Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 63, No. 2. Whole No. 363, February 1974

Mr. Strang Under Arrest by William Brittain[5]

We tend to think of the deductive detective as a “thinking machine” — cold, calculating, detached. But suppose such a detective — especially an amateur who investigates crime not for money but for the love of the game — suppose such a simon-pure detective finds himself in grave trouble with the law? Will he remain the objective, logical, emotionless prober and pursuer of the truth?

Read how Mr. Strang, the little old science teacher at Aldershot High School, faced this unexpected predicament...

Mr. Strang wriggled about on the hard wooden chair, trying to find a comfortable position. He counted the acoustic tiles that made up the walls and ceiling of the small room and then calculated in his head the total number used. With a loud sigh he began drumming his fingers on the hard surface of the table at which he sat. If only the room had a window he could at least watch the rain which he could hear guttering through the downspouts outside the building. But there was no window.

“Coelenterata,” he growled in annoyance.

It was a Saturday morning, following a week of unrelenting rain in Aldershot. Mr. Strang’s high-school students, unable to work off their high spirits outside, had generated a full head of steam and conducted themselves in a manner that might have been suitable to the hordes of Attila the Hun, but which was downright disgraceful in teen-agers preparing for midterm examinations. The advent of the weekend found the old teacher exhausted in mind and body, with his aging joints aching from the damp weather. He had looked forward to sleeping late this morning.

But here it was, only a little after nine, and he found himself in an Interrogation Room of the Third Precinct Police Station.

The detective who had called on him at Mrs. Mackey’s rooming-house, a granite block of a man named Walter Fosse, had been unfailingly polite. He’d been sorry to disturb Mr. Strang, but he was conducting an investigation, and he wondered if the teacher would mind coming down to the station-house to make a statement concerning his whereabouts between eight and ten the previous evening. Oh, yes, there was one other thing. Would he mind driving his own car to the station? He could leave it in the police garage out of the rain.

His mind still foggy with sleep, Mr. Strang had taken his car to the station where he’d dictated and then signed a statement to the effect that up until a little before nine the night before, he’d been in the Aider-shot Public Library. Then he’d driven home and spent the rest of the evening lying in bed and reading one of the books he’d checked out. Fosse had taken the statement when he’d left the Interrogation Room, his parting words being that he’d be “back in a few minutes.”

The whole procedure had been so foreign to Mr. Strang that not once had he thought to ask what the police were investigating.

“Back in a few minutes indeed,” the teacher muttered waspishly. “It must be at least an hour he’s left me here alone.” He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes had gone by since Fosse’s departure.

He rubbed his hands against his wrinkled jacket to dry the sweat that had suddenly begun to pour from his palms. It wasn’t that he was afraid exactly, but the situation was peculiar, to say the least. In the classroom he was fully in charge, but a police station was unfamiliar territory. Fosse had his statement, so why couldn’t Strang leave? He was being treated almost as if he were a criminal. Again he dried his hands on his jacket.

The door of the Interrogation Room swung open and Fosse entered, jerking his thumb toward the hallway outside. “C’mon,” he said to Strang tersely.

The detective led the little old science teacher along a dirty hallway that had been painted a mal-de-mer green around the turn of the century and into another, larger room. Inside the room was a long table with three men seated along one side. The little ferret-faced one with the gray Vandyke beard was John Kitrich, the manager of Aldershot Home Furnishings, and the redhead with the squinty eyes was Dan MacIver, who worked in the office of the village sanitation department. The third, a lanky blond youth with several days’ growth of stubble on his chin, was unknown to the teacher.

On the opposite side of the table was a huge man with curly black hair and a full bristling beard which swept in ebony waves about his head and face, giving him the appearance of a satanic Santa Claus. And then, looking around the man’s massive body, Mr. Strang caught sight of Detective Paul Roberts.

“Paul!” Mr. Strang felt distinctly relieved. Here at last was a friend, someone who could explain what was going on. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”

“Sit down, Mr. Strang,” said Roberts with a smile, motioning to a chair next to Kitrich. “Now that we’re all here, I’d like to remind everybody that this is Detective Fosse’s case.”

“Case? What case?” Kitrich was on his feet, waving a finger at Roberts. “I was called down here to make a statement about where I was yesterday evening. Now that I’ve made it I want to go home.” There were murmurs of agreement from MacIver and the other man.

