“Then what?” I asked. “The windows were barred, the door was bolted on the inside, and the secret passage — even if the killer knew about it — led only to a solid steel door without a knob.”
And even as I said the words the whole thing clicked into place. I knew how the killer escaped from the room, and I knew who it had to be. I even had a pretty good idea of the motive.
“I’m going out for a while,” I told Annabel.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Sam.”
“I’ll try not to.”
I drove over to Meg Woolitzer’s office, a storefront near the town square that served as the paper’s editorial office. Though it was late afternoon of her publication day, I was pretty sure she’d be at work, preparing a story on Aaron Cartwright’s murder. She looked up as I entered, a trace of sadness in her smile. I could see Penny at work in the back office.
“Hello, Sam. I’m sorry about what happened. I’d hate to think your Unlock Homes photo had anything to do with it.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her desk. “I’m afraid it had everything to do with it, Meg. I thought I should come over and tell you about it.”
“You know how the killer got out of that room?”
“I do. More important, I know how that copy of the Advertiser got into the room.”
“What?”
“No one thought to question how your paper could have been on Cartwright’s desk as early as six in the morning. It’s only delivered to houses in town, not as far out as his place. And even the town copies probably aren’t delivered that early. I questioned your whereabouts this morning because it occurred to me that the only way the Advertiser could have gotten into that house by six A.M. was if the murderer brought it.”
“You’re saying I killed him?”
I looked beyond her at Penny Hamish, who’d come to the door to listen. “No, Meg. I’m saying that Penny killed him.”
She stepped into the room to face me. “Because of the newspaper? Because I would have had an early copy of it?”
“Partly that, yes. But if the killer brought the paper along and unfolded it to show Cartwright that picture, it was to confront him with it. You weren’t along when Meg took the picture, but when you saw it you noticed something familiar, didn’t you? Not the stack of old radiators Unlock Homes had uncovered, but what was just behind me in the photo — an antique china cabinet with a cracked glass door. I remembered that Cartwright bought the old Hamish farm some years back to add to his property. That was your family’s place, wasn’t it? And I suspect the familiar china cabinet came from there. Whatever you thought happened to it, you had no idea it was rotting away in Aaron Cartwright’s barn. You may have seen the photo in the office earlier, but you didn’t recognize the china cabinet until you saw it in print. You phoned Cartwright early this morning and demanded to see him. He was fully dressed — a hint that he was receiving a woman visitor — and let you in himself, taking you into the library and bolting the door so George wouldn’t interrupt. Then you argued, and in a fury you grabbed that miniature birdbath and hit him with it.”
Penny Hamish wet her lips nervously and I knew that my reconstruction was mostly accurate so far. “If I killed him, how did I get out of that locked room?” She was challenging me, but I was ready for her.
“The room wasn’t locked,” I said simply. “Not then.”
“Not locked?” Meg repeated.
“With a female guest arriving at six in the morning to see him, old Aaron didn’t want to leave his room and walk past George’s open bedroom door. Surely the young man would have awakened from his light sleep. Aaron used the combination only he knew to open the steel door to the secret passage. He descended to the library that way and watched for your arrival. Since there was no knob or combination dial on the interior, he had to leave the door open. No doubt the bookcase door downstairs was left ajar, too. After you killed him—”
“He told me he’d return the cabinet if I — if I had sex with him. He put his clammy hand on my arm and that’s when I hit him.”
“Penny!” Meg went to her then, wrapping protective arms around the young woman.
“You feared that George might have been attracted by the noise, so you couldn’t unbolt the door and go out that way. Instead, you went up through the secret passage to his bedroom, closed the metal door behind you, and hid there, perhaps under the bed.”
“Yes,” she muttered.
“After George checked the room and went downstairs to phone the sheriff and me, it was easy for you to sneak out and remain hidden upstairs until the rest of us arrived later. Then you acted as if you’d just come in, and phoned Meg to report the killing. But when I left, I noticed all the cars in the driveway, and there wasn’t one for you. Where did you park it, Penny?”
“Down the road behind some bushes. I didn’t want people to see my car in his driveway at six in the morning.”
“He’d made advances to you before?” Meg asked.
“God, he was old enough to be my grandfather!” She turned to stare me down. “That’s the one thing you got a bit wrong, Dr. Hawthorne. He bolted the library door so George wouldn’t interrupt while he tried to seduce me.”
Meg shook her head. “You were a fool to go there alone, Penny.”
“When I recognized our china cabinet in that picture I was just so furious! He claimed someone broke in and stole it from our old house, and there it was, all the time.”
“What do we do now?” Meg Woolitzer asked me.
Before I could speak, Penny answered for me. “Call Sheriff Lens. And then go to press with an extra edition, Meg. I’ll give you an interview for the front page. That should be enough to make the Advertiser into a real paper!”
Copyright (c); 2005 by Edward D. Hoch.
The Street Party
by Natasha Cooper
Natasha Cooper worked in publishing before becoming a writer. Her debut mystery, published in 1990, was the first in a tongue-in-cheek whodunit series; several years later she introduced a new sleuth, barrister Trish McGuire, in a darker, more realistic crime novel. Her more than 25 novels in print also include some she writes under the pseudonym Clare Layton. Her most recent U. S. publication is Keep Me Alive.
The crash of breaking glass made Maggie flinch. It always had ever since the Blitz.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Cross,” said the woman from Number 23, “it’s only Phoebe dropping her tumbler. Look, Colin’s picking up the bits.”
At the far end of the long table, with its red checked cloth and pretty flowers, one of Number 23’s sons was reassuring five-year-old Phoebe from next-door.
“He’s only fourteen,” said Number 23 proudly. (Maggie couldn’t remember any of the names of these young people who spent fortunes buying houses in her street.) “But as tall as me already.”
“Yes,” Maggie said, wishing her eyesight was better. But she could tell he was taking trouble with the little girl.
“Have another sandwich,” Number 23 said, “or a cake.”
Maggie took a small brown sandwich with smoked salmon in it. “Thank you,” she said. “This is nice. We never had parties like this in the old days. Not even when the war ended.”
“You must have been here longer than anyone else. When did you first come?”
“I was born in your house. My dad was a coal heaver.” Maggie tried not to smile at the thought. “But it wasn’t grand like you’ve made it with the conservatory and all that. I moved into Forty-six when I married Alf.”