The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

The Mystery of the Sevenoaks Tunnel by Max Rittenberg

Time for a couple of really old classics. In my earlier volume I looked at the dawn of the impossible crime story and the flurry of interest following the success of The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill in 1892. Over the next couple of decades the locked-room mystery blossomed. Conan Doyle used it for at least one Sherlock Holmes story, and the American writer Jacques Futrelle, who alas went down with the Titanic, created the first great impossible-crime expert with the Thinking Machine, Professor S.F.X. van Dusen. His story “The Problem of Cell 13”, first published in 1905, remains one of the classics of the impossible.

The years before the First World War saw many writers turning their hand to creating baffling crimes, but not all of these stories became as well known, and many are forgotten in old magazines. One of the most original writers of the years around the First World War was Australian-born (though of German descent) Max Rittenberg (1880-1965). He wrote a couple of popular series for the monthly magazines. One featured the strange cases of psychologist, Dr Xavier Wycherley, which were collected in book-form as The Mind Reader (1913). But the other series, which featured an early forensic scientist known as Magnum, and which ran in The London Magazine during 1913, never made it into book-form. Magnum is the prototype irascible scientist, far more interested in his research than in any social graces, but once presented with an unsolvable problem, nothing will deter him from seeking the truth.

After the First World War Rittenberg became an advertising consultant, establishing his own firm, and stopped writing fiction all together.

“What does it matter whether it were accident or suicide?” said Magnum into the telephone with decided irritation, because he was being interrupted in the midst of a highly complex calculation of a formula based on crystallographic angles and axes, requiring quaternions and perfect quiet.

“It matters fifty thousand pounds,” replied the legal voice at the other end of the wire. “That’s the value of his insurance policy. The company contend it was a case of suicide, and therefore the policy is null and void.”

“At the present moment,” snapped Magnum, “I don’t care if he were insured for the National Debt! Find a detective, and don’t bother me!”

Leaving the receiver off the hook, so that he could not be rung up further, Magnum plunged again into the world of sin ∝ and cos β.

The interrupter was the junior partner in East, East, and Stacey, a young man of some pertinacity as well as legal ability. He happened to have a very special interest in the case of the deceased, because the next-of-kin was a particularly charming young lady; at least, particularly charming to himself. So he jumped into a taxi and drove from Clifford’s Inn to Upper Thames Street, where the scientific consultant had his office and laboratories.

“The deuce!” was Magnum’s welcome for him.

“Awfully sorry to interrupt. How long will you take to finish?” was the soft answer designed to turn away wrath.

“Till midnight!” snapped Magnum, hunching his bushy reddish eyebrows, and thrusting out his straggly reddish beard belligerently.

“I’ll wait,” decided Stacey. “I’ll go and talk scandal with Meredith.”

Ivor Meredith was a young Welshman, an analytical genius and Magnum’s right-hand man. He was the very essence of shyness and modesty. Stacey went into the laboratories and began to chaff him in order to kill time.

“What’s this I hear about you and a certain fascinating widow?” was his opening gambit.

Young Meredith, blushing furiously, protested that he didn’t know any fascinating widow. Which was perfectly true, as he was mortally afraid of all the feminine sex.

In an hour’s time Magnum appeared from his office. His crystallographic analysis had borne out his personal guess exactly, and the thundercloud temper had vanished from his skies. He found that his young Welsh protégé had scored off Stacey by challenging him to blow a glass bulb, which looks delightfully simple and in reality requires months of practice. Stacey, perspiring over the blow-lamp, was surrounded by a score of horrible bulbous monstrosities.

“Better stick to the law,” smiled Magnum. “You can make a successful lawyer even if you have ten thumbs to your hands. Now what’s this trouble about the insurance policy?”

Stacey answered him seriously with a résumé of the case. Abel Jonasson, a somewhat eccentric recluse, a man of fifty-four and a bachelor, had insured his life for fifty thousand pounds with the Empire Assurance Company six months previously. On a railway journey through the Sevenoaks tunnel he had been alone in a second-class compartment. In some way he had fallen out of the moving train; had been killed possibly by the fall; and had certainly been run over by a train passing on the other line of metals. A coroner’s jury had returned an open verdict. On the advice of their doctors and counsel, the Empire Company, a firm of first-class reputation, had decided to fight the claim up to the House of Lords if necessary.

They contended that, for a man of his limited income, a fifty thousand pound policy was far too heavy, unless he deliberately intended to take his life in order to secure a large sum of money for his relatives. Such cases had cropped up before.

“Then they shouldn’t have insured for such a heavy amount,” interrupted Magnum.

“Well, they did,” answered Stacey. “They took his premium, and now they fight the claim. Miss Gerard, his niece and next-of-kin, has very slender means, and so-”

Something in Stacey’s tone gave Magnum the clue to this unusual interest in a client of slender means.

“Another wedding present to buy!” he interjected cynically.

Stacey took the remark on the half-volley, and flicked it neatly over the net:

“Help us, and we’ll consider it as the wedding-present.”

“I don’t see that the case lies in my province. Try Scotland Yard.”

“I have. No satisfaction. A scientist is wanted. Scotland Yard can’t tell me why the dead man carried in his pocket a phial of atoxyl.”

“Specific against sleeping sickness.”

“A Central African disease. It’s unknown in England. Why should he carry the antidote about with him?”

“Have his serum examined.”

“That’s been done. No trace of the disease has been found. But the Empire doctor claims that Jonasson must have thought he had the disease, and therefore committed suicide. A book on the subject was found at his country cottage. Our side will have to prove some other reason for his carrying that phial of atoxyl. That’s one point on which I want your help.”

Magnum pulled out a disgracefully malodorous pipe from his baggy, shapeless working-jacket, and proceeded to stuff it with a smoking mixture of his own blending, strong to the point of rankness.