Fosse strode to the head of the table and rapped his knuckles against its surface. Immediately the room became ominously quiet. Quickly the detective made the necessary introductions. Mr. Strang learned that the blond young man was Willard Quinn, a bakery truck driver and sometime college student. The bearded colossus next to Roberts was Victor Wilson, who’d been on duty checking out books at the library the previous evening.

“I’d like to start,” said Fosse, peering out from between twin thickets of eyebrows, “by apologizing to three of you four men. You’re here needlessly. The trouble is, I don’t know which three.”

He leaned forward, resting his weight on slabs of hands. “Right now,” he continued, “there’s a man named Clifford Berlinger lying in the hospital with a broken jaw, possible skull fracture, three cracked ribs, multiple bruises and contusions — you name it.”

“Cliff?” said Mr. Strang involuntarily. “But I saw him just last night at the—”

Fosse nodded. “The library. I thought you’d know him, Mr. Strang.”

“Of course I know him. He’s taught American history at the high school for almost as many years as I’ve been there.”

“Do you happen to know what he was doing at the library?”

“Oh.” The teacher thought for a moment. “Cliff spends a lot of his spare time writing articles for obscure little history magazines. The one he’s researching now is — let me see — ‘Southern Colonial Coastal Shipping, 1670 to 1720.’ I remember kidding him that he’d probably have a readership of about six.”

“So that’s why we’re here,” said MacIver. “We were all at the library last evening.”

As Fosse nodded, Quinn shifted in his chair and ran a hand across his unshaved chin. “Man, this is really somethin’ else, you know?” he said, shaking his head. “Sure I was in the library. There was at least fifteen people there, so why pick on us four? Or maybe we’re the only ones who look like we get our kicks out of beating up old men.”

“Berlinger wasn’t beaten up.” Fosse was visibly restraining himself from launching an attack on Quinn. “It was a hit-and-run. Right in the library driveway. Berlinger must have been standing there when the car struck him. He was thrown against the side of the building.”

There was a low buzz of voices as the four men absorbed this information. “Mister Fosse.” Dan MacIver’s voice had the trace of a Scotsman’s burr. “I don’t go along with the young man’s probable opinion of the police, but his question was a good one. So would you mind telling us why of all the people in the library you selected the four of us as suspects?”

“Nothing’s been said about suspects, Mr. MacIver. We’ve just asked for statements from you, that’s all.”

“D’ye take me for a loony, sir? You didn’t draw our names out of hats. Come now. Why us?”

Suddenly Mr. Strang shot to his feet. “Paul,” he said, his eyes blazing at the detective seated across from him, “I don’t like the way this thing is being handled!”

Fosse started to interrupt, but Roberts waved him to silence. “What do you mean, Mr. Strang?” he asked.

The teacher removed his glasses and placed them in a jacket pocket. “I feel as if I were doing a science experiment with only half the necessary chemicals. First, out of all the people in the library you choose the four of us to come down and make statements without a word about what they were for. All right, we’ve made them. Now you bring us all here together. Why? We’re being spoon-fed information a little at a time, Paul, and I don’t like it. Either tell us what information you have — all of it — or I, for one, am going home.”

As he stood looking down at the two detectives, they both began to feel a little like schoolboys who’d just received a scolding.

Fosse’s face became fiery red. “I don’t have to—”

“Come on, Walt,” said Roberts. “He’s got a point, admit it. Open up. What’s the harm?”

“And while you’re at it,” added the teacher, “you might tell us what he’s doing here.” He pointed a gaunt finger at Victor Wilson. “He’s obviously not a suspect. Wrong side of the table.”

Fosse’s eyes locked with those of Roberts, and it was Fosse who glanced down first. “Okay,” he said finally. “We’d like to wrap this case up quick. We — that is, I — thought we’d get you in here and pick your brains to see if we could come up with something that would throw a little light on what really happened last night. If you have any objections to our handling things this way, you’re free to walk out. Officially we wouldn’t question the motive of anyone who did. Unofficially—” He shrugged bulky shoulders. “We’d be forced to draw some unpleasant conclusions.”

“I for one wish to contact my lawyer before saying another word,” said Kitrich.

“That’s your privilege,” said Roberts. “But remember, Mr. Kitrich, nobody’s accused you of any thing.” A puckish smile came across his face. “Yet,” he added.

