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

“ What character?”

“Mr Peepers,” I said. “And you remember who played Mr Peepers, don’t you?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Wally Cox.”

“Sure. Mr Peepers – the cousin, Walter Cox.”

At eight o’clock that night, while I was working on a beer and reading a 1935 issue of Dime Detective , Eberhardt rang up my apartment. “Just thought you’d like to know,” he said. “We got a full confession out of Walter Cox about an hour ago. I hate to admit it – I don’t want you to get a swelled head – but you were right all the way down to the Mr Peepers angle. I checked with the housekeeper and the niece before I talked to Cox, and they both told me Murray called him by that name all the time.”

“What was Cox’s motive?” I asked.

“Greed, what else? He had a chance to get in on a big investment deal in South America, and Murray wouldn’t give him the cash. They argued about it in private for some time, and three days ago Cox threatened to kill him. Murray took the threat seriously, which is why he started locking himself in his Rooms while he tried to figure out what to do about it.”

“Where did Cox get the piece of steel?”

“Friend of his has a basement workshop, builds things out of wood and metal. Cox borrowed the workshop on a pretext and used a grinder to hone the weapon. He rigged up the slingshot this morning – let himself into the house with his key while the others were out and Murray was locked in one of the Rooms.”

“Well, I’m glad you got it wrapped up and glad I could help.”

“You’re going to be even gladder when the niece talks to you tomorrow. She says she wants to give you some kind of reward.”

“Hell, that’s not necessary.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth – to coin a phrase. Listen, I owe you something myself. You want to come over tomorrow night for a home-cooked dinner and some beer?”

“As long as it’s Dana who does the home cooking,” I said.

After we rang off I thought about the reward from Murray’s niece. Well, if she wanted to give me money I was hardly in a financial position to turn it down. But if she left it up to me to name my own reward, I decided I would not ask for money at all; I would ask for something a little more fitting instead.

What I really wanted was Thomas Murray’s run of Private Detective.

Marilyn Todd worked as a PA before setting up her own secretarial agency , but these days she writes full time. She is the author of the audaciously delightful series of mysteries set in ancient Rome , in the early days of the Empire. The first was I, Claudia (1995) , and the series currently runs to six volumes. This is her second Claudia short story, but the first “ impossible ” murder.

Fat and replete against the trunk of an ancient oak tree, the old boar suddenly snorted awake. What was that? Hairy ears pricked forward, straining, craning – but through the dappled shade they discerned only the liquid trill of a flycatcher, the rustle of foraging beetles. Unconvinced, he lifted his snout and sniffed the sultry air. Ripe woodland raspberries. Chanterelles. The musk of a badger who’d passed through last night. Familiar scents, which should have reassured a seasoned tusker – yet the bristles down his back refused to be pacified. Obedient to a million years of instinct, the old boar lumbered to his feet.

Then he smelled it.

Dog! Dog and… and – He was halfway up the bank before he placed the memory.

Man.

Dog and man , and as he shambled towards the brow of the hill, the glade behind him filled with alien sounds. The clash of steel. Shouts. Baying. And the sickening scratch and slither as frantic claws sought a purchase on the slippery leaf litter…

Only once did the old boar glance back. The hunt was gaining. One man was way out in front now, the sunlight off the hunter’s long spear blinding the boar’s button eyes. This was not his first brush with the enemy. Last time, when he’d stupidly allowed himself to be cornered, he escaped only by goring two dogs to death and leaving one human male badly gashed. Even then, someone shot an arrowhead into his haunch, but he’d been lucky. The barb dropped out as he ran and the wound quickly healed. Nevertheless, it was a lesson learned the hard way and today the stakes were higher than ever.

The first litter of the year had been raised, this was the mating season again. The old tusker had sows and his territory to protect…

And so it was, crashing through the undergrowth, with the smell of sweat and metal closing fast, that the wily boar prepared his defence-

“Disappeared?” A little worm wriggled in Claudia’s stomach, leaving behind an icy cold trail. “Cypassis, grown men don’t vanish in broad daylight in front of a dozen other men.”

But her tone did not match the strength of her argument – goddammit, the hunt was turning into a nightmare! First her bodyguard, Junius, was stretchered home, bloodied and unconscious, having lost his footing up on the ridge. Then two more men returned, wounded and weak. And now we hear that another member of the party’s come a cropper…

“Exactly how is Soni supposed to have performed this feat of magic?” she asked. Dear me, the lengths men go to for a few yellowed tusks and some antlers to hang on the wall! “Taken wings, like Pegasus?”

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” said her ashen-faced maid. “But apparently Soni was leading the hunt one minute and – pfft! gone the next. There was talk of a boar – perhaps that distracted him, maybe he took off alone, but the point is, he hasn’t come home – and – and-” Cypassis spread her large hands in a gesture of helplessness. “And the worrying part is, no-one really cares that he’s missing.”

Yes, well, Claudia thought. They wouldn’t be the first rich bastards not to give a toss about their slaves. “Have you questioned the bearers?” she asked. Surely they’d care that one of their number might lie at the mercy of ferocious wild beasts?

“That lot!” Cypassis sneered. “Within ten minutes of returning, they were too drunk to string two words together!”

“And Junius?” Claudia ventured. “I suppose he can’t shed light on the matter?”

“Still no change in the poor boy’s coma,” Cypassis said sadly, and a nail drove itself in to Claudia’s heart.

It was her fault Junius was on the ferry landing, poised to cross the River Styx. A lump formed in her throat and refused to subside. The trouble was, the young Gaul had been so eager to join this morning’s hunt! She paced her bedroom floor and put the stinging in her eyes down to the brilliance of the setting sun. Max, the hunt’s organizer had been against it from the start -Junius being a rank amateur and all that – but Claudia had prevailed, pleading her bodyguard’s case that the last time he’d been hunting had been as a ten-year-old lad with his father, long before he’d become a slave through the wars.

Also, she wanted to give Junius a treat.

Max’s hunts were famed the length and breadth of Italy – rich businessmen handed over small fortunes for the privilege of being one of the few – and if her bodyguard was to go hunting, dammit, he might as well go with the best! And now look. Waxy and pale, barely breathing, they’d scraped him up from the foot of a gully and carried him home on a stretcher.

“He’ll be fine,” she assured Cypassis. “I’ve seen these head wounds before, it’s simply a question of time.”

Liar. She’d never seen one in her life, had no idea whether Junius would pull through or not, but there was no point in both of them worrying themselves to a frazzle.