Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders

"Of course, sir," the butler said, clearing his throat. He turned to us and began to speak in a flat, toneless manner, as though instructing a new member of the staff on the placement of finger bowls. "It is Mr. Wintour's habit of an evening to spend an hour or so answering correspondence in his study. He customarily takes a glass of Irish whiskey at five-thirty, but there was no response when I knocked at the door this evening." "Did you break down the door?" Harry asked. "Certainly not." "What did you do?"

"I did nothing. I assumed that Mr. Wintour did not wish to be disturbed. It was only when he failed to appear for dinner that I grew concerned. He had arranged a small dinner party for this evening. When the guests began to assemble at six o'clock, Mr. Wintour had still not emerged."

"So you broke down the door?"

A pained expression crossed the old butler's face. "I saw no need to break down the door. I decided to telephone, in the event that he might have fallen asleep on the settee. It would not have been the first time. There is only one telephone in the house and that is in Mr. Wintour's study. I stepped across to a neighboring house to telephone."

Harry nodded. "But he didn't answer?"

"No, sir. By now I had begun to grow alarmed. On the advice of Mrs. Wintour, I telephoned a nearby locksmith, a Mr.-"

"Featherstone," Harry said. "A reliable, but unimaginative craftsman."

Lieutenant Murray's eyebrows went up at this, but he said nothing. Phillips carried on as if he hadn't heard. "Mr. Featherstone arrived some moments later and managed to open the door using a skeleton key."

"Is that the study over there?" Harry asked, gesturing at the heavy mahogany doors.

"It is."

"It's a routine Selkirk dead-bolt with a three-wheel ratchet. My sainted Mama could open that lock with her darning needle."

Phillips dipped his chin and peered at Harry over his half-glasses. "We had not known that your mother was available, sir," he said.

"Please continue, Phillips," said Lieutenant Murray.

"Once Mr. Featherstone had opened the door, I found Mr. Wintour at his desk."

"Dead?" Harry asked.

"I still believed he was asleep, but I could not rouse him. That was when I summoned the police."

"That'll do, Phillips," Lieutenant Murray said. "Gentlemen, if you'll follow me." He led us across the foyer to the study doors. There were a number of uniformed officers milling around, and to my surprise Harry appeared to know most of them. He nodded at a stocky young man sitting by the doors, and received a casual salute in return.

"Harry," I whispered, "how do you know-"

"Later," he answered.

One of the doors to the study was partially open, and I could see the bustle of plain-clothes men as they examined, measured, traced, and sketched along the edges of the scene. Then Murray pushed open the door and we saw the rest.

The study reeked of culture and old money, though I knew perfectly well that Wintour had made his loot within the past decade. Shelves of books with leather spines stretched across the left side of the room, broken only by a tall marble fireplace. Ancestral portraits and richly colored tapestries covered the other walls, and there were a number of marble busts sprouting up on alabaster pedestals throughout the room, creating a museum effect. A pair of club chairs, a settee, and a couple of Chesterfields were positioned just so in front of a flattop, marble-inlay desk, the surface of which could easily have accommodated six or seven of the performers from Huber's Museum.

Though the furnishings imparted a certain baronial splendor to the room, it was clear that the occupant, who had made his fortune in the manufacture of children's toys, had never entirely put aside the playthings of youth. In one corner, the head of an outsize jack-in-the-box bobbed back and forth. A spectacular collection of wind-up animals, clockwork figures, and tin soldiers littered the surface of a library table, and a tall cylindrical zoetrope stood on a special display stand nearby. Most impressive of all, an enormous two-tiered model train set was arrayed on an oblong slab of polished wood. The track ran in a cloverleaf pattern perhaps five feet in each direction, with a web of heavy cording leading to a black control panel on the floor.

I confess that I might have spent the entire evening admiring that wondrous train set, but there were more urgent calls on our attention. "Gentlemen?" said Lieutenant Murray. "If I could ask you to step this way." A set of white hospital screens had been erected behind the desk. Three of Wintour's dinner guests-two men and a woman-were arranged on the Chesterfields, and I guessed that the screens had been placed to shield them from an unseemly spectacle. The lieutenant motioned us to step behind the partition. Although I had prepared myself, the sight of the dead man caught me by the throat.

Wintour lay on his back, stretched out upon a deep red Oriental rug. He wore a gray brushed flannel suit, a white cotton cambric shirt, a wide boating club tie, and the face of a man in torment. His eyes bulged and his tongue jutted, and patches of dark purple were spreading across his cheeks. I don't know what Mr. Wintour's views on the afterlife may have been, but he had the look of a man who had seen his destination and didn't much care for it.

"How old was he?" Harry asked softly.

"Fifty-three," Lieutenant Murray answered. He waited another moment while my brother and I recovered ourselves, then led us out from behind the screens. "You'll notice that this is an interior room," he said. "No windows. No other entrance apart from the doors we used. Those doors were locked from the inside and show no sign of tampering. Mr. Wintour seems to have been alone in his study at the time of his death. No one

in the household heard anything unusual, nor had there been any unexpected visitors this afternoon. We expect that-"

"The fireplace," Harry said.

"What about it?"

"Has the fire been burning al! day?"

"The butler laid it one hour before Mr. Wintour entered the room."

"I only ask because in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, the murderer was found to have entered by means of-"

"The chimney. Yes, Mr. Houdini. 'Murders in the Rue Morgue.' " Lieutenant Murray scratched his chin. "Our investigation is as yet in its earliest stages, but we've managed to rule out homicidal orangutans." Harry colored slightly. "It's just that-" "If I could ask you to direct your attention to the murdered man's desk, Mr. Houdini. That's why I've asked you here this evening."

A thick white cloth was spread over the center of the murdered man's desk. We could see the outlines of a squat, lumpy object beneath it. Murray motioned to an officer standing to the side. “Carter, mind showing our guests the, uh, device?"

With an anxious expression, the young officer stepped to the desk and gingerly pinched the edges of the cloth. Cautiously, as though a sleeping snake might be coiled underneath, he lifted the cloth and eased it to one side. Harry sprang forward. " Le Fant ф me\" he cried, thrusting his chin forward across the desk. “Do you see it, Dash? It's magnificent!"

The object was a small wooden figure, perhaps twelve inches high, draped in a Chinese silk kimono. It sat cross-legged on a square wooden pedestal, gazing intently at five ivory tiles at its feet, each bearing the image of a green dragon. In one hand, the figure held a tiny flute; the other clutched at the folds of its robe. A black, braided pigtail ran down the figure's back, and its face was painted with Kabuki markings.

"I would not have believed that it still existed," Harry said. "Look at the articulation of the joints! See the pinpoint mechanism of the jaw hinge?"

At the front of the pedestal was a set of small lacquered doors. Extending his index finger, Harry poked at the tiny latch. A uniformed officer moved forward to stop him, but Lieutenant Murray waved him off. Harry flicked the latch and the doors swung outward to expose an array of ancient cogwheels and drive bands.