Girl Overboard - Q. Patrick

Theme for the Week: Murder on the Seas

Story: Girl Overboard

Author: Q. Patrick or Patrick Quentin

Source: Four and Twenty Bloodhounds

Story Number: 53

To a keen follower of Trant’s escapades, the story might sound familiar and may think that it is one of the already recorded cases of Timothy Trant but Anthony Boucher confirms in the introduction that this story, one of Trant’s deftest cases, was written specifically for this MWA anthology.

Lieutenant Trant of the New York Homicide Bureau has been on a one month vacation in Europe and is currently on board the S.S Queen Anne. He appears bored as he has been starved of his one authentic enthusiasm – his passion for murderers. Sitting in the lounge and contemplating about the various people on board, he is a mute witness to a strange drama. Mavis Marriner, England’s newest, prettiest and probably the least talented movie star looks like a classic example of a murderee to Trant. Claire Howard, wife of a Hollywood producer, thinks that Mavis is about to steal her husband which infuriates both Claire and Mavis’s fiancé - leading to a tension filled night of rising tempers and jealously among the dramatis personae involved.

The next morning, Trant is called in by the ship’s captain to help him as Mavis is not to be found anywhere on the ship. A quick scrutiny of Mavis’s room shows that the girl was killed on board and then thrown overboard. 2 of the three suspects have perfect alibis. But there are sufficient clues available: spilled perfume and the milk in the glass which was left for her at her usual request time of 1 o’ clock. Trant consults the ship’s log to know the weather conditions prevailing at the time of her death and combining this knowledge with the two clues at his disposal sets a clever trap to nail yet another murderer, whom he really likes and feels a twinge of sadness for exposing him.

Cabin B-13 - John Dickson Carr

Theme for the Week: Murder on The Seas

Name of the story: Cabin B-13

Author: John Dickson Carr

Source: The Door to Doom and Other Detections

Story Number: 52

This is one of Carr's very popular radio mysteries; it was adapted as a television drama; and in 1953 the script became the basis for a feature-length movie, Dangerous Crossing. Richard and Anne Brewster, married a few hours earlier are leaving for Europe on their 3 month honeymoon on board the ocean liner 'Maurevania'.

When they check in to Cabin B-13, Anne somehow recollects the old Paris Exposition story - where a mother and daughter duo check in to a hotel, the daughter goes out and when she returns, the mother has disappeared from the face of the earth and the proprietor of the hotel swears that she came alone! Little does Anne know that she is gone be in exactly the same situation just a few minutes later! Richard goes away to hand over the money to the purser, Anne goes to the upper deck and waits for Richard. The first person she meets there is Dr. Hardwick - who gives her the first shock that there is no cabin in that ship with number 13. When they go to B deck to investigate, they don't find Cabin B-13. The stewardess confirms that in all her eight years of service there never was a cabin with number 13.

Anne's luggage is found in B-16 but there's no sign of Richard or his luggage. Hardwick escorts her to Mr. Marshall, the second officer who was standing guard when the passengers entered the ship. He swears that Anne entered alone and no one was with her. The captain of the ship agrees to searching the whole ship but there's still no sign of Richard. Later in the night, Anne gets a call in her cabin from Richard; who says someone has been trying to kill him and he has been thwarting those attempts by hiding from them. He asks her to meet him in the upper deck immediately - where the climax is played out with Dr. Hardwick coming to the rescue of the intended victim to reveal a diabolical plot hatched out by the criminal. As in most of Carr's tales, the clues are fairly presented to the reader for him to identify the solution and the guilty party.

Problem At Sea - Agatha Christie

Theme: Murder on The Seas

Name of the story: Problem At Sea

Author: Agatha Christie

Source: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories, Poirot's Early Cases

Story Number: 51

Hercule Poirot is not enjoying his voyage to Egypt but that doesn't stop him from observing the odd mannerisms of the English. He is most interested in Colonel Clapperton and his wife, a disagreeable woman who holds all the strings and the husband is only a puppet; leaving everyone wondering why he doesn't "take a hatchet to her". Miss Henderson who shows quite an interest in the Colonel is the other character which interests Poirot on this ship which is about to berth in Alexandria.