Meredith hastened to their library above the office, and returned with one of the twenty bulky volumes of Watts’s Dictionary of Chemistry. His chief took it, and turned thoughtfully to the half-column description of the chemical properties of the drug, one of the arsenic derivatives. Presently he remarked:

“Have you considered the possibility of foul play?”

“That was one of our first thoughts,” returned Stacey. “But Jonasson was seen alone in the compartment at Tonbridge Junction, only five miles from the tunnel, and there were no traces on the footboard of anyone clambering along from one compartment to another.”

“Windows?”

“All shut.”

“A man under the seat?”

“No traces.”

“When was the discovery made?”

“As soon as the train came out of the tunnel into Sevenoaks Station. The door of Jonasson’s compartment was open, and banging to and fro… All the evidence goes to show that he was entirely alone in the compartment; that he opened the door himself – fingerprints on the handle – and fell out. We claim that he must have become suddenly frightened – he was a nervous old man – and that he lost his head, opened the door to call for help, and was thrown out by the rush of wind against the open door.”

“Sounds very probable.”

“The Empire Company say that if he wanted help he could have pulled the alarm-cord. There was no one else in the compartment – that’s certain from the footprints in the dust. He had nothing to be afraid of, they claim.”

“Equally plausible.”

“Can you tell me why he carried that atoxyl with him?”

Magnum was not a man to confess openly to ignorance. He replied curtly:

“I’m not a theorist. Ask me practical questions.”

For reply, Stacey produced from his pocket a blank manuscript-size envelope, and from the envelope a much-creased sheet of folded paper – blank.

“I found this in Jonasson’s study while hunting for his will. I have a strong feeling that it contains a message written in invisible ink. Miss Gerard tells me that he was the kind of eccentric who would do that. Will you try to get the message out?”

“Suppose,” asked Magnum shrewdly, “it were to say that he intended to commit suicide?”

“In that case,” laughed the lawyer, “I shouldn’t call you as a witness.”

“You young scoundrel!”

“But it won’t do that,” answered Stacey, returning to seriousness. “Miss Gerard knew him well – he was very fond of her in his queer, angular way – and she is perfectly certain that he had no intention of committing suicide.”

“If you prove wrong,” warned Magnum, “don’t count on me to keep silent in a case of fraud.”

He passed the sheet of paper to Meredith, who examined it eagerly, his eyes alight at the thought of pitting his chemical knowledge against the secret of the apparently blank paper.

Meredith’s first move was to cut the sheet into four quarters, so as to avoid the risk of spoiling the whole of it in the course of experimenting.

The heat test gave no result, nor did the iodide test, nor the sulphuretted hydrogen test.

Magnum, suspecting that they were in for a long session, looked at his watch, found it marking seven o’clock and sent out for three porterhouse steaks, a Stilton cheese and bread, and lager beer.

“I should prefer oysters, a fried sole, and a bottle of claret,” suggested Stacey.

“You’ll have what’s good for you,” retorted Magnum, who had unæsthetic views on food.

It was close on nine o’clock before Meredith at length triumphed. Fitting together three-quarters of the sheet of paper – the other quarter had become spoilt in the course of testing – the following wording stood out in roughly written capital letters:

Magnum turned to Stacey.

“There’s your wedding present,” said he grimly.

All Stacey’s pose of flippancy had dropped from him. Staring at the paper, he asked, in a hushed voice:

“What does it mean?”

“A warning,” returned Magnum. “A warning that must have put Jonasson’s nerves on edge. In that railway compartment, alone, passing through the long Sevenoaks tunnel, something happened to terrify him into trying to escape.”

“If we could prove it! But what exactly happened?”

“The last words of the warning were, judging on the first two lines, ‘FROM THE SKY!’”

“Yes, yes!” cried Stacey eagerly.

“That railway-carriage – of course it’s been sealed and shunted into a siding?”

“Naturally.”

“Tomorrow morning we’ll go and examine it.”

“Yes, but what’s your theory?”

Magnum’s temperament included a strong dash of human vanity. He liked to have his achievements bulk large. He liked to display his results against an effective background. Having arrived at a simple explanation of a puzzling mystery, he preferred to keep silent about it until the morning should bring the glowing moment for the revelation.

Stacey had to be content to wait.

The railway-carriage – possible evidence in a fifty thousand pound law-case – had been shunted into a goods yard of the Chatham and South-Eastern, and housed in a shed under lock and key at the instigation of the insurance company.

A legal representative of the company, as well as a district goods manager of the Chatham and South-Eastern, accompanied Stacey and Magnum to the fresh inspection of it. The insurance lawyer – dry, thin-lipped, pince-nezed, cynically critical, abundantly sure of himself – allowed a ghost of an acidulated smile to flicker around his eyes as he viewed Magnum’s air of expectant triumph. The goods manager preserved an attitude of strict neutrality. Stacey was on a hair-trigger of expectation, masked under a pose of legal dignity and self-restraint.

The railway official broke the seals on the door of the compartment, and threw it open for Magnum’s inspection. The latter’s shrewd eyes darted about the interior, taking in every detail.

To all appearance, it was an entirely ordinary, humdrum, commonplace, second-class compartment, carrying no hint of tragedy. The dead man’s ulster, umbrella, and travelling-bag, replaced on the rack in the position where they had first been found, merely suggested that some traveller had left them there while he went out to buy a journal at a book-stall. A small volume of Lamb’s Essays, lying on a corner seat, might have been put there to secure his place.

Then Magnum asked to see the two adjoining compartments – one a smoker, one a general compartment. They were bare of extraneous objects and entirely unsuggestive.

“Well?” challenged the opposing lawyer, with his thin and acid smile. “Have you discovered some point we all have been dense enough to miss?”

“There are always two sides to every question,” returned Magnum.

