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

Bugler nodded. “But it was actually Bertrand going into Lenny’s house the night after the murder, right? He says so, anyway.”

“Right,” McGrath confirmed, picking his teeth. “He was planting that diamond ring to really tie Lenny into the jewelry heist. He never even saw the body – just heard the water running and assumed Lenny was taking a shower. That two man limping oddity, along with the ‘dead’ Lenny going shopping mystery, of course, is what made us realize there was a frame going on-in this case, a double frame.”

Bugler gave her head a shake. “Instead of working together, like good twins should, they were working at cross-purposes – and didn’t even know it.”

Pinero nodded, belched. He interlaced his fingers behind his head and propped his feet up on his desk, almost toppled over backwards. “Yup. They were going to fix The Rat for what he did to them-each in their own way – so why not kill two jailbirds with one stone by framing each other for their crimes at the same time?”

Bugler let out a sigh. “Well, thank goodness that unlike the Kolvins, you two work so well together.”

McGrath spluttered Java. Pinero untangled hands and feet and shot upright. “Huh!?” they gaped.

“So well, in fact,” Bugler continued, smiling, “that I’ve canceled your transfer out of Homicide, Detective Pinero. This is one pairing that’s just too valuable to split up.”

The legendary Indian Rope Trick is such an obvious choice for an impossible mystery that I’m surprised it hasn’t been used scores of times. In fact, I’m only aware of this one story which in itself has been tucked away in the pages of the London Mystery Magazine for over fifty years and never reprinted.

I have been unable to trace much information about John Basye Price, who was born in 1906. He followed in his father’s footsteps in his interest in zoology and was for many years a biologist and science teacher at Leland Stanford University. He published several learned papers on his chosen subject, but just once or twice dabbled with mystery fiction, of which this is a particularly cunning example.

On the plane en route to Central America my uncle and I paused for a moment, then lowering our voices we resumed our conversation.

“But, Uncle Edward,” I asked, “what can this Dr Marlin hope to gain from all this? He must know he can’t do what he claims.”

“He sounds like a monomaniac with delusions of grandeur, who may become violent when his demonstration fails,” my uncle replied. “That’s one reason I asked you to come with me.”

“One reason?”

“Yes, Jimmy, the other is I need someone I can trust-absolutely.”

Filled with curiosity at the summons from my uncle, Mr Edward Dobbs, Chairman of Western University’s Board of Trustees, I had joined him at the airport, but we had no time for conversation until we were in the plane and on our way.

Then at last I asked my uncle what it was all about. In reply he handed me a newspaper clipping, and I read:

“CAN DO INDIAN ROPE

TRICK,” SAYS SAVANT

LAYS CLAIM TO $500,000

REWARD

San Francisco, July 6 – It was announced at Western University today that an attempt to claim the $500,000 reward offered by the late Richard Welton to anyone who can perform the Indian Rope Trick will be made in the Republic of Del Rio. The claimant is a Dr Clive Marlin, self-styled student of the occult, who has resided in Central America for a number of years.

Richard Welton, who died three years ago, provided in his will that the reward could be claimed outside the United States in some country which had no income tax.

Mr Welton, a life-long student of spiritualism, considered that a successful performance of the Indian Rope Trick under test conditions would be an absolute proof of the genuineness of psychic phenomena, as even Houdini-exposer of many fraudulent mediums-never attempted it.

As often described, but never by an eye witness, the “Indian Rope Trick” is supposed to be a demonstration of mind over matter. The yogi causes a rope to rise in the air by supra-normal means; then a boy climbs to the top of the rope and vanishes, to be rematerialized a mile or more away.

Harry Price, the English expert, once offered a similar reward for anyone who could perform the trick, but no one ever tried to claim it. But Mr Welton thought that a much larger reward might be more effective.

I put the clipping down. “Welton must have been crazy,” I said.

“The courts said not, Jimmy… He was eccentric-no doubt of that – but still legally sane.”

“But how does this concern us?”

“Directly, Jimmy. Mr Welton left two million dollars to Western University, but on the condition that we administer this $500,000 fund. I, myself, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, have the sole discretion to grant or withold the reward to any claimant.”

“So that’s why we’re going to Del Rio?” I said.

“Yes. It’s all nonsense, of course, but under the terms of the trust I have to make this trip. Crazy or not, Dr Marlin has the right to attempt his demonstration.”

A thought came to me. “This Dr Marlin may be sane but crooked,” I said. “Not knowing you, he may try to bribe you with part of the reward to give a false report on the test.”

“No, Jimmy, if he had that in mind, he would have tried it before he put up the thousand-dollar forfeit. The will requires one to keep the University from being bothered by cranks.”

I smiled to myself at the idea of anyone trying to offer my uncle a bribe. A slight man in early middle-age, partly bald with a fringe of dark curly hair, he had keen blue eyes that usually managed to see everything going on. By profession he was a geologist, who might have made a fortune in mining but who preferred to retire on a moderate income to devote himself to scientific studies and to his duties at Western University as Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

“No doubt you’re right,” I said; “but why has Dr Marlin stipulated that only two persons watch his demonstration?”

“He says that more might set up too many conflicting thought waves and make his success more difficult.”

“I wonder,” I said. “He may be an expert magician who thinks he can deceive two persons easier than a crowd.”

“I doubt it, Jimmy, If even Houdini couldn’t work the rope trick, I don’t think this Dr Marlin can.”

The next morning my uncle and I left the American Consulate in Del Rio City, and in a hired car drove for half an hour along a desolate coast to Dr Marlin’s coffee finca (plantation). The house was on a slight rise near a secluded bay with a small island about two miles off-shore. At hand was a wharf with a motor-boat moored to it. Dr Marlin’s house, to my surprise, was a white two-storied mansion suggesting the Southern United States rather than Central America.

As our car pulled up, we saw three figures awaiting us on the veranda. One, slightly in the lead, a European wearing a white linen suit, stepped forward and introduced himself as the claimant, Dr Clive Marlin. I looked at him with interest mixed with apprehension, but his manner was perfectly normal. He was a tall, distinguished-looking man of about fifty with thick iron-grey hair and a clipped moustache. A monocle was in his right eye, and his speech was apparently that of a cultured Englishman. But I thought I noticed just a trace of some foreign accent.

After a few words to us, Dr Marlin beckoned the other two forward and presented them as his assistants, Mustapha and his son Ali. My uncle and I spoke to them in Spanish, but the two only bowed and Dr Marlin explained that they only understood Hindustani.