The note was almost illegible, obviously written in the last stages of drunkenness. But amid the erratic scrawling she could make out the phrase: “Sorry I have to take this way out, Lydia, but—” Nothing more was decipherable, but that was enough to indicate it was a suicide note.
Tearing it into small pieces, she flushed it away.
It was a good thing she worked for the insurance company where Jim was insured, she thought. Otherwise, she might have been unaware that his fifty-thousand-dollar policy contained a suicide clause which voided it in the event he took his own life.
It was only right that she should salvage something from a marriage to which she had devoted ten years, Lydia thought. And if she hadn’t removed the knife from Jim’s chest and the note from his hand, she would have nothing to show for the ten years.
The Missing Bow
by Arthur Porges
Archery has been employed for almost everything from improving a young deb’s posture to enhancing Zen contemplation. Seldom, however, has a man “with many strings to his bow” concluded a more dubious achievement.
“Can a one-armed man with bad legs use a bow-and-arrow to kill somebody? Oddly enough, sir, the answer is yes. He just puts his feet against the inside of the bow, and draws back the string with his good arm. In fact, on some occasions, archers of the past made special long-distance flights that way — turning themselves into human cross-bows, so to speak.
Professor Ulysses Price Middlebie, once a teacher of the History and Philosophy of Science, and now a sometime crime-consultant, gave Sergeant Black a quizzical stare.
“If that is so, and I’m aware of the truth of your statement, what’s the difficulty?”
“That a one-armed man can shoot an arrow very well indeed, if he’s practised a bit, but how does he make the bow vanish into thin air?”
The professor blinked.
“Maybe you’d better explain that.”
“I wish I could. All I know is that no bow was found, and that it wasn’t possible for him to have disposed of it.”
Middlebie was silent for a moment, then he said briskly: Let’s forget the missing bow for a while, and build up some background. I can’t work in a vacuum. Who was killed; who’s the suspect; and what was the motive, if any?
“The victim was a Victor Borden — male, white, age thirty-four. I suspect Howard Cole, also white, male, but forty-one years old. As to the motive, that’s a cinch. Fifteen months ago, Borden rammed his car into Cole’s, killing the man’s wife and child — an eight-year-old girl. Cole himself lost his left arm, and was so mangled below the waist that he can just barely hobble around now.”
Middlebie looked grim.
“You mean Borden was entirely to blame for the accident?”
“Officially, no. In my opinion, definitely yes. He was going too fast, and had been drinking. Cole had the right-of-way. Borden claimed he acted in time to prevent the crash, but that his brakes failed. Said he’d been having trouble with them for several weeks. His garage mechanic verified that part but insisted he’d fixed them up the day before. But Borden’s lawyer — a good man, too good for justice — proved that the mechanic had often been guilty of sloppy work, and even collecting for jobs not done at all. That was enough to confuse the jury. They knew Borden had been drinking and speeding but couldn’t be sure about the brakes. What they didn’t know — it can’t be brought out during the trial — is that Borden has a long record of accidents, reckless driving, suspended licenses, and the rest. He was guilty, all right — to the hilt.”
“But got off? Scot-free?”
“No; they gave him a lousy year for involuntary manslaughter. He was out in nine months — about eleven weeks ago, in fact.”
“What was his trade, or profession?”
“A small-time fast buck operator, I’d say. Anything to make an easy dollar from some sucker. Not quite illegal, but close. Peddling shoddy merchandise as army surplus — that type of thing.”
“And Cole?”
“That’s the tragic part. Nominally he manages a sporting goods store. But his real work is as an expert archer. He did all the trick shots for the new ‘Robin Hood’ shows. Now here he is with one arm and stiff legs. Not to mention his family; he was crazy about them.”
“Did he talk about revenge?”
“Not that we can find out. Cole’s a reserved, laconic kind of man — a vanishing breed, if you ask me. Still water running deep.”
The professor fixed his luminous gray eyes on Black, and said: “He didn’t threaten, but you suspect him. Why?”
“Hell, he made it easy — too easy. Listen to this. Cole had a cabby — always the same one — drive him to Borden’s flat every night for a week. Between seven and eight each time. He’d leave the cab parked a few feet from the opening to a sort of blind alley. The driver could see him go in, but not what he did towards the end, which was out of sight and dark besides. Let me tell you about that alley. Back doors of stores open into it, and they’re all well-locked. Nobody leaves his door open in that neighborhood; there are more petty thieves to the block than empty muscatel bottles, and that’s saying something.
“Borden lived over a store at the end of the alley. The night of the murder, he was in the bathroom, getting ready to shave; in fact, he was all lathered up, with his back to the open window. A perfect target. The window’s about ten feet up, but set back from the store roof so that its distance from the alley where Cole must have stood is nearly thirty feet.
“Well, that night Cole comes in the cab as usual, and hobbles down the alley out of sight. The cabby swears he was carrying only one thing the thing he always carried in there: a miniature tape-recorder. I’ll explain about that later. Anyhow, a few minutes after Cole is out of sight of the cab, the driver hears an awful screech — that’s from the woman who lived with Borden — and then Cole comes limping out. Now before he can even get into the cab, a squad-car rolls up. It seems that some old lady across the street has noticed the cab pulling in there every night for a week, and the cripple getting out and going into the alley. So that night she can’t stand any more, and calls the police.”
“I see,” Middlebie said thoughtfully. “Cole goes into a blind alley with no bow, comes out the same way, and is captured on the spot.”
“That’s it,” Black moaned. “No chance to hide the bow, even if he smuggled it past the cabby.”
“And Borden was killed with an arrow.”
“Yes. It had a heavy, sharp point — they tell me it’s the kind used for hunting deer and such. It split Borden’s spinal cord with one of the sharp edges. He fell, making a crash with junk from the medicine cabinet; that’s when his girlfriend screamed.”
“You searched the alley, of course.”
“You bet. All the doors were locked; there was simply no place to hide even a small bow.
“Was the arrow traced to Cole?”
Black made a grimace.
“He has hundreds of arrows at home — in closets and in the garage. Some are souvenirs of old movies where he did stunt work. How can we identify an arrow from some picture made twenty-five years ago — say Errol Flynn’s ‘Robin Hood’? It’s just a broad-head used for hunting, with only one funny thing about it.”
Middlebie seemed to snap to attention.
“What was that?”
“There was a length of string tied to it, an inch or two below the feathers.”
“Bow-string?”