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

“Tell me more,” Bishop suggested politely, as the trio remained silent.

It was Hamish who threw the first stone. “Why couldn’t someone have crept up from behind her? They could have added the poison, when Greta was watching us. She wouldn’t have noticed.”

“How about you, Tony?” Paul chimed in viciously. “You were nearest.”

Justin leapt on this convenient bandwagon. “Find out Paul was still hard at it, did you, Tony?”

Tony stared at them reproachfully. “Even if,” he said heavily, “I had any reason to wish harm to Greta, gentlemen, I was a good three feet away from the piano, I am a tall man, and I would have been visible in the light of the spot above her had I moved to poison my poor wife’s drink.” He sat down again, shaking with emotion. It looked genuine enough to Nick, and the facts were on Tony’s side.

“I would have seen you for a start,” Nick volunteered.

“You don’t think,” Bishop suggested mildly, “one of the two hundred ladies in the audience would have noticed too? Not one of them did.”

“Perhaps it was at the psychological moment.” Nick was suddenly inspired.

“What the hell’s that?” Paul grunted.

“When we showed our willies.” Hamish displayed his intellect. “Everyone’s eyes were riveted on us then. They wouldn’t have noticed anything else.”

“Ever taken an eye test?” Bishop smiled regretfully. “Most people have a field of vision that would be aware of some movement to the right or left, no matter what was going on. No murderer could take the risk of showing himself, spotlight or not. I fear the evidence so far suggests Mr Didier is right, that suicide is ruled out, and the poison could only have been added on stage.”

“Cheers, Nick,” Les said gratefully but prematurely.

“However,” Bishop beamed, “there is something none of you gentlemen seem to have considered, even you, Mr Didier.” Nick waited for the jaws to snap. “Poison isn’t a murderer’s manna, descending from the heavens. It has to come in something, whether it be a bottle for liquid or as in the case of cyanide, some form of box or wrapping for crystals.” Bishop sighed as he saw the blank faces around him.

“May I point out,” he continued softly, “that all three of you on stage ended up mother naked at the piano? Just how did one of you manage to both carry the poison there, and dispose of the container?”

A stunned silence, and then a united howl of relief from the Berties: “We didn’t!”

Nick thought this through. Be blowed if he was going to be eaten alive by Bishop. “They could have poisoned their own glass after they’d drunk from it the first time, taken it to the piano and then switched glasses with Greta’s.”

“Very good, lad,” Bishop said briskly. “But they’d still need to secrete the wrapping somewhere.” He turned to the Berties. “Did any of you gentlemen notice anything unusual about the placing of the glasses?”

No one had. The relative positions had been as normal. Although, in the haste of the routine, the spacing between each glass changed, the order of the four did not.

“And you, Mr Duncan – you were on stage left in the line-up by the bar, and at the piano finale, did you sense or see any movement to the rear of the piano? No dark-cloaked villains?”

Paul reluctantly shook his head.

“Well, then, gentlemen, it seems you’re in the clear.” A pause. “Unless your full body searches reveal anything.”

“You’re not bloody serious, are you?” Paul moaned.

“Oh, I am, Mr Duncan, believe me. The sergeant here is very gentle though – usually.”

Gentle or not, the sergeant found nothing.

“Wouldn’t body cavities be a dangerous place to conceal cyanide?” Nick had become absorbed in the problem.

“Remarkable the way you cooks know so much about poison,” Bishop said admiringly. “We’re taking samples from all your food and kitchen utensils, of course.”

Les howled. “How am I supposed to make a living?”

“It’s what made a death we’re here to find out. Every scrap of paper, clothing, food and glasses will be bagged up for forensics to check, and every millimetre of stage and kitchen will be searched.”

“The hats!” Nick cried desperately. “They kept them on almost to the end. The poison must have been concealed in one of them.”

“Who is that bloody little squirt?” Paul cast his eyes up to an unmerciful heaven.

“If so, we’ll find traces,” Bishop assured him. “The way we’re going at the moment, however, it looks as if we can rule out Greta Hobbs’ death by murder. Much as I dislike the word, it does look impossible.” He grinned at the now visibly rejoicing Berties. “Mind you, you’d be surprised how often we think that at this stage.”

The sight of a huge mobile caravan drawn up in the side street next to the club, obviously, from Nick’s careful study, an incident room, was unnerving and confirmation enough that it had been murder. That made his summons back here with Les all the more daunting. Curiosity fought with fear of the “fix it on anyone” approach so beloved by the police in his reading material. Even spider-catching in Antarctica suddenly seemed preferable.

“Ah, our young detective.” Bishop greeted him from one corner of the kitchen made available for a table and chairs. “You’ll be pleased to hear you can go.”

“But that’s a scene of crimes’ van outside, isn’t it?” Nick was taken aback.

“Must be the CIA.”

Nick lingered as Les hastily cleared up and left. “You mean she wasn’t poisoned?” He tried not to sound disappointed.

“She was, but we’ve cleared your food.”

“So it was the drink?”

“It was. Forensic had a sleepless night. Nothing in the bottle, nothing in any of the glasses – save the one nearest to the lady, which was bung full of cyanide. And before you say suicide, forensic have found no traces of crystals in her clothing or handbag.”

Nick bade a silent last farewell to poisoned darts. “Suppose one of the strippers poisoned one of the extra three glasses on the bar and took that with him over to the piano, instead of the one he’d first drunk from?”

“Ashamed of you, lad. Where did he keep the crystals? And there’d be a fifth glass on the piano.”

“The hat?” Nick asked without much hope.

“Forget about hats. They were clean, too. What is it every self-respecting amateur detective pounces on?”

Nick didn’t like being mocked. “Fingerprints.”

“Right. And that’s why Mr Paul Duncan is at the station helping with enquiries.”

“All the glasses would have Hamish Scott’s prints on.” Nick was thinking it through. “So if he were the murderer he wouldn’t need to worry about his prints being on Greta’s glass, but the others would.”

“Greta’s glass had Duncan’s prints on it as well as her own and Scott’s. If we could find how he transported the poison, we could wrap this up. Now, you’ve quite a name at Scotland Yard, so you think about it.”

“I’ve never even had a caution.” What the hell was this?

“I went there to the Black Museum a while ago. Back in the dark ages there was an Auguste Didier who helped Rose of the Yard in a few cases, generally those with fancy touches in them. Any relation?”

“Great-grandfather,” Nick muttered reluctantly. Too much eagerness to claim kinship might not go down too well, and in any case he wasn’t sure the news was welcome. True, an amateur detective in deepest Muckshire as a rival was way outclassed by one working with Scotland Yard. Maybe he’d check into it sometime.

“Just in case you have plans to follow in great-grandad’s footsteps, I solve my own cases. Plain and fancy. Right?”