“As for me,” said MacIver, “I’m not guilty of anything, and I’d like to say so out loud. But if you don’t mind, Mr. Strang here has a brain that seems a bit more organized than mine. I’ll let him do the talking for me.”

“Right on, man,” said Quinn. He turned to Mr. Strang, holding a clenched fist high. “Go to it, teach. Put the screws to the screws!”

“Okay,” said Fosse quickly. “What do you want to know, Mr. Strang?”

“Everything,” was the reply. “A friend of mine has been badly injured. That’s shock enough for one day. But on top of that I find myself as one of four suspected of the crime. And I don’t mind telling you the situation has me scared stiff. So could you stop being mysterious and tell us in detail just exactly what we’re suspected of?”

“Let’s take it from the top,” said Fosse. He turned toward Victor Wilson. “You want to start?”

Ponderously Wilson got to his feet. “I’m new to the village. I moved into my sister’s house over on Elm Court last Thursday. Maybe one of you know her. Mrs. Zoller?”

MacIver nodded. “The widow lady. Spends every Saturday afternoon washing her new sedan. I see her — I live in the same neighborhood.”

“At any rate,” Wilson went on, “yesterday was my first day on my job as librarian. I closed the place promptly at nine and went out to my car and started the engine. As I drove down the driveway I thought I spotted something white next to the building. I came very near not stopping. What I mean is, it was only a few minutes’ drive to home, but I was tired and wet and all. Oh, dear, I am making a mess of this, aren’t I?” He looked in confusion at Fosse.

“Quite all right,” rumbled the detective. “Just tell the story in your own way, Mr. Wilson.”

“Well, since the library was in my care I thought I’d better investigate. That’s when I found Mr. Berlinger, lying on the ground next to the driveway. It was his cloth raincoat I’d seen. I tried to get back into the library to call someone, but I’d already set the spring locks and I don’t as yet have a key to them. Heavens, the trouble I had finding a telephone at that hour of the night. I finally located an all-night drug store and called from there. I–I guess that’s all, Mr. Fosse.”

“Wilson’s call came in at nine thirty,” said Fosse. “I called for an ambulance and a patrol car. Then Roberts and me drove to the library. Mr. Wilson had waited for us, but we didn’t keep him long on account of his old sports car had a rip in the canvas top, and water was pouring in on him. We checked Berlinger while the attendants were putting him in the ambulance, but if there was any paint or other evidence on his clothes it had been washed away by the rain. But with the patrol-car spotlight we got a good look at where Berlinger had been lying.”

Fosse fished into a pocket and brought out a small envelope which he proceeded to open. “We found something near the body,” he said. “Personally I don’t think it means a thing, but you might think different.” He shook out the contents — two small bits of ridged glass.

“These came from an automobile sealed-beam headlight,” he said. “At first we figured we’d find out who among the people in the library that evening had a busted headlight on the front of his car.”

“And who did?” asked Mr. Strang.

Fosse let out a deep sigh. “We have been working on this thing since ten o’clock last night,” he said. “We checked the people who were in the library six ways from Sunday. The cards from the books that were taken out helped there. Finally we got a complete list. Then we went back and looked at their cars. Fortunately most people leave them outside. We only had to wake up a couple of ’em to get into their garages.”

Fosse pounded his fist against the table. “Not one of the cars we saw had a busted headlight,” he said. “Furthermore none of ’em had a light replaced recently. So it’s my guess the glass had been lying there quite a while and has nothing to do with this case. But we do figure the car last night hit Berlinger hard enough to make a dent.”

“So that’s why I’m here.” Mr. Strang could feel the sense of relief flooding through him. “Simply because my old car has dents in its fenders.”

“The right front fender, to be exact,” said Fosse.

“My jalopy gets creased by a taxi and right away I’m a criminal,” sneered Quinn. “Big deal.”

“I told my boy to be careful when he used the car last week,” MacIver chimed in. “Wait until he hears the trouble he got me in.”

“All right,” Fosse interrupted. “Now you know. The mechanics and lab technicians down in the garage have been examining your cars while we talked with you. I doubt they found anything, or I’d have heard about it by now. So the only thing left to say is that if one of you is guilty, you’d be doing yourself a favor by telling us now. We might be able to do something about lessening the charge. Maybe the guilty one would get off with only a stiff fine. But if we have to dig up the evidence we’ll see the guilty party gets the book thrown at him.”