When the ship reaches the shores of Alexandria the next morning, a couple of young girls coax the Colonel to go ashore but he decides to get his wife's permission and the whole troop including Poirot (who wants to see the curious scene that will be played out) approach the Clapperton's cabin only to find it locked from the inside. His wife is heard saying that she is sick and doesn't want to go ashore and that she has locked the cabin from inside so as not be to disturbed by the stewards. Poirot, Miss Henderson and a few others stay on board where as Clapperton accompanies the girls to check out the city and when he comes back in the night, they end up forcing open the door to find that Mrs. Clapperton has been stabbed with a native dagger, dead for more than 5 hours, a string of amber beads found on the floor of the cabin to suggest the presence of a bead seller.

But Poirot, who has anticipated the crime all along believes that the culprit to this locked cabin mystery is closer at hand and is one of the ship's passengers. When Miss Henderson challenges Poirot, he says that he has his own "methods" and very shortly he uses them to unravel the villain - a story where the author takes her time in setting up the trick and the clues to unravel them, and the case is solved in a very short time after the corpse is discovered.

Ice Elation - Susanna Gregory

Theme for the Week: Murder in the Most Unlikely Places

Name of the story: Ice Elation

Author: Susanna Gregory

Source: The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes

Story Number: 50

This story is set in a Russian research station called Vostok situated at the Pole of Inaccessibility, the point on the Antarctic Continent that is farthest from the coast in all directions. The author provides her own background to the story - a startling discovering being made in 1995 that a huge body of water has been sealed between ice and the rock for more than half a million years; scientists have been at a dilemma whether to drill the ice surface and contaminate the unique environment or to leave the pristine sterile water as it is. The story kicks off in 1999 when the decision has been made to continue drilling and the eight scientists stationed at Vostok are on the verge of completing the drill and reaching the body of water.

The research station is made up a collection of buildings: scientists' sleeping quarters, kitchen, two labs - one for examining the ice samples that the drill produced, the other filled with meteorological equipment and finally the drill-house. Each scientist is given the task of drilling the ice on a particular day of the week. With just two days to go before they reach the water, when Tanya is supposed to be drilling, the scientists note that the drilling has stopped for some time. When they go out to investigate, they find the drill-house locked from inside. When they break open the door, they find it empty with no sign of Tanya. They search all the buildings, they go on top of the roof of the tallest building from where they can see for around 30 miles but they don't see any sign of Tanya. And from there it's a 'And Then There Were None' story line - each of the scientists go to the drill-house at some time or the other to investigate and they don't return. Each time a search is made but no corpse is found.  Finally it just gets down to two - the leader of the group and one lady - where the leader figures out who is responsible, how they disappeared and where the bodies were hidden so as to escape the search party each time!

The Supreme Court Murder - Leslie Ford

Theme for the Week: Murder in the Most Unlikely Places

Name of the story: The Supreme Court Murder

Author: Leslie Ford

Source: Masters of Mystery

Story Number: 49

Not only is the murder set in an extraordinary setting in the form of the chamber of the Supreme Court of the United States in Capitol Hill (story set before the SC moved to the new location), it is also set in one of the most unlikely times – when the Chief Justice and the eight Associate Justices were in a public session, with each of the nine a witness to the ghastly murder!

Colonel Primrose has just been back from inspecting the Thompson Airways crash where there were no survivors. He and Sergeant Buck are in the Supreme Court watching the Monday morning proceedings. They see Thomas Pomerey, his daughter Anne and his partner Jerome Givler at the counsel’s table with Pomerey addressing the Judges. At 12.45, a shot is heard and the bullet pierces Pomerey’s heart. When they trace the bullet to its source, they find the gun wedged between two railings next to the big clock, set in such a way that when the clock reaches 12.45, a circuit is completed and the mechanical contraption would fire off the bullet at the person who would be standing at the counsel table. The impossible situation arises in the form of setting up that timer device – the clock could be accessed only after the court was opened at 9 in the morning and from that time, the court marshals were regularly on guard – no one could have spent half an hour setting it up even if one imagines it to be one of the staff!

