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

Train took one more, confirming look at the splintered wood and the adjacent plasterboard. The whitewash was recent enough to show traces of fingers dragging vertically on the door-jamb, then sliding horizontally onto the plasterboard.

Returning to the corpse, Train knelt and examined the two cold hands, first one and then the other. As he’d already noted, the fingertips were white. He lifted them and sniffed. There was whitewash on them.

He studied the wound on the side of Miller’s head, feeling through the bloodied hair to try and determine whether the skull was damaged. It didn’t seem to be. He scuttled across the linoleum and returned with his rifle. He stood over the body, holding the weapon so that its butt-plate was adjacent to the wound. He walked around the body and tried again, from behind.

It didn’t fit. Miller had been hit with something smaller than a rifle butt.

Train studied the safe. He wasn’t an expert safe man, he didn’t know very much about locks, but there was no evidence that the safe had been forced or blown open. If it had been, there would surely have been some reaction to the blast. Who had the combination of the safe? He’d have to find out.

In any case, Sergeant Dillard had tried to rouse Miller shortly before 0555 hours and failed to do so. He had a key to the outer lock and presumably used it – something else to check on-only to be stymied by the fact that the inner lock was dogged.

Captain Coughlin, Lieutenant McWilliams, and Sergeant Dillard all had keys to the outer lock. Only Miller had a key to the inner lock. Where was it? The lock itself was in Captain Coughlin’s office, still attached to its hasp and the splintered wood that the hasp had been screwed to. But where was the key? Train searched Miller’s pockets but failed to find it. The room was not brightly lighted, but Train searched anyway, going to his hands and knees and covering every square inch of floor.

The key turned up in the last place he looked – of course – a darkened corner of the room five or six feet away from the door.

Train stood up, squeezing the padlock key as if it could tell him what had happened. It couldn’t, but he was convinced that the contents of the room could, if only he asked them the right questions.

Once again he studied the damage to Miller’s head. He was convinced that was not the cause of death. Eventually the Provost Marshal’s people or the Quartermaster’s people would come and take away the body, and the Medics would perform an autopsy and pronounce cause of death, and Miller’s parents would get a telegram from the Secretary of War and they would go out and buy a service flag with a gold star to hang in their window in place of the one with the blue star that Train was sure hung there now.

But he didn’t want to wait.

He knelt in front of the corpse and studied its face. He leaned forward and smelled Miller’s nostrils and his mouth but detected no odor. The features were relaxed in death. There was no rictus. He stood up and placed himself behind the wicker chair and tried to imagine Miller’s last minutes.

Someone had struck Miller high on the skull on his left side. The blow didn’t look serious enough to cause unconsciousness no less death. Who had struck Miller? Who could get into the safe room once it was locked from both inside and out? Only Captain Coughlin, Lieutenant McWilliams, or First Sergeant Dillard, and then only if Miller let them in by opening the inside lock.

He heard voices from the outer office and a moment later Captain Coughlin invited him to join him.

Lieutenant McWilliams was standing in front of Captain Coughlin’s desk. There was a tray on the desk, with a steaming pot and three cups. First Sergeant Dillard stood nearby looking uncomfortable.

Captain Coughlin addressed Train. “Come in, soldier. Pour yourself a cup of java.”

McWilliams, uniform pressed and buttons polished, was red-faced, his jaw clenched. With an obvious effort he said, “Sir, I must protest. This soldier – there are only three cups-it’s a violation of protocol-”

Coughlin waved his hand. “We’ll make do somehow, Lieutenant.”

McWilliams drew himself up, suddenly taller than he’d been. “If the Captain will excuse me, sir, I have to return to my duties.”

Coughlin signaled Sergeant Dillard to approach. “What’s today’s schedule, Sergeant?”

“We’ve been pushing the trainees pretty hard, sir. They have the morning off, then grenade drill this afternoon.”

“Good.”

“And, Captain-it’s payday, sir. The men expect to be paid today.”

“All right.” Captain Coughlin swung around in his chair and raised his eyes. It was impossible to tell whose picture he was consulting: President Roosevelt’s, General Pershing’s, General Marshall’s, or Douglas MacArthur’s. Or possibly, Nick Train thought, he was communing his own younger self, the bright young soldier who went to France to whip the Kaiser.

Coughlin swung back to face the others. “McWilliams, Dillard, here’s what I want. Lieutenant, find yourself a swagger stick.”

“I have one, sir.”

“I expected as much. All right. And, Sergeant, grab a clipboard. I want the two of you to inspect the trainees’ barracks. I want you to find at least a dozen gigs. I don’t care how hard you have to poke around to find ’em. If they’re not there, make some up.”

Lieutenant McWilliams’s anger was clearly turning to pleasure. Sergeant Dillard kept a straight face. Nick Train made a supreme effort to become invisible.

Captain Coughlin leaned back in his chair and drew in his breath audibly. “Go slow. Keep those trainees braced. When you finish, you get out of there, McWilliams. Sergeant, you tell those trainees they’re confined to barracks except for meals and training exercises. They’ll have a GI party tonight. The works. Swamp out the barracks, polish the plumbing, climb up in the rafters and get the dust out. They have a barracks leader, do they?”

Sergeant Dillard said, “Schulte, sir. Saint Schulte, they call him.”

“All right. You tell him that he’s responsible for supervising the party. When the barracks is ready for reinspection, he’s to notify you. You’ll bring Lieutenant McWilliams back in and reinspect.”

“Yes, sir,” Dillard grinned.

“And tell ’em that we’re holding onto their pay for them, they’ll be paid as soon as they pass reinspection.” He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a guffaw. “That’s all. Lieutenant, Sergeant.”

They saluted and left.

“Well, Private Train, what do you think?” the Captain asked.

“I think I have an idea, sir.”

“All right, soldier, what is it?”

“May I take this with me?” He filled one of the cups on the tray Lieutenant McWilliams had brought back, then held it up.

“All right.”

Train took the cup with him, back into the safe room. He placed it carefully on top of the safe, beside the cup that had been there when he first entered the room. He studied the cups. They were identical. Of course that didn’t prove much. But there was a small Infantry School crest on each of them. That meant that they came from either the Officers Club or the NCO Club, not the mess hall, despite the instructions that Coughlin had given McWilliams.

He sniffed the coffee in the cup he’d brought, then bent over the other cup. Being careful not to touch the cup or its contents, he tried to detect an odor coming from it, but without success. Even so, he thought, even so, he was making progress.

He’d been attempting to recreate Corporal Miller’s actions when Lieutenant McWilliams had arrived. Now he resumed that effort. He squatted beside Miller’s wicker chair and reached for his coffee cup, the cup that was resting on top of the safe. He lifted the cup, sipped at the coffee, lowered the cup once more and pushed himself erect.