Nine Man's Murder (21 page)

The library windows were intact and undamaged.

“Shot twice in the back,” Jonas observed. “With a silencer, obviously, or we would have heard the shots.”

“Body is cold. Clearly shot last night.”

“Then Hatter was framed,” Jonas concluded. “Jill’s murder must have been made to look ‘impossible’ intentionally, to throw suspicion on Hatter. We were supposed to think that Hatter had murdered Jill and tried to make it look like she was killed by a ‘ghost.’”

“And when Hatter and Carter were poisoned Friday night, Hatter was intentionally given a small dose, but not for the reasons we had thought. It was to make it look like Hatter had poisoned himself to ward off suspicion.”

“But, Bryan. There are no bullet holes in the library door or windows, so Hatter was not shot from outside. Which means that he was shot from inside the library.”

“But we checked the windows. They’re not the kind that can be opened. And none of the panes can be removed.”

“And the door key could not have been recovered from Reeve’s room.”

Could the library key have been replaced with a substitute before being locked in Reeve’s room, so that it never was locked in the room? No. Both men had seen it placed in the drawer, and the key found in Reeve’s room this morning had indeed opened the library door. It was never out of either’s sight, from the moment it was removed from its drawer until the library door was unlocked.

In other words, no one could have switched keys last night and then reswitched them this morning.

“There was no way to unlock the library door,” Bryan said, “or relock it after Hatter’s murder, without that key. But we know the key could not have been removed from Reeve’s room.”

Jonas watched Bryan through pinprick pupils. “So how was it done? How did the killer get in—and leave the library sealed up?”

“How indeed?”

Jonas frowned. “So that’s where we stand, then? Just another impossible murder?”

“The critical point here is that Hatter is dead now.”

Jonas glanced first at Hatter’s lifeless body, then at Bryan, before speaking.

“Which leaves the two of us.”

56

“J
ust the two
of us,” Bryan echoed. His words seemed to hover in the room. For a moment, neither of the two survivors dared say more, or move. In this game, the first move could be the last.

Breaking the stalemate, Bryan marched down the hallway to his room. Jonas followed, watching from the doorway as Bryan produced a suitcase from the closet, tossed it onto the bed, and calmly began piling clothes into it.

“What are you doing?” Jonas demanded.

“Packing.” Bryan did not pause to look up. “They’re coming for us today, Bill and Max.”

“They may be coming,” Jonas said, “but only one of us will be leaving here alive.”

“Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” Bryan said.

“What are you going to do? Kill me? And then you’ll win the game, is that it? But then, you always win, don’t you, Bryan? Whatever it takes to eliminate the competition. Is that what you’ve been doing up here? Eliminating the competition?”

“You’re envious,” Bryan said, “of my abilities as a detective. You had to show you’re as good as me. That’s the real reason you broke up the partnership, isn’t it?”

“I left the partnership because I could no longer sanction your disregard for conscience and fair play. Stealing clients from the competition—”

“And I suppose it’s more ethical to try to steal a woman away from your best friend?”

The question filed the sardonic edge off of Jonas’ features.

“Jill knew about my affair with that actress,” Bryan continued. “Yesterday she called it a ‘birthday present.’ How did she know I had betrayed her on her birthday, Jonas? You are the only one I told.”

“She had a right to know, Bryan. I cared about her.”

“Only after I started going out with her,” Bryan said. “This is what I think happened. I think you came up here to prove yourself, by being the only one to solve a series of crimes. Because you are the one who committed them.”

“You’re crazy, Bryan.”

That’s when Jonas saw it: the handgun on the dresser. How careless of Bryan to leave it lying about. If only Jonas could reach it …but Bryan was nearer than he. The trick was to approach the weapon without calling Bryan’s attention to his movements. Which meant Jonas would have to distract him.

Jonas removed the sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Bryan. “I assume you’re the one who sent me this.”

Bryan studied the sheet. “A copy of a Mexican birth certificate. No, Jonas, I didn’t even know it existed.”

“Right. Of course.” Jonas kept his voice calm. “All right, then, let’s talk about the murders. Care to explain how those ‘impossible’ murders were committed? Like Amanda’s, for example.”

“I’ve been giving that matter some thought,” Bryan said. “You were in the parlor room. I was in the billiard room. I couldn’t have left without being seen by you. Likewise, to get from the parlor room to the staircase, you had to pass by the billiard room—where I was. So, if you had gone up those stairs, I couldn’t have missed you.” Bryan turned his hands palms up. “Therefore, you didn’t.”

What was this? A confession?

“No,” Bryan continued. “When you left the parlor room, you did not head toward the staircase. You went the other way—out the front door. It finally occurred to me. The answer had been in plain view the entire time, if only one knew where to look.”

“And where was that?”

“In the work shed. Think back. I’m sure you remember what was in there?”

Jonas thumbed through mental photographs of the work shed. “A work bench. Some tools. A shovel …”

“And an extension ladder. You went outside, got the ladder from the work shed, propped it against the inn wall, and climbed up to the window of Amanda’s room. You opened the window, shot her through it—”

“We found Amanda’s window locked. How did I open the window, if it was locked?”

“We found it locked, but that doesn’t mean it was locked earlier. Maybe Amanda didn’t bother locking it, because she didn’t fear entry from a second story window. You shot Amanda, locked the window, and left her room through the door, leaving it unlocked—”

“And how did I get back downstairs, passing you in the billiard room without being seen?”

“You didn’t. You left through an empty upstairs bedroom window, shimmying down a drainpipe or trellis. Then you returned the ladder to the work shed and crept back into the parlor room undetected.”

