101 Mystery Stories

32 The Scientist and the Vanished Weapon Arthur Porges

Lieutenant Trask’s face was gray and haggard, not so much from fatigue — he’d had only four hours’ sleep in the last two days, which was no more than usual — as from frustration, grief, and rage.

“This is the season of miracles,” he said in a bitter voice. “Christmas, Peace on Earth, Love Thy Neighbor, and all the rest. But I didn’t expect a teen-age killer to pull a miracle. Drucker had a wife and four children,” he added, “and this punk Remick shot three slugs into poor Drucker before Tom even knew what was happening. It didn’t have to be like that; the punk could’ve got out the back door easily; Drucker was big and slow. Brave — too damned brave — but slow. I told him a million times to stop taking chances — to have his gun out and to use it, but not Tom — always afraid he’d shoot a frightened kid. Now,” Trask grated, “one shot him — three times over. He might’ve lived — probably would’ve, Doc says — if Remick hadn’t fired twice more.”

Cyriack Skinner Grey, sitting quietly in the wheelchair in which he was destined to stay for the rest of his life, felt a surge of affection and sympathy for the tired detective. The police often suffered from a bad image in the public eye, but there were thousands of fine men like Trask who killed themselves by inches — when they didn’t die violently at the hands of criminals — trying to make life safer for the people of their communities.

Grey took a shot-glass from a recess in one arm of the chair, held it under a tiny tap, and pressed a button. Amber liquid flowed out in a thin stream. He held the drink up for his friend.

“Can’t,” Trask said regretfully. “I’m still on duty.”

The older man cocked his head, shrugged, and drank the whiskey himself.

“In that case,” he said, “how about some coffee?”

From another faucet he quickly produced hot, black, and fragrant brew, drawing it into a small handleless cup of fine bone china.

Trask shook his head in wonder, and accepted it.

“One of these days,” he said, a little of the gloom leaving his face, “you’ll haul a beautiful dancing girl out of that incredible contraption, and that’s when I’ll have myself tested for hallucinations!” He knew that Grey, formerly a top research scientist, who still had a fully equipped lab in this old house, had built a hundred gadgets into his wheelchair; yet the Lieutenant was surprised by a new one at least once a month. But it was because of the old man’s flair for solving problems, first in the lab and now as a free-lance crime consultant, that Trask had come to see him.

“All right,” Grey said, as the detective swallowed a third cupful. “Let’s have it. What’s all this about a miracle?”

“The miracle of the vanishing gun,” Trask said. “I was licked at the scene, but I figured if anybody could counter a bad miracle with a good one, you’re the man to do it.”

He gave Grey the empty cup, and with hands clasped behind his back, paced the floor of the old man’s study, speaking as he walked.

“It’s like this. Tom Drucker caught the kid — Arnold Remick’s his full name — inside Jack’s Camera Exchange. The punk saw Tom first, and put three slugs into him; then he ran. Two of my men were in a cruiser not far away; they heard the shots and poured it on to get there. They spotted Remick going down an alley, and took after him. The punk hopped a fence, so they left the car to follow. The kid was running scared, I guess, because he ducked into a big apartment building and up the stairs. Fool thing to do really — no way out.

“Well, he sees an apartment with the door ajar, and slips in; but my two men, right behind, catch a glimpse, and know they have him boxed. The kid was kill-crazy; he fired right through the door until he ran out of shells. That’s my guess, anyhow — we don’t have the gun yet, which is why I’m here. When he stopped shooting; my men crashed into the place and handcuffed him — there was no more fight left in the punk.

“Naturally, they looked for the gun first thing, but it just wasn’t there. The window was open, the way the door had been, and for the same reason. The woman who lives there had something cooking in the oven, so she wanted to air the rooms out. Meanwhile she went downstairs to chew the fat with another woman.

“Not finding the gun in the apartment, the men figure Remick tossed it out the window — what good that would do, I don’t think he stopped to consider. He should’ve known we’d find it below soon enough. That’s what I thought!” Trask added bitterly. “We combed that yard inch by inch, and every other area reachable from a third-floor window by a pro pitcher — nothing.