“Your side and my side?”

“The inside and the outside,” amended Magnum, with a cutting edge to his words.

“And the application of that very sound maxim?”

“The application is that to view the outside one needs a ladder.”

“And why a ladder, may I ask?”

“I am not a ‘Child’s Guide to Knowledge,’ but if you are seriously anxious for an answer to your question, it is in order to climb.” Having delivered this snub, Magnum turned, and addressed himself to the goods manager: “Please send for a short ladder, so that I can examine the roof.”

When it arrived, Magnum mounted briskly to the roof of the carriage, and looked for the footprints or traces of a man having crawled over the roof, which he confidently expected to find. A grievous disappointment awaited him. The roof was streaked with raindrops trickling over soot, now dried into the semblance of a map of some fantastic mountain range. There were no footprints.

“Did it rain on the day of the accident?” he asked sharply.

Stacey, after a moment’s thought, replied in the affirmative.

“Unfortunate,” commented Magnum. “Rain would have obliterated footprints. Come up here.”

At last Stacey understood what Magnum was driving at. “From the sky!” had been the concluding words of the warning to the dead man. Someone had crawled on the roof, pulled up the lamp over the compartment in which Jonasson was travelling, and then – In a flash he pictured the old man alone in the compartment, through the long tunnel, where a cry for help would be drowned in the roar of the rushing train, looking upwards to see a menacing face staring at him from the aperture of the lamp, a revolver at cock, and ready to shoot him down in any corner of the compartment. Trapped, helpless, terrified, Jonasson had tried to escape by the door, and had been thrown on to the line.

Magnum, moving forward over the roof, in plain view of the others, went to pull up the lamp and demonstrate his point.

But a sentence from the railway official checked him in mid-action.

“You are thinking of the old type of lamp, sir. These ones are not removable. They’re fixtures.”

Magnum, incredulous, went on; found the lamp screwed in tight, and the screws rusted in firmly.

The insurance lawyer permitted himself a dry laugh of cynical amusement.

“Facts,” said he, “have an unfortunate habit of contradicting the most ingenious and elegant theories.”

Magnum was now thoroughly roused by the mocking mystery of the railway compartment. He had, in plain words, made a fool of himself in front of the insurance lawyer. That was unbearable. The only way to get back his self-respect was to wrest out the secret, and flourish it in the lawyer’s face.

Before, Magnum had been only halfheartedly interested in a problem which was somewhat outside his professional line; now, he was resolutely determined to work at it with a red-hot concentration of energies.

Hurrying to New Cross Station with Stacey, he took ticket to Paddock Wood, beyond Tonbridge, where Jonasson had lived his recluse life in a country cottage a couple of miles away from the railway line, alone save for a housekeeper-servant. On the way, Magnum plied Stacey with question after question regarding the life-history, the habits and eccentricities of the dead man. Stacey’s information was limited; the housekeeper could tell much more.

On their arrival, they found the cottage bolted and barred. A hedger and ditcher, working in a neighbouring lane, expressed the thoughtful opinion that the housekeeper must have locked up and gone away. Where? demanded Magnum, assisting his cerebrations with a couple of half-crowns. He didn’t rightly know. Could he find out by asking neighbours? That struck the hedger as an idea of great brilliance, and, dropping his tools, he set off to make inquiries.

Meanwhile, Magnum, impatient of obstacles, broke a window in the cottage, and secured unconventional entrance. With Stacey’s guidance, he went through the dead man’s books and papers and personal possessions in search of a fresh light on the mystery.

Both were now firmly convinced that Jonasson had come to his death by foul play, or, more exactly, that he had been terrified out of the closed railway compartment by some human agency. Both were equally of the opinion that it was a matter of long-standing revenge, reaching back into the obscurities of Jonasson’s past life.

But mere opinions would be poor weapons for a big law-case. They must have facts. They must find out whom, why, how. They must be prepared to prove in court how a man, indisputably alone in a railway-compartment, with closed doors, closed windows, and no aperture for human entrance, could be so terrified as to be driven out. In case of danger the first thought of any man would be to pull the alarm-chain running through from compartment to compartment. Why had Jonasson not done so?

A long search through books, papers, and clothes proved annoyingly inconclusive. Jonasson’s tastes were evidently cultured and leisured. Whatever he might have been in his youth, in the immediate past he had been a trifler with books, garden, and fishing. That gave them no help.

In the bedroom of the dead man, Magnum on a sudden impulse threw up the window. Outside it, he was surprised to find a screen of fine-meshed wire netting.

“Why this?” he asked to Stacey.

“To keep out summer insects, I should imagine.”

Magnum suddenly became very thoughtful, hunching his bushy eyebrows and twisting at his straggly beard.

The hedger and ditcher, beaming with pride at the success of his detective work, came to announce that the housekeeper had gone to visit a married daughter living at Tonbridge.

“We’ll go there at once,” said Magnum; “and the first question to ask her is why Jonasson put up that wire netting.”

Stacey looked at him questioningly.

“The loaded revolver he kept in his bedroom,” pursued Magnum, “is nothing out of the ordinary for a nervous man living in a lonely country cottage. But the wire screen is highly unusual. The unusual is worth analysis.”

An hour later, they were at Tonbridge. Mrs Pritchett was readily found in the parlour above her daughter’s confectionery shop in the High Street – a time-worn, grey-haired, grey-minded woman, resigned to the arrows of misfortune, dull of speech, with that love for irrelevant, side-track detail which goes so often with one of limited interests and narrow outlook. Magnum, with his impatience of slowness, found his temper distinctly tried during his endeavours to get relevant answers to his pointed questions. In essence, her information amounted to this:

Mr Jonasson had had the wire screen fixed up six months previously. He was a very reserved man, liking to give orders without giving reasons. It was in wintertime, so that there was no reason to guard against wasps, gnats, or mosquitoes. No; she had no idea why he wanted it, but he was very concerned about having it put up at once.

