Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 2. Whole No. 822, February 2010

Fear No More

by Peter Tremayne

Peter Tremayne is one of the fiction-writing pseudonyms of renowned Celtic scholar Peter Berresford Ellis. Most of the stories that have appeared in this magazine under the Tremayne byline belong to his series set in ancient Ireland, featuring Sister Fidelma, a religieuse who is also an advocate in the legal system of the time. The two most recent stories we’ve received from the author, including this one, are set instead in Elizabethan England and star Master Drew Hardy, a constable of the watch.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages;

Thou the worldly task has done,

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages...

Cymbeline Act IV, Scene 2

William Shakespeare

A wailing March wind was blowing from the northwest along Bankside, causing the Thames to move in choppy wavelets and froth an angry white around its quays and the massive piles of the great London Bridge. Wisps of thatch were being blown hither and thither among the debris of the streets, plucked from the houses and even from the roof of the stately Globe Theatre. The wind howled down Pepper Street, causing the painted wooden sign of the Pilgrim’s Wink Tavern to rattle and shake in spite of its iron fastening.

Screwing up his eyes against the icy smack of the wind, Master Hardy Drew, Constable of the Bankside Watch, opened the lattice window on the first floor of the tavern. He held it ajar a fraction in order to lean out, pull closed a loose, banging shutter, and fasten it before, thankfully, securing the window latch again.

It had been a cold winter and the elderly queen, insisting on going for her walk in the February chills, had caught cold and had been ailing since. In fact, the talk was that the poor lady would not recover. She lay in her palace at Richmond surrounded by members of her privy council and attended by her physicians and even the elderly Archbishop John Whitgift of Canterbury. All that day, Sunday, the nation had offered prayer for her recovery. Master Drew himself had gone to the church of St. Saviours to offer his supplication, but it seemed a forlorn hope. Yet, after forty-five years, it seemed impossible to imagine England without Elizabeth upon its throne.

He turned back into the room that he rented on the first floor of the tavern and rubbed his forehead to massage warmth back into his cold flesh. The distant cry of a night watchman proclaiming the hour turned his thoughts to bed. He had finished the piece of cold mutton pie and the pint of ale that comprised his supper and glanced undecided at the dying embers of the fire. He paused wondering whether to place another log on it and continue reading for a while longer.

Above the threatening cry of the wind and the occasional bang and crash of some object being pushed along the cobbled street before it, he suddenly became aware of a new sound. The rattle of a coach on the stones outside and the nervous whinny of horses caught his ear. Then he realised the coach had halted outside. He stood, head to one side, listening. Sure enough, there came a thunderous knocking on the door below. He made no stir for he heard Master Cuttle, the landlord, already grumbling at the door. Only a moment passed before he heard rapid footsteps on the stair and there came a knock on his own door.

In answer to his invitation, it swung open and Master Cuttle stood nervously on the threshold for a moment.

“Gen’leman to see you, Master Drew,” he mumbled before scurrying off.

A tall man of some fifty years entered and pushed the door behind him. Master Drew caught the sweet smell of a tincture of roses, noted the finery of the cloak and hat, which the man proceeded to cast off without waiting for an invitation, throwing them carelessly over the nearest upright chair. His clothing not only proclaimed him a gentleman but a man of some status and substance.

“Do you recognise me, Master Drew?” he demanded without preamble.

Master Drew’s features had formed a frown of recognition. He had seen the attorney general of England several times when his duties took him north of the river to the law courts of the realm. He made a hurried bow.

“Sir Edward. Please take a seat before the fire and tell me how I may serve you at this hour?”

At the same time, Master Drew moved quickly to the fireplace to put the extra log on the embers.

Sir Edward Coke moved unsmilingly to the indicated chair.

“I have heard good things of you, Master Drew,” he said, as he seated himself. “I have heard others say that you have a reputation as a solver of puzzles. A man with the ability to supply solutions to the most difficult conundrums and withal a man of discretion. Is this not so?”

Master Drew grimaced.

“I am not responsible for what others say, Sir Edward. I can only say that I have had a little success since my appointment as constable here on the Bankside.”

Sir Edward smiled quickly, as if satisfied with the answer.

“Modesty may be a virtue, Master Drew, but it does not put a pension in your pocket or put a prefix before your name.”

“My ambition is to keep my name and save a little to buy a small farm out beyond Moorfields where I might, in simple comfort, spend the twilight of my years.”

“Modest enough. But with your talent, ambition should look further.”

“I am well content. But I fear it was not talk of my ambition that was your reason for coming to call here on such a night.”

Sir Edward sighed.

“Indeed, good Master Drew. I have a puzzle to set before you. I will pay you well for your consideration of the matter.”

Master Drew raised an inquisitorial eyebrow.

“Perhaps you would be so good as to elucidate the matter?”

“I will tell you in the coach. We have to go to Holborn, north of the river.”

“But the gates on the bridge will be closed. And I have no jurisdiction on the north bank of the river.”

Sir Edward laughed.

“The gates of London Bridge will open to me. I am the attorney general and will tell you where your jurisdiction is.”

Master Drew sighed deeply, casting a wistful look at the fire where the log he had recently placed on the embers was blazing merrily.

It was scarcely fifteen minutes later when, having given instructions to Master Cuttle to have a care of the fire and seizing his worn but woollen cloak and hat, Master Drew found himself north of the river, seated in the attorney general’s coach. They had crossed London Bridge with amazing rapidity. The sentinels at the southern Stone Gate and then at the northern gate marked by Nonsuch House had given one glance at Sir Edward’s coat of arms emblazoned on the carriage doors and had waved it through with all speed. Sir Edward was relaxed in his seat opposite Master Drew.

“In plain truth, Master Drew, the young cousin of an acquaintance of mine has been killed. Two men set him upon as he came to the town house of my acquaintance in Holborn. He had not long been in London, I’m afraid, and took a fancy to a stroll around the Chancery Courts and gardens, returning on foot at dusk. We need to be satisfied that this was either an attack by thieves to rob the unfortunate young man or whether there was some more sinister design.”

Master Drew was surprised.

“Sadly, as you well know, sir, such attacks are not unknown. The footpads will have vanished into the slums around the Fleet. If you are asking me to track them, I fear I shall not be successful. That is, unless they took some singular object by which they can be identified if and when they attempt to sell it.”

Sir Edward was shaking his head.

“The young man was not robbed, sir. At least, his purse was still on his body.”

“Then were the thieves disturbed?”

“They were seen bending over the body, but they had plenty of time to carry off the purse, if that was their wish.”

“You imply that it was not?”

“I do not wish to imply anything, Master Drew. I am here at the request of my acquaintance, who wishes some investigation and assurance about how his young cousin met his death.”

“Surely, this is a matter for the City of London coroner?” Master Drew knew that scarcely a day went by when some poor soul was not attacked and robbed and even killed on the streets of London. Only if a person was of some status and wealth was an investigation held, and that usually by the coroner.

“This must be an inquiry of a strictly confidential nature, Master Drew. Five guineas will be yours for the use of your discretion.”

Master Drew stared in surprise.

“I would need some enlightenment on this matter. Who was the victim?”

“The young man was cousin to Sir Christopher Hatton, who owns the house in Holborn to which we are going. We are going to Hatton Gardens.”

Master Drew frowned as he searched his memory.

“Hatton?”

“You are acquainted with the name?”

“It has a passing familiarity. Ah, I have it but... but Sir Christopher Hatton died eleven years ago.”

Sir Edward shook his head.

“This is Sir Christopher’s heir, a great nephew of the Sir Christopher of whom you speak.”

“I see. The Sir Christopher that I recall had been Captain of the Queen’s Guard, a privy councillor, and, I recall, Lord Chancellor. He was given the palace of the Bishops of Ely by the queen and was buried in St Paul’s. There was a rumour...” Master Drew paused and his lips compressed.

Sir Edward smiled in amusement.

“We are alone, Master Drew. Anyway I know the rumour.”

“The queen was frequently a visitor at Ely Palace and was very solicitous when Sir Christopher was dying. It was said that when he died he was indebted to her by some forty thousand pounds.”

“You speak of the facts, not the rumour. They are true. Since you are reticent about the rumour, I will tell it. The rumour was that Sir Christopher was the queen’s favourite.”

“Such was the rumour,” affirmed Master Drew gravely.

“Let us discard the rumour, then. It is of no consequence. It is known that Ely Place is now called Hatton Gardens, after Sir Christopher. When he died, which, as you rightly say, was about eleven years ago, his heir was a nephew, William Newport, who then adopted the name Hatton. He died six years ago and his cousin, the current Sir Christopher, inherited. Sir Christopher is of my acquaintance. In fact,” he grew slightly embarrassed, “when Sir William died, I married his widow.”

Master Drew made no comment. The behaviour of the wife of Sir Edward, the former Lady Elizabeth Hatton, was one of the scandals of London. When they married, she had refused to take his name, preferring to keep to the title Lady Hatton. They had often been witnessed arguing in public places, and it was rumoured that the elderly queen had forbidden her entry to any palace in which she resided. It was known that the vivacious Lady Hatton was twenty-six years junior to Sir Edward and an unrepentant flirt, if not worse. They had, apparently, gone their separate ways over a year ago in spite of having a child in common.

Master Drew cleared his throat and brought his mind back to the present matter.

“So who was this cousin who was killed?”

“His name was Henry Hatton.”

“His age?”

“Nine and twenty.”

“You say he had only just come to London?”

“He had been living on an estate owned by the Hattons in Waterford in Ireland. Ah, we are here.”

The coach had halted and one of the footmen alighted and hurriedly opened the door. As Master Drew followed Sir Edward to the steps of the considerable town house outside which they had drawn up, the door opened and a distinguished-looking man came hurrying forward. Anxiety marked his features. His glance encompassed Master Drew and the constable was aware of a deep intensity of observation in that brief look.

“Sir Christopher, this is Master Drew, of whom I have spoken,” said Sir Edward.

Master Drew started to bow, but Sir Christopher quickly waved a hand that seemed an invitation to dispense with such etiquette.

“You will want to see the body?” he asked immediately.

“I will also want to speak with anyone who saw the attack or was at the scene soon after.”

“My man, Joseph, will show you to the body,” muttered Sir Christopher. “You will join Sir Edward and myself in the drawing room,” he indicated a door in the hall of the house, “when you have finished.”

A stony-faced footman dressed in Hatton livery moved forward.

“If you will follow me, sir?”

He led the way up the wide, winding stairway to an upper floor and into a bedroom.

“Was this the guest room where Master Hatton was staying?” Master Drew asked, as the room clearly showed marks of occupancy.

“It was, Master Constable,” replied the footman. “When Master Hatton arrived, Sir Christopher assigned him this room, it being one of our guest rooms.”

“When did he arrive?”

“Two days ago.”

The body was laid out on the oak fourposter bed. It was a man of thirty or perhaps a little older. There were bloodstains on his satin doublet and white linen shirt, both of which garments had been loosened, obviously in some attempt to staunch the wound as the man lay dying. Apart from the doublet and shirt, no other items of his clothing had been touched. Even his stockings and fashionable shoes were still on his muscular legs.

He was a handsome man. His skin was fair, almost white, and his hair, drawn back from a broad forehead, could be called red but standing more towards a pale ginger. The features seemed disconcertingly familiar to Master Drew. Certainly, the man was richly attired. His hands were well manicured and there appeared no indication that he had ever lifted anything heavier than a rapier in his life.

Master Drew frowned suddenly and turned to the liveried servant who stood impassively at the door.

“Joseph, was this gentleman wearing a sword?”

“Not when he was brought in from the street, Master Constable.”

“You mean he was wearing one when he went out this afternoon?”

“I recollect that he was, sir. It don’t do for a young gen’lemen to be abroad in London without a good rapier to ward off the footpads and the like. Though much good it did the poor gen’leman. Maybe the thieves stole it.”

Master Drew returned to his examination. His eyes, returning to the well-manicured hands, noticed a white circle of skin on the man’s signet finger, which indicated the habitual wearing of a ring.

“Where is the signet ring he used to wear?”

The footman looked bewildered. He leaned forward as if he had only just noticed that it was not there.

“I do recall that he wore a ring, a large one, if it please you. But in the turmoil of the events...” He shrugged. “It seems that the thieves made off with that also.”

“They stopped and removed a signet ring when it would be easier to cut the purse...” Master Drew muttered reflectively as he glanced to where the dead man’s purse still hung at his waist. He reached forward and felt it. It was heavy and clinked with its metal contents. Master Drew removed it, untying its fastening, and emptied it into the contents of his hand. “A silly young man to carry so much. A good three years’ wages to a wherryman on the river. Throats have been cut for less.”

“Yet the purse remain, sir,” pointed out the servant, stoically.

“Aye, indeed, good Joseph. The purse and its contents remain.”

Replacing it, he bent over the body again, peering at it carefully, and then finally came to the wounds.

“Someone has attempted to clean the wounds since death.”

“On Sir Christopher’s orders, sir. Mary and Poll from the kitchen did their best to clean away the blood.”

Master Drew was thoughtful. There was, in fact, only one clean wound. One small incision which would lead the blade directly into the heart. Master Drew had seen such wounds before and they were usually made by a swift thrust of a rapier — a gentleman’s weapon — and not the weapon favoured by cutthroats, footpads, and brigands of the London back streets.

“Did this young man have his own servant?”

“He did, sir,” replied Joseph with a tone of disapproval. “He brought with him from Ireland an outlandish sort of fellow who speaks a gentleman’s English, though accented and interspersed with his gibberish Irish tongue. In fact, he was the one who spotted the footpads that attacked Master Hatton, causing them to run off, before he brought his body into the house.”

Master Drew was surprised at this new intelligence.

“What is the man’s name?”

“He tells us that he is called Broder Power, from some town called Waterford.”

“Ask him to join me here.”

The footman looked as though he would raise an objection and then, meeting Master Drew’s steely gaze, inclined his head for a moment and went off to fulfil his task.

Master Drew took the opportunity of the servant’s absence to make a quick search of the bedroom. There was a small walnut writing bureau. Obviously Master Hatton had neither inclination nor time for letter writing for the interior showed no sign of recent usage.

There were clothes in the closet that spoke of good taste and quality. Henry Hatton certainly did not want for money to buy the best that master tailors could offer. He ruffled through the silks and satins. One cloak caused him to pause; it was a dark blue satin cloak that had a collar edged with pure white fur and black flecks and even the edging was of the same. Master Drew frowned. He recognised the fur as taken from one of the weasel family, prized for its tail of pure white fur and black tip. He grimaced and then closed the closet door.

An intricately worked walnut dresser contained articles of a toilet nature, with bottles of scents and fragrances that again spoke of good taste. Some drawers were filled with stockings and undergarments, all of good quality. He was about to turn away when he saw some something bright under some of the silk clothing. It was a small silver locket on a chain of similar metal. He took it out — inscribed on the silver was a shield and a motto. The shield displayed two bulls’ heads divided by a chevron from a third bull’s head. Master Drew knew the motto as French, as he had a little knowledge of the language. “Le plus heureux” — The most happy. He opened the locket. There was room for two miniature portraits inside. The one on the left-hand side had been removed, but clumsily so, leaving tiny splinters of the wood base on which it had been painted. The second portrait, on the right side, was still there. It was the features of the young man who currently lay dead on the bed before him.

Taking the locket in one hand, Master Drew went to the bedside and peered down. There was no doubt of it. This was a miniature of the young man who had met his end by a single thrust of a blade. The constable shook his head, closed the locket, pausing briefly to look at the arms again, and then, hearing a step outside the door, he placed it down on the side table.

There was a tap on the door and he bade the person who knocked enter.

Joseph, the footman, came in, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early twenties, with dark hair, fair skin, and the build and manner of a soldier rather than a servant.

“This is Broder Power, Master Drew,” said the liveried footman, indicating his distaste with a grimace.

“Then you may wait outside, Joseph,” Master Drew replied.

The footman hesitated and then shrugged and removed himself.

The young man who entered glanced at the body on the bed and his hand moved to touch his forehead. Then he realised Master Drew was watching and caught himself.

“I am not interested in your religion, Master Power,” the constable said immediately, realising that the man was about to make the sign of the Cross. “Though, out of curiosity, was your late master a Papist?”

“He was not, a dhuine usal... I mean, Your Honour. But no finer heretical gentleman have I served.”

Master Drew smiled.

“Then I would choose my words more carefully while you are in England at this time.”

Broder Power nodded quickly.

“It is hard to be indifferent in the presence of the dead, Your Honour.”

“I have a few questions for you. How long have you served Master Hatton?”

“Just over one year.”

“And you are from Ireland?”

“Master Hatton had an estate outside the city of Waterford, where I come from. I served in my lord the Earl of Clancarthy’s troops and after Lord Montjoy defeated us at Kinsale...” He shrugged. “Well, I was taken prisoner, but Master Hatton gave me my freedom if I served him faithfully.”

“Then you are a soldier, not a house servant?”

“A Dhia na bhfeart, a dhuine usail, it is so. Master Hatton hired me to guard his person but I have failed in that.”

“Why did he need a bodyguard?”

“He said he had enemies in high places and wanted to be sure that he had protection against an assassin’s knife.”

“Why were you not with him this evening?”

“He ordered it so.”

“Why did he come to London?”

“He told me that he had to fulfill that to which he was born.”

“When did he tell you this?”

“Two weeks ago. A messenger came to him in Waterford. I know not what news he brought. But Master Hatton said that we must sail to England forthwith and it took us time to get ship and sail to London. We arrived scarcely two days ago.”

Master Drew changed subject abruptly. “He used to wear a signet ring, I am told.”

“He did, a dhuine usail. I saw it many times.”

“Yet he is not wearing it now.”

Power took a step towards the bed and stared.

“By the powers, he is not.”

“Do you know what happened to it?”

“He was wearing it when he left here this afternoon.”

“And his sword?”

“I think the footpads fled with that. Also, he used to wear a Venetian stiletto on his left side. As I recall, he was not wearing that when I found the body.”

“Before we come to that, cast your memory back. What was on that signet ring? Can you recall its emblem?”

“Oh, that I can, a dhuine usail. I used to laugh at it, for Master Hatton was a young man of action and I would have thought he would have had some emblem depicting that. A fighting animal or bird — an eagle, a raven, a lion, or even a bull. No, the emblem he wore was that of a pelican.”

Master Drew let out a soft breath.

“A pelican, say you?”

“A white pearl pelican set against a ruby stone.”

“And his sword? Was there anything that distinguished it?”

“It was of fine workmanship. There were roses worked around the handle-guard and some Latin inscription on the blade. I can’t recall exactly what it was.”

“Tell me of the events of today. How was it that Master Hatton, being so afeared of assassination, told you to remain here and went abroad alone?”

Broder Power rubbed his jaw with his hand.

“Just as I say, a dhuine usail. He told me to remain. I think a messenger came to the house with a note. On the intelligence he received from this note, he told me that he was going to the Chancery buildings not far away and there was no reason for me to accompany him. I protested but a little. But he girth on his sword and dagger, laughed, and departed. I was unhappy. Master Hatton was a good man, albeit an Englishman, and I vowed to serve him well. I followed at a distance. Indeed, he went directly to the Chancery buildings. I believe them to be your courts of law?”

Master Drew nodded.

“In a small garden, among those buildings, I saw him encounter a young lady.”

“Can you describe her?”

“That I can and well, a dhuine usail... I mean, Your Honour, for she had called at this very house the day we had arrived. I heard Sir Christopher greet her distantly and call her Lady Hatton.”

Master Drew stared for a moment at the man.

“Lady Hatton?” he echoed thoughtfully. “And you felt there was some animosity in the greeting from Sir Christopher?”

“’Twas like watching two skilled fencing artists exchange an opening clash of their blades. I heard her say she wished to be introduced to her new cousin, by which I think she meant my master. But Sir Christopher told her he was not within the house. God save him, but that was a lie, for he was within his room.”

“And this was the same lady that met with your master in the Chancery gardens?”

“It was, er... Your Honour. And that is the truth of it. I observed them for a while. They appeared in long discussion. But I misdoubt that it was a comfortable exchange of kinsfolk. There seemed some anger in the air. My master stood up and took his leave. Thinking that I could quickly catch him, I lingered to watch the lady, who walked to a shaded arch. I noticed there was a coach there, a coach and two horses. A man leant out and she spoke awhile to him and once pointed in the direction my master had taken.”

“Did you observe this man? What was he like and were there any distinguishing marks on the coach?”

“There was a shield on the coach. I think it was blue and white horizontal bars on it and some animals but, in truth, I would not be able to tell one of your English heraldic signs from another. I know the man in the coach had a tawny beard, reddish hair, and as he leant from the coach window it seem to me the gentleman was crooked of back, though it might have been the angle from which I was observing the encounter. The coach moved off and I quickly followed my master. Dia linn! I lost sight of him until he reached the very street wherein we were dwelling with Sir Christopher. Dusk was falling but I saw several things at once that demanded my attention.

“I saw the same coach disappearing down the street. I saw my master on the ground and two men were bending over him. One held my master’s sword, which he had obviously wrenched from him, for it was still in its scabbard. The other was...” Master Power paused and exclaimed — “A Dhia! One was tearing at his hand. He must have been taking the signet ring. I yelled, stupidly so, for I was some distance away and unable to close with the thieves. They looked up, saw me, and took to their heels. I thought it more important to get my poor master to the house and call for help rather than chase them.”

Master Drew spoke sharply.

“Can you describe them?”

“They had dark cloaks about them and hats that shaded their faces. One thing I observed — that they wore good boots.”

Master Drew raised an eyebrow.

“Good boots? Why would you observe that?”

“It occurred to me only later. I have seen some of the poor in the city. Many, like in my own sad country, go barefoot or cannot afford good quality leather to wear and resort to wooden shoes or the like. These had good boots.”

“So you brought Master Hatton inside. And then?”

“He was pronounced dead. It needed no physician to confirm it. Sir Christopher was in a great state of anguish, naturally so, it being his cousin. We placed him here. The other gentleman, Sir Edward, was with Sir Christopher at the time and there was some discussion. Then Sir Edward left and on his return he brought you here, a dhuine usail. These are the facts as I know them.”

Master Drew sighed and was troubled.

“Tell me, Master Power, do you have your means of support?”

Broder Power looked at him curiously.

“I have my health, a good blade, and a fair sword arm, a purse with scarce a guinea in it. I relied on the patronage and employment of my master.”

“Accept my advice, Master Broder Power, and return to your own country and do so immediately. Better still, go join your countrymen in France and Spain, for now Montjoy has defeated O’Neill, I do fear that things will not go well for your people in Ireland. Slip away from this house this minute while it is still dark and vanish as quickly as you can. It is better that you do not know the reasons why, but I urge you to do so if you value your life and liberty.”

Broder Power stared at Master Drew curiously and then he glanced to the corpse on the bed.

“Then my master was an important person? This was the assassination he feared?”

“You are an intelligent man, Master Power,” replied the constable. “At this time, in this place, an intelligent man knows when not to seek answers to such questions.”

“I will do as you say, a dhuine usail... Your Honour.”

Master Drew left Broder Power and was conducted by the stony-faced Joseph down the stairs to the drawing room, where Sir Edward and Sir Christopher were waiting impatiently.

“You have been awhile, Constable,” greeted Sir Christopher in surly manner. “The hour grows late.”

“The constable has a reputation for thoroughness,” intervened Sir Edward in a conciliatory tone. “Is it not so? Have you come to some conclusions, Master Drew?”

Master Drew smiled thinly.

“Will you assuage my curiosity, Sir Edward?”

“Of course, of course. Sir Christopher, a glass of malmsey for the good constable.”

Master Drew declined the wine and said: “I do not seek to cause offence, but I was wondering about Lady Hatton, Sir Edward. I mean Lady Elizabeth Hatton, your wife.”

Sir Edward’s brow creased in a frown of annoyance

“My wife and I have led separate lives this past year or so.”

“I was merely curious, forgive me, but what was her family?”

“She was a Cecil, Master Drew. The daughter of Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley. Why do you inquire?”

Master Drew sighed deeply, as if he had suspected the answer.

“Forgive me, as I say, it was but a passing curiosity on my part.”

“And so to your observations,” snapped Sir Christopher. “My cousin’s death must be officially pronounced before we can begin the burial procedures...”

Master Drew turned to him.

“I believe...” he began.

There was a thunderous knocking at the door that startled them all. They could hear servants scurrying to the door, voices raised, and then Joseph opened the doors, but before he could speak a small man came pushing into the room. Behind him were two men wearing the livery of the queen’s guards. Their weapons were not drawn, but they were well armed.

Sir Edward was the first to recover from his surprise.

“Sir Robert! What brings you abroad at this late hour?”

Sir Robert was a slight man, dwarfish in stature, with a humpback, reddish hair, a tawny beard, and large green eyes that had a hard quality to them. They swept the gathering with a coldness that did not match the grim smile on the man’s thin lips. Master Drew bowed stiffly, for it did not achieve anything to antagonise Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State to Her Majesty.

“Business of state brings me abroad at this hour, as you should know well, Sir Edward.” He made no reference or apology for the armed guards at the door.

“How can I serve you, Sir Robert?” Sir Christopher came forward nervously.

“I have lately come from Richmond Palace. Her Majesty is dying and will not, according to her physicians, last out the week. She has, as Sir Edward will know, consistently refused to name or approve a successor. These are perilous times, gentlemen. Claims and counterclaims to the throne will plunge this kingdom into the bloodiest civil war since the queen’s grandfather overthrew Richard of York at Bosworth. Pretenders and claimants gather like conspirators. It is my task to protect the kingdom and, on intelligence from the physicians, I have now sent a draft constitutional agreement to the queen’s cousin, the King of Scots, in that if His Majesty so desires he may proceed here to London, on Her Majesty’s demise, and be accorded the Crown of England as well as Scotland.”

The announcement did not seem to surprise Sir Edward. He merely inclined his head almost as if in surrender.

“It was good of you to seek me out and tell me so, Sir Robert. I will repair to Richmond forthwith as my duty lies with being at my sovereign’s bedside at the hour of her death.”

Sir Robert made a curious motion of his hand.

“Yet I hear, Sir Christopher, you have also had a death here at your house?” He glanced to Master Drew. “I also understand that you have sent for an official to make inquiries into the manner and perpetrators of this death.”

Master Drew swallowed slightly. He knew that Sir Robert ran a web of spies and informers and, indeed, assassins which protected the realm from any perceived threat by the queen’s enemies.

“Master Drew has not yet had time...” began Sir Christopher.

“On the contrary,” Master Drew said decisively, “I was just about to deliver my summation.”

Sir Christopher seemed to exchange a frightened glance with Sir Edward and both men were tight-lipped and anxious.

“It is a sad matter, but not an uncommon one,” went on Master Drew. “I understand that Sir Christopher’s young cousin, Master Henry Hatton, was but lately arrived from Ireland. New to London and London ways, he went abroad this afternoon and returning was attacked by two footpads who stabbed him through the heart. While they were proceeding to rob him, taking his ring and sword, they were disturbed by his servant, who rushed upon the scene. They fled, and the servant carried his master’s body here, whereupon he was found to be dead. I am afraid the matter was a simple one. We may never find the perpetrators.”

Sir Robert raised his eyebrows and, for the first time, there was amusement on his features.

“Simple? Very well. Perhaps we should seek confirmation from the mouth of this unfortunate young man’s servant? He being the only witness.”

Joseph, who had been standing silently at the door, coughed and spoke apologetically to Sir Christopher.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but at the time of the arrival of Sir Robert I was coming to inform you that Master Hatton’s servant has fled. He was left in Master Hatton’s bedroom. I suppose, seeing no means of further employment, the rogue did take the purse that was on his master’s body still and, indeed, searched a few drawers, for their contents were spilt. I do not know what other valuables he has made off with. But the window was open and it is an easy passage to the ground from there. I fear he has vanished into the streets of London.”

Sir Robert was smiling grimly.

“Then it seems we will have to leave his apprehension in the hands of the thief-takers. I suppose he will be as hard to find as the footpads that killed your young cousin. So, Master Drew, you have no hesitation with your findings? May I send a magistrate tomorrow to take down your statement for the record? We would not want any false rumours to spread abroad as to the circumstances.”

“I will expect the magistrate to call on me morrow, Sir Robert. I am content in my resolve,” agreed the constable.

“And you, Sir Christopher, art content? It is but poor hospitality your cousin received here in London. And you, Sir Edward? Are you both content?”

Sir Edward nodded, while Sir Christopher said shortly: “I wish nothing more than to accord Henry a speedy burial. He was almost a stranger to us and there will be none in our family who will long mourn him. Alas, he came to London at the wrong time.”

Sir Robert grimaced.

“A sad time, a sad time for all of us. A shadow hangs over the realm, gentlemen. Our good lady has served us well and deserves rest from her worldly chores. Soon she will fear no more the burden of government of this realm. She may go peacefully to her rest. Before the week is out, we who remain shall see if a brave new era of prosperity will begin or whether we shall sink back into the dark days of civil war and blood feuds. I hope, for the sake of all of us, gentleman, that we may come through this night of mourning.”

Later that night, Master Hardy Drew sat gazing thoughtfully into his own fire. He had been extravagant enough to build up the fire and heat some mulled wine, even cutting himself a slice of cold mutton pie. His extravagance was compensated by the thought of the ten gold crowns that Sir Christopher had given him, which now lay locked away in the small wooden box he kept under his bed. It had been an exhausting evening and one which still sent chills through his body. He hoped that Broder Power would make it safely to France or Spain. He would be glad when Sir Robert’s magistrate had officially taken down his version of the story.

He was not sure how Sir Christopher had planned to present the young man called “Henry Hatton” as heir and claimant to Elizabeth’s throne on her death. Well, that plot was ended and he was lucky to have extricated himself from involvement in it.

Who exactly was “Henry Hatton”? His features proclaimed him to be a Tudor. His resemblance to the portraits of Elizabeth was obvious. The locket bore the coat of arms and motto of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth’s mother. Elizabeth was known to have still revered her executed mother and despised her father for the state murder. Who would Elizabeth love so much to present that locket to? And the signet ring, so described by Master Power. The pelican on a ruby background. The pelican was one of Elizabeth’s favourite symbols, used to portray her motherly love for England. The legend had it that in times of food shortages, pelicans plucked flesh from their own bodies to feed their dying young. And then there was the ermine-edged cloak — a status symbol which only high nobility and royalty were allowed to wear. The missing sword, with roses on the hilt — Tudor roses?

“Henry Hatton” had been no ordinary person. It was obvious to Master Drew that Hatton had been a Tudor, sent into exile by Elizabeth for safety. Was he Elizabeth’s own son? Sir Christopher Hatton, dead these eleven years, had been known to be her favourite. Was Henry a child by him? Or was Henry a child by someone else, given to Sir Christopher to take care of until such time as he could come forward and be recognised? Did Lady Elizabeth Cecil, during the time that she had been married into the Hatton family, come to learn this dark secret? Certainly, she was instrumental in Henry Hatton’s death. Hearing of his return to London as the queen lay dying, Lady Hatton had arranged a meeting with the young man to identify him. Having done so, she had reported to her uncle, Sir Robert Cecil, the spymaster and chief assassin, who favoured the King of Scots as heir to the English throne. Master Drew had no doubt that Sir Robert had given the orders for his men to kill the young man and remove any evidence that would link him to the Tudors.

Master Drew shivered at how close he had come to being arrested by the Lord Chancellor — or worse.

He was still unsure whether Sir Edward and Sir Christopher had brought him into their conspiracy to investigate as a witness against the Cecils or to give an official pronouncement in support of the footpad theory that would allow them their freedom, proclaiming them innocent of the knowledge of the identity of the young man and therefore the reason for his assassination. Had they expected Master Drew not to realise the truth or to disguise it?

At times, Master Drew reflected, as he stretched before the fire, it was far better to pretend ignorance than boast his talent for gathering and interpreting the facts.

It was in the early hours of Thursday morning, four days later, that it was announced that Elizabeth of England had passed peacefully to death in her chambers at Richmond Palace. She would, as Sir Robert said, fear no more the heat of the sun, for she had fulfilled her worldly task and gone to receive her heavenly wages. The nation was in mourning. Already, a cortege had left Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh and was heading south into England bearing the thirty-seven-year-old James Charles Stuart, King of Scotland, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Albany, Earl of Ross, and Baron Ardmannoch, who had now been proclaimed Elizabeth’s successor.

Copyright © 2010 Peter Tremayne

A Dark Reunion

by Kate Ellis

Kate Ellis’s longest running mystery series features archaeology graduate DS Wesley Peterson, who fights crime in South Devon, England. Each entry in the series combines an intriguing contemporary murder mystery with a parallel historical case. More recently, Ms. Ellis decided to create an additional series set in a fictional northern English city whose model is the real city of York. She has made many visits to York in recent years, and it’s there that she takes us in this new story.

Sorry. What did you say your name was?” I asked, looking the man in the eye. He had a broad face topped by a shock of fair hair. And something about his face seemed familiar. If only I could place it.

The stream of tourists, already out in force first thing on Monday morning, parted around us like the incoming tide around a pair of immovable rocks. We were getting in the way, holding up the flow of pedestrians through the Shambles, one of York’s narrower streets. I started to edge away but my companion stood firm.

“How did you enjoy the reunion on Saturday?” His lips turned upwards in a secretive half smile as though he was enjoying some private joke.

Enlightenment had come at last. We must have met at the school reunion but I had no recollection of it. It was clear that he recognised me, but some people, I knew, had a better memory for names and faces than I had. In my work as a writer, I always tended, so my ex-wife used to tell me, to walk through life in an imaginative haze where my creations seemed more real than the people around me.

I stood there trying to remember. The reunion for my year at Semchester High School for Boys had taken place in a hotel just down the road — the Viking Suite of the Royal Boar, all patterned carpets and flocked wallpaper. Being there had reminded me that I would be fifty next year and the slim waistline of my youth was a distant memory, as was most of my hair. But I took comfort from the fact that my former classmates were in the same sorry physical state — paunches and thinning hair seemed as uniform now as our school blazers and ties were back in our distant school days. Time had gnawed away like a rat at all of us, with the possible exception of Sebastian Sitwall. Sebastian had become an actor — he’d even appeared in a couple of TV soaps — and I suspected that he was no stranger to the cosmetic surgeon’s knife. But then, I’d never liked him much.