“Now you tell me,” Trask concluded, jaw out, looking squarely at Grey, “how a jerky kid with only seconds to spare can make a .38 automatic — that’s what it was, judging from the bullets they dug out of poor Drucker — vanish. That’s what I meant by a punk pulling a miracle.”

“Gun not in the apartment — you’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Nobody could hide something that big so quickly where we couldn’t find it. We tore that place wide open. The tenants didn’t like us one bit.”

“Is the boy naturally clever or ingenious?”

“Just the opposite, damn it — that’s what bugs me. He’s a stupid dropout punk of seventeen — can hardly put a sentence together, even in Basic English. And everything else he did that night shows stupidity — stupidity and hate. And another thing,” the Lieutenant said in a thoughtful voice, “it just came to me. I think Remick expected us to find the gun. When my man came back empty-handed Remick looked sort of surprised. Now why was that, I wonder?”

“Tell me about the yard.”

“Nothing to tell. Wouldn’t be much of a sight even in summer — very little gardening done, I imagine. Right now, at this time of the year, it’s just bare, except for the two grubby trees, the birdbath, and a barbecue covered with a plastic sheet. Oh, and a wooden table with built-on bench seats — you know the kind; like on a picnic ground.”

“You checked them all, of course?”

“You bet. Found exactly nothing. Even took the plastic off the barbecue, although the gun obviously didn’t go through it — no hole. And the birdbath was just solid ice inside. Without that gun,” he said sourly, “we can’t make a case, especially against a juvenile. The punk can claim he was just scared and running for fear of being accused. Sure, we can swear he fired from the room, and produce slugs similar to the ones that killed Tom, but you know juries and lawyers. They’ll say: if this kid had a gun, where is it? Maybe it’s just another cop frame-up — swearing away a boy’s life because we let the real killer escape.”

“What about the area beyond the yard?” Grey asked. He pressed a button; a humidor swung out and swiveled open. He took a thin, very black cigar from it, and the box disappeared with a snake-like glide.

Watching the scientist light the cheroot in a glowing disc set into one arm of the wheelchair, the detective said, “Same story. All pretty bare. Dry fishpond; some scrubby dead grass; a few beat-up shrubs — no place where a gun could disappear.”

“Forgive me if I’m obvious,” Grey said, smiling crookedly, “but couldn’t somebody outside have simply picked it up and carried it away?”

“I thought of that. But the yard is completely fenced in. and it was dark out, remember. A person after the gun would need eyes like an owl, and he’d have to move like a scalded cat, besides. My man got down there pretty fast, after that quick first check of the apartment. We guarded the area all night, and searched again this morning — but no luck.”

The scientist sat quietly in his chair, puffing on the cigar.

“I suppose,” the detective said a little wistfully, “it’s time to call in Edgar.”

He meant Grey’s puckish carrot-topped son, aged 14, who had an I.Q, of 180 and a genius for higher mathematics, especially topology. His father, who hated prigs, had made sure that Edgar developed both a sense of humor and a large bump of humility. As a widower and an intellectual, he knew the risk of raising his son single-handed but hoped — and planned — for the best. Edgar was the immobilized scientist’s legs; he gathered data from which Grey extracted the key patterns that led to the solutions of his cases.

“No-o,” Grey drawled. “I don’t think that’s necessary this time. If you’ve searched as carefully as you say, then sending Edgar to the scene wouldn’t help. It seems to be a matter of pure reason at this point. Considering how quickly Remick must have acted, and assuming that your inference about his own surprise is valid, I can think of only one possible solution.”

Trask was staring at him.

“Are you trying to tell me,” he blurted, “that you already have it solved? That you know where the gun is?”

“I wouldn’t be quite that dogmatic. But if your report was factual and complete, then my solution is at least highly probable. It was a cold night. I believe you said.”

“That’s right,” the detective replied, almost absently. “Damp-cold, with some freezing slush on the ground. Which, by the way, as I should have told you, also indicated that nobody else picked up the gun from the yard and took it away — no fresh footprints except our own. Now,” he begged, “for the love of Pete, what’s the answer? Where is the gun?”

“I would say,” the old man drawled with maddening deliberation, “that the gun is at the bottom of the birdbath, under the ice.”

“Wha-a-t?” Trask exclaimed; then his face darkened, and he shook his head emphatically. “It can’t be. This time, for once, you’re wrong. Maybe it’s my fault,” he added quickly. “I didn’t make the timing clear enough. After my men crashed the door, a fast once-over turned up nothing, so one of them ran down to the yard, while the other kept searching the apartment. Now, Ferber’s a good cop: he checked the birdbath — remember this was less than ten minutes after Remick tossed out the gun, if he did. Well, there were six inches of solid ice in that birdbath — solid, as I said.”

He gave Grey a weak, lopsided smile. “I’m an old pond-skater from Vermont; I know how water freezes. First, a crust forms at the top; then the ice moves down to the bottom. But it takes quite a while, even in cold weather. Last night it was maybe twenty-eight or so. That birdbath couldn’t possibly freeze completely in the few minutes after the kid ditched the gun. And if it broke through the crust. Ferber would have found it — he jabbed the ice, and it was frozen solid right through to the bottom. Besides, the hole the gun would have made going through the crust would show up different, even if it glazed over fast.”

“I take it the ice wasn’t clear.”

“So Ferber couldn’t see down to the bottom,” Grey said placidly.

“No. but—”

“All right,” the old man interrupted him, beginning to show impatience. “I see the point you’ve tried to make. Only it’s not necessarily valid in this case. If your search was thorough, the gun’s not anywhere in the apartment or on the ground outside. Therefore it must be in the birdbath.”

Grey raised one hand as Trask began to protest again. “Ever hear of supercooling? Last night the temperature dropped to below freezing — about twenty-eight, you suggested. Now ordinarily, water begins to solidify at thirty-two, with very little leeway. But occasionally, when the temperature drop is gradual and the liquid remains undisturbed, it stays unfrozen even with a fall to several degrees below thirty-two. Then, if you toss a pebble, a twig — or a gun — into the supercooled water, it suddenly freezes solid, in a flash, all the way to the bottom.

“I think that’s what happened last night. The boy got panicky and tossed the gun out of the window, not knowing how else to get rid of it fast. He did expect you to find it, which is why he looked so surprised at your failure. He couldn’t guess that it would fall into the supercooled water of the birdbath, triggering it instantaneously to ice. As an old pond-skater,” he jibed, “I’m surprised you never noticed the phenomenon before. Anyhow, you’d have found the gun after the first thaw.”

Trask was wordless for a moment, then he said, “Not if somebody else — maybe a pal of Remick’s tipped off to look around for what we missed — got there first.” He wagged his head wonderingly. “Supercooled water — well, I’ll be damned. The funny thing is,” he said sheepishly, “that it comes back to me now. One night my dad actually showed us the stunt — made the whole pond on our farm freeze instantly by tossing in a stone. But I was only about nine, and didn’t remember it till now. I’m almost afraid to check, in case you’re wrong.”

“If I am,” Grey said, “then the boy is either a genuine miracle worker or your men are not very efficient. Why not go and find out,” he suggested. “I’m rather curious myself.”

“I’ll just call Gaffney, who’s watching the place,” Trask said. “Then we’ll know the truth in a hurry.”

The answer came back by phone a few minutes later. The gun was there — a .38, and empty.

“It will match those slugs,” the Lieutenant said, “so now we’ve got a case.”

“Congratulations,” the old man said in his driest voice. “And now I’ll get back to my electronics.”

He pressed a button. A motor hummed in the base of his wheelchair, and it rolled up a ramp toward the lab on the second floor. Trask watched for a moment, smiling, and then headed for the door. Suddenly the smile left his mouth. He still had to face Mrs. Drucker and Tom’s four kids.