Scenarios

before. Something that was at once obvious and completely unobtrusive, like the purloined letter in the Poe story.

I came to a standstill, frowning, and my mind began to crank out an idea. I did some careful checking then, and the idea took on more weight, and at the end of another couple of minutes I had convinced myself I was right.

I knew how Thomas Murray had been murdered in locked room.

Once I had that, the rest of it came together pretty quick. My mind works that way; when I have something solid to build on, a kind of chain reaction takes place. I put together things Eberhardt had told me and things I knew about Murray, and there it was in a nice ironic package: the significance of Private Detective and the name of Murray's killer.

When Eberhardt came back into the room I was going over it all for the third time, making sure of my logic. He still had the black briar clamped between his teeth and there were more scowl wrinkles in his forehead. He said, 'My suspects are getting restless; if we don't come up with an answer pretty soon, I've got to let them go on their way. And you, too.'

'I may have the answer for you right now,' I said.

That brought him up short. He gave me a penetrating look, then said, 'Give.'

'All right. What Murray was trying to tell us, as best he could with the magazines close at hand, was how he was stabbed and who his murderer is. I think Keyhole Mystery Magazine indicates how and Private Detective indicates who. It's hardly conclusive proof in either case, but it might be enough for you to pry loose an admission of guilt.'

'You just leave that part of it to me. Get on with your explanation.'

'Well, let's take the 'how' first,' I said. 'The locked-room angle. I doubt if the murderer set out to create that kind of situation; his method was clever enough, but as you pointed out we're not dealing with a mastermind here. He probably didn't even know that Murray had taken to locking himself inside this room every day. I think he must have been as surprised as everyone else when the murder turned into a locked-room thing.

'So it was supposed to be a simple stabbing done by person or persons unknown while Murray was alone in the house. But it wasn't a stabbing at all, in the strict sense of the word; the killer wasn't anywhere near here when Murray died.'

'He wasn't, huh?'

'No. That's why the adhesive tape on the murder weapon-misdirection, to make it look like Murray was stabbed with a homemade knife in a close confrontation. I'd say he worked it the way he did for two reasons: one, he didn't have enough courage to kill Murray face to face; and two, he wanted to establish an alibi for himself.'

Eberhardt puffed up another great cloud of acrid smoke from his pipe. 'So tell me how the hell you put a steel splinter into a man's stomach when you're miles away from the scene.'

'You rig up a death trap,' I said, 'using a keyhole.'

'Now, look, we went over all that before. The key was inside the keyhole when we broke in, I told you that, and I won't believe the killer used some kind of tricky gimmick that the lab crew overlooked.'

'That's not what happened at all. What hung both of us up is a natural inclination to associate the word 'keyhole' with a keyhole in a door. But the fact is, there are five other keyholes in this room.'

'What?'

'The desk, Eb. The roll top desk over there.'

He swung his head around and looked at the desk beneath the window. It contained five keyholes, all right- one in the roll top, one in the center drawer and one each in the three side drawers. Like those on most antique roll top desks, they were meant to take large, old-fashioned keys and therefore had good-sized openings. But they were also half-hidden in scrolled brass frames with decorative handle pulls; and no one really notices them anyway, any more than you notice individual cubbyholes or the design of the brass trimming. When you look at a desk you see it as an entity: you see a desk.

Eberhardt put his eyes on me again. 'Okay,' he said, 'I see what you mean. But I searched that desk myself, and so did the lab boys. There's nothing on it or in it that could be used to stab a man through a keyhole.'

'Yes, there is.' I led him over to the desk. 'Only one of these keyholes could have been used, Eb. It isn't the one in the roll top because the top is pushed all the way up; it isn't any of the ones in the side drawers because of where Murray was stabbed-he would have had to lean over at an awkward angle, on his own initiative, in order to catch that steel splinter in the stomach. It has to be the center drawer then, because when a man sits down at a desk like this, that drawer-and that keyhole-are about on a level with the area under his breastbone.'

He didn't argue with the logic of that. Instead, he reached out, jerked open the center drawer by its handle pull and stared inside at the pens and pencils, paper clips, rubber bands and other writing paraphernalia.

Then, after a moment, I saw his eyes change and understanding come into them.

'Rubber band,' he said.

'Right.' I picked up the largest one; it was about a quarter-inch wide, thick and strong-not unlike the kind kids use to make slingshots. 'This one, no doubt.'

'Keep talking.'

'Take a look at the keyhole frame on the inside of the center drawer. The top doesn't quite fit snug with the wood; there's enough room to slip the edge of this band into the crack. All you'd have to do then is stretch the band out around the steel splinter, ease the point of the weapon through the keyhole and anchor it against the metal on the inside rim of the hole. It would take time to get the balance right and close the drawer without releasing the band, but it could be done by someone with patience and a steady hand. And what you'd have then is a death trap-a cocked and powerful slingshot.'

Eberhardt nodded slowly.

'When Murray sat down at the desk,' I said, 'all it took was for him to pull open the drawer with the jerking motion people always use. The point of the weapon slipped free, the rubber band released like a spring, and the splinter shot through and sliced into Murray's stomach. The shock and impact drove him and the chair backward, and he must have stood up convulsively at the same time, knocking over the chair. That's when he staggered into those bookshelves. And meanwhile the rubber band flopped loose from around the keyhole frame, so that everything looked completely ordinary inside the drawer.'

'I'll buy it,' Eberhardt said. 'It's just simple enough and logical enough to be the answer.' He gave me a sidewise look. 'You're pretty good at this kind of thing, once you get going.'

'It's just that the pulp connection got my juices flowing.'

'Yeah, the pulp connection. Now, what about Private Detective and the name of the killer?'

'The clue Murray left us there is a little more roundabout,' I said. 'But you've got to remember that he was dying and that he only had time to grab those magazines that were handy. He couldn't tell us more directly who he believed was responsible.'

'Go on,' he said, 'I'm listening.'

'Murray collected pulp magazines, and he obviously also read them. So he knew that private detectives as a group are known by all sorts of names-shamus, op, eye, snooper.' I allowed myself a small, wry smile. 'And one more, just as common.'

'Which is?'

'Peeper,' I said.

He considered that. 'So?'

'Eb, Murray also collected every other kind of popular culture. One of those kinds is prints of old television shows. And one of your suspects is a small, mousy guy who wears thick glasses; you told me that yourself. I'd be willing to bet that some time ago Murray made a certain obvious comparison between this relative of his and an old TV show character from back in the fifties, and that he referred to the relative by that character's name.'

'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