“At once?” questioned Magnum, seizing on the suggestiveness of the phrase.

It was directly after he received a visit from the dark gentleman with the gold-rimmed spectacles. High words had passed between them. No; she had no idea who he was. Mr Jonasson was very reserved, keeping his affairs entirely to himself. The dark gentleman was a foreigner – he looked like a half-caste. He was seen in the neighbourhood of Paddock Wood three months later. She believed that this man must have tried to murder Mr Jonasson in the train. She was convinced that he was hiding under the seat of the compartment.

“That has been proved impossible,” put in Stacey.

Mrs Pritchett was of the opinion that nothing was impossible to a foreigner.

Regarding the past life of the dead man, her information was mostly conjecture, embroidered fantastically after the fashion of country gossip. The only definite fact was that he had gone to Africa as a young man. The name “Uganda” persisted in her memory. At one time he had kept souvenirs of Africa in his study, but some years back he had made a clean sweep of them, burning them in a bonfire at the end of the garden.

Letters? When Mr Jonasson received letters, he usually burnt them. No, indeed, she never pried into his private papers! She hoped she knew her place! No; she didn’t listen to the conversation between Mr Jonasson and the foreigner. She couldn’t help hearing that they were angry with one another, but to suggest that she would stoop to listen at a keyhole-

“If you had,” retorted Magnum impatiently, “Mr Jonasson might be alive today.”

Mrs Pritchett relapsed into the easy tears of old age, and it took all Stacey’s efforts to comfort her.

“You’ll be saying next as it was me as murdered him!” she cried accusingly at Magnum.

He offered a sovereign as consolation for wounded feelings, and the interview proceeded. But no further information of importance resulted.

Magnum and Stacey returned to town. The scientist chose an empty second-class compartment of the same type as the mystery carriage, and asked Stacey to leave him there alone during the journey.

At Cannon Street, when Stacey went to rejoin his friend, he found Magnum glowing with excitement.

“I think we’ve got it!” he cried, slapping Stacey on the shoulder with a lusty thump. “First set your detectives on the hunt for that half-caste with the gold-rimmed spectacles.”

“Yes, I’d settled to do that,” returned the young lawyer; “but even if we find him, it doesn’t help much for our side of the case. Assume that he threatened to murder Jonasson-assume that Jonasson was in deadly terror of him-assume that he travelled in the next compartment to Jonasson. Even then the Empire Company would claim that the deceased threw himself out of the train-suicide while temporarily insane, but still suicide. The fifty thousand pound policy money will never come to Miss Gerard unless we can show the court how Jonasson was terrified out of an empty compartment.”

“I believe I can do it,” returned Magnum emphatically. “The phial of atoxyl he carried in his pocket, the book on sleeping sickness, the wire screen to his bedroom window, Uganda the home of the tsetse fly – they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. One more piece in place, and the whole pattern would stand out. To-morrow we’ll search that sealed compartment once again.”

“In the presence of the Empire’s lawyer?”

“Naturally. Arrange it for the afternoon. And if I can show him that Magnum is not quite the fool he imagines-”

As mentioned before, Magnum was not without a dash of very human vanity.

On the following afternoon, the same four were back in the shed where the mystery carriage stood mutely waiting to deliver up its secret. The insurance lawyer’s acidulated smile was now fattened out to a mellow tolerance. He was no longer afraid of any of Magnum’s theories. The goods manager, while still outwardly neutral, had transferred his sympathies to the side of the Empire Company.

Although it was summer, Magnum wore a pair of thick gloves. In his side-pocket a packet bulged out noticeably.

“I want every inch of the compartment swept out,” he said to the railway official. “Will you do it yourself, so as to avoid any suspicion that might arise if I were to do so?”

Tolerantly, the goods manager called for a carriage-cleaner’s broom, and proceeded to the task, sweeping around the cornices, behind the cushions, and underneath the seats, and gathering the sweepings into a small pile, while the other three watched intently from outside.

“Stop!” called Magnum suddenly, his eyes alight with unsuppressed triumph. From the sweepings he picked up a large insect, dead, and displayed it emphatically in his gloved hand in front of the insurance lawyer.

“A tsetse fly!” he stated.

“Well; and what if it is?”

“The carrier of the sleeping sickness. Deadly. One sting from it, and a man would stand a poor chance.”

“I don’t follow your argument,” objected the lawyer, with chilly impassiveness.

“That’s what drove Jonasson to his death. That one, and perhaps a dozen others. The rest probably flew out of the open door in the Sevenoaks tunnel. This one was killed by him.”

“Still, I don’t follow you. How could your dozen tsetse flies enter a closed compartment?”

“Get inside, and I’ll demonstrate!” snapped Magnum.

The lawyer, with a gesture of disbelief, entered the compartment, and the door was closed on him. Magnum immediately proceeded to the smoking compartment alongside, lit himself a cigar, and then produced from his pocket the box which was causing the bulge. It contained a dozen live wasps, angry at their long imprisonment. Magnum, standing on a seat, took out one of the buzzing insects with his heavily gloved fingers, and placed it in the tube of the alarm-chain passing from compartment to compartment. A few puffs from his cigar drove the insect to find escape through the further end of the tube. The other wasps quickly followed.

What then took place in the insurance lawyer’s compartment would have been highly comic had it not been in demonstration of a tragedy.

Fighting with the furious insects, ruffled, dishevelled, and wiped clear of cynical smiles, the lawyer made a hurried and undignified escape to the outside.

“And that,” clinched Magnum, “was how Jonasson was sent to his death.”

