Greek Fire"Bother! I've put the tape spool on upside down." I had been trying ineffectively to insert the recording tape into the proper channels. As sometimes happens, I failed at first to see my obvious mistake and heartily cursed the manufacturors for producing a faulty machine."You are not mechanically minded, Winston," said William Blackstone Wildman. "Which reminds me of one of my cases. It was no real mystery, although it might have become one -- if the murderer had not blundered." "I take it he made a fool of himself over some simple machine." "Not simple, Infernal. Actually, however, he made ingenious enough use of a second machine to cover his tracks. It proves how selective are the effects of great nervous tension; also that the lack of mechanical ability does not always include a faulty understanding of the uses to which a gadget may be put." "Well, I have got it right this time -- and the port is poured -- so why don't you tell me your story?" (I turned on the tape recorder.) "Righto. If you will look on the mantelpiece, you will see a cheap alarm clock. Keep it it mind: that is your clue." [Tape spool? Well, this case was recorded a long time ago, and the actual event was a long time previous to that. We have previously been told that a lot of material was recorded on tape from the narrations of WBW on those days in his old age when Winston came to visit and get pleasantly drunk. --G.S.]**************************A fire broke out in the offices of Messrs. Arionides and Papous at four o'clock in the afternoon of October 4, 1899. (Mr Wildman drank deeply, smacked his lips, and then continued.) Dense red smoke billowed from the windows overlooking Drury Lane, and it looked as if the whole building was likely to burn down. Only the prompt action of the firm's two secretaries, Brownson and Hummle, prevented that -- indeed, there was more smoke than fire. But the private office of Mr Arionides was nearly destroyed -- so too was his corpse. As Alexander Hummle was a distant relative of my wife and I knew where he worked, I immediately proceeded to that location as soon as I heard of the fire (hard to miss the news, as half the City were out gaping as it occurred). Very soon after the event, I was on the premises, which occupied the entire second storey of a narrow house, lately converted into offices. When I entered the outer room of the office, there were several officials of the police and fire brigade standing about, some working, some talking, and the two secretaries were in separate corners dictating their statements. I was please to see my old friend Inspector Aphid. "Good evening, Aphid," I said, sniffing the foul air. "I smell fire and brimstone. Arson, is it?" The Inspector sneezed. "Yes. Arson, no doubt -- and murder as well." "Murder. Excellent! Tell me all about it." "This Orion-eye-dees was a broker and merchant of some sort, with business affairs in the Balkans. Could be dirty business, what? Although these chaps seem to know nothing of that as the bulk of the trade seems to have been in the olive oil line. At any rate, in spite of him being charred quite a bit, we could see he'd been bludgeoned to death. We removed the body to the mortuary just before you arrived." "Yes," confirmed the police surgeon, "his skull was fractured in the occipital region by a narrow rod-like instrument. The injury is characteristic. There is no thinking any explosion should have had that effect, as he had been struck at least three times." "Such reverberation does seem improbable," I commented. "I should think there is no mystery here, as people were present who can identify his last visitor." "My men," Aphid said, "are sorting through the debris for a weapon. And we have the testimony of the secretaries." I nodded, and suppressed a sneeze. "What of the fire?" "Ah. Heaps of red smoke. There was a good lot of scorching, although the walls, thank God, are decent English brick, confining the fire to the one room. Most of the contents of the office -- papers, furniture -- were destroyed." "Red smoke? An incendiary bomb, do you think?" "Without a doubt." Aphid picked up a tangled blackened mass in both hands. "It was in this case." "Not much left of that," I said, examining the remains of what seemed to have been an attache case. "Fused metal here...hmm...atchoo!" "Atchoo-chuh! God bless. Don't it stink! One of them infernal machines." "I think we can be more specific, Inspector. This is a Kretinski device." Aphid's eyes narrowed. "That damned anarchist, eh? How do you know?" "By the remains of the mechanism. See? Cheap alarm clock. Very small explosive charge. Sticks of phosphorus. And of course the smoke-colouring agent." "Eh?" "Red smoke. That's Kretinski for certain." "Do you think he killed Orion-eye-dees, Wildman?" "Arionides. I doubt it, as he has been in Paris for some time. You ought to know that, Aphid." "Yes, yes. It slipped my mind." "Kretinski sells his devices occasionally. Even anarchists must have money to buy food, you know." "Ah, well," Aphid sighed. "I'll wire Paris to confirm the alibi. Papous, the other partner, is in Paris also, Wildman. Carried off by urgent business yesterday. Ha! We shall see what's up there." "Red Indian, is he? Papous, carried off. Sorry... The stink in here