The four men looked warily at one another. Mr. Strang could feel the sweat coursing down his back.

A uniformed officer escorted the four men to the door of the precinct house. As they left the building and stepped into the rain, Kitrich turned to MacIver. “He had no reason to bring us down here,” said Kitrich, his small beard quivering in outrage.

“Look, I agree a dented fender doesn’t make one of us guilty,” said MacIver. “But they’ve got to start somewhere.”

“But we have our rights. As citizens.”

“Hey, man,” giggled Quinn as they headed for the police garage. “Do you suppose them fuzz will ever find out who really did it?”

“I assume the police have their own ways of answering that,” replied the teacher coldly.

The following Wednesday Mr. Strang found out what that answer was.

All the students and teachers in Aldershot High School were buzzing with rumors about Mr. Berlinger’s accident and the fact that Mr. Strang was under suspicion of hit-and-run. At the end of the day, after having been asked for the sixth time by his principal, Marvin W. Guthrey, whether he had anything he’d like to get off his chest, Mr. Strang left the building.

Fosse was standing by the teacher’s car, waiting for him.

“Good afternoon,” said Mr. Strang with a polite nod. “Something I can do for you?”

“Mr. Strang, I’m placing you under arrest on the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. You have the right to remain silent, but if you do choose to—”

As Fosse proceeded with the litany of an arrested man’s rights Mr. Strang could do nothing but shake his head in disbelief. His stomach churned, and for a moment he thought he might be sick. There was an unreal element about it, as if he were standing apart watching the arrest of a complete stranger. It was an awful dream, and in a moment he’d wake up. Fosse’s final words did awaken him.

“Look, I don’t want to have to use the handcuffs. It would have a bad effect on the kids. So just get in the car quietly, huh?”

On limp legs Mr. Strang allowed himself to be led to Fosse’s car.

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Strang was in the same Interrogation Room he had occupied the previous Saturday. He was seated at the table while Fosse and Paul Roberts spoke heatedly in one corner.

“Dammit!” snapped Roberts, “I told you to take it easy on him. He’s an old man. Did you have to come on so strong?”

“I tell you, I didn’t—”

“It’s all right, Paul,” said Mr. Strang weakly. “If I could just have a glass of water.”

Fosse went for the water as Roberts sat down beside the teacher. “Just take it easy, Leonard,” said the detective kindly. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Paul, I swear there’s nothing to tell. Believe me, I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Fosse got to speak to Berlinger in the hospital this morning. Oh, hell, I know you’re innocent, but—”

He was interrupted by Fosse returning to the room. In one hand was a glass of water. The other held a small portable tape recorder.

“I guess Roberts told you where I was this morning,” said Fosse. “Berlinger’s jaw is all wired up, so it’s hard for him to talk, but I’m sure you’ll be interested in what he had to say.”

“I’ve known Mr. Strang a long time,” snapped Roberts, “and I won’t have him badgered, Fosse. Just play the tape.”

Fosse pressed a button and the recorder reels began to turn.

“—only a very short visit,” came a deep voice from the machine.

And then Fosse’s voice: “Fine, Doctor. That’s all I’ll need.”

The reels spun on in silence. Then Fosse was heard again. “Mr. Berlinger? Are you awake?”

Two soft groans might have been an affirmative reply.

“Do you know who it was, Mr. Berlinger? The man who hit you with his car at the library?”

“Yes.” It was little more than a whisper.

“Who, Mr. Berlinger? Who was it?”

The reels made two revolutions. Then the weak voice whispered through wired jaws:

“Teach...”

A shiver ran up Mr. Strang’s spine as the voice trailed off into nothingness.

Fosse reached over and flipped the switch. “Okay,” he said. “Paul tells me you’re very sharp, Mr. Strang. We got four suspects. A store manager, a man who works in the sanitation department, a truck driver” — he paused for effect — “and a teacher. Now you heard the tape. Who do you think Berlinger was accusing?”

Mr. Strang just shook his head and stared at the table.

“Mr. Strang.” Fosse spoke in a low confidential voice. “Like Paul says, you’re an old man. Now we can work something out. I’m sure no judge is going to give a person like you more than a few months. Why don’t you just tell us how it all happened?”

