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

“No,” I said smiling. “I’m looking to end one.”

Leaving Banks more confused than ever, I paid a brief visit to a local shop. After that I returned to the apartment where I spent the rest of the morning experimenting at the scene of the crime.

When the postcard slid through the mail slot at a little past twelve, I was ready and waiting. I didn’t bother to bend down and pick it up. I swung the door open instead, startling the mailman so much that he stumbled back, nearly losing his balance.

“Mr Winsor,” Drayton grinned. “I’m sorry but there’s nothing for you today.”

“That’s okay,” I told him. “I was wondering if you could mail this for me,” I asked, handing him a postcard.

“No problem,” he said eagerly. “I used to mail cards for the admiral all the time.”

“I know you did.”

He must have sensed something, either in my face or in the tone of my voice. “Now, what do you mean by that?” he asked quietly. He wasn’t grinning any more.

“I figured it all out last night. The whole thing started with the postcards, but I got side-tracked for a while, never realizing that the answer was right there under my nose.”

Drayton forced a smile. “You’re talking in riddles, Mr Winsor. I still can’t figure out what you’re trying to say.”

“You’re the perfect postman, right?”

“The best in the business,” Drayton agreed.

I shook my head. “When I asked you what I should do with the admiral’s mail, you listed several options, all of them dependent on the mail’s being delivered here. You never once mentioned the routine procedure of having the post office hold it or putting in a change of address that would have sent it directly to Penny’s next of kin. It would have been easier on both of us, but you never said a word. Because you wouldn’t have seen the postcards any more. After all that time on the sidelines, you were finally in the game. You just couldn’t bear to give it up, could you?”

“Are you accusing me of tampering with the U.S. mail?” Drayton bristled.

“I’m accusing you of reading some postcards,” I said softly. “The ones Penny gave you to mail for him and the ones you delivered from his friend, Charles. You’re a chess player yourself. It’s only natural that you’d become interested in a game, especially if it were a good one. I didn’t suspect you at first. But last night I realized that somebody else must be carrying on the game with Penny’s friend Charles. You were the only one besides me with access to all the incoming postcards. And since Penny was an elderly man who spent most of his time eavesdropping from behind the door, it seemed only logical that he’d give the outgoing cards to you to mail for him. It all came down to your being the one, the only person who could keep the chess game going after Penny’s death. Charles must be a worthy opponent,” I suggested. “Are you enjoying the game?”

“All right,” Drayton said with a sheepish grin. “You caught me at it. Charles Fairfield is a top-ranked player just like the admiral was. I couldn’t resist the challenge. After all these years of trying to second-guess them, I had to see if I could beat Fairfield myself.” The heavyset postman shrugged. “All I did was write a few postcards and sign Penny’s name to them. No harm in that, right?”

“No harm if the admiral hadn’t caught you reading the cards in the first place,” I corrected him. “These past few days I’ve learned just what kind of man he was. What you did was only a minor infraction of the rules. After all, postcards aren’t meant to be private. But Penny would have complained just the same, ruining your standing as the ‘perfect postman,’ spoiling your chance to be named mail carrier of the year. But first he would have let you dangle for a while, enjoying the prolonged agony. The sight of you sweating it out, never knowing exactly when your spotless reputation would be shattered beyond repair. He waited too long this time,” I said quietly. “Long enough for you to kill him.”

“Are you crazy?” Drayton sputtered. “Penny tripped on a rug behind a locked door. No way that could be murder.”

I shook my head. “There are a couple of ways, but I didn’t figure out the right one until last night.” I dug the little loop of nylon cord out of my pocket and held it out for Drayton to see. “I found this knotted through the rug. The rug Penny tripped on when he fractured his skull.” Involuntarily both of us glanced down at the faded Oriental. “At first I thought the loop was left over from a cleaners’ tag. But then I remembered Tom Banks’s comment that the cleaners had spent ‘all afternoon’ on them. They’d done the work right here. No reason to tag them if the rugs weren’t leaving the apartment.”

I prodded the nylon loop in my open palm. “I took this over to a sporting goods store this morning. The man in the fishing department identified it as a piece of deep sea fishing line, strong enough to withstand the pull of a fighting marlin. And I know you’re a fisherman. You told me as much yourself when you talked about not being able to afford a rod and reel from the Pitt catalogue.”

“What does that prove?” Drayton demanded. Behind his thick glasses his eyes had taken on a narrow, almost glowing intensity. Casually he slipped his mailbag off his shoulder and put it down on the floor. “It’s real interesting,” he said with a slow smile. “But it still doesn’t add up to murder.”

“Sure it does,” I insisted. “I spent a lot of time this morning standing on that little rug with the door closed. Right off I noticed how the rug gets bunched up from shifting your feet around. It gets pushed up against the door and a little edge of it gets shoved between the door and the bottom of the frame. Not much,” I emphasized. “Just enough to knot a line in it.”

“Go on,” Drayton prompted me. He was still smiling, but there was no pleasure at all in his voice.

“You must have done that part of it quietly,” I continued. “Keeping well below the sightline of the peephole. It would have been easy. Most of the tenants aren’t around this time of day. Then you make your normal appearance, dropping the mail through the slot. When you hear Penny picking it up, you hurry away. The other end of the line was secured to something heavy and tough. Your mailbag is my best guess. It’s perfect for the job. The sudden pull on the line yanks the rug against the door and Penny with it. It was a pretty sure bet that something like that would fracture an old man’s brittle skull. After you hear the crash, you just walk back and cut the line with scissors or a knife.”

“You mean a knife like this?” The short but lethal looking blade suddenly appeared in Drayton’s hand.

“Just like it,” I gulped.

“I thought he was my friend,” he continued with quiet intensity. “He used to meet me at the door every day. I’d hand him his mail and he’d give me the cards to post for him. Then one day he caught me reading one of Charles’s postcards. I guess he must have been suspecting it for a while. He wouldn’t open the door after that. He’d just stand on the other side and taunt me, telling me over and over again that everyone would find out that I really wasn’t perfect. I had to kill him. Don’t you see? I am perfect. The perfect postman!”

He lurched toward me, the blade upraised. As he crossed the doorstep and stepped onto the rug, I gave the line hidden in my hand a tug. His feet went flying out from under him. The knife fell from his hand. He cracked his head against the doorjamb and sagged to the floor, unconscious but still very much alive.

“Well, that’s one ghost laid to rest,” I said to myself. I reached behind a pile of boxes and switched off the tape recorder. Then I phoned the police.