Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 2, July 1973

There was nothing more to be learned from George Charon, and Di Lucca sent for Prentiss. He questioned the butler again, extensively, but aside from making it obvious that he did not like or approve of Miss Hughes, Everett Finney, or George Charon, Prentiss had nothing further of significance to offer.

In the parlor once again, Di Lucca said, “I’ll probably want to talk to all of you again later on, so don’t plan on going anywhere for a while. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d all wait right here in the parlor until Mr. Warren’s body is removed and the laboratory people are finished.”

Prentiss nodded, Miss Hughes sighed, Finney shrugged, and Charon looked irritated, but none of them said anything. Di Lucca and Corcoran left the parlor and returned to the library. The lab crew was still going over the room. The body of Simon Warren was lying as it had been earlier, although the assistant ME would have turned it to make a preliminary examination; a chalk outline anhad been drawn on the carpet around it.

The lab chief, Dillon, said, “We haven’t turned up anything at all so far, Rennie — nothing that would explain how the murder was committed in a locked room. And no sign of the murder weapon.”

“Anything else we can use?”

“A mass of fingerprints, most of them smudges. We vacuumed the carpet and the hearth, and we’ll sift through the bag downtown. That’s about it up to now, I’m afraid.”

Di Lucca turned to the assistant ME. “Doc?”

“Victim was shot twice in the chest with what was likely a small caliber weapon. That’s all I can tell you until I do a post.”

Di Lucca nodded and went over to stand by the entrance doors, to wait until the crew was finished. Corcoran began to prowl the room, tapping walls, examining the bookshelves, looking, apparently, for hidden panels.

After a time Corcoran took notice of the books themselves, peering at the titles on the spines as he walked along. Then he stopped and peered harder at a particular section. He took one book off the shelf, opened it, studied it, and put it back; then he removed another, and a third. His eyes began to glitter, and he said, “Damn!” softly.

Di Lucca glanced over at him, and Corcoran hurried up to him and said, “Old man Warren had a pretty large collection of books on mythology. Did you notice that, Rennie?”

“More or less,” Di Lucca answered without much interest.

“Greek, Roman and pagan mythology,” Corcoran said. “Particularly Greek.”

“All right,” Di Lucca said patiently, “you’ve got another idea. Let’s hear it.”

“Well, it might sound a little far-fetched at first, but it all fits. Greek mythology is the key, and Warren was obviously pretty well versed on Greek mythology. I don’t know much about it myself, but I remember a couple of things from when I was in school—”

“Never mind the buildup, son.”

“Okay, then. Including the butler, we’ve got four suspects, right? Well, let’s take a look at George Charon for a minute. He pronounces his name Char-on, doesn’t he?”

“Stop asking rhetorical questions,” Di Lucca told him mildly, “and get on with it.”

“Char-on,” Corcoran repeated. “But there’s another way to pronounce that name: K-ron. K-ron.”

Di Lucca just looked at him.

“In Greek mythology,” Corcoran went on excitedly. “Charon is the ferryman of Hades, the one who takes the newly arrived dead across the river to hell!”

Di Lucca kept on looking at him.

“Don’t you get it?” Corcoran asked.

“No,” Di Lucca said.

“That river is called Styx, the River Styx. Pick up... Styx! Pick up... Charon. George Charon, Rennie, Warren was trying to tell Prentiss that George Charon was his killer!”

“My God,” Di Lucca said, not without reverence.

“It fits, Rennie, it all fits.”

“At least one thing doesn’t fit.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, use your head, Corcoran. It’s the same thing that was wrong with your other idea: it’s illogical. A dying man is not going to be thinking up riddles involved K-ron and the River Styx to name his killer. He’s just not going to do it, Corcoran.”

“But Rennie—”

The lab man, Dillon, came over then — to Di Lucca’s relief — and said, “We’re finished, Rennie. We’ve been over everything. If there’s anything here we can’t find it.”

“Okay, Joe, thanks.”

The two uniformed patrolmen came in and reported that they had searched the grounds without finding any sign of a gun. Dillon said, “You want us to have a look at the rest of the downstairs, Rennie?”

“Yeah. Corcoran and I will probably take the people here up to the second floor pretty soon, and go through the rooms up there. The murder weapon has got to be in this house somewhere.”

The assistant ME joined them. “All right if we take the body away now, Rennie?”

Di Lucca looked over at the body of Simon Warren, as he had been doing until Corcoran interrupted him, and gnawed the inside of his cheek. He said, “You know, there’s something about him that bothers me and I’m not sure yet what it is. Another fifteen or twenty minutes, if it’s okay with you.”

The assistant ME shrugged. “You’re in charge. I’ll tell the ambulance boys you’ll call them when you’re ready.”

“Right.”

The lab crew and the assistant ME filed out, taking the uniformed cops with them. Corcoran said, “What bothers you about the corpse, Rennie? Maybe it’d help if you talked it over.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s just a feeling I got. Look, Corcoran, why don’t you go into the parlor and watch your ferryman from Hades?”

Corcoran appeared hurt. “I still think that’s a possibility.”

“Sure, it’s a possibility. Now go on, will you, I want to be alone here for a few minutes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Go, son, go.”

Corcoran went, not happily.

Fifteen minutes later Di Lucca came out of the library, found Joe Dillon and two of his men, and told them they didn’t need to go over any more of the house.

“The answer,” he said, “is all in the library.”

Dillon was surprised. “This I’ve got to see.”

“Go on in there,” Di Lucca said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

He went across the foyer and into the parlor. Corcoran was standing by the birch fire screen, and the four members of the Warren household were sitting silently, apart from one another, around the room.

“I’d like everyone to come into the library with me,” Di Lucca said.

Corcoran looked attentive. George Charon asked, “What for?”

“I’ll explain pretty soon. Come along now.”

They all left the parlor and proceeded into the library, where Dillon and the other members of the lab crew were standing around looking either skeptical or anticipatory. Miss Hughes saw that the body of Simon Warren was still on the carpet, shuddered, and said, “Why haven’t you taken him away?”

“Pretty soon now,” Di Lucca told her. “Suppose you all sit over there on the sofa.”

They trooped to the sofa obediently, and Corcoran stepped up to Di Lucca and whispered, “What is it, Rennie? Did you find out something?”

Di Lucca sighed, pretended not to have heard him, and went to stand behind the body. All eyes were on him, and he felt vaguely foolish, being on stage like that; but this was the simplest way to do things, and hopefully the most productive. He cleared his throat.

“Now then,” he said, “what we got here, we supposedly have a locked-room mystery. Only it isn’t.”