Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“Don’t blame the dog,” I said. “You can’t expect these so called lower animals to understand murder. That takes the higher intelligence; the same that invented it. But Wheeler must be our man; as you saw, he’s an expert on all those medieval weapons. Now that I think of it, he didn’t demonstrate or even discuss the crossbow. That’s pretty significant.”

“I’ve no doubt that’s the way it happened,” Ader said. “Now to prove it to a jury.”

“That won’t be easy,” I said. “Except for the grooves for the bow-string, and the teeth marks on the stick, there isn’t any evidence to impress laymen. I can’t prove the stick was actually fired. Maybe we haven’t helped Larry very much, even now.”

“Don’t you believe it,” was the grim reply. “I know just how to break Wheeler down. The oldest trick in the game. He’ll get an anonymous phone call tonight. Somebody will describe the main points of the murder, claiming to be an eye-witness, and demanding a pay-off. If Wheeler’s guilty, and I’ve no doubt about that, he’ll want to meet that Mr X very badly, either to bribe or kill him. We’ll have him cold, with witnesses. But first, we’ll have to see that the housekeeper doesn’t spill the beans. Luckily, Gustavus Adolphus can’t talk.”

“Don’t say that. If he could talk, our job would have been a lot easier.”

Well, as Ader promised, the trap worked. I can see why. A murderer is full of fears generally, and the worst of them is an eyewitness to the crime.

Dana says that she and Larry will name their first boy after me. I suggested Gustavus Adolphus instead. Although he was an accomplice, he finally testified for the defense, making our case solid.

Although Richard Lupoff (b. 1935) is most closely associated with the field of science fiction, in which he is an acknowledged expert on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, his overall output shows that he is a writer who refuses to stay tied down. He has produced a bewildering assortment of fiction from oriental fantasies (Sword of the Demon, 1978), to steampunk (Into the Aether, 1974), to horror (Lovecraft’s Book, 1988) and, of course, to mystery, with The Comic Book Killer (1988) and others. In my previous locked-room anthology, I included Dick’s story “The Second Drug”, featuring detectives Chase and Delacroix. That story, along with several others featuring the two sleuths, may now be found in his forthcoming collection , Quintet. The following includes another of Dick’s detectives, Nick Train, and takes as its setting a place very familiar to the author, as it’s where he undertook his army training back in 1954.

Private Nicholas Train was sitting on his bunk polishing his combat boots, wondering if he hadn’t made a mistake when he passed up the chance for an exemption. They considered cops essential, the Selective Service Board did, and he could have filed papers and stayed out of the draft, stayed safely at home. Pounding a beat in Brooklyn wasn’t exactly cherry duty, but it beat the hell out of getting shot at by the krauts or the nips and maybe coming home with some pieces missing, or maybe in a box.

But, what the hell, he hadn’t liked Hitler from the start, and when his Chinese girlfriend asked him to take her to Mott Street for roast duck lo mein and he’d got an earful from her about what was going on in China he decided that the nips were no better than the Nazis.

Pearl Harbor was the last straw. He was ready to sign up the next morning but there would have been nobody to take care of his mother so he kept pounding his beat, mooning around the house when he was off duty, and taking his Chinese girlfriend to Mott Street whenever she asked him to.

Then, almost a year after Pearl Harbor, Mom died. The day after the funeral Train had dressed in civvies, put in his papers at the precinct and signed up for the United States Army.

And here he was halfway through Basic, sitting on his bed polishing his boots. Somebody had brought a portable radio into the barracks and they were playing Christmas music. A couple of guys were writing letters home. There was a lazy poker game going on, the cards smacking down and coins rattling on a foot locker. And Private Aaron Hirsch was sitting on his bunk crying.

“What’s the matter with you, Jewboy?” That was Private Joseph Francis Xavier Schulte, former altar boy, former star fullback of St Aloysius’s Academy, designated barracks anti-Semite. “You got no right to cry at Christmas carols, you Christ-killer.”

Hirsch jumped up. His face turned the same color as his crinkled red hair. “Shut the hell up, Saint. What I do is my business.”

“Oh, listen to the little kike. Ain’t you tough, Hirsch? You want some of what I gave that Jewboy halfback from Maimonides? I put that bastard in the hospital, in case you don’t remember.”

“Cut it out!”

Ah, the voice of authority. The soldier standing in the doorway wore two chevrons on his winter OD’s. His olive drab uniform was neatly pressed. In it he looked like a military fashion plate compared to the trainees in their baggy fatigues. He wore a brassard around one sleeve, designating him as the corporal of the guard.

“Hey, Pops!” He pointed a finger at Train. “Grab your piece and report to the company office. Captain Coughlin wants to see you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Captain Coffin?”

“Very funny. Don’t let him hear you call him that.”

“What’s he want me for?” This had to be something serious. If it wasn’t, Corporal Bowden would have handled it himself, or at most Sergeant Dillard. The company first sergeant was as close to God as they ever saw, most days. Officers were some kind of exotic creatures who kept to themselves and spoke to the GIs only through sergeants and corporals.

“Christ, Pops, how the hell do I know?” Bowden took a few steps and clicked the portable radio into silence. “Hey, it’s Saturday morning. You guys get a few hours off to polish your gear and get your letters written. What’s this?”

He picked up the playing cards and the cash that was laid out on a foot locker between two cots. “You guys know there’s no gambling allowed in the barracks. And it’s payday. How do you have any mazuma left to play for? Now I have to confiscate this evidence.” He stuffed the cards in one pocket and the money in another. “I don’t know, I don’t know, how are we ever going to make soldiers out of you sad sacks?”

Nick Train had shoved his feet into his boots and tucked his fatigue jacket into his trousers. “Coughlin really wants to see me, Bowden?”

“No, I’m just trying to ruin your Saturday. Of course he wants to see you.”

“No idea why?”

“Nope.”

Train smoothed out the blankets on his bunk, took his Garrand rifle down from the rack near the barracks door and headed out into the wintry Georgia air. For a December morning the day wasn’t too cold, certainly no colder than Train was used to in Brooklyn. The sky was clear and sparkling and the sun was a brilliant disk. There were a few patches of snow still on the ground. The last snowfall had been three days ago. Train held his rifle at port arms and quick-timed across the company area toward the office.

The building behind him was new construction, whitewashed wooden walls under a green tar-paper roof. It would probably be hot as blazes in the summer but he wouldn’t know that. It was definitely freezing cold in the winter.

First Sergeant Dillard was working at his desk in the company office. He looked up when Train arrived, then back at his paperwork. He didn’t say anything, didn’t indicate why Train had been summoned.