is befuddling my wits." I went over to Alexander Hummle. "This is not the most opportune occasion to see you after all this time, is it, Alex? My wife will insist that you join us for dinner in the near future, and I hope we can put this unpleasantness away in short order." "I shall look forward to it!" Hummle started coughing violently; he was still suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation. Ironically, I was very desirous of a cigar and a whiskey at that point. "Tell me what you know about this, Alex." "There is little -- h-khuh, k-khuh -- to tell, Mr Wildman. We were both of us here in the office conducting routine business correspondence. I heard no sign of a struggle at any time. About four o'clock Brownson was preparing tea over there by the window. There was a muffled explosion, and we--we--" He broke off in a fit of coughing. Inspector Aphid said: "They ran into Orio--Arionides's office, took one look, and hurried off to summon the fire brigade." "I see," said I, "that the door latch is broken. Was it locked when the explosion occurred?" "Yes it was." (Aphid) "The secretaries had to force it open. They shut it again soon enough! And it's a lucky thing it's a good heavy door like all the rest." "Pardon me," Hummle said. "I am quite all right now." "I am glad to hear it, Alex. We shan't keep you much longer. Now, then, were there any visitors for Mr Arionides this afternoon?" "Yes. Three. Gentlemen of the names of Haddock, Gupperson, and Solomon." "Ah. Times, please?" Hummle answered readily, as he had been through all this before when dictating his statement. "Haddock was the two o'clock, Solomon half-past, and Gupperson came at three." "And was each man carrying an attache case when he arrived? Did any of them leave without it?" "Do you know any man of business who does not carry one? Of course, khuh-kk. But I shouldn't know if one of them left his case behind. Mr Arionides always let his visitors out by his private entrance unless they had some business requiring our services here in the front office." I grunted at this information, and had us taken into the burned-out office. From a small adjoining library a panelled door led out into the public hall (with the outer-room doorway on the left and a stairway on the right). This door had a spring lock, which had been fastened from the inside before we went into the hallway. "Somebody could have knocked," Alex said, "and been admitted by Mr Arionides. I am not aware of any such visitor, but of course our door was closed and I might not have heard." He pointed back toward the outer office. "What was the nature of the visitors' business?" "Mr Arionides rarely took me into his confidence regarding private personal calls of this nature. Mr Solomon is a banker, and I have seen the other two on previous occasions. What their business was I do not know." "Here, Wildman," said Aphid, coming into the hallway. "We've found the weapon." He brandished an iron poker. "It'd been put back where it belongs, with the fire irons in the library. Whoever used it to kill Arionides wiped it clean -- but not clean enough to fool the magnifying glass. I suspect he struck down the man in the library as he was preparing to depart, and then moved the body back into the office." "That seems likely enough. Gupperson is your most probable suspect, being the last visitor to leave." Hummle coughed and said, "You have not heard everything yet, William. Mr Arionides called me at about a quarter past three on the intercommunicating telephone from his office. He told me he had seen Mr Gupperson out and expected no more visitors. He did not wish to be disturbed for the remainder of the afternoon." "What is this telephone you speak of? Was this unusual?" "Not at all. He frequently rang through and told us to finish up on our own. He never came into the front office when he could use the telephone." "This telephonic system is unusual for a small office such as this. Have you had it long?" "For about seven months. Mr Arionides was an enthusiast for modern gadgetry, though I never saw the use of it, as he was only one door away!" "And are you sure it was he on the 'phone?" "Without a doubt. His accent was distinctive, and..." Hummle began to tremble and I could see that the loss of his employer and the events of the afternoon were finally beginning to have their effect on his composure. We sent him home, then talked with the other secretary, Brownson. He had very little to add to Alex's testimony. When asked if he had noticed anything peculiar about the three visitors, his reply was "Ach, no. I was immairsed in ma wurk. This Haddock, now, he was a Scotsman like masel'. Fine upright figure o' a mon: indoostrious luke about him." Aphid asked, "Did you by any chance hear him ticking, like a clock?" Brownson stared. "Are ye daft, mon? Ticking? Pah!" "Well now, Wildman," Aphid said after the witnesses and most of the investigators had gone, "what do you make of it?" "I am keeping an open mind. One of the visitors, or anybody else, for that matter, could have been admitted by Arionides through the private door between a quarter past three and four o'clock." "Quite," Aphid said. "I am for Gupperson as our prime suspect myself. I do not trust the evidence of the