The Book of Extraordinary Amateur Sleuth and Private Eye Stories Read online

  I scribbled in my notebook, considering my next question. “Now… Do either of you have any idea as to how the painting could possibly have been taken?”

  Evans scratched his head. “Well, we talked it over, didn’t we, Doug? And we agreed it was damned near impossible for anyone to have nicked it.”

  Wainwright nodded. “Impossible,” he said. “Almost beyond belief.”

  “An impossible crime,” I mused, smiling to myself. “And to think—you were the very last people to set eyes on the masterpiece.”

  “If only I’d known,” Wainwright laughed, “I’d’ve had one last, long look at the lass, instead of hurrying off.”

  “And speaking of hurrying off…” Mr. Murgatroyd leaned forward. “What did you do immediately after leaving the Old Masters room?”

  “We deposited the trolley back in our storeroom,” Wainwright said, “then packed up and went home.”

  “Your storeroom,” Mr. Murgatroyd said. “And where is this located, precisely?”

  Evans glanced at Wainwright, who said, “Why, it’s right next door to the Old Masters room.”

  Murgatroyd sat back and smiled to himself. “Thank you,” he said.

  I asked a few routine questions, and in due course the pair took their leave.

  ***

  “Well,” I said, as we left the director’s office and made our way back to the Old Masters room, “it seems we’re no closer to discovering what happened to the painting.”

  Mr. Murgatroyd looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “We aren’t?” he said. “You mean, you aren’t?”

  I stopped on the threshold of the room and stared at him. “And you are?”

  He gestured for me to enter before him. We walked the length of the room and stared at where the painting had once hung.

  Exasperated, I said, “You mean to say, Mr. Murgatroyd, that you know who took the painting? But it can’t have been the porters–”

  He stopped me. “Mr. Mallory,” he said with infinite patience, “I can safely say that no one was responsible for the painting’s theft.”

  I stared at him. “What? But… but,” I said, gesturing at the empty wall. “But it’s gone! It isn’t there! By the evidence of your own eyes–”

  He interrupted, “The evidence of my own eyes is what first alerted me to the oddity at the heart of the mystery. Or should I say that it was the evidence of my peculiar ability?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind explaining yourself,” I said, feeling very much like Dr. Watson when confronted with one of Holmes’s incredible deductions.

  Mr. Murgatroyd beamed at me. “No one was responsible for the theft of the painting, Mr. Mallory, because no one stole the painting. You see, it has not been taken from the premises. It still hangs on the wall.”

  “But,” I said, gesturing at the wall, “it’s not there!”

  “Precisely,” he said. “It’s not there.”

  “Then where is it?” I asked. “And who might be responsible?”

  “Who else,” he said, “but the porters?”

  “Impossible!” I cried. “Why, you’ve seen the footage yourself. There’s no way they could have stolen the painting!”

  Mr. Murgatroyd smiled at me. “But as I explained,” he said patiently, “the painting has not been stolen… yet.”

  ***

  One hour later, after I’d phoned the Yard and impressed upon Inspector Bellamy the need to meet us at the Fortescue, four of us stood in the rather cramped confines of the porters’ storeroom: Mr. Murgatroyd and myself, Director Shaw, and Detective Inspector Bellamy. Two plainclothes officers loitered in the corridor outside.

  The security officer had been sent to find Messrs. Wainwright and Evans and tell them that their presence was required in the storeroom.

  Mr. Murgatroyd was showing a marked interest in a large map of the world which hung on the wall. “Very interesting,” he said. “You will note, my friends, that the map occupies the wall abutting the Old Masters room.”

  Detective Inspector Bellamy looked dubious. “And this is significant?” I think he was more than a little disgruntled by Mr. Murgatroyd’s claim to have solved the case.

  “Highly,” said Mr. Murgatroyd.

  “If you would kindly explain–” Bellamy began, only to be interrupted when the door opened and the porters rather warily entered the room.

  “Gentlemen,” Director Shaw said, “I am so glad you could join us. Mr. Murgatroyd, here, would like a word.”