The murderer was never captured, and so the inner history of the tragic feud never came to light. But it became abundantly clear that the dead man had been fearing an attack by the tsetse fly; it was for that reason that he screened his bedroom window and carried in his pocket the drug which might counteract the terrible effects of the sting. No doubt the unknown murderer had threatened him with that particular form of revenge. Jonasson had insured his life heavily, either in the superstitious hope that it might avert death, or in order to leave his niece well provided for, or for both reasons.

The fact of importance which Magnum had demonstrated was the method by which Jonasson had been driven out of the railway-carriage. On that, the Empire Company compromised out of court for forty thousand pounds.

Magnum, who did not believe in hiding his light under a bushel, sent to Stacey’s wedding-present table a neatly framed sheet of writing-paper with the wording: “To Mr and Mrs Stacey, forty thousand pounds, from Magnum.”

The Red Ring by William Le Queux

William Le Queux (1864-1927) was considerably more prolific than Max Rittenberg and far better known. He is regarded as one of the progenitors of the spy novel, producing works of international intrigue just before John Buchan and E.P. Oppenheim. His early works, which rapidly established his reputation, include A Secret Service (1896), England’s Peril (1899) and the bestselling The Invasion of 1910 (1905). Le Queux was a dab hand at self-publicity, perhaps using some author’s licence to add to the mystery. But he was clearly a fascinating character, deeply involved with the secret service, and often acting on his own initiative – all manner of secrets are revealed in Things I Know (1923). The following story – first published in 1910 and which so far as I know escaped inclusion in any of his many collections-is presented in the first-person, giving an added verisimilitude to the mystery. Who knows but that something very like this might just have happened in Le Queux’s world.

The Usborne affair, though very remarkable and presenting a number of curious features, was never made public, for reasons which will quickly become apparent.

It occurred in this way.

Just before eight o’clock one misty morning last autumn, Captain Richard Usborne, of the Royal Engineers, and myself were strolling together up and down the platform at Liverpool Street Station, awaiting the arrival of the Hook of Holland boat-train. We had our eyes well about us, for a man was coming to London in secret, and we, members of the Secret Service, were there to meet him, to examine his credentials, and to pass him on to the proper quarter to be questioned, and to receive payment-substantial payment – for his confidential information.

I had arranged the visit of the stranger through one of our secret agents who lived in Berlin, but as I had never before met the man about to arrive, we had settled that I should hold a pale green envelope half concealed in my handkerchief raised to my nose, and that he should do the same.

“By Jove, Jerningham,” Dick Usborne was saying, “this will be a splendid coup-the revelation of all the details of the new Boravian gun. The Department ought to make you a special grant for such a service. I hope, however,” he added, glancing about him with some suspicion – “I hope none of our foreign friends have wind of this visit. If so, it will fare badly with him when he gets back.”

I had kept my eyes well about me and was satisfied that no other secret agent was present.

A moment later the train drew into the station, and amid the crowd I quickly distinguished a short, stout, middle-aged man of essentially Teutonic appearance, with a handkerchief to his face, and in it an envelope exactly similar to my own.

Our greeting was hasty. Swiftly we put him into the taxi we had in readiness, and as we drove along he produced certain credentials, including a letter of introduction from my friend in Berlin.

Herr Günther – which was the name by which we knew him-appeared extremely nervous lest his presence in London should be known. True, he was to receive for his information and for certain documents which he carried in his breast-pocket two thousand pounds of Secret Service money; but he seemed well aware of the ruin which would befall him if his Argus-eyed Government became aware of his association with us.

We had both witnessed such misgivings on the part of informants before. Therefore we repeated our assurances in German – for the stranger did not speak English – and at St Clement Dane’s Church, in the Strand, I stopped the taxi and alighted, for Dick Usborne was to conduct our friend to the house of our chief, General Kennedy, in Curzon Street, it not being considered judicious for Günther to be taken to the War Office.

The German was to return by the Hook of Holland route at nine o’clock that same night, therefore he had brought no baggage. Secret visits of this character are always made swiftly. The British public are in blissful ignorance of how many foreigners come to our shores and tell us what we most desire to know – for a substantial consideration.

The Secret Service never advertises itself. Yet it never sleeps, night or day. While pessimists declare that our authorities know nothing of what is progressing in other countries, a gallant little band of men – and women too-are ever watchful and ever travelling across the face of Europe, gathering information which is conveyed to London in secret and carefully docketed in a certain room of a certain Government Department that must, of necessity, be nameless.

We, its agents, often live through exciting times, crises of which the public never dream.

It is one of these which I am permitted to here relate.

On the day in question I played golf at Sunningdale, for I had been some months abroad-living in a back street in Brest, as a matter of fact – and was now on leave at home. I dined at the golf-club, and about ten o’clock that night entered my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue, where I found a telegram lying upon the table.

It had been despatched from the Brighton station at Victoria at six-thirty, and read.

Am at Webster’s. Come to me at once. Cannot come to you. – DICK.

By this message I was greatly puzzled. Webster’s was a small private hotel in which I knew Usborne had sometimes hiden himself under the name of Mr Clarke, for we are often compelled to assume fictitious names, and also to keep queer company.

Why had he so suddenly gone into hiding? What had occurred?

At once I took a cab along Victoria Street and alighted before the house, which was to all intents and purposes a private one, save for the lamp outside which stated it to be an hotel.

The black-bearded little manager, whom I had once met before, told me that my friend had arrived there at noon and taken a room, but at two o’clock he had gone out and had not returned.

“And he left no message for me?” I asked.

“None, sir.”

“Did he bring any luggage?”

“Mr Clarke seldom brings any luggage,” was the man’s reply. “He generally just sleeps here, and leaves his baggage in a railway cloakroom.”

I was puzzled. If Dick wished to see me so urgently he would surely have remained at the hotel. He was aware I was going out to golf, although I had not told him where I intended playing.

