The Mammoth Book of Locked Room Mysteries & Impossible Crimes

Book 84: Mammoth Books

by Mike Ashley

Genres: Classics

Synopsis

This collection of criminal conundrums are more than whodunits, they're howdunits and are intended to stretch your powers of deduction to the limits.

Release date: September 1, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 512

Sample

David Renwick

Life for Alvy Singer in Annie Hall can be divided into two categories, the horrible and the miserable. I would add a third: the unbearably tedious. Reality, when it’s not simply hideous or depressing, tends to be largely unremarkable – or in other words, real. And if, like Sherlock Holmes and me, you “abhor the dull routine of existence”, then books and television shows whose mission is accurately to reflect the world around us will leave you feeling either suicidal or bored witless.

Of course there is a place in detective fiction for the gritty social document, but it’s not a place I’d want to go to for a holiday. Personally I like my dramas to be a little improbable and my comedies a little absurd. I like, I suppose, to be taken to the edge: to teeter on the brink of plausibility, where logic lives dangerously yet somehow still manages to survive. For me this is where storytelling becomes exciting: when the writer is prepared to take risks; to bend the limits of invention. And if for Holmes there was respite from the routine in the form of a seven-per-cent solution perhaps the rest of us can at least find solace in a good locked-room mystery.

Although the impossible crime genre has long been well respected in the world of publishing few people in recent times have been so foolish as to try and make it work on television. This is because we are all so highly sophisticated now that heaven forbid a detective series should be fun. But in the certain knowledge that Jonathan Creek would be branded “preposterous” and “far-fetched” I was cheerfully prepared to have a go, with the quiet conviction that people, not plots, are the key to an audience’s acceptance. Providing the characters are real and respond truthfully to whatever you throw at them it is my view that you can take as many liberties with the storylines as you like. (Thus Victor Meldrew’s “I don’t believe it” in One Foot in the Grave is an honest reflection of our own incredulity at the bizarre twists of fate to which he is so often subjected.) Then, as Gideon Fell declares in John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, “the whole test is, can the thing be done? If so, the question of whether it would be done does not enter into it.” Or as Creek himself points out in Jack in the Box, “We mustn’t confuse what’s impossible with what’s implausible. Most of the stuff I cook up for a living relies upon systems that are highly implausible. That’s what makes it so difficult to solve. No one ever thinks you’d go to that much trouble to fool your audience.”

Of course the problem, as Carr also observed, is that when the effect of a particular crime is magical we expect the cause to be magical also. And when the explanation for our baffling scenario turns out – as it must – to be more prosaic than the events leading up to it we may emerge from the experience feeling cheated. Even the most famous detective story ever written cannot escape this charge: did anyone ever learn that the Hound of the Baskervilles was “bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road” without a sense of anti-climax? Yet the novel is rightly celebrated because it performs what I believe to be the essential task of any creative work: it pushes the buttons. Within its pages I can think of at least half a dozen classic moments that never fail to send a thrill down the spine; moments that consume and intrigue, that defy you to put the book down. At its very least the “supernatural” mystery has a magnetic power over and above the conventional detective story: when someone appears to have violated the laws of nature we cannot but yearn to know how it was done. At its best it delivers a chillingly clever solution that reverses our whole perspective on events and sends us away with a warm and satisfying glow. When this happens – Carter Dickson’s The Judas Window, Jacques Futrelle’s The Problem of Cell 13, Melville Davisson Post’s The Doomdorf Mystery – then you have a rare treat indeed.

All of which is to argue that a fascination for the impossible crime represents, in all of us, no more or less than a primal thirst for escapism. Like the spectral assailant who has miraculously vanished from the scene of the crime it’s comforting occasionally to give reality the slip and retreat into the more fantastical world of our imagination.

Mike Ashley

The impossible-crime story is like a good trick. In fact it has to be better than a good trick. Not only must the puzzle fascinate and mystify, but the solution must be just as surprising, yet believable. How often have you had a magician’s trick explained and then felt deflated? It almost feels a cheat. Well, these stories had to avoid that. When you read the solution to the crime, you should be able to say, “That was clever. I’d never have thought of that.”

