INTRODUCTION
Between 1932 and 1935 Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote seven murder mystery puzzles, featuring ERB's last series character to appear in book form: Police Inspector Muldoon and his trusted biographer and sidekick, Edgar Rice Burroughs. These puzzles appeared in Rob Wagner's Script Weekly, an American west coast magazine.
The solutions were mailed in by readers and appeared in later issues. In one case, Edgar Rice Burroughs provided the solution himself.
They were all later collected into the rarity "Murder!" A Collection of Short Murder Mystery Puzzles which had a run of 1045 copies.
The titles flagged with a bullet were provided from various people's copies of the original Script magazines to the Burroughs Fan community (collected notably by Bill Hillman's ERBzine and The Burroughs Bibliophiles) and are included in this volume.
The Terrace Drive Murder
The Lightship Murder
Who Murdered Mr. Thomas?
The Red Necktie
Bank Murder
The Dupuyster Case
Murder at Midnight
The Gang Murder
The Dark Lake Murder
-Ed
THE LIGHTSHIP MURDER
When Muldoon asked me to go along with them I didn't know what I was in for. My longest sea voyage has been west from the Statue of Liberty to Catalina Island. I am not much of a sailor. The launch that the Coast Guard furnished us seemed to me wholly inadequate beyond the breakwater, but we were headed far out for the lightship that marks a dangerous reef twenty miles off shore.
However, the sea was calm; and there were only the long oily swells to remind one of the latent might of the great ocean -- an aftermath of the storm that had raged but a day or two before. It was all rather restful, and I was soon enjoying it to the full.
In addition to the crew of the launch and Muldoon and myself, there were United States Marshal Olson and two of his deputies. The Marshal, a warm friend and admirer of Inspector Muldoon, had invited him to come along and help solve what appeared to be something of a mystery; and Muldoon had, as he often does, asked me to go with him.
The Marshal knew practically nothing about the case except that the lightship tender, making her BI-monthly visit to the lightship, had wirelessed that morning, that she had found Daniel MacTeevor, the keeper of the lightship, murdered and could get no information from any of the others on board.
The tender was still standing by ass we climbed over the rail of the murder ship; and it was the captain of the tender, there with tow of his men, who greeted us. Otherwise, the deck was deserted.
"I've got 'em down below in the main cabin," he said, following brief introductions. "They're a glum lot; I can't get a thing out of 'em that makes sense."
"That's what I brought my old friend, Inspector Muldoon, along for," remarked Olson. "He'll get the truth out of 'em without their knowing it."
"The truth ain't in 'em," growled the captain of the tender. "Where do you want to start, Inspector?"
"Let's have a look at the body," replied Muldoon. "Where is it?"
"He's still in his cabin. Come with me."
We followed Captain Black down a companionway and entered a cabin in which were two bunks. On one of them was stretched a figure covered with a piece of tarpaulin.
Captain Black jerked a thumb toward it. "There it is," he said.
Olson and I followed Muldoon to the side of the bunk and watched as he pulled down the tarpaulin. I do not know why I have such a morbid desire to see such gruesome things. I am always sorry afterward, and ashamed; but the fact remains that the corpse of a murdered person holds me in its grisly power as surely as the wedding guest was held by the glittering eye of the ancient mariner.
And this sight was hideously gruesome. MacTeevor's throat had been cut from ear to ear and so deeply that his head was almost severed from his body. From the seamed and weather-beaten face his dead eyes stared horribly, his shaved upper lip was drawn back from his teeth in a snarl, the fringe of white beard beneath his lower jaw was matted with blood.
Muldoon drew the tarpaulin back in place. "I would like to question those who were on board at the time of the murder," he said.
"They are all in the main cabin," said Black, leading the way from the scene of the murder.
There were four people in the cabin that we entered a moment later. They were a sullen, dour-looking lot. They glowered at us from beneath scowling brows, but none of them spoke. Muldoon stood surveying them for a moment; then he turned toward the man sitting nearest him.
"What is your name?" he demanded.
"Bill MacTeevor," came sullenly after a moment's hesitation.
"Were the four of you in this cabin on board this ship the night of the murder?"
The man did not answer, but a woman across the cabin spoke up. "Yes," she said. "We was all here."
"And who else?" asked Muldoon.
"Only Daniel," she replied.
Muldoon turned again to the man. "I am Inspector Muldoon of the metropolitan police force, and this gentleman on my right is United States Marshal Olson. We have come out here to investigate this murder. It will be pleasanter for all concerned if you answer our questions and answer them truthfully. None of you need answer any question that will incriminate himself.
"Now, when was this murder committed?"
"The night of September first, night before last."
"You are here together alone much of the time, are you not?"
"We ain't seen no one since the tender was here last time."
"When was that?"
"The second of July."
"What was the murdered man doing the last time you saw him alive?"
"He was scrappin' with her." Bill MacTeevor pointed toward a woman sitting near him.
"What is you name? Asked Muldoon, addressing the woman.
"Esther MacTeevor." She was a slatternly woman clothed in a dirty calico garment that would have been called a Mother Hubbard twenty or thirty years ago; I don't know what they call them now.
"What were you and the murdered man quarrelling about? asked the Inspector.
"What we always quarreled about -- money. He was turrible tight about money -- he wouldn't give me none."
"Why did you want money?"
"Andy wanted to go ashore when the tender come. He wanted to get a job on shore. He was sick o' livin' on a lightship. I wanted the money fer him."
'"Were you and Daniel related Esther? Inquired Muldoon.
"Yes, but we weren't no blood kin."
"Just when did you see your sister last prior to the murder?" Muldoon has an odd way of skipping about in his questioning and suddenly asking what seem to be the most irrelevant sort of questions.
Esther MacTeevor puckered her brows in thought. "Let's see," she said finally, "4th o' July come on a Monday this year; an' it was jest a week before the Fourth that I seen Susan last. The husband of one of her friends owns a fishin' boat, and she come with him. She spent a week with me an' went back the Monday before the Fourth. She ain't never been married, an' she likes to gad about an' visit. Especial she likes to come an' see me, 'cause me an' her is the only ones left in our family."