The reunion — the sight of all those aging bodies I’d last seen as lean, hopeful teenagers — had made me feel a little depressed and I must have drunk more than I normally would. I’d woken the next morning with a roaring headache and, although I remembered the dinner, the speeches, and the raucous singing of the school song, the later part of the evening was a complete blank, which surprised me, as I’ve always been able to hold my drink. Perhaps this was a sign of incipient old age. I remembered that Shakespeare speech we learned in the sixth form — sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

To tell the truth, I had found the reunion — or what I could remember of it — rather a disappointment. My friend Robbie hadn’t been able to make it and I’d found myself stuck with people who had been more acquaintances than friends during my time at Semchester High. Sebastian Sitwall had monopolised me for a time, as though he felt our occupations had formed some kind of bond between us. But I found that I liked him no more now than I had done during our school days. He’d been an arrogant bully then and, although time had added subtlety to his repertoire, I suspected that the unpleasant nature of the schoolboy still lurked beneath the veneer of sophistication.

The voice of the man who’d stopped me brought me back to the present with a jolt. “I didn’t manage to talk to you at the reunion. I think you were a bit out of it later on, then you seemed to disappear,” he said with a knowing wink. “Someone said you were a writer. What kind of things do you write?”

It was a common question, and all writers have an automatic answer. But I was so busy searching the recesses of my mind for his name that I heard myself stutter, “Er, sort of crime. Detective stories and all that.”

“So you get them published?”

I nodded, feeling a little stab of irritation that he hadn’t heard of me... but, on the other hand, so few people had.

I decided to tackle the problem head-on. If I offended this man, what would it matter? I might never see him again in my life. “Look, I’m so sorry but I really can’t remember your name.”

The man’s grin widened. It had been fixed there on his lips since he first greeted me and it was beginning to get on my nerves. It was as though he knew something that I didn’t. “Now I don’t believe that for one moment, Jack. You always did have a sense of humour.”

“Honestly, I don’t remember. You’ll have to give me a clue.”

The man’s smile became more guarded. “You write detective books, so clues are your department.”

I suddenly felt uneasy. It could have been my imagination, but his words sounded vaguely threatening.

I made a great show of looking at my watch. “Sorry. Got to rush,” I said, trying to sound like a busy man. The truth was, I’d just delivered a manuscript to my publisher so I had a precious period of leisure before she delivered her verdict — but I wasn’t going to let him know that. He was still smiling as I raised my hand in farewell and wove my way through a crowd of Japanese tourists, escaping down a side street and through the bustling market.

I hurried home to my flat on Bootham, walking swiftly through the narrow streets filled with ambling sightseers and past the golden magnificence of the Minster, hardly aware of my surroundings. I couldn’t think why the encounter with the anonymous classmate had unnerved me, but there had been something about him that didn’t quite fit in with his story. Or perhaps it was my imagination.

It was when I reached my flat that events really began to take a strange turn. Especially when I found two plainclothes police officers waiting for me by the front door.

I’d never been arrested before and I found the whole process rather surreal. I was taken to the police station and informed that I was being arrested on suspicion of murder before being placed in an interview room facing two detectives, a man and a woman, across a table. I had written about this so many times, but I’d never ever imagined that I’d be on the receiving end, and I must confess that I felt frightened. This wasn’t a story. It was real, and I didn’t understand why I was there.

“How long have you known Elizabeth Uriel?” the woman asked, leaning forward, her face uncomfortably close to mine.

“I’ve never heard of her. Who is she?”

My interrogators looked at each other.

“We found your photograph in her flat. You’d signed it. To Liz with all my love, Jack.”

I closed my eyes. Had I known a Liz Uriel? Or any Liz, come to that? I’d met one once at my publisher’s office, but I was sure her surname was something quite different. And I certainly hadn’t given any woman a signed photograph. That’s not the sort of thing I normally do.

I took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. “As far as I know, I’m not acquainted with anyone of that name. Have you consulted a handwriting expert?” I asked hopefully. “Because as far as I can remember, I’ve never signed a photograph in my life.”

When there was no answer, I sensed they were on shaky ground and I felt a fresh wave of confidence. “Look, I really don’t think I’ve ever met this Liz Uriel, but if you show me a picture of her, I’ll be able to tell you for sure.” I tried to sound helpful, playing the cooperative citizen with nothing to hide.

Another glance was exchanged between my interrogators and the woman, a plump mouse-blonde with too-perfect teeth, produced a photograph like a conjurer producing a rabbit from a top hat. She slid it towards me, face down. I reached for it and turned it over.

My hands began to shake. It was the shock of seeing that dreadful image of the dead woman with her discoloured face and staring, blank eyes. At first I looked away in horror, then I forced myself to study the face. It was the face of a stranger. I was as sure as I could be that I’d never seen her before.

The two detectives looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t know her. Who is she? Where does she live? Where did she work? How was she killed and where? If you tell me about her, I might be able to prove I’m innocent.”

The woman took the photograph from my trembling fingers. “She lived near you in a flat just off Bootham. She was twenty-five years old and she worked in the box office at the theatre. She was killed in her flat... strangled. Her body was found the next morning by a friend who’d arranged to call round for coffee. We found various items in her flat indicating that you and she were...”

My heart began to pound. I didn’t know Liz Uriel. And I hadn’t been to the theatre for at least seven years. “What items?” I heard myself asking.

“A couple of utility bills. Your passport. Your credit-card statement.”

I was half aware of my mouth falling open in amazement. As far as I knew my passport was stashed safely at the bottom of the chest of drawers in my living room. I hadn’t bothered looking at it since I’d put it there for safety after my last trip to the States six months ago. As for the credit-card and utility bills, I’d paid them and filed them away in a kitchen drawer as usual.

“Now we have your fingerprints and a sample of your DNA, we’ll see what turns up at the murder scene.”

I began to feel the first flutterings of panic. “Look, this is ridiculous. I’ve no idea how those things came to be in this woman’s flat. I didn’t know her. And why should I have taken my passport and an assortment of bills round to her place if I was going to kill her anyway?” Suddenly I saw a ray of hope in the darkness of that windowless interview room. “It’s a setup. I’m being set up. Someone must have stolen those things from my flat to incriminate me.”

“And who would do that?”

I shook my head. It was a question I couldn’t answer. I had no enemies as far as I knew. Certainly nobody who’d go to all this trouble. “When exactly was she murdered?” I asked. Surely there must be some way to prove my innocence.

“The pathologist reckons she’d been dead for roughly twelve hours when she was found, so death probably occurred sometime on Saturday night between nine and midnight.”

I felt my lips twitch upwards in a smile. “I was at a school reunion that night. Lots of witnesses. You can check.”

This time the glance between the two police officers was one of deflated disappointment. “We will,” the man said before pushing a notepad and pen towards me.

I scribbled down some names and the woman left the room with the pad. Then I sat back in my chair, arms folded, awaiting her return and my inevitable release.

But when she came back, I was in for a shock.

I had been in the cell for over three hours before they came for me again, and I realised that I hadn’t known true boredom until that day. How long, I wondered, could a man sit on a blue plastic mattress in a small room staring at four blank walls before going insane? The time dragged, and each minute seemed like an hour. When they came to take me to the interview room again, I felt an unexpected rush of relief.

But my elation was short-lived. The same two officers were waiting for me and the young man had a smug look on his face.

“We’ve been speaking to some of your old school pals.” He let the sentence hang in the air, as though he was about to impart a juicy piece of news.

“And?” I prompted. “They confirmed I was at the reunion all evening?”

The man sat back, a self-satisfied smile on his face. For a few moments I felt like punching him, but I knew I’d come off worst. “Nobody saw you after ten, and everyone presumed you’d left early. Apparently you were so drunk you could hardly walk straight. Someone saw you being helped outside, but they can’t remember who you were with.”

“I didn’t. I...” I found myself stuttering, my heart sinking with despair. I didn’t remember leaving the reunion. In fact, I didn’t remember anything of that evening after around nine-thirty. Had I left alone? How had I got home? Suddenly I realised I had no idea. “I want a lawyer,” I heard myself say before giving them Robbie’s name. My old classmate, Robbie Galton, had missed the reunion because of a prior engagement, but he had been a good friend over the years. And he was a partner in one of the city’s leading law firms.

If anyone could get me out of there, it would be Robbie Galton.

I waited in the cell for two endless hours for Robbie to turn up, and when he did he looked worried. Robbie was still lean as a ferret, with sharp features and restless hands. At school he had been good at games — the one picked for all the teams — and he had been an amiable, easygoing boy who had grown into an amiable, easygoing man. I liked Robbie, and we met up often... usually in far better situations than the one I found myself in now.

Robbie sat down beside me on the blue mattress, a concerned frown clouding his face. “So what happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember a thing after about half-nine. They say I was drunk, but I can’t remember having that much to drink. And I know I couldn’t have killed this woman. I didn’t even know her.”

Robbie thought for a few moments. “From the evidence I’ve seen, I tend to agree with you, mate. Who’d take utility bills and a passport round to their victim’s flat so they can be discovered conveniently by the police? It doesn’t make sense. Have you had a break-in recently?”

I shook my head.

“But if the killer found you unconscious, he could have taken your keys and helped himself. You’re sure you can’t remember having a lot to drink at the reunion?”

“A few glasses of wine. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Could someone have spiked your drink?”

I felt my heart lift. Of course. I had felt awful the next morning — certainly worse than a normal hangover. Why hadn’t I thought of it earlier? “They can do blood tests for traces of drugs, can’t they?” I said hopefully. “If they...”

But Robbie interrupted. “I’m afraid some of these so-called date-rape drugs leave the bloodstream pretty quickly, and it’s over thirty-six hours already so it’s going to be hard to prove. But it’s worth a try. Can you remember who you were talking to?”

“Lots of people.” I recited some names, and Robbie solemnly copied them down. When I said Sebastian’s name he looked up sharply. I knew he didn’t like Sebastian. In fact, whenever his name was mentioned, Robbie usually changed the subject.

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen?” he asked.

I put my head in my hands, trying to remember. “I met someone when I was in town first thing this morning. He said he’d been at the reunion, but I couldn’t remember him. In fact, I couldn’t place him at all. I asked him to remind me of his name, but he never told me. It was a bit odd, really.”

Robbie looked down at the list in his hand. “I’ll make some calls and get back to you.” He stood up and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Don’t go away, will you.”

“Fat chance,” I replied as the cell door opened to let him out into the world of the free.

Robbie turned up again a few hours later, just when boredom was turning to blind panic. This time I met him in the interview room, and he was carrying a file. He placed it on the table and opened it. Inside I could see a typed list of names and a selection of photographs. Middle-aged men in groups and individually. I could see myself amongst them, forcing a smile for the camera.

“I got these from some of the people who were there — the wonders of digital technology, eh. Can you see your mystery man on any of them?”

I studied them carefully, but I couldn’t see the man I’d met on the Shambles. Then Robbie took his reading glasses out of his jacket pocket and handed them to me. I gave him a grateful look. We were the same age and he understood. I slipped the glasses on and when I studied the pictures again I spotted the man in the background, standing in the shadows of a doorway, well away from the rest of my old classmates. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I had the impression he was watching. And the person he was watching appeared to be me.

I pointed to him and returned Robbie’s reading glasses. “There he is. I know most of these people from our year and I don’t recognise him. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who it is.”

Robbie frowned and said nothing.

We both went through the list of names of those who’d attended that Robbie had printed out from the school Web site, matching them with the faces. Whoever this man was, it seemed his name wasn’t there on the list. Which struck me as strange.

I stared at the image of the mystery man. He definitely reminded me of someone... someone I’d rather forget. In fact, I had forgotten him — put him out of my mind for thirty-five years. And now Paul Nebworth was crawling from the dark recesses of my memory like a portent of doom.

I had been with Paul Nebworth when he disappeared all those years ago. I hadn’t been able to keep up, so he had gone on ahead.

I shut my eyes tight and saw the scene again. We were fifteen and out in the Lake District on a geography trip. I’d been cold and wet and my shoes had been giving me blisters. Paul Nebworth and I had been working together that day and he had barged ahead into the descending mist, in his usual devil-may-care way. Paul Nebworth had been oblivious to danger and a show-off. And I never saw him alive again.

Suddenly I knew the identity of the stranger in the Shambles. It was Paul Nebworth. No wonder his face had seemed so familiar. But thirty-five years ago he had strode ahead of me into the thickening fog and disappeared from view. Everyone assumed that he had fallen into the ravine, but his body had never been found and laid to rest. Which was hardly surprising if he was still alive.

I wondered whether to tell Robbie about my theory, but I was afraid he’d think I was having one of my customary flights of fantasy. Anyway, if Paul Nebworth was still alive, where had he been all these years?

It was a stupid idea. The stranger had borne a strong resemblance to the young Paul Nebworth, but that didn’t mean the boy had come back from the dead. And this little mystery probably had nothing to do with my current predicament.

Robbie left. There were things to arrange. And after what seemed like hours I was released on police bail. There had been no fingerprints matching mine in the dead woman’s flat and they hadn’t managed to gather enough evidence to charge me.

I walked from the police station half free. And that was when my troubles really began.

I loved my flat on the first floor of one of the elegant Georgian townhouses lining Bootham, a long, straight Roman road just outside York’s ancient city walls; but when I returned there that day, I had an uneasy feeling that someone had been inside. That my sanctuary had somehow been violated.

Some things seemed to have moved slightly, and I was sure the place had been searched. I told myself that it must have been the police. And yet, they hadn’t mentioned it.

I was about to pour myself a drink when I had second thoughts. It might have been drink that had landed me in this mess in the first place. I’d just put the bottle back on the sideboard when the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver, my hands tingling with nerves. The events of the last twenty-four hours had made me jumpy. I said hello, but for a few moments there was silence on the other end of the line.

Then the caller spoke. One word. “Murderer.”

I’d had enough. “Look. I never met that woman. I’ve been set up.”

“I know.”

For a few seconds I was lost for words. Then I heard myself say, “Who is this? What do you want?”

“You killed Paul Nebworth and you’re going to pay for what you did.”

I heard the dial tone and I stood frozen, staring at the receiver in my hand. At last I knew what was going on. Whoever set me up thought I was responsible for Paul Nebworth’s death on that school trip all those years ago. The caller had withheld his number, but I was certain I knew his identity. It was the man I’d met in the Shambles, no doubt about it. The man who bore such a strong resemblance to Paul Nebworth himself.

I put my head in my hands. None of this made sense. I closed my eyes and tried to relive that fateful day up in the Lake District thirty-five years ago. We had been working in pairs in that wild mountainous landscape when the weather had started closing in and we found ourselves surrounded by thick, impenetrable mist. These days, health and safety regulations would have stopped the trip taking place, but things were different back then. Robbie was somewhere ahead of us, having been paired with Sebastian Sitwall for some reason I’ve since forgotten: perhaps Mr. Goff, the geography teacher, had considered Robbie a calming influence. I’d been put with Paul Nebworth, a boy I didn’t particularly get on with, but Goff never liked friends working together. Sebastian and Robbie had vanished into the mist and then Paul had dashed ahead, as though he was trying to catch them up. I had hung back because I couldn’t be bothered hurrying. Then, when I looked for Paul, he was gone. And Robbie and Sebastian swore that he’d never reached them.

I was questioned at the time, and I think I was believed when I told the police that Paul had simply disappeared. If others thought differently, there was nothing I could do about it. How could I prove my innocence after all these years?

I picked up the phone and dialled Robbie’s number. I needed someone to talk to; someone who knew that I was no murderer. And there was something I wanted him to do for me.

Robbie turned up a couple of hours later. He looked as tired as I felt. Perhaps he was under some strain of his own that he hadn’t told me about. He always seemed short of money, and his marriage had broken up some years before. Perhaps his ex-wife, like mine, was bleeding him dry. He never talked about her much these days, so I couldn’t be sure.

“So what have you found out?” I asked as he sat on the edge of my sofa.

He studied a sheet of paper he was holding. “Paul Nebworth had a younger brother. His parents moved down south after...”

“So the brother never went to our school?”

Robbie shook his head. “From what I gather, the parents made a clean break. Moved miles away.”

“So our mystery man could be Paul’s brother?” If he was, it explained a lot, I thought. Perhaps he’d only just discovered what had happened to Paul. Perhaps he had come to York bent on revenge for some reason. Revenge on me. But I was innocent.

“And what have you found out about the dead girl? Elizabeth Uriel?”

Robbie leaned forward, as though he didn’t want to be overheard. “I spoke to one of her neighbours... showed her that photo with our mystery man in the background. She was sure she’d seen him at Uriel’s flat. Said she heard raised voices a couple of times.”

“We should tell the police about this.” I suddenly felt hopeful that the nightmare was about to end.

But Robbie shook his head. “We’d better wait till we have more evidence.” He looked away, avoiding my eyes. “I’m sorry, Jack. You know what the police are like.”

I noticed that he was fidgeting with his shirt cuff, something he’d always done when he was nervous or agitated. Perhaps there was something he wasn’t telling me. “I think it would be best if you just left it for now; wait and see what happens. The police aren’t stupid. I reckon they know you’d been set up and that’s why you were released on bail. They’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“You should still tell them what you’ve found out, Robbie.” I looked him in the eye and I could tell he was uneasy. But I couldn’t think why this was.

“Like I said, let’s wait and see. Sorry, I’ve got to go.” He stifled a yawn. I could see the strain on his face. Just then he looked ten years older than he had that morning.

I saw him out and settled down for what was left of the evening. My flat wasn’t luxurious, but it was comfortable and a million times better than that cell in the bowels of the police station. I’d have a long soak in the bath and a reasonably early night.

And it was when I was lying in the bath, eyes closed, with the warm water lapping around my body, that I heard the metallic click of a key turning in a lock.

I froze, listening. I could hear the front door closing followed by soft footsteps on the wooden floor. Then I remembered that whoever had set me up must have had access to my key at some point. It would be a simple matter to get it copied in any high street. I stepped out of the bath, towelled myself down, and grabbed my dressing gown. If I had to face an intruder, I didn’t want to be naked and vulnerable.

The intruder was moving about in the living room as I made my way quietly along the passage. The door stood open and I could see him. He had picked up a framed photograph of me and Robbie together, drinks in hand, at some long-forgotten function, and he was staring at it with intense concentration.

I watched him for a while before I spoke.

“Why are you doing this?” I kept my voice quiet, calm. I didn’t yet know whether my visitor was dangerous.

He swung round. It was him, the man from the Shambles. And he looked frightened, which wasn’t what I expected.

“Why aren’t you in custody?” he said almost in a whisper.

“Because I didn’t kill that woman.”

He took a step back, recovering from the shock of being interrupted. I could tell he was biding his time, gathering strength.

“But you killed her, didn’t you?” I said, trying to keep my voice firm and confident. “You set me up. You drugged me at the reunion somehow, brought me back here, and took stuff to plant at her flat to incriminate me. Why did you kill her?”

The man suddenly looked unsure of himself. “We quarrelled. It was an accident.”

“The police said she was strangled. You don’t strangle people by accident.”

He took a step forward. “Okay, I lost my temper. Then I thought I’d turn the situation to my advantage. I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“For what?” I had a strong feeling of foreboding. This wasn’t going well.

“To get justice for my brother. I only found out a few months ago that you were responsible for Paul’s death. My mother died and I went through her papers. I was much younger than Paul, you see. My parents shielded me... told me nothing.”

“You’re wrong. I had nothing to do with what happened to Paul.” Somehow I had to convince him.

But he wasn’t listening. “The reports said you were working with him when he died, but you denied seeing what happened to him. You must have lied. And when I looked up Semchester High on the Internet and saw that your year were having a reunion and that you were going, I...”

“I had nothing to do with Paul’s death. I swear,” I almost shouted. I had to make him believe me.

He took a step toward me and my heart started to pound. I wrote about danger and murder all the time but the reality was quite different. I was scared.

“You must have killed him. There was nobody else.”

“You’re wrong. There were lots of other people around. And they never found his body, so how are you so sure he’s dead?”

This was obviously a question he hadn’t expected. He frowned, considering the answer. “He must be dead. He wouldn’t have gone away like that.”

He was beginning to have doubts, and I suddenly began to feel more confident. But then I remembered that he had killed once. And, what is more, I knew he’d killed — he’d confessed to me. He wasn’t going to leave a witness to his crime. I was in trouble. Serious trouble.

I looked round, searching for inspiration. The newspaper I’d picked up on the way home was lying, unread, on the coffee table and a headline caught my eye. “Actor killed in mystery robbery.” And beneath the headline was a posed photograph of Sebastian Sitwall displaying a row of perfect teeth. I felt as though the breath had been knocked out of me. I had only seen Sebastian a couple of days ago at the reunion and, even though I hadn’t liked him, man or boy, I was distracted momentarily from my predicament.

“What is it?” My unwelcome visitor’s question brought me back to reality.

“One of your brother’s old classmates has been killed. He was at the reunion. Actor called Sebastian Sitwall. You still haven’t told me your name.”

The man said nothing for a few moments, then he spoke. “It’s better you don’t know.” He reached in his pocket and I knew that this was life or death. He’d killed a woman in a fit of rage, then he’d tried to frame me because he thought he’d found evidence that I’d killed his brother. Only he was wrong. When Paul disappeared into the mist that day, I had no idea what had happened to him. All I knew was that I hadn’t killed him.

When the doorbell rang, I jumped. I hadn’t realised I was so tense, but then it was hardly surprising in the circumstances. The bell rang again and my captor and I stared at each other.

“Ignore it,” he whispered. “They’ll go away.”

I had no choice but to obey. His hand was still inside his jacket, and I had a feeling that he had some kind of weapon in there. He was sure to have come prepared.

Suddenly I heard the door being pushed open, and Robbie’s voice calling hello. Instinctively I shouted back, “Call the police, Robbie. He’s here.”

I saw a look of horror pass across the man’s face as he shoved me out of the way. He dashed past Robbie, almost knocking him to the ground as he flew out of the door. A stunned Robbie steadied himself and caught his breath for a few moments before I sat him down and poured us both a drink.

“We’d better call the police,” I said. “He confessed to killing that woman and said he set me up because he thought I’d killed Paul Nebworth. He’s Paul’s younger brother.”

“I know.”

I looked at Robbie. He was shaking.

“I know all about Paul’s family. I made it my business to find out all about them when...”

“When what?” I didn’t wait for the answer. “I’ve just read in the paper that Sebastian Sitwall’s been killed. It said he must have disturbed some robbers at his home in Harrogate.” I pushed the paper towards Robbie so he could read it for himself.

But he brushed it away. “I know. I saw it earlier. In fact, that’s why I’m here.” He took a long drink and I refilled his glass. “Sebastian was a murderer, Jack. Sebastian killed Paul. I saw him do it.”

I felt confused. Robbie’s words didn’t make sense. But then I thought about it for a while and there did seem to be a horrible logic to it. Paul had gone striding ahead into the mist on that fateful day and he could easily have caught up with Robbie and Sebastian. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Robbie shook his head. “It was misty and it all happened so quickly. I could have been mistaken. Sebastian swore it was an accident.”

“So what happened to Paul’s body?”

“Sebastian dealt with it. I don’t know what he did with him.”

I was speechless for a while, staring at my old friend who had nursed this dreadful secret all those years.

“I had to tell someone. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.”

He was on the verge of tears and I gave him a hug. He was my oldest friend, after all.

I heard about Robbie’s accident on the same day the police came to inform me that Paul Nebworth’s younger brother, Neil, had been arrested for the murder of Elizabeth Uriel. As well as my testimony, there was a lot of evidence against him: DNA, fingerprints, the statements of neighbours and Liz’s work colleagues that her short-lived relationship with the violent and unstable Neil Nebworth had been tempestuous to say the least. One of Liz’s friends reckoned he’d never got over losing his big brother in some freak accident. Liz had told her that he’d gone on about it a lot.

As soon as the police had left, I had the call from Robbie’s ex-wife. She wanted to meet me. She had some news.

Fiona and Robbie had been married eighteen years before she told Robbie that there was someone else... someone at work who made her feel alive in the way poor Robbie never could. And Robbie was so bad with money. In spite of his good job, they always seemed to be living hand to mouth. In the end, Fiona had had enough.

I met her in the Hole in the Wall on High Petergate, because it was convenient for both of us. I ordered a pint of bitter for myself and a dry white wine for Fiona. She looked pale and she drank thirstily, as though she needed it.

She put down her glass and came straight to the point. “Robbie’s dead. He drove his car into a wall. They’re assuming the brakes failed and the stupid man wasn’t wearing a seat belt.” She shook her head. “I’ve been to his flat and I found this envelope addressed to you.”

She handed me a large brown envelope and I began to tear it open. Then I stopped. I was being insensitive. “Are you okay, Fiona? It must be a shock even though...”

“Even though I ran off with another man?” She gave a bitter little laugh. “Yes, Jack, you’re right. It is a shock. I hadn’t realised how much...”

She let the sentence hang in the air between us. At one time, I’d thought Fiona was greedy and heartless. But the expression on her face told me otherwise.

I didn’t open the envelope there and then. Something made me take it home to deal with over a drink — a toast to Robbie. As I tore at the envelope I felt warm tears streaming down my face. I saw Robbie as he’d been when we’d first met as two callow first-years in over-large blazers. Then as we grew to adolescence, and finally on that trip to the Lakes. The day that had cast a shadow over our lives.

There were several sheets of paper inside the envelope. Typewritten. And when I’d finished reading, blinking away my tears, I realised that I would never divulge the contents to a living soul. It was the least I could do for my old friend.

“My dear Jack,” it began. “By the time you read this, I’ll be dead. It’s for the best. All these years I’ve been living with secrets so dreadful that I could never share them with anybody — even you, my friend. I’m a murderer — the lowest of the low. The truth is that when Paul Nebworth caught us up that day, he started messing about — if he’d carried on, he would have messed up the whole project, and I needed good marks to get into university. I was serious-minded back then, as you know. Paul and I starting rowing and we came to blows. I thought Sebastian hadn’t seen what happened, but it turned out that he was lurking behind some rocks and witnessed the whole thing. He said it would be best if we tried to hide the body and he said he’d seen an old shaft or cave nearby so we both put Paul down there and covered it up with turf. I was numb with panic at what I’d done, but Sebastian was so calm... as though he did that sort of thing every day. It was an accident, Jack — I just lost my temper and hit out and he fell and hit his head.

“Sebastian never spoke about it again... until it was in the paper that I’d been made a partner in the firm. Then he called and asked to meet me. That was when he started demanding money to keep quiet... bleeding me white. It cost me my marriage, I’m sure of that. I killed him, Jack. I’d had enough. I called to see him, and when he wouldn’t listen to reason I picked up a heavy ashtray and smashed his skull. When he fell he just lay there, blood gushing from his head, staring at me with those dead eyes... just like Paul. I made it look like a robbery, but I just couldn’t keep up the pretence. Believe me, Jack. It’s better this way.”

That night I remembered my old friend and drank to his memory. And the next day I went on the old boys’ Web site of Semchester High because I thought some kind of tribute might be appropriate.

The Web site had been updated to feature pictures of the reunion. There was Sebastian Sitwall, who was posing for the camera wearing the smile of a satisfied snake. I could just spot Neil Nebworth in the background, avoiding the lens. And me. Jack Jenkins. Jack the innocent, who had no idea that his best friend was a killer. No wonder my ex had said I went round in a dream.

When I’d finished posting a carefully worded tribute to Robbie, I noticed the words there in large letters with a trio of exclamation marks. Fantastic Reunion. Let’s do it again next year!!!

Somehow I don’t think I’ll be there.

Copyright © 2010 Kate Ellis

The Adventure of the Scarlet Thorn

by Paul W. Nash

Department of First Stories

Pastiches are a common way for new writers to launch their fiction careers. (Think of the Ellery Queen pastiches by Dale Andrews, one of which was a finalist for a Readers Award in 2007.) Englishman Paul Nash is a bibliographer, typographer, librarian, letterpress printer, and small-press publisher, and though he’s had a few pieces in nonpaying publications, this is his paid fiction debut. His subject is a perfect fit for this special issue: a case for Holmes and Watson.

* * * *

When the premises of Lloyd’s Bank Ltd., at 16 Charing Cross, London, were damaged by bombing in 1941, it was believed that all Dr. John H. Watson’s unpublished case notes had been destroyed, along with the commonplace books and papers of Sherlock Holmes. Watson had deposited his notes there around 1920, when the building was owned by Cox and Company, regimental agents, and added Holmes’s papers following the reported death of the detective in 1929. However, in December 1930, an iron deed box, painted black and with the initials “J.H.W.” in white on the lid, was deposited in the vaults of the London and Westminster Bank (now part of the National Westminster Bank) in Marylebone High Street, under the strict condition that it should not be opened for seventy years. When, on 1 December 2000, the manager of the Marylebone branch opened the box, it was found to contain numerous manuscripts, well preserved and easily legible. This material was quickly identified as a sequence of memoirs of the cases of Sherlock Holmes, fully formed and complete, written in Watson’s characteristic neat hand between 1890 and 1930. The story which follows was among these previously unknown cases. The text has been edited very slightly, and certain inconsistencies removed, but it is presented almost exactly as Watson wrote it around 1890.

There are a great many cases from the years of my collaboration with Sherlock Holmes which are, for one reason or another, quite unsuitable for publication in the present age. I can foresee a time, however, when all objections to the dissemination of the details will be lifted. Even the case of the Scarlet Thorn, which I think too tainted with brutality for contemporary taste, may one day seem acceptable to the general reader, and so I shall endeavour to write it down plainly, although parts of the story are quite repulsive even to an old soldier and medical man. Nevertheless, the mystery presented many of those features which Holmes found most stimulating and was a triumph for his deductive powers, albeit a tragedy in human terms.

The adventure began one Tuesday in March 1883. Holmes had been working on the Caradoc diamond mystery for five days, having been consulted by Inspector Lestrade upon the matter almost as soon as the theft was reported. The case had caused considerable public interest but had so far proved impenetrable even to the great mind of Holmes. The diamonds were not large, but numerous and very fine, and had been torn from the tiara of the Duchess of Caradoc while she was staying at Brown’s Hotel in Dover Street. The circumstances of the loss were not broadcast at the time, but there can be no objection to my revealing them now.

The duchess was a firm believer in spiritualism, and on the evening of the disappearance she and three friends had gathered after dinner to hold a seance in her sitting room at the hotel. A medium had been engaged, an elderly lady known as Madam Spinarossa, and the avowed purpose of the evening was to contact the spirit of the duke, who had died some four years previously. The drapes were drawn and the doors locked. Madam Spinarossa arranged the participants — two ladies and two gentlemen, all of unimpeachable character — round a card table and turned out the gas. In the darkness she resumed her seat, asked the group to join hands, and then began her attempt to reach the realm of the dead. At first there was no result, but then, with a sigh and a groan from the medium, contact was made and after a few moments everyone present heard the voice of a man, coming not from the medium but from elsewhere in the room. The duchess later swore that the voice was that of her late husband. He spoke for some minutes, although at times contact was lost and the air was filled with gasps and groans, while the table was felt to shudder and rise up slightly. At last there was a sound of choking and a hoarse scream from Spinarossa and she cried out that the spirit of the duke had departed and they must break the circle. This they did, and one of the men, Colonel James Hind, lit the gas. The first thing to strike the friends was that the medium’s black dress was soiled with white matter, which she later claimed to be “ectoplasm,” and she appeared to have sunk into unconsciousness with her head upon her breast. The gentlemen began to attempt to revive her when the air was riven by another scream, this time from the other lady present, Matilda Grayson, the niece of the duchess. She was pointing in stark horror at Her Grace’s head. The duchess was too shocked to react, and at first the men could perceive nothing wrong, until they looked closely at the tiara she was wearing and found that every single diamond had been extracted from it.

After a few minutes the duchess recovered from the shock of this discovery, and stated to the amazement of all that she believed the spirit of her late husband to have taken the jewels with him to the netherworld. He had given her the tiara on their wedding day more than forty years previously, and she professed herself convinced that he had taken back the stones as a punishment for some sin which she had committed against him. When pressed on the matter, she declined to say more, but spoke so fervently that it was quite clear she believed this explanation for the disappearance of the diamonds. Colonel Hind and the other gentleman, Lord Vincent Carleston, were of a different opinion, however, and unlocked the door at once to call for the police. A constable was found in Dover Street, and he was quickly joined by three others and the tenacious Lestrade. The room and its occupants were searched thoroughly, but nothing was found, and the medium, who seemed to be suffering greatly from the effects of her trance, was allowed to depart.

The sitting room had been locked throughout the seance, and the occupants were certain that no one could have got in or out while the room was dark. Subsequent inquiries had failed to trace Madam Spinarossa, and suspicion naturally fell upon her, despite her age and infirmity. But of the diamonds, or the means of their abstraction, there was no clue. This was the problem with which Holmes had been struggling for five days when an unwelcome interruption came in the person of Mr. William Everson Hartshorne. Mrs. Hudson delivered his card late one evening, and I could see from Holmes’s expression that he did not relish this distraction from the Caradoc case. However, when he looked at the man’s card, his attitude changed.

“Take a look at this, Watson,” he said, handing me the calling card. “I think Mr. Hartshorne may prove a most interesting visitor after all. Show him up, Mrs. Hudson.”

I examined the card. It seemed unremarkable, bearing the engraved name of our visitor and his address at 9B Bruton Street, London W. William Hartshorne himself was a young man, not yet thirty, but with an air of success about him. He had fairish hair and wore a small, neat moustache and a look of perplexity. Holmes asked him to be seated and to tell us his story.

“Well, Mr. Holmes, I hesitate to trouble you with something so commonplace. But, I confess, I was deeply disturbed by the whole business, and can find no explanation, unless it was some sort of prank or joke.”

“The smallest mysteries are often the most intractable and the most fascinating,” said Holmes. “Pray tell us the whole story, and omit nothing, even those details which may seem incidental.”

“I am,” said our visitor, “in business on my own account in Great Portland Street, and was returning from work yesterday evening, having stayed very late in the office to deal with certain papers. It was a pleasant evening, so I decided to walk home, as I often do. It was quite dark, of course, but the streets in the area are well lit, and as I turned into Bruton Street I noticed something lying on the pavement under one of the streetlamps. The street was deserted and a cold wind was blowing from the river. As I drew nearer to the object, I perceived that it was large and flat, like a piece of panelling, and was somewhat surprised on coming closer to recognise it as a door. I could clearly see the brass handle projecting, and the hinges. You will imagine my consternation upon coming into the circle of light to find that this was nothing more or less than my own front door. There was the familiar letterbox, the damage where a beggar had once struck the panels with his stick, and the brass number 9B. I was still fifty yards or so from the point where my door should have been, and my heart was in my mouth as I ran towards my rooms. The doorway was dark and I hesitated to enter. But I am no coward, Mr. Holmes, and I steeled myself to go inside. In the hall I felt my way to the stand and took up a heavy stick, fearing that my open, indeed absent, door might signify burglary. I went into every room and lit the gas, all the while fearing to find a scene of ruin. But my apartments appeared to be untouched. I could find not a book, not a toothbrush, out of place. I was somewhat upset and perplexed by this business, as you might imagine, and sleep was out of the question. So, having made sure there was no one in my rooms, I lit the gas in the entrance hall and took up a sentry position with my stick, hoping I would not have to fight to defend my open doorway. It was an uncomfortable night, but a quiet one. In the early morning I attracted the attention of a passing boy, and persuaded him to fetch a carpenter and his mate, who retrieved my door for me, and screwed it back into its original position. Then I went to work. My business affairs could not be postponed, and I was again obliged to work late. When I returned home I half expected to find the door again missing. But this was not the case and, having checked that my rooms were thoroughly secure, I came straight here. Well, Mr. Holmes, that is my story. Could it have been a joke, do you think?”

