The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes Read online

  The Mammoth Book of

  LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES

  AND IMPOSSIBLE CRIMES

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  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2000

  Collection and editorial material copyright © Mike Ashley 2000

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 1-84119-129-9

  eISBN 978-1-78033-356-4

  Printed and bound in the EU

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD, David Renwick

  INTRODUCTION: HEY, PRESTO! Mike Ashley

  WAITING FOR GODSTOW, Martin Edwards

  THE ODOUR OF SANCTITY, Kate Ellis

  A TRAVELLER’S TALE, Margaret Frazer

  THE SILVER CURTAIN, John Dickson Carr

  THE STOLEN SAINT SIMON, Michael Kurland

  THE PROBLEM OF THE CROWDED CEMETERY, Edward D. Hoch

  DEATH RIDES THE ELEVATOR, Lois H. Gresh & Robert Weinberg

  THE BURGLAR WHO SMELLED SMOKE, Lynne Wood Block & Lawrence Block

  NO WAY OUT, Michael Collins

  OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH, Clayton Rawson

  MURDER STRIPS OFF, Amy Myers

  OUT OF HIS HEAD, Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  THE DOOMDORF MYSTERY, Melville Davisson Post

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE JACOBEAN HOUSE, C.N. & A.M. Williamson

  THE MOTOR BOAT, Jacques Futrelle

  MURDER IN THE AIR, Peter Tremayne

  THE PULP CONNECTION, Bill Pronzini

  STAG NIGHT, Marilyn Todd

  MR STRANG ACCEPTS A CHALLENGE, William Brittain

  THE LEGS THAT WALKED, H.R.F. Keating

  THE NEXT BIG THING, Peter T. Garratt

  THE SECOND DRUG, Richard A. Lupoff

  ICE ELATION, Susanna Gregory

  THE MYSTERY OF THE TAXI-CAB, Howel Evans

  HEARTSTOPPER, Frank M. Robinson

  BLIND EYES, Edward Marston

  THE AMOROUS CORPSE, Peter Lovesey

  AFTERWORD: IMPOSSIBLE CRIMES, Mike Ashley

  Copyright and Acknowledgments

  FOREWORD

  David Renwick

  Life for Alvy Singer in Annie Hall can be divided into two categories, the horrible and the miserable. I would add a third: the unbearably tedious. Reality, when it’s not simply hideous or depressing, tends to be largely unremarkable – or in other words, real. And if, like Sherlock Holmes and me, you “abhor the dull routine of existence”, then books and television shows whose mission is accurately to reflect the world around us will leave you feeling either suicidal or bored witless.

  Of course there is a place in detective fiction for the gritty social document, but it’s not a place I’d want to go to for a holiday. Personally I like my dramas to be a little improbable and my comedies a little absurd. I like, I suppose, to be taken to the edge: to teeter on the brink of plausibility, where logic lives dangerously yet somehow still manages to survive. For me this is where storytelling becomes exciting: when the writer is prepared to take risks; to bend the limits of invention. And if for Holmes there was respite from the routine in the form of a seven-per-cent solution perhaps the rest of us can at least find solace in a good locked-room mystery.

  Although the impossible crime genre has long been well respected in the world of publishing few people in recent times have been so foolish as to try and make it work on television. This is because we are all so highly sophisticated now that heaven forbid a detective series should be fun. But in the certain knowledge that Jonathan Creek would be branded “preposterous” and “far-fetched” I was cheerfully prepared to have a go, with the quiet conviction that people, not plots, are the key to an audience’s acceptance. Providing the characters are real and respond truthfully to whatever you throw at them it is my view that you can take as many liberties with the storylines as you like. (Thus Victor Meldrew’s “I don’t believe it” in One Foot in the Grave is an honest reflection of our own incredulity at the bizarre twists of fate to which he is so often subjected.) Then, as Gideon Fell declares in John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, “the whole test is, can the thing be done? If so, the question of whether it would be done does not enter into it.” Or as Creek himself points out in Jack in the Box, “We mustn’t confuse what’s impossible with what’s implausible. Most of the stuff I cook up for a living relies upon systems that are highly implausible. That’s what makes it so difficult to solve. No one ever thinks you’d go to that much trouble to fool your audience.”