Jonas nodded. “I’m impressed. Although I can’t help but wonder why I didn’t just go back out Amanda’s window, instead of locking it and risking my life on the drainpipe.”

“To conceal how you got into Amanda’s room. And preserve your alibi.”

“I suppose. Of course, that scenario can be played both ways. You could have left the billiard room through the kitchen and passed outside through the side door to the work shed to get the ladder. The rest would be as you described.”

“Except for one thing. You heard me playing billiards the entire time. Which means I never left the billiard room.”

“Does it? What about the tape recorder we found? It was in the billiard room at the time. You simply recorded the sounds of your billiard game, then replayed the tape while you left the room. It would sound like you were still playing, while you were really upstairs murdering Amanda.”

“Stalemate,” Bryan said.

Careful, Jonas thought as he inched toward the gun, careful. Mustn’t make any sudden moves. Keep stalling.

“And how do you explain Gideon’s murder?” Jonas continued. “When he was killed, we were both searching for Bennett, far from the inn.”

“Were we? It depends on when you think Gideon was murdered. If, for instance, he was killed before we left …”

“That’s impossible. We were all in the drawing room, from the time Gideon left for his room until we went off in search of Ben—” Suddenly Jonas caught up on the twisted path of Bryan’s reasoning. “Oh. So that’s what you’re getting at. Before we went to look for Bennett, we both retrieved a coat from our rooms. There was just enough time for either of us to have paid a quick visit to Gideon. It would have taken only a few minutes.”

“And everyone would assume we had left Gideon alive. Neither of us would be suspected.”

Keep talking, Jonas.

Bryan continued. “Those two were easy. Care to tackle something a bit more challenging—like Jill’s murder?”

Jonas pondered. “Jill was still in love with you. If you had come to her room last night, she would have let you in.”

“She’d have been just as likely to let you in. She trusted you. But that’s beside the point. The real question is: If she had let someone in, how did he get out, leaving the door locked from within?”

Play along, Jonas told himself. Play along.

“He couldn’t have, of course. Which opens up an intriguing possibility. We found Jill’s door locked—but what if Jill wasn’t dead when her alarm went off? Hatter and I went to get the ax, leaving you alone in front of Jill’s room. Suppose she let you in after we had left. And that’s when you killed her?”

“Aside from the obvious problem of the purpose of her having set the alarm, your theory still leaves us with the same unanswered question. When you returned with the ax, her door was still locked from the inside. How did I leave her room locked from within? Remember, there are only two ways to lock that door. From the inside, by turning the lock on the doorknob and freezing the knob—after the door is closed—or from the outside, with the key.”

“And we found the key inside the room.”

“Which lets out locking the door from the outside. Leaving only the lock on the knob.”

“But Jill was strangled to death, so she didn’t get out of bed after the killer left, relock the door, then go back to bed to die. The murderer locked that door. After it was closed.”

“From inside the room. Freezing the doorknob and trapping himself in the room. So we’re back where we started.” Bryan grinned. “With the same question. How did the killer get out of the room with the door locked from within?”

The gun was almost within non-suicidal range. Steady now …

“You tell me.”

Bryan shrugged. “I’m not the one who knows.”

That’s when Jonas struck. Bryan had turned aside—only for a moment, but that was all the time Jonas had needed to snatch the gun from the dresser top.

“Very careless, Bryan. Not at all like you, to be caught off guard.”

“You’re not going to use that, Jonas.”

“Don’t be too sure. If I kill you, it’s all over.”

“And you win the game.”

“Under the circumstances, I can’t very well afford to lose, now can I?”

“No, it wouldn’t do to lose at your own game.”

“My game, eh?” Jonas removed from his pocket a slip of paper. “You dropped this yesterday. Obviously one of us planned to inform the State Licensing Board about you breaking into that director’s office fifteen years ago, to steal his files. You were right. The explanation for these murders lies in our graduation assignment on the set of Nine Man Morris.

“If the State Board ever found out how you had tried to steal the files the director had refused to give you, they’d take away your license. The only people who knew about that episode were the director, Damien, and his students. If they were silenced, your secret would be safe forever.

“The director may be dead already, for all I know. But you couldn’t kill the rest of us, one by one, in a crowded city. The chance of witnesses, or clues left behind, was too great. Besides, a connection between us would soon be drawn, leading straight to you.

“So you lured us up here. No witnesses. No clues. And it looks like we’re all victims of a madman, whom you can say you pushed off a cliff before he made you the final victim.”

Bryan applauded. “So I killed you all to protect my career—a career vital to my revenge against Paul Templar.”

“You had lost Jill. Revenge was all that was left.”

“So tell me. Why did I wait fifteen years?”

“Because it never occurred to you that one of us might turn you in. Until you received that note. And then you panicked.”

Bryan contracted his brow. “It does make you wonder, doesn’t it, who sent me the note? Could it, for example, have been you? To provide me with a motive?”

“What—”

“I think you got the idea from the birth certificate—which is your motive. One of us had threatened to expose you as an illegal immigrant and get you deported. Only you didn’t know which one.”

“So I killed everyone? Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“Leaving the country was not part of your game plan. And isn’t that what this has been all along—a game? A game that you intend to win, by framing me for the murders and then killing me in ‘self-defense.’ It’s over, Jonas. Give me the gun.”

“Stay where you are!” The abrasive sand of every moment spent in the surreal hourglass of this weekend had frayed Jonas’ vocal cords, as well as his nerves.