“I very much doubt it. Tell me, was there any sign of damage to the lock or other parts of the door?”

“That is another curious thing. The door was quite unmarked. The carpenter who refitted it disbelieved my story, I think, and suspected me of having removed the thing myself. The lock had not been broken, and the hinges were still screwed to the door; all that was missing was the eight brass screws which had held the hinges to the door frame, and they could not have been removed until the door was open.”

“Is it possible that you accidentally left the door unlocked when you departed for work that morning?”

“Impossible, I think. I am not a rich man, Mr. Holmes, but I have some precious books and a collection of coins which I am concerned to keep safe, so I am assiduous about seeing to the locks and windows.”

“And may I see your front-door key?”

Hartshorne handed over a small bunch, indicating a brass key of medium size. Holmes squinted at it, then handed back the bunch.

“Thank you. I think, Mr. Hartshorne, that you are in no great danger in this matter. However, until I have made further enquiries I would not be happy to return you to your rooms, and hope you might accept the rather rough hospitality which the doctor and I can offer you. It will only be the divan, I fear, but I venture to suggest that you will be safer here than anywhere else in London.”

Hartshorne readily accepted his offer and in the morning, after Mrs. Hudson had supplied us with breakfast, Holmes suggested we pay a visit to 9B Bruton Street. It was a relatively short walk from Baker Street, and we soon arrived at the solid blue-painted front door which had so recently been found upon the pavement. Holmes examined it with his glass for some minutes, then asked Hartshorne to open the door, which he did, with the key he had shown us the previous evening. In the hall, Holmes scrutinised the lock and the hinges and then, to my surprise, announced that he was satisfied and that our friend would not need to spend another night on the couch at Baker Street. He bade Hartshorne farewell, with a promise to return presently with the solution to the mystery.

I followed him across the street, where he walked slowly past the houses there before turning into Barlow Place. From here we passed down a nameless alley into Grafton Street, where we turned right, then left into Dover Street, and were immediately confronted by Brown’s Hotel. I had not realised how very close we were.

“I suppose we might as well take a look at the duchess’s rooms, while we are here,” said my friend casually. I suspected this had been his intention all along, and that he had dismissed Hartshorne so readily in order to get back on the scent of the Caradoc diamonds. Having sent his card up to the duchess’s rooms, we were soon admitted to the scene of the crime. The duchess greeted us herself with great courtesy, though she clearly had no idea of who Holmes was and seemed somewhat amused by the notion of a consulting detective assisting the police. She was a lively woman of six and sixty, whose face gave more than a hint of the great beauty for which she had been famed in her youth. She appeared to have no servants in her entourage and, as we entered her sitting room, I noticed a half-eaten packet of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits on the mantel shelf, which I thought a little curious. Having indulged Holmes’s desire to see her bedroom and to examine the ruined tiara, we returned to the sitting room and sat down at the same card table where the seance had been held six days previously.

“Your Grace,” said Holmes, “is most kind to accommodate us. I wonder if you could give us your account of the disappearance of your diamonds.”

“I told everything to the police inspector who came in answer to James’s summons, but I have no objection to repeating myself. I have wanted to contact my dear husband for some months now, and have made several attempts to do so, using different mediums. Last Thursday night was the first time I had success, and I bless Madam Spinarossa for her very special powers. George, my husband, came through quite clearly. I swear it was him, Mr. Holmes, and he spoke to me so kindly of our life together and his happiness in paradise. But during the seance, he took a small revenge upon me by removing all the diamonds from my tiara. He had a perfect right. He gave them to me with his own hand, and with the same hand took them back.”

“Then you are not of the opinion that the stones were stolen?”

“Indeed no. I am quite sure that I will never see them again in this world. I have forfeited the right to them.”

“When you heard the voice of the duke, was it possible to say where in the room it appeared to emanate from?”

“Oh, from the air, Mr. Holmes, from the air.”

“But did it seem to come from one particular direction more than another?”

“I suppose it came from over there.” She indicated the curtained window. Holmes inspected the casement and the small table which stood beside it, picking up with his fingertip and sniffing at a little dust which he found there.

While he worked, he asked the duchess, “Did you converse with the duke?”

“Oh yes, I asked him several questions, which he answered greatly to my satisfaction and pleasure.”

“While you spoke with him, did his voice appear to move about the room?”

“No, it came always from the air around the window. But the voice of Madam Spinarossa came from elsewhere, of course, from beside me where she was seated.”

“Throughout the seance you and she held hands?”

“Quite so. And I held dear James’s hand upon the other side.”

“And did you feel or hear any disturbance about your head when the duke removed the diamonds?”

“None. But the fingers of a ghost are as gossamer, Mr. Holmes, and I would hardly expect to have felt anything.”

“Indeed. I understand there was some shaking of the table once the seance had begun.”

“Poor Madam Spinarossa knocked against it in the dark before she had even sat down, but after that it was still until my husband appeared. Then there were some tremblings of the board, mostly I think when Spinarossa was having trouble maintaining the contact with George.”

“Once the seance was over, and the disappearance of the diamonds was noticed, how did Madam Spinarossa seem?”

“Much shaken, I fear. She had generated ectoplasm during her trance, and seemed barely alive when James relit the gas. When the police arrived, she recovered a little, but I was much concerned for her. James and Vincent both insisted upon being searched for the diamonds, and so did dear Mattie; I too offered to allow the policemen to search my person, and they did so in a most respectful manner. Madam Spinarossa was treated shamefully, however, and searched while unfit to understand what had happened, let alone give her consent. Of course, the police found nothing. How could they? At length they allowed my friends, and the medium, to leave.”

Holmes mused for a moment. “I believe Your Grace may be mistaken in your interpretation of what took place that evening.”

“How so, Mr. Holmes?”

“It may be true that your late husband’s spirit abstracted the stones, and that they will never again be seen by mortal eyes. But I ask you to reconsider your belief that their removal was a punishment or revenge upon you. True, your husband took back the jewels he had once given you. But were they not insured?”

The duchess nodded. I confess I was taken aback by my friend’s words, as I knew what little respect he had for the deceit of mediums and the popular belief in spiritualism. But I knew Holmes well enough to hold my tongue, and smiled indulgently at the duchess.

“Perhaps,” said my friend, “the late duke took the diamonds as a kindness to you, rather than a punishment.”

She flushed and raised a gloved hand to her mouth. Holmes nodded kindly. They understood one another, although I confess I was baffled.

Holmes bade the duchess farewell and we left the hotel, catching a hansom in Dover Street. When we were on our way I asked Holmes what he meant by encouraging the foolishness of an old lady.

“Sometimes,” he replied, “it is kinder to compound a deception, and Her Grace is right on one point, I am sure. She will never see her diamonds again. We, on the other hand, may be more fortunate. Now my friend, I must continue alone and ask you to wait for me at Baker Street while I pursue certain theories.”

I felt a little hurt by this suggestion, but knew there was little sense in arguing. I spent the remainder of the day in our rooms trying to write a coherent account of all that had occurred and reviewing the evidence we had so far gathered. I formed for myself a small theory which accounted for some, at least, of the curious features of the case. I reasoned that Madam Spinarossa must have been responsible for the theft of the diamonds, and that she had achieved it by the use of an ingenious device consisting of two false hands, made perhaps of India rubber, separated by a stiff rod, perhaps of telescopic construction. This she had concealed beneath her robes until the lights were doused, when she took out her device and laid it upon the table between the duchess and Matilda Grayson, each of whom took one of the false hands in her own, believing it to be that of the medium. This left Spinarossa’s own hands free to remove the tiara and prise out the diamonds, covering the noise with groans and sighs, while a confederate hidden behind the window curtain spoke with the voice of the duke.

Although I could see some flaws in this theory, and it did not cover all the facts, yet I felt sure Holmes would be impressed by my deductions when he returned. When he finally appeared, at a little after eight, however, my suggestions caused him amusement.

“I congratulate you, Watson. You have hit upon the answer!” said he. “The medium must have owned a set of rubber hands. But wait! What became of those hands? How did she conceal them from a police search? And how did her confederate at the window gain entry and exit without being seen, when the window had clearly not been opened for many years? No, I fear we must seek both a simpler and a more radical explanation for what went on in that small dark room. You are, however, quite right in your basic deduction that the medium took the diamonds. Only the story does not end there and, I fear, we will uncover further crimes committed in pursuit of those stones. Even now, friend Lestrade is waiting for us in Bruton Street to take the matter to its conclusion. I should be most grateful for your help in that conclusion. Will you join me?”

I smiled and nodded, though I felt crushed by Holmes’s summary rejection of my deductions.

“Good man. You have your revolver? Excellent.”

We caught another cab and made the short journey to the end of Bruton Street, where we alighted beside Lestrade and four constables. Holmes had obviously indicated to the inspector that something was afoot, for Lestrade’s face was grimmer than usual as we set off along the pavement.

As we walked I whispered to Holmes, “Is this the solution to the diamond theft, or to the mystery of Hartshorne’s front door?”

“Why, to both, old friend, to both.”

We stopped before a dark house bearing the number 38A. Holmes raised a hand for us to wait, and approached the door. He produced a dark lantern and by the narrowest blade of light examined the entrance. Then he put out a hand and tried the handle. The door opened and I heard his intake of breath. He beckoned us to follow, and we entered a dark hall. There was a slaughterhouse smell in the air, and I prepared myself for the worst. Holmes led the way, cutting through the blackness with a thin beam from his lantern. At the end of the passage were two doors, both standing open. Holmes illuminated the space beyond first one, then the other.

“Lestrade,” he said, “please keep your men back until I have examined this room.” The inspector sighed and accompanied Holmes and myself through one of the doors.

“No need for silence now,” said Holmes, “we are too late to change the course of events.”

He lit the gas, and a ghastly scene met our eyes. The room was unfurnished save for two chairs, a small table, and two makeshift beds upon the floor. Lying beside them, upon the bare boards, were two bodies. They were both young men with dark hair and skin, and both had deep wounds in their throats. A dark brown puddle surrounded the two figures. Their limbs were contorted and their faces racked with exertion and fear. Holmes asked us to remain by the door while he examined the bodies and the contents of the room. Some objects on the table caught his particular interest and he inspected them with his glass for some minutes. Then he gestured for us to join him. I examined the bodies, though there was clearly nothing that could be done for them. Then I joined Holmes at the table. Laid out there was a singular array of objects. There were the separate parts of a large old-fashioned door lock with a brass facade, a pile of brass screws, a leather bag containing tools, a small metal lantern, a pile of grey powder, a revolver, the remains of a simple meal, and an array of human body parts, laid out neatly like specimens in a museum. There were eight fingers, two toes, two ears, a fleshy lump which was probably a nose, and several other pieces which I could not identify. These grim trophies were not bloody, but had evidently been washed and made presentable, which somehow made their appearance still more horrific. I glanced over at the two bodies. Clearly the specimens on the table had not originated there.

“What is all this, Holmes?” I asked.

The great detective said nothing, but pointed to the wall beside the door. Here a large mark or cipher had been drawn in blood upon the bare plaster. At first I thought it was a cross, but the lower tip was pointed and I realised that it represented a sword or dagger.

“What is it?” said Lestrade.

“That,” said Holmes, “is the Scarlet Thorn.”

We were, I think, too affected by the contents of that room to discuss the matter there. Lestrade left his constables to record the details and remove the bodies while he and I returned with Holmes to Baker Street, where a full explanation was promised. Once settled in familiar surroundings our spirits lifted and, having lit my pipe, I pressed Holmes to illuminate the darkness.

“First of all,” he said, “I must tell you that a very great man has died. Indeed, he has been murdered, and in the most unpleasant circumstances. But I am getting ahead of my story. What we have just witnessed was the final scene of what began as a simple drama, planned by a group of ruthless criminals as a means of raising money. I am speaking of a particularly brutal Italian secret society known as the Spina Rossa, or Scarlet Thorn, which hired a clever thief to abstract the diamonds of the duchess of Caradoc. Some of the details of the case remain obscure, but I suspect they anticipated a burglary, or some other simple robbery. However, the man they had hired was none other than Salvatore Barozzi, who had perhaps the third or fourth most subtle criminal mind I have ever encountered. I knew him many years ago when I was myself considering a career on the stage. He was an actor, and an uncommonly good one. But his talents were put to evil ends, and latterly he made his living by assuming some pious, trustworthy, or harmless character and tricking his way into the houses of the rich. He was that most dangerous specimen, the criminal who loves his crime, the impostor who relishes each new imposture. When the Spina Rossa commissioned him to seize the Caradoc diamonds, he began to research the life and mind of the duchess, and conceived a meticulous plan based upon her natural weaknesses. He assumed the character of an elderly medium.”

“You mean Madam Spinarossa was a man?” I asked.

“Quite so. I would give a hundred pounds to have seen him play the part. He must have acted quite brilliantly. Having convinced the duchess that he was a spiritualist and could contact her late husband, he arranged a seance in the lady’s sitting room, carefully positioning the participants round a small table before turning out the lights. Then he knocked against the table and repositioned it in the dark, to confuse the geography of the situation, before asking everyone to hold hands. You may imagine how each groped for the nearest hand and, taking it, assumed they were holding on to the person next to them. And so they were. But Barozzi had silently removed himself and his chair from the circle, so that the duchess held her niece’s hand, while both ladies believed themselves linked to the medium. Thus, Doctor, the possession of additional rubber hands was quite unnecessary round such a small table.”

I did my best to smile.

“The actor made appropriate noises with his head placed between that of the duchess and her niece — just where they would expect such noises to emanate from. Then he fell silent, lifted the tiara from the duchess’s head, and moved to the table by the window.”

“But would the duchess not have felt the removal of her tiara?” I asked.

“No. For two reasons. Firstly, she was concentrating upon the seance and anticipating, no doubt with suppressed excitement, communication with her late husband. Secondly, her very splendid head of silver hair is, in fact, entirely false. I observed this during our interview, and Barozzi must have made the same discovery while researching his subject. It was a simple matter for him to unclip the tiara from Her Grace’s hairpiece without detection. Once at the side table by the window he made further sounds and began to impersonate the duke. This was, perhaps, the cleverest part of his deception, since he had evidently discovered something of the manner of His Grace’s speech and the tone of his voice, probably through contact with one or more of the duke’s former servants. In any case, the duchess was all too ready to believe that the voice was that of her beloved George. While he spoke, Barozzi prised the diamonds from the tiara and, I deduce, placed them in a small pocket specially sewn into the front of his gown. At several points during the seance, to maintain the illusion, and no doubt to increase his pleasure at the deception, he returned to the table, shook it about, and again assumed the person of the medium. When all the diamonds were safe in his pocket he returned once more to the table, clipped the tiara back into Her Grace’s hair, and made further groaning and gasping noises, finally inducing himself to vomit, probably by the simple expedient of inserting a finger into his esophagus. He had previously consumed a large meal of some whitish substance, perhaps tapioca or porridge, in order to give an impressive appearance to the result. This regurgitation had a very explicit purpose, which I will shortly come to. Then Barozzi took up his chair, screamed, and, in the voice of Madam Spinarossa, demanded that the circle be broken. Everyone released the hands they were holding and, after a few moments, Colonel Hind stood up and lit the gas. While he did so, Barozzi replaced his chair where it had formerly been and sat down upon it, assuming the appearance of one in a swoon. The rest of that scene you know. The police were called and you, Lestrade, arrived to question those present. No doubt you suspected Madam Spinarossa, but a search of her seemingly unconscious body produced no results. I suggest, Lestrade, that your constable was a little less thorough than he might have been. He naturally did not wish to touch the ejecta which covered the front of the old lady’s dress, so missed the special pocket which was concealed there.

“After a while Barozzi feigned a small recovery, and mumbled something about ectoplasm. Believing him to be a sick, perhaps deranged, old woman, you released him into the care of a constable. Tell me, Lestrade, what became of that constable?”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, he claims that when he and the old lady got down into the hotel lobby she seemed much recovered and asked him to leave her there, saying she would request the manager to call her a cab. He was, I imagine, rather keener to be back on the case with me than to play nursemaid to a filthy old woman.”

“That was just as Barozzi planned. What he had not reckoned on, however, was the involvement of a second gang. Somehow his plan had become known to a rival Italian secret society, known as the Fratelli; this was probably an unwanted effect of the meticulous research which Barozzi had undertaken, and which had aroused the curiosity of someone connected with the Fratelli. Perhaps Barozzi saw someone he recognised as he left the hotel, or perhaps he did not know precisely who was following him; but it is clear to me that he knew he was pursued as he fled into Grafton Street and thence into the alley which leads to Barlow Place. He did not wish to be found in possession of the diamonds, so cast round for somewhere to hide them. He had only a minute. But at that moment a brilliant inspiration struck him. He ran to the nearest door and fed the diamonds into the keyhole, where they fell down inside the mechanism of the large lock. Then he ran on, knowing at least that if he was overhauled he could claim innocence; perhaps, in this event, he intended to assume some other character. We shall never know, for he seems to have got clean away. However, his good fortune was spent and, despite his great talent for changing his face and voice, the Fratelli hunted him down.

“What happened next was, I am afraid, most uncivilised. The agents who found Barozzi forced him to reveal what he had done with the precious stones. We may assume that he resisted them as best he could, but the gradual removal of certain pieces of his body was, no doubt, sufficient inducement for him to admit the truth.”

“You mean those fingers and other pieces we found in Bruton Street belonged to this Barozzi?”

“I believe so. His torturers took them away as trophies, and as proof for their criminal masters that they had done their duty by the brotherhood.”

“But where is Barozzi? Is he still alive?”

“I regret, Watson, I cannot yet answer your first question. As for your second, I believe no man could survive the torment Barozzi suffered and, in any case, the agents of the Fratelli would hardly have considered their duty done if they had allowed him to live. It was his death, the death of a great actor, which I lamented when I began my tale.”

“I see... Do please continue.”

“The agents returned to Bruton Street, where they rented an empty apartment at number 38A. I learned this today when I visited the local letting agents to inquire if anyone of Italian appearance had rented property in or near Bruton Street within the last few days.”

“But how did you know they were Italians?” I asked. “And why should they be based near Bruton Street?”

“The use of the name ‘Spinarossa’ by the fake medium betrayed the origins of the crime. And Bruton Street was obvious from the testimony of our friend Hartshorne. The two agents rented their rooms and waited for nightfall. Then they went out armed with tools to find number 98, which was the address given to them by Barozzi. You will have noticed, Watson, that Bruton Street is unusual for having consecutive numbering along each side, so that number one is next to two, and so on. It seems that our Italian friends assumed the usual arrangement of even numbers on one side of the street and odd on the other. Barozzi had told them that number 98 was at the end of the street, so I believe they walked to the end before looking closely at any house numbers. The first they chanced to look at was 97 or 99, so they crossed the road to find 98, and there believed they had found the right house, conveniently far from a streetlamp. By the light of a small lantern they examined the door and its large Chubb’s lever lock, of a sort manufactured some twenty years ago. Now this lock has the peculiar distinction of being relatively simple for an expert to pick, but unusually difficult to remove. So the Italians set to work to unlock the door and, when they had done so, the quickest method of removing the lock was to unscrew the entire door and carry it away. They held it between them and hurried along the pavement, back towards their rented rooms. It was this singular behaviour that led me to the knowledge that they had some bolt-hole nearby. Why else carry the door along the street? Had they possessed a carriage or some other vehicle, they would surely have brought it up to receive the door, and they would hardly have risked carrying their prize any great distance. I reasoned that they must have a den in the same street, or very nearby, which could be reached on foot in a matter of minutes. However, when they passed under a streetlamp one of the robbers glanced at the door and realised they had made an unfortunate mistake. It bore not the number 98 but 9B. Immediately they dropped their prize and hurried back to the end of the street to seek out the right door, which you may be sure they were very careful to identify correctly. They were fortunate too in finding there a very different lock. It was an old Bramah design, much less secure, which could easily be parted from the door by a combination of crude force and the removal of four screws. I noticed as we passed along that side of Bruton Street this morning that the door of number 98 showed signs of recent damage and wore a shining new lock. It was not necessary for our agents to pick the lock or open the door, they simply removed the mechanism and returned with it to their rooms. There they took the lock to pieces and extracted the Caradoc diamonds.

“Very soon, however, the business took another unexpected turn. Perhaps one of the Italians was an expert in precious stones, and saw something in one of the diamonds to arouse his suspicion. He took out his revolver, a particularly fine piece of Italian workmanship, and struck one of the diamonds with the butt. It crumbled into dust. He struck another diamond, and another, and found that every one of the Caradoc stones was fake.

“We may imagine the scene, the consternation of the Italians, their oaths and suspicions that Barozzi had, by some obscure means, managed to deceive them and hidden the real diamonds elsewhere. But in truth, Barozzi had himself been deceived. He had removed the diamonds from the tiara in the dark, remember, and any skill he may have possessed to detect their true nature was blindfolded; indeed, he crushed one of the stones in removing it — I noted the powder on the side table in Her Grace’s room — but no doubt dismissed the sensation of dust in his hands as due to the crumbling of the mounting paste used to assemble the tiara. Had he been working with any light he would no doubt have perceived the truth.”

“I don’t understand this, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade. “If neither this Barozzi nor his murderers got their hands on the diamonds, who did?”

“Between ourselves, I think we may assume they have been sold secretly to some dealer and very probably dispersed beyond these shores.”

“But who sold them?”

“Why, the duchess, of course. She did her best to conceal from us the unfortunate state of her finances. But what aristocrat keeps no personal servants and is reduced to dining upon Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits in her hotel room, unless she is very seriously embarrassed? It is no secret that the duke left considerable debts, and I believe his widow has been impelled to sell her most precious asset, the diamonds which her late husband gave her as a wedding gift. The duchess had her tiara rigged with false stones, but felt such shame that when they disappeared during a seance she assumed the knowing spectre of the duke to have punished her for disposing of his gift. If you remember, Watson, I suggested that she might view his ghostly actions in a different light. After all, the stones were insured and, if stolen, as has now been reported in all the papers, the duchess could in due course expect to receive their value from the underwriters. Only she, and no doubt a trusted friend or two, and we three, know the truth.”

“But that is fraud, Mr. Holmes.”

“You are legally correct, Lestrade. But I suggest that, in this case, you withdraw your long arm. Who would not feel pity for an elderly noblewoman brought low through the ill fortune and misjudgments of her husband? And can we not be satisfied that, through the actions of the duchess, the Fratelli and the Spina Rossa have both been denied the benefit of her diamonds?”

“It is a pretty point,” said Lestrade, “and one on which I should be a poor policeman if I agreed. But perhaps I should be a poor Englishman if I did not.”

Holmes bowed to the inspector.

“But Holmes,” I said, “you have explained the loss of the diamonds, and how they came into the hands of the Fratelli. But who were those two dead men, and how did they meet their end?”

“They were the agents of the Fratelli, Watson. It seems the Spina Rossa quickly learned what had befallen Barozzi, and guessed that he had betrayed the hiding place of the diamonds to another society. It was a simple matter for me to locate the hideout of Barozzi’s murderers, and the agents of the Scarlet Thorn followed a similar procedure and sent assassins to despatch their rivals and retrieve the diamonds. They succeeded in the first task, but of the diamonds the only traces were a broken lock and a pile of grey powder. Whether they understood what had become of the stones I know not, but they left with empty hands, having drawn their symbol upon the wall in the blood of their rivals.”

In due course we heard from Lestrade that the Duchess of Caradoc had indeed been compensated for the theft of her diamonds. William Everson Hartshorne was told as much of the story as Holmes thought fit and, no doubt, slept a good deal more soundly in his bed thereafter. Of the agents of the Scarlet Thorn no trace was ever found, but the body of Barozzi was at length discovered in a garret in Seven Dials. He was horribly mutilated and Holmes identified him by his injuries, by the curiously stained female dress and box of makeup which were found in his possession, and by the presence, in a secret pocket in that dress, of a single artificial diamond.

Copyright © 2010 Paul W. Nash

Family Values

by Robert Barnard

Robert Barnard’s biting humor is one of his trademarks, and readers can depend on finding it even more frequently in his short stories than in his novels. In the greater space of a novel, he’s someone you can depend on also to provide a beautifully crafted whodunit. His superior puzzle-spinning and trenchant writing have earned him the Cartier Diamond Dagger (the CWa’s award for lifetime achievement) and membership in Britain’s esteemed Detection Club.

It was in June 1948 that Mrs. Cynthia Webber and her son Simon came to lodge in the Princes Hotel, Pixton. They were well received by the rest of the guests, all of whom were virtually residents. The country had just suffered one of the worst winters Britain had ever known: months of snow-covered land and roads, which, added to the regime of rationing and shortages that the nation had endured since 1939, brought many to the edge of despair. Most of the residents at the Princes blamed the government for the winter, and for everything else. “What did we fight the war for?” was a common wail. “We’d have been better off if we’d lost it.”

What was still called the Princes Hotel was in fact a mere wing of the splendid Edwardian structure that overlooked the town from a vantage point that had once seemed to square with the social status of its guests. It was now run by Mrs. Hocking, who was more a housekeeper than a manager. She had been put in mainly to keep the old place open. She didn’t want casual guests, which was lucky because few were to be had. She took residents at reasonable rates, commandeered their ration books and used them cunningly, and took the burdens of effort and decision from their shoulders. That was what the middle-aged and elderly residents wanted, particularly after the privations of the terrible winter. And when Mrs. Webber and her son arrived, they were welcomed as a new source of interest.

“She’ll do,” said Major Catchpole, a man of few words.

“Such a nice sort of person,” said Mrs. Forrest, meaning “so obviously a gentlewoman.” She added that it was lovely to see a mother and son who were such good friends.

Their arrival had been well signalled in advance because they had taken the suite. All the residents being, by chance or circumstance, single, “the suite” was the one area in the wing that was not let out. It had been used by families before the war, many of whom came to the Peak District for the sake of a disabled or invalid child, hoping the famous Pixton waters would do them good, if a cure was out of the question. It had two bedrooms with a sitting room between — not large rooms, but providing a degree of comfort and privacy unknown to the other residents. Mrs. Hocking, when she had received the inquiry had been dubious whether the suite was habitable, but with the help of an army of hotel and hospital cleaners, all resident in the town and experienced from the Old Days, the dusty old rooms were smartened up. Even the residents pitched in, with Miss Rumbold volunteering to wash up all the ornaments and crockery in the suite, and old Mr. Somervell, a traditional and sentimental soul, buying a bouquet with his own money to decorate the sitting room on the day of their arrival.

They fitted in at once. Mrs. Webber, though not unduly confidential, was frank about their situation.

“Simon is going up to Oxford in October. He has a place at Lincoln, to read history. He was found unfit for National Service — lungs, you know — but his education was very disturbed in his last years, when the old teachers returned from the war and wanted all the old ways back. He’s going to do a very stiff course of reading — the car is full of books — so that he can go up with the best possible basis for study.”

The car was a basis of wonder, Mrs. Webber being a widow lady, and she explained it readily.

“It was my husband’s car. He died last year — old war wound from the Somme. He was in the Civil Defence and had an extra petrol ration due to the driving. I’ve had to give that up, of course, but we just about make do. Simon will take his licence soon.”

Their devotion to each other made Cynthia and Simon objects of great interest to the residents. To play some part in their little personal drama the residents often appealed to them, their judgment and experience seeming to put them on a higher plane than the rest. Simon was appealed to on questions relating to The Younger Generation, Cynthia on matters of fashion, the royal family, etiquette, genealogy, and even correct English.

“I was always taught at school,” began Mrs. Phipps, in the manner of all linguistic bores, “that it should be ‘ett,’ the past tense of ‘eat,’ not ‘eight.’ Don’t you agree, Mrs. Webber?”

Mrs. Webber wiped her mouth with her napkin, perhaps to conceal a smile.

“So often what one was taught at school is either wrong or has changed with the times. I think either pronunciation is acceptable these days.”

“I happen to know,” said Miss Rumbold, welding together two of the residents’ obsessions, “that the dear Queen says ‘eight.’ She visited the British Restaurant in Pimlico when I was doing war work there in 1944. ‘Eight’ she said, definitely.”

“I expect the Queen speaks the language of upper-class Britain a generation or two ago,” said Mrs. Webber, who must have been about the same generation as the Queen. “I know she says ‘lorss’ for ‘loss,’ and I think only cockneys and upper-class speakers do that.”

This remark was found daring, but because it was Cynthia, it was acceptable.

Mother and son made little excursions in the car on as many afternoons as had sun and as they had petrol for. They didn’t ask anyone to go with them because as Cynthia whispered to Mrs. Hocking, if they asked one they’d have to ask them all, at least once. They valued their privacy. In the lounge before lunch Cynthia would sometimes talk about where they planned to go.

“I know the area from my childhood,” she explained. “So many of these lovely little places have memories for me. I always wanted to come here on holiday in the years before the war, but Frank, my husband, never cared for it. He was quite rude about it. ‘Just one bloody peak after another,’ he used to say.”

“Fancy!” said Mrs. Forrest. “I can’t imagine anyone disliking the Peak District.”

“I can, when I’m toiling up to the King’s Head,” said Major Catchpole. “Pixton has hills that would defeat a Sherpa.”

“To me, Derbyshire beats even the Lake District,” said Miss Rumbold. “And it’s much more undiscovered.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Webber. “Wordsworth has a lot to answer to.”

By mid July the Webbers were accepted, admired, even loved, particularly for their devotion to each other, which all the women found “lovely” and “so nice to see,” and which both the men kept quiet about. Their position was as part of the community at the Princes, yet somehow slightly above it. Mrs. Webber reinforced this primacy by announcing that she didn’t need her sweet ration because she had never had a sweet tooth, and saying that she would use it to buy sweets for general consumption — a box of chocolates if one could be found, Turkish Delight or Liquorice Allsorts if one could not. All the residents at the Princes were enthusiastic in acclaiming her generosity, though in truth it created little pockets of animosity when one or other of them was thought to be taking more than their fair share.

It was bound to end in tears. The tabloid press understands that there is nothing the general public likes more than the building up of a popular idol — nothing except its bringing down. The Webbers had been supplied with a pedestal. By late July it was time to blow it up from under them.

It was Mrs. Phipps who provided the explosive. She had, as everyone at the Princes knew, a weak bladder, and at some time during the night she could be relied on to get up and go to the bathroom in her corridor. As she went past the Webbers’ suite one night she heard a sound and stopped. It was, she felt sure, the inner door to Mrs. Webber’s bedroom. She stood for a second or two, waiting; then from further away she heard another door shutting — the door, it could only be, to Simon Webber’s bedroom on the other side of the sitting room. She scurried along to the bathroom, switched on the light, and looked at her watch. It was half-past three.

Mrs. Phipps was not an ill-disposed woman, and not any more of a tittle-tattle than anyone else at the Princes. She nevertheless found it impossible to keep her information to herself. She confided the substance of it to Mrs. Forrest and together they talked to Miss Rumbold, who had the reputation of being a bit of a radical, having voted Liberal several times, though of course at the last election she had voted for dear Mr. Churchill. To Mrs. Forrest she was a woman of standards, though when she had listened twice to the story she still felt quite troubled — her cheeks were high pink in colour, and she had to struggle to find a way through her uncertainties.

“So what you are — no, you are not implying anything — what the sounds you heard seem to suggest—”

“That’s better,” said Mrs. Phipps. “I should hate it if—”

“Of course you would. What those sounds suggest is that the pair of them have imposed themselves on us as mother and son, whereas in fact they are... she is... he is... Oh dear. I don’t know the word.”

“No,” said Mrs. Forrest wistfully. “When an older man has a younger woman for his... you know... there are quite a lot of words and phrases, some of them quite vulgar, to describe the situation.” Mrs. Forrest’s voice sank to a whisper. “But this... Would the world ‘gigolo’ describe him?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Miss Rumbold. “It brings to mind someone like Rudolph Valentino. Do you remember him? How my heart used to flutter! It suggests someone Latin. Someone like — would Tyrone Power fit the bill?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Mrs. Phipps. “Someone like that. I believe he’s Irish. He’s quite unlike Simon Webber.”

“If that is his real name. Oh, I agree. He’s so tall and regular featured and fair. One would say the Aryan type if it hadn’t been made a dirty word by those dreadful Nazis.”

A thought struck Mrs. Forrest.

“But what about his ration book? How would he get one in the name of Simon Webber?”

“I worked in London during the war,” said Miss Rumbold darkly. “In London you can get anything at a price. And though Mrs. Webber says she only has the normal petrol ration, they do get around a lot, don’t they? Could they have... contacts?”

“What sort of contacts?”

“People with a husband in Civil Defence could still have contacts that he made in the war. Where I worked, CD officers were notorious.”

It might have seemed that guilty verdict had already been passed, but in the end they lacked courage and decided they had to consult with someone, preferably another of the guests, so that the thing would be kept within the four walls of the Princes. Pixton was a traditional, elderly, straight-laced town, and nothing could damage the residents more than a sex scandal centred on what was now their home. In the end they decided to talk to Major Catchpole, whose first reaction was not unlike Miss Rumbold’s: Where she went pink, he went scarlet.

“We thought,” said Mrs. Phipps carefully, winding up her tale, “that you with your greater experience—”

“Experience, dammit! I don’t—” But he quietened down almost at once. It would strain belief if he denied ever having had contacts with adultery. “But of course it’s sometimes known. When I was in India there were cases of officers’ wives with subalterns, even with one of the dusky-faced johnnies, damn them. And during the war, with couples separated, and many women becoming widows... Stuff happens that it’s better not to talk about.”

“Oh, we do agree!” said Miss Rumbold. “We are so uncertain that we couldn’t put a name to what he is.”

“What who is?”

“Simon. We finally fixed on the word ‘gigolo,’ but it doesn’t seem quite right.”

“No, it doesn’t. Some of the young chaps in the mess had a word for it — toyboy. But that doesn’t seem quite right either. Seems a serious young man, this Simon.”

“It’s the uncertainty that makes it so troubling,” said Mrs. Forrest. “There might be other explanations.”