telephone." "Yes, I agree with you. One man's voice on the telephone can be rather indistinguishable from another's when disguised by a foreign accent that can easily be mimicked. However, you will no doubt be after the business affairs of Mr Arionides, and especially those of his three visitors. There is no use speculating on mere opportunities without motivations. Haddock, Solomon, and Gupperson -- with Kretinski possibly in the background, and our missing Mr Papous, and who else? I do not envy you your task, Aphid. So while you are at your business, I'll remain here and have a good think. What was the point of the arson? What indeed? Au revoir." When I was alone in the office (these days, I'd have been booted out and the place sealed, but this was 1899), I opened my pocket flask and lighted a cigar. It was time to use some imaginative detection in lieu of evidence. Case in point: the incendiary bomb. What was its purpose? To burn something. To burn what? Well, not the body necessarily. Incriminating papers? Certainly a lot of paper had gone up in smoke. But if you are going to set a fire to destroy evidence, you would want to be sure that the destruction was total -- incriminating papers, bloody poker, bludgeoned body -- burn it all and there is no one thing amongst it all that will attract unnecessary attention. What papers were burned? Papous would know. Which of those papers were meant to be burned? Only the murderer would know. But wouldn't the murderer just have removed them and destroyed them privately? The fire bomb would have been necessary only to destroy evidence that any papers had been removed at all -- if it were known what was missing, it could hardly matter what it was -- the finger of guilt would be evident. Combustion must be complete, preferably the entire building. One does not start a fire intended to destroy the contents of a room and all evidence of any other crimes at a time when there are people at hand to put it out. When, then, does one start such a fire? Late into the night, say about four o'clock in the morning. One sets the alarm on the clock in the fire bomb... "Oh, the poor, silly, bloody fool!" I finished off the flask in triumph. *************************** "So, Inspector, Gupperson was your man after all." We were drinking tea in Aphid's office two days after the fire. It had not been at all difficult for him to effect an arrest. All of the long and tedious research for the trial remained yet to be done. But the time-consuming red herrings had been fortunately eliminated. "Gupperson broke down like a child who had stolen some sweets. We told him your conclusions, Wildman, and that brought a confession. But he was ready to speak, anyroad. You should have seen his face when he heard there had been a fire. He hadn't even got round yet to destroying the documents he'd taken from the office." "I take it you have reconstructed the crime?" "Indeed I have, Wildman. It is rather straightforward. Gupperson brought the bomb in his case, which he left under the desk, intending to destroy the office and with it the incriminating documents. When Arionides let it slip out that he had no further engagements for the day, he decided to better his plan by killing the man then and there, and taking the papers, rather than trust to chance. His original intent was to attack Arionides later that night and throw the body in the river. The man would have vanished. "Afterwards, he arranged his 'alibi' with the telephone and also ensured that the body would remain undiscovered until the bomb had destroyed all evidence of a crime committed at that time of day. Obviously, he knew all about the routines and idiosyncracies of the office. He locked the door between the office and the outer room, and left by way of the private entrance, which locked itself behind him." "What were the papers, Aphid?" "Ah! some information concerning a misdirected arms shipment. Which, if they had come to the attention of certain Macedonians in Skopje, would have cooked Gupperson's goose for certain." "Yes, I surmised it would be something of the sort." Inspector Aphid leaned forward eagerly. "Now, William, you promised to tell me how you tumbled to Gupperson's mistake in timing the bomb." "That, my friend, is an embarrassment. It was obvious that the bomb served no useful purpose by going off at four in the afternoon, so soon after Gupperson's visit. It draws attention to him immediately. So what went wrong? I should put it down to a combination of mechanical ineptitude and nervousness. Do you remember that Beanstalk case of mine? I had gone for several days without sleep. After it was over, I had sixteen hours before having to appear in court for the arraignment and wished to sleep for the most of that time. I set the alarm clock. The infernal thing went off two hours later." "Ha, ha, ho!" "Yes. A twelve-hour dial does not distinguish between AM and PM. Poor Gupperson!" From the William Blackstone Wildman Collection by Grobius Shortling[This is another Wildman story based on a simple gimmick of an anecdotal sort. Well, I won't excuse it. You either like it or you don't. No maniacs come charging out of dark alleys to bash Wildman over the head -- in fact nothing much ever happens to him at all. Oh well.) --Grobius] |