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

His manner, however, was charged with an abundant and vital confidence, and there was a haughty, imperious quality in his high, thin voice which hinted that there was much more to Mr Zyyzk than met the eye.

“I issued distinct orders,” he told Gavigan in an icy tone, “that I was never, under any circumstances, to be disturbed between the sidereal hours of five and seven post-meridian. You know that quite well, Inspector. Explain why these idiots have disobeyed. At once!”

If there is any quicker way of bringing an inspector of police to a boil, I don’t know what it is. The look Gavigan gave the little man would have wrecked a Geiger counter. He opened his mouth. But the searing blast of flame which I expected didn’t issue forth. He closed his mouth and swallowed. The Inspector was speechless.

Zyyzk calmly threw more fuel on the fire. “Well,” he said impatiently tapping his foot. “I’m waiting.”

A subterranean rumble began deep in Gavigan’s interior and then, a split second before he blew his top, Merlini said quietly, “I understand, Mr Zyyzk, that you read minds?.

Zyyzk, still the Imperial Roman Emperor, gave Merlini a scathing look. “I do,” he said. “And what of it?”

“For a mind-reader,” Merlini told him, “you ask a lot of questions. I should think you’d know why you’ve been brought here.”

That didn’t bother the visitor from Outer Space. He stared intently at Merlini for a second, glanced once at Gavigan, then closed his eyes. The fingertips of one white hand pressed against his brow. Then he smiled.

“I see. Judge Keeler.”

“Keeler?” Gavigan pretended surprise. “What about him?”

Zyyzk wasn’t fooled. He shook his head. “Don’t try to deceive me, Inspector. It’s childish. The Judge has vanished. Into the Outer Darkness – as I foretold.” He grinned broadly. “You will, of course, release me now.”

“I’ll – I’ll what? ”

Zyyzk spread his hands. “You have no choice. Not unless you want to admit that I could sit in a police cell surrounded on all sides by steel bars and cause Judge Keeler to vanish off the face of the earth by will power alone. Since that, to your limited, earthly intelligence, is impossible, I have an impregnable alibi. Good day, Inspector.”

The little man actually started to walk off. The detectives who stood on either side were so dazed by his treatment of the Inspector that Zyyzk had gone six feet before they came to life again and grabbed him.

Whether the strange powers he claimed were real or not, his ability to render Gavigan speechless was certainly uncanny. The Inspector’s mouth opened, but again nothing came out.

Merlini said, “You admit then that you are responsible for the Judge’s disappearance?”

Zyyzk, still grinning, shook his head. “I predicted it. Beyond that I admit nothing.”

“But you know how he vanished?”

The little man shrugged. “In the usual way, naturally. Only an adept of the seventh order would understand.”

Merlini suddenly snapped his fingers and plucked a shiny silver dollar from thin air. He dropped it into his left hand, closed his fingers over it and held his fist out toward Zyyzk. “Perhaps Judge Keeler vanished – like this.” Slowly he opened his fingers. The coin was gone.

For the first time a faint crack appeared in the polished surface of Zyyzk’s composure. He blinked. “Who,” he asked slowly, “are you?”

“An adept,” Merlini said solemnly, “of the eighth order. One who is not yet satisfied that you are what you claim to be.” He snapped his fingers again, almost under Zyyzk’s nose, and the silver dollar reappeared. He offered it to Zyyzk. “A test,” he said. “Let me see you send that back into the Outer Darkness from which I summoned it.”

Zyyzk no longer grinned. He scowled and his eyes were hard. “It will go,” he said, lifting his hand and rapidly tracing a cabalistic figure in the air. “And you with it!”

“Soon?” Merlini asked.

“Very soon. Before the hour of nine strikes again you will appear before the Lords of the Outer Darkness in far Antares. And there-”

Gavigan had had enough. He passed a miracle of his own. He pointed a cabalistic but slightly shaking finger at the little man and roared an incantation that had instant effect.

“ Get him out of here !”

In the small space of time that it took them to hurry down the corridor and around a corner, Zyyzk and the two detectives who held him both vanished.

Gavigan turned on Merlini. “Isn’t one lunatic enough without you acting like one, too?”

The magician grinned. “Keep your eyes on me, Inspector. If I vanish, as predicted, you may see how Keeler did it. If I don’t, Zyyzk is on the spot and he may begin to make more sense.”

“That,” Gavigan growled, “is impossible.”

Zyyzk, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t the only thing that made no sense. The Inspector’s men turned Grand Central station inside out and the only trace of Judge Keeler to be found were the smashed spectacles on the floor of that phone booth. Gavigan was so completely at a loss that he could think of nothing else to do but order the search made again.

Merlini, as far as I could tell, didn’t seem to have any better ideas. He leaned against the wall opposite the phone booth and scowled darkly at its empty interior. Malloy and Hicks looked so tired and dispirited that Gavigan told them both to go home and sleep it off. An hour later, when the second search had proved as fruitless as the first, Gavigan suddenly told Lieutenant Doran to take over, turned, and started to march off.

Then Merlini woke up. “Inspector,” he asked, “where are you going?”

Gavigan turned, scowling. “Anywhere,” he said, “where I don’t have to look at telephone booths. Do you have any suggestions?”

Merlini moved forward. “One, yes. Let’s eat.”

Gavigan didn’t look as if he could keep anything in his stomach stronger than weak chicken broth, but he nodded absently. We got into Gavigan’s car and Brady drove us crosstown, stopping, at Merlini’s direction, in front of the Williston building.

The Inspector objected, “There aren’t any decent restaurants in this neighbourhood. Why-”

“Don’t argue,” Merlini said as he got out. “If Zyyzk’s latest prediction comes off, this will be my last meal on earth. I want to eat here. Come on.” He crossed the pavement toward a flashing green and purple neon sign that blinked: Johnson ’ s Cafeteria. Open All Night.

Merlini was suddenly acting almost as strangely as Zyyzk. I knew very well that this wasn’t the sort of place he’d pick for his last meal and, although he claimed to be hungry, I noticed that all he put on his tray was crackers and a bowl of soup. Pea soup at that – something he heartily disliked.

Then, instead of going to a table off in a corner where we could talk, he chose one right in the centre of the room. He even selected our places for us. “You sit there, Inspector. You there, Ross. And excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back.” With that he turned, crossed to the street door through which we had come, and vanished through it.

“I think,” I told Gavigan, “that he’s got a bee in his bonnet.”

The Inspector grunted. “You mean bats. In his belfry.” He gave the veal cutlet on his plate a glum look.

Merlini was gone perhaps five minutes. When he returned, he made no move to sit down. He leaned over the table and asked, “Either of you got a nickel?”

I found one and handed it to him. Suspiciously, Gavigan said, “I thought you wanted to eat?”

“I must make a phone call first,” the magician answered. “And with Zyyzk’s prediction hanging over me, I’d just as soon you both watched me do it. Look out the window behind me, watch that empty booth – the second from the right. And keep your eyes on it every second.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “If I’m not back here in exactly three minutes, you’d better investigate.”