“The question is, even if it were certain, would it be for us to judge?” asked Major Catchpole, whose military career had left him with a life’s motto: Anything for a quiet life.

“But if we knew, and did nothing, and it got out around the town!” said Mrs. Phipps. “The reputation of all of us would be at rock bottom! We have a certain reputation because the Princes has a certain reputation. The townspeople respect us, the spa patients and their relatives respect us. We have a position in the community out of all proportion to the rent we pay.”

Major Catchpole was quick to placate Mrs. Phipps.

“Of course, of course. I’d be the last one to throw that away. But the thing is, we must be sure. We must think up a plan of campaign and when we are sure, and only then, we can decide on a strategy, think up a course of action and stick to it.”

Major Catchpole was not the only person who was decisive in theory but inconsistent in practice. That same evening he invited Mr. Somervell to have a beer with him in the King’s Head, and in a corner of the saloon bar he confided in him the gist of the two ladies’ story. From that moment, the battle for secrecy was lost.

When everyone in the Princes except Mrs. Hocking knew what was suspected of the Webbers they became grateful for the afternoon excursions of Mrs. Webber and Simon (they were no longer referred to as mother and son). That was when the rest could talk the situation over. The thing that was most difficult for most of them was the injunction that, until they were sure, no change should come over their behaviour to the pair.

“I just hate having to talk to them,” said Mrs. Matthews, a roly-poly widow with strong opinions. “Just smiling and pretending it’s all right.”

“It’s the same for all of us,” said Mr. Somervell.

“Oh, I know, but I just have this strong feeling, this thing. After all, this has always been a respectable spa town — not like Harrogate, where all sorts of things were going on. Pixton has always had genuine invalids, not people sneaking away from their families in order to have a dirty time. And an older woman, much older, and a very young man. My blood freezes — it really does. I can hardly stop shivering.”

The atmosphere had definitely changed, but subtly at first. The moment of transition was symbolised for Mrs. Webber in the spa’s conservatory — a glass attachment to the theatre, depleted by war and the terrible winter but still a gracious and heartwarming place to be as the summer sun streamed in. It was here that Cynthia Webber, strolling through on her own (Simon was at his books) and looking at plant labels and descriptions, was cut by Mrs. Phipps and Mrs. Forrest. She had seen them coming from the next room and prepared herself (for she was far from unobservant, and had seen how things were going) for a frosty nod or a distant “Good morning.” In fact, the two ladies, faces set firmly ahead, their steps proceeding to the tea room, ignored her entirely and did not even look away but stared straight through her. Mrs. Webber did not enjoy the experience but she joked about it to herself. When, that evening, she told Simon he said, “Vicious old cows,” and, “It’s time we moved on.” She did not disagree with him.

It was two mornings after this, at breakfast, that the next change began. Mrs. Hocking brought in the post when it was nearly nine and Simon had already gone on a long walk “to think things over,” he said, and was heard to say. The Webber package included a bulky, official-looking envelope which Mrs. Webber opened. It was addressed to Simon, but she knew what it must be.

“Oh good,” she said brightly (she hardly ever spoke now at meals, and never initiated a conversation). “It’s Simon’s passport.”

There was immediate silence, and Mrs. Forrest got up. She had been feeling guilty about the brutal cutting of her fellow guest, because she was not a vicious woman.

“Oh, what a good likeness,” she said, looking at the first page of the stiff blue booklet with the royal arms on the cover.

“Yes, a friend took it, and we insisted the main thing was the likeness. Travelling in Europe is pretty problematic still, and Simon still isn’t sure where he wants to go. Ah — they’ve got everything right: ‘Webber, Simon Marius, born 11th March, 1928.’” She looked up at her fellow lodgers. “All absolutely correct. Simon will be pleased.”

Mrs. Forrest retreated, feeling somehow ashamed. Later, when she knew Cynthia (as she now again called her) had gone out, she talked the matter through with Major Catchpole and Miss Rumbold.

“It’s the fact that it’s a passport,” she said. “A ration book or a driving licence wouldn’t be at all the same. There wouldn’t be a photograph for a start, and they’re easily forged or transferred. But a passport. Everyone knows they don’t make mistakes with those. It’s as clear as clear, he is her son.”

“They’re very careful about passports,” agreed Miss Rumbold, “as they have to be. All those Poles staying on after the war, and all those displaced persons coming from Central Europe. The riffraff of the world wants to come here. The authorities need to be careful, and they are.”

Miss Rumbold’s radicalism, if it ever existed, did not run to showing the hand of friendship to foreigners. She even distrusted the Welsh.

“And when it comes down to it, the ‘evidence’ was very thin,” conceded Major Catchpole, who had always exercised a restraining influence. “The woman could have had a migraine, and the boy was getting her aspirins.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Forrest. “I’ve been very foolish.”

“Not at all, not at all. But I think, on the whole, Mrs. Phipps would have done better to hold her tongue. But we should have thought that older women with lovers—”

“Let’s say men friends.”

“—with men friends half their age and less are not frequent, not in this country. I believe such... liaisons were common in France between the wars, and very probably are still common today. We do things differently here.”

And so opinion swung round. Mrs. Forrest was crucial, since she had been the first one Mrs. Phipps confided in. Everyone agreed it was a storm in a teacup. Mrs. Phipps, however, was wistful about the change and said she was never going to be quite sure.

The change in atmosphere did not alter the decision of Mrs. Webber, who had not at all liked the days of ostracism after her weeks of preeminence. She went to Mrs. Hocking and said they would be leaving the next day, though they had paid up to the end of the week.

“I have no idea what silly story was put around,” she told the temporary manager, “and I don’t want to know. But I do know that for nearly a week we couldn’t get a civil word out of anyone. I’m not used to such foolishness, and the fact that they’ve had second thoughts does not change my mind one little bit. I’m not used to mixing with people so feeble-minded that they alter with every change of wind. Ah — my ration book—” and indeed Mrs. Hocking was handing it to her with a wistful expression, clearly wondering when next she was going to be able to let the suite. “Please don’t think I have anything to complain about with you. You may put any story about you like.”

So the next day, while Simon was stacking the suitcases in the car, the story was going round that Cynthia’s father-in-law, who had never recovered from his son’s death, was very poorly indeed, and they were anxious to see him one more time before...

On their way down towards Derby, where they had booked two single rooms, there was, for a time, silence in the car.

“I was not deceived for one moment by the little party waving us fond fare-wells,” said Cynthia eventually, knowing Simon was thinking of the same things. “One or two of the wavers must have been the ones that started it all off.”

“Of course they did. I couldn’t stand the atmosphere at the place, whether they were with us or against us.”

“They were a poor lot,” agreed Cynthia. “Sheep led by donkeys. With hindsight we were bound to find the company unsuitable: Narrow people with attitudes stuck in the Victorian age gravitate to little one-horse towns like Pixton.”

“They certainly could be vicious, though,” said Simon.

“Ignorance is always vicious. I certainly didn’t go through the business of doing away with your father to be treated by them as a scarlet woman.”

Simon laughed.

“They never even made up their minds, though — never took a line and stuck to it. One minute we were mother and son, next minute a middle-aged woman and her much younger lover.”

Cynthia laughed merrily.

“Typically provincial,” she said. “It never occurred to them that we could be both.”

Copyright © 2010 Robert Barnard

Heard at One Remove

by Nagaoka Hiroki

Translated from the Japanese by Beth Cary

Passport to Crime

The following story by Nagaoka Hiroki was the winner of the 2008 Mystery Writers of JapanAward. One of the judges for the award commented that it could be classifiedas a mystery, a “family story,” or a “humanist story” — for the personal life of the female police detective and her relationship with her daughter figure centrally in the tale.

1.

As she exited the ticket wicket and passed by some already shuttered kiosks, she could see several cardboard shelters come into view at the edge of the concourse.

There were five in all. One had been added about a week ago.

Sunken cheeks and unshaved chin. Age just shy of sixty. A rather tidy appearance...

Hazumi Keiko hurried along as she imagined what the new homeless man must look like.

She passed by a businessman at the exit from the concourse. He held a small mobile phone to his ear. It being the mid 1990s, more and more people carried these devices.

Maybe I should get a mobile phone. No, I don’t need to pay for one myself; the department will eventually provide one. Then I won’t need my pager anymore...

With such thoughts filling her mind, she walked for several minutes. She was nearly at her house when she noticed a disturbance.

A police van was parked in front of the old house on the alley, where there were few street lamps. It belonged to the crime-scene investigation unit. There was also a sedan, an unmarked patrol car belonging to the burglary section.

Some seven or eight bystanders stood at a distance, watching as the crime-scene investigators busied themselves.

It was Hazumi Fusano’s house.

Identifying herself to the uniformed police officer on guard, Keiko stepped toward the entryway. At the sound of her footsteps, the investigator dusting the front door with aluminum powder turned around. She didn’t recall his name, but recognized his face.

He stood up and raised his hand to the brim of his cap. “Detective, why are you here?”

“My house is nearby, right behind this one.”

“Is it?... Oh, the name here is also Hazumi, isn’t it?” he said, pointing at the ground. “Is it a relative of yours?”

Keiko shook her head. “It’s a common name from way back in this area. What happened here?”

“It’s a B and E with resident.”

His mouth seemed to be stiff from the cold. It took her awhile to realize what he had said.

Again? Just a few days ago, an elderly person’s house had been burglarized in this district west of the station.

“What was stolen was cash. Just over one hundred thousand yen ($1,000). She had it inside a cupboard.”

“How about eyewitnesses? Are there any?”

She couldn’t stick her neck much further into this investigation; she was in a different section. But this was her neighborhood. She wanted to obtain as much information as she could.

“A neighbor saw someone suspicious just around the time of the burglary.”

“What kind of suspicious person would that be?” As she asked, Keiko turned her eyes to the front door.

The lock button stuck out like a protruding belly button from the center of the doorknob. It was a cheap, simple lock, one of the least protective against break-ins.

“I don’t know the details. But he may have had a large scar below his eye... The detectives were saying something like that.”

Could it be Nekozaki?

The person who came to Keiko’s mind was someone she had handcuffed in the past. A large scar beneath his eye. Within the Kinesaka precinct, the only criminal who looked like that was Soichi Yokozaki — nicknamed Nekozaki, for cat. But his criminal record consisted of stalking and assaulting his ex-wife. He had no burglary conviction. If Yokozaki was in this neighborhood...

“Detective, how is that murder case coming along?”

“No developments,” she replied curtly.

Looking at her watch, she saw that it was after ten o’clock. Should she drop in on Fusano, or should she take her leave? She wavered as she thought of Natsuki.

In the end, she said, “Excuse me,” in a small voice, and stepped inside the house.

Fusano was seated with her legs tucked under her in the living room off the entryway. She was being questioned by the detective from the burglary section as she sat with her back to the paper shoji sliding doors, whose holes had been repaired with pieces of newspaper. The stooped shoulders of the eighty-some-year-old woman trembled beneath the dim light.

Keiko waited until the questioning was over, shifting her position to stay out of the way of the crime-scene investigator.

2.

When Keiko returned to her home, Natsuki was at the dining table. Her arithmetic textbook and notebook were spread open in front of her.

She’ll probably hand over a note with “Welcome home” written in pencil. As she thought this, Keiko spoke. “I’m home.”

“Welcome home,” Natsuki answered aloud. Her head, topped with a short haircut, remained facing the table.

“...That’s a surprise,” Keiko said.

“Oh? What are you surprised about?”

“It’s been awhile since I heard your voice.”

“I’m not angry anymore.” Natsuki pointed the tip of her pencil toward the kitchen. “I made supper. It’s mapo tofu. It’s in the microwave. Eat it when you want to.”

“Thanks.”

With this, the current mother-daughter standoff was over.

When Natsuki had suddenly stopped speaking to her four mornings ago, Keiko was annoyed, though this happened often. She had no idea what had set Natsuki off. It turned out that it was because Keiko had missed her turn to clean up the kitchen. But it was only yesterday, when she found a postcard in the mailbox, that she learned that this was the cause of her daughter’s ire.

“Don’t you think it’s disgusting to have cobwebs in the kitchen?” Natsuki’s handwriting had covered the entire surface of the back of the postcard.

Feeling the tension at her neck ease a little, Keiko entered the tatami-mat room and put her palms together in front of the Buddhist altar there.

It’s been four years already...

That much time had passed — and so quickly — since her husband, a senior detective in the violent-crimes section, had been run over by an automobile and died.

Natsuki is well and doing fine.

After reporting this to her husband’s photograph, Keiko tried to think of other things to report about Natsuki during the past few days. He had so looked forward to seeing his daughter grow up. But she couldn’t come up with anything. All she could do was repeat what she had said the day before.

She still has her childish moments.

Her refusal to speak and her note-writing. These behaviors seemed childish to Keiko. Natsuki would be entering middle school next year, and Keiko wished she would stop this infantile imitation of her father.

It’s your fault.

“If something upsets you, try writing it down on paper. You’ll feel much calmer. I do that sometimes,” Natsuki’s father had told his daughter. Natsuki had been quick to anger from birth, and once angry, she wouldn’t speak. Keiko often recalled her husband teaching this way of dealing with her feelings to Natsuki.

Next she reported on her work day and told him of the case at Fusano’s house, which she had happened upon on her way home.

She had finally made eye contact with Fusano after several minutes of standing in her entryway.

The elderly woman got up and came toward her and bowed her head quietly. She seemed to have regained a bit of energy, seeing all the support that had come. Fusano knew that Keiko’s occupation was that of detective. But she wasn’t aware that Keiko was in the violent-crimes section, not the burglary section.

I’ll take some money to her later, Keiko thought. Using newspaper instead of shoji paper to mend her doors. Living like that, she could hardly have any savings. Her only income must be her old-age pension...

As these thoughts occupied the surface of her mind, Keiko was subconsciously counting. Three times. No, it might be four times this year, she had gone to the scene of elderly people living alone who had killed themselves. In each case, it was clear that the subject had been overwhelmed by poverty and, above all, by a sense of loneliness.

Keiko left the tatami-mat room and went to the kitchen. After warming the mapo tofu in the microwave, she also placed a can of beer on a tray and sat down facing Natsuki. Then she took from her handbag the postcard she had received the day before.

Natsuki was moving her thumb and index finger rapidly on the table.

Keiko slid the postcard toward the fingers.

“Will you stop doing this?”

Natsuki looked up at her, fingers still moving.

“If you have something you want to complain about, just tell me. If you can’t do that, at least write me a note and give it to me right then. When you do this, I worry so much, not knowing what you’re angry about until your note gets delivered.”

“Don’t want to.” Natsuki grinned. “That’s what my aim is, time-lag offensive.”

“Now listen... You know that the mail deliverer sometimes makes mistakes between our address and Auntie Fusano’s address.”

“I know.”

“Then, you remember that one of your postcards was delivered to her place by mistake, don’t you? I was so embarrassed by that.”

“That’s the fault of the delivery person.”

“It’s your writing that’s at fault. You write our house number, 9, like a 7.”

“Yes, Mom. I’ll be careful about that.”

Accentuating her sigh this time, Keiko changed topics. “Speaking of Auntie Fusano, did you hear?”

Natsuki’s questioning expression said that she had not. The commotion seemed not to have reached this far.

“Just awhile ago, her house was burglarized.”

Natsuki’s fingers slowed down a bit. “A burglar?”

“Normally a burglar goes after a house when no one’s there. But this was the opposite. The burglar went in knowing someone was at home.”

“Really?”

“‘Really?’... Is that all you have to say? You’re being awfully cold-hearted. Who was the one who helped you get so good at calculations?” Keiko said as she imitated Natsuki’s finger motions.

Had she forgotten about those days when she was in lower elementary school? Fusano had been a big help. She had sat with Natsuki until late into the evening and even taught her how to calculate on the abacus. Shouldn’t Natsuki show some concern?

Of course, if she, Natsuki’s mother, could have come home earlier, her young daughter wouldn’t have had to be alone at night, or have the old neighbor woman take pity on her.

As she wrote down the calculation answers in her notebook, Natsuki said, “Don’t you have a much more important case you should be working on?”

She had jabbed at her mother’s weak point. “Well, yes. And I’m working hard on it.”

“Will you catch him quickly, please? A random attacker on the street isn’t cool at all. It’s a pain for me. I can’t even go to the convenience store after dark.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you don’t have any talent as a detective, Mom.”

“That might be true. Maybe a murder case is too difficult for a middle-aged female detective who commutes on the train.”

“On second thought, it may be better for you to be a lousy detective.” Natsuki closed her notebook. “If you can’t catch him, at least no one will come around here to pay their respects in revenge. If I lose you too, it’ll be a big mess for me.”

“‘Pay their respects,’ you say?” Where did this child learn such an expression?

The man who had run over her husband was an arsonist he had arrested, who was acting out of spite. Her husband’s life had been lost to this revenge, a detective’s occupational hazard.

She had told Natsuki the facts, but she didn’t recall having used such slang.

Even so...

The random street killing had occurred on November eighteenth. Two weeks had already gone by since then. What had she accomplished during that time? Without talent... maybe Natsuki was right.

Her chopsticks suddenly felt heavy. As she placed the mapo tofu into her mouth, she thought of something, and said in a loud voice, “Wow, Natsuki. This is good. You should open up a Chinese restaurant here.”

“Hey,” Natsuki coolly squinted her eyes, “you’re just saying that because it doesn’t taste good.”

Keiko leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Right. Truth is, the flavoring could use some help.”

“See, what did I tell you? It sounded so fake when you said it.”

“Actually, it wasn’t you I was talking to, Natsuki,” Keiko said in even more hushed tones, and continued after glancing toward the tatami room. “I wanted your father to hear it.”

“Then you should go in there and tell him in front of the altar.” Pulled along, Natsuki’s voice also quieted to a whisper.

“That wouldn’t work. Natsuki, don’t you know about the effect of overhearing something that is leaked?”

Natsuki shook her head.

“Then you wouldn’t have heard the phrase ‘heard at one remove,’ either. Listen. Let’s say there’s a made-up story.”

“Okay.”

“If you heard it directly from someone, you’d doubt if it was true, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“But how about if that same story was being told by that person to someone else, and you overheard that exchange? Then how would you take it? You might very well believe it, mightn’t you?”

“Maybe so.”

“That’s the effect of overhearing something. When you want someone to believe a certain piece of information, the trick is to tell it to another person and have it be overheard. So your dad should be happy in heaven now. ‘So, Natsuki has become a good cook,’ he’s thinking.”

“Hmm. So you call that way of telling someone ‘heard at one remove’?”

“Yes. See, you’ve learned something new, haven’t you?”

Keiko put down her chopsticks. She pulled the tab on the can of beer. Just then, the telephone rang, as if that were a sign.

“Is this Hazumi?” It was her section chief. His tone seemed normal, but it contained some irritation. “There’s been another murder, a second victim.”

Keiko had stood up even before she heard those words.

3.

The meeting, which started at five p.m., ended exactly two hours later.

Keiko was the first to dash out of the meeting room. Running into the restroom, she gargled over and over. It felt as if a needle was stuck deep inside her throat. She always felt this way when she was exposed to secondhand smoke. The man who had sat next to her was the problem. She knew his face. It was the deputy chief of the burglary section, who had questioned Fusano at her house on the night of December second, four days ago. Perhaps feeling important because he had been upped in rank to help pursue a murderer, he had smoked incessantly through the entire meeting.

Next time I’ll take the seat farthest away from him. So vowing to herself, Keiko returned to the squad room and opened the morning paper, which she had yet to read. The article on the random street killer was in the middle of the city page. It was in three columns. Though several days had passed since the second victim was killed, the case was still foremost in the news.

With no progress toward its solution, there was insufficient information for the article. In such cases, reporters resorted to desperate measures. The article treated as a scoop the fact that investigators from the white-collar crime, burglary, organized crime, weapons, and drugs sections had been temporarily assigned to the violent-crimes section to support the investigation.

“Detective Hazumi.”

Hearing her name called, Keiko lifted her eyes from the newspaper. The junior detective at the next desk extended the telephone receiver.

“Call for you. From lockup administration.”

What could they want? she wondered as she took the receiver.

“This is Itami.”

At the sound of his voice, Keiko pictured Itami’s square-jawed face.

“Can you come over here?”

“What’s wrong?”

“One of the guests staying with us insists on seeing you.”

“Who is it?”

“Number Fifteen.”

“I can’t tell from that.” She meant to tone down her voice, but couldn’t avoid sounding prickly.

“I can’t help it, it’s Number Fifteen. The rules say we have to call our guests by number.”

Keiko hung up the telephone and pressed her temples. Separation of investigation and detention: that was the entrenched principle that caused this inevitable conflict between the Criminal Investigation Department and the Detention Administration Department. It wasn’t something any of them could do anything about. Still, this kind of exchange was tiresome.

Is there a problem? her junior colleague asked with his glance.

“Give me some time,” she told him.

“Yes, but what about our interviews? When are we leaving?”

“Wait for me here. I’ll be right back.”

Keiko left the room and ran down one flight of stairs, to the third floor.

Among the “guests” in the detention lockup there were occasionally some who had information about crimes other than those they had committed. It was possible that “Number 15” had some information about the random street killer.

When she opened the heavy door leading to the holding cell, Keiko clasped her arms around herself. The heating should be the same here as on other floors, but this was a place full of steel bars, and no warmth could be felt.

At the guard desk was an unusually handsome-featured young police officer. His name was Saito. He lived in the same district as Keiko, west of the train station, and Keiko recognized him. His lifestyle seemed extravagant to her, as he bought new-model cars quite often. It was rumored that he was in debt to the agency’s savings cooperative.

“Where is Mr. Itami?” Keiko asked him as these thoughts passed through her mind.

“Please wait,” Saito responded, unexpectedly politely. He got up and went into the office behind her.

Shortly, in place of the handsome officer, the square-jawed chief emerged.

Saying only, “This way,” Itami began walking quickly along the hallway lined with cells.

Keiko followed him.

The bars on the cells were covered on the bottom half, but the top half was left open. This meant that the detainees could look out onto the hallway if they stood up. Seven p.m. With supper over, they were stuck with nothing to do. They stared out from their cells with curiosity.

As he walked ahead of her, Itami half turned and said, “Normally I wouldn’t listen to particular requests from our guests. But Number Fifteen was insistent on seeing you. I’m making a special exception.”

Tell that to Number 15, or whoever. But Keiko kept quiet and nodded at his patronizing words.

The cell where Itami stopped was at the farthest point from the guard desk.

“Hey, Number Fifteen.”

When Itami called out, a man near them turned around. It was a forty-year-old man wearing a soiled jacket. When she saw his face, Keiko swallowed her breath.

Nekozaki. A long scar under his right eye. There was no mistake. It was Soichi Yokozaki.

Yokozaki soundlessly approached the bars. From his narrow eyes an expressionless gaze was directed at her.

“When were you released?” Keiko said.

Yokozaki didn’t reply.

“Just ten days ago,” Itami answered in his stead. “He was finally let out, but then he stole some money from an old woman’s house, so now he’s back in here.”

It was the burglary at Fusano’s house. So it had been Yokozaki after all.

Wait, though. He might also be involved in the street killings. She wondered about this, but she immediately stopped short. The first killing was about twenty days ago. Yokozaki was still in prison then.

“Was that case really your doing?”

Yokozaki didn’t bother to answer this either.

“Must have been.” Again, Itami spoke for him. “It was just decided today that his prison sentence will be extended ten days.”

Even though the court had decided upon a ten-day extension of his sentence while the burglary was investigated, she still couldn’t believe that Yokozaki had committed the burglary.

“Where are you living now? What’s your address?”

She didn’t expect that Yokozaki would answer. She kept her eyes on the man inside the cell, but her voice was aimed at Itami.

“The station. That night he was digging in the trash bins in the area west of the station. He must have been tempted to go into the old woman’s house.”

“Wait a minute. You mean Kinesaka station?”

“Sure.”

“What do you mean, he lives there?”

“You know, there are four or five cardboard shelters on the concourse there.”

“Yes.”

“It’s one of those that is Number Fifteen’s address.”

“...Really?”

The new arrival had been Yokozaki.

“And,” her voice went high. This was because a certain phrase crossed her mind. Clearing her throat, Keiko continued, “What do you want from me?”

At this, finally, Yokozaki’s face moved. Showing his tongue, he slowly licked his lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.

4.

“Thanks. It’s been a help.” Quickly saying so, Keiko alighted from the car.

“Boss,” her junior colleague leaned across the passenger seat and said, “you should take a rest.”

“Why?”

“You don’t look so well. The chief is worried, too.”

“If I take a rest, will the killer also rest?” she answered in a joking fashion, pushing aside the headache that had set in.

Her colleague closed his mouth and pulled back to sit up straight in the driver’s seat.

Before she slid the key into her front door lock, she tested its strength by jiggling the doorknob. With staff being shifted to the violent-crimes section, the burglary section was now short-handed, so it was best to be cautious.

As soon as she stepped into the house, she called out, “Natsu!”

There was no answer. She could hear water splashing in the bathroom. Natsuki must be taking a bath.

On the dining table was a newspaper. It was opened to the same page she had seen just four hours before in the squad room. Was her daughter looking at the city page every day in order to find out more about her mother’s work?

Keiko searched in her tool box and brought out a small penlight and sat down in a chair. What occupied her mind was Yokozaki’s face.

What is he cooking up?

After a while, Natsuki came out of the bathroom. As her hair wasn’t wet, Keiko decided she must not have been soaking in the tub but rather washing the tub out.

“Could you sit here for a second?” Pointing to the chair across from her with one hand, with the other she pulled out a photograph from her bag. It was a mug shot of Yokozaki. When she had returned from the lockup, Keiko had rushed to the records room and opened up his case file. She had made a copy of his photograph.

“Look at this,” she said, putting the photograph on the table in front of Natsuki. “Take a good look at this face and remember it.”

Natsuki took the photo in her hand.

“His name is Yokozaki. He’s a stalker, a word we’ve heard a lot lately. That’s what he is. He’s a bad character who pursues his target to the end. He’s persistent, like a cat, so his nickname is Nekozaki, Cat-zaki. Some time ago, he stalked his ex-wife and ended up slashing her with a box cutter.”

Her eyes glued to the photo, Natsuki nodded.

“And I caught him and sent him to prison. So he must hate me for it.”

Natsuki blinked several times.

“Yokozaki’s been released from prison and has started living at the train station. He’s one of the homeless at Kinesaka station. That means he’s moved close to our house. So I’m a little worried.”

Natsuki lifted her eyes from the photo.

“Remember what you said the other day? Paying their respects? It just may be that he’s targeting me. This is only a possibility, but you may be in danger as well.”

Natsuki returned the photo to Keiko.

“Keep it,” Keiko continued, staying her daughter’s hand. “As luck would have it, Yokozaki’s in jail right now. But he’ll probably be released in ten days.”

From what the burglary-section officer had said, the only reason for Yokozaki’s arrest was eyewitness testimony from a nearby resident who had stated, “I saw a man with a scar beneath his eye.” If no other physical evidence was discovered, it was likely that he would be released when his lockup sentence was up.

“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll fight him off and protect you. But, to be safe, just remember this face. And if you see him somewhere, run away. Understand?”

Not uttering a sound, Natsuki nodded her head. Keiko was perplexed. Even in this emergency, Natsuki was refusing to speak.

“Can’t you answer me? What are you angry about this time? Can’t you give me a reason?”

Still, Natsuki would not speak.

Keiko slapped the table with her hands, letting her frustration out. “I’m going out,” she said, and headed toward the front door. Outside, she first peered into the mailbox. Just as she thought, there was a postcard inside. The addressee, “Ms. Hazumi Keiko,” and the sender, “Natsuki,” were both written with penmanship that slanted up toward the right. The writing was familiar. But the postcard this time wasn’t the type sold at the post office, it was a picture postcard. This differed from the usual pattern. Below the address was written: “How long are you planning to pursue the burglar?” The other side was a photograph of some wildflowers of no particular distinction.

She turned it over to look at the writing again. She guessed, from the question, that Natsuki was annoyed that her mother was late coming home again. Was this why she was refusing to speak? It was true that she had been coming home after midnight the past few days. Last night she had stayed overnight at the police station.

But still...

Keiko felt fatigue weighing her down. Natsuki shouldn’t be behaving so childishly, throwing a tantrum over something like that. Besides, “It’s not a burglar. I’m chasing after a killer.” She caught herself talking aloud. When she thought about how hard she had worked to rise from the burglary section to the violent-crimes section, this misunderstanding was irritating.

“You have a more important case. Hurry up and find the street killer,” Natsuki had said the other day. So Keiko had thought Natsuki had come to appreciate her mother’s work. But it seemed she had overestimated her daughter.

The misunderstanding might not be limited to Natsuki alone. The image of detectives that elementary school pupils had was probably that they pursued burglars and killers with no division of responsibilities between sections.

She shoved the picture postcard into her coat pocket and passed through the gate. She walked to the station and went deep into the concourse. The cardboard-box shelters were quiet. All of the homeless seemed to be asleep. She approached the newest of the five shelters. This must be Yokozaki’s.

She wondered who was now living in the tidy apartment he had rented on the outskirts of town before he was sent to prison. Had he lost his belongings due to the civil suit brought against him? If so, how much compensation had his ex-wife demanded?

Keiko recalled again Yokozaki’s voice as she had heard it in the lockup.

“Can you come to visit me?”

At first she couldn’t comprehend what he meant by those words, spoken in such a hoarse voice.

“Won’t you come to visit me, Ms. Hazumi?” As he repeated his request, there was nothing threatening in his tone.

“I’m here now.”

Yokozaki slowly shook his head. “What I’m asking is that you come to the visitors’ room.”

She was at a loss for a reply. As far as she knew, there was no regulation that prohibited a detective from meeting with a suspect in the visitors’ room, but...

“That’s not possible,” Itami broke in. “Visiting hours are until four p.m. It’s way after that now. You’ll have to abide by the regulations.”

“I don’t insist on it right now. It can be on another day.” Yokozaki stated this with his eyes glued to Keiko, not even glancing at Itami.

Perhaps affronted by this, Itami raised his voice in anger. “It can’t be tomorrow. You’re being interrogated. You should be glad she came at all. The detectives are all busy with a murder case. They can’t be taking time with your petty case.”

“Then day after tomorrow.”

Itami was quiet.

Neither did Keiko respond. She couldn’t answer. Because she couldn’t gauge Yokozaki’s true intentions.

Why did he want her to visit? What was he scheming? Was he expecting to threaten her by saying something like, “Wash your neck and be waiting for the blade?”

Only two points were clear.

One was that Yokozaki had targeted her. Not only had he moved close to her house, he’d made a point of demanding that she visit him. There was no mistaking that he was planning his revenge.

The second point was that she had no intention of falling for his scheme.

She squatted down in front of the shelter. Just to be sure, she called out, “Good evening.” As expected, there was no response.

Passersby on the concourse gave sideways glances toward her. Feeling their eyes on her back, Keiko opened the cardboard door of the shelter. A sour smell stung her nose. She turned on the penlight that she had brought with her. The first thing that the weak light lit up was a dirty blanket. Stifling the nausea she felt, Keiko slowly moved the circle of light.

5.

The acrylic pane was thicker than she had expected. For its thickness, its transparency was high, and she could clearly see even the second hand of the clock on the opposite wall. The walls seemed to be insulated for sound, and no noise from the outside could be heard.

How many years had it been since she had come to the visiting room at the lockup? It must be since she had come on an observation tour during her police-academy days. If so, it had been over twenty years.

Keiko closed her eyes. What came first to her mind was her daughter. Natsuki had refused to say a word to her since the evening of the sixth — the day before yesterday. The message that had been “How long are you planning to pursue the burglar?” that day had become “Why do you like burglars who target homes when no one is there?” on the picture postcard she had retrieved this morning just as she was leaving for work.

It was Fusano who had brought that postcard. She had brought over this morning what had been delivered to her house yesterday. When Keiko looked at the house number on the address, she saw that Natsuki had deflated the circle on the 9 so that it looked like a 7.

And she said she’d be careful. Keiko apologized for the trouble.

Fusano also bowed her head deeply. “Thank you so much for the other day. I’m really in your debt.”

As Keiko hadn’t done anything special and she had even forgotten to give Fusano some money, she felt uncomfortable. Keiko opened her eyes from her reverie, took out her datebook, and wrote, “Withdraw money for Fusano.” The tip of the ballpoint pen didn’t quiver. No, she wasn’t nervous.

It seemed they hadn’t yet found any physical evidence that Yokozaki was the burglar. The interrogation would no doubt proceed until the extension of his sentence was up. That meant he was behind bars for another week or so. Unless someone else, who was the actual burglar, gave himself up, there was no way he would be immediately released.

We could move and go into hiding before he gets out.

Keiko closed her datebook. A moment later, the door on the other side of the acrylic pane opened. Yokozaki appeared first. Then followed Itami.

Keiko shot Itami a look that said, Are you going to be present as well?

Itami answered, “It’s regulation.”

Can’t be helped.

Only attorneys could meet with prisoners without guards present.

When she entered the visitors’ room, Keiko had shown her identification card at the reception desk and filled out a visitor request form, just like the general public. She wasn’t getting any special treatment just because she was part of the police force.

“You’re not allowed to do anything like an interrogation, of course. Also, depending on the content of the conversation, I may decide to end it. Keep that in mind,” Itami said brusquely, as he sat down on a folding steel chair nearby.

Yokozaki sat at the counter facing Keiko. Just as he had done the other day, through the steel bars, he stared at her with expressionless eyes. Keiko studied his thin lips and waited for them to open. Yokozaki kept quiet.

About a minute passed. There was no indication that Yokozaki would open his mouth.

“Number Fifteen,” Itami said as he scraped the steel chair on the floor. “You want to say something, don’t you? Don’t hesitate.”

Keiko also became impatient. Come on, speak up. She had put aside her determination not to visit him, thinking that he might give her a hint as to what he was planning.

Her examination of the cardboard shelter the night before last had yielded nothing. All she had as for information was what he himself had said. His remaining silent would mean she had wasted her time coming here when she was so busy. She still had to go on interviews today. There were as yet no leads in the serial street killings.

Ten minutes passed. Yokozaki’s mouth remained shut.

“Hey, Number Fifteen.” Itami’s voice showed his fatigue. “If you’re just going to keep silent, I’m going to end the visit.”

At this, Yokozaki finally opened his mouth. “Thirty minutes.”

“What?”

“I have thirty minutes. The regulations allow me thirty minutes for visiting time. It hasn’t even been half that time yet.”

Itami clicked his tongue in exasperation.

“Besides,” Yokozaki said, with a faint smile on his face, “visiting isn’t just talking. It’s still a visit to just look at the other person’s face.”

