“What do you do when you’re not stealing?”
“Hang around,” said the burglar. “Go out with ladies. Feed my fish, when they’re not all over my rug. Drive my car when I’m not mangling its fenders. Play a few games of chess, drink a can or two of beer, make myself a sandwich—”
“Are you any good?”
“At making sandwiches?”
“At chess.”
“I’m not bad.”
“I’m serious about this.”
“I believe you are,” the burglar said. “I’m not your average wood-pusher, if that’s what you want to know. I know the openings and I have a good sense of space. I don’t have the patience for tournament play, but at the chess club downtown I win more games than I lose.”
“You play at the club downtown?”
“Of course. I can’t burgle seven nights a week, you know. Who could stand the pressure?”
“Then you can be of use to me,” Trebizond said.
“You want to learn the game?”
“I know the game. I want you to play chess with me for an hour until my wife gets home. I’m bored, there’s nothing in the house to read, I’ve never cared much for television, and it’s hard for me to find an interesting opponent at the chess table.”
“So you’ll spare my life in order to play chess with me.”
“That’s right.”
“Let me get this straight,” the burglar said. “There’s no catch to this, is there? I don’t get shot if I lose the game or anything tricky like that, I hope.”
“Certainly not. Chess is a game that ought to be above gimmickry.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said the burglar. He sighed a long sigh. “If I didn’t play chess,” he said, “you wouldn’t have shot me, would you?”
“It’s a question that occupies the mind, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said the burglar.
They played in the front room. The burglar drew the white pieces in the first game, opened king’s pawn, and played what turned out to be a reasonably imaginative version of the Ruy Lopez. At the sixteenth move Trebizond forced the exchange of the knight for rook, and not too long afterward the burglar resigned.
In the second game the burglar played the black pieces and offered the Sicilian Defense. He played a variation that Trebizond wasn’t familiar with. The game stayed remarkably even until in the end game the burglar succeeded in developing a passed pawn. When it was clear that he would be able to queen it, Trebizond tipped over his king, resigning.
“Nice game,” the burglar offered.
“You play well.”
“Thank you.”
“Seem’s a pity that...”
His voice trailed off. The burglar shot him an inquiring look. “That I’m wasting myself as a common criminal? Is that what you were going to say?”
“Let it go,” Trebizond. “It doesn’t matter.”
They began setting up the pieces for the third game when a key slipped into a lock. The lock turned, the door opened, and Melissa Trebizond stepped into the foyer and through it to the living room.
Both men got to their feet. Mrs. Trebizond advanced, a vacant smile on her pretty face. “You found a new friend to play chess with. I’m happy for you.”
Trebizond set his jaw. From his back pocket he drew the burglar’s pry bar. It had an even nicer heft than he thought. “Melissa,” he said. “I’ve no need to waste time with a recital of your sins. No doubt you know precisely why you deserve this.”
She stared at him, obviously not having understood a word he had said to her, whereupon Archer Trebizond brought the pry bar down on the top of her skull. The first blow sent her to her knees. Quickly he struck her three more times, wielding the metal bar with all his strength, then turned to look into the wide eyes of the burglar.
“You’ve killed her,” the burglar said.
“Nonsense,” said Trebizond, taking the bright revolver from his pocket once again.
“Isn’t she dead?”
“I hope and pray she is,” Trebizond said, “but I haven’t killed her. You’ve killed her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The police will understand,” Trebizond said, and shot the burglar in the shoulder. Then he fired again, more satisfactorily this time, and the burglar sank to the floor with a hole in his heart.
Trebizond scooped the chess pieces into their box, swept up the board, and set about the business of arranging things. He suppressed an urge to whistle. He was, he decided, quite pleased with himself. Nothing was ever entirely useless, not to a man of resources. If fate sent you a lemon you made lemonade.
86
The Terrarium Principle
Bill Pronzini
Andrea Parker was on the back porch, working on her latest project — the planting of seeds in a bottle terrarium — when she heard Jerry’s car in the driveway. She took off her gloves, brushed flecks of potting soil off her gardening shirt, and went into the kitchen to meet him as he opened the garage door.
There was a preoccupied scowl on Jerry’s face. He looked rumpled, the way Columbo used to look on television. Which was unusual; her husband may have been a police lieutenant attached to the Homicide Division, but he definitely was not the Peter Falk type.
He brushed his lips over hers — not much of a kiss, Andrea thought — and said, “I could use a drink.” He went straight to the refrigerator and began tugging out one of the ice trays.
“Rough day?” she asked him.
“You can say that again. Except that the operative word is frustrating. One of the most frustrating days I’ve ever spent.”
“Why?”
“Because a man named Harding committed murder in a locked room this morning and I can’t prove it. That’s why.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He made a face. But he said, “I might as well. It’s going to be on my mind all evening anyway. You can help me brood.”
Andrea took the ice tray away from him, shooed him into the living room, and made drinks for both of them. When she brought them in, Jerry was sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, elbow resting on one knee and chin cupped in his palm. He really did look like Columbo tonight. All he needed, she thought, was a trench coat and a cigar.
She handed him his drink and sat down beside him. “So why can’t you prove this man Harding committed murder? You did say it happened in a locked room, didn’t you?”
“Well, more or less locked. And I can’t prove it because we can’t find the gun. Without it we just don’t have a case.”
“What exactly happened?”
“It’s a pretty simple story, except for the missing gun. The classic kind of simple, I mean. Harding’s uncle, Philip Granger, has — or had — a house out in Roehampton Estates; wealthy guy, made a lot of money in oil stocks over the years. Harding, on the other hand, is your typical black-sheep nephew — drinks too much, can’t hold down a job, has a penchant for fast women and slow horses.
“This morning Harding went out to his uncle’s house to see him. The housekeeper let him in. According to her, Harding seemed upset about something, angry. Granger’s lawyer, Martin Sampson, happened to be there at the time, preparing some papers for Granger to sign, and he confirms the housekeeper’s impression that Harding was upset.
“So Harding went into his uncle’s study and either he or Granger locked the door. Fifteen minutes later both Sampson and the housekeeper heard a gunshot. They were sure it came from the study; they both ran straight for that door. But the door was locked, as I said. They pounded and shouted, and inside Harding yelled back that somebody had shot his uncle. Only he didn’t open the door right away. It took him eight and one-half minutes by Sampson’s watch to get around to it.”