“All right, Dwyer. Be glad to accommodate you.”
Leaving the office, Dwyer put on a tense expression. He threw a tight wink to Davis, Monetti, and Ripley in the hall. It was a wink that told them he had stood up to the DWC and refused to answer any questions. That he had lived up to his reputation as a top con, a lifer.
After Dwyer passed them, he smiled to himself. He was glad he would not have to give up his brandy to Leo Ripley for the next three months.
Win Some, Lose Some
by Jack Ritchie
When our friend, Detective Sergeant Henry H. Turnbuckle of the Milwaukee Police Department, investigates a case, especially a murder case, he examines minutely the implications of every iota of evidence, every jot and tittle of non-evidence, and theorizes exhaustively on the circumstances of the crime and the identity of the criminal. But this time has our Henry H. met his match in relentless reasoning?...
I rubbed my hands. “Ah, what have we here?”
“A body,” Ralph said.
We did indeed. It was that of Paula Washburn, age 36, weight possibly a bit over 130.
She lay prone on the carpeted floor of the walk-in vault-safe. Just beyond her right hand lay a pearl necklace and two diamond rings. Her body had been discovered at 4:30 p.m. by her stepdaughter, Marianne, when she had opened the vault to take another admiring look at her law diploma.
The vault was perhaps eight feet deep, seven wide, and seven high. I supposed that, if it became necessary, I could resort to mathematics and determine just how long a person would survive locked in a room of that size; in this case, however, I did not think that would be necessary. There were other things to consider.
On the far wall of the vault ranged a bank of various-sized safety-deposit boxes. To one side stood three four-door filing cabinets.
“Ralph,” I said, “we are here faced with three possibilities.”
“All I see are two. Either she got accidentally locked inside or somebody did the locking on purpose.”
I chuckled good-naturedly. “Have you considered suicide?”
“Not lately, Henry. Who’s going to commit suicide by locking herself in a vault? It isn’t a neat way to go.”
“Ralph, you, as others, are guilty of a common misconception on the question of asphyxiation in vaults. You seem to think that the ending would entail a desperate gasping for air. Au contraire. As the percentage of oxygen in the air decreased, one would simply become drowsy, lapse into unconsciousness, and then glide into death.”
“You think she might have committed suicide?”
“By no means, Ralph. I was merely touching all bases. If she came down here with the intention of committing suicide, would she just stand there clutching her jewelry — possibly for hours — until she keeled over? No, it would be the normal thing to at least put them down somewhere. On the filing cabinets, for example. Or in the pocket of her dressing gown.” I shook my head. “No, Ralph, she did not commit suicide.”
I went to the bank of safety-deposit boxes and tested them once again. They were all locked. So were the filing cabinets.
Ralph watched me. “All right, Henry, so maybe she came down here to put away her jewels for the night and the door swung shut behind her and trapped her inside?”
“No, Ralph. As we have seen and tested, the vault door is quite heavy and not at all free-swinging. It requires at least some continuous effort either to open or to shut it. In short, it cannot accidentally drift shut.”
Ralph agreed. “Which leaves us with murder. Let’s talk to the suspects.” There were three of those and they waited out of earshot at the farther end of the rather large drawing room.
James Washburn, husband of the deceased, age in the early fifties: tall, distinguished, open-countenanced, and deep in thought. Marianne, his daughter: small, raven-haired, wary eyes behind shell glasses. And Ronald Goodcart, a distant cousin of the deceased and a weekend guest at the house. Ronald was in his early forties, had black hair, a thin black mustache, and the general mien of a cad.
All three were quite solemn, none of them exhibiting undue grief at the death of Paula Washburn. They had, of course, undergone some preliminary questioning by the uniformed officers who arrived first at the scene. Ralph and I now moved in for in-depth interrogation.
I introduced Ralph and then myself. “Detective Sergeant Henry H. Turnbuckle, MPD.” I waited for signs of recognition, but they withheld them.
I regarded James Washburn. “How long were you and the deceased married?”
“Three years. About that.”
“When and where did you last see your wife alive?”
“In our bedroom last night at about eleven thirty. She suddenly remembered her jewelry and told me she was going back downstairs to put it into the vault for the night.”
I nodded judiciously. “It is now five thirty in the afternoon of the following day and the body was discovered less than one hour ago. How can you explain that?”
“Nobody opened the vault until then.”
“I mean you hadn’t seen your wife for approximately eighteen hours and yet you never thought to sound some kind of an alarm?”
“I didn’t know she was locked in the vault.”
I smiled thinly. “Your wife leaves your bedroom, telling you that she is going to put her jewelry into the vault, and she doesn’t return? Didn’t that make you wonder just a smidgen where she might be?”
“Not really. We sleep in twin beds. After she left the room, I closed my eyes and immediately fell asleep. I didn’t wake until nine this morning.”
“But surely when you glanced at her bed this morning and found it unoccupied, didn’t you begin to wonder where she was?”
“No. I thought she’d just gotten up early and gone downstairs. Paula usually has no more than a cup of coffee for breakfast and then is off. She led a rather independent life and usually didn’t bother to let people know where she was going or for how long. I’ve gone entire weekends without ever seeing her.”
“Who discovered the body?”
Marianne Washburn now spoke. “I did. At about four thirty this afternoon when I opened the vault to take another look at my sheepskin. Paula lay there on the floor inside, quite dead.”
“Your sheepskin?”
“My law degree. Magna cum laude, and stuff. I’m going to have it framed when I open my office, but for now I keep it in the vault and peek at it every now and then. The vault is our storage place for valuable things that are smaller than a bread box. Jewelry, cash, papers, records, mementoes, and new diplomas.”
“Isn’t there any way to open the vault from the inside? Or at least an alarm button which a person could press if he were imprisoned inside?”
“I’m afraid not. The vault was built into the house nearly fifty years ago. Today I suppose a vault must incorporate all kinds of safety features, but in those days they weren’t so particular.”
“The vault is opened by a combination lock?”
“Yes.”
“Who has the combination? Besides you?”
“Dad does. Paula did.” She looked at Ronald Goodcart.
He shook his head. “No. Why should I?”
I spoke to Marianne. “When you found Mrs. Washburn, did you touch her, move or take anything?”
“No.” Marianne sighed. “Poor Paula. It’s obvious that when she went downstairs to put away her jewelry the door of the vault accidentally shut behind her, trapping her inside.”
I smiled. “My dear young lady, I have inspected and tested the vault door thoroughly. No vagrant breath of air could set it in motion.”
She considered that, then sighed again. “I was just trying to protect Paula’s memory. She was so depressed lately. Her health, you know. She had this bad heart. Everybody knows it. Morose and downhearted. Brooding all the time. She must have decided to take her own life.”