A few months in prison. And what then? Leave Aldershot — the only home he’d known for most of his life? How could he be expected to command honor and respect from his students after this? He’d be washed up as a teacher wherever he went. It all seemed so unfair. Mr. Strang was innocent.

But then why that accusing word on the tape?

“What now, Paul?” Mr. Strang asked in a cracked voice.

“We’ll let you phone a lawyer. If you hurry, maybe he can arrange bail before the court closes.”

As they left the room Fosse started to grip Mr. Strang’s arm, but Roberts brushed the other detective’s hand away. They went out into the hallway, where a plumber was trying to unplug the drain to one of the building’s ancient drinking fountains.

Mr. Strang looked at the can of caustic soda in the plumber’s hand. The word POISON was printed in big red letters along the side of the can.

Something stirred in the teacher’s mind. Trancelike he walked over and took the can from the plumber’s hand.

“Hey,” muttered Fosse to Roberts. “You don’t think he’d try to swallow—”

But the teacher was making no attempt to open the can. Instead he peered closely at the label.

“Paul,” said Mr. Strang, returning to his place, “could I ask Mr. Fosse just one question?”

Roberts looked at Fosse. They shrugged. “Why not?”

“Tell me, Mr. Fosse, when you visited Cliff — Mr. Berlinger — did he act at all strange?”

“He didn’t act any way. In the first place the doctors had given him something for the pain, so he was groggy. And second, he couldn’t hardly move anything but his eyes. And he wasn’t even looking at me. Just staring through the door of the room.”

“ ‘Through’ the door? It was open then?”

“Sure. There was a big poster outside on the opposite wall. It said, Speed Kills.”

“Is that all that was on it?”

“Yep. Underneath the printing there was this big skull and crossbones. And a hypodermic needle at the bottom.”

Mr. Strang could almost hear the wheels whirring in his brain as he tried to remember something he’d heard in a high-school class nearly 50 years ago. And then the wheels stopped.

Jackpot!

“Geez, look at him, Paul,” whispered Fosse. “This is really beginning to hit him. He’s crying.”

Mr. Strang whipped out a red bandanna handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. Waves of relief washed over him, and he longed to set his trembling body into a chair. No, this was not a time for weakness.

Slowly he drew his glasses from the jacket pocket and peered through them at the detectives as he might have regarded a class of students. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he said imperiously.

“What you want?” Fosse’s face was starched with surprise. “Hey, you’re in custody, mister!”

“Shut up and listen, Walt. You might learn something.” There was a grin plastered across Roberts’ face. If Mr. Strang was acting like a teacher again, the truth was coming.

“Mr. Fosse.” The teacher stood poised on a pinnacle of icy dignity. “If you want the person who really ran down Cliff Berlinger, I’ll tell you what to do. Listen closely because I’m not about to repeat myself.”

For a moment Fosse was back in St. William’s Parochial School, preparing to have his knuckles rapped by Sister Anne’s ruler. He listened without interruption.

When the teacher had finished, Fosse shook his head. “I dunno, Mr. Strang,” he said. “It sounds like a mighty long shot to me.”

“What have you got to lose by taking a look?” asked Roberts. “And just to make it interesting, I’ll bet you a steak dinner that Mr. Strang’s right, that you find it.”

In less than 45 minutes Fosse returned to the precinct house with a new prisoner in tow. “It’s like you had second sight, Mr. Strang,” Fosse said in awed tones. “It was all there. The car and everything. He’d put in a new headlight, but I found the old one in the trash. It’s down at the lab right now, and if the piece of glass we found on the library driveway fits the rest, we’ve got our man. It’s spooky how you knew all about it.”

“Hello, Mr. Wilson,” said the teacher. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you here.”

The librarian mumbled something into his black beard and stared at the floor.

“Go on, Mr. Strang,” said Fosse. “Lay out the case against him.”

“You haven’t got a thing on me,” growled Wilson. “Both Roberts and Fosse saw my car at the library that night, and there wasn’t a dent or a broken headlight on it.”

“Of course there wasn’t,” replied the teacher. “Because the car they saw was not the car you were in when you hit Cliff Berlinger.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Come now, Mr. Wilson. The time for dissembling is past. Your car — the one you were in when Mr. Fosse saw you — has a leaky canvas top. Therefore you must have borrowed your sister’s sedan so you wouldn’t leave the library to find your own car half full of water. But after the borrowed car hit Cliff Berlinger — and before you phoned the police — you drove the damaged automobile back to your sister’s house and stashed it in the garage. The trip couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes.