  Wainwright and Evans looked from Mr. Murgatroyd to Detective Inspector Bellamy; they seemed more than a little apprehensive.

  Wainwright found his voice. “How can we help you?”

  Smiling, Mr. Murgatroyd reached out and lifted the map from the wall, laid it to one side and, with a flourish of his right hand, said, “Now, I wonder if you might explain… this.”

  We all stared at the wall, or rather at the place where a great patch of plaster had been removed, along with perhaps a dozen bricks.

  “Run!” Evans cried. He flung open the door and bolted with Wainwright hot on his heels and Inspector Bellamy in close pursuit.

  We heard the sound of a scuffle from the corridor, followed by a cry. By the time we emerged, the plainclothes officers were in the process of handcuffing the porters.

  “Good work, men,” Bellamy said. “Now,” he went on, turning to Mr. Murgatroyd, “if you wouldn’t mind explaining exactly where the blazes the painting is?”

  “Not at all, Inspector,” Mr. Murgatroyd said. “If you would care to follow me.”

  ***

  In the Old Masters room, Mr. Murgatroyd told Director Shaw and Inspector Bellamy how his peculiar ability had assisted him in solving the mystery of the missing Vermeer.

  “When I left the gallery yesterday,” he said, “I had the distinct notion that something was not quite right about the room, compared to when I had seen the painting a month ago. When I returned here today, I knew what was wrong. You see, the Old Masters room is smaller than it had been.”

  Inspector Bellamy looked incredulous. “Smaller?”

  “Or, to be more precise, the room is shorter by some four inches.”

  “But…” Director Shaw began.

  “So, of course,” Mr. Murgatroyd went on, “I suspected that this had a bearing on the disappearance of the Vermeer.”

  “But how?” Bellamy sounded exasperated.

  “This was a very clever, I might say ingenious, heist,” Mr. Murgatroyd said, “though technically it was not a heist in the accepted sense of the word. Rather, it was a concealment.”

  “A concealment?” Bellamy repeated.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Murgatroyd said. “You see, when our friends Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Evans trolleyed the Titian into the room that Friday evening, they also brought with them, hidden behind the swaddled painting, a screen in four parts—a screen got up with the same maroon flocked wallpaper, magnolia cornices, and picture mounts as the other three walls. Now, during the thirty-two minutes and fourteen seconds they were in the room, they unwrapped the Titian, set it to one side, then unfolded the false wall and secured it in position, four inches in front of the wall bearing the Vermeer.”

  “Good God!” Bellamy gasped, staring at the empty wall.

  “To all appearances,” Mr. Murgatroyd went on, “it would seem that the painting has been taken from its mount. Now, when I learned that the porters’ storeroom was next door to the Old Masters room, everything became crystal clear.”

  “Ingenious!” Director Shaw said.

  “And as we have just discovered,” Mr. Murgatroyd finished, “Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Evans have already started removing the bricks from the wall in the storeroom in order to gain access to the Vermeer—working against time before another painting is hung and the wall is found to be false.”

  Inspe
ctor Bellamy stepped forward. “Do you mind if I…?” he asked the director.

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  Bellamy regarded the false wall. It was some eight feet high by twelve wide, and the porters had done a fine job of matching the flocked wallpaper with that of the other walls. I certainly was unable to tell the difference.

  Bellamy reached out and tapped the wallpaper. The wall appeared sturdy enough, though a satisfyingly hollow sound reached our ears.

  As we watched, Inspector Bellamy moved to the corner of the room and inspected the intersection of the false wall with the outer. He looked back at us. “Now, how to go about this?”

  “I have an idea,” I said. “Back in a jiffy.” I hurried to the porters’ storeroom, found what I was looking for, and returned with two claw hammers.

  “These should do the trick,” I said, passing one to Bellamy.

  We took up positions at each end of the false wall and, with the claw ends of our hammerheads, began work. Within a minute, I had made a hole large enough to insert my hand.