  Of course the problem, as Carr also observed, is that when the effect of a particular crime is magical we expect the cause to be magical also. And when the explanation for our baffling scenario turns out – as it must – to be more prosaic than the events leading up to it we may emerge from
the experience feeling cheated. Even the most famous detective story ever written cannot escape this charge: did anyone ever learn that the Hound of the Baskervilles was “bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road” without a sense of anti-climax? Yet the novel is rightly celebrated because it performs what I believe to be the essential task of any creative work: it pushes the buttons. Within its pages I can think of at least half a dozen classic moments that never fail to send a thrill down the spine; moments that consume and intrigue, that defy you to put the book down. At its very least the “supernatural” mystery has a magnetic power over and above the conventional detective story: when someone appears to have violated the laws of nature we cannot but yearn to know how it was done. At its best it delivers a chillingly clever solution that reverses our whole perspective on events and sends us away with a warm and satisfying glow. When this happens – Carter Dickson’s The Judas Window, Jacques Futrelle’s The Problem of Cell 13, Melville Davisson Post’s The Doomdorf Mystery – then you have a rare treat indeed.

  All of which is to argue that a fascination for the impossible crime represents, in all of us, no more or less than a primal thirst for escapism. Like the spectral assailant who has miraculously vanished from the scene of the crime it’s comforting occasionally to give reality the slip and retreat into the more fantastical world of our imagination.

  Introduction

  HEY, PRESTO!

  Mike Ashley

  The impossible-crime story is like a good trick. In fact it has to be better than a good trick. Not only must the puzzle fascinate and mystify, but the solution must be just as surprising, yet believable. How often have you had a magician’s trick explained and then felt deflated? It almost feels a cheat. Well, these stories had to avoid that. When you read the solution to the crime, you should be able to say, “That was clever. I’d never have thought of that.”

  That’s what I hope we’ve done in this book. I’ve endeavoured to bring together a collection of stories that seem utterly baffling and where the solution is equally amazing. Not an easy trick.

  Yet despite the impossible crime being such a difficult story to write, it remains at the core of the mystery story. These stories are as much “howdunits” as “whodunits”. They’re puzzles. They challenge the reader to try and solve the method before the author reveals all.

  The whole point about an impossible crime is that when first discovered it must seem as if there was no possible way that the crime could have been committed. The most common approach is the locked-room mystery. In these the victim is found murdered in a room locked from the inside. He’s usually alone, and there is no other way into or out of the room. To make it even more fun he may have been shot or stabbed, but there is no murder weapon. There are endless variations on the theme. Other impossible scenarios are bodies found in the snow but with no other footprints beyond his own; property stolen from within a locked safe or room under constant watch; people or things disappearing in full view of an audience. The Golden Rule is that the solution to these crimes must be rational – there should be nothing supernatural or beyond current knowledge and understanding.

  You’ll have seen a number of these ideas in David Renwick’s excellent Jonathan Creek television series, and I’m delighted that Mr Renwick has written a special foreword for this book.

  You’ll find all these ideas and more in this anthology. What I looked for was originality, ingenuity, and a story that did not disappoint. I hope it lives up to both my and your expectations.

  For those interested in discovering more about locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes I have provided a capsuled history as an Afterword.

  Now, prepare to be baffled.

  WAITING FOR GODSTOW

  Martin Edwards

  Martin Edwards (b.1955) is a practising solicitor and uses this background for his series of novels featuring Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin. The series began with All the Lonely People (1991) in which Devlin’s wife is found murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. There has been roughly a book a year since then. The following story does not feature Harry Devlin but a new detective, Paul Godstow, who doesn’t even realize he has an impossible crime on his hands.

  Claire Doherty practised her grief-stricken expression in the mirror. Quivering lip, excellent. Lowered lashes, very suitable. All that she needed to do now was to make sure she kept the glint of triumph out of her eyes and everything would be fine.

  She glanced at the living room clock for the thousandth time. Time passed slowly when you were waiting for bad news. The call could not come soon enough, that call which would bring the message that her husband was dead. Then she would have to prepare herself for her new role as a heartbroken widow. It would be a challenge, but she was determined to meet it head on. More than that, she would positively relish playing the part.

  If only she didn’t have to rely on Zack doing what he had to do. Zack was gorgeous and he did things for her that previously she had only read about in magazines, while having her hair done. But he was young and careless and there was so much that could yet go wrong. No wonder that she kept checking the clock, shaking her watch to see if it had stopped when it seemed that time was standing still. She readily admitted to friends that patience wasn’t one of her virtues. Besides, she would add, vices are so much more interesting anyway. Above all, she liked to be in control, hated being dependent on others. It was hard being reduced to counting the minutes until freedom finally came her way.

