'It seems obvious why the copy of Clues,' I said.
'Sure. But what clues was he trying to leave us with? Keyhole Mystery Magazine and Private Detective? Was he trying to tell us how he was killed or who killed him? Or both? Or something else altogether?'
I sat on my heels, putting my back to the chalk outline and the dried blood, and peered more closely at the magazines. The issue of Clues was dated November 1937, featured a Violet McDade story by Cleve F. Adams and had three other, unfamiliar authors' names on the cover. The illustration depicted four people shooting each other.
I looked at Keyhole Mystery Magazine. It carried a June 1960 date and headlined stories by Norman Daniels and John Collier; there were several other writers' names in a bottom strip, a couple of which I recognized. Its cover drawing showed a frightened girl in the foreground, fleeing a dark, menacing figure in the background.
The issue of Private Detective was dated March, no year, and below the title were the words, 'Intimate Revelations of Private Investigators.' Yeah, sure. The illustration showed a private eye dragging a half-naked girl into a building. Yeah, sure. Down in the lower right-hand corner in big red letters was the issue's feature story: 'Dead Man's Knock,' by Roger Torrey.
I thought about it, searching for connections between what I had seen in here and what Eberhardt had told me. Was there anything in any of the illustrations, some sort of parallel situation? No. Did any of the primary suspects have names which matched those of writers listed on any of the three magazine covers? No. Was there any well-known fictional private eye named Murray or Cox or Thurman or Keeler? No.
I decided I was trying too hard, looking for too specific a connection where none existed. The plain fact was, Murray had been dying when he thought to leave these magazine clues; he would not have had time to hunt through dozens of magazines to find particular issues with particular authors or illustrations on the cover. All he had been able to do was to reach for specific copies close at hand; it was the titles of the magazines that carried whatever message he meant to leave.
So assuming Clues meant just that, clues, Keyhole and Private Detective were the sum total of those clues. I tried putting them together. Well, there was the obvious association: the stereotype of a private investigator is that of a snooper, a keyhole peeper. But I could not see how that would have anything to do with Murray's death. If there had been a private detective involved, Eberhardt would have figured the connection immediately and I wouldn't be here.
Take them separately then. Keyhole Mystery Magazine. Keyhole. That big old-fashioned keyhole in the door?
Eberhardt said, 'Well? You got any ideas?' He had been standing near me, watching me think, but patience had never been his long suit.
I straightened up, explained to him what I had been ruminating about and watched him nod: he had come to the same conclusions long before I got here. Then I said, 'Eb, what about the door keyhole? Could there be some connection there, something to explain the locked-room angle?'
'I already thought of that,' he said. 'But go ahead, have a look for yourself.'
I walked over to the door, and when I got there I saw for the first time that there was a key in the latch on the inside. Eberhardt had said the lab crew had come and gone; I caught hold of the key and tugged at it, but it had been turned in the lock and it was firmly in place.
'Was this key in the latch when you broke the door down?' I asked him.
'It was. What were you thinking? That the killer stood out in the hallway and stabbed Murray through the keyhole?'
'Well, it was an idea.'
'Not a very good one. It's too fancy, even if it was possible.'
'I guess you're right.'
'I don't think we're dealing with a mastermind here,' he said. 'I've talked to the suspects and there's not one of them with an IQ over a hundred and twenty.'
I turned away from the door. 'Is it all right if I prowl around in here, look things over for myself?'
'I don't care what you do,' he said, 'if you end up giving me something useful.'
I wandered over and looked at one of the two windows. It had been nailed shut, all right, and the nails had been painted over some time ago. The window looked out on an overgrown rear yard-eucalyptus trees, undergrowth and scrub brush. Wisps of fog had begun to blow in off the ocean; the day had turned dark and misty. And my mood was beginning to match it. I had no particular stake in this case, and yet because Eberhardt had called me into it I felt a certain commitment. For that reason, and because puzzles of any kind prey on my mind until I know the solution, I was feeling a little frustrated.
I went to the desk beneath the second of the windows, glanced through the cubbyholes: correspondence, writing paper, envelopes, a packet of blank checks. The center drawer contained pens and pencils, various-sized paper clips and rubber bands, a tube of glue, a booklet of stamps. The three side drawers were full of letter carbons and folders jammed with facts and figures about pulp magazines and pulp writers.
From there I crossed to the overstuffed chair and the reading lamp and peered at each of them in turn. Then I looked at some of the bookshelves and went down the aisles between the library stacks. And finally I came back to the chalk outline and stood staring down again at the issues of Clues, Keyhole Mystery Magazine and Private Detective.
Eberhardt said impatiently, 'Are you getting anywhere or just stalling?'
'I'm trying to think,' I said. 'Look, Eb, you told me Murray was stabbed with a splinter-like piece of steel. How thick was it?'
'About the thickness of a pipe cleaner. Most of the 'blade' part had been honed to a fine edge and the point was needle-sharp'
'And the other end was wrapped with adhesive tape?'
'That's right. A grip, maybe.'
'Seems an odd sort of weapon, don't you think? I mean, why not just use a knife?'
'People have stabbed other people with weapons a hell of a lot stranger,' he said. 'You know that.'
'Sure. But I'm wondering if the choice of weapon here has anything to do with the locked-room angle.'
'If it does I don't see how.'
'Could it have been thrown into Murray's stomach from a distance, instead of driven there at close range?'
'I suppose it could have been. But from where? Not outside this room, not with that door locked on the inside and the windows nailed down.'
Musingly I said, 'What if the killer wasn't in this room when Murray died?'
Eberhardt's expression turned even more sour. 'I know what you're leading up to with that,' he said. 'The murderer rigged some kind of fancy crossbow arrangement, operated by a tripwire or by remote control. Well, you can forget it. The lab boys searched every inch of this room. Desk, chairs, bookshelves, reading lamp, ceiling fixtures-everything. There's nothing like that here; you've been over the room, you can tell that for yourself. There's nothing at all out of the ordinary or out of place except those magazines.'
Sharpening frustration made me get down on one knee and stare once more at the copies of Keyhole and Private Detective. They had to mean something, separately or in conjunction. But what? What?
'Lieutenant?'
The voice belonged to Inspector Jordan; when I looked up he was standing in the doorway, gesturing to Eberhardt. I watched Eb go over to him and the two of them hold a brief, soft-voiced conference. At length Eberhardt turned to look at me again.
'I'll be back in a minute,' he said. 'I've got to go talk to the family. Keep working on it.'
'Sure. What else?'
He and Jordan went away and left me alone. I kept staring at the magazines, and I kept coming up empty.
Keyhole Mystery Magazine.
Private Detective.
Nothing.
I stood up and prowled around some more, looking here and there. That went on for a couple of minutes-until all of a sudden I became aware of something Eberhardt and I should have noticed before, should have considered