Don’t be silly. It seemed she had made a big mistake coming here. This was just the type of insidious harassment this man nicknamed “The Cat” was capable of. If so, it was best to leave quickly.

Keiko leaned forward to stand up. But it was Itami who stood up before she did. Clucking his tongue again in obvious annoyance, he opened the door and shouted into the hallway.

“Hey, Saito, are you busy?”

“No, not so busy,” was the response that Keiko could hear.

“Then trade with me.”

There were footsteps, and then Saito’s trim features peeked in from the doorway. The young officer sat down in the steel chair in place of his chief, who left this boring job midway and departed hastily from the visiting room.

Having missed her timing to leave, Keiko sat down again.

Another minute passed.

Yokozaki opened his mouth again. “When I’m being interrogated, I can tell a lot from the behavior of the detectives.”

What was he saying all of a sudden? Puzzled, Keiko asked, “What can you tell?”

“The progress of an investigation. I can tell how close a case is to being solved.”

As Yokozaki suddenly moved his upper body, Keiko stiffened. With the same faint smile on his face, he placed onto the counter his hands, which had been on his knees. “It seems the real perpetrator has been identified in the case I’m suspected of.”

“So, you didn’t steal, after all?”

“No, it wasn’t me. I don’t know who it is, but the real burglar is someone else.”

Using his arms as supports, Yokozaki leaned his upper body forward.

“The detectives have figured out who it was and are secretly gathering evidence. The next stage is to seek an arrest warrant. There’s no mistake. The atmosphere in the interrogation room is clear.”

Yokozaki’s eyes lit up for an instant.

“But there’d be some trouble if they arrest the suspect, so the detectives are in a quandary.”

The faint smile disappeared from Yokozaki’s face.

“That means, Ms. Hazumi, listen up, it could be as early as tomorrow...” Keiko stopped breathing. Yokozaki placed his face close to the acrylic pane and hissed, “...that I might be released from this place.”

6.

Her headache was no better in the morning. In fact, it was worse. She felt as if the inside of her skull was being hammered with a mallet. She replaced the rice she had hardly touched in the rice cooker and put the side dishes she had not eaten into the refrigerator.

Natsuki was washing dishes at the sink without a word. As the instant water heater was broken, her hands must be numb with cold, but she continued to use the sponge and detergent without complaint. When she finished washing up, Natsuki left the kitchen. Retrieving the morning paper from the mailbox, she opened it up at the dining table.

Keiko snatched the newspaper from her.

Natsuki looked up, her eyes wide.

“I’m off today.”

“Sleep in tomorrow,” last night her boss had said shortly, having peered at her face. She felt humiliated. He must have been truly concerned for her health, but for Keiko it was as if she had heard him say, “You’re not up to dealing with this murder case.”

“I’m off today. I’ll be home all day.”

Natsuki didn’t reply. She just nodded.

The message “Why do you like burglars who target homes when no one is there?” had changed to “Which is more important — a petty thief or your daughter?” in the picture postcard she found in the mailbox last night. Natsuki still couldn’t forgive her mother’s late homecomings.

“Natsuki, I first want to say, write your number nine clearly with the circle. The way it looks, you’re bothering Auntie Fusano.”

On all of the postcards Natsuki had sent, the 9s looked like 7s. That meant that it wasn’t just the second postcard but the first and third ones as well that had been misdelivered to Fusano’s address. So the old woman had brought over all three cards.

“Understand?”

Natsuki didn’t say anything.

“Stop the silent treatment and start talking, why don’t you?” Keiko ripped the edge of the newspaper in irritation. “Also, this is important, so listen carefully. For the time being, from tonight, you’ll go to your grandfather’s to stay. You’ll go to school from there. Don’t worry. It’s just a precaution.”

“I may be released as early as tomorrow.” If Yokozaki’s words were true, he could be released today.

But she wasn’t about to swallow his bluff whole. After she had left the visiting room, she had gone to the burglary section and inquired of the chief detective in charge of the investigation whether Yokozaki would be released immediately. When she heard that it wasn’t the case, rather than feel relieved, she was bewildered by Yokozaki’s stupidity. What meaning did a lie that would be so easily discovered have? If all he could muster was an empty threat like that, he must in fact be the burglar who had stolen money from Fusano’s house. That would make certain his re-incarceration. Then she wouldn’t have to move.

Yes. This was just a precaution.

“All right? Your answer?”

At that, Natsuki pulled an advertising flyer toward her and wrote “Okay” on the back.

Keiko boiled over with rage. “Speak to me decently!” Unable to suppress her anger, she crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it at Natsuki. “Don’t joke around. Can’t you see that I’m really concerned for you? Grow up. You’re too old to throw silent tantrums about trivial things. Why are you being so childish? We have serious things to worry about right now...”

7.

She could hardly open her eyes. It must be the sleep in the corners of them. She rubbed it out. But as she raised herself up, Keiko realized that she had fallen asleep at the dining table.

It took her awhile to recall what had happened. After she had yelled at her daughter, she had pulled herself together.

Natsuki had tears in her eyes. Sniffling, she had picked up her book pack, saying, “I’m sorry,” in a small voice, and then she had run out the front door.

Keiko followed her to apologize, but by the time she made it to the door, her daughter had gone. Her headache grew worse. She staggered back to the chair and closed her eyes to rest just a bit.

She looked at the clock. It was already past two p.m. On the table was the morning paper she had grabbed from Natsuki. Rubbing her eyes again, she opened it up first to the city page, as was her custom.

The next instant, Keiko was struck motionless. Opening her eyes wide, she read through the article twice. Then she jumped up from the table, knocking over her chair to grab the telephone.

“Yes, this is Number Seven Elementary School.” The voice at the other end seemed to be overly slow.

“Please let me speak to Natsuki, Hazumi Natsuki, Grade Six, Class Two. This is her mother. It’s an emergency!”

“Please wait.”

While the school staffer went to call Natsuki to the telephone, Keiko scanned the article once more.

“Policeman Turns Himself In on Burglary Case.” She hadn’t misread it. The headline was clear. “In the burglary case of the night of December 2, when cash was stolen from a private house in the district west of Kinesaka City station, a police officer of the Kinesaka precinct has turned himself in, admitting to the crime. After an interrogation, which occurred on the evening of December 8, police determined that the suspect did commit the burglary and arrested the officer.”

The actual perpetrator had been a police officer! “But there’d be some trouble if they arrest the suspect, so the detectives are in a quandary.” That was what Yokozaki had meant in the visiting room.

More than that, what bothered Keiko was the ending to the article. “With this development, the unemployed man, 40, who had been arrested and detained as a suspect in this case was released from the Kinesaka police station.”

Yokozaki was already out. It hadn’t been a bluff. His words had been the truth.

“Hello. Natsuki has already gone home. We didn’t have fifth period today.”

Keiko hung up without listening for more and, grabbing her coat, ran out the door. She sped to the station on her bicycle, clenching her teeth. Flinging her bicycle down at the entrance to the concourse, she ran toward the cardboard shelters.

Yokozaki might be following Natsuki. She couldn’t help feeling that he was. If so, it would be futile to go to his shelter. But she could think of nothing else she could do. She wasn’t in any condition to worry about what others might think. She opened the door of the closest shelter. Someone was lying under the blanket in the dim, dark box.

Who was it? Had another homeless person moved in?

Her eyes couldn’t adjust to the dark, and she couldn’t see who it was. She shifted her body to the side to let in more light. She stared at the man’s face. She was able to confirm the scar beneath his right eye. She drew back for a second as her expectation had missed its mark. Then she leaned into the shelter and pressed Yokozaki.

“You...” If you touch my daughter I’ll make sure you never get out of prison. She had expected to say something like that, but due to her confusion and her excitement, the next words didn’t follow.

She thought Yokozaki laughed. Keiko glared at him.

He said, “So that’s it, after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were thinking about it, weren’t you? Revenge, or ‘paying my respects.’” Yokozaki looked away. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t want to go to prison again. Even if I’m homeless, it’s better outside bars than behind them.”

“Then,” Keiko pulled her face away, “why did you come to this station?”

“Because it’s just right for someone with no place to live. No other reason.”

“What about that visit? Wasn’t that to threaten me?”

“No, it wasn’t. Did you read this morning’s paper?”

Keiko nodded.

“Then you must have seen the burglar’s name and face.”

She shook her head. The article had merely said “a police officer” and there was no photograph.

“You haven’t? I guess it’s not easy for reporters to get information, is it? It probably didn’t make it into the early edition.” So saying, Yokozaki twisted his body to reach for the paper. “I found a late edition that was thrown out in the station trash bin. I’ll give it to you. Look at it carefully.”

Yokozaki handed her the folded newspaper. Keiko drew in a sharp breath when she saw the photograph of the burglar’s face. That was when she understood everything.

“Yokozaki... you saw this face that night.”

Being in the neighborhood, he had witnessed the burglar running away from Fusano’s house.

“Yeah, I was surprised.”

Of course he was. When he was arrested and taken to the lockup, he had seen the perpetrator there. No wonder he had been surprised. No, he wouldn’t have been sure at that stage that the man in this photo was the burglar. He couldn’t have seen the man’s face clearly in the dark. That was why he came up with the scheme to ask for a visit. Yokozaki had bet that if the man he had seen was the perpetrator, he would turn himself in.

“I’m sorry I suspected you...”

“No, I was using you as well. I don’t have anyone I can call an acquaintance anymore. I couldn’t think of anyone but you who could come to visit me.”

“What do you plan to do now?”

“I’ll start over. I’ll find a job.”

“That’s good...”

Keiko left the cardboard shelter. A perpetual criminal. That was how she had pegged Yokozaki. She had concluded that he was a cold-blooded criminal. But, perhaps it had been a mistake to judge everything about him from the stalker incident.

After she returned home, she looked once more at the newspaper Yokozaki had given her. There was the real burglar — even in the grainy photograph Officer Saito’s face looked handsome.

Her meeting with Yokozaki in the visiting room was Yokozaki’s way to have Saito overhear the conversation. Yokozaki had insistently waited to speak, hoping that Saito would come into the room as guard. He used the opportunity to give false information that the real perpetrator had been found and that the evidence against him had been secretly investigated. If Itami hadn’t left and called Saito in, Yokozaki would no doubt have asked for another visit and tried for another chance.

8.

Awhile later, Natsuki returned home. As she put down her book pack, Keiko stretched out her hand to her daughter’s forehead and traced her fingers along the spot where she had thrown the wad of paper that morning.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s okay. Does your head still hurt?”

“Just a little.”

“What time are we going to Grandpa’s house?”

Keiko shook her head. “We don’t have to go.”

“Shucks, I was looking forward to it.” Natsuki left the living room and went into the kitchen. “You should lie down. I’ll wake you up when supper’s ready.”

Keiko nodded and sat down on the sofa. She pulled a blanket over her and lay down. It was shortly after she had closed her eyes that the doorbell rang.

“Coming,” Natsuki replied, scurrying to the entryway and opening the door. Keiko followed her movements with her ears, keeping her eyes closed.

Then she heard, “Hello, Natsuki.” It was Fusano’s voice. “Is your mother here?”

“She’s lying down, but I can wake her.”

“No, don’t do that. Wait, Natsuki, don’t. I just made this. Please eat it.”

“Wow, thanks.”

What was it that she’d received?

“I’m sorry I can only show my thanks with something like this... And here, this was in the mailbox.”

“Oh, thank you.”

That must be a postcard. Natsuki must have once again written the number so that it was easy to misread. Four times in a row. She must have done it on purpose.

On purpose... Keiko opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Could it be...?

“Well, Natsuki, I’ll come again.”

“Thank you so much.”

When she heard the door close, Keiko sat up and waited for Natsuki. As she returned to the kitchen, Natsuki was carrying a double-handled pot with both her hands. Tucked between her fingers was a picture postcard.

Natsuki had thought that her mother was asleep. When their eyes met, she shrugged.

“That was Auntie Fusano, wasn’t it?” Keiko asked.

“Yeah. She brought us this,” Natsuki answered, as she lifted up the pot and took off the cover.

Several small fish had been simmered to a golden color beneath the steam. Keiko’s appetite was stirred. Fusano had made a dish of sardines simmered in soy sauce and sugar. Keiko knew how delicious it was, having tasted it before.

“Mom, did you do something for her? She said this was to thank you.”

“He was arrested.”

Natsuki put the pot on the table. “Who?”

“The man who stole money from her house.”

Natsuki froze for an instant.

“It’s not as if I did anything special.”

“Hmm.” Giving her usual bored answer, Natsuki turned her back and crouched over the wastebasket. Keiko could hear the sound of paper being torn. Afterward, when Natsuki stood up straight, the postcard had disappeared from her hand.

With her empty hands, Natsuki began to put away the advertising inserts and items on the table. Among them was the newspaper that Yokozaki had given Keiko.

“What? You don’t need to read the city page? You’re not interested now that the case is solved?”

When Keiko said this meanly, on purpose, Natsuki looked up at her. She seemed a bit upset.

Unconcerned, Keiko continued. “A postcard. It’s not unnatural to have what you write show if it’s a postcard, is it? I get it. The person who receives it automatically reads it. But wasn’t it hard to keep writing the nine like a seven?”

Natsuki’s gaze locked with Keiko’s. She was trying to figure out how much her mother knew.

“And what did you write on the postcard you just ripped up? About the burglar? Did you use the police jargon you know, since you’re the daughter of detectives? But the reader wouldn’t be able to understand those words.”

So saying, Keiko reflected on the messages she had received so far. Had Natsuki really been angry at her mother’s late return?

“How long are you planning to pursue the burglar?”

“Why do you like burglars who target homes when no one is there?”

“Which is more important — a petty thief or your daughter?”

Wasn’t the true meaning in the words “burglar,” “burglars who target homes when no one is there,” and “petty thief”? Wasn’t the sequence of messages communicating that the detectives were pursuing the burglar from morning till night?

To whom? To the old woman whose money had been stolen. It was not her mother, but Fusano, that Natsuki had wanted to read those words.

In the mass media, the spotlight had been on the random street killer. It had been announced that detectives had been shifted from the burglary section to the violent-crimes section. Fusano had no doubt seen this news. And she was no doubt worried. Would the money that had been stolen from her be returned? Most of all, she must have felt lonely. She must have thought that the world had forgotten about her.

That was why Natsuki had sent those postcards. She had counted on misdeliveries and aimed at the effect of overhearing something. In actuality, the burglary-case investigation had become less critical, but in giving Fusano the opposite impression by having her hear it at one remove, Natsuki had tried to make Fusano think it wasn’t so.

No matter how major a case comes to the fore, your small case hasn’t been forgotten, Auntie. The detectives are persisting in chasing after the burglar who stole your money. No one has forgotten you. Natsuki had kept reassuring Fusano by communicating that to her.

Natsuki’s cheeks were flushed. “Hey, Mom, what do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I just think that you didn’t need to pretend you were so angry, just so you could send the postcards.”

Turning her flushed face away, Natsuki reached for the faucet at the sink. She stuck her hands into the flowing water and scrubbed them.

To Keiko it seemed that her daughter had grown a bit taller compared to the day before.

Copyright ©2009 by Nagaoka Hiroki; translation ©2009 by Beth Cary

Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man

by Evan Lewis

Department of First Stories

Evan Lewis was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest; he currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, three cats, and two dogs, and he’s set this new story in that city. Already well known in our field as a blogger (see page 64 of this issue), he has had both a tall tale and a Western published online. The following is his first paid print publication and also his first mystery. It’s an homage — though a most unusual one — to Sherlock Holmes, whose legacy we celebrate in every February issue.

The ad in the Oregonian sounded like a gag: “Room to let. Rent negotiable. Inquire 221-B Baker St., Portland.”

No phone number. No e-mail address. No reason to pursue it further, except that I was badly in need of a room, and the prospect of a weird landlord had a certain appeal.

The street was only a block long, if you could call it a street. It was an unpaved, rocky track snaking uphill between a fenced-in field and the backside of a three-story apartment building. And there was only one house on the block, if you could call it a block. There was no curb, no sidewalk, and the only difference between yard and street was the preponderance of weeds.

The rickety two-story house looked like it had last been painted around the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A stocky man stood on the porch with his back to the street, apparently talking with someone inside. His windmilling arms and strident tones made it clear he was less than happy.

Parked in front of the house was a cherry-red, three-wheeled car that looked like an escapee from an amusement park ride. I pulled my PT Cruiser in behind and stepped out.

The words echoing off the porch were both colorful and profane. After a moment the stocky man wheeled and stormed down the steps, flinging further invective behind him. He wore a scraggly beard and had wiry black hair tied in a ponytail. His faded orange T-shirt said Free Tibet. He was nearly upon me when he stopped, eyed me owlishly, and waved a folded newspaper in my face. “If you’ve come for the room, you’re wasting your time. That wacko wouldn’t even show it to me. He didn’t like my initials.”

Initials? I could think of nothing to say to that, but wondered what initials could be so objectionable. FBI, IRS, PLO? HIV? The guy glowered at me and stomped on by to the tiny red car. I wrinkled my nose as he passed, wondering what he’d stepped in.

Watching where I put my feet, I approached the house. It looked like no place I’d want to live, but I had to see what sort of specimen would reject a renter because of his initials.

The porch steps creaked nastily. I was halfway up when I noticed the rusty metal numbers and letter tacked above the mailbox. 221-B.

“You have recently dined at Jack in the Box, I perceive,” said a nasal voice. “Two Jumbo Tacos and a large Diet Coke.” The accent was faintly British.

I stopped, noticed the front door was still open, and saw a shadowy figure regarding me through the screen. Was this guy some kind of mind reader? No, it had to be more than that. I glanced down at my white Trail Blazers T-shirt, brushed away shreds of lettuce and broken tortilla shells. The cola stain remained.

“Lucky guess.” I stepped up to the screen. “I’m here about the room. Want to know my initials?”

A tall, lean man with a decidedly pointed nose stared out at me. One eyebrow lifted. “I do indeed.”

“CSI,” I said.

“A lie,” he said. “Intriguing.” His eyes were not directed at me, but toward the street. I glanced over my shoulder. The stocky man still stood beside his little red car, eyeing us with obvious disapproval. He looked wider than the car.

“It was a joke,” I said. “I’m Jason Wilder. You can figure the initials for yourself. The room still available?”

“Perhaps. Do you mind telling me your middle name?”

“Yes,” I said, and meant it. No one likes a Hubert.

“But you do have one. If you will humor me, does it perhaps begin with an H?”

Feeling a little creeped out, I said, “Perhaps.”

He nodded as if confirming a suspicion. His eyes still roved between me and the street, probably curious to see if the stocky guy could really cram his bulk into that tiny three-wheeler. I was, too.

“I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you are in any way connected to the medical profession?”

“Afraid not.” I hauled out my wallet and dug for a business card. Behind me, a car door slammed and an engine buzzed to life. Damn, I’d missed the cramming.

I found my card and held it up to the screen. Jason Wilder, it said, Computer Doctor, followed by my shop address and contact info.

Stones rattled as the car climbed the rough street.

“The room is yours,” he said. “Now quickly, to your automobile!”

I stared at him until the screen door banged the toe of my tennis shoe.

“Hurry man, there is no time to lose.”

The three-wheeled car turned left at the top of the street and disappeared behind the tall apartment house.

I stepped back, and the lean man rushed out, fairly flying down the steps. “Hey!” I said. “What the hell?” But I followed, and by the time I reached the bottom of the steps, he was tugging impatiently at the passenger door of my Cruiser.

“Come, Doctor! Time is short.”

He was so insistent, and his manner so earnest, that I felt compelled to humor him. I clicked the doors open with the remote and slid into the driver’s seat. “Where are we going?”

“Follow that zebra,” he said. “The fate of the city is in our hands.”

I’d started the engine, but kept it in neutral. I turned away from him, examining the windows of the tall apartment building. Seeing nothing, I peered past him at the overgrown fence lining the opposite side of the street. Still nothing.

“Haste is crucial, Doctor! What are you looking for?”

“Cameras,” I said. “This is one of those Candid Camera wannabes, right? You put on this crazy Sherlock Holmes act to see how gullible I am. Now you want me to follow a zebra.”

I got my first clear look at his face. His nose was not just long, but sharp, as were the rest of his features, and his skin appeared tight across his bones. His hair was dark and combed straight back, leaving a widow’s peak. His eyes were green and tightly wound. He really did resemble the old Strand Magazine drawings of Sherlock Holmes. But there was something else. An almost childlike innocence, pleading to be taken seriously.

“Surely you recognized Rabbit Man’s vehicle,” he said testily. “The ZAP Xebra is one of the most efficient all-electric automobiles on the market. Now go! He must not elude us!”

Rabbit Man? This was getting crazier by the second. But I caught another flash of the man behind the mask. Please, his eyes said, you must believe me. If this guy was acting, he was doing a hell of a job.

I pulled into the street, tires spinning, and gunned up the hill. We roared around the corner just in time to see the red car turn right onto SW Kelly.

“If we lose him, Doctor, the results could be catastrophic.”

“Computer Doctor,” I said. “I save hard drives, not lives.”

Kelly is a busy street, and several cars passed before I was able to follow. As it was, I was lucky to see the Xebra make an illegal left turn under an overpass, and head up the entrance to the Ross Island Bridge.

“After him!” The guy now sat on the edge of the car seat, bracing one arm on the dash and the other on the windowsill. A thin sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead. He looked feverish.

I glanced around for cops. Seeing none, I took the chance and roared up the ramp after the electric car.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not above breaking an occasional traffic law, but I have no clue what this is about. I don’t even know your name.”

We swung into the S-turns feeding onto the bridge. Coming out, I saw the three-wheeler halfway across, six or eight cars now between us.

“Hobbs,” my passenger said. “The name is Hobbs.”

The faster I drove, the whiter his face became, and the tighter he gripped the dash.

“You gonna upchuck in my car?”

“Quite possibly,” he said. “But duty demands it.”

“Not mine. Look, Hobbs, if I don’t get some answers, I’m leaving you at the next corner. You can lose your cookies on the sidewalk.”

The bridge rose to a gentle peak at the center of the Willamette River. Rabbit Man went over the hump and was now out of sight. I was half hoping we’d lost him, but when we reached the other side, he was waiting to make a left turn onto the street next to Jack in the Box. Maybe he’d overheard Hobbs talking about tacos.

“First,” I said, “why do you call him Rabbit Man?”

Oncoming traffic was heavy, as always, and a white Chevy truck was between us and the red car.

“You spoke with the man,” Hobbs said. “Didn’t you notice anything peculiar about him?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s wider than his car?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Did you not detect a particular odor about him?”

A break came, and the three-wheeler scooted onto the cross street, passed the drive-in entrance, and proceeded through the next stop sign. The driver of the truck was more timid. We waited.

“Now that you mention it, I did smell something. Dog crap.”

The truck made a leisurely turn, and I had to swing almost parallel to it to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. Hobbs squalled like a cat with a squashed tail. The truck turned into Jack in the Box and we were free to follow the Xebra. When Hobbs shifted his grip, I saw fingernail marks on the dashboard.

Hobbs said, “You were half right about the odor. It was rabbit feces. And not the feces of a single rabbit, but that of many. What does that suggest to you?”

I wrinkled my nose. “That you are even weirder than I thought.”

I kept the red car in sight as it crossed railroad tracks, turned left on SE 12th, and right on Division. I let another car get between us before following. My tailing experience was limited to TV detective shows, but I’d seen a lot of them.

“So he likes rabbits,” I said. “So what?”

Traffic slowed near the entrance to the New Seasons Market. I watched to see if Rabbit Man would turn in. Maybe he was a dangerous health-food nut. But the three-wheeler zipped through the intersection, still heading east on Division.

“His automobile bears a bumper sticker promoting the Portland Alliance, a publication favored by political activists and malcontents.”

“Big deal,” I said. “I’m not all that content myself.”

This was definitely a health-food neighborhood. We passed a recycled-clothing store. A frumpy coffee shop. A day spa. An indoor-plant nursery. A scooter dealer. A secondhand furniture store.

The ZAP Xebra pulled to the curb in front of Do It Best Hardware. I braked quickly and found a spot half a block back, next to a haircut joint called Star Salon.

“Just as I feared,” Hobbs said.

Rabbit Man’s door opened. A head and shoulder oozed out, then the rest of him popped free like Jell-O from a mold. He darted around the rear of the car and into Do It Best. Before I could ask Hobbs what nefarious purpose the guy might have, he was out of the car. “Wait here, and keep the motor running.” Then he too entered the hardware store.

I sat with my hands on the wheel, weighing my options. I was sorely tempted to cut and run. But odd as Hobbs was, I sort of liked him. He seemed to need me. And if I left him here, how would he get home?

Besides, I still needed a room. I’d been living in the back of my computer repair shop for the past five months, and my landlord had finally caught on. The space didn’t meet the legal definition of a residence, and he could be fined. Unless I made other arrangements pronto, I’d be evicted.

And what if Rabbit Man was really up to no good? It would be interesting to see if crime fighting was as much fun as it looked on TV.

On the other hand, of course, Hobbs could be insane.

I was still arguing with myself when Rabbit Man emerged from Do It Best with a large, odd-shaped paper bag. Heading for his car, he glanced briefly my way, did a double-take, and stopped, staring at my Cruiser. There were many in town of the same Superman-blue color, but mine was the only one I’d seen with a spoiler. I tried to keep my face behind the rearview mirror as Rabbit Man crossed the side street and approached. A moment later he was peering through the passenger’s window, his face turning purple.

Hobbs came out of the hardware-store door, saw what was happening, and slid around the corner of the store, crouching behind a line of wheelbarrows tipped on their noses against the building.

“Are you following me?” Rabbit Man’s bellow was only slightly muted by the closed window. I grinned and held up two fingers in a peace sign. Barking an obscene word, he stalked to his car, squeezed back in, and pulled into traffic. I had to wait while Hobbs sprinted from concealment and jumped into my passenger seat. “After him, Doctor! Quick!”

I bolted from the curb, scooted through a yellow light at 39th, and continued up Division. We were now directly behind the Xebra. “What did he buy?”

“Wire cutters. Long-handled wire cutters. And I’ve no doubt he plans on using them soon.”

“So?”

A Tri-Met bus had stopped ahead to load and unload. The City of Portland had adopted the annoying practice of constructing passenger peninsulas at some bus stops. These jutted several feet out into the street, so instead of buses pulling over to the curb, the curb came out to meet them. This was fine for buses, but a pain in the ass to drivers stuck behind.

As we waited, the wheelchair lift emerged from the side of the bus. I sighed. It was going to be awhile. Rabbit Man obviously knew this too, because he turned in his seat, flashed us a wicked smile, and wheeled his toy car up onto the sidewalk. People waiting to board scurried out of the way as he tooled between a telephone pole and the carbide-saw shop on the corner, turned right onto 41st, and was gone.

We sat at a corner table at Stumptown Coffee Roasters. I sipped my usual Hair Bender, a blend with hints of chocolate, toffee, caramel, and citrus. Advised that they did not serve Earl Grey tea, Hobbs settled for decaf Sumatra coffee. He said the name reminded him of a rat he once knew.

The stop was my idea. I wanted to learn more about this guy before our acquaintance went further.

“You got any name other than Hobbs?”

He pursed his lips. “I do. But I’ll thank you not to address me as such.” He pronounced the name.

“How do you spell that? S-c-h-u-y...?”

“S-k-y,” he said, “l-e-r.”

It didn’t sound like such a bad name to me, but I let it go. I had my laptop open, taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi. As we talked, I Googled “Skyler Hobbs.” I got four hits. One lived in Cameroon, one was three feet tall, one a Florida teenager, and the last a fictional character whose first name was Darren. None seemed connected to the man across the table. “If we’d caught up with Rabbit Man, what would you have done with him?”

“I had no desire to catch him. At least not yet.” Hobbs stirred another packet of sugar into his coffee, took a small sip, and made a face. “Whatever he plans, it will take place this very evening. I wished to be present.”

“What makes you so sure something is happening tonight?”

“His copy of today’s newspaper. He had been doodling in the margins, and had written several times, in bold letters, TONIGHT.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he has a big date.”

I pulled up another Web site. This one had a firewall, but I’d been there before and cracked it.

Hobbs shook his head. “I have made an intense study of criminal and antisocial behavior. Our Rabbit Man possesses all the characteristics of the anarchist. The wide, flaring nostrils, the quivering lips, the twitching jaw. And most telling of all, the half-mad fire of zealotry in his eyes.”

I’d seen the same signs in folks waiting in line for a Star Wars movie, but didn’t say so. I wanted to hear more. “Is that it? Is that all you have on the guy?”

Hobbs shook his head. “Obviously, you failed to notice his fingers. They were peculiarly white, and the skin was puckered, almost like a man who has just emerged from a long swim.”

“So he went swimming.”

“Almost like that. No, Doctor, this particular condition was caused not by water, but perspiration. Our Rabbit Man has been wearing rubber gloves for long periods at a time.”

“So what does that add up to?”

“I can only suspect,” Hobbs said. “But I suspect the worst.”

“Which is?”

“Since he has eluded us, that is now immaterial. What are you doing on that computer?”

“Checking eBay,” I lied. The firewall was being difficult. Since my last time in, someone had plugged the holes. I burrowed deeper, seeking an alternate route. “Why do you care what he does, anyway?”

“It is my profession. I am a consulting detective.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re really serious. You actually believe you’re Sherlock Holmes.”

He arched an eyebrow. “An incorrect assumption, Doctor. You really must work on that.”

“And that business with the initials. Yours are S. H. Mine are J. W. That’s why you’re renting out that room. You’re looking for Dr. Watson.”

He shook his head. “I’m renting the room because I am short of funds. And I am not so deluded as to believe I am Sherlock Holmes. I am merely the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes.”

I stopped typing and stared at him. He was more than nuts. He was certifiable. “I have a similar confession. I’m actually the reincarnation of Philip Marlowe.”

His face brightened. “A happy coincidence, I’m sure. You would be amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent individuals who scoff at the notion of reoccurring souls. I am not familiar with this Philip Marlowe fellow. Was he perhaps related to Christopher Marlowe, the playwright?”

“I doubt it. I think he was second cousin to Sam Spade.”

Hobbs looked blank.

The Web site came alive. Computer Doctor strikes again. I filled in the blanks and punched Enter.

Hobbs’s madness, I decided, appeared to be benign. He was on the side of justice, and had a burning mission in life. Lacking one of my own, I admired that. Maybe I could even borrow it.

The information I wanted filled the screen.

Hobbs slurped the last of his coffee. “Despite the failure of this afternoon’s enterprise,” he said, “the offer of the room remains open. Would you care to see it now?”

“That can wait,” I said. “First, we should pay a visit to Rabbit Man.”

Hobbs looked puzzled. “But how? We don’t know who he is or where he lives.”

“We do now.” I spun the laptop around to face him. “I ran his license number through DMV.”

Rabbit Man’s real name was Daniel J. Parkinson, and he lived on SE 22nd, a couple blocks south of Clinton. Contrary to Portland’s image in the national media, not everyone here munches granola and wears Birkenstocks. But certain neighborhoods do come close to the mark, and this was one of the closest. Knowing this, Hobbs had insisted we run back to his place for suitable attire.

Ninety minutes later, after leaving the car in a shady spot two blocks away, we strolled up 22nd toward the Rabbit Man residence. Hobbs wore a skin-tight suit of black and lime-green spandex, kneepads, ankle pads, fanny pack and a silver helmet shaped like a bicycle seat. My getup consisted of faded blue bib overalls over a green plaid flannel shirt, a wig of dirty blond dreadlocks, and — yes, God help me — Birkenstocks. All I needed to feel more ridiculous was a corncob pipe.

These so-called disguises had come from a musty room in Hobbs’s basement. He had, he said proudly, spent years haunting garage sales and thrift stores, and could now blend seamlessly into any neighborhood in the city.

Rabbit Man’s street was lined with houses of 1930s vintage, most having undergone a hodgepodge of improvements and renovations. The majority had a second story, or at least a dormer, a narrow driveway, and a garage. Each yard had a good-sized birch, beech, or fir tree and an assortment of flowers and shrubs.

The telltale odor of rabbits attacked our nostrils from half a block away, and grew steadily stronger as we neared our destination. Passing Rabbit Man’s house, where I spotted the little ZAP Xebra at the rear of the driveway, I had to hold my breath. It was only on our third turn down the street that Hobbs was able to pinpoint the source of the smell — the backyard of the house next-door. As this house occupied a corner lot, we proceeded around the side. An eight-foot fence prevented our seeing anything, but we did hear telltale scratching and scurrying sounds.

On our next pass down 22nd, I spotted Rabbit Man himself peering from an upstairs window overlooking the yard where the rabbits were apparently kept. Further observation proved this to be a separate apartment with its own entrance off the driveway.

Hobbs still refused to say what crime he believed was being hatched in Rabbit Man’s brain, or what he expected to do about it. I tried another subject. “You make much of a living at this consulting detective business?”

Hobbs was quiet for so long I thought he was ignoring me. When he finally spoke his voice was hushed. “Actually, Doctor, this is my first case.”

I was surprisingly unsurprised. “So you have another job?”

“I did. At Powell’s.”

“Powell’s Books? You quit that for this?”

“To tell the truth, I was terminated. I fear the books proved too great a temptation, and I was caught one too many times.”

My jaw dropped. “You were stealing books?”

“Certainly not! I was reading them, when I should have been pricing or shelving. I understand there were also numerous customer complaints. Apparently some took offense at my small observations regarding their various professions, dispositions, and recent activities.”

“I see,” I said, and did. Telling people truths about themselves was no way to win friends. “Let me guess. This all happened three months ago.”

He gave me a peculiar look. “And how did you reach that conclusion?”

“Your unemployment just ran out. That’s why you need a housemate.”

He smiled, a bit sadly. “Your reasoning is good, Doctor, but you are not in possession of all the facts. I did indeed place the advertisement for the room when my unemployment eligibility expired, but that was nearly a year ago.”

I stared at him. “You’ve been running that ad for a year with no takers?”

He looked at his feet. “I fear I was not altogether honest at the coffee establishment. As you have already observed, I screened the applicants quite carefully. Your assertion that I was seeking Dr. Watson was correct. I could hardly consider beginning my new profession without him.” He looked me full in the face then, and I had another peek behind the mask. His ego was really quite fragile. He needed his Watson, and truly believed he’d found him.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I was my own person, with my own career, my own destiny to pursue. Playing sidekick to a lunatic was not part of the plan.

We walked in silence until the sun dipped behind the trees. Rabbit Man did not come out of his apartment, and I still didn’t know what to do about Hobbs.

