So assuming Clues meant just that, clues, Keyhole and Private Detective were the sum total of those clues. I tried putting them together. Well, there was the obvious association: the stereotype of a private investigator is that of a snooper, a keyhole peeper. But I could not see how that would have anything to do with Murray’s death. If there had been a private detective involved, Eberhardt would have figured the connection immediately and I wouldn’t be here.
Take them separately then. Keyhole Mystery Magazine. Key-hole. That big old-fashioned keyhole in the door?
Eberhardt said, “Well? You got any ideas?” He had been standing near me, watching me think, but patience had never been his long suit.
I straightened up, explained to him what I had been ruminating about and watched him nod: he had come to the same conclusions long before I got here. Then I said, “Eb, what about the door keyhole? Could there be some connection there, something to explain the locked-room angle?”
“I already thought of that,” he said. “But go ahead, have a look for yourself.”
I walked over to the door, and when I got there I saw for the first time that there was a key in the latch on the inside. Eberhardt had said the lab crew had come and gone; I caught hold of the key and tugged at it, but it had been turned in the lock and it was firmly in place.
“Was this key in the latch when you broke the door down?” I asked him.
“It was. What were you thinking? That the killer stood out in the hallway and stabbed Murray through the keyhole?”
“Well, it was an idea.”
“Not a very good one. It’s too fancy, even if it was possible.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I don’t think we’re dealing with a mastermind here,” he said. “I’ve talked to the suspects and there’s not one of them with an IQ over a hundred and twenty.”
I turned away from the door. “Is it all right if I prowl around in here, look things over for myself?”
“I don’t care what you do,” he said, “if you end up giving me something useful.”
I wandered over and looked at one of the two windows. It had been nailed shut, all right, and the nails had been painted over some time ago. The window looked out on an overgrown rear yard – eucalyptus trees, undergrowth and scrub brush. Wisps of fog had begun to blow in off the ocean; the day had turned dark and misty. And my mood was beginning to match it. I had no particular stake in this case, and yet because Eberhardt had called me into it I felt a certain commitment. For that reason, and because puzzles of any kind prey on my mind until I know the solution, I was feeling a little frustrated.
I went to the desk beneath the second of the windows, glanced through the cubbyholes: correspondence, writing paper, envelopes, a packet of blank cheques. The centre drawer contained pens and pencils, various-sized paper clips and rubber bands, a tube of glue, a booklet of stamps. The three side drawers were full of letter carbons and folders jammed with facts and figures about pulp magazines and pulp writers.
From there I crossed to the overstuffed chair and the reading lamp and peered at each of them in turn. Then I looked at some of the bookshelves and went down the aisles between the library stacks. And finally I came back to the chalk outline and stood staring down again at the issues of Clues, Keyhole Mystery Magazine and Private Detective.
Eberhardt said impatiently, “Are you getting anywhere or just stalling?”
“I’m trying to think,” I said. “Look, Eb, you told me Murray was stabbed with a splinterlike piece of steel. How thick was it?”
“About the thickness of a pipe cleaner. Most of the ‘blade’ part had been honed to a fine edge and the point was needle-sharp.”
“And the other end was wrapped with adhesive tape?”
“That’s right. A grip, maybe.”
“Seems an odd sort of weapon, don’t you think? I mean, why not just use a knife?”
“People have stabbed other people with weapons a hell of a lot stranger,” he said. “You know that.”
“Sure. But I’m wondering if the choice of weapon here has anything to do with the locked-room angle.”
“If it does I don’t see how.”
“Could it have been thrown into Murray’s stomach from a distance, instead of driven there at close range?”
“I suppose it could have been. But from where? Not outside this room, not with that door locked on the inside and the windows nailed down.”
Musingly I said, “What if the killer wasn’t in this room when Murray died?”
Eberhardt’s expression turned even more sour. “I know what you’re leading up to with that,” he said. “The murderer rigged some kind of fancy crossbow arrangement, operated by a tripwire or by remote control. Well, you can forget it. The lab boys searched every inch of this room. Desk, chairs, bookshelves, reading lamp, ceiling fixtures – everything. There’s nothing like that here; you’ve been over the room, you can tell that for yourself. There’s nothing at all out of the ordinary or out of place except those magazines.”
Sharpening frustration made me get down on on knee and stare once more at the copies of Keyhole and Private Detective. They had to mean something, separately or in conjunction. But what? What?
“Lieutenant?”
The voice belonged to Inspector Jordan; when I looked up he was standing in the doorway, gesturing to Eberhardt. I watched Eb go over to him and the two of them hold a brief, soft-voiced conference. At length Eberhardt turned to look at me again.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “I’ve got to go talk to the family. Keep working on it.”
“Sure. What else?”
He and Jordan went away and left me alone. I kept staring at the magazines, and I kept coming up empty.
Keyhole Mystery Magazine.
Private Detective.
Nothing.
I stood up and prowled around some more, looking here and there. That went on for a couple of minutes – until all of a sudden I became aware of something Eberhardt and I should have noticed before, should have considered before. Something that was at once obvious and completely unobtrusive, like the purloined letter in the Poe story.
I came to a standstill, frowning, and my mind began to crank out an idea. I did some careful checking then, and the idea took on more weight, and at the end of another couple of minutes I had convinced myself I was right.
I knew how Thomas Murray had been murdered in a locked room. Once I had that, the rest of it came together pretty quick. My mind works that way; when I have something solid to build on, a kind of chain reaction takes place. I put together things Eberhardt had told me and things I knew about Murray, and there it was in a nice ironic package: the significance of Private Detective and the name of Murray’s killer.
When Eberhardt came back into the room I was going over it all for the third time, making sure of my logic. He still had the black briar clamped between his teeth and there were more scowl wrinkles in his forehead. He said, “My suspects are getting restless; if we don’t come up with an answer pretty soon, I’ve got to let them go on their way. And you, too.”
“I may have the answer for you right now,” I said.
That brought him up short. He gave me a penetrating look, then said, “Give.”
“All right. What Murray was trying to tell us, as best he could with the magazines close at hand, was how he was stabbed and who his murderer is. I think Keyhole Mystery Magazine indicates how and Private Detective indicates who. It’s hardly conclusive proof in either case, but it might be enough for you to pry loose an admission of guilt.”