  The phone trilled and she snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” she demanded breathlessly.

  “Is that Mrs Doherty?” The voice belonged to a woman. Late twenties, at a guess. She sounded anxious.

  “Yes, what is it?” If it was a wrong number, she would scream.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, really I am.”

  “No problem.” It was all she could do not to hiss: get off the line, don’t you realize I’m waiting for someone to tell me my husband is dead?

  “My name is Bailey. Jennifer Bailey from Bradford.”

  Oh, for God’s sake. Karl’s latest floosie. Suppressing the urge to give the woman a mouthful, Claire said coldly, “Can I help you?”

  “It’s just that your husband left a few minutes ago. I’m afraid I kept him longer than expected. He was rather concerned, because he said he would be late home and his mobile didn’t seem to be working. So I offered to give you a ring to let you know he is on his way. He said he should be with you in about an hour-and-a-half if the road was clear. You live on the far side of Manchester, I gather?”

  “That’s right.” Claire thought for a moment. “Thank you. It’s good of you to let me know.”

  “My pleasure,” Jennifer Bailey said.

  She said it as though she meant it. Indeed, she sounded so timid that it was hard to believe that she had probably spent the last couple of hours in flagrante with Karl. Perhaps he’d tired of the bimbos and was now taking an interest in the submissive type. Someone as different from herself, Claire thought grimly after she put down the phone, as he could manage to find.

  Would the delay have caused a problem? Something else for her to worry about. Zack had refused to tell her precisely how and when he proposed to do what was necessary. He said it was better that way. Claire knew he could never resist a melodramatic flourish. She blamed it on all the videos he watched. It amused her, though, all the same. She’d gathered that he would be keeping his eye on Jennifer Bailey’s house, with a view to dealing with Karl when he emerged. So he would have had to wait for a while. Surely that wouldn’t have been too much of a challenge. She was having to wait. Was it so much to ask that her lover should also have to bide his time?

  The phone rang again. Claire made an effort not to sound too wound-up. “Yes?”

  “It’s done.” Zack sounded pleased with himself, relaxed. He liked to come across as cool, as comfortable with violence as a character from a Tarantino movie. “No worries.”

  “Wonderful,” she
said. The tension went out of her; she felt giddy with the sense of release.

  “I know I am,” he said roguishly.

  “How . . .?”

  “Hit and run. Stolen Fiesta. No witnesses.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Bradford’s pretty quiet at night, you know.”

  “And he’s definitely . . .?”

  “Believe me,” he said with a snigger. “I reversed back the way I’d come, just to make sure. The job’s a good ’un.”

  How could she ever have doubted him? After saying goodbye, she hugged herself with delight. He might only be a boy, but he’d kept his word. He’d promised to free her and that was exactly what he had done. She uttered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d agreed to let him ring her, to prevent the suspense becoming unbearable. He’d said he would nick a mobile from somewhere and call her on it before throwing it away. She’d worried that the call might be traced, but he said the police would never check and, even if they did, so what? She had an alibi and besides, he meant to make sure Karl’s death looked like an accident. She should stop fretting and leave it all to him.

  She’d gambled on him and her faith had been repaid. She could hardly believe it. Part of her wanted to crack open a bottle of champagne. Never mind waiting for it to be safe for Zack to come here and share in the celebrations. But it wasn’t safe. There was no telling when the police might turn up at her door with the tidings of Karl’s demise. She made do with a cup of tea. She would need to have all her wits about her, so that no-one would ever suspect there might be more to the death than met the eye.

  Poor Karl. She wasn’t so heartless as to deny him a thought. At least it had been a quick end. Besides, he didn’t have too many grounds for complaint. He had died happy. Jennifer Bailey didn’t give the impression of being a ball of fire, but perhaps she’d simply been daunted by the need to speak to her lover’s wife on the phone. She’d certainly kept him occupied for most of the evening.

  She smiled indulgently, remembering how Karl had downplayed his trip to see Jennifer. “I really tried every trick in the book,” he’d said. Protesting rather too much, she had thought. “I was desperate to cancel the appointment. I mean, you know what it’s like. A one-legger is hopeless, a complete waste of time.”