Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Clayton Rawson Author’s Solution to Merlini and the Lie Detector

SYNOPSIS: Script writer Don Sutton reported the murder of TV producer Carl Todd in the latter’s 44th Street apartment. On the scene of the crime the police found Sutton and actress Helen Lowe. The victim’s smashed wrist watch indicated he had been killed at 6:01 p.m. during a summer thunderstorm that stopped abruptly at 6:05 p.m. Both suspects claimed to have arrived ten to twelve minutes after the rain had stopped, and each said the other was already there with the body.

Merlini suggested using an impromptu he detector to discover which suspect was the liar and, therefore, the murderer. He started the motor of Miss Lowe’s car, and then Sutton’s. Looking at the windshield of Sutton’s car, Inspector Gavigan, said, “We make the arrest now.”

SOLUTION: Merlini turned in his seat to face Helen Lowe and Don Sutton. “My impromptu he detector is a mechanical gadget found on all cars. When I started the motor of Miss Lowe’s car, the radio she had neglected to turn off when she parked began to operate. When I turned the ignition key in Sutton’s car, something similar but much more significant happened — the windshield wipers began working.

“If Sutton, as he claims, was twenty blocks uptown at 60th Street when the rain stopped, he’d have turned the wipers off a moment or so later. They wouldn’t have sprung into action just now when I started the motor. The fact that they did means they were still turned on when he parked here — and that means he arrived before the rain stopped. He lied when he said he got here after the storm and after Todd was killed.”

Sutton didn’t try to deny it. He stared hopelessly at the wiper blades moving like twin robots back and forth across the dry glass, monotonously repeating their accusation of guilt.