The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

Climbing the steps, I held up the paper bag I was carrying for Martha to see. “Just in case I get called out on an assignment some night, I decided to take Lyle’s suggestion and install a couple of drawbolts after all. Where’s Lyle keep his tools?”

“In his workshop in the basement.”

Going inside, I shed my coat and necktie in the den, then went downstairs. One whole side of the basement had been partitioned off to serve as Lyle’s workshop. A long workbench had tools of every description hanging on the wall over it: everything from hammers to a set of bolt cutters. The dismantled innards of a television set stood on the bench, and two more sets were on the floor.

I selected a screwdriver of the size I would need, then began to open drawers in search of a drill. In a top drawer containing nothing but woodworking tools I found a hand brace and a set of bits. I could have used that, but I was sure that for his repair work Lyle would have an electric drill. I started searching the other drawers.

In one of the bottom drawers there was nothing but a small leather case and a tin box. When I found it was locked, I snapped open the leather case.

It contained five items. There was an extremely thin-nosed pair of pliers, a glass cutter, a small rubber suction cup with a metal ring attached to it large enough to fit over a man’s finger, a pair of black kid gloves and a long, thin implement that seemed to be made of spring steel.

I puzzled over the last item and the rubber suction cup. I figured out the spring-steel implement first. It was a picklock.

Then I realized the purpose of the suction cup. If you pressed it against the glass of a windowpane, then cut around it with a glass cutter, it would prevent the cut-out section from falling inside and perhaps shattering on the floor.

I like to think I’m at least as quick on the uptake as the average guy, but my initial reaction was merely puzzlement at why Lyle would possess what appeared to be a rather simple burglar’s kit. I suspect this was a quite normal reaction, though. On the basis of such a bare hint, it would be abnormal to jump to a monstrous conclusion about anyone as close to you as a brother-in-law. As a matter of fact the normal reaction would be not just to reject such a thought, but to refuse even to let it form.

Whether it was intuition, subconscious suspicion or merely my reportorial nosiness that made me try the picklock on the tin box, I don’t know. At any rate I did try it, and because it was a simple lock, I managed to get it open after only about five minutes of fumbling.

The box contained nothing but eight nylon stockings.

This being a little more than a bare hint, the monstrous thought did occur to me; but because I sincerely liked Lyle, I instantly began a mental search for some less monstrous explanation for this cache.

Almost immediately I was able to think of something that seemed to make it highly unlikely that he was the Stocking Killer. According to Martha, Lyle had repeatedly watched the blonde who lived behind them undress. She was as attractive as any of the Stocking Killer’s victims, and Lyle knew her husband worked nights. If Lyle were the killer, why hadn’t she been a victim?

The depressing answer to that hit me almost as quickly as the question. Insane people aren’t necessarily stupid. The blonde was simply too close to home to be worth the risk.

I turned back to trying to think of some alternate reason anyone would keep a secret cache of women’s stockings.

I couldn’t think of any, particularly after examining the stockings more closely. At least four of them had no mates. One was longer than all the others, another shorter, and two didn’t match any of the others in shade. The other four were the same shade and size, so might have been two pairs; but it was equally it possible that they were single stockings from four similar pairs.

I took some hope from the fact that there were eight stockings, while there had been only six murders. Then I thought of the one in Kansas City and the one in Chicago that the police assumed were merely apings of the Stocking Killer by a couple of other nuts who had read about him.

Lyle made periodic business trips to both cities. I decided to find out if he had been to either or both places when the murders occurred.

I had to play this very cool. I had to be absolutely sure before I went to the police, and I had to be equally sure that they would guarantee me anonymity as their informer. I didn’t want my sister living with a homicidal maniac, but I also didn’t want her thrusting me out of her life. Even if Lyle were guilty, I knew she would never forgive me for turning him in.

Fortunately there was time for some thorough checking. It was only Tuesday, and Lyle wasn’t due back from Chicago for six more days.

I put the nylons back in the tin box and managed to get it locked again with the picklock. Then I searched some more drawers until I found the electric drill, went upstairs and installed the two door bolts.

During dinner I casually remarked to Martha, “Lyle gets to Chicago quite often, doesn’t he?”