That’s what I hope we’ve done in this book. I’ve endeavoured to bring together a collection of stories that seem utterly baffling and where the solution is equally amazing. Not an easy trick.

Yet despite the impossible crime being such a difficult story to write, it remains at the core of the mystery story. These stories are as much “howdunits” as “whodunits”. They’re puzzles. They challenge the reader to try and solve the method before the author reveals all.

The whole point about an impossible crime is that when first discovered it must seem as if there was no possible way that the crime could have been committed. The most common approach is the locked-room mystery. In these the victim is found murdered in a room locked from the inside. He’s usually alone, and there is no other way into or out of the room. To make it even more fun he may have been shot or stabbed, but there is no murder weapon. There are endless variations on the theme. Other impossible scenarios are bodies found in the snow but with no other footprints beyond his own; property stolen from within a locked safe or room under constant watch; people or things disappearing in full view of an audience. The Golden Rule is that the solution to these crimes must be rational – there should be nothing supernatural or beyond current knowledge and understanding.

You’ll have seen a number of these ideas in David Renwick’s excellent Jonathan Creek television series, and I’m delighted that Mr Renwick has written a special foreword for this book.

You’ll find all these ideas and more in this anthology. What I looked for was originality, ingenuity, and a story that did not disappoint. I hope it lives up to both my and your expectations.

For those interested in discovering more about locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes I have provided a capsuled history as an Afterword.

Now, prepare to be baffled.

Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards (b.1955) is a practising solicitor and uses this background for his series of novels featuring Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin. The series began with All the Lonely People (1991) in which Devlin’s wife is found murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. There has been roughly a book a year since then. The following story does not feature Harry Devlin but a new detective, Paul Godstow, who doesn’t even realize he has an impossible crime on his hands.

Claire Doherty practised her grief-stricken expression in the mirror. Quivering lip, excellent. Lowered lashes, very suitable. All that she needed to do now was to make sure she kept the glint of triumph out of her eyes and everything would be fine.

She glanced at the living room clock for the thousandth time. Time passed slowly when you were waiting for bad news. The call could not come soon enough, that call which would bring the message that her husband was dead. Then she would have to prepare herself for her new role as a heartbroken widow. It would be a challenge, but she was determined to meet it head on. More than that, she would positively relish playing the part.

If only she didn’t have to rely on Zack doing what he had to do. Zack was gorgeous and he did things for her that previously she had only read about in magazines, while having her hair done. But he was young and careless and there was so much that could yet go wrong. No wonder that she kept checking the clock, shaking her watch to see if it had stopped when it seemed that time was standing still. She readily admitted to friends that patience wasn’t one of her virtues. Besides, she would add, vices are so much more interesting anyway. Above all, she liked to be in control, hated being dependent on others. It was hard being reduced to counting the minutes until freedom finally came her way.

The phone trilled and she snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” she demanded breathlessly.

“Is that Mrs Doherty?” The voice belonged to a woman. Late twenties, at a guess. She sounded anxious.

“Yes, what is it?” If it was a wrong number, she would scream.

“I’m sorry to bother you, really I am.”

“No problem.” It was all she could do not to hiss: get off the line, don’t you realize I’m waiting for someone to tell me my husband is dead?

“My name is Bailey. Jennifer Bailey from Bradford.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Karl’s latest floosie. Suppressing the urge to give the woman a mouthful, Claire said coldly, “Can I help you?”

“It’s just that your husband left a few minutes ago. I’m afraid I kept him longer than expected. He was rather concerned, because he said he would be late home and his mobile didn’t seem to be working. So I offered to give you a ring to let you know he is on his way. He said he should be with you in about an hour-and-a-half if the road was clear. You live on the far side of Manchester, I gather?”

“That’s right.” Claire thought for a moment. “Thank you. It’s good of you to let me know.”

“My pleasure,” Jennifer Bailey said.