Three hours later, we sat in my Cruiser, four doors down and across the street, where Hobbs could keep watch on Rabbit Man’s lighted window. He’d produced a small telescope from his fanny pack, and seemed to find great enjoyment in extending it once every five minutes, announcing that nothing was happening, and snapping it shut.

I was beyond bored. I was hungry. My butt hurt from sitting. “He’s not coming out. I think it’s time we pack it in.”

“We cannot,” Hobbs said. “It is imperative we remain at our station until Mr. Parkinson makes his move.”

“What move? Just what do you expect him to do?”

“Employ his new wire cutters, of course.”

“For what?”

“That,” he said, “is what I intend to learn.”

We had talked. Sort of. Hobbs, I’d learned, knew absolutely nothing about politics, and very little about sports. He had heard, in passing, of the Portland Trail Blazers, but assumed they were a cricket club. He had never heard of Lost, Desperate Housewives, or American Idol. As he had an affinity for things British, I asked what he thought of The Beatles. He launched into a lecture on the use of poisonous insects, beginning with the African leaf beetle, used by African bushmen to manufacture deadly arrowheads, touching on lady beetles and blister beetles, and ending with one called the bombardier, able to squirt hot enzymes from its anus with the skill of an archer.

Following this, I’d tried the radio — a little Trance Formation on KINK, Jukebox Saturday Night on KMHD, The Mark Lindsay Show on K-Hits. Hobbs had dismissed it all as noise. He’d shown momentary interest in a discussion of car-free cities on KBOO, but I switched it off. Even silence was preferable to that.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m. four young men came out of the corner house, piled into a black-and-gold Honda Element, and drove off up the street. Hobbs paid them no particular attention.

I was about to tell him I’d had enough when the lights of a vehicle filled my rearview mirror. The lights went out almost immediately, and a beat-up Ford panel van, running dark, crept slowly past us. The van eased to a stop, engine still idling, before Rabbit Man’s driveway. The second-story window light winked out.

Less than a minute later a thickset figure emerged from the driveway and entered the passenger side of the van. The van rolled slowly past the corner house, turned, and disappeared from view.

I was about to start the ignition when Hobbs whispered, “Wait. They shan’t go far.”

How he knew this I couldn’t guess, but it was his party.

“They’ve stopped just around the block. I need a better vantage point.” He slipped from the car and ran lightly to the corner. I couldn’t help myself. I joined him.

The panel van was parked near the far end of the fence. I saw nothing else, but Hobbs’s concentration was so fierce I felt electricity in the air. After a minute or two I heard intermittent snapping sounds, almost like someone stepping on twigs.

“What’s that?”

“Wire, of course. And wire cutters.” After two or three more minutes of this, Hobbs said, “Here they come.”

The rear of the van was in deep shadow, but I heard the creak of doors and made out two dark figures struggling with a bulky object. They went away, and were soon back to repeat the process. They made a total of six trips, after which the two figures climbed into the van. The engine coughed to life.

Hobbs and I raced back to the Cruiser. Running without lights, we followed them down 21st until they took a right on Division. After so much time sitting in the car, Hobbs had become semi-acclimated. He still sat at an odd angle, bracing himself for imminent impact, but no longer perspired or made mewling noises.

We were now retracing the route Rabbit Man had taken earlier in the day. This time, nearly all the shops were closed. We passed Do It Best Hardware and Stumptown Coffee, continued on past Dairy Queen, and finally took a left at the light on 60th.

I kept well back, watching their taillights until they turned right onto a short residential street I knew ran up against Mt. Tabor Park. The park was one of the largest within the city limits, with three above-ground reservoirs, many wooded patches, roads, trails, playgrounds, and fields, all grouped around the miniature mountain that gave the park its name.

I turned the opposite direction off 60th and parked. Hobbs and I eased from the car, crossed back over 60th, and jogged along the sidewalk, keeping as much as possible to the shadows. The van was now parked at the far end of the street under overhanging trees.

Closing to within several houses, we slowed to a walk and left the sidewalk, crouching low to move from yard to yard. From two houses away I saw two dark figures open the van’s rear doors and manhandle a large rectangular object out of the back. One gripping each end, they lugged it around the side of the van and out of sight toward the park.

Hobbs and I moved closer, taking cover behind a parked SUV. At that moment a slight breeze blew from their direction, and my nose twitched.

“Rabbits,” I hissed. I’d become so accustomed to the smell back in Rabbit Man’s neighborhood that I hadn’t missed it until it was suddenly back. “What does it mean?”

“Let us find out.”

Hobbs leading, we ran at an angle to a low-hanging tree twenty feet to the right of the van. We now had a clear view of the narrow service road between the van and the park. Most of the road was shaded from streetlights, but there were scattered patches of light. Just then the two returning figures crossed such a patch, and I finally saw their faces. It was Rabbit Man Daniel Parkinson and a slim young woman with blondish hair tucked into a stocking cap.

I froze, sure they would glance over and see us. But their attention was focused on the van. Once more they removed a heavy box from the back and started toward the park.

We followed, careful to avoid the lighted areas. I heard Rabbit Man and his companion grunting and puffing as they crossed the service road and reached the park’s edge. Here they dropped the box. One of them bent over, fiddling with it. Then both figures were erect again, staring off into the park.

Hobbs raised his telescope, focusing on a lighted stretch of grass thirty feet beyond them.

“As I feared,” he said after a moment. “They are loosing rabbits into the park.”

He offered the telescope, and I brought the same area into focus. Sure enough, I saw the leaping legs and tufted tails of small furry beasts scampering off into the darkness.

“What’s going on?” I whispered. “What are they up to?”

“They are spreading terror, of course. That is what terrorists do.”

It was well after midnight when we followed the van back down Division toward Rabbit Man’s house. He and his accomplice had continued their labors until six large crates lay empty at the edge of the park.

“All right,” I said to Hobbs. “What was that crack about spreading terror?”

“That was no crack, as you put it. I suspect Mr. Parkinson and his lady friend are terrorists of the worst sort.”

“You mean like Al-Qaeda?”

“That has yet to be determined. You know what rabbits are used for, do you not?”

“Fur coats, of course. And lucky rabbits’ feet. I had one when I was a kid.”

“They are also raised for food,” Hobbs said, “and their fur is woven into wool. But their primary use today is in the laboratory. They are, for example, used to produce polyclonal antibodies, or antigens.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“In other words, they are used to manufacture antibiotics. But they are also employed as test subjects, infected with various diseases in the hunt for possible cures.”

I gripped the wheel tighter. “Infected? Like with viruses?”

“Precisely. I fear that is why Mr. Parkinson has been wearing rubber gloves of late. He has infected these animals with a virus harmful to humans, and has now deliberately released them where they are likely to encounter people. Tomorrow, this park will be alive with hikers, picnickers, dog-walkers, and frolicking children. Any and all of them coming into contact with those rabbits will be vulnerable to infection. If not checked right away, such a virus could spread quickly through the city.”

“How bad could it get?”

“It depends on the strain, of course. But some are so virulent they could wipe out our fair city and the outlying populace within a matter of days.”

“So what do we do? Who do we tell?”

“The Centers for Disease Control, to begin with, and possibly Homeland Security.”

“They’d be as much help as Reno 911!,” I said. “We’d have better luck with the Boy Scouts.”

“We may alert them, too,” Hobbs said, my sarcasm lost on him. “But first, I wish to put the screws to Mr. Parkinson myself. Perhaps he can be persuaded to reveal the exact nature of the threat.”

As the van turned left onto 22nd, I went a block further. I wanted to circle around and come at them from the other direction. I cut my lights as we turned onto 22nd and parked several houses away. The van, now facing us, idled in front of Rabbit Man’s driveway. Through the windshield I saw the two figures lean toward each other, their faces close. Kissing.

Hobbs made a noise resembling a horse toot.

Rabbit Man and his lady finally broke their clinch. The passenger door opened and he slid out. As if on cue, four dark shapes boiled out of the bushes. Two latched onto Rabbit Man, dragging him up the driveway toward the rear of the house. The other two yanked the woman from the driver’s seat and pushed her, struggling, after Rabbit Man.

“What do we do?”

Hobbs chewed his lip. “I don’t know. Perhaps that was Homeland Security.”

“I don’t care who they are. They’re manhandling that woman.” I reached behind my seat and grabbed the Portland Beavers souvenir mini-bat I carry for emergencies. I jumped out and sprinted for Rabbit Man’s driveway.

Holding the bat low in my right hand, I followed the sounds of the scuffle. Rabbit Man lay huddled on the concrete near his Xebra, while two figures in ski masks kicked at him. The blond woman, her stocking cap gone, had been pushed against the side of the house. One Ski Mask held her arms at her back while the other punched her in the stomach.

“Think you can mess with us?” Punch. “Steal our rabbits?” Punch. “That we wouldn’t catch you?”

I slammed the mini-bat across the side of the puncher’s head and aimed a kick at his partner’s knee. The partner twisted. My kick missed and he thrust the woman at me. I stumbled, about to fall.

Strong arms caught me from behind. A nasally British voice said, “Steady, Watson.”

“Wilder,” I said. “But thanks.”

The two Ski Masks by the electric car stopped kicking Rabbit Man and advanced. One said, “Who the hell are you?”

“Hobbs.” My friend’s fist collided with the speaker’s jaw, making a snapping sound. “Skyler Hobbs.” He pivoted and delivered a side kick to the second man’s stomach, producing a hearty whoof.

The Ski Mask I’d clobbered with my bat lay groaning on the ground, but his partner came at me with fists flying. I ducked under and buried the end of the bat in his stomach. As he doubled over, I put him down with a chop to the back of his skull.

I swung to help Hobbs. One of his opponents held a knife and advanced like he knew how to use it. The other was just rising from the ground to take Hobbs from behind.

I was about to charge when Hobbs’s elbow shot back, catching the rear Ski Mask squarely in the throat. Before the man could so much as gurgle, Hobbs’s leg snapped out like a cobra and the other man’s knife went flying. Hobbs advanced, delivering a flurry of straight-armed punches to the center of the knife owner’s chest. The last Ski Mask sat down with a whump.

I said, “You sure you’re not the reincarnation of Bruce Lee?”

“That was baritsu, Doctor. Mr. Holmes was an advanced practitioner.”

A short siren whooped in the street and we were suddenly bathed in light. Only Hobbs and I were standing. The woman slumped against the side of the house, Rabbit Man lay groaning near his car, and the four Ski Masks were sprawled all over the driveway.

By the time the cops got us sorted out, two more squad cars had joined the first. They seated us in three groups, spread out in various degrees of discomfort on the driveway. ID was inspected all around.

Without the masks, I recognized our four opponents as the same we’d seen exit the rabbit house earlier in the evening. They had learned, from an unnamed neighbor, that their beloved pets had been kidnapped by criminals in a dark panel van. In hopes the evildoers would return, they had donned their ski attire and waited in the shadows.

“Why didn’t you call us?” the head cop asked.

The rabbit owner snorted. “How much priority would you give stolen rabbits?”

No one had an answer for that. The cop turned to Rabbit Man and his girlfriend. “And what’s your story, Mr. Parkinson? You really pinch these guys’ pets?”

“They weren’t pets,” the woman said with heat. “They were torture victims. These creeps were selling them to research labs.”

“That’s true,” Rabbit Man put in. “Sheila and I were merely liberating them.”

“Animal rights activists,” I hissed to Hobbs. “And you said—”

“Quiet over there.” The cop shined a flashlight in my face. “We know what these other idiots were up to. Where do you two come in?”

In the process of searching us, the cops had removed my phony dreadlocks. I felt more ridiculous than ever. I’d been hacking for years and didn’t have a sniff of suspicion to my name. Now I was about to be busted for public brawling.

“My friend here,” I cocked my head at Hobbs, “is a consulting detective. And in his infinite wisdom, he had deduced—”

“—that these four miscreants were operating a methamphetamine laboratory,” Hobbs finished. “The raising of rabbits was merely a ruse to mask the telltale odor of their chemicals.” This was met with a stunned silence, followed by everyone talking at once. The loudest voice belonged to the ringleader of the gang. “Bullshit! Complete bullshit! He’s making that up to save his ass.”

I feared that was true.

The cop looked sternly at Hobbs. “What about it. Got any proof?”

“It’s right before your face,” Hobbs replied. “If you will inspect the chemical stains on these gentlemen’s trousers, I’m sure you will find traces of phosphorus, lithium, and ammonia.”

“A meth lab,” Rabbit Man said. “Son of a bitch.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The next evening, Hobbs and I sat in his living room watching ourselves on television. The report by Channel 12, the local Fox station, had been picked up by the cable networks, and we were surfing them all.

For at least the thirteenth time, the pretty reporter said, “You say you are a consulting detective, Mr. Hobbs. Is that something like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Precisely like that,” the television Hobbs replied. “In fact, it may interest your viewers to know I consider myself to be...” dramatic pause, “...a great admirer of Mr. Holmes.”

I lowered the volume. “I’m still surprised you didn’t spill the reincarnation beans on them.”

Hobbs nodded, a bit sadly, I thought. “That, I very much fear, is a notion for which the world is not yet prepared.”

“Listen,” I said, “there’s still one thing I want to know. When you told me Rabbit Man and that Sheila babe were terrorists, did you really believe it?”

Hobbs clasped his hands, made a steeple of his fingers, and peered at me over the peak. “Crime detection is a science, Doctor, but it is also an art. Claude Monet once said, ‘Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.’ Does that answer your question?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re not telling. Look, I admit you have what it takes to play detective, but the work you did on this case brought you doodly-squat. How do you expect to make a living?”

Hobbs smiled. “With the publicity this affair has generated, prospective clients will soon be beating a path to my door. And if I am not very much mistaken, I am about to be compensated for my part in this case as well.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Listen, Doctor, and you shall hear the happy sound of feet climbing my front steps.” He paused, allowing me to hear that very thing. “Admit Mr. Parkinson and his Sheila, if you will, and see what they have brought us.”

Shaking my head, I answered the knock. Sure enough, it was Rabbit Man and his accomplice.

“We wanted to thank you both,” Sheila said. “If not for you, Danny and I would have been arrested.”

Danny, as she called him, attempted a small smile, but it came off as more of a sneer. He was employed, we had learned, as a dishwasher at the Reed College cafeteria. This accounted for his sweaty fingers and sour personality. “Yeah,” he said. “We thought you deserved a reward.”

Hobbs glanced at me, raised an eyebrow. You see? “You are too kind,” he said to Sheila.

“Here.” Sheila produced a burlap sack from behind her back. “Something to remember us by.”

While Hobbs simply stared, I took the proffered sack, thanked them both, and closed the door. I laid the sack gently on the carpet and loosened the top. Out hopped a fat brown rabbit.

“Congratulations,” I said to Hobbs. “Your first fee.”

He had now regained his composure. “Laugh all you want, Watson. But it happens I possess an excellent recipe for rabbit stew.”

I opened my mouth to say Wilder and protest the rabbit slaughter. Hobbs stopped me with a wink, picked up the rabbit, and cradled it gently in his arms.

I settled back in my chair. “I’ll take the room,” I said. “But he sleeps in yours.”

Copyright © 2010 Evan Lewis

Boxcar

by Nancy Means Wright

Agatha Award winner Nancy Means Wright is the author of five adult mysteries (all published by St. Martin’s Press), a young adult novel, and two children’s mysteries. She has also written historical fiction and nonfiction. She brings her interests in history and mystery together here for the story of a widow and a hobo riding the rails, along with a coffin and a mongrel dog. A new Wright historical mystery novel, Midnight Fires, is due in April of 2010 from Perseverance Press.

Still, after an hour in the box-car, the hound kept up a growl, deep in the throat. They’d shoved the beast on at the last stop. Grace was wedged between two sacks in a corner; they hadn’t noticed her when they rammed open the door. When it shut she was plunged into darkness. Only gradually her senses returned: to the stench of mold and urine, the skittering of small creatures among the boxes — though mice shouldn’t frighten a farmer’s wife, should they? Her back ached from something sharp in one of the sacks. But if she shifted weight, the hound might crash through its bars and her scream would bring a railroad man.

Then what — whack him with Clyde’s gold-topped cane? And if they put her off the train, what would she tell the children? Who’d be with Clyde the long way to New York? No, she had to endure the moment. She dragged the softer sack over by her husband’s coffin; her weight molded it into a cushion. The dog barked and she held her breath; let it out slowly. “Good doggie,” she said.

At the last minute she’d sold her seat; Clyde had left more debts than she realized. She was shocked at the red ink. The banker, Ollie Runwell, was sober in a black suit, spotted tie — tomato soup, she thought. He said, Yes, Clyde had been there, wanting to borrow money. The banker refused — too much of a gamble in bad times. Anyway, farms weren’t selling, Runwell reminded her, not since the stock market crash. Though Clyde had an offer from a neighbor — didn’t Grace know that? (she didn’t). “But way below value.” He named a figure. She was horrified, but she’d have to accept, turn over most of the money to the children.

It was a two-day journey to Albany, New York; she’d stretch out on the coffin if she had to. It was quiet now, she seemed to have made peace with the dog. Nobody here but herself and the animals. And Clyde. As usual, she thought, almost smiling, he had nothing to say.

Well, he was a quiet man — a religious man. A loyal man, hardly glanced at other women. Hardly at her. The time she came over on the Campania, in steerage: the stink worse than this car, smells she couldn’t recognize, though bad cheese came to mind, dead rats, unwashed bodies. Her half-sister Robina dead of some influenza and Clyde writing home to Scotland for her — to help out with his children. The trauma of it for a seventeen-year-old who’d never even seen the city of Edinburgh! When he met her at the boat, he just grunted, swept up her box, strode on ahead to the lighter that took them to Ellis Island. She could smell the onions on him, the pipe tobacco, the garlic. Something stronger — whiskey. Train to Albany, a buggy ride worse than this lurching train to the Vermont farm. He never asked about her crossing, no.

“Mum sent on things for the young ones,” she’d told him anyway, needing to talk, her accent back then thick as pea soup. Mum sick over the death of Robina, she wanted to say, hardly caring about her youngest leaving. It was the day Clyde’s letter came that her mother brought out the copy of Scoonie Kirk Register. In spidery handwriting: “A daughter, Grace — illegitimate.” No further explanation — except a husband gone to Australia, no address. “And me thirty-three just!” her mother cried. Her freckled chin stuck up like the pitcher she kept snapdragons in, the upturned glass lip. “Don’t tell Clyde about — you know,” she warned. “If he wants to marry you, why—”

Grace was shocked: “Why, he’s an old man! He’s got five already. Five boys,” as though that made it the more impossible. “Well, that’s the point now, isn’t it?” her mother said. “He’s a farmer. No time for scullery work, eh?”

And so it happened. Hardly a word, as though it was taken for granted she’d come for the purpose of wedlock. They went to the town hall; it was unseemly to have a real wedding, he said, him with that raucous brood. Though that first night he just ran his hand over her trembly body, said, “G’night,” then flipped over on his side, nightshirt rumpled to his heavy thighs. She’d lain awake for hours, telling herself she’d grow to love him. But they never spoke of love.

Something ran over her foot and she squealed. The hound stuck its nose through the wire grate and growled. When she squinted at it in the half dark she saw the bulging belly. Female, she thought.

She got pregnant. Hardly knew what was happening to her, no one to ask — the midwife too occupied with her pie business for long visits. She wouldn’t go to town, didn’t want people to look — they might see through to her dubious beginnings.

She and Clyde slept apart after the pregnancy. “Six is enough to feed,” he allowed. But she had Jessie, a wee plump thing with a smattering of freckles, like herself. Yet small time to enjoy her. Those other five! The work of the farm — and boys never wanting to help. Inside, the mending, making the old over into new, scrubbing, cooking. Clyde ate meat four meals a day: she could hardly bear to hear him chew (twenty times a mouthful, his mum taught him that). Couple of whiskeys after dinner. And when she was almost in a routine — “Get packed,” he announced one night at supper: “I bought a farm in Indiana. We leave in a fortnight.”

She was stunned. He’d never asked if she wanted to go. But that was the way of marriage, her mother said in her next letter: “At least he’s there for you.” So she packed up and went.

The train was slowing down, she felt it in her knees. She moved back off the sack — something squirmed under her feet; she hit at it with Clyde’s cane. Light entered the rail car, a splatter of thin rain. Someone heaved on a large box; it struck a corner of Clyde’s coffin. The dog barked, cats howled — half human they sounded. Something in the box squealed, a pig maybe. “Jesus, the smell,” a man said; then mercifully, left and shut the door. Grace stumbled back by the coffin: “I’m sorry, Clyde, I’m sorry.”

He died on a Saturday night, in his bath. It was just before a neighbor knocked on the door with a pot of borscht. Lucky, actually, the neighbor came along, for Clyde was a big man, corpulent. He once prided himself on his lean frame, thick calves that walked him about the farm all day, only gave out when he turned sixty-eight and his muscles turned to dough. So he sat himself in his black leather chair and drank his toddies, and when the last child was gone — no one willing to take over the farm — left her to milk and pick stone and mend fence and bring him his meals.

None of the offspring could get back for a funeral: Brodie’s wife pregnant, John out of the country, Ian in a new job. Her Jessie in Maine with three now, and a husband who’d lost what little he had in the markets. Like the others, Jessie considered the East — western Vermont — “home.” Even Clyde, when they’d moved to Indiana, would talk about the Revolutionary battles fought back “home.” Hubbardton, Ticonderoga, Bennington — as if he’d fought them himself. He’d be buried in Vermont, he decreed, in a cemetery overlooking Lake Champlain.

Marge, her neighbor, helped lay him out on the three-quarter bed. The bed was never big enough; narrower still when Clyde put on weight. He got to be huge! While she shrank to bones from all the work. She hardly wanted to go to kirk, the way clothes hung on her, no money for new ones. “I’ll be taking him back,” she told the minister when he came to make his duty call. “The children sent money. I’ve got a home with any one of them, they all want me.” Though she knew that to be a lie. Even her own exhausted Jessie — one more mouth to feed could kill her.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” the reverend said. “Children should do for their old.” Old? She was only fifty-four, twenty years younger than Clyde. Clyde was the only man in her whole life she’d been intimate with — except — well, Jimmy, but him only in her fancies. In her thirties, she was then. She hardly thought of Jimmy now, she’d killed him in her heart, hadn’t she?

There was a terrible jolt. She was thrown off the sack; struck her spine on a metal box. The coffin slid forward, then back. The boxcar heaved, and halted. She sat paralyzed as the metal door grated open and someone jumped in. The hound protested. It was an adolescent boy. He stared at her, stunned. Then grinned and shoved the door behind. He went over to the dog’s cage and murmured to it. It quieted. “Didn’t expect a passenger,” he said. “Not in this death car. A coffin in it, I heard. You not superstitious, then?”

“No,” she said, sitting very still, knees together under the black skirt, nails digging into her lisle stockings. Though he looked harmless enough, smooth-chinned, raggedy-cut brown hair under the feed cap, almost pretty features. He was still smiling, watching her.

“Got on at Omaha,” he said. “First time I seen a lady aboard?”

It was a question. She had to reply. Cleared her throat and nothing came out. She finally tapped the coffin. “My husband,” she said stiffly. “So he wouldn’t have to travel alone.” She felt the stockings give under her nails. The train was chugging forward again. She could hardly see the boy now where he’d dropped back into a corner.

“Alone?” He sounded amused. “Too late for that, innit?”

“My children don’t think so.”

Her friend Marge had said why didn’t she cremate him, take him back in a jar — it was cheaper that way. But the boys wouldn’t allow it. They were churchgoing Presbyterians like their father (herself, she daydreamed through the long sermons about a Jesus she couldn’t put a voice to). So there was nothing for it but to take him back in one piece — in a freight car, it was all she could afford. Besides, the old rusted Ford would never make New York. She imagined Clyde in his coffin, complaining about her driving: “Foot stuck on the clutch,” he’d grunt, “you’ll destroy the engine.”

“How far you going, then?” the boy asked.

He wants the car to himself, she thought. So he can open the baggage — steal. Her heart lurched with the speeding-up train. She had two hundred dollars sealed inside the lining of her case, her only cash. She put a foot against the case to be sure it didn’t slide in his direction.

She could hear him humming, something high-pitched, tuneless. “Albany, New York. Ian will meet me — our son. To bury his father,” she said when the boy didn’t respond. She explained about the battlefields Clyde loved. She heard the boy chuckle. Was it so funny? “But the children are scattered all over. I’ve no one back in Vermont now.”

It was true. She’d not kept up with friends — all these years away. A fly buzzed past her ear and she waved it off. The jogging motion of the train, the darkness, the almost absurd proximity of the coffin, the boy’s quiet amusement, emboldened her. “Where are you headed?” she asked.

“Lansing Corners,” he answered at once as though he’d been waiting for the question. “Nobody’s heard of it. Gotta jump off at Elmira. My dad’s got a farm there. My mom died.” He stopped, and took a breath. Grace heard a small sound — weeping? The pig squealed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting a hand on the coffin. It was chill to the touch. Cold for early April and no heat in the car. She shivered. “Is that why you’re going home?”

“Four months ago. I didn’t know. Just got the letter, general delivery. I ran off, you see.”

“Oh.” It was none of her business to ask why. But she’d shared with him, hadn’t she? It might help him to talk. “Really?” she said again, to encourage him. Talking would get her mind off Clyde, the thought of living with Ian, maybe, and his socialite wife, who never looked at her when she spoke.

“I never wrote home. Scared, I guess. Felt bad, you might say. But I hated that farm. I had no brothers. I had all the barn work. Didn’t matter I was a girl.”

“Girl?” Grace squinted at him. “Oh, but I thought you were—”

“Boy? Well, I try. Riding the rails can be tough for a girl. Had a close one yesterday. Fellow caught on when I had to pee. Hopped out after me when the train made a stop — saw me squatting. Then he — well, jeez, I ran!” She laughed. “Didn’t get back on that car, I tell you. Hung around a whole day for this one.”

Grace couldn’t imagine it. Riding boxcars all the way from Nebraska? A young girl? The adventure, the fright of it! She felt a thrill in her spine. Then stiffened her back. “I came a long way, too,” she said, “when I was seventeen,” and told about the journey. “But a boxcar, that’s harder still. I didn’t think out all the problems.” In fact she’d never thought of a woman riding a boxcar. Though she was. Illegally, too! Grace Brown Wallace, who’d never done an illegal act in her life. Except being conceived. She smiled at the irony. (Often wondered who her father was, how it happened — her mother never said.)

Jimmy now. Why did his face come floating into her mind? Though Jimmy wasn’t the one to leave; it was Clyde sent him away. Once he came on her and Jimmy in the barn, talking. Jimmy’d worked on farms all over, he was full of stories, loved to talk. He’d even get her telling about her girlhood in Scotland. He’d listen, he wanted to hear! At twenty-eight he was younger than she, but did it matter? There was something between them, they both felt it. But nothing happened — though it might have if Clyde hadn’t sent him packing. But Jimmy came back, time and again, in her dreams. Dreams that woke her up, hugging herself. Touching secret places.

“So you’re a farmer, huh?” the girl said.

A farmer? She hadn’t thought. Well, she was, wasn’t she? She picked stone, swept the mangers, plowed, seeded corn, hayed. “Yes,” she said, and louder, “aye, yes. A farmer.”

“Big place? I seen some gigantic ones yesterday. Snuck corn out of a guy’s field. I mean, I gotta eat, right?”

Grace opened her bag. “I’ve more than I need. Apple?”

“Sure, sling it over. I’m not proud.” The girl squatted on the coffin and crunched into the apple, made a quick cider of it. Grace wanted to remind the girl that she was sitting on her husband! Then swallowed the words. How could Clyde mind? Though alive he’d occupy one whole end of the table. He liked elbow room, as if he was king of something.

She remembered the question. “Not so big, but big enough. I sold it. Lost money, but what can you do these days? I’ll miss it.”

And she would. She thought of how the earth smelled in spring, just after you plowed. It made her downright giddy sometimes. Once Clyde caught her singing in the fields — a Sunday, it was. Presbyterians didn’t sing mundane songs on Sundays. That was back in Jimmy’s time, the singing.

“Your kids tell you everything they want you to do? I wouldn’t dare tell my mom. But she’s gone. She and Dad argued a lot. Maybe that’s why I left. But he’s alone now.”

Grace thought over the question. Ever since they were children, Ian especially, silencing her with a look when she contradicted Clyde — not that she did often. But she was used to silence, wasn’t she? At church socials, though, he’d talk, he was the kirk elder. Afterward her neck ached from squinting sideways at him while he ground out his slow story — about crops or dust storms or the dropping price of milk. He made her think of a turtle making its lumbering way to the pond. Sometimes she just wanted to shrink down into her chair and disappear.

They were quiet for a bit; the girl stretched out on Clyde’s coffin. “Perfect size,” she said, a tall girl, one could tell. Grace might have nodded off herself, her head against a sack of grain. But the train hooted, cars rammed together as the engine slowed; the train ground to a stop. The girl sat up.

“Pee time,” she said. “All that brook water. Anyway, good idea to get off ‘case they come in for a bag or something. Or pick up doggie, here.” She stuck a finger through the cage and Grace drew in a breath. “Doggie’s a pushover,” the girl said. Grace watched it lick the girl’s palm with a slow, sticky, wet tongue. The girl sprang up. “Coming?”

“What?”

“To pee.” She shoved open the boxcar door an inch. “We’re near a station, but not too near. There’s woods out there.”

There was that fullness in her stomach: Grace needed to go, she hadn’t realized. She was ready to burst, in fact. Why, it had been hours! She pulled out Clyde’s watch; she’d brought it for Jessie, a keepsake, but couldn’t see the hands. Then realized it had stopped ticking.

“If it starts without us?” She was suddenly breathless. Ian’s stern face flashed into her eyes.

“Aw, it won’t,” the girl promised. “We won’t go far. C’mon.” She opened the door wide enough to push through, and yanked Grace behind her. Broke into a run toward a clump of bushes. Grace thought she’d wet herself, getting there. For no reason at all she got laughing. A respectable farm woman: riding a boxcar, peeing behind a bush? The girl was already squatting when she arrived, her bottom a pale round moon. “Hope s’not poison ivy,” the girl said, grabbing a large leaf. “I got it once, bad, peeing in the dark. Jeez! I was a burning bush.”

“It’s not,” said Grace, who poisoned the ivy around the farmhouse each spring when the children were small. She felt the waste flow out of her body, slow at first, then thick and fast, the relief of it. Her bowels were clogged, but she couldn’t do anything. She recalled how constipated she was the long ten days over from Scotland; then she broke wind when she met Clyde. He’d turned his face away.

She got laughing again.

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know. All this.” She waved an arm. “If Clyde could see me now.”

The girl laughed, too, a deep, melodious laugh. “You’re a sport.” She sprang up, pulled herself together. “Let’s go.”

But Grace was laughing too hard. Eyes and nose running. Wiped herself with the first leaf that came to hand, too shady to see; prayed that one wasn’t poison. Giggled at the thought. Mopped her nose with the palm of her hand.

“Uh-oh. Run, lady! Listen!”

The girl was lurching up the bank toward the slow-moving train. “Oh my God,” Grace gasped, the laughing stifled now, “I’ll never make it.”

She was almost sick with running. Clyde’s coffin rushing forward, without her. The girl was already at the car, pulling open the door, racing alongside, waving at Grace.

She stopped, a terrible stitch in her side; an ache in her groin. “I — can’t.”

The girl hung there, like a leaf stuck in a crack, moving with the car that was picking up speed. The woods looked dim and lonely beyond the train, which resembled a long dark snake. Far to the right was a squat wooden building. Grace turned toward it, giving up.

The girl dropped off; rolled down the bank and came running at her. “We’re not far from Lansing Corners. This here’s Corning. Can’t be more’n a day’s walk.”

Grace felt a rush of panic. “We could get a taxi and pick up the train at the next station. I can’t leave him — Clyde—”

“He never left you alone?” the girl said, coming close, her cheeks rosy with running. Her palms were blood-red where she’d hung onto the moving car.

“He was usually around,” Grace said. Then stopped to think. He might have been a hemisphere away for all they said to each other. “Well, maybe not always. I don’t know. But I have to—”

“Have to what?” the girl said, looking at her.

The girl’s eyes were green, grass-green, she hadn’t noticed before. She was too out of breath to think. The station was boarded up, its loudspeaker rusted. “You shouldn’t have waited for me,” Grace said. “You’d be home by now.”

“Then what would you do?” the girl said.

Grace looked down at her muddy shoes, her skirt ripped at the hem from running through briars. She’d let herself go, as her mother would say (her mum who put on a fresh shirtwaist every day though there was no one to see) — and sighed. “Ian’s meeting me. In Albany.”

“He’s the one tells you what to do?”

“One of them.” She straightened her stockings, though it did little good. Something was bursting in her chest, but whether it was a giggle or tears she didn’t know. “I always embarrassed him — thin as a stick. Saying the wrong thing. Homemade clothes all out of style.”

“So forget Ian,” the girl said. “Meet Claire.” She stuck out a hand. “Claire Whynoweth. Lately of Nebraska.”

“Grace Wallace. Lately of Indiana.” Now the sound came out of her chest, a blubbery laugh. “But who’s to prove it? I left my case in that car. My husband. My two hundred dollars.” She pulled a breath up out of her bones. She was swept away with the magnitude of what she’d done.

“Sit up a minute, Clyde,” she’d said, “hold on to the tub sides, I’ll be right back — it’s Marge at the door.”

“That one again? Don’t stand and gab like you always do,” he said, and reached for his toddy.

It was what she wanted — needed. A chat with a neighbor. Marge was a bit of a gossip, you had to watch what you said. But she’d listen. She had “an hour to spare, Joel off with his poker buddies. Lord — this drought never going to end?” She edged an elbow through the kitchen door. “My arm’s numb from lugging water. Though you got it worse’n me, your husband can’t do for himself.”

“Gained too much weight,” Grace said, and Marge hoisted an imaginary bottle — she knew. She giggled, and got Grace going, too.

Upstairs, Clyde was calling, but Grace couldn’t stop laughing. She poured Marge a glass of wine, one for herself — a special occasion. They talked about poor Jean Doane who broke her hip slopping the pigs, and her with a ninety-three-year-old mother who couldn’t even feed herself. It was a relief almost, Grace thought, someone worse off than her — at least Clyde could get to the refrigerator for his toddy. But in the next breath, guilt she had no time to help Jean — though she could send over a pie by Marge. Then guilt for leaving Clyde in the tub, and him yelling for her again. “Grace! Get up here! Now!”

And Marge, who was a relaxed Catholic, telling about her latest “confession” to the local priest. Grace wanted to hear the end of Marge’s story. She’d send Marge home with a pie for Jean. And Clyde still hollering.

“Don’t go, Marge. I’ll be back.”