While we were speaking I saw a chambermaid pass, and then it occurred to me to suggest that my friend might have returned unobserved. He might even be awaiting me in his room. He had said that he was unable to come to me, which appeared that he feared to go forth lest he should be recognised.

I knew that Dick Usborne, whose ingenuity and daring were unequalled by any in our service, was a marked man.

Both the manager and the chambermaid expressed themselves confident that Mr Clarke had not returned, but at last I induced the girl to ascend to his room and ascertain.

From where I stood in the hall I heard her knock and then try the door.

She rattled it and called to him. By that I knew it was locked – on the inside.

Instantly I ran up the stairs and, banging at the door called my comrade by name. But there was no response.

The key was still in the lock on the other side, so a few minutes later we burst open the door by force and rushed into the dark room.

The manager lit the gas-jet, and by its dim light a startling sight was presented. Lying near the fireplace, in a half-crouching position, face downwards, was Dick Usborne. Quickly I turned him over and touched his face. The contact thrilled me. He was stone dead!

His eyes, still open, were glazed and stared horribly, his strong hands were clenched, his jaw had dropped, and it was plain, by the coutortion of the body, that he had expired in agony.

Quickly suspicious of foul play, I made a rapid examination of the body. But I could find no wound or anything to account for death. A doctor, hastily summoned, was equally without any clue to the cause of death.

“Suicide, I should think!” he exclaimed when he had finished his examination. “By poison, most probably; but there is no trace of it about the mouth.”

Then, turning to the police-inspector who had just entered, he added:

“The door was locked on the inside. It must, therefore, have been suicide.”

“The gentleman was a friend of yours, I believe, sir?” asked the inspector, addressing me.

I replied in the affirmative, but declared that he was certainly not the man to commit suicide.

“There’s been foul play-of that I’m positive!” I declared emphatically.

“But he locked himself in,” the hotel manager argued. “He must have re-entered unobserved.”

“He was waiting here for me. He wished to speak to me,” I replied.

The theory held by all present, however, was that it was suicide; therefore the inspector expressed his intention of having the body conveyed to the Pimlico mortuary to await the usual post-mortem.

I then took him aside downstairs, and telling him in confidence who I was, and what office my dead friend held, I said:

“I must ask you, inspector, to lock up the room and leave everything undisturbed until I have made a few inquiries myself. The public must be allowed to believe it a case of suicide; but before we take any action I must consult my Chief. You, on your part, will please inform Superintendent Hutchinson, of the C.I. Department at Scotland Yard, that I am making investigations. That will be sufficient. He will understand.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the inspector; and a few moments later I left the house in a taxi. Each member of the Secret Service is a detective by instinct, and I suppose I was no exception.

Half an hour later I was seated with General Kennedy in his cosy little library in Curzon Street explaining briefly my startling discovery.

“That’s most remarkable!” he cried, greatly upset at hearing of our poor colleagues’s death. “Captain Usborne brought the man Günther here just after nine, and we had breakfast together. Then he left, promising to return at three to again take charge of the stranger. He arrived about a quarter past three, and both he and the German left in a four-wheeler. That is the last I saw of either of them.”

“Günther was to leave to-night. Has he gone?” I asked.

“Who knows?” exclaimed the shrewd, grey-headed little man, who, besides being a distinguished General, was Director of the British Secret Service.

“We must find him,” I said. Then after a moment’s reflection I added: “I must go to Liverpool Street Station at once.”

“I cannot see what you can discover,” replied the General. “If Günther has left he would not be noticed in a crowded train. If he left London he’s already on the North Sea by this time,” he added, glancing up at the clock.

“Usborne has been assassinated, sir,” I declared with emphasis. “He was my best friend. We have often been in tight corners on the Continent together. May I be permitted to pursue the investigation myself?”

“By all means, if you really believe it was not a case of suicide.”

“It was not-of that I’m quite certain.”

I was suspicious of Günther. The German might have been an impostor after all. Yet at Webster’s Dick had not been seen with any companion. He had simply gone there alone in order to wait for me.

For what reason? Ay, that was the question.

With all haste I drove down to Liverpool Street. On my way I took from my pocket a slip of paper – the receipt from a tourist-agency for the first-class return ticket between London and Berlin which I had sent to Günther. It bore the number of the German’s ticket. At the inspector’s office I was shown all the tickets collected of departing passengers by the boat-train, and among them found the German’s voucher for the journey from Liverpool Street to Parkeston Quay.

I had at least cleared up one point. Herr Günther had left London.

On returning to the dark little hotel just after midnight I found a man I knew awaiting me-Detective-Inspector Barker, who had been sent to me by Superintendent Hutchinson, the uniformed police having now been withdrawn from the house.

Alone, in the small sitting-room, we took counsel. Barker I knew to be a very clever investigator of crime, his speciality being the tracing and arrest of alien criminals who seek asylum in London, and for whose extradition their own countries apply.

“I’ve seen the body of the unfortunate gentleman,” he said. “But I can detect no suspicious circumstances. Indeed, for aught I can see, he might have locked himself in and died of natural causes. Have you any theory-of enemies, for example?”

“Enemies!” I cried. “Why, Dick Usborne was the most daring agent in our service. It was he who discovered and exposed that clever German agent Schultz, who tried to secure the plan of the new Dreadnought. Only six months ago he cleared out a nest of foreign spies down at Beccles, and it was he who scented and discovered the secret store of rifles and ammunition near Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. But probably you know nothing of that. We’ve kept its discovery carefully to ourselves for fear of creating a panic. Dick, however, had a narrow escape. The night he broke into the cellars of the country inn where the depot had been established he was discovered by the landlord, a Belgian. The latter attempted to secure him, but Dick succeeded in snatching up the Belgian’s revolver, firing a shot which broke the blackguard’s arm, and so escaped. Such a man is bound to have enemies – and vengeful ones too,” I added.