She said it as though she meant it. Indeed, she sounded so timid that it was hard to believe that she had probably spent the last couple of hours in flagrante with Karl. Perhaps he’d tired of the bimbos and was now taking an interest in the submissive type. Someone as different from herself, Claire thought grimly after she put down the phone, as he could manage to find.

Would the delay have caused a problem? Something else for her to worry about. Zack had refused to tell her precisely how and when he proposed to do what was necessary. He said it was better that way. Claire knew he could never resist a melodramatic flourish. She blamed it on all the videos he watched. It amused her, though, all the same. She’d gathered that he would be keeping his eye on Jennifer Bailey’s house, with a view to dealing with Karl when he emerged. So he would have had to wait for a while. Surely that wouldn’t have been too much of a challenge. She was having to wait. Was it so much to ask that her lover should also have to bide his time?

The phone rang again. Claire made an effort not to sound too wound-up. “Yes?”

“It’s done.” Zack sounded pleased with himself, relaxed. He liked to come across as cool, as comfortable with violence as a character from a Tarantino movie. “No worries.”

“Wonderful,” she said. The tension went out of her; she felt giddy with the sense of release.

“I know I am,” he said roguishly.

“How . . .?”

“Hit and run. Stolen Fiesta. No witnesses.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Bradford’s pretty quiet at night, you know.”

“And he’s definitely . . .?”

“Believe me,” he said with a snigger. “I reversed back the way I’d come, just to make sure. The job’s a good ’un.”

How could she ever have doubted him? After saying goodbye, she hugged herself with delight. He might only be a boy, but he’d kept his word. He’d promised to free her and that was exactly what he had done. She uttered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d agreed to let him ring her, to prevent the suspense becoming unbearable. He’d said he would nick a mobile from somewhere and call her on it before throwing it away. She’d worried that the call might be traced, but he said the police would never check and, even if they did, so what? She had an alibi and besides, he meant to make sure Karl’s death looked like an accident. She should stop fretting and leave it all to him.

She’d gambled on him and her faith had been repaid. She could hardly believe it. Part of her wanted to crack open a bottle of champagne. Never mind waiting for it to be safe for Zack to come here and share in the celebrations. But it wasn’t safe. There was no telling when the police might turn up at her door with the tidings of Karl’s demise. She made do with a cup of tea. She would need to have all her wits about her, so that no-one would ever suspect there might be more to the death than met the eye.

Poor Karl. She wasn’t so heartless as to deny him a thought. At least it had been a quick end. Besides, he didn’t have too many grounds for complaint. He had died happy. Jennifer Bailey didn’t give the impression of being a ball of fire, but perhaps she’d simply been daunted by the need to speak to her lover’s wife on the phone. She’d certainly kept him occupied for most of the evening.

She smiled indulgently, remembering how Karl had downplayed his trip to see Jennifer. “I really tried every trick in the book,” he’d said. Protesting rather too much, she had thought. “I was desperate to cancel the appointment. I mean, you know what it’s like. A one-legger is hopeless, a complete waste of time.”

Karl was a salesman. It didn’t matter much to him what he sold. Kitchens, carpets, computers. He was good at it. Persuasive. No wonder he had charmed her into marrying him. He could talk for England. Trouble was, he wasn’t so hot when it came to performance. But that never seemed to bother him. Currently he was working for a firm that specialized in bespoke loft conversions. The commission was good, provided you made the sale – and that was the rub. No one with any nous ever wanted to bother with a one-legger. The object of a home sales visit was to get the punters to sign up on the dotted line. But people would do anything to avoid making a commitment to buy. When you were dealing with a married couple, it was vital to have them both there, listening to the pitch. If you had to contend with a one-legger, it was too easy for the decision to be dependent on the okay of the absent spouse. If that happened, then nine times out of ten, the sale would never be made. It was all about human nature, as Karl often said. He fancied himself as an amateur psychologist. In fact, Claire thought, he fancied himself, full stop. That was true of Zack too, of course. But with rather more reason.

“She’s married, then, this Mrs Bailey?” Claire had asked, a picture of innocence.

“Oh yeah. Husband’s away a lot, she says.”

I bet, Claire thought. “What sort of age is she?”