She found Clyde in the clawfoot tub, still complaining, water up to his chin. The gold-topped cane in with him — he’d have tried to get out himself. “Help me out o’ here, woman. Now, I said. Send that Popish female home. Y’hear me? I said now. Now!” He held up his massive arms.

“Grace, I’ll be on my way,” Marge called up. “I’ll show myself out.”

Grace fished out the cane and looked down at him: the big Wallace nose, the pale naked body with hardly any hair at all, the shriveled-up privates. The second (or third) glass of whiskey on the tub rim. The pale watery blue eyes that never really saw her, had no idea who she was.

“Marge,” she called back. “A pie for Jean — it’s in the freezer. No, wait! I’ll come down.”

“Bitch!” He picked up the glass — heaved it at her — it struck the sink and shattered, bits of glass ricocheting back. “Do as I say, goddamn you!”

She didn’t answer, couldn’t — no words for it. Just shoved him back, down, into the water — glass splinter in her eye, she was seeing red. Ran crazy-legged, half blind, down the steps to give Marge the pie. But Marge already gone.

Had to call Marge back an hour later when she’d stopped shaking, when she’d drunk a second glass of wine (even then thinking, what would the boys say to that?). “Help me, Marge, help me get Clyde out of the tub...”

She told Marge he must’ve fallen asleep. But Marge knew — the way her eyebrow shot up at the word “asleep.” Marge, her friend — who could never keep a secret for long.

“Blackberries!” The girl began grabbing handfuls. “We’ll follow the tracks. I know the way from Elmira. It’s just south of here. Dad’ll be glad to see you, honest he will. You won’t need money. He’s dying for company, said so. You know how to milk?”

“I guess,” Grace said, looking at her hands. They were coarse-looking, purplish veins. But strong. Strong enough to hold down a two-hundred-fifty-pound man. Underwater. Seemed like a dream now — nightmare. Like something she’d read that someone else did — never her.

But it was.

“Well, there’s some cows over there, in that field. I’m thirsty as heck. A good squirt, that’s all I need. I never learned. Poor Mom. I guess she had to do it all.”

“Now?” At least Grace had on sturdy shoes, shoes a farmer ought to wear. It was warm enough, she’d throw out the stockings — they wouldn’t take another mending. But the shoes. Good for tramping fields.

Already she felt her chest and throat full, the way it got with Jimmy’s stories — the time he took the funeral wreath off a neighbor’s door and presented it to his ma for her birthday. The time he was chased by a swarm of bees and dove into a pond and came up mud — she’d laughed till she doubled over. The time Jimmy took her to see the five kittens the barn tabby birthed in the hay — his and her shoulders touching as they stood close, watching, listening to the sucking, hardly breathing.

“Look!” It was Claire this time, grinning, pointing up at the sky.

Canada geese. Grace heard them before she saw them: the thrilling double-syllabled ha-ronk. Over two dozen, in that deep-throated V, flying low over the cornfield...

Ian will meet the train, she thought. He’ll find the coffin, the gold cane he covets. He’ll spend the two hundred dollars on a memorial for his father. He won’t miss his stepmother.

Later she would contact her daughter, and tell her what really happened. Jessie would know what to do.

For now it was like herself up there, flying along with the geese as they hollered south on their wide-spread wings.

Copyright © 2010 Nancy Means Wright

Burglarproof

by Bill Pronzini

Devising an impossible crime is among the seemingly endless number of things MWA Grand Master Bill Pronzini can do better than most others in our genre. His skill in this area is starting to remind us of another MWA Grand Master: the late, great Edward D. Hoch. We doubt you’ll be ahead of him in solving the impossible theft in this new tale, and if you want even more dazzling deduction be sure not to miss Mr. Pronzini’s latest “Nameless” detective novel, Schemers (Forge).

The four-car Sierra Railway train chuffed and wheezed into Jamestown just past noon, more than an hour behind schedule. Quincannon was in a grumpy mood when he alighted from the forward passenger coach, carpetbag in hand, and stood vibrating slightly from the constant jouncing and swaying. The overnight trip from San Francisco, by way of Stockton and Oakdale on the AT&SF, had been fraught with delays, the car had been overheated to ward off the early spring chill in the Mother Lode foothills, his head ached from all the soot and smoke he’d inhaled, and this was not yet his final destination. Another train ride, short and doubtless just as blasted uncomfortable, awaited him before the day was done.

The town’s long, crooked main street stretched out beyond the depot. Two- and three-storied wood and stone buildings lined both sides — businesses and professional offices on one, rows of saloons and Chinese washhouses on the other — and the street was packed with rough-garbed men and a variety of conveyances. Behind the saloons, hidden by tall cottonwoods, lay the notorious red-light district known as “Back-of-Town.” Quincannon happened to know this by hearsay, not personal experience; this was his first visit to the Queen of the Mines. If he were fortunate, he thought irritably, it would also be his last.

Jimtown’s reputation as the “rip-snortin’est, most altogether roughest town in the mines” was evidently justified. A mad cacophony of noises bludgeoned his eardrums — whistles, cowbells, raucous shouts, tinny piano music, crowing roosters, braying mules, snorting horses, clanks and rattles and steam hisses in the rail yards, distant dynamite blasts and the constant pound of stamps at the big Ophir and Crystalline mines on the southern outskirts. Those mines, and hundreds more within a ten-mile radius, had produced more than two million dollars of gold the previous year of 1897. Little wonder that the town was wide open and clamorous.

A reception committee of two awaited Quincannon in front of the depot. The middle-aged gent sporting brown muttonchop whiskers introduced himself as Adam Newell, Sierra Railway’s chief engineer. The long and lanky one with fierce gray eyes and a moustache to match was James B. Halloran, Jimtown’s marshal. The pair ushered Quincannon into a private office inside the depot, where a third man waited — heavy-set, clean-shaven, dressed in a black broadcloth suit spotted with cigar ash and overlain with a gold watch chain as large and ornate as any Quincannon had ever seen. This was C.W. Cromarty, the railroad’s division superintendent.

Cromarty’s desk was stacked with profiles, cross-sections, and specification sheets for bridges, rails, switches, and other material; arranged behind it was a series of drafting boards containing location and contour maps of the area. All of this, Quincannon later learned, was for the continuation of the road’s branch line to Angels Camp. The branch had been completed as far as Tuttletown, where the trouble that had brought him here had taken place three nights ago.

Cromarty said, after they’d shaken hands, “We’ll make this conference brief, Mr. Quincannon. A freight is due in from Tuttletown any minute. As soon as it arrives, we’ll leave in my private car.”

Quincannon produced his stubby briar and pouch of Navy Plug and began thumbing tobacco into the bowl. “Has any new information come to light on the robbery?”

“None so far.”

The engineer, Newell, said, “Tuttletown’s constable, George Teague, would have sent word if he’d learned anything. He’s a good man, Teague, but out of his element in a matter such as this. We’ll be relying on you, Mr. Quincannon.”

“A well-placed reliance, I assure you.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Halloran said around the stub of a slender cheroot. His voice and his expression both held a faint sneer.

“With just cause.”

“That remains to be seen. You may have a fancy-pants reputation as a detective in San Francisco, you and that woman of yours, but you don’t cut no ice up here.”

Quincannon bristled at this — literally. When his ire was aroused, the hairs in his dark freebooter’s beard stiffened and quivered like a porcupine’s quills. He fixed Halloran with an eye more fierce than the marshal’s own as he said, “Sabina Carpenter is my partner, not ‘my woman’ — a Pinkerton-trained detective the equal of any man.”

“So you say. Me, I never put much stock in a man that’d partner up with a female, trained or not.”

“And I put no stock at all in one who blathers about matters he knows nothing about.”

Cromarty said, “Here, that’ll be enough of that. Marshal, this is a railroad matter, as you well know. The decision to hire Mr. Quincannon has been made and will be abided by.”

“I still say I can do a better job than some citified puff-belly.”

Quincannon bit back a triple-jointed retort. A fee to fatten the bank account of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had been requested in his reply to Cromarty’s first wire, and agreed upon in his second. It wouldn’t do to get into a sparring match with a small-town peacekeeper who had no say in the matter and no jurisdiction outside his own bailiwick.

He made a point of ignoring Halloran while he fired his pipe with a lucifer. When it was drawing to his satisfaction, he said to Cromarty, “Now then, Superintendent — suppose you provide the details of the robbery left out of your wire. What was the contents of the safe that was stolen?”

“Ten thousand dollars in gold dust and bullion from two of the mines near Tuttletown, awaiting shipment here and on to Stockton.”

“A considerable sum. Why was it being kept in the express office overnight?”

“The shipment didn’t arrive in time for the last train that afternoon. The Tuttletown agent felt no cause for concern.”

“Damn fool,” Halloran muttered.

“No, I don’t blame Booker. We all believed the gold was secure where it was. What we overlooked was the audacity of thieves who would carry off a four-hundred-pound burglarproof safe in the middle of the night.”

Quincannon said, “Burglarproof?”

“A brand-new model, guaranteed as such by the manufacturer.”

“I’ve heard such guarantees before.”

“This one has been proven to our satisfaction,” Cromarty said. “Sierra Railway Express now uses them exclusively.”

“What type of safe is it?”

“Cannon Breech, with a circular door made of reinforced steel. The dial and spindle can be removed once the combination is set, and when that has been done, the safe is virtually impenetrable and indestructible. Not even the most accomplished cracksman has been able to breach it.”

“And the dial and spindle were removed in this case?”

“Yes. Booker did that before he locked up and took them home with him. He still has them and swears they were never out of his sight.”

“Virtually impenetrable and indestructible, you said? Even with explosives? Dynamite or nitroglycerin inserted in the dial hole in the door?”

“Can’t be done, according to the safe company,” Newell said. “You couldn’t open a dialless one with a pile driver.”

Quincannon remained dubious. Ingenuity could be a two-edged sword, as he well knew; if a burglarproof safe could be built, a way to breach it could likewise be found. “Is this fact common knowledge locally?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say common knowledge, but we’ve made no secret of the fact.”

Then why had the thieves — thieves, plural, for it would have taken at least two strong men to carry 400 pounds of gold-filled steel — broken into the express office and made off with the safe? Halfwits who refused to believe the burglarproof claim? Professional yeggs?

A large, heavy wagon would have been required to transport the safe from the Tuttletown depot, but there was no potential clue in that fact; ore and freight wagons plied the area in large numbers. Nor was there any way to tell in which direction the plunder had been taken, or how far. Two main roads crossed at Tuttletown, one running northward to Angels Camp and the other southward toward Stockton, and there were also a number of intermediate roads connecting with other Mother Lode communities. The town had been the hub of mining activity since placer days, surrounded by a cluster of settlements so close that pioneers from Jackass Hill, Mormon Gulch, and half a dozen others on the west side of Table Mountain could walk into Tuttletown to shop.

These facts had made the town a prime target for thieves before. In the 1880s, the notorious poetry-spouting bandit Black Bart had filched three Wells Fargo stage shipments of bullion and dust amounting to five thousand dollars from the nearby Patterson Mine. Quincannon had been with the Secret Service on the east coast at that time — it wasn’t until 1891 that he’d been transferred west to the Service’s San Francisco office — so he’d had no opportunity to pit his detective skills against Black Bart’s criminal wiles. If he had, he’d once confided to Sabina, there was little doubt that he would have been the one to put an end to the bandit’s criminal career.

Outside, a distant train whistle sounded. One long, mournful blast, followed closely by a second.

“That’s the Tuttletown freight, Mr. Quincannon,” Cromarty said. “We’ll take our departure as soon as the main tracks are clear.”

The superintendent’s private car waited on a siding at the near end of the rail yards, coupled to a Baldwin 4-4-0 locomotive. Cromarty, Newell, and Quincannon were the only passengers; Halloran left them at the depot to return to his duties as Jimtown’s marshal, with a parting remark about cocksure flycops that Quincannon pretended not to hear. When he resolved this stolen safe business, he vowed to himself, he would not leave Jamestown until he looked up James B. Halloran and claimed the last word.

The car appeared ordinary enough on the outside, but the interior was well appointed with comfortable seats and dining and sleeping compartments. It also contained a pair of ceiling fans and a potbelly stove. The comfort, plus a late lunch once they were underway, improved Quincannon’s mood considerably.

The Angels extension branched off Sierra’s main line in front of the Nevills Hotel, bridged a creek at the north end of town, then climbed a steep grade to a cut high on Table Mountain. Over on the mountain’s west side, the tracks swept down another steep grade and curved around a wide valley and several working mines before swinging northward into Tuttletown. The place was a smaller but no less busy and noise-laden version of Jamestown, its narrow streets, stores, and brace of saloons clogged with off-shift miners and railroad workers from the crews engaged in laying new track and constructing what Cromarty described as a “fifty-foot-high, seventeen-bent wooden trestle” across the Stanislaus River to the north.

A one-man reception committee awaited them here. As soon as the Baldwin hissed to a stop, Quincannon, looking through the window, saw a thin, balding man come out from under the platform roof and hurry over to the car. He was waiting when the three men stepped down, mopping his face with a bandana. Despite the fact that the day was cool and overcast, he was sweating profusely.

Cromarty said, “Hello, Booker,” which marked him as the Tuttletown express agent, Howard Booker. “This is John Quincannon, the detective I sent for. Where’s Marshal Teague?”

Booker said excitedly, “I got news, Mr. Cromarty. Big news. The safe’s been found.”

“Found, you say? When? Where?”

“About an hour ago. In a field on Icehouse Road. Teague’s out there now with the rancher who found it.”

“Bully! Abandoned by the thieves, eh?”

“Abandoned, all right, but the news ain’t bully.”

“What do you mean?”

“Turns out that burglarproof safe’s no such thing,” Booker said. “She’s been opened somehow and she’s empty. The gold’s gone.”

Icehouse Road, obviously named after the stone building with ICE painted on its front wall that squatted alongside a wide creek, serpentined away from town into the hilly countryside. The buggy that Booker had had waiting for them bounced through chuckholes and over thick-grassed hummocks. A grim-visaged C.W. Cromarty sat up front with the express agent, Quincannon on the backseat with Newell. All four kept their own counsel on the quarter-mile ride.

Around a bend, a broad meadow opened up near where the road forked ahead. Oak and manzanita, and outcroppings of rock, spotted the high grass. A buckboard and a saddled chestnut partially blocked the road, and under one of the large oaks twenty rods away, a group of three men stood waiting. One of the men, a leaned-down gent with a handlebar moustache, detached himself from the others and hurried out to meet the rig. The star pinned to his vest identified him as the local constable, George Teague.

He said to Cromarty, “Damnedest thing you ever saw, Mr. Cromarty. Just the damnedest thing. I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes.”

“Who found the safe?”

“Sam Higgins. He’s a dairy rancher lives farther out this way.”

Quincannon asked, “Have you discovered anything else here?”

“Just a line of trampled grass. Looks like the safe was carried in from the road.” Teague paused. “You the detective from San Francisco?”

Cromarty answered the question and introduced them. Then he said in pained tones, “Very well. Let’s have a look at it.”

The safe lay tilted on its side in the oak’s shade, one corner dug deep into the grassy earth. The black circular door, bearing the words Sierra Railway Express in gold leaf, was open and partially detached, hanging by a single bolt from a bent hinge. Cromarty and Newell stood staring down at it, mouths pinched tight. Quincannon stepped past them, lowered himself to one knee for a closer study.

“She wasn’t blowed open,” Teague said behind him. “You can see that plain enough.”

Quincannon could. There were no powder marks on the door or other evidence that explosives had been used, nor did the center hole for the dial and spindle show any damage. Yet the door had clearly been forced somehow; the bolts were badly twisted. There were marks along the bottom edges of the door, the sort a wedge or chisel struck by sledgehammers would make, but a safe of this construction could not have been ripped open in that fashion, by brute force.

A whitish residue adhered to the steel along where the wedge marks were located. Quincannon scraped it with a thumbnail. Hard and flaky — dried putty, from the look and feel of it.

Another substance had dried on the safe, on one of the outer sides — brownish smears of what was certainly blood. Teague said, “One of ‘em must’ve gashed hisself when they busted into the express office. There’s blood on the door and the floor inside, too.”

Quincannon said nothing. Something else had drawn his attention — a piece of straw caught on one of the skewed bolts. He plucked it loose. Ordinary straw, clean and damp.

He leaned forward to peer inside the safe. Completely empty — not a gram of gold dust or speck of the other variety remained. He ran fingertips over the smooth walls and floor, found the metal to be cold and faintly moist.

When he straightened, Cromarty asked him, “Have you any idea how it was done?”

“Not as yet.”

“If I weren’t seeing it for myself, I wouldn’t believe it. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

Again Quincannon had no comment. Actions and events that didn’t seem possible were his meat. There was nothing he liked better than feasting on crimes that baffled and flummoxed average men and average detectives.

“Leave the safe here, Mr. Cromarty, or take it back to town?” Teague asked.

“Leave it for now. We’ll send some men out for it later. Unless you’d rather have it brought in for further examination, Quincannon?”

“Not necessary. I’ve seen enough of it.”

The rancher, Higgins, had no additional information to impart. Nor did the place where the safe had been dumped, or the section of meadow between the oak and the road, or the road itself. The ground was too hard to retain more than vague impressions.

The men rode back into Tuttletown. At the depot, Quincannon asked to have a look at the scene of the robbery both inside and out. Teague and Booker accompanied him to the rear of the building that housed the baggage and express office.

A trio of poplars grew close together near the door on that side; at night a wagon could be drawn up under them and be well hidden in their shadows. The jumbled tracks of men, wagons, and horses told him nothing. He stepped up to look at the door. Its bolt lock had been forced with a pinch bar or similar instrument.

Booker said, “There’s a wood crossbar on the door inside, but they got it free somehow. It was on the floor when I come in in the morning.”

There was no mystery in how that had been accomplished. Once the bolt had been snapped, the thieves had pried a gap between the door edge and jamb just wide enough to slip a thin length of metal through and lift the crossbar free. He tried the door, found it secure; Booker had replaced the crossbar. Quincannon asked him to go inside and remove it.

While the station agent was obliging, Quincannon studied the broken lock, the gouged wood, the crusty brown stains on the door edge. A fair amount of blood had been lost during the robbery; there were splatters on the platform as well. And more on the rough wood floor inside, he saw when Booker opened up for him.

A dusty square in one corner outlined where the safe had stood. It had been bolted to the floor, the bolts pried loose with the same instrument that had been used on the door. Still more dried blood stained the boards here.

“You know, I looked the place over pretty good myself,” Teague said. His patience seemed to be wearing thin. “Thieves didn’t leave nothing of theirselves behind, else I’d’ve found it.”

Except for the blood, Quincannon thought but didn’t say.

“If you ask me,” Booker said, “the ones that done it are long gone by now. And the gold with ‘em.”

“Possibly. And possibly not.”

“Well, they dumped the empty safe, didn’t they? What reason would they have for sticking around?”

“Strong ties to the community, mayhap.”

“You think they’re locals, then?”

“If so, the gold is still here as well.”

“That don’t put us any closer to finding out who they are.”

“Or how they got that safe open,” Teague said. “Dynamite wasn’t used and they couldn’t’ve done it with hammers and chisels.”

“Nor a pile driver,” Quincannon said wryly, echoing Newell’s words in Jamestown.

“Then how the devil did they do it?”

“The how and the who may well be linked. The answer to one question will provide the answer to the other.”

“Well now, Mr. Quincannon,” Teague said, “that sounds like double-talk to me. Ain’t no shame in admitting you’re as fuddled as the rest of us.”

No shame in it if it were true, but it wasn’t. For one thing, he prided himself that he was never fuddled and only occasionally puzzled. For another, he had already discovered a number of clues which his canny brain was busily piecing together.

Teague mistook his silence for tacit agreement. “So then how you going to go about finding the answers?”

“A detective never reveals his methods until his investigation is complete,” Quincannon told him. And sometimes, he added silently, not even then.

Cromarty had invited him to spend the night in his private car, but Quincannon preferred a solitary environment and his own company when he was in the midst of a case. He took a room at Tuttletown’s only hostelry, the Cremer House — the best room the hotel had to offer, which turned out to be cramped, spartan, and stuffy. He stayed in it just long enough to deposit his bag. Downstairs again, he asked the pudgy desk clerk if Tuttletown had a doctor.

“Sure have. Doc Goodfellow.”

“Where would his office be?”

“Upstairs above the drugstore, one block east.”

Quincannon found the doctor in and not busy with a patient. Goodfellow was a tall, saturnine gent who bore a superficial resemblance to Honest Abe. He was evidently aware of the resemblance and proud of it; even the beard he cultivated was Lincolnesque.

Quincannon identified himself and stated his mission in Tuttletown. He asked then, “Have you treated anyone for a severe gash or cut on the hand, wrist, or forearm in the past three days?”

“I have, yes. Two men and a boy.”

“Who would the men be?”

“A miner named Jacobsen was the most badly injured,” Goodfellow said. “Consequences of a fall at the Rappahanock. Gashed his arm and broke his wrist in two places. I had a difficult time setting the bones—”

“And the other man, Doctor?”

“One of the Schneider brothers — Wilhem. Deep cut on the back of his left hand.”

“Miners also, the Schneiders?”

“No, sir. They own the icehouse.”

“Ah. Big men, are they? Brawny?”

“Yes, of course. Men who make their living cutting and hauling ice can hardly be puny.”

“Have they been in Tuttletown long?”

“Not long. They bought the business about three years ago.”

“Where did they come from?”

“I’ve heard that they owned a similar business down in Bishop,” Goodfellow said, “but I don’t know for certain. They’re a close-mouthed pair when it comes to themselves.”

“Peaceable men, law-abiding?”

“Well, the younger, Bodo, has a reputation for rowdiness when he’s had too much to drink. But so do half the men who live and work in these parts.”

“Do the Schneiders live at or near the icehouse?”

“No. In a cabin on Table Mountain.” The doctor frowned. “Do you suspect them of stealing the safe from the express office?”

“At this point,” Quincannon said, “I suspect everyone and no one.” Which wasn’t quite the truth, but it permitted him to take his leave without further questions.

He returned to his room at the hotel, where he stretched out on what passed for a bed — it felt more like an uneven pile of bricks — and tucked his nose into Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Poetry was one of his two favorite forms of reading material, the other being intemperate temperance tracts. It soothed and relaxed him and allowed for proper brain-cudgeling.

Some time later, just past nightfall, he laid the book aside and left the room and the hotel wearing what Sabina referred to as his John-is-pleased-with-John smile. A thickening layer of clouds deepened the night’s blackness, he noted with satisfaction as he stepped outside. The lamplight that shone within some of the business establishments on Main Street seemed pale by contrast; electric lights had been installed in Jamestown, but not here as yet.

He made his way through the town center, whistling one of his favorite temperance tunes, and turned down the side street that led to Icehouse Road. Here, he had the night to himself. The darkness was unbroken except for distant flickers that marked the locations of mines and cabins at the higher elevations. Under the tall cottonwoods that lined the road and nearby creek the shadows were as black as India ink.

It was a brisk five-minute walk to the icehouse. The building sat creekside a short distance off the road, connected to it by a graveled lane — a low, bulky shape silhouetted against the restless sky. Set apart from it on the near side was a shedlike structure, lamplight making a pale rectangle of its single window. One or both of the Schneider brothers working late in what was probably their office.

Quincannon strolled on past, getting the lay of the place. The wagon entrance was at the far end, barred by a set of wide doors. A livery barn and rough-fenced corral occupied a grassy section between the road and the creek. No conveyances or animals were visible. The wagon and dray horses used for delivering ice would have been put away inside the barn for the night.

When he’d seen enough, he walked at a leisurely pace back to Main Street. The stone-housed general store near the hotel, Swerer’s by name, was still open for business. Inside, as he paid for his purchases, the garrulous young fellow behind the counter took considerable pride in informing him that the writer Bret Harte had once clerked there. Quincannon was more impressed by the outlandish prices charged for one dark lantern, one small tin of lamp oil, and a plug of Navy Cut tobacco. Not that the outlay bothered him; the amounts would be added to the expense account he would present to the Sierra Railway Company along with his bill for services rendered.

Hunger prodded him into Miner’s Rest Cafe, where he ate a bowl of mulligan stew and sampled a Mother Lode country favorite, a pie made with vinegar and raisins. The dessert turned out to be more appetizing than its name, fly pie.

Once more in his room at Cremer House, he stripped to his long johns and again made an effort to settle himself on the mound of bricks. He set his internal clock, a mechanism so unfailing that he never used one of the alarm variety. He was asleep within minutes.

At three a.m. Quincannon slipped out of the hotel’s side entrance carrying the dark lantern, its wick already lit and the shutter tightly closed. Main Street was all but deserted at this hour; even the saloons had closed. He avoided the one man he saw, a lurcher under the influence, and in less than ten minutes he was hurrying through the deep shadows on Icehouse Road.

No lamplight showed now in the shedlike office next to the icehouse. Darkness shrouded building and outbuildings alike, as well as the road in both directions. Quincannon paused under one of the trees to listen. A night bird’s cry, a faint sound from the direction of the corral that was likely the restless movement of a horse. Otherwise, silence.

He picked his way through dew-wet grass to the rear of the icehouse. As he’d expected, the pair of heavy wooden entrance doors were locked. He opened the lantern’s shutter a crack, shielding the light with his body, and quickly examined the iron hasp and padlock. Well and good. The padlock was large and looked new, but it was of inferior manufacture.

He closed the shutter, set the lantern down. The set of lock picks he carried, an unintentional gift from a burglar he’d once snaffled, were the best money could buy, and over the years he had learned how to manipulate them as dexterously as any housebreaker. The absence of light hampered his efforts here; it took him three times longer, working by feel, than it would have under normal circumstances to free the padlock’s staple. Not a sound disturbed the stillness the entire time.

He removed the lock, hung it from the hasp, and opened one door half just wide enough to ease his body through. The temperature inside was several degrees colder. When he opened the lantern, he saw that he was in a narrow space that sloped downward and was blocked on the inner side by a second set of doors. These, fortunately, were not locked.

The interior of the icehouse was colder still, as frigid as a politician’s heart. Quincannon put on the gloves he’d brought with him, then widened the lantern’s eye to its fullest and shined the light around. The stone walls, he judged, were at least two feet thick and the wooden floor set six feet or so below ground level. Large and small blocks of ice lined both walls, cut from the creek or hauled from the Stanislaus River during the winter months. Thick layers of straw covered the floor and was packed around the ice; the low ceiling would likewise be insulated with straw to keep the sun’s heat from penetrating. A trap door in the middle of the floor would doubtless give access to a stone- or brick-walled pit that would also be ice-filled, a solid mass ready to be broken by axe and chisel into smaller chunks as needed.

He played the light around more slowly, looking for a likely hiding place. None presented itself. The cold had begun to penetrate his clothing; he hurried to the far end and began his search, stamping his feet to maintain circulation.

By the time he had covered three-quarters of the space, finding nothing but ice and straw, he was chilled to the marrow. But his high good humor remained intact; so did his confidence. The stolen gold was hidden somewhere in here. Logic dictated that it couldn’t be anywhere else.

Five minutes later, his faith in himself and his deductions was rewarded.

At one wall not far from the entrance, he uncovered a cavelike space formed by ice blocks and a thick pile of straw. The bullion and sacks of dust were piled under the straw — the entire booty, from the look of it.

A satisfied smile creased his pirate’s beard. He pocketed one of the sacks, heaped straw over the rest of the gold. Quickly, then, he made his exit, making sure before he stepped outside that the night was still untenanted. He replaced the padlock without closing the staple, then hastened back into town to locate Constable Teague.

Shortly past dawn, in C.W. Cromarty’s private car, Quincannon prepared to hold court.

He and Teague, accompanied by a group of deputized citizens that included the express agent, Booker, had taken the Schneider brothers by surprise at their cabin and arrested them without incident. The two thieves were now ensconced in the Tuttletown jail. The gold had been removed from the icehouse and turned over to Booker for safekeeping. With Teague in tow, Quincannon had then come here to tell the superintendent and his chief engineer the good news.

Cromarty was effusive in his praise. “Splendid, Mr. Quincannon,” he said. “Bully! And the job done in less than twenty-four hours. You’re something of a wizard, I must say.”

“I prefer the term artiste,” Quincannon said. Humility was not one of his virtues, if in fact it was a virtue. Why shouldn’t a man at the zenith of his profession be boastful of the fact? “You might say that I am the Rembrandt of crime solvers.”

Teague said, “Who’s Rembrandt?” but no one answered him.

“Tell us how you deduced the identity of the thieves and the location of the gold,” Newell urged.

“And how they got the safe open.” The constable appealed to the two railroad men. “He wouldn’t tell me before, just said he’d explain everything when we come here.”

Quincannon took his time loading and lighting his briar, drawing out the moment. This was the time he liked best, the explanations that demonstrated the breadth and scope of his prowess. He admitted to a dramatic streak in his nature; if he hadn’t become a detective, he might have gone on the stage and become a fine dramatic actor. “Ham, you mean,” Sabina had said when he mentioned this to her once, but he’d forgiven her.

The others waited expectantly while he got the pipe drawing to his satisfaction. Then he fluffed his beard and said, “Very well, gentlemen. I’ll begin by noting clues that led me to the solution. When I examined the safe on Icehouse Road, I found two items — a hard residue of putty where the wedge marks were located on the door, and a piece of straw caught on one of the bolts. Straw, as you all know, is used to pack blocks and chunks of ice to slow the melting process. Also, the walls of the safe were cold, too cold for the night and morning air to have been responsible.”

“Pretty flimsy evidence,” Teague observed. “And what’s putty got to do with it?”

Quincannon addressed the constable’s statement, ignoring his question for the moment. “On the contrary, the evidence was not at all flimsy when combined with other factors. Such as where the damaged safe was discarded — less than a mile from the icehouse. The thieves saw no need and had no desire, as heavy and cumbersome as it is, to transport it any farther than that meadow. They were foolishly certain no one would suspect them of the crime.”

“How did you know the gold would be hidden in the icehouse?” Cromarty asked. “They might just as well have hidden it elsewhere.”

“Might have, yes, but it would have required additional risk. The weight of the gold and the necessity of finding another hiding place also argued against it having been moved elsewhere. As far as they were concerned, it was perfectly secure inside the icehouse until it could be disposed of piecemeal.”

“Are you saying that the icehouse was where the safe was opened?”

“I am. It’s the only place it could have been managed in this region at this time of year.” Quincannon shifted his gaze to Teague. “Do you recall my stating yesterday that the how and the who of the crime were linked?”

“I do.”

“And so they are. Once I determined that the Schneiders were guilty, it was a simple matter of cognitive reasoning to deduce the how.”

“Fancy talk,” Teague said. “Say it in plain English, man. How’d they break into that safe?”

“Strictly speaking, they didn’t. The safe was opened from the inside.”

“From the inside? What the devil are you talking about?”

“The application of a simple law of physics,” Quincannon said. “After the safe had been allowed to chill inside the icehouse, the Schneiders turned it on its back and hammered a wedge into the crack of the door along the bottom edge, the purpose being to widen the crack through to the inside, similar to their objective with the express-office door. Then, using a bucket and a funnel, they poured water into the safe until it was full. The final steps were to seal the crack with hard-drying putty” — he glanced meaningly at the constable as he spoke — “and then pack ice around the safe and cover the whole with straw. The object being to completely freeze the water inside.”

Newell, the engineer, clapped his hands. “Of course! Water expands as much as one-seventh of its volume when it freezes.”

“Exactly. When the water in the safe froze, the intense pressure from the ice caused the door’s hinges to give way. It was a simple matter, then, for them to chip out the ice and remove the gold. Whatever residue remained in the safe melted after they carried it away to the field.”

Quincannon stood basking in the further approbation that followed these explanations. It was only fitting, of course, for once again he had solved the seemingly insoluble. Superior detective work was a combination of intelligence, observation, deductive reasoning, and supreme self-confidence. These qualities, which he possessed in abundance, made him the most celebrated sleuth west of the Mississippi River. Any man who didn’t agree with that assessment was a dunderhead.

Marshal James B. Halloran of Jamestown, for instance.

Quincannon chuckled evilly to himself. Halloran, all unwittingly, had provided him with one other clue to the solution of this case — one he hadn’t mentioned in his summation. He was saving it to use as part of his gloat when he sought out that dunderhead marshal before leaving the Queen of the Mines.

“You may be a fancy-pants detective in San Francisco,” Halloran had said in Cromarty’s office, “but you don’t cut no ice up here.” Ah, but he had — figuratively if not literally. He’d cut more ice in Tuttletown last night, by godfrey, than the Schneiders had inside that so-called burglarproof safe!

Copyright © 2010 Bill Pronzini

The Jury Box

by Jon L. Breen

The year just past has been an unusually strong one for Baker Street aficionados. The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library added a volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s extra-canonical writings, The Apocrypha of Sherlock Holmes (Gasogene, $19.95), edited and fulsomely annotated by Leslie S. Klinger. Included are two brief comic vignettes, two tales in which Holmes arguably appears as an anonymous writer of letters to the editor, three stage plays, and an unrealized plot outline that may not (per Daniel Stashower’s introduction) be an authentic work of Watson or Doyle.

The two-CD set Voices from Baker Street (Wessex Press, $18.95) re-issues rare recordings of Sherlockian events from the 1950s to early 1980s, high-spirited and humorous for the most part, including the voices of such luminaries as Vincent Starrett, Anthony Boucher, Rex Stout, Isaac Asimov, and Basil Rathbone. A mock radio broadcast of Silver Blaze’s Wessex Plate race by famed sportswriters Red Smith and Joe Palmer is especially memorable.

Non-British pastiche writers sometimes relocate Holmes to their own countries. Among the writers given that patriotic assignment in Sherlock Holmes in America (Skyhorse, $24.95), edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower, are Texan blog columnist Bill Crider and your Californian juror. Coincidentally, we both brought Holmes to (where else?) Chicago. Sherlock Holmes in Russia (Robert Hale/Trafalgar, $24.95), edited and translated by Alex Auswaks, presents seven early-20th-century tales by Russian writers.

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Night Shade, $15.95) gathers editor John Joseph Adams’s picks of the best pastiches of the past thirty years, a mixed bag with a little too much supernatural stuff for some tastes but a distinguished roster of contributors, including Stephen King, Anne Perry, Sharyn McCrumb, Laurie R. King, and Michael Moorcock. The 65-page “Watson!” and Other Unauthorized Sherlock Holmes Pastiches, Parodies, and Sequels (Wildside, $4.99) consists of the title story by Captain A.E. Dingle, and other early-20th-century takeoffs by G. F. Forrest, Bret Harte, O. Henry, and John Kendrick Bangs.