In addition to Givler & Anne, the other suspects include Anne’s fiancé (who also happens to be a secretary to one of the judges) and Pomerey’s niece Hilda Ellis (world famous woman flyer). The murderer should have several qualities to have achieved this impossible looking murder – he or she should be well versed with the procedures of the court, should have had access to the clock in such a way that no one would notice that person being present there, a basic knowledge of mechanics to set up the timer and the most important fact being the knowledge that it would be Pomerey who would be starting the case and not his partner Givler! The ones who have motive do not have the understanding of the court procedures and the ones who know the procedures do not have motive. Another interesting fact turns out to be the fact that the dead man, the daughter and the niece all missed the flight which ended in a crash leaving no survivors.

The clues are all there to figure out the villain in this novella written in the Golden Age tradition and makes for fascinating reading with its description of the court and the other offices in Washington.

Cat’s-Paw by Bill Pronzini

Theme for the Week: Murder in the Most Unlikely Places

Name of the story: Cat’s-Paw

Author: Bill Pronzini

Source: Scenarios, Spadework – both collections of ‘Nameless Detective’ short stories

Story Number: 48

The unlikely place for murder in this story happens to be a Lion’s cage in a Zoo in the middle of a cold and foggy night – which is meticulously explained with all the eerie sounds and the various labyrinths of the animal enclosures. There has been a rash of thefts of a few esoteric and endangered species from the San Francisco zoological gardens including a crested screamer, a purple gallinule, a black crake, Harris hawks and Chiricahua rattlesnakes. All that the zoo could do was to hire one more extra night guard named Kirby in addition to the two that they had: Sam & Hammond. A member of the commission who is an animal lover hires Nameless to act as an extra guard during the night and identify the person responsible for the thefts.

On the fourth night of his vigil, Kirby is found dead inside one of the cages in the Lion’s House in peculiar circumstances: the small access door is locked, the sliding panel at the rear of the cage that let the big cats in and out at feeding time is also locked, both Nameless and Sam were together when the shot was heard and they both arrive at the scene through the only entrance possible(locked from outside) in less than 30 seconds and yet they don’t see anyone who could have murdered Kirby and escaped! The locked cage is quickly explained as they find a key next to the dead man – anybody could have locked the cage and thrown the key in through the bars but they don’t find an explanation as to how the murderer could have escaped in such a short span of time!

All the clues are fairly presented to the reader, the same clues which Nameless ponders upon and arrives at the only possible solution – which solves both the murder and the theft of the rare animals.

The Kindly Blackmailer - Kyotaro Nishimura

Theme: Murder in the Most Unlikely Places

Name of the story: The Kindly Blackmailer

Author: Kyotaro Nishimura

Source: Ellery Queen’s Japanese Golden Dozen

Story Number: 47

Most of the events in this story take place in a barber shop – reminiscent of one other classic story with the same setting. I’ll shamelessly borrow EQ’s introduction to this story here as it’s gone save me invaluable amount of time to figure one out myself: ‘A good short story should create a uniform impression throughout, and it should gradually build into breathless suspense and then settle in a satisfactory epilogue. Nishimura’s “The Kindly Blackmailer” not only does this but also manages to outwit the reader with an unexpected turn. A barber shop is the locale – an interesting place for intrigue and an unlikely background for crime …’

The story begins with Shinkinchi, a barber getting a new customer who is very reticent about himself. But he is not so tightlipped when it comes to talking about his knowledge of the barber – he tells him that he was a witness when the barber driving a little truck had run down a little kindergarten girl! And the blackmailing starts from there. Every week, this man returns to sit in the barber’s chair for a shave and at the end of it doubles his request (from the previous week) for the money. At one point, Shinkinchi hires a private detective to trace this man and provide him with any material which he himself could use to counter blackmail him but the man who is named Saburo turns out be clean without any skeletons in his closet.

The barber decides to close his shop and move to a new location. But it takes very less time for the blackmailer to catch up with him. The blackmailing continues and Shinkinchi has reached the end of his savings, he is in a bitter predicament and decides to do something the next time Saburo turns up. Interestingly he doesn’t turn up the next week as expected. One day, he reads in a newspaper that Saburo was hurt when he attempted to rescue a girl from meeting with an accident. Shinkinchi thinks that his troubles are over at last but he is in for a surprise when Saburo turns up in his shop for a shave the next week!

Why is Saburo taking such a big risk of allowing him to shave when he knows that the barber can kill him so easily with the knife? What will the barber do? Will he finally get the courage to kill his blackmailer? Well, the suspense mounts till we reach the conclusion – which has two great surprises which the reader wouldn’t have bargained for!