The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“Damned fools… everything must fit… Or else…” For once I had sense enough to keep my questions to myself for the time being.

Fortunately I had not long to wait. Hardly had Katoh had opportunity to brew some coffee, with which he appeared somewhat in the manner of a dog wagging its tail deprecatingly, than Peake’s ring sounded at the entrance. He came in hurriedly but his smile, as well as his words, indicated his opinion that he had been roused by a false alarm.

“Well, well, Mr Tarrant, what is this trouble over?”

Tarrant snapped, “Your man’s gone. Disappeared. How do you like that?”

“The patrolman on guard?” The policeman’s expression was incredulous.

“The single patrolman you left on guard.”

Peake stepped over to the telephone, called Headquarters. After a few briet words he turned back to us, his incredulity at Tarrant’s statement apparently confirmed.

“You must be mistaken, sir,” he asserted. “There have been no reports from Officer Weber. He would never leave the premises without reporting such an occasion.”

Tarrant’s answer was purely practical. “Come and see.”

And when we reached the terrace on the building’s roof, there was, in fact, no sign of the patrolman who should have been at his station. We entered the penthouse and, the lights having been turned on, Peake himself made a complete search of the premises. While Tarrant watched the proceedings in a grim silence, I walked over to the north window of the studio, grey in the early morning light, and sought for the nail hole he had mentioned as being in the floor. There it was, a small, clean indentation, about an inch or an inch and a half deep, in one of the hardwood planks. This, and everything else about the place, appeared just as Tarrant had described it to us some hours before, previous to my turning in. I was just in time to see Peake emerge from the enlarged opening in the lavatory floor, dusty and sorely puzzled.

“Our man is certainly not here,” the inspector acknowledged. “I cannot understand it. This is a serious breach of discipline.”

“Hell,” said Tarrant sharply, speaking for the first time since we had come to the roof. “This is a serious breach of intelligence, not discipline.”

“I shall broadcast an immediate order for the detention of Patrolman Weber.” Peake stepped into the bedroom and approached the phone to carry out his intention.

“You needn’t broadcast it. I have already spoken to the night operator in the lobby on the ground floor. He told me a policeman left the building in great haste about 3:30 this morning. If you will have the local precinct check up on the all-night lunch-rooms along Lexington Avenue in this vicinity, you will soon pick up the first step of the trail that man left… You will probably take my advice, now that it is too late.”

Peake did so, putting the call through at once; but his bewilderment was no whit lessened. Nor was mine. As he put down the instrument, he said: “All right. But it doesn’t make sense. Why should he leave his post without notifying us? And why should he go to a lunch-room?”

“Because he was hungry.”

“But there has been a crazy murderer here already. And now Weber, an ordinary cop, if I ever saw one. Does this place make everybody mad?”

“Not as mad as you’re going to be in a minute. But perhaps you weren’t using the word in that sense?”

Peake let it pass. “Everything,” he commented slowly, “is just as we left it yesterday evening. Except for Weber’s disappearance.”

“Is that so?” Tarrant led us to the entrance from the roof to the studio and pointed downwards. The light was now bright enough to disclose an unmistakable spattering of blood on one of the steps before the door. “That blood wasn’t there when we left last night. I came up here about five-thirty, the moment I got on to this thing,” he continued bitterly. “Of course I was too late… Damnation, let us make an end to this farce. I’ll show you some more things that have altered during the night.”

We followed him into the studio again as he strode over to the easel with its lewd picture, opposite the entrance. He pointed to the nail still protruding through the canvas. “I don’t know how closely you observed the hole made in this painting by the nail yesterday. But it’s a little larger now and the edges are more frayed. In other words the nail has been removed and once more inserted.”

I turned about to find that Gleeb, somehow apprised of the excitement, had entered the penthouse and now stood a little behind us. Tarrant acknowledged his presence with a curt nod; and in the air of tension that his tenant was building up the manager ventured no questions.

“Now,” Tarrant continued, pointing out the locations as he spoke, “possibly they have dried, but when I first got here this morning there was a trail of moist spots still leading from the entrance door way to the vicinity of the north window. You will find that they were places where a trail of blood had been wiped away with a wet cloth.”

He turned to the picture beside him and withdrew the nail, pulling himself up as if for a repugnant job. He walked over to the north window and motioned us to take our places on either side of him. Then he bent down and inserted the nail, point first, into the indentation in the plank, as firmly as he could. He braced himself and apparently strove to pull the nail toward the south, away from the window.

I was struggling with an obvious doubt. I said, “But you told us the planks could not be lifted.”

“Can’t,” Tarrant grunted. “But they can be slid.”

Under his efforts the plank was, in fact, sliding. Its end appeared from under the footboard at the base of the north wall below the window and continued to move over a space of several feet. When this had been accomplished, he grasped the edges of the planks on both sides of the one already moved and slid them back also. An opening quite large enough to squeeze through was revealed.

But that was not all. The huddled body of a man lay just beneath; the man was clad only in underwear and was obviously dead from the beating in of his head.

As we bent over, gasping at the unexpectedly gory sight, Gleeb suddenly cried, “But that is not Michael Salti! What is this, a murder farm? I don’t know this man.”

Inspector Peake’s voice was ominous with anger. “I do. That is the body of Officer Weber. But how could he-”

Tarrant had straightened up and was regarding us with a look that said plainly he was anxious to get an unpleasant piece of work finished. “It was simple enough,” he ground out. “Salti cut out the planks beneath the bath-tub in the lavatory so that these planks in the studio could be slid back over the beam along the foundation under the south wall; their farther ends in this position will now be covering the hole in the lavatory floor. The floor here is well fitted and the planks are grooved, thus making the sliding possible. They can be moved back into their original position by someone in the space below here; doubtless we shall find a small block nailed to the under portion of all three planks for that purpose.

“He murdered his model, set the scene and started his phonograph, which will run interminably on the electric current. Then he crawled into his hiding-place. The discovery of the crime could not be put off any later than the chambermaid’s visit in the morning, and I have no doubt he took a sadistic pleasure in anticipating her hysterics when she entered. By chance your radio man, Gleeb, caused us to enter first.

“When the place was searched and the murderer not discovered, his pursuit passed elsewhere, while he himself lay concealed here all day. It was even better than doubling back upon his tracks, for he had never left the starting post. Eventually, of course, he had to get out, but by that time the vicinity of this building would be the last place in which he was being searched for.

“Early this morning he pushed back the planks from underneath and came forth. I don’t know whether he had expected anyone to be left on guard, but that helped rather than hindered him. Creeping up upon the unsuspecting guard, he knocked him out – doubtless with that mallet I can just see beside the body – and beat him to death. Then he put his second victim in the hiding-place, returning the instrument that closes it from above, the nail, to its position in the painting. He had already stripped off his own clothes, which you will find down in that hole, and in the officer’s uniform and coat he found no difficulty in leaving the building. His first action was to hurry to a lunch- room, naturally, since after a day and a night without food under the floor here, he must have been famished. I have no doubt that your men will get a report of him along Lexington Avenue, Peake; but, even so, he now has some hours’ start on you.”

“We’ll get him,” Peake assured us. “But if you knew all this, why in heaven’s name didn’t you have this place