“Another man who works as a doorman, Stanley Fitch. He works evenings—”
“And?”
“Otis Avery, the building superintendent,” Knowles finished lamely.
“The landlord, the super, and two doormen,” Pollard said, and leaned back. “Excellent. And all four men had an equal opportunity to carry on whatever activities the cell member indulged in?”
“Yes, sir. We have reports on their activities since a short time after the murder of Georg, but no one has been eliminated so far.”
“I have an idea our friend won’t be fingered that way,” Pollard said. “I can’t get my mind off that word ‘lands.’ It doesn’t make sense. Maybe there’s another meaning in it somewhere. Any of the four have any connection with land, or real estate in general, apart from Henley’s obvious connection?”
“We looked into it. No, they don’t.”
“Lands. Lands. I don’t suppose a Land camera comes into the affair anywhere—”
“No.”
“Just an idea... Is there any possibility that the message was a fake?”
“Fake?”
“Yes, fake. That Georg’s killers not only stole the plain and coded versions of the message, but also the ribbon cartridge he had used, and substituted one with a message carefully designed to frustrate you because it was partly incomprehensible?”
Knowles shook his head. “We doubt that, sir. For several reasons. First of all, we have no record of the other side ever pulling that kind of stunt before. It just isn’t their style. Second, that one-time cartridge was the only cartridge Georg had in his possession, from what we’ve found by searching his apartment. If the killers did fake the message, it means that they brought another cartridge with them to the apartment. Most unlikely.
“Third, if someone did intend to fake a message, why invent such a cryptic one? All they’d have to do is accuse an innocent person of being the cell member; that would point us in exactly the wrong direction long enough to get their real man — Henley, Gill, Fitch, or Avery — into hiding. As it is, all they’ve done is keep our suspicions on all four possibilities. No, sir, we think Georg really did write the message.”
Pollard was impressed. Perhaps he’d been hasty in his judgment of Knowles. He was showing the kind of sense his job called for.
“In that case, Knowles,” Pollard said, “I’ll be happy to tell you whom to pick up for questioning.”
Knowles was speechless.
“What threw you, and me for a while,” Pollard went on, “was the ‘lands’ part of the message. It was our major stumbling block — but when you interpret it properly it’s also the solution to the problem.
“No possible meaning of the word ‘lands’ seemed to have any application here. When I learned that, I began to wonder if Georg wasn’t trying to tell us something else.”
“Something else? But—”
“Don’t interrupt! Remember, you reconstructed the message from the typewriter ribbon, imagining where the spaces — which don’t show up on the ribbon — go. When you got to l-a-n-d-s, the five letters you didn’t understand, you assumed they formed one word. But they don’t have to.
“Respace it. L-a-n-d-s. Is there a word in those five letters?”
Knowles mulled it over. “L-a-n... a-n-d... and!”
“A-n-d. And. If we assume that and is part of what Georg was trying to say, what of l and s?
“L — and — S. L and S. Has this any possible meaning? Review the names of the suspects — Lester Gill has a name beginning with L, and Stanley Fitch has one beginning with S.”
Knowles’s mouth was open. “The doormen? Both of them?”
“Why not? No reason to think that there couldn’t be two cell members where there could be one. And you’ll notice that Georg used their first initials in naming them. Don’t you usually call the doorman of your apartment building by his given name?”
The younger man’s expression had turned to one of satisfaction. “Makes sense,” he murmured. “More than any of the other ideas.” He stood up. “Mr. Pollard, I have to go now — there’s work to be done.” He held out his hand. “Thank you. I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
“I’m quite sure of that, young man,” Pollard said.
Grocery List
by Gina Haldane[16]
This is the 515th “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... “As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list.” — from Koko’s Song in The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan)...
The author, Gina Haldane, formerly an actress, is now vice president of a video systems company, and “writing is an alternative to the pressures of owning a small business.” She is “interested in all sorts of things, from the conventional (sewing, design) to the more controversial (human liberation). Above all, I am addicted to reading and have inadvertently committed nineteen cereal boxes to memory!”...
1 doz eggs
1 lb butter
(I remember when we were first married how Bob loved my omelets)
1 gal milk
1 lg box Whoopie Wheetsies
(I wish the kids wouldn’t believe all that junk on television. They keep begging me to get them this, get them that)
1 bottle Kalm-Tabs (for stress)
1 six-pack Macho beer
(which will be gone by the end of Sunday s football game. Bob’ll be dozing in front of the TV, wearing that old undershirt)
1 head lettuce
2 tomatoes
3 lbs hamburger
(I remember when Bob said, “Steak and caviar, baby — marry me and it’ll be steak and caviar all the way!” And now we can barely afford hamburgers)
1 pkg Sweetums disposable diapers
3 jars Bitsie-Bites baby food
(maybe if we hadn’t had three kids in three years, maybe then)
1 box Storm detergent
1 floor mop
(or maybe if Bob had let me keep my job instead of being a broken-down housewife, I could have had a career)
1 Calorie-Counter’s Meals for One
1 doz cans Lo-Lo Kola
(I don’t know why I try to lose weight. I’ll bet she would be eating all the time if her husband was seeing another woman)
1 bunch asparagus
(I bet they think I don’t even know about their affair! Well, if they think I’m going to let them get away with it)
1 box rat poison
(damn them!)
That’s not My Name
by Barbara Williamson[17]
Barbara Williamson’s first story, “The Thing Waiting Outside,” appeared in the December 1977 issue of EQMM. We called it “a story of dark and terrifying implications.” Her second story offers more darkness and terror, but of an entirely different sort. There is the dream that keeps coming back, and the thing in her hand, and the puzzle that must be solved... a subtly written story, with fine imaginative touches...
Three months before Ruth’s twelfth birthday her father married again.
There was a garden wedding and Ruth wore a yellow dress with long full sleeves and carried a bouquet of late roses.