenty of food to sustain him, he had a pad and a pencil at hand on which he could’ve written down his thoughts or observations and yet there is nothing on the writing pad, the food has not been touched, there is no sign of foul play and no other entry into the room other than the door which the police break open.

Bredon observes three strange things – the bed is at the center of the room, the bedspreads are all piled up on the floor and the most important finding – the scratches on the floor from the wheels of the bed to indicate that the bed has been moved by 2 inches. From these, he declares that Jervison was murdered and goes on to show how the man was murdered in that locked room!

Two Over Par - Kelley Roos

Story: Two Over Par

Author: Kelley Roos

Source: Four and Twenty Bloodhounds – the 3^rd MWA Anthology

Story Number: 26

Jeff and Haila Troy are among the few genuinely likable young couples in the detective fiction created by the husband and wife team of Kelley Roos. Even though this detective duo is more famous for their exploits in the longer form (most notably in ‘The Frightened Stiff’, ‘Sailor, Take Warning’ & ‘If The Shroud Fits’), they have a few good short stories to their credit as well. This story ‘Two Over Par’ has won the EQMM award in the best story competition.

Jeff & Haila stumble across two dead bodies when they are looking for their golf balls in a thicket on the 9^th hole. Both Mrs. Carleton and her caddie Eddie are dead due to a single bullet wound, both the bullets having been fired from the same gun. First they investigate the murder thinking that the rich man’s wife was the intended victim and the caddie was killed because he saw the murderer but the investigation comes to a dead end when they find no motive. The same is the result when the investigation is carried out with the pretext of the caddie being the chief victim. But nobody seems to dislike the young man.

Jeff keeps harping on the fact that the golf ball (which is inscribed in a particular way) being used by Mrs. Carleton wasn’t found at all in the thicket even though they found around 7 balls belonging to various other members. It is this fact which finally trips the murderer to commit a blunder and walk into the trap set up by Jeff.

The wit and humor one would associate with this author is abundantly evident even in a short story – one example is given below:

A girl of seventeen approaches Jeff asking him to investigate the murder as she believes that everyone will consider her as the chief suspect as she had been planning to kill Mrs. Carleton for the past 4 years. Jeff asks her to sit down to which she turns towards Haila and quips, “I’m practically on my way to the electric chair, and the man asks me to sit down!”

The Yellow Slugs - H.C. Bailey

Story: The Yellow Slugs

Author: H.C. Bailey

Source: Mr. Fortune Objects, All-Time Favorite Detective Stories and many other Anthologies.

Story Number: 25

In their critical study ‘Queen’s Quorum’, Ellery Queen points out that off the 84 stories featuring Reggie Fortune, the collection ‘Mr. Fortune Objects’ is the best containing two of Mr. Bailey’s finest stories: ‘The Long Dinner’ and ‘The Yellow Slugs’. After reading a few stories from the various anthologies and finding Reggie’s mannerisms too irritating, I’d no other option but to go for his best book very quickly. I have jumped the gun and read the last 2 stories in this collection (I’ll be finishing the other 4 shortly) and I felt the ‘The Yellow Slugs’ a little superior to the ‘Long Dinner’ even though the slugs is a very dark story where 2 little kids are psychologically damaged. In addition to some top notch detection in this story, Reggie Fortune is at his most tolerable in his speech and mannerisms.

Fortune is called in to evaluate a 10 year old kid Eddie (most preferably to certify him as insane) who has just tried to kill his 5 year old sister by drowning her. A farmer who sees the whole incident rescues both of them and Reggie wants to find out the reason behind the odd behavior more than certifying the kid, even though he knows that Eddie is not normal. It turns out that Eddie has been coached to believe that he will go to hell if he is found to be bad and he knows that he is bad because he has already been caught twice by the police for pilfering money. When his sister is accused of pilfering a few pennies by the lodger in their house, Eddie decides to kill her so that she doesn’t go to hell. The girl confirms the same story. But Reggie suspects something more sinister and he turns out to be right!

The lodger has been missing for more than 24 hours. While investigating Eddie’s hole (his secret hiding place), they find the lodger’s purse without any cash in it. Further in a patch of sand, they find the woman’s body – poisoned with a very common poison, indicating that this could very well be Eddie’s doing which would explain his strange behavior earlier in the day. However, Reggie notices one strange thing – a slimy residue from a cellar slug on the skirt of the murdered woman and no sign of any slugs anywhere on the surrounding sand. From this one clue, Reggie figures out the complete scheme hatched by what can be termed as one of the most cruel villains in the history of detective fiction!