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

“Sheer waste of time an’ tissue. On the face of it, this Gerald Park never had a chance o’ doing anything to his uncle, even if he wanted to. There never was a case in it…”

“I don’t know… I feel…” Paul Toft muttered, and at that ominous “Kill,” we swung on him – and gaped. He had not uncoiled his lank limbs, but his left hand was churning away at a soft piece of india-rubber, that unmistakable sign that his queer mind had sensed crime.

“But – but you can’t feel,” Grimes protested. “Everything’s against foul play. There’s no hint of wound or bruise on the body, for instance, an’ there couldn’t be. Gerald never went within fifteen feet of his uncle. An’ that taxi-driver, who was watching him all the time, saw nothing suspicious.”

“Yes, that taxi-odd,” Paul Toft’s great domed forehead frowned. “Less than ten minutes’ walk from the station – yet this youngster, though he’s financially on the rocks, took a taxi… Queer extravagance, eh?”

“No! Just the sort o’ fool thing his sort does,” Grimes was curtly brushing the suggestion away, when I found myself blurting with that strange impulse that is so often helpful to Toft’s curious gift:

“That driver made a very useful witness, though. Only one who could, with those trees screening the carriage-way. That might be a reason for taking a taxi… And doesn’t he seem to have made the most of it? I mean leaving the front door open and so forth.”

“That’s been explained,” Grimes began, but Toft flashed at me the smile that always tells I have given him a lead, and nodded.

“Ah, Doctor, you always touch the point… You’re right. There’s a certain overemphasis… His strange keeping away from his uncle, for instance… He let the taxi-driver and Mrs Ferris do everything while he stood afar off. Seems a bit over-done-pointed…”

“Yes,” I agreed, “as though he was definitely trying to create the impression that he could not possibly have had anything to do with his uncle’s death.”

“What – you mean you think he had ?” Grimes cried.

“I feel – yes, I feel that murder was done here,” Paul Toft said with his most dreamy conviction.

We stared at him. When Paul Toft talked like that we no longer scoffed, he’d proved those extraordinary “feelings” of his too often. But even I could not feel quite convinced. If ever there was a case when the whole mass of the evidence made murder seem quite impossible, this was it. In fact, Grimes all but bellowed:

“How in the name o’ Job did he do it then? Look, the old man was in this chair, by the fireplace. Gerald stood in the door there, fifteen feet away. He was under observation all the time. He simply couldn’t ha’ done a thing, or raised a hand without the taxi-man knowing all about it. How then? Did he mesmerise the old chap to death-or what?”

Even Toft had no answer to that. On the face of it, it was quite impossible for Gerald Park to have struck his uncle down. Unless, as I said: “He shot him from the doorway.”

Directly I spoke I knew I’d said a foolish thing. Though Toft looked at me sharply, Grimes let go a savage bark. “Funny how we’ve all overlooked the loud report of a pistol. A darn loud report, get me, seeing it was fired inside the house. I wonder why the taxi-driver forgot to mention hearing a little thing like that… aye, an’ seeing Gerald using his pistol.”

I wanted to kick myself for blurting without thinking. Not only would it have been impossible for the taxi-man to miss such pistol play, Mrs Ferris must have heard the report too. Crestfallen, then, I was surprised when Toft unlimbered his reedy limbs, and, ignoring Grimes’ “What the devil -?” crossed to the door to call the taxi-man into the room again.

But even the suggestion of hope that brought proved vain. The taxi-man was as contemptuous of the pistol idea as Grimes.

“A pistol? Not a chance,” he said emphatically. “I tell you I had my eyes on Gerald all the time… Expecting fireworks when his uncle saw him, you see. He couldn’t ha’ used a pistol without my seeing-let alone me hearing.”

“That’s sure-you heard nothing?” Grimes insisted.

“Not a thing-an’ I know what pistols sound like, too.”

“He might have been using one with a silencer,” I put in. “You say he called out loudly to his uncle…”

“He did, sir. But that made no manner o’ difference. I mean, I’m ready to swear there wasn’t even the ghost of another noise.”

“Your engine was still running though,” Toft put in.

“Maybe,” the man shrugged. “But that wouldn’t make any difference. We get so used to it we hear other sounds agin it – and I’d have heard even a silencer… An’ then, as I say, I was watching him close. He didn’t make the motions like shooting. Just stood still an’ stiff all the time.”

“How can you be so sure?” I objected. “Can you remember exactly how he stood?”

“Well, I can then,” the man snapped. “He stood practically half out o’ that sitting-room door all the time. His hand was holding it open by the knob all the time… the nearest hand that’d be, the left. His right hand was in his pocket. His arm never lifted or moved or anything-no, not even up to when I shoved him aside to go in to his uncle.”

“But that means his right hand was hidden from you by his body,” I fill muttered. “I’ve heard of people shooting from their pockets…”

Grimes cut in: “You say Gerald took off his coat to put under his uncle’s head – were you able to see if there was a pistol in its pocket, or anywhere on him?”

“There wasn’t, sir,” the taxi-man declared. “I’m certain of that. I’ll tell you why: I noticed how ragged the lining of that coat was, thinking what a come-down it was for a chap like him. It was so ragged that I couldn’t ha’ missed seeing a pistol poking out or bulging. Another thing. It was me he handed the coat to before Mrs Ferris told him to get a cushion-an’ from the weight o’ that coat, there couldn’t have been a pistol in it.”

That seemed conclusive enough, yet Paul Toft muttered: “Odd bit of by-play, that coat business… as though it were part of a thought-up alibi…”

We did not pay much attention to him. The pistol theory was destroyed, especially as the taxi-man went on:

“An’ it’s all stuff, anyhow. As if I didn’t know what bullets do to people… I saw plenty enough in the War. An’ there was no sign o’ wound on poor old Mr Stanley.”

That clinched the matter, as it were, but it also reminded me that it was about time I took a look at the dead man. The body had been taken into the sitting-room behind the one we were in, and as I examined it the thought of foul play receded farther and farther from my mind. There was simply no sign of wound or violence. I pointed this out to Paul Toft, who stood brooding over me as I worked.

“Eh? Nothing there, Doctor?” he muttered, coming out of his medium’s trance… “Nothing that would show, no… I feel that’s it… Something that was sure not to show… How?” He examined the body. “Hair, maybe… Hair still thick and black…”

“It couldn’t hide a bullet wound,” I said.

“No… no, not a bullet wound, but… How would he have stood as Gerald came into the door? Left front to Gerald, eh…? Shave the head on the left side, please, Doctor…”

I did this, not with much hope, but rather because I was always peculiarly under the spell of this strange, lank man’s strange powers. The more of the surface of the skull I uncovered the more pessimistic I became-until Toft’s bony finger prodded forward and he muttered:

“What do you make of that, Doctor?”