Karl pursed his lips, considering. “Middle-aged, I’d say. yeah, that’s it. Fat, fair and forty.”

Lying bastard. The woman on the phone had been much younger than that. Oh well. It didn’t matter now. Zack had done the necessary. Now all she had to think about was whether she still looked good in black. It was a young colour, she thought, and you needed the figure to carry it off. But she had a few years left in her yet, that was for sure. And with the benefit of the pay-out on Karl’s life insurance, she meant to make the most of them.

Suppose it didn’t work out with Zack. She dipped into a box of After Eights and told herself she had to be realistic. He was a hunk, and he’d carried out his task more efficiently than she had dared hope, but he wasn’t necessarily the ideal lifetime soulmate. No-one so keen on motorbikes and football could be. Not to worry. She could play the field, look around for someone handsome who could help her to get over her tragic loss.

The doorbell sounded. Suddenly her mouth was dry, her stomach churning. This was the test, the moment when she would need to call up all the skills from her days in amateur theatre. She’d tended to be typecast as a dumb blonde, but now she must be shattered by bereavement. She took a deep breath.

The doorbell rang again, long and loud. She checked the mirror. Eyebrows raised, lips slightly parted. Understandable puzzlement at such a late call. A faint touch of apprehension. Perfect.

She remembered to keep the door on the chain. An important detail. These things mattered. The police must not think that she had been expecting them to turn up. In fact, they had moved quickly. Impressive efficiency. She had not thought they would be here so soon.

The door opened and she saw her husband Karl on the step. He was breathing heavily. Yes, despite Zack’s claim to have killed him, he was definitely still breathing.

Five minutes later, she was telling herself that it was a good thing that Karl was so obviously – and uncharacteristically – flustered. Flustered and, more typically, self-centred, concerned only with himself. He had not noticed how his arrival had shocked her.

“Here you are.” Her hands were trembling as she passed him the tumbler of whisky he had asked for. She poured one for herself. Both of them needed to calm down.

“Thanks, darling.” He swallowed the drink in a gulp. “Christ, I needed that.”

“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t going to panic, whatever the temptation. Faced with a husband who had died and achieved resurrection within the space of half-an-hour, the best course was to say as little as possible. He was obviously panic-stricken. And he needed her help. These days he only called her darling when he wanted something.

“Listen,” he said hoarsely. His tie was at half mast and his hair, normally immaculate, was a tousled mess. “I have – a bit of a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“I’m not going to bullshit you,” he said, in precisely the sincere tone he adopted when lying to her about his trysts with clients or young girls at work. “I’m in a spot of bother. If any questions are asked, I need you to say that I spent the evening here.”

“What?” She was baffled. “Who will be asking questions? Why do you need me to lie for you?”

He caught her wrist, and looked into her eyes, treating her to his soulful expression. “Darling, I’m asking you to trust me.”

“But why? I mean, none of this makes sense.”

“It – it’s not something I can talk about right now. Okay?”

No, she wanted to say, it’s bloody well not okay. But she chose her words with care and spoke more gently than she might have done. “It’s just that, if I don’t have a clue what has happened, I might just put my foot in it unintentionally. If it’s trust we’re talking about, don’t you think you should trust me enough to tell me what’s going on?”

He buried his head in his hands. Claire had never seen him in such a state. If she didn’t despise him so much, if she didn’t loathe him for not being dead when he was supposed to be, she might almost have felt sorry for him.

“I can’t!” It was almost a wail.

“You must,” she said, a touch of steel entering her voice.

“But . . .”

She folded her arms. “It’s up to you.”

He looked up at her. Distressed he might be, but Claire recognized the familiar glint of calculation in his eyes. After a few moments he came to a decision.

“I don’t want to say much about it,” he said. “But I suppose I do owe you some sort of explanation.”

“Yes, you do.”

He blinked hard. “It’s like this. I had a row with this girl – you know, it’s Lynette, who used to work in our office. We were going to go for a drink at this pub in Stockport. Oh, I know it sounds bad, especially after I swore that our little – flirtation – was a thing of the past. But I can explain. Our meeting up was innocent enough, but something happened. There was – an accident. She hit her head. When I tried to bring her round, I realized she was dead.”

