Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 73, No. 3. Whole No. 424, March 1979

The Piper Caper by William Bankier[9]

Meet one of the earliest “investigators of mysterious events, usually of a criminal nature”... a charming story — and if we say another word, your pleasure will be diluted...

In Hamelin Town, in Brunswick, by famous Hanover City, on the banks of the river Weser, it was another grim day at City Hall. The Mayor and the Corporation were sitting around in their ceremonial robes looking and feeling guilty, and rightly so.

“I blame you,” one of the Corporation said to the Mayor. “All he wanted was one thousand guilders to get rid of the rats. So we make a deal, he delivers, and then you try to offer him fifty.”

“Easy to be wise after the fact,” the Mayor said. “But I had to consider the safety of this administration. If we’d given that long tall drink of water the thousand, there’d have been nothing left in the kitty to meet the town payroll. So we’d have our semi-annual outcry, then in come the auditors after which you and I, gentlemen, would have to find new jobs.”

Nobody had an answer to this, so silence came in through the open windows and filled the chamber. It was a heavy silence in Hamelin these days with the kids all gone. The Mayor tongued his back teeth for a while and then said, “I admit we’re in deep trouble. Remember when the people came in a body to see us after the rats got out of hand? Remember what they said to us?”

One of the Corporation closed his eyes and intoned, “To think we buy gowns lined with ermine for dolts that can’t or won’t determine what’s best to rid us of our vermin.”

“Right,” the Mayor said. “So you can imagine how poetic they’ll be when we run for re-election.”

They were thinking of adjourning the meeting in despair when they heard a sound of footsteps in the hall followed by a sharp rap at the chamber door. The Corporation shaped themselves up into a circle of reasonably alert figures around the table and the Mayor said, “Come in!”

The man who opened the door and entered the room was bent almost double and walked with the aid of a stick. His eyes were heavy-lidded and his cheeks and chin were covered with an unkempt gray beard. The Corporation detested him on sight because he was a walking advertisement for the only future they could anticipate.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Mr. Mayor,” the old man said, “I have heard of the calamity that has overtaken your town. And I have come to bail you out. For a price.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“I am an investigator of mysterious events, usually of a criminal nature. I sell my services to individuals and to groups for a fee. In effect, you may hire my eyes — privately.”

“Never heard of such a thing. We have a sheriff who deals with crime.”

“I am the only one in my profession at this time,” the stranger said. “Some day I expect there will be many.”

A Corporation member said, “You claim you can help us? How?”

“By solving the mystery of this fellow who calls himself the Pied Piper.”

“What mystery? It’s all perfectly clear. He came and played the flute and all the rats followed him and drowned in the river. Then he led the children away and into a cavern that opened in the side of Koppelberg Hill.”

“I know all that,” the old man said. He squinted at the Mayor. “By the way, I shall require payment in advance.”

“Payment? How much, and what for? My colleague is right. There is no mystery to be solved; the Piper did what he did.”

“My fee is ten guilders a day, plus expenses.” He held out a cupped hand at the end of a remarkably long arm.

“It’s little enough,” the Mayor said, and the Treasurer took ten guilders from petty cash.

With the money in his purse, the stranger said, “You say this Piper did what he did. But did he? I find the whole story unbelievable and I would say, gentlemen, that you have been conned.”

“Conned?”

“Had a confidence trick played on you. Been fooled, duped, gulled. I mean a man walks along your High Street playing a piccolo or whatever and gets a lot of wild rats to follow him? And then he does the same thing and all the children come storming out and march after him into the side of a mountain? I don’t believe a word of it.”

“When you say it like that, it does sound absurd,” the Mayor admitted.

“Patently. So let’s try to put together a more acceptable hypothesis.” The old man lowered his crooked body onto a vacant chair and balanced both hands on the end of his stick. With his grizzled chin hovering above his fists he said, “First the rats. My guess is they were not wild rats at all. They were trained by this trickster — possibly a man with some circus experience — trained to come running in answer to a particular series of notes on the flute or whatever. He brought them here and released them from cages. Then, after they had made pests of themselves, it was easy for him to lure them away.”

One of the Corporation said, “But there were so many of them. They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, and bit the babies in the cradles, and ate the cheeses out of the vats, and licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles, split open the—”

“I know, I know,” said the stranger. “I put all that down to hysterical exaggeration.”

“True,” said the Mayor. “I myself never saw more than half a dozen rats at one time. Go on.”

“So we come to the disappearing children. He could not have trained them to respond to his music the way the rats did. So he could only have enlisted their cooperation.”

“What do you mean?”

“My theory is this: he sat down with a few of the older boys and girls, the leaders, and he explained to them that he had a place — a deserted house perhaps — where they could go and dance and eat and stay up late — do all the things you good people forbid them to do at home. A place without lessons, without parental authority. All they had to do was pretend they were under a spell and follow him. Naturally they agreed.”

A thoughtful silence ensued. Then the Treasurer said, “But what about the opening in the hill? How did he manage that?”

The old man smiled behind his beard. “Think a minute. Who saw the hill open and the children march inside? The lame boy who was left behind. His testimony was accepted. But I smell an accomplice.”