  Bellamy had excavated an even larger aperture in the ply-board. “Cle-ver…” he said, peering into the hole. “They even knocked up a four-by-three timber frame to give the wall solidity. If we give it an almighty tug, on the count of three…”

  “Stand back!” I called to Mr. Murgatroyd and Director Shaw.

  They retreated to the middle of the room and watched the operation with some apprehension.

  “One, two, three… Now!”

  We tugged in unison and, as the wall came away from its nailed moorings, we scurried away and joined Mr. Murgatroyd and the director.

  The wall fell slowly forward with a whumph of displaced air to reveal, hanging in pride of place in all its splendor, Vermeer’s The Milkmaid.

  “Well, I’ll be…” Bellamy said, allowing himself a rare smile.

  “I think,” I said, “that this calls for a celebration. How about a drink at the Pig and Whistle? We’ll raise our glasses to Mr. Murgatroyd’s Peculiar Ability…”

  The little man beamed. “I’ll drink to that,” he said.

  The Chocolate Underpants Caper

  Mary Harris

  I’m an officer. A grievance officer. Dana Gore, assigned to Local 221, American Authors Union. All the doo-doo that agents, editors, and publishers dish out to writers ends up on my shoes. Usually, doo-doo happens because writers can be idiots. They don’t ask for contracts. They don’t read contracts if they get them. They sign contracts without any forethought or advice. Then the doo-doo hits the fan and they run screaming to me.

  It was a dark and stormy Monday. I knew it was a deep-doo-doo case when he burst through the door and thrust a handful of papers onto my beat-up metal desk, shoving the keyboard askew.

  “You know what they did to me?” he yelled.

  I saved the book I was trying to write, made sure my blouse wasn’t gaping, and pointed to the rickety guest chair.

  “Sit.”

  He sat. I studied the contract. It made for sad reading. Mr. Walter Dunphy had signed away his latest children’s book to Edacity Publications. For years, he had existed meagerly on cutesy plots featuring baby animals and itsy-bitsy toddlers, using carefully researched language structures appropriate for his target market; then he gave up and dashed off a stupid little book about an eight-year-old boy who wouldn’t wear underwear but always saved the day.

  It hit the New York Times bestseller list. TV-Land was working on a cartoon spinoff. A multinational toy company contracted to produce the doll, clothing (sans underpants), and coloring books. There were rumors of Hollywood interest. All these goodies normally bang more bucks into the writer’s pocket. However, the contract was a standard boiler-plate confection from the early ʼ60s. Poor old Wally was fifth in line at a cash cow with four teats.

  I waved the papers at him. “Did your agent approve this?”

  “Don’t have one. Why should somebody get fifteen percent of my blood, sweat, and tears?”

  “Because now you’re getting one hundred percent of bupkes. Did you get legal advice before signing?”

  Dunphy hung his head in his hands. “No,” he mumbled through thin fingers.

  “Did you talk to an Authors Union contract advisor?”

  He shook his head, thin gray hair creating a sad halo.

  “Right. So what do you want me to do?” I asked.

  He bolted from the chair. It teetered, then settled back into its usual slump. “I want my rights! I want what’s mine! They’re making a fortune off me!”

  I pointed to paragraph 15, subclause H. “You get 10% of the publisher’s 50% for sub rights, triple net.”

  “I don’t even know what that means!” he screamed.

  I opened a battered drawer and took out a pamphlet, ignoring the metallic screech as I shoved the drawer closed.

  “Here. This explains everything.”

  He glanced at the pamphlet, his sweaty fist creating inky smudges. “But what are you going to do? I’m a Union member! You have to help me.” He ended on a whimper and collapsed onto the chair. I hoped the slightly bent legs would hold.

  “Help you do what? You signed away your rights for a mess of pottage. A really small mess.”

  “Can’t you threaten them? Don’t you have a gun? Can’t you break into their office and steal the contract?”

  I looked at him. “Are you crazy? I wouldn’t do that for one of my own books.”

  “What will you do? I pay my dues. I’m entitled to help!”

