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

“I know nothing of uniforms, yet I examined the insignia on the arms and shoulders closely after which I consulted my encyclopedia. I learned that while the uniform was more French than anything else, it was really the uniform of no country , because it was not correct. The insignia were mixed.

“Then what? There were several possibilities, among them a fancy dress ball was probable. Absolute accuracy would not be essential there. Where had there been a fancy dress ball? I trusted to the newspapers to tell me that. They did. A short dispatch from a place on the North Shore stated that on the night before the man was found dead there had been a fancy dress ball at the Langham Dudley estate.

“Now it is as necessary to remember every fact in solving a problem as it is to consider every figure in arithmetic. Dudley! Here was the ‘D’ tattooed on the dead man’s hand. Who’s Who showed that Langham Dudley married Edith Marston Belding. Here was the ‘E.M.B.’ on the handkerchief in the boat. Langham Dudley was a ship owner had been a sailor, was a millionaire. Possibly this was his own boat built in France.”

Detective Mallory was staring into the eyes of The Thinking Machine in frank admiration; Osaka to whom the narrative had thus far been impersonal, gazed, gazed as if fascinated. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was drinking in every word greedily.

“We went to the Dudley place,” the scientist resumed after a moment. “This Japanese opened the door. Japanese poison! Two and two were still making four. But I was first interested in Mrs Dudley. She showed no agitation and told me frankly that she placed the court plaster on her husband’s arm, and that it came from her room. There was instantly a doubt as to her connection with the murder; her immediate frankness aroused it.

“Finally, with my hand on her pulse – which was normal – I told her as brutally as I could that her husband had been murdered. Her pulse jumped frightfully and as I told her the cause of death it wavered, weakened and she fainted. Now if she had known her husband was dead – even if she had killed him – a mere statement of his death would not have caused that pulse. Further I doubt if she could have disposed of her husband’s body in the motor boat. He was a large man and the manner of her dress even, was against this. Therefore she was innocent.

“And then? The Japanese, Osaka, here. I could see the door of the boat house from the room where we were. Mrs Dudley asked Osaka if Mr Dudley’s boat were in the house. He said he didn’t know. Then she sent him to see. He returned and said the boat was not there, yet he had not gone to the boat house at all. Ergo, he knew the boat was not there. He may have learned it from another servant, still it was a point against him.”

Again the scientist paused and squinted at the Japanese. For a moment Osaka withstood the gaze, then his eyes shifted and he moved uncomfortably.

“I tricked Osaka into coming here by a ludicrously simple expedient,” The Thinking Machine went on steadily. “On the train I asked if he knew just how Mrs Dudley got the body of her husband into the boat. Remember at this point he was not supposed to know that the body had been in a boat at all. He said he didn’t know and by that very answer admitted that he knew the body had been placed in the boat. He knew because he put it there himself. He didn’t merely throw it in the water because he had sense enough to know if the tide didn’t take it out, it would rise, and possibly be found.

“After the slight injury Mr Dudley evidently wandered out toward the boat house. The poison was working, and perhaps he fell. Then this man removed all identifying marks, even to the name in the shoes, put the body in the boat and turned on full power. He had a right to assume that the boat would be lost, or that the dead man would be thrown out. Wind and tide and a loose rudder brought it into Boston Harbor. I do not attempt to account for the presence of Mrs Dudley’s handkerchief in the boat. It might have gotten there in one of a hundred ways.”

“How did you know husband and wife had quarrelled?” asked Hatch.

“Surmise to account for her not knowing where he was,” replied The Thinking Machine. “If they had had a violent disagreement it was possible that he would have gone away without telling her, and she would not have been particularly worried, at least up to the time we saw her. As it was, she presumed he was in Boston; perhaps Osaka here gave her that impression?”

The Thinking Machine turned and stared at the Japanese curiously.

“Is that correct?” he asked.

Osaka did not answer.

“And the motive?” asked Detective Mallory, at last.

“Will you tell us just why you killed Mr Dudley?” asked The Thinking Machine of the Japanese.

“I will not,” exclaimed Osaka, suddenly. It was the first time he had spoken.

“It probably had to do with a girl in Japan,” explained The Thinking Machine, easily. “The murder had been a long cherished project, such a one as revenge through love would have inspired.”

It was a day or so later that Hutchinson Hatch called to inform The Thinking Machine that Osaka had confessed and had given the motive for the murder. It was not a nice story.

“One of the most astonishing things to me,” Hatch added, “is the complete case of circumstantial evidence against Mrs Dudley, beginning with the quarrel and leading to the application of the poison with her own hands. I believe she would have been convicted on the actual circumstantial evidence had you not shown conclusively that Osaka did it.”

“Circumstantial fiddlesticks!” snapped The Thinking Machine. “I wouldn’t convict a dog of stealing jam on circumstantial evidence alone, even if he had jam all over his nose.” He squinted truculently at Hatch for a moment. “In the first place well behaved dogs don’t eat jam,” he added more mildly.

We return from our trip through the past to a brand new story, which is certainly up to date. And how much more impossible can you get than a murder in a locked toilet in an aircraft at 30 , 000 feet! Peter Tremayne ( b.1943 ) is the author of a number of novels of the supernatural and bizarre as, well as a highly acclaimed historical mystery series set in the seventh century featuring the Irish advocate Sister Fidelma. The first in the series was Absolution by Murder ( 1994 ).

Chief Steward Jeff Ryder noticed the worried expression on the face of Stewardess Sally Beech the moment that she entered the premier class galley of the Global Airways 747, Flight GA 162. He was surprised for a moment as he had never seen the senior stewardess looking so perturbed before.

“What’s up, Sal?” he greeted, in an attempt to bring back her usual impish smile. “Is there a wolf among our first class passengers causing you grief?”

She shook her head without a change of her pensive expression.

“I think one of the passengers is locked in the toilet,” she began.

Jeff Ryder’s smile broadened and he was about to make some ribald remark.

“No,” she interrupted as if she had interpreted his intention. “I am serious. I think that something might have happened. He has been in there for some time and the person with whom he was travelling asked me to check on him. I knocked on the door but there was no reply.”

Ryder suppressed a sigh. A passenger locked in the toilet was uncommon but not unknown. He had once had to extricate a eighteen stone Texan from an aircraft toilet once. It was not an experience that he wanted to remember.

“Who is this unfortunate passenger?”