“You then drove back to the library in your own car, stopping off at a drug store long enough to phone the police and still return before anyone else got to the library. That’s why your call was made at nine thirty even though the library closed at nine. And the police never examined your garage for the car they were looking for because at no time were you under suspicion. On the contrary, you were the public-spirited citizen who had reported the crime.”

Paul Roberts’ grin threatened to touch his earlobes. It was good to see the old Mr. Strang back, instead of the pitiful creature the teacher had become during the time he was under arrest.

“I deny the whole thing,” Wilson snapped.

“Mr. Wilson,” chided the teacher. “How do you explain that broken headlight from your sister’s car?”

“Anybody can break a headlight.”

“You’ll be singing a different tune if the lab matches the bits of glass I found with the headlight from your rubbish can,” said Fosse. “And even if they don’t, Berlinger’s getting better every day. He’ll make a positive identification of you, all right.”

Fosse turned to the teacher. “Just one thing I don’t get. How did you know it was Wilson, Mr. Strang?”

“Cliff Berlinger told me.”

“But all he said was ‘teach’.”

Mr. Strang leaned down and picked up a book from the floor. “While you were at Wilson’s sister’s house, Paul and I got this from the library,” he said.

“What’s it about?”

“One thing at a time. It’s pretty obvious from the recording that all Cliff could manage to mumble was a word of one syllable. But he knew me well, and my name’s easy to say. So why didn’t he simply say ‘Strang’?”

“Look, the doc had given him some kind of drug or something.”

“Yes, he was certainly in a dazed condition. But he was a historian, remember that. And he had been researching a paper on shipping off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the early seventeen hundreds until a few minutes before the car struck him. Add that to his staring at the skull and crossbones on the poster. Don’t all those things suggest something to you?”

“Let me see. Poison, maybe, like on the can the plumber had.” Fosse scratched his head, still puzzled. “Or—” His eyes widened. “Pirates?”

“Go to the head, of the class, Mr. Fosse. Pirates. The time about which Cliff planned to write was the era of some of the famous buccaneers who plied the southern coastal waters.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Strang, but — well, so what?”

“Now think of Cliff lying there outside the library. The driver of the car that struck him gets out. And Cliff sees a man bending over him — a man he’d never seen before that evening and whose name he didn’t know. Our Mr. Wilson, who’d just moved to Aldershot the day before.

“In the hospital Cliff could have used an identifying word like ‘beard’ but that might have implicated innocent people. Remember, Mr. Kitrich has a small beard, and even young Quinn was in need of a shave.”

The teacher opened the book in front of him to a marked page. “Cliff wanted to describe a particular man,” he went on. “A man who, in the words of an Eighteenth Century writer, had a ‘large Quantity of Hair which, like a frightful Meteor, covered his whole Face.’ Wouldn’t you say that was a fairly accurate description of Mr. Wilson?”

Fosse regarded the librarian’s bushy black beard and nodded. “But who was that guy writing about?”

“A man who was undoubtedly a central figure in Cliff’s article.” The little teacher took a breath and lifted a pointing finger high above his head triumphantly.

“Blackbeard the Pirate!”

“Hold it a minute,” said Fosse, shaking his head impatiently. “Berlinger never said anything about Blackbeard.”

Without a word Mr. Strang passed the book to Fosse, indicating a passage with a slender finger.

“ ‘Blackbeard the Pirate’,” Fosse read slowly, “ ‘the name given to Edward Teach, born in Bristol, England; died Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, in 1718’.”

“Once I’d connected Cliff’s word ‘Teach’ with Blackbeard, the rest was easy,” said Mr. Strang. “Since there was no damage to the car you saw, there had to be another car. It was a fairly safe bet the other car belonged to Wilson’s sister, and he was keeping it out of sight until the case calmed down. It was sure to be at the sister’s house — Wilson wouldn’t take the risk of hiding it anywhere else.”

As he said these words the telephone on the wall behind them rang. Roberts picked it up. After a short conversation he hung up and turned toward Wilson.

“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum,” he said. “C’mon, Blackbeard. Fosse and I are going to book you into a nice jail cell.”

“But—”

“That was the lab. The two pieces of glass by Berlinger’s body fit the cracked lens of the headlight Fosse found in your sister’s rubbish can.”