The mystery was full of puzzling features. The facts known were these. At noon Dick had arrived at that place and, under the name of Mr Clarke, had taken a room. Just after three o’clock he had been at Curzon Street, but after that hour nothing more had been seen of him until we had found him dead.

The chief points were, first, the reason he had so suddenly gone into hiding; and, secondly, why he feared to come round to my rooms, although he desired to consult me.

Sending Barker across to despatch a telegram, I ascended alone to the dead man’s room, and, turning up the gas, made a minute investigation. Some torn paper was in the fireplace – a telegraph form. This I pieced together, and, in surprise, found it to be a draft in pencil of the telegram I had received – but it was not in Dick’s handwriting.

I searched my dead friend’s pockets, but there was nothing in them of any use as clue. Men of my profession are usually very careful never to carry anything which may reveal their identity. Travelling so much abroad as we do, we never know when we may find ourselves in an awkward situation, and compelled to give a fictitious account of ourselves to a foreign ponce bureau.

That small, rather comfortless room was of the usual type to be found in any third-rate private hotel in London – the iron bedstead, the threadbare carpet, the wooden washstand, and lace curtains limp and yellow with smoke.

While Barker was absent I carefully examined everything, even the body of Dick himself. But I confess that I could form no theory whatever as to how he had been done to death, or by what means the assassin had entered or left the room.

While bending over my dead friend I thought I detected a sweet perfume, and taking out his handkerchief placed it to my nostrils. The scent was a subtle and delightful one that I never remembered having smelt before-like the fragrant odour of a cottage garden on a summer’s night. But Dick was something of a dandy; therefore it was not surprising that he should use the latest fashionable perfume.

As I gazed again upon the poor white face I noticed, for the first time, that upon the cheek, just below the left eye, was a slight but curious mark upon the flesh, a faint but complete red circle, perhaps a little larger than a finger-ring, while outside it, at equal distances, showed four tiny spots. All was so very faint and indistinct that I had hitherto overlooked it. But now, as I struck a vesta and held it close to the dead white countenance, I realised the existence of something which considerably increased the mystery.

When Barker returned I pointed it out, but he could form no theory as to why it showed there. So I took a piece of paper from my pocket and, carefully measuring the diameter of the curious mark, drew a diagram of it, together with the four spots.

Barker and I remained there together the greater part of the night, but without gaining anything to assist towards a solution of the mystery. The servants could tell us absolutely nothing. Therefore we decided to wait until the postmortem had been made.

This was done on the following day, and when we interviewed the two medical men who made it and Professor Sharpe, the analyst to the Home Office, who had been present, the latter said:

“Well, gentlemen, the cause of death is still a complete mystery. Certain features induce us to suspect some vegetable poison, but whether self-administered we cannot tell. The greater number of vegetable poisons, when diffused through the body, are beyond the reach of chemical analysis. If an extract, or inspissated juice, be administered, or if the poison were in the form of infusion, tincture, or decoction, a chemical analysis would be of no avail. I am about to make an analysis, however, and will inform you of its result.”

I made inquiry regarding the curious ring-like mark upon the cheek, but one of the doctors, in reply, answered:

“It was not present today. It has disappeared.”

So the enigma remained as complete as ever.

Next day I travelled over to Berlin, and there met Herr Günther by appointment. From his manner I knew at once that he was innocent of any connection with the strange affair.

When I told him of the strange occurrence in London he stood dumb-founded.

“The Captain called for me at Curzon Street,” he said in German “and we drove in a cab to his club-in Pall Mall I think he said it was. We had a smoke there, and then, just at dusk, he said he had a call to make, so we took a taxi-cab and drove a long way, across a bridge-over the Thames, I suppose. Presently we pulled up at the corner of a narrow street in a poor quarter, and he alighted, telling me that he would be absent only ten minutes or so. I waited, but though one hour passed he did not return. For two whole hours I waited, then, as he did not come back, and I feared I should lose my train, I told the driver to go to Liverpool Street. He understood me, but he charged me eighteen marks for the fare.”

“And you did not see the Captain again?”

“No. I had something to eat at the buffet, and left for Germany.”

“Nothing happened while you were with the Captain?” I asked. “I mean nothing which, in the light of what has occurred, might be considered suspicious?”

“Nothing whatever,” was the German’s reply. “He met nobody while with me. The only curious fact was the appointment he kept and his non-return.”

In vain I tried to learn into what suburb of London he had been taken; therefore that same night I again left for London, via Brussels and Ostend.

Next day I called upon Professor Sharpe in Wimpole Street to ascertain the result of his analysis.

“I’m sorry to say that I’ve been unable to detect anything: If the Captain really died of poison it may have been one of those alkaloids, some of which our chemical processes cannot discover in the body. It is a common fallacy that all poisons can be traced. Some of them admit of no known means of detection. A few slices of the root of the CEnanthe crocata, for instance, will destroy life in an hour, yet no poison of any kind has been separated from this plant. The same may be said of the African ordeal bean, and of the decoction and infusion of the bark of laburnum.”

“Then you are without theory – eh?”

“Entirely, Mr Jerningham. As regards poisoning, I may have been misled by appearances; yet my colleagues at the post-mortem could find nothing to cause death from natural causes. It is as extraordinary, in fact, as all the other circumstances.”

I left the Professor’s house in despair. All Barker’s efforts to assist me had been without avail, and now that a week had passed, and my dead friend had been interred at Woking, I felt all further effort to be useless.

Perhaps, after all, I had jumped to the conclusion of foul play too quickly. I knew that this theory I alone held. Our Chief was strongly of opinion that it was a case of suicide in a fit of depression, to which all of us who live at great pressure are frequently liable.

