Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
“Yes. As it happens, you are related to her — in a tenuous kind of way.”
“For heaven’s sake, Payne!” Captain Jenner half rose from his seat. “You don’t mean it’s Dulcie — not my wife? I know she belongs to one of those bring-hanging-back societies but that means nothing — nothing at all! It would be idiotic to suspect Dulcie!”
“Of course it would be — don’t be silly, Jenner — we don’t suspect Dulcie. Besides, you aren’t related to your wife in a tenuous kind of way, are you? No. I meant your uncle’s wife, Jenner. His former wife. Your former aunt, so to speak.”
Jenner sat back. His hand went up to his forehead. “My former aunt? I never — I never met her. I only know what my parents told me about her. Uncle Ben treated her very shabbily — she was pregnant but then she had a miscarriage — he pushed her or shook her — something awful like that — that’s why she miscarried. After the divorce she disappeared and was reported to have spent some time in a clinic. My mother said she had reverted to her maiden name and that she’d gone a bit funny. My mother met her one day and she told her she’d never forgive Ben, never...” Jenner broke off. “Good lord,” he whispered.
Payne brought his fingertips together. “You said she had the name of a jewel or precious stone — you thought it was Ruby.”
“Ruby, that’s correct. I mean, that’s what I thought it was — but I am not certain. It might have been — um — Amber — or Coral?”
“No, it was Beryl. Her name is Beryl Fletcher.”
“We ran into a Miss Beryl Fletcher on our way to The Mongoose,” Major Payne went on. “A tweedy lady, the no-nonsense type, leading three thuggish-looking pugs on leashes. We were together when we heard the shot — the second shot, as it happens — Eden Swann’s SOS call. Miss Fletcher said she was a complete stranger to Highgate and she admitted to passing by The Mongoose — but the truth was she had already been inside The Mongoose.”
“How do you know?”
“It was her scent. I noticed her scent,” Antonia explained. “A pleasant blend of cinnamon, vanilla, and citrus — which some associate with cakes or cookies. When the three of us introduced ourselves, Eden said, ‘There’s that sweet cookie smell again.’ Again. My deduction was that she had noticed Miss Fletcher’s scent in the immediate aftermath of the killing — inside the hall. Scent tends to linger in a closed space after its wearer has gone, as you may have noticed. Then, only a moment later, Eden came up with her one-in-a-million-chance line. Later, when she joined us, I noticed a knowing look in her eyes. I believe she realised it was Miss Fletcher whodunit.”
“Our theory,” Payne said, “is that Beryl Fletcher, like you, had watched the programme on which Eden appeared. She had been feeling low — brooding about the husband who had ruined all her chances of being a mother. Having picked up all of Eden’s ‘leads,’ she decided on a course of action. It sounds fantastic, I know. She had two guns in her possession, both small in size, two of a pair, most likely. Well, she placed them inside her bag. She then put on her gloves and set out for Highgate with murder in her heart. She was clearly not afraid the guns could be traced back to her. No idea how she got them — she looked the acme of respectability, though she probably had contacts in the underworld.”
“Why two guns?”
“One to kill her former husband with, the other to make sure Eden Swann didn’t go to jail for the murder. That was her way of showing her gratitude for making the murder possible. We believe it was a question of solidarity. A variation on the honour-among-thieves principle, one may say.”
Jenner looked doubtful. “Would a woman contemplating murder bring dogs with her?”
“Bringing her pugs with her was the cleverest of psychological touches. A stroke of genius, no less. It is impossible to suspect of murder a woman in a porkpie walking pugs. In the same way as it is impossible to suspect a woman pushing a child in a pram. Think about it. But the fact remains that she was in the right place at the right time. She must have fastened the dog leashes to a tree while she disposed of her former husband. Eden had made sure both the garden door and the kitchen doors had been left unlocked. Beryl Fletcher found her former husband standing in the hall drinking coffee and she shot him in the head. She placed the gun back in her bag — she was wearing gloves — and dropped the second gun beside the body. She then returned the way she had come.”
“Only she had the misfortune of running into us,” said Antonia. “We were together when we heard the shot and she felt she couldn’t refuse to come with us when we asked her. It would have looked suspicious. But she is clever! She tried throwing suspicion on the boy.”
“Look here, you make this whole rigmarole sound awfully convincing, but I find your denouement a bit hard to swallow. It’s too far-fetched.”
“She told your mother she’d never forgive your uncle, never — didn’t she?”
“Well, yes, but the whole thing’s too outlandish for words! The miscarriage happened more than fifty years ago!” Jenner cried. “Can a woman still bear a murderous grudge about her former husband after such a long period of time? Can she?”
“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Payne said. “An awful cliché, I know — but it makes you wonder... And I have a second cliché for you — life is stranger than fiction. Most clichés are actually rooted in something that’s been tested and proved to be true...”
There was a pause. “Have you told the police about your conclusions?” Captain Jenner asked.
“We haven’t. Like you, we have mixed feelings about the affair... Your uncle certainly deserved what he got. And of course it may turn out that we’ve got the wrong end of the stick altogether... What are our clues, after all? A jewel, a scent, and the word ‘again.’ Oh, and the mysterious workings of Fate... So,” Payne concluded with a glance at his wife, “we’ll need to think very carefully about what we are going to do next — if anything.”
© 2017 by R.T. Raichev
The Pest
by Penny Hancock
Penny Hancock’s three suspense thrillers, Tideline, The Darkening Hour, and A Trick of the Mind, were published to rave reviews, earning her comparison to “a young Daphne du Maurier” by the Daily Mail, with the Guardian saying of Tideline: “... reminiscent of John Fowles’s The Collector but with the genders reversed.”
The woman was complaining of a flea infestation in her house.
“Pets?” Bob asked, idly sketching a wasp on the pad he kept by the phone.
“None. I’ve only been here a few weeks, perhaps the previous owners had some — there was a smell of cat when I moved in. When can you come?”
Her voice was familiar. It had a lilt of privilege. A tone of entitlement.
Robert Brown, a.k.a. Bob, had grown up here and had stayed long after most of his peer group had left. He knew the area better than most, its crevices, its drains, its gutters. He was a powerhouse of knowledge about vermin. He knew the routes rats took into people’s houses (sewers, mains pipes, U-bends). He knew the gestation period of mice, could identify the mating call of foxes. He knew the life cycle of fleas, recognized the crannies where wasps liked to build their nests, the most likely habitats of cockroaches. He had destroyed thousands of ants’ nests and exterminated millions of silver-fish. He could rid a house of bedbugs.