  Entitlement. I’ve heard it all. One co-author screws another. The agent hangs onto royalty checks for a year or more, but never passes along any interest. The publisher grabs e-rights by shoving them into an obscure paragraph about foreign language reprints in Guam. They all feel they’re entitled to a bigger slice of the pecuniary pie because they’ve worked harder than anyone else.

  “You’re entitled to a fair contract. You’re entitled to on-time royalty checks and statements. You’re entitled to a decent promo budget. Heck, you’re even entitled to get paid more than twice a year. Which will never happen. But you have to do the spadework first.” I shoved the contract and letters across the desk. Several pages drifted to the floor.

  “I was so happy to make the sale I never…the contract looked so nice, with my name on it and everything… You don’t know how long I’ve…”

  “Sure I do. Been there, written that. Which is why I got into this biz.” I tossed a card at him. Handled carefully, the lettering wouldn’t smear. “I got ripped off one too many times. Discovered the Union could help me level the playing field. Now, when I negotiate a contract, I avoid those nasty little clauses which give a year’s worth of work a dollar value less than minimum wage. And I help other writers avoid the same potholes on the road to committing literature.”

  He stared at the card. “Then you’re getting paid by the Union to help me!”

  “Hold on there, scrivener. We’re volunteers. I’m paid squatta. I’m lucky to get reimbursed for phone calls and stamps.”

  He looked around my office. A dingy room with a toilet down the hall that no self-respecting vulture would use, the single window permitted a narrow view of a brick building assembled by architecturally impaired nineteenth-century immigrants and allowed the gentle odors of uncollected garbage to waft in. The best attractions, however, were its low rent, paid in cash to a small furtive man on the first of every month, and its distance from my home, where several children and one husband felt it their mission from God to interrupt me every time a story took life or a deadline became imminent.

  I pulled a file folder from another screeching drawer. Got to remember to bring the WD-40 tomorrow, I thought. The noise, however, drove the dingy pigeons from the windowsill.

  After scanning and printing his papers, I handed Dunphy his originals. “I’ll take another lo
ok,” I said. “You’ll hear from me. But I’m not promising anything.”

  Anger warred with gratitude on his face. “Those greedy encephalic spawn of hell better pay up! Thanks for your help.” He shambled out of the office. I accessed my novel again and tried to coax the muse back to my shoulder.

  ***

  Tuesday morning was already hot as I climbed the three flights to my office. A well-fed, elegantly clad gentleman waited outside the locked door. He flourished a business card while I pulled out my purse-sized Mace keychain.

  “I’m Arthur Razewell Delahanty. Attorney for Edacity Publications. You must be Ms.,” he peered at the inset window, “An Gor.”

  “What?” Several more flakes of gold lettering drifted off the rippled glass, further reducing my name. “No,” I replied. “It’s Dana Gore. But that’s okay, Art. Easy mistake.”

  We entered and I waved him to the folding chair. He glanced at it, then stood next to my desk and snapped the card down. “I’m here regarding Mr. Dunphy’s unfounded complaints in re Edacity.”

  I pulled out Dunphy’s file. Delahanty’s head craned over my arm. “Don’t hover, okay, Art? Makes me nervous.”

  He moved away, still trying to read my notes. “Actually, the name’s Arthur. Or Mr. Delahanty. I’ve never been called Art.”

  “Nor has anything your employer puts out. Let’s get right to it, Art. What are you offering?”

  He plunked down his tooled leather briefcase and abstracted papers. “According to the contract, Edacity owes Dunphy nothing.” He patted the signature. “It’s all legal and ironclad.”

  “Did anyone talk to Mr. Dunphy about this contract? Before he signed it with his blood, I mean.”

  Delahanty’s nostrils flared. “I spent time with him going over various terms. An inordinate amount of time, I might add. For which he did not pay.”

  I totally revere the English language but don’t object to ending sentences with prepositions. Especially when, spoken correctly, they’re uppity. Ergo, I wanted to give Art what for.

  “So he signed upon your advice and direction, huh? Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.”