“Then let’s find the boy,” the Mayor thundered, “and question him.”

“My idea precisely,” said the stranger. “That’s why I took the trouble of bringing him with me. If one of you will open the door—”

With the boy in the room, balancing on his home-made crutch, the inquisition began. It did not last long. At first the lad was silent but soon, with tears in his eyes and head hanging, he confessed that the Pied Piper had paid him to tell the story of the cavern opening and closing in Koppelberg Hill. In actual fact, the party marched into a wooded area beyond the town and boarded a number of horse-drawn wagons. Where they went then, he had no idea.

The chamber was now a babble of sound. The children were not gone forever! They had been spirited away, kidnaped by a vindictive scoundrel and a very bad flute player. Their hiding place had only to be located for the story to end happily.

“We’ll organize a search party,” the Treasurer said. “They can’t have gone far.”

“One moment,” said the old man. “I suggest you leave this to me. No telling what might happen if you go blundering about. He has your children, after all.”

“He’s right,” the Mayor said. “So far he’s figured out the scheme very well. Let the stranger continue.”

“Thank you. I’ll take the lame boy with me and we’ll start from where he saw them last.”

They left the chamber together, two misshapen figures, old and young, crutch and walking stick scraping the boards of floor and stairs. When they were gone, the Mayor said, “Quite good value, that. Only ten guilders for the day and he’s practically solved the case already.”

“Ten plus expenses,” the Treasurer said. “I’ll have a close look at his meal vouchers in case he tries to feed the boy.”

Impressed with the stranger’s uncanny wisdom, the Corporation members were further surprised when he reported back that afternoon. The meeting had to be reconvened and when the Mayor gaveled for order at four o’clock, they faced an old man with a grim countenance. He seemed unable to speak.

“Did you find them?” prompted the Mayor.

“Yes.”

“Then where are they?”

“I have sworn not to tell. And for the safety of the children I will not break my oath.”

“But what—?”

“Let me tell you, this Pied Piper is a more devious and dangerous character than you have any idea. He has taken your children, not to the pleasure garden he promised, but to a large deserted building some miles from here. There he and a colleague have bound them all hand and foot. And now he threatens to set fire to the building and burn them all to death!”

Cries of fear and anger filled the chamber. The Mayor shouted above the clamor. “But why? Is he insane?”

“Not at all. He is a clear-eyed businessman with his mind set on profit. He said to tell you this, that you would understand.”

The Mayor shook off the insult. “Where is the profit in such a mad scheme?”

“You must hand me fifteen hundred guilders — the original sum agreed upon plus half. I will deliver it to the hideaway and, on receipt of the ransom, the Pied Piper will release the children.”

“But this is an outrage,” the Mayor said. “Mass kidnaping, making victims of an entire society — I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“Nor have I,” said the stranger. Then he added quietly, “But now that it has been perpetrated once, I suspect the world will hear of it again.”

There was a brief but heated discussion. Then the decision was taken that the money should be paid. Hamelin had suffered enough — they wanted peace and quiet, they wanted conditions back to normal.

So the old stranger took the purse containing 1500 guilders and left the town by way of the road past Koppelberg Hill. It was as he entered the wooded area beyond the town that he straightened up, threw away his stick, and began walking with a vigorous stride, tearing off the false gray beard as he went. The lame boy met him in a clearing.

“Did you get the money?”

“Yes, indeed. Have you the package I left with you?”

The boy handed over a parcel; the man unwrapped it and took out a long coat, half of yellow and half of red. He put this on, saying, “I was getting tired of looking drab.” The parcel also contained a yellow and red scarf with a flute attached to it. The Pied Piper slung this around his neck, and holding the instrument to his lips, blew a cascade of notes.

The lame boy did an awkward, crab-like pirouette. “Your playing is pure magic,” he said, and they both laughed. Then the lad asked, “Where will you go now?”

“Down the road,” the Piper said simply. “And I think you’d better come with me.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Could I?”

“You must. You were the Piper’s accomplice. It would go badly for you back in Hamelin after this.”

“Let’s go then.” But the boy paused. “What about the children? How will you get them to go home?”

“We’ll stop first at the old house. They’ve had their fill of partying by now I expect. Besides, I’ll tell them I’m sending in no more food. When the goodies run out, they’ll go home. They’ve nowhere else to go.”

Then they made off together, the tall musician adjusting his pace to that of the crippled boy. At the edge of the wood the Pied Piper picked up the boy, held him against one shoulder, and they covered the ground swiftly. “It grieves me,” the Piper said, “that the problem of your leg is beyond my money and my wits. We live in the wrong time for that sort of magic.”

“I don’t mind it so much now,” the boy said, “if I’m to be allowed to travel with you.”

That night they slept at an inn. They shared a bed in one of the finer rooms, for the piper had money with which to pay. When the boy awoke in the dark, crying because he had dreamed of huge hairy creatures with angry eyes and hungry mouths, his new friend comforted him. “The rats in Hamelin were the Mayor and his cronies. You’re free of them now. You and I are going on to have fun and new adventures.”

Then the Pied Piper took up his flute and played very softly until the boy fell asleep.