Claire stared at him, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “You killed Lynette?”

“Oh, don’t say it like that. We were in this alleyway near the pub and we started arguing. I gave her a push – a tap, really. She fell over and smashed her head on a jagged stone, simple as that. It was all so sudden. She must have had a thin skull or something. Oh God, I didn’t mean this to happen.”

“In Stockport, you said? When was this?”

He shrugged, as if irritated by the irrelevance of the question. “Does it matter? Twenty minutes ago, I guess. If that. I broke every speed limit in the book on my way back over here.”

“But – your meeting with Jennifer Bailey . . .”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Forget about it. The police mustn’t hear about it. I was here at home with you. Watching the box all evening. Okay?”

“I don’t understand,” she said and it was no more than the truth.

“Oh God,” he said again. Tears were trickling down his cheeks. “It just happened. I can’t explain any better than that. Not right now.”

But he hadn’t given any sort of an explanation, so far as Claire was concerned. It wasn’t so much the mystery of why he had killed that silly little girl Lynette. Last year’s fling had evidently started up again, even though he’d promised he would never see her again after she left the company. No, what Claire could not get her head around was the sheer impossibility of it. How had her husband managed to murder someone in nearby Stockport, when according to Jennifer Bailey he was at one and the same time in Bradford on the other side of the Pennines, and Zack was convinced he’d been run over by a stolen Fiesta?

She wasn’t able to contact Zack until the middle of the next morning. Karl didn’t work nine-to-five hours and he didn’t have any calls to make first thing. But after a night of tossing and turning, he decided to visit the office and file his weekly report. He had managed to regain a semblance of composure and he thought it would be a good idea to be seen to act normally.

On his way out, he kissed her for perhaps the first time in a month. “I just wanted to say – thanks. You’ve been fantastic. I won’t forget that.”

Claire gave him a weak smile. It seemed the safest response.

“And you’ll remember, won’t you? If the police come, we were together all night. You never let me out of your sight for more than a couple of minutes.”

“But how do you expect to get away with it?” she asked. “You were with Lynette. Won’t someone have seen you?”

He shook his head. “We never made it to the pub. The streets were dead quiet. We both arrived in separate cars. There’s nothing to link me with that place. No-one saw us, I’m sure of it.”

“I still don’t follow,” she said. Already she regretted agreeing to help him out. He’d caught her at a bad time the previous night, when she was so shocked by his reappearance that he could have talked her into anything. “I mean, what about Jennifer Bailey? Why not get her to do your dirty work for you?”

His expression was one of genuine horror. “She was a customer. I told you. How could I ask her to give me an alibi? You don’t think we were having an affair, do you?”

“Well, I . . .”

“You did! Oh, Claire.” He took her hand in his. A romantic gesture; no doubt he employed it with all his conquests. “Listen to me. I realize things haven’t been great between us for a while. But we can try again, can’t we? I’ve come to my senses, honestly. You’re a wife in a million, I see that now. Will you give me another chance?”

She withdrew her hand. “You’re saying you haven’t got a thing going with Jennifer Bailey?”

“I told you. She’s a middle-aged frump. Last night, I was on my way over to Bradford and I suddenly decided it was a complete waste of time. You know what one-leggers are like. I don’t know what got into my head, but I decided to give Lynette a ring. See how she was getting on, for old times’ sake, that’s all. There was nothing in it. Zilch. She suggested meeting for a quick drink. But when we met, she made it clear she wanted us to get together again. I told her there was nothing doing, that I wanted to make a go of things with you. She became angry, hysterical. I didn’t know how to deal with it. She lunged at me and – and that’s when I pushed her.”

His voice was breaking. He had missed his true vocation, she thought. He was better at acting than she was; he might have made a fortune on the stage. Because he wasn’t telling her the truth, of that she was sure. His story didn’t begin to explain why his client, the frump, the one-legger, had called her to say that he was on his way home when he was out pubbing with his floosie. She thought about confronting him, telling him about the message from Jennifer Bailey, but decided against it. He obviously knew nothing about the call. She would keep that morsel of information to herself until she had more of a clue as to what he had really been up to.