Yet when I recollected the strong character of poor Dick Usborne, and the many threats he had received during his adventurous career, I doggedly adhered to my first opinion.

Day after day, and with infinite care, I considered each secret agent of Germany likely to revenge himself upon the man who, more than anyone else, had been instrumental in combating the efforts of spies upon our eastern coast, There were several men I suspected, but against neither of them was there any shadow of evidence.

That circular mark upon the cheek was, to say the least, a very peculiar feature. Besides, who had drafted that telegram?

Of the manager at Webster’s I learned that Mr Clarke had for some months past been in the habit of meeting there a young Frenchman named Dupont, engaged in a merchant’s office in the City. At our headquarters I searched the file of names and addresses of our “friends”, but his was not amongst them. I therefore contrived, after several weeks of patient watching, to make the acquaintance of the young man – who lived in lodgings in Brook Green Road, Hammersmith – but after considerable observation my suspicions were dispelled. The reason of his meeting with Dick was, no doubt, to give information, but of what nature I could not surmise. From Dupont’s employers I learned that he was in Brussels on business for the firm on the day of the crime.

There had apparently been some motive in trying to entice me to that hotel earlier in the evening of the tragedy. Personally I did not now believe that Dick had sent me that telegram. Its despatch had been part of the conspiracy which had terminated so fatally.

Nearly nine months went by.

On more than one occasion the Chief had referred to poor Dick’s mysterious end, expressing a strong belief that my suspicions were unfounded. Yet my opinion remained unchanged. Usborne had, I felt certain, been done to death by one who was a veritable artist in crime.

The mystery would no doubt have remained a mystery until this day had it not been for an incident which occurred about three months ago.

I had been sent to Paris to meet, on a certain evening, in the café of the Grand Hotel, a person who offered to sell us information which we were very anxious to obtain regarding military operations along the Franco-German frontier.

The person in question turned out to be a chic and smartly-dressed Parisienne, the dark-haired wife of a French lieutenant of artillery stationed at Adun, close to the frontier. As we sat together at one of the little tables, she bent to me and, in confidence, whispered in French that at her apartment in the Rue de Nantes she had a number of important documents relating to German military operations which her husband had secured and was anxious to dispose of. If I cared to accompany her I might inspect them.

Offers of such a character reach us sometimes, for the British Government are known to be excellent paymasters when occasion demands. Therefore, nothing loth, I accompanied her in an auto-cab out towards the Bois.

The lady’s apartment, on the third floor of a large house, proved to be quite a luxurious little place, furnished with great taste, and when she had ushered me into her little salon she left me for a few moments. We were alone, she said, for it would not be wise for anyone to know that she had sold information of such vital importance to England. Her husband would get into serious trouble for not placing it at the disposal of the Ministry of War.

A few moments later she returned, having taken off her hat and coat, bearing a small black portfolio such as is used by business men in France. Seating me at a table, and standing at my side, she placed the papers before me, and I began a careful perusal.

I suppose I must have been thus occupied for some ten minutes, when slowly, very slowly, I felt her arm steal around my neck.

In an instant I sprang to my feet. The truth that I had all along suspected was now plain. Facing her, I cried:

“Woman, I know you! These documents are pure fabrications – prepared in order to entrap me here! I believed that I recognised you at first – now I am convinced.”

“Why, monsieur!” she exclaimed in a voice of reproach. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, mademoiselle, that it was you – you, Julie Bellanger – who killed my friend Dick Usborne, because he exposed you as a spy!” I cried.

“Killed your friend!” she gasped, trying to laugh. “You are mad, m’sieur!”

“Yes, you killed him! And shall I explain to you how you accomplished it?” I said, looking straight into her dark eyes. “Usborne had become friendly with you in Beccles, and you never suspected him in connection with the Secret Service. Among other things, he gave you a bottle of a new and extremely rare perfume which he had brought from Bucharest – that perfume which is now upon you. As soon as we met tonight I recognised its fragrance. Well, Usborne, having convinced himself that you were engaged with others in gathering information in Suffolk for the General Staff in Berlin, informed the police, and you were ordered away. You came to London and, determined upon a terrible revenge, took a room at the hotel where you knew he sometimes stayed. Then you sent him a telegram purporting to come from his friend Dupont, asking him to go to Webster’s and meet him there. In response to this poor Usborne went, but almost instantly on his arrival you paid your bill and left the hotel. You then watched my friend out again and, re-entering the hotel unseen, crept up to his room, the number of which you had already ascertained prior to leaving. There you concealed yourself until just before six. When he returned you emerged, and on pretence that you were ready to dispose of these self-same papers, you induced him to sit down and examine them, just as I have done. Suddenly you placed your arm about his neck, while with your right hand you stuck the needle of the little hypodermic syringe – the one you now hold in your hand there – into the nape of his neck where you knew that the puncture would be concealed by the hair. It contained a deadly vegetable poison – as it does now!”

“It’s a lie!” she cried in French. “You can’t prove it!”

“I can, for as you held him you pressed his left cheek against the breast of your blouse, against that little circular brooch you are now wearing – the ring with four diamonds set at equal distances around it. The mark was left there-upon his face!”

She stood staring fixedly at me, unable to utter a word.

“After you had emptied that syringe you held him until he lay dead. Then you removed all traces of your presence and, stealing from the room, turned the key from the outside by means of that tiny hand-vice which I notice lies in the small bowl upon the mantelshelf yonder. Afterwards you crept downstairs and sent me a telegram, as though from the man who had already died by your hand. And, mademoiselle,” I added severely, “I, too, should have shared the same fate had I not recollected the smell of the Roumanian perfume and seen upon your blouse the round brooch which produced the red ring upon my friend’s countenance.”

Then, without further word, I crossed to the telephone and, taking up the receiver, called the police.

The woman, suