Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

The Robber’s Grave by Paul Halter

© 2002 by Editions du Masque; translation © 2007 from the French by John Pugmire and Robert Adey

“Paul Halter, a forty-something Frenchman, has donned the mantle of the great John Dickson Carr and has to date produced twenty-nine novels and a collection of short stories, all replete with cunning clues, brain-twisting puzzles, and always fair-play solutions,” says his translator John Pugmire. This is the pseudonymous Halter’s fourth appearance in EQMM.

“Why is there a gravestone here? Well, because grass doesn’t grow there anymore!”

Silence followed the words of Rene Baron, a jovial little man with a Charlie Chaplin moustache. There being few customers at the Two Crowns inn that evening, Baron, the owner, had come out from behind the bar to join his friends Charles Bilenski and Mike Felder and a passing visitor, one Dr. Alan Twist. From the start, Rene Baron had been intrigued by the presence of the tall, thin, elderly stranger at that time of year — the end of winter — when strangers were a rare sight. Even though, like his two friends, he was unaware that the man before him was an amateur sleuth so gifted that Scotland Yard frequently availed itself of his services, he had nevertheless sensed something out of the ordinary about him. With his calm demeanour, his unhurried movements, and his old but immaculate tweed jacket, Dr. Twist effortlessly commanded respect.

If truth be told, the eminent detective was feeling far from sure of himself. He was coming to realise, with some bitterness, that he was now well past the age when he could, on the spur of the moment, jump into his car and get away from the noise and bustle of London to lose himself in the peaceful English countryside. That evening, he had finished up in some desolate spot far across the border in darkest Wales, having started his journey heading west in total abandon. His early enthusiasm had gradually dissipated the further he traveled along narrow roads winding between barren hills and seemingly leading nowhere. In fact, the absence of signposts coupled with his increasing tiredness and the fading light had nearly proved fatal, and it was only by luck that he had managed to brake in time to avoid driving off a cliff. He had quickly decided to find refuge if he were not to spend the night under the stars, another old custom that had fallen victim to his advancing years.

Having just passed through a small village, he had turned back to try his luck there, and that was when he had noticed the strange plot of land on its outskirts, a remarkably flat field totally empty except for a large monument at its centre: a moist stone slab glistening dully under the pale light of the moon. What was it? Probably some kind of grave or memorial to the dead, for what else could it have been? He had shivered without knowing why. Was it the sight of the grave or the cool of the night? Or perhaps the wind moaning mournfully over the rooftops?

Even after getting a room at the inn, and despite the owner’s warm welcome and the heat of a roaring fire, he had been unable to shake off a feeling of unease, as if the shadow of the strangely moist stone had followed him into the rustic hostelry. In an attempt to rid himself of the feeling, he had struck up conversation with the others, hoping to find an explanation. But the reaction of the three men had not been what he had expected: Their faces had clouded at his question.

Dr. Twist swallowed his scotch and frowned. “You say the grass doesn’t grow there anymore? It seems to me that I saw a wide green field back there.”

“All around it, yes,” replied Mike Felder, a forty-year-old of military bearing and frank expression. “But at that particular spot, no. That’s why we laid that stone, so that nobody would notice the bare patch.”

The detective’s astonishment grew. “I don’t understand... Are you telling me the grass doesn’t grow only on those few square feet?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s—”

“Absurd. Quite so, but it’s nevertheless true. Everyone around here knows it. The grass stopped growing in that particular spot more than a hundred years ago. And it’s stayed that way despite several attempts to remedy the situation.”

Charles Bilenski, the shortest of the three friends and also the most discreet, interrupted the discussion in an accent that betrayed his Slav roots: “You have to understand, the grass cannot grow there, it’s no longer possible.”

“No longer possible,” echoed Twist. “Why the devil can’t it grow there?”

With a placid smile tinged with a touch of malice, Rene Baron declared: “That, my dear sir, is a mystery that science cannot explain. But I imagine you would like to learn about the origin of this curious phenomenon?”

“Yes, I’d be much obliged.”

The innkeeper replenished the glasses before starting his strange tale. He spoke with the singsong tones of his native southern France. His accent, in contrast to that of Bilenski, was scarcely noticeable, but Twist was able to detect it, having vacationed frequently in the region. Furthermore, he had noticed a framed photograph hanging behind the bar which showed Rene Baron in his youth. He was playing boules with his friends against a background of an old Mediterranean port. An adjacent photograph was even more revealing: It showed three young men in R.A.F. uniform standing proudly in front of a Spitfire. Despite the passage of time, Twist had no difficulty in recognizing his three companions.

“About a hundred years ago,” his host began, “a certain Idris Jones, a traveler in the region, was arrested for murder, denounced by a couple of blackguards who claimed to have seen him beat an old beggar to his death while robbing him. Jones claimed that it was, on the contrary, the two ne’er-do-wells that had killed the old man. I don’t know what tipped the scales — possibly it was because he wasn’t a local — but the fact is he was strung up high despite his heated denials.”

“Justice was pretty swift in those days,” observed Mike Felder. “But it seems very likely it went awry in this case.”

“Yes,” continued Rene Baron solemnly. “Idris Jones went to the gallows still protesting his innocence, and in a loud voice he pleaded with God not to allow a blade of grass ever to grow over his grave, to prove it. Shortly after he was laid to rest — at some distance from the village because some people opposed a criminal being buried there — the grass first turned yellow and then disappeared. And it has never grown there since.”

The innkeeper paused for a moment and then asked: “So, what do you think, Doctor?”

The detective stroked his moustache meditatively. “The ways of the Lord are mysterious indeed, but it’s as well to be cautious about this kind of story. I never cease to be amazed by the human capacity for mischief, and the astonishing ruses that have been perpetrated.”

“Hmm,” responded the innkeeper. “You’re sceptical, Doctor. It’s understandable. We all were at one time or another. I’ll let our friend Mike, who also happens to be the village mayor, take the floor.”

Turning toward the photo of the young pilots, Felder began: “I see you’ve noticed which armed force we were in when we were defending our country, Doctor. Time has gone by and we are still alive, whereas a number of our colleagues weren’t so lucky.”

“They are still with us in our thoughts, sir,” said Twist, solemnly.

“Yes, of course. In fact nobody came out of the war unscathed. We’ve all had to count our dead and wounded. But at the same time, for those of us who did manage to survive, strong bonds of friendship were formed. It’s how we were able to get through it all. For me, it was slightly easier, having been accustomed to... shall we say... a certain austerity in life: I was an orphan. Rene, however, lost his whole family in Marseilles, which is why, after his tour of duty in the R.A.F. was over, he didn’t go back.”

“Poor me!” smiled the innkeeper. “And it wasn’t always easy. There isn’t much in the way of Mediterranean sunshine around here. But I came to understand that, when the sun doesn’t shine in the sky, it hides in men’s hearts. And I’m so contented here I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, believe me.”

“As for our friend Charles here, he also suffered a great loss after the war, and he wouldn’t leave the village for all the tea in China, isn’t that right, Charles?”

Charles grunted his agreement. With his stooped posture, blotchy skin, and shifty eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, Bilenski did not impress. Twist suspected a fondness for the bottle, and the number of beers he had consumed since Twist’s arrival did nothing to discourage that impression.

“Don’t be fooled, Doctor,” continued Felder. “Our friend was one of the great heroes of the last war. Rene and I weren’t exactly amateurs at the controls of a Spitfire, but Charles was a true virtuoso. He was showered with medals and his name sent shudders of fear through the old Luftwaffe. All this is to make the point that when my two friends decided to come here to settle down, they didn’t believe a word of the story either, when I told them about it. They even laughed at me. I have to admit that one didn’t see then the beautiful lawn around the grave that one sees today. It was actually more of a wasteland covered in stones. There was grass, though... everywhere but where the grave lies. People in the past had tried to make it grow, but without success. Eventually we decided to plant a few yew trees around the grave to hide the infamous patch and forget about it. The kids were always playing there and some of us thought the ground remained bare because of them running around there. Didn’t we, Rene?”

“Well, that was my theory,” agreed the man from Marseilles. “Although I didn’t care much one way or the other; my job was, and still is, to quench thirsty throats, and Lord knows there are enough around here! But I have to say not everyone saw things the same way, notably that developer from Bristol. Do you remember him?”

“As if it were yesterday,” said Felder, who had turned crimson. “A chap called Evans, resourceful enough, but too full of himself, and tricky besides. He’d managed to buy the land by using his contacts, despite objections by the then mayor and myself — though I was only assistant mayor at the time. He was going to create a golf course right bang in the middle of that land, and follow it with a luxury hotel. And he had the nerve to walk into our office to announce it.”

“I had just bought this place,” said Rene Baron, “and I don’t mind telling you he gave me a fright. I remember someone telling him about the area where the grass wouldn’t grow, which would pose a problem for the golf. He laughed until he cried, claiming he’d overcome many challenges a lot more difficult than that. That evening, in front of all the customers at the bar, he vowed to break the ancient curse or abandon the project.”

“As far as he was concerned,” continued Felder, “the matter was already settled. A few days later, he had removed the earth between the yews to a considerable depth and had replaced it with a rich loam which he had then seeded. The grass had scarcely started to grow before it turned yellow. Naturally he did not give up after the first setback. He dug up all the surrounding area, replaced the earth on the grave itself, and brought in the best gardeners in the region, but to no avail. That’s when he began to suspect that one of us was sabotaging his efforts.”

“By spraying the grave with weed-killer?” asked Twist, with a smile.

“Yes, because he had already taken precautions. Precautions which became more and more stringent until, some would say, they bordered on paranoia. The fellow wasn’t used to failure. The grass that failed to grow had become an obsession with him: a blow to his self-respect which needed to be redeemed. So he set about doing everything possible to neutralise the ‘enemy.’ Without regard to the cost of materials or labour, he had a wall built around the affected area, at a distance of about twenty yards from the grave. When it was finished, it was in the form of a square, six feet high all around. In the middle of one side there was a metal grille serving as a gate. When it was all built, he placed trained dogs to guard the perimeter. Despite all that, plus a new round of soil and fertilizer, the grass still refused to grow.”

Dr. Twist lit his pipe, paused for a moment, then asked: “How were the yews arranged and how high were they?”

“They were planted close together in the shape of a rectangle two or three times the size of the grave itself. They formed a thick hedge about six feet high, with a narrow opening so that the access path from the gate could reach the grave.” A mocking gleam came into Felder’s eye. “If I’m following your train of thought correctly, you’re wondering if someone could have used a hose pipe or water pump?”

“Yes, or something of that nature. But under the circumstances, that’s not possible. The poisonous liquid from the jet would have sprayed almost everything except the grave, not to mention the distance involved. To produce a jet reaching twenty yards would have required a fire engine!”

“Quite. And that’s what Evans thought as well. Several months went by and he came close to a nervous breakdown because of the repeated failure of his efforts. That was when he decided to put a couple of guards inside the walls and even one on the outside. Professionals, young and alert every one, with a second team to take over so that the grave was guarded day and night.

“Nevertheless, they never found anything suspicious. The dogs howled a couple of times; that’s about it. Just false alarms. And still the grass wouldn’t grow. Evans was literally mad with anger and frustration. When someone suggested that the shadow from the yews was at fault, or maybe their roots were rendering the ground sterile, he didn’t hesitate to have them cut down. When that was done, there remained a magnificently flat lawn inside the tightly monitored wall. But nothing changed. The earth around the grave remained stubbornly barren. As soon as seeding restarted, tender shoots of grass would appear, turn yellow, and die. It was as if the ground there really was cursed.”

“Incredible,” said Twist, shaking his head. “And you say that nowhere else was the ground afflicted by the ‘curse’?”

“No, only the rectangle above the wretched and probably innocent Idris Jones.” There was the ghost of a smile on Felder’s severe features. “Something tells me, Doctor, that you are as sceptical as that businessman. Evans may not have had much charm, but he wasn’t a fool, believe me. But, at the end, he was convinced — just like all of us — that it wasn’t trickery. He abandoned his plans and even stated that, with an unexplained phenomenon of that kind, his customers would have avoided the golf course like the plague. He was so upset, after months of vain effort, that he agreed to tear down the wall, which no longer served any purpose and was spoiling the view of the cliffs from the inn. For our part, we decided to lay that gravestone so that nobody would notice the barren patch in future.”

Twist fell silent again, puffing hard on his pipe and causing smoke rings to rise to the ceiling. “If the curse on Jones’s grave was really just a dirty trick after all,” he said, “I can only see two solutions: Either the weed-killer was released from the ground in some way, or it was released from the air. The former can be ruled out, given the constant presence of the guards and the dogs. The walls, the yew hedge, and the distance eliminate the latter, unless the trickster had some way of hovering in midair with a watering can in his hand in order to sprinkle his favourite rectangle. In other words, he would have to have had a flying carpet!”

“It’s a great Thousand and One Nights tale you have there, Doctor!” exclaimed the innkeeper, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Yes, a tale which shows the impossibility of human intervention. And yet...” His voice trailed away to silence, while the three friends hung breathlessly on his words.

“Does that mean you have found an explanation?” asked Felder, frowning.

“No, not yet,” replied the detective hesitantly, looking around. “But I intend to find the key to the puzzle, because I believe I have all the information I need.”

Despite that tantalising announcement, Charles Bilenski stood up, bade farewell to his friends and Dr. Twist, and shuffled slowly out of the room. Hardly had he left when Twist observed: “Your friend seems to be down in the dumps.”

“Yes,” agreed Felder. “He’s always like that. But he’s a decent chap, believe me. Now, if you could have seen him during the war... he had a swagger, as you can tell from that photograph behind the bar. He was the star, a brilliant hero covered in glory, whom all the ladies longed for at the dances. He ended up marrying the prettiest girl on the base, a girl so pretty she became a model, and that’s when things started to go downhill. His fall was as rapid as his rise had been, as if his Spitfire, having reached its zenith, suddenly nosedived and crashed. Return to civil life was hard, and he soon found that he was just one fellow amongst all the others, and he had to work damned hard to earn a living. He turned his hand to several jobs with no success. His wife left him, he turned to drink, and the vicious circle started. On top of all that, he had no family to speak of. He’d brought his parents over from Czechoslovakia to flee the Nazis, but they perished in one of the early Luftwaffe raids. I found him by accident one night two years after the war ended standing in front of their bombed-out home. He was drunk, but sufficiently conscious to be crying. So I suggested he come back to this place with me.”

“Felder’s a good man, too,” declared Rene Baron, smiling at Twist. “He helped me pick myself up, too. The longed-for peace turned out to be as brutal a shock as the start of war. After all those years of anguish, the permanent state of alert, the sudden warnings, and the murderous aerial combats, peacetime seemed lifeless and insipid. One never becomes used to danger, but one can become dependent on it. I was heading in the same direction as Charles when I too met Mike again. And thanks to him I’ve regained my grip on life.”

“You’re all decent types,” said Dr. Twist with a touch of emotion in his voice. “Those of us who’ve lived through terrible nights during the Blitz owe you all a great debt. That’s why I’m determined not to reveal your little secret.”

After a moment of silence Felder repeated, in astonishment: “Our little secret?”

The detective looked him straight in the eye. “Yes, your secret: I mean the trick you played on that troublemaker Evans who threatened to destroy the peace and quiet of your village. You, the firebrands, who had found life again by realising that simple things — the peaceful existence of daily routine — are just as satisfying and infinitely more durable than living at a hundred miles an hour, drunk with danger.”

There was another silence, after which Felder replied, imperturbably: “Do you have any proof to support your statement?”

“Oh, I can’t prove you were all in it together, but I’m sure the trickster was one of you.”

“I must insist,” continued Felder, “have you identified him?”

“Yes.”

“And determined the method?”

The detective nodded his head in assent, smiling the while, then turned to the innkeeper. “Have you any pastis, Mr. Baron?”

“Pastis?” exclaimed the owner, wide-eyed. “What for?”

“Why, to drink, of course! It’s so long since I’ve tasted any.”

“Well, yes, I do have a bottle, but after the whisky and the beer, I’m not sure it’s advisable.”

“The whisky,” replied Twist mischievously, “was to warm me up. The beer was to quench my thirst...”

“And the pastis?”

“For intellectual stimulation.”

Baron brought the visitor’s drink over.

“But you forgot the ice, Mr. Baron,” said Twist in astonishment, taking the glass and the pitcher of water.

“Of course,” replied the owner, scuttling away. “What was I thinking?”

“In fact,” declared the detective, after having tasted the drink at the desired temperature, “I didn’t really want it, but it was necessary for my demonstration, and it was that above all that tipped me off by reminding me of one of my own youthful escapades. You’ll understand shortly when I explain it to you. Now, since I don’t believe in flying carpets, I had to retrace my steps. The solution, in the present case, is actually both earthbound and airborne.

“But let’s start from the beginning: How would one spread weed-killer in an area so inaccessible? Answer: by throwing it as a compacted object like a ball.”

“Throwing it over a high yew hedge?” said Rene Baron. “That would seem to be rather difficult.”

“True, but there was also the gap in the hedge the size of a small door which was, if I’ve understood correctly, astride the path leading to the gate.”

“The gate which was locked and guarded.”

“Certainly, but at night our trickster wouldn’t have been noticed, particularly if he’d taken advantage of the dogs’ barking; he might even have provoked them.”

“In short,” observed Felder, “someone could have thrown a block of dried powder twenty yards from behind the gate.”

“It was feasible, given that the guards made their rounds around the wall, so our man had intervals of time in which to act.”

“Right. But it’s the actual throwing that seems too risky. A block of dried powder could be blown off course by the slightest wind, not to mention the precision necessary in the first place. At one time or another, it would have landed in the wrong place. And how would the powder have been spread evenly across the grave?”

“With the help of the rain.”

“We have more than our share of it around here, agreed, but still it doesn’t rain every night. And someone would be bound to notice the next morning.”

“You’re right,” agreed Twist. “We have to find another method.” His eye fell on the bowl of ice brought over by the innkeeper. “What if our man had thrown a large block of ice made with a heavy dose of weed-killer? It would have had time to melt during the night and spread evenly in a pool over the grave.”

“There’s still the question of accuracy,” observed Felder.

A mischievous look glinted behind the detective’s pince-nez.

“But suppose the large block of ice was in the form of a ball, like, say, an orange? It would be almost the same weight as a boule as you call it.” He turned towards the photos behind the bar. “Any boule player worth his salt can deliver a series of strikes placed close together; I shouldn’t have to explain that to a professional like yourself, Mr. Baron. The boule would go over the gate, roll along the path, and go through the gap in the hedge to reach the grave. With half a dozen throws of carefully prepared ice projectiles, there would be no trace left in the morning except some moisture which would be attributed to the early morning dew. No need to do it every night, just after each fresh load of earth.”

The smile seemed to be frozen on the face of the man from Marseilles. Pointing to the photograph over the bar, he asked: “Is that how you tumbled to it?”

“Let’s say it helped.”

“Then congratulations for the deduction, monsieur,” said Rene Baron, bowing slightly. “But you know, nobody in the village wanted a huge hotel blocking their view. And all I did was help destiny along a bit. Before Evans appeared, neither I nor anyone else had ever acted that way.”

“I don’t pretend to have solved the whole mystery, gentlemen,” said Twist solemnly.

“So I think it’s just as well if we forget the whole thing,” said Felder, draining his beer.

“I agree,” said the detective. “I know how to hold my tongue, particularly since I had to use a similar scheme myself once. That’s why it wasn’t too difficult to work out what happened here. There was a neighbour of mine once who used to chase away the local cats with a pitchfork. I was angry and told him that if he didn’t cease his barbaric habits, lightning would strike his house and the lawn which he tended so lovingly. He had brought in an especially rich, red-coloured soil from another county just for the lawn.”

Dr. Twist plunged his hand into the ice bucket and brought out several blocks. “So, Mr. Baron, like you, I put a strong dose of weed-killer in the ice tray and when night came I sprinkled dozens of ice fragments on the torturer’s lawn. A few days later, it looked as if it had caught measles!”