As she made herself a snack lunch, Claire asked herself if it was possible that the whole story about killing Lynette was some sort of elaborate charade. She wouldn’t put it past him. Like most serial adulterers, Karl possessed a vivid imagination and a gift for telling fairy stories that the Brothers Grimm might have envied. Suppose he planned to resume his affair with the girl. The prospect of divorce held no appeal for him, she was well aware of that. Too expensive. Perhaps he had decided to concoct this extraordinary story of killing the girl by accident so that Claire would think she had him in her power and relax. If she thought Lynette was dead, she wouldn’t suspect him of continuing to sleep with her, would she?

No. It was too bizarre. Ridiculous, even by Karl’s standards of excessively ingenious subterfuge. There had to be some other explanation. She would need to undertake a bit of detective work. But first, she must find out what had gone wrong at Zack’s end. She had tried to phone him as soon as Karl had stepped out of the door, but there was no answer on his mobile. She pressed redial, but as the number began to ring, she heard footsteps coming up the path to the front door. Hurrying into the dining room, she saw through the window that a lean young man was standing on the step, pressing the bell. Quickly, she cancelled her call. Zack would have to wait a few minutes.

Her immediate impression when she answered the door was that the young man was almost as gorgeous as Zack. He didn’t have the same dark and dangerous eyes, or the muscular shoulders and chest. But he was smart to the point of elegance and his neatly scrubbed face was boyish and appealing. Very nice. Wholesome, you might say. It made a change.

“Mrs Doherty?”

She stared at him with only the slightest nod.

“My name’s Godstow. Sergeant Paul Godstow. I’m with the police.” He showed her his i.d. “May I come in?”

“Certainly, sergeant.” When in doubt, ooze charm. She treated him to a brilliant smile which she hoped would disguise her nervousness. What now? “Can I offer you a drink?”

“Thanks, but no.” He followed her into the living room. “You see, Mrs Doherty, it’s like this. I just need to ask you one or two questions about last night.”

He was checking up on Karl. They had already got wind of her husband’s past relationship with Lynette. She swallowed and launched into the tale that she had agreed with her husband. He’d been with her since coming home from a call at half past five. They had eaten together, watched a little television, discussed the need to redecorate the hall and first floor landing. She’d ironed a couple of shirts, he’d done a bit of tidying in the loft. They had retired to bed at about eleven o’clock to sleep, she strongly implied, the sleep of the just.

The policeman frowned. “So you were together all the time?”

“That’s right, sergeant.” She smiled again. He was dishy, there was no denying it. “Not a very interesting evening, but that’s married life for you. The excitement doesn’t last.”

He looked straight at her. “Depends on who you’re married to, I suppose.”

“That’s true,” she murmured. “Will – will that be all?”

“For the moment, Mrs Doherty. It’s just possible I may need to come back to ask you one or two more questions.”

“Any time, any time at all,” she breathed and was secretly entertained when his face turned beetroot red. “Actually, I was preparing lunch when you arrived. Nothing special, just a salad. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?”

“Thanks, but no,” he said. “There’s a lot to do in connection with the enquiry.”

“Oh, well, another time perhaps.”

He handed her a card. “This is my number. If anything springs to mind, I’d be glad to hear from you.”

“Sorry I haven’t been able to help. Perhaps I ought to return the compliment anyway.” She found a slip of paper and wrote the number of the house and her own mobile in her flamboyant script. “Don’t hesitate to call me.”

He considered her carefully. “Thanks, Mrs Doherty.”

“Please call me Claire.”

“Thanks, Claire. I’m sure we’ll talk again.”

“Zack? God, I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. What went wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replied. His voice sounded dreamy, as though he were living out a fantasy. “I went out for a ride on my Harley, that’s all. And I felt free as a bird. It’s amazing, you know, darling? You can snuff out a life just like that” – she heard him click his fingers – “and guess what? You carry on, same