Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

Climbing from the car, Chase carefully folded his lap robe and placed it on the seat. He turned up the collar of his warm overcoat, drew a pair of heavy gloves from a pocket and donned them. Together, he and Claire Delacroix crossed to a wooden shed built out over the bay. Chase drew keys from his trouser pocket, opened a heavy lock, and permitted Claire to enter before him. They descended into a powerful motor boat. Chase started the engine and they roared from the shed, heading toward the San Francisco Embarcadero. The ferries had stopped running for the night. Tramp steamers and great commercial freighters stood at anchor in the bay. The powerboat wove among them trailing an icy, greenish-white wake.

Steering the boat with firm assurance, Chase gave his assistant a few more details. “Baxter is at the Salamanca Theatre on Geary. There’s a touring company doing a revival of some Broadway melodrama of a few years back. Apparently the leading man failed to emerge from his dressing room for the third act, and the manager called the police.”

Claire Delacroix shook her head, puzzled. She had drawn a silken scarf over her platinum hair, and its tips were whipped by the night wind as their boat sped across the bay. “Sounds to me like a medical problem more than a crime. Or maybe he’s just being temperamental. You know those people in the arts.”

Chase held his silence briefly, then grunted. “So thought the manager until the door was removed from its hinges. The actor was seated before his mirror, stone dead.” There was a note of irony in his soft voice.

“And is that why we are ploughing through a pitch black night in the middle of winter?” she persisted.

“The death of Count Hunyadi is not a normal one, Delacroix.”

Now Claire Delacroix smiled. It was one of Abel Chase’s habits to drop bits of information into conversations in this manner. If the listener was sufficiently alert she would pick them up. Otherwise, they would pass unnoted.

“Imre Hunyadi, the Hungarian matinee idol?”

“Or the Hungarian ham,” Chase furnished wryly. “Impoverished petty nobility are a dime a dozen nowadays. If he was ever a count to start with.”

“This begins to sound more interesting, Abel. But what is this about a vampire that makes this a case for no less than the great Akhenaton Beelzebub Chase rather than the San Francisco Police Department?”

“Ah, your question is as ever to the point. Aside from the seemingly supernatural nature of Count Hunyadi’s demise, of course. The manager of the Salamanca Theatre states that Hunyadi has received a series of threats. He relayed this information to Captain Baxter, and Baxter to me.”

“Notes?”

“Notes – and worse. Captain Baxter states that a dead rodent was placed on his dressing table two nights ago. And finally a copy of his obituary.”

“Why didn’t he call the police and ask for protection?”

“We shall ask our questions when we reach the scene of the crime, Delacroix.”

Chase pulled the powerboat alongside a private wharf flanking the San Francisco Ferry Building. A uniformed police officer waited to catch the line when Chase tossed it to him. The darkly-garbed Chase and the silver-clad Claire Delacroix climbed to the planking and thence into a closed police cruiser. A few snowflakes had settled upon their shoulders. Gong sounding, the cruiser pulled away and headed up Market Street, thence to Geary and the Salamanca Theatre, where Chase and Delacroix alighted.

They were confronted by a mob of well-dressed San Franciscans bustling from the theatre. The play had ended and, as with the younger crowd in Berkeley, the theatregoers grinned and exclaimed in surprise at the falling flakes. Few of the men and women, discussing their evening’s entertainment, hailing passing cabs or heading to nearby restaurants for post-theatrical suppers, took note of the two so-late arrivers.

A uniformed patrolman saluted Abel Chase and invited him and Claire Delacroix into the Salamanca. “Captain Baxter sends his compliments, Doctor.”

“Nice to see you, Officer Murray. How are your twins? No problems with croup this winter?”

Flustered, the officer managed to stammer, “No, sir, no problems this year. But how did you-?”

Before Murray could finish his question he was interrupted by a stocky, ruddy-complexioned individual in the elaborate uniform of a high-ranking police officer. The Captain strode forward, visibly favouring one leg. He was accompanied by a sallow-faced individual wearing a black tuxedo of almost new appearance.

“Major Chase,” the uniformed police official saluted.

Chase smiled and extended his own hand, which the Captain shook. “Clel. You know Miss Delacroix, of course.”

Claire Delacroix extended her hand and Captain Cleland Baxter shook it, lightly and briefly.

“And this is Mr Quince. Mr Walter Quince, wasn’t it, sir?”

Walter Quince extended his own hand to Chase, tilting his torso at a slight angle as he did so. The movement brought his hatless, brilliantined head close to Chase, who detected a cloying cosmetic scent. He shook Quince’s hand, then addressed himself to Baxter.

“Take me to the scene of the incident.”

Baxter led the Chase and Delacroix through the now-darkened Salamanca Theatre. Quince ran ahead and held aside a dark-coloured velvet curtain, opening the way for them into a narrow, dingy corridor. Abel Chase and Claire Delacroix followed Baxter into the passage, followed by Quince.

Shortly they stood outside a plain door. Another police officer, this one with sergeant’s chevrons on his uniform sleeve, stood guard.

“Hello, Costello,” Chase said. “How are your daughter and her husband doing these days?”

“Doctor.” The uniformed sergeant lifted a finger to the bill of his uniform cap. “They’ve moved in with the missus and me. Times are hard, sir.”

Chase nodded sympathetically.

“This is Count Hunyadi’s dressing room,” Quince explained, indicating the doorway behind Costello.

Chase asked, “I see that the door was removed from its hinges, and that Captain Baxter’s men have sealed the room. That is good. But why was it necessary to remove the hinges to open the door?”

“Locked, sir.”

“Don’t you have a key, man?”

“Count Hunyadi insisted on placing a padlock inside his dressing room. He was very emphatic about his privacy. No one was allowed in, even to clean, except under his direct supervision.”

Abel Chase consulted a gold-framed hexagonal wristwatch. “What time was the third act to start?”

“At 10:15, sir.”

“And when was Hunyadi called?”

“He got a give-minute and a two-minute call. He didn’t respond to either. I personally tried to summon him at curtain time but there was no response.”

Abel Chase frowned. “Did you then cancel the rest of the performance?”

“No, sir. Elbert Garrison, the director, ordered Mr Hunyadi’s understudy to take over the role.”

“And who was that fortunate individual?”

“Mr Winkle. Joseph Winkle. He plays the madman, Renfield, And Philo Jenkins, who plays a guard at the madhouse, became Renfield. It was my duty to take the stage and announce the changes. I made no mention of Count Hunyadi’s – illness. I merely gave the names of the understudies.”

“Very well. Before we proceed to examine the victim and his surroundings, I will need to see these so-called threatening notes.”

Captain Cleland Baxter cleared his throat. “Looks as if the Count was pretty upset by the notes. Everybody says he destroyed ’em all. He complained every time he got one but then he’d set a match to it.”

An angry expression swept across Chase’s features.

Baxter held up a hand placatingly. “But the latest – looks like the Count just received it tonight, Major – looks like he got riled up and crumpled the thing and threw it in the corner.”