The first of the great book-length pastiches, H.F. Heard’s 1941 novel A Taste for Honey, in which Sherlock takes up beekeeping under the alias Mr. Mycroft, has been reprinted in a new edition (Blue Dolphin, $16.95), with a foreword by Stacy Gillis and an afterword by John Roger Barrie, Heard’s literary executor. Joining this classic as one of the best dozen or so extra-canonical novels is the first from a new star on the scene.

**** Lyndsay Faye: Dust and Shadow, Simon & Schuster, $25. Of the many attempts to involve Holmes with Jack the Ripper, this is probably the best. Dr. Watson, whose narrative style is well captured, is happily depicted as more heroic than comic, and the sleuth himself is at his most intellectually keen and personally complex. The facts of the crimes are depicted in careful, scholarly fashion, and the well-managed ending reprises a viable theory of how the Ripper might have avoided detection. (Faye also leads off Sherlock Holmes in America, referenced above, with a fresh look at “The Case of Colonel Warburton’s Madness.”)

**** Donald Thomas: Sherlock Holmes and the King’s Evil, Pegasus, $25. Supreme among the pastiche writers, Thomas includes more history and detailed detective work, often from physical evidence, than almost anyone. Most of the stories have their origin in real events, culminating in World War I cryptography and espionage in “The Case of the Zimmermann Telegram.” Other stories concern forged manuscript detection, lighthouse management, and fingerprint evidence, which gets an unusual treatment in “The Case of the Tell-Tale Hands,” based on Oscar Wilde’s “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime.”

**** Gyles Brandreth: Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile, Touchstone, $14. Speaking of Wilde, his third outing as fictional detective concerns a series of murders, some borderline locked rooms, in the circle of a French theatrical family. Though the principal events occur in the early 1880s, a framing story set a decade later invites his friend Conan Doyle’s participation in the detection and includes the speculation that Wilde was the model for Mycroft Holmes. The prose and dialogue are first rate, and Oscar’s final summing up is as close in spirit and intricacy to one of Ellery Queen’s as you’ll find in the current market.

** Paul D. Gilbert: The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes, Robert Hale/Trafalgar, $24.95. These seven stories reflect love and respect for the canon in their fresh takes on such untold cases as the vanishing of James Phillimore, the aluminum crutch, the red leech, and the remarkable worm unknown to science. On the downside, narrative and dialogue are appallingly wordy; some anachronisms creep in (most glaringly, “cut to the chase” in the 1890s!); and the lead-off story has the most unconvincing of the many deaths of Moriarty recounted on page or screen.

**** Martin Edwards: Dancing for the Hangman, Five Star, $25.95. In one of the finest fictionalizations of a classic criminal case I’ve ever read, Hawley Harvey Crippen, hanged in 1910 for the murder of his wife Cora (known on the music hall stage as Belle Elmore), tells the story of his life, her death, and his unsuccessful flight from justice with mistress Ethel Le Neve disguised as a boy. An American practitioner of medical quackery living in Britain, he insists he is not a murderer, and that the real murder in the case was never even recognized as such. Edwards, inventing freely without contradicting any of the settled facts of the case, credits his sources in a closing note titled (in homage to John Dickson Carr) “Notes for the Curious.” One example of the excellent and sometimes amusing writing: “To ask a man and a woman to describe a person is akin to commissioning a portrait from painters of different schools.”

*** Colin Harrison: Risk, Picador, $13. Manhattan insurance company lawyer George Young is asked by the elderly and ailing widow of the firm’s founder to find out what her late son was doing the night of his apparently accidental death outside a bar. Though most readers will probably see the main secret coming, this shortish novel (originally a New York Times Magazine serial) offers good writing, an intriguing story, engaging characters, and a vivid rendering of the Manhattan scene.

*** H. R. F. Keating: Inspector Ghote’s First Case, Minotaur, $24.99. The series that began with The Perfect Murder (1964) and seemingly ended with Breaking and Entering (2000) is happily revisited in this prequel. In 1960, newly promoted to full inspector in the Bombay Police Crime Branch, Ghote receives an assignment that will take him away from the city as wife Protima awaits their first child: to find out why the wife of an English friend of the Indian police commissioner killed herself. Character touches, quirky dialect, and Hamlet references support a plot more complex than first appears.

*** Gladys Mitchell: The Longer Bodies, Rue Morgue, $14.95. The first American publication of this 1930 detective novel is remarkably timely, since its plot sounds like a TV reality show: a rich old lady wants to choose the heir to her fortune by having the candidates compete to be the first to represent England in an athletic event (discus, long jump, high jump, pole vault, javelin, shotput). All the Golden Age greats had some humor, but Mitchell was the most determinedly comic, and this elaborate structural edifice could almost be a parody of the classical time-table mystery.

Copyright © 2010 Jon L. Breen

The Camera Never Lies

by John Morgan Wilson

A past Edgar Allan Poe Award winner (for his novel Simple Justice, an entry in a series starring disgraced reporter Benjamin Justice), John Morgan Wilson is continuing to arouse critical enthusiasm for his work. MysteryScene said of his new book, Spider Season: “This exquisite novel is the finest yet in a powerful series.” New readers of the series who want to start at the beginning will be glad to know that Bold Strokes Books has just reissued the first four Benjamin Justice novels.

A Super 8 video camera pans along a sidewalk in a suburban working-class neighborhood. It turns up the front walk of a plain, one-story stucco house. The camera’s weak light points the way through the deepening dusk. The audio records the sound of sneakers softly slapping the pavement.

The footsteps stop as the shooter pauses to focus on an afternoon newspaper lying midway up the walk. He zooms in on the printed date to establish the timeline visually, the way he’s seen it done in the movies. The date is November 3, twenty-two years ago.

The camera rises to slowly pan across the front of the modest house. On either side of the door the windows are dark and the curtains drawn. The camera briefly lingers, as if the shooter is surprised to see them pulled shut so early, or at all.

The camera swings to a Ford pickup parked on a gravel drive. The camera’s POV shifts to the rear of the truck, where it settles for a moment on a green-and-gold decal, shaped like a shield, affixed in a corner of the rear window. Inside the gold border are the words: Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Below, a bumper sticker proclaims: My Child Made the Honor Roll at Cesar Chavez Junior High. At the other end, another bumper sticker declares: Guns Don’t Kill. People Do. The shooter fixes purposefully on these details before moving on.

The camera turns up the drive alongside the house. Light glows from a kitchen window that’s set too high for the camera’s eye. A slender hand briefly reaches into frame to push open a gate. The camera enters, pausing to survey a flagstone patio, a small swimming pool, and a towering palm tree at the rear of the yard, rising above several fruit trees.

The camera swings suddenly to the left as a dog bounds across the patio. The dog jumps up, its muzzle going fuzzy as it fills the frame, nose pressed to the lens. A moment later, the dog races back, whimpering and scratching at the back door. A section of white T-shirt comes into frame and wipes the lens clean. The camera’s eye is drawn to the light from a window off the patio. It pushes in to see a man hurry into the kitchen from a hallway — burly, balding, about forty, his mouth grimly set. His brown eyes dart about the room in seeming agitation before he turns abruptly toward the back door. The camera backs quickly away, across the patio and into the shadows of the detached garage. Its light shuts off as the rear porch light comes on. The man opens the door, grabbing the dog before it can get inside. Using a leash, he secures the dog to a post on the patio, ordering the dog to stay in a gruff voice.

The camera follows the man back to the door and into the light from the house. Two or three times, he swings the door on its hinges, studying it intently. He raps his knuckles on the unscreened window in the door’s upper half, as if testing it. Finally, he closes the door from the outside. He grabs a brick from a garden border and smashes the door’s window with a quick, sharp blow. Glass shatters to the floor inside. In the silence that follows, he pricks up his ears and glances furtively about. Satisfied that he’s raised no alarm, he replaces the brick where he found it. He opens the door and steps back into the house.

The camera emerges from the shadows and approaches the kitchen window. It observes the man turn over a chair, knock utensils and a carton of eggs off the counter, and slam his shoulder into the refrigerator with such force that a blender topples, crashing to the floor. He pauses, surveying the mess, then hurries from the kitchen, turning right.

Outside the house, the camera swings urgently in the same direction. On the soundtrack can be heard the whining of the dog, footfalls on the patio, and breathing that grows more rapid.

The camera pulls up at another lighted window and looks into a bedroom. A woman not much younger than the man lies faceup on the disheveled bed, clad in a lacy bra and satiny slip panties of matching pink. Her peroxide blond hair is splayed about her head. An arm is twisted awkwardly beneath her. Smudged red lipstick and an ashen pallor mar her pretty features. Her blue eyes are opened wide, unblinking, and her mouth is agape. The camera loses focus. Its movements become erratic, grabbing images almost at random: Bruising encircling the woman’s throat like a collar. A long, glossy fingernail that looks freshly broken. A striped necktie, lying twisted and crumpled on the pillow beneath her head.

The camera moves to the man’s troubled eyes, where tears start to brim. Then it pulls back to see the entire room. Pieces of the woman’s clothing are strewn about the bed and floor. The man snatches them up and sets about dressing her, while the unsteady camera stays with him. His eyes rove the bed, fixing on the necktie. He grabs it, wads it up, and shoves it deep into one of his pants pockets. Then he makes the sign of the cross, lifts the woman in his muscular arms, and carries her from the room, turning left.

The camera pulls back haphazardly, slipping out of focus. The footsteps quicken and stumble as they retrace their path across the patio. Through the kitchen window, the camera frames the man awkwardly as he kneels and sets the woman’s body gently on the floor. The shooter pushes in shakily, trying to focus, as the man arranges her legs and arms into ungainly positions. Her limbs appear stiff and the effort causes the man to swoon. He rises unsteadily, looking queasy, glistening with sweat. He staggers to the sink, splashes water on his face, gulps from the tap.

The lens suddenly points downward at flagstone, then at a stoop, then at linoleum as the shooter enters the house. The camera is set aside atop a washing machine and forgotten but its microphone continues recording: sneakers crunching broken glass, the dog barking outside, a man’s startled voice as footsteps stop in the kitchen.

“Nicky!”

Then a boy’s frightened voice, high and cracking: “What’s wrong with Mom?”

Nick Falco kept his camera on Deputy Ramirez as he climbed from the patrol car and approached the two corpses in the graffiti-scarred alley.

It was a grim scene, a boy and girl murdered execution-style. The boy was still on his knees, toppled sideways, shot once in the back of the head. The girl was sprawled faceup a few yards away, with blood on her chest. Both victims bore distinct tattoos. A gang deal, Nick figured. Two teenagers caught in the wrong neighborhood and gunned down for it. He panned from the deputy to the bodies and then back again. Always show the action from the cop’s POV — that was the mantra of Police in Action, one of the key reasons it was still on the air after twenty years.

Nick knew all the rules, all the tricks. After twelve years on the job, he thought, I’d better know what I’m doing. Because this isn’t just a job, documenting the horror of violent crime, cops chasing down bad guys.

It’s a mission, what I live for. It gets me through the day, keeps me sane.

He pushed in on Deputy Ramirez as he called in the double homicide to dispatch. It was July, a warm L.A. morning. Ramirez, who was on the stocky side, wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. Behind Nick, the sound man did his dance, staying out of Nick’s way but keeping the boom overhead, without creating a shadow. Nick kept his camera moving, missing nothing. An average Police in Action segment lasted only six or seven minutes but it was pure cinéma vérité — no script, no narrator — so Nick had to give the editors plenty to work with. He grabbed as many extra shots as he could: patrol officers stringing yellow tape to cordon off the alley, uneasy residents peering over back fences, flies buzzing about the corpses before settling to crawl around the eyes and mouths. He knew the network might not approve a cutaway to the flies — too realistic for the eight p.m. time slot — but he got the shot anyway, for insurance.

It’s not for nothing that I’m known as one of the best shooters in the business. If that’s cocky, tough luck.

He heard a car roll up behind him and glanced back from the corner of his eye without losing the shot. A sheriff’s detective climbed from a spotless Crown Victoria. Sometimes they were in pairs, but this one was alone. She was a trim woman in her fifties, wearing a navy blue pants suit and flat shoes. Her graying hair was short-cropped, her bearing ramrod straight. Nick recognized her instantly: Katherine Forrest, rank of sergeant, twenty-eight years with the sheriff’s department, known for her no-nonsense manner and independent style. Nick knew she wasn’t keen on having a camera crew around, but she wouldn’t break his balls about it, either. As long as he and his sound man stayed out of her way and didn’t disturb evidence she tolerated them.

He swung his lens from Ramirez to Forrest as she approached. The deputy greeted her perfunctorily and filled her in on what he knew. As she moved on toward the bodies, she ignored Nick and his sound man as if they weren’t there.

Perfect. Keeps it real. Just the way we like it.

She slipped on latex gloves as she went, her keen eyes scanning the alley for more obvious evidence, like spent shell casings. If she noticed something, Nick had to spot it too, zooming in to maintain her POV. Sometimes he spotted it first, he was that good. He stayed close behind her, but not too close, careful not to interfere. That was another Police in Action rule, and it was inviolable.

She approached the dead girl first. Nick adjusted his lens, kept the detective in sharp relief, so smoothly viewers would barely notice he was shooting with a shoulder-mounted camera. When she knelt to examine the body without touching it, he pushed in for a tight shot of the victim’s face.

His hand suddenly faltered. The shot grew shaky. He lost his focus.

He blinked several times, feeling queasy. That had never happened before, not in all the years he’d been a shooter, and certainly not at such a key visual moment. But when he’d zoomed in just now, it wasn’t the face of a young woman he’d seen.

For a moment, he’d flashed on the face of his dead mother.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and responded slowly, like a man coming out of a trance. Sergeant Forrest stood beside him. He was trembling and perspiring heavily.

“You okay, Nick?”

She knew him by his first name because Dominic Falco, a retired LAPD deputy, was his father, and George Claxton, a retired detective, was his boss, the executive producer of the show. And because Rosemary Falco, his mother, had been murdered by an intruder who’d later committed suicide in county jail. The official version, anyway, that had stood unchallenged for twenty-two years.

“You don’t look so good,” she said.

Nick shrugged, embarrassed. “It must be the heat.”

The shot was ruined. He was furious with himself. Yet the reason he’d lost his concentration troubled him even more.

My mother’s face. Jesus.

The sound man returned to the patrol car to get Nick a bottle of water, leaving them alone.

“You’d better get out of the sun.” Sergeant Forrest smiled a little. “I don’t want you keeling over on one of these bodies and compromising my evidence.”

Nick smiled weakly, averting his eyes. He’d always prided himself on his toughness, on his ability to keep shooting no matter how disturbing the images. He’d shot plenty of crime scenes where the carnage was worse than this and never missed a beat. He knew she wouldn’t blame him, but he’d disrupted her work just the same.

She studied him closely. “You sure that’s all that’s bothering you? Just the heat?”

“I’ll be fine,” Nick said.

He could hear the lie in his voice, and it scared him.

“I have a right to talk to him, Joyce. He’s my son too.”

“I’ve tried, Nick. He won’t come to the phone.”

“Look,” Nick said, talking as he paced in his small apartment. “I know I screwed up. I should have been there to shoot the game. I’m sorry, okay?”

“It wasn’t just any game, Nick. Tony’s team was playing in the finals. You promised him you’d knock off early and be there. Of course, you’ve made promises before, haven’t you?”

“I was on a ride-along,” Nick said. “We caught a hot pursuit just after lunch that turned into a standoff. I couldn’t just abandon a great story like that.”

“You always have an excuse, Nick. And it always involves your camera.”

“It’s how I make my living, Joyce.”

“It’s how you hide, Nick. It’s how you keep a safe distance, putting that camera between you and the rest of the world.”

He could hear the edge in her voice, the lingering resentment. He couldn’t blame her, he thought, not after the way he’d behaved the last few years of their marriage — the drugs, alcohol, other women. In the end, he’d wrecked his marriage, alienated his son, almost destroyed his career. But George Claxton had stuck by him, gotten him some help, kept him on the payroll. Now, everything was okay again. He was working hard, staying clean, making his child-support payments. Everything was under control.

Until today. Until that moment in the alley when I saw my mother’s face on a dead girl.

“Tony’s birthday is coming up,” he said, turning the conversation away from himself. “I’d like to be there.”

“We’re having the party at Dom’s house, Nick. It was Tony’s idea. You know how he worships his grandfather.”

“He’s a drunk, Joyce. He’s — he’s not the saint you and Tony think he is.”

“Maybe you could drop by the house with your present before we leave for the party.” Her tone had softened, reminding him of why he’d once loved her, and maybe still did. “I could talk to Tony, try to convince him to see you.”

“What do I get with him? Five minutes?”

“Better than nothing,” she said. “More than you gave him at the soccer game.”

“Touché.”

“You know your father’s sick, right? The liver again.”

“George Claxton told me. He’s always on me to patch things up with the old man.”

“Maybe he’s right, Nick. Maybe it’s time you and Dom made up.”

Nick said nothing, just felt the old feelings well up, threatening to overwhelm him. If they only knew, he thought. If they only knew the truth.

“He’s your father, Nick,” Joyce went on. “I don’t know what it is between you two, but—”

“No, you don’t,” Nick said, and abruptly hung up.

He wanted a drink in the worst way, but got out a collection of CDs instead, the discs he’d used to copy the Super 8 movies he’d shot as a boy. He was only interested in one — the video he’d shot at thirteen when he’d surprised his father by coming home early from basketball practice. He still remembered the moment four years ago when he’d discovered it in a box with all the other home movies he’d made, viewing it for the first time, eighteen years after he’d shoved it in the back of his closet under a pile of old sneakers.

Buried deep, like so much other stuff all these years.

He slipped the disc into the CD drawer of his computer, recalling how that first viewing had sent him into a tailspin. Now he watched it to steel himself, to help him prepare for what he had to do. It was grainy and washed out with age and copying, but the images were adequate. Over and over he studied it, late into the night. Watching his father, Deputy Dominick Falco, the grandfather Tony now idolized, carry his wife’s body from their bedroom to the kitchen, to cover up the way she’d really died.

George Claxton sat behind his big desk in the offices of Claxton Productions, sipping bottled water as he studied a rough cut of the Police in Action episode that would open the new season, the show’s twenty-first.

He shifted uneasily in his chair, trying to keep his mind on the video. It wasn’t easy, not with his best friend, Dom Falco, slowly drinking himself to death, and Dom’s son, Nick, always on the edge.

Damn, he thought, I should feel on top of the world, counting all my money and other blessings. His mind drifted back to his early days as a consultant on one of the police dramas, when he’d realized that what cops face on the street every day was every bit as compelling as fiction, if it could be produced right. So he’d taken early retirement and gone into production himself. Twenty years Police in Action had been on the air in prime time, spawning countless weaker imitations and making him one of the rare African-American producers to make it big in network TV. He’d built a small business empire with it, put three kids through college, watched out for Dom and Nick the best he could. What do I have to do, he asked himself, to earn some peace of mind?

He started as someone knocked on the door. Nick Falco opened it a crack and stuck his head in.

“You wanted to see me?”

Claxton nodded. “Shut the door.”

Nick closed it behind him and took a seat on the other side of Claxton’s big desk. At thirty-five, he was still a good-looking kid, Claxton thought, with a nice face he’d inherited from his mother. But not today. Today, he was unshaven and haggard-looking, with dark circles under his eyes. Still, Claxton thought, just seeing him stirred up memories of Rosemary Falco.

“You look like crap,” Claxton said.

“I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

“Late night?”

“You could say that.”

“I heard you had some problems yesterday, on the ride-along.”

“Heat got to me. It won’t happen again.”

“You sure that’s all it was?”

“I’m not using again, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not drinking.”

Claxton nodded and let it go. “You call your old man yet?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you two talked? It’s been what, four years?”

“What’s on your mind, George?”

“He’s sick, Nick. He’s in bad shape.”

“Not so bad he can’t throw a birthday party for Tony next week.”

“It might be his last one. Did you ever think about that?”

“I guess that happens when your liver’s shot and you keep on boozing.”

Claxton wanted to say more but held back. Then he said, “I want you to take a week off, pull yourself together.”

“We’re scheduled to shoot in Fort Worth in two days.”

“I’m sending another crew. I want you here in L.A., resting up.”

“Where you can keep an eye on me?”

“It’s not a request, Nick.”

Nick glowered. “Is that all?”

Claxton nodded curtly. Nick got up and headed for the door.

“Nick! Maybe with the time off, you can find five minutes to pay your old man a visit.”

Nick said nothing, just stood there, looking sullen.

“I’m telling you,” Claxton said, “when he’s gone, when it’s too late to say the things you need to say, you’ll regret it.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Nick said, and closed the door on his way out.

That afternoon, Nick went to see Sergeant Forrest.

They met by appointment in her office at sheriff’s headquarters in East L.A., where she kept plaques and certificates of commendation on the wall behind her and a framed photograph of her longtime female companion on her desk. With her clean record and plenty of years in for retirement, and a reputation for standing up to the brass, Nick figured she was the right one to come to with his story. Still, he dreaded digging up the past like this, worried sick about how Tony would take it, learning what his grandfather was really like.

Sergeant Forrest listened to him calmly and attentively, but Nick could see in her stiffening posture the conflict she had to be feeling, since he was accusing a former deputy of murder. He’d brought along old newspaper articles he’d photocopied at the public library, implicating his mother’s boss, Marshall Blake, in her death. The articles reported the basic facts, at least what the press and public had been fed: Blake had been arrested for Rosemary Falco’s murder while preparing to flee the country. The case had never gone to trial because Blake had committed suicide in county jail shortly after his arrest, following a verbal confession to the lead detective.

When Nick finished telling Sergeant Forrest his version of the story, she folded her hands tightly in front of her, looking sceptical.

“And you think your father actually committed the crime?”

“I don’t think, I know,” Nick said tersely.

He handed her a CD he’d burned that morning. She glanced at it curiously and slipped it into her computer. He studied her eyes, which became more troubled as she watched it.

Afterward, she said, “It’s obviously important evidence. It must have been a terrible thing to witness, for someone so young.”

He wasn’t interested in her pity, just her assistance. He mentioned his parents’ marriage, which had slowly deteriorated because of his father’s drinking and volatile temper. He identified the crumpled necktie on the bed as one he’d given Dom on Father’s Day.

“It’s pretty obvious this guy Blake was framed,” Nick said. “That he was chosen to take the fall for Mom’s murder.”

“We don’t know that,” Sergeant Forrest said carefully. “That’s what investigations are for, to get at the truth.”

Nick clenched his teeth. “The camera never lies.”

He let the words hang there between them, his eyes unblinking. She didn’t look away but she didn’t seem too comfortable, either.

Finally, she asked, “Why are you showing me this video now, after waiting so long?”

“Because my son Tony is about to turn thirteen, the same age I was when—” Nick broke off, swallowing with difficulty. “I don’t want him to grow up with a bunch of secrets between us. I lost my mother. I don’t want to lose him too.”

“It could get very ugly, Nick. You need to understand that.”

“I understand that my mother deserves justice.”

“And what about you? How are you holding up, keeping all this to yourself all these years?”

He dropped his eyes. “I’ve had a few problems.”

“You’re hoping for some resolution.”

“You could say that.”

“I’ll look into it. But I’d prefer to go about it quietly, without a formal complaint. It might make my initial inquiries easier.”

He raised his conflicted eyes. “I picked you because I trust you.”

“I appreciate that,” she said.

Her first step after talking with Nick was to fill out a standard request form for the Rosemary Falco report, which she delivered personally to the Homicide Library, keeping her supervisor out of the loop. She knew it was risky but felt it was necessary at this stage. To her surprise, the clerk reported that the file was missing. Probably misfiled, he said, and promised to begin a search. But two days later, he e-mailed her that the file was nowhere to be found, and there was no record of it being checked out. This caused her some concern.

She considered going to her commander, then thought better of it. Not yet. Not until she had enough evidence so that no one above her could quash an investigation. Then she remembered that two decades back, before the department was fully computerized, a hard copy of every homicide incident report was sent to the Records Bureau. If someone had deliberately hidden or destroyed the original report, it was possible they’d forgotten about a copy being kept in Records.

This time, at the Reports Retrieval Unit, she struck pay dirt. She surreptitiously made a photocopy of the report, which she read during a solitary lunch in Chinatown, miles from headquarters.

The report placed Rosemary Falco in her kitchen when she died, fully dressed, the victim of an intruder. That version had been corroborated by crime-scene photos and a coroner’s investigation. With Marshall Blake’s alleged confession and jailhouse suicide, the homicide case had fallen into inactive status, effectively if not officially closed. Sergeant Forrest knew that Dominic Falco, only a deputy, couldn’t have carried out such an elaborate coverup on his own, that he must have had help within the department.

She felt sick about what she’d uncovered, about the wider implications. But as she reached the bottom of the final page, she was in for one more shock.

The report had been signed by the lead investigator on the case: George Claxton.

She drove directly from Chinatown to the storage section of the crime lab. She was relieved to learn that the key physical evidence in the case had been properly preserved and ordered samples taken from the victim’s clothing and fingernails. That done, she tracked down Marshall Blake’s widow, who still lived in the same house, and asked a few discreetly worded questions. She discovered that Mrs. Blake had tossed her husband’s personal items into a box and stashed them in the garage, intending to sort through them before disposal. In her pain and confusion, Mrs. Blake had procrastinated, and the box had remained there ever since, untouched. Among the items was a brush and comb set that Sergeant Forrest bagged and submitted for DNA analysis — unavailable twenty-two years ago. At the crime lab, she cashed in a favor to get the DNA processed quickly and on the QT.

With that underway, she drove east two hours to Palm Desert to visit Bud Billingsley, a retired deputy she’d met when they were rookies at the training academy. Billingsley, whose problem with black people had surfaced when he’d worked patrol, had been assigned desk duty at county jail around the time Rosemary Falco had been killed. She figured Billingsley might know something and be willing to give it up, for reasons having to do with his ingrained racism.

A longtime divorcé, he lived alone in a middle-class neighborhood down the highway from Palm Springs. Heat shimmered off the asphalt as she turned into his cul-de-sac and pulled up in front of his two-bedroom house. She found him lounging by a small pool with two little dogs, a pot-bellied man with leathery skin, drinking beer before noon. When she explained what she was after, he was quiet a moment, then told her that everything he was about to say was strictly background, off the record.

“I don’t need no trouble,” he said. “I’m too damn old. You okay with that?”

She told him she was. He started talking.

After being processed into the old Hall of Justice jail, Billingsley said, the suspect, Marshall Blake, was left alone in his cell with bed sheets on the bunk, despite signs of serious despondency that might have called for a suicide watch. A short time later, he was found dead, hanging by his neck from a knotted sheet.

“Was George Claxton around that night?” Sergeant Forrest asked.

“Claxton,” Billingsley asked, contemptuously, “the colored guy that got rich producing Police in Action? Yeah, he was around — and he made sure things went down the way they did.”

The other deputies were more than happy to cooperate, Billingsley added, eliminating a suspect who’d killed a deputy’s wife.

“What if Blake was innocent, Bud? What if someone else did it?”

“Then why would he do the hangman’s dance like he did?”

“Maybe he was grief-stricken because a woman he cared about was dead, while he got blamed for her murder.”

“I guess you could see it that way,” Billingsley said. “Anyway, I’ve told you what I know. Off the record, remember.” He raised his beer bottle. “You want a cold one?”

She declined, thanked him for the information, and showed herself out.

After four days, Nick Falco was back at Claxton Productions, unable to stay away from work.

He dropped by the digital editing bays to watch segments being cut, viewed assembled episodes to see how many of his stories had made it into the show, ran a maintenance check on his camera pack — anything to stay close to the action and keep his mind off the investigation Katherine Forrest was conducting behind the scenes.

“Nick, we need to talk.”

George Claxton had found him in the supervising producer’s office, checking the network air dates for the show. He followed Claxton down the hall to his office door.

“I’ve just come from the hospital,” Claxton said. “Dom’s critical, lapsing in and out of consciousness. I called Joyce. She’s picking Tony up at school.”

“I appreciate that. Anything else?”

Claxton clenched his jaw. “He doesn’t have long, Nick. This is it.”

Nick said nothing, just looked away. Claxton took him by the shoulders, forced him to make eye contact.

“Whatever it is between you and Dom, you’ve got to get past it. If you don’t talk to him now, make things right, you won’t have another chance. Please, Nick, don’t leave it like this.”

They both turned as a figure approached from down the hall. It was Sergeant Forrest, walking briskly, clutching a file folder. Claxton recognized her, but she opened her jacket to show her gold badge anyway.

“I need a moment of your time, Mr. Claxton.” Her eyes flicked toward Nick. “In private.”

“Sounds serious,” Claxton said.

She leveled her eyes on his. “It is.”

She turned to Nick, asked him to wait for her in the lobby.

When he was gone she said to Claxton, “I’ve been looking into the Rosemary Falco case. I believe it was prematurely deemed inactive.”

He flinched, swallowed hard. “I see.”

“I ordered DNA tests. The results have come back. I have some questions that need answering.”

He nodded wordlessly and stepped aside. She passed into his office and he locked the door behind them.

Not quite half an hour later, Nick stood as Sergeant Forrest approached him in the lobby, moving quickly.

“We’re going to the hospital,” she said. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

Before he could protest, she took him firmly by the arm and led him out to her car. As she drove off, Nick saw Claxton standing at his office window, watching them.

She raced out of the parking lot into the thick of traffic.

“There’s no question that your father covered up the truth about your mother’s death,” she said, “and that he had help doing it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Nick said.

She shot through a yellow light, accelerating.

“George Claxton was the main fixer, Nick.”

He stared at her, looking stunned. “George was in on it?”

“He was the lead detective on the case. His name never surfaced in the press reports. That was part of the plan.”

Nick faced forward again, staring out the windshield as she blasted her horn and ran a red light.

“The two of them, best friends,” he said. “I should have seen it years ago.”

She hit an open stretch of road and pushed the speedometer to sixty.

“It’s not what you think, Nick.”

He glanced over, pinned her with his eyes. “Not what I think? I have the video, remember?”

“Your mother was having an affair with her boss, Marshall Blake. She died accidentally, during a risky sex act — autoerotic asphyxiation, partial strangling with a necktie for heightened sexual arousal. Only it went too far.”

“What?”

“I warned you it wouldn’t be pretty, Nick.”

He faced forward again, staring out the windshield. “Go on.”

“Blake panicked and fled. Dom came home and discovered her body. He’d known about the affair but blamed himself. He’d kept quiet about it to keep his marriage together, determined to change, to win her back. He called Claxton, devastated by your mother’s death but also concerned for you. He didn’t want you to have to live with a sordid memory of your mother or face the ugliness of a sensational trial. Claxton promised Dom that he’d do anything he could to protect you.”

“Claxton told you all this?” Nick demanded. “And you believe him?”

“Just be quiet and listen.” She swung right on squealing tires at a road sign for the hospital. “Claxton picked up Blake, who was distraught. He was wracked with guilt, and knew he was ruined socially and professionally. He begged Claxton to let him commit suicide. Claxton sequestered him in a cell, where Blake hanged himself. In the meantime, your father was altering the crime scene. As the lead detective, Claxton was able to expedite the coverup from start to finish. According to the official version, your mother was strangled as she prepared dinner for her family, the innocent victim of her obsessed boss, who broke in to assault her.”

“I don’t believe it,” Nick said. “My mother would never—”

“I ordered DNA tests on the semen and tissue samples taken from your mother’s body and undergarments. They prove conclusively that Blake was with her that day, and that she clawed at him, digging into his flesh, probably in the heat of passion.”

Sergeant Forrest braked as she pulled up at the hospital entrance. She turned to face Nick.

“They did it to protect you, Nick. If your father was guilty of anything, it was of loving you too much.”

Nick sat numbly beside her, a vacant look on his face. She reached over, laid a hand on his arm.

“The camera doesn’t always capture the truth, Nick, not all of it. It only sees what it’s able to see. Kind of like people.”

He turned slowly to face her, looking hopelessly lost.

“What do I do now?”

“At some point, you might want to destroy that videotape. Right now, though, I’d get into that hospital and up to see your father.”

“What about your investigation?”

“What investigation?” She reached across and opened the door. “Go, Nick, before it’s too late.”

He unbuckled his seat belt, leaped from the car, raced into the hospital. A minute later, the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. He dashed out and down the hall, past a doctor who’d just emerged from his father’s room. As Nick reached the door, a nurse was coming out.

“He slipped into a coma,” she said. “Just minutes ago.”

“Will he come out of it?”

She smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid not. Are you family?”

“I’m his son, Nick.”

“He was calling for you. ‘Nicky’ was the last word he spoke.”

Nick watched the nurse pad quietly down the corridor in her white shoes. Then he entered the room, which smelled of illness and medicine. Dom lay on his back, his body trapped in a tangle of tubes. The bed sheet and blanket had been pulled up and folded neatly under his chin. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and erratic. On the nightstand was a framed photograph of the three of them twenty-five years ago — Nick at ten, in between his smiling parents.

He drew up a chair and sat beside the bed. He took his father’s hand, raised it to his lips, fought back tears.

His cell phone rang. He checked the Caller ID. It was Joyce.

“Nick? Where are you?”

“At the hospital.”

“Did you talk to Dom?”

Nick’s voice trembled. “I–I was too late.”

“He’s gone?”

“Comatose. They say it’s final.”

“We’re on our way. Tony’s with me.”

“He won’t want to see me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Joyce, I—”

“You need to be there, Nick. To help him through this.”

“I won’t know what to say to him. I’m no good at this. You know that.”

“Just put your arms around him, Nick, and let him know you’re there for him. That’s all he’s ever wanted.”

She and Tony were only a few blocks away, she said, no more than a minute or two. Before Nick could respond, she ended the call.

He found a brush and carefully brushed Dom’s hair. He sat again, studying Dom’s deeply lined face, thinking about how much had needed saying that would never be said, how much they’d lost that they’d never get back. Then he rose, kissed Dom on the forehead, and stepped from the room.

Down the corridor, a bell rang softly as an elevator reached the fifth floor. Joyce stepped out first, Tony a moment later. As he turned toward his grandfather’s room, he saw Nick standing by the door. He could see that Nick was crying, and he started crying too. Then he was running, into his father’s arms.

Copyright © 2010 John Morgan Wilson

Content

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 2. Whole No. 822, February 2010

Fear No More by Peter Tremayne

A Dark Reunion by Kate Ellis

The Adventure of the Scarlet Thorn by Paul W. Nash

Family Values by Robert Barnard

Heard at One Remove by Nagaoka Hiroki

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man by Evan Lewis

Boxcar by Nancy Means Wright

Burglarproof by Bill Pronzini

The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen

The Camera Never Lies by John Morgan Wilson