The inspector’s subordinate declared it murder and ascribed guilt to a local politician who had publicly feuded with the dead man for years.
“Not so,” said the Inspector. “It was suicide, intended to cause his rival to be arrested for murder.”
This was one of a variety of “impossible” stories making the rounds of my high school cohorts. It was my introduction to locked room mysteries. Of course, most are familiar with this tired plot. The dead man had stood on a block of ice to attach the noose and stepped off it. The ice melted, leaving only the dampness.
I’ve mentioned previously the intrigue of the locked room, how much I wanted to write one, how difficult I found it to be, and how finally I had come up with a scheme in Patriotism.
I knew several authors had tried the genre, but I’d seen relatively few in my readings. Then a couple of years back my wife gave me The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries.
Some of the authors included are Stephen King, Agatha Christie, and P. G. Wodehouse. The book contains 68 stories by 68 different authors (well, mostly—there is one by John Dickson Carr and another by alter ego Carter Dickson) in its 937 pages.
In the Introduction the editor, Otto Penzler, warns the reader that disappointment will follow when a locked-room mystery is explained because, after all, “impossible crimes cannot be impossible.” It’s a fair warning, and sometimes one does feel the author is cheating, but in the vast majority of instances one is thrilled to be confused, like at a magic show. If it all seems unrealistic, well, so what?
This book includes The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe, long considered the precursor of the mystery genre.
What surprised me as I worked my way though all those Gone With the Wind number of pages was the many forms locked room mysteries can take. They include, but are not limited to, stabbings in a sealed environment, bodies in sand or snow surrounded by no footprints, folks or objects disappearing in impossible ways, shootings in inconceivable circumstances, thefts of valuable objects from a guarded room, and poisonings that cannot have occurred.
Locked-room mysteries had their heyday between World Wars I and II. Lately they seem to have gone out of style, though not completely. (I gently congratulate myself here with a supercilious smirk) Penzler mentions that Howard Haycraft in his 1941 Murder for Pleasure said that writers should stay away from such puzzles because “only a genius can invest it with novelty or interest today.” (Uh oh—maybe I smirked too soon)
To illustrate why Haycraft said we amateurs should stay away from the locked room concept, here’s one I just dreamed up.
Let’s suppose a narcissistic universally hated blackmailing brilliant opera soprano locks herself in a room to practice her aria for an upcoming production. When she fails to emerge after an hour, the maestro uses his key to enter the windowless single door space to find his star crushed by the chandelier. The floor is littered with a mixture of orange shards from the lights, a small number of other fragments similar to that of the large crystal burgundy wine glass resting on its side on a nearby table, several small screws, and twist nuts of the type used to secure the connection of two or more wires. The carpet has a small hole underneath the fallen body.
Accident? Or murder?
What do you think? If you’ll send me an explanation, I’ll publish the best in the next blog. Feel free to let your mind create. Remember, these explanations often are ridiculous and stretch believability, so don’t hesitate to suggest the wildest implausible solutions. Wait until you see what Elmo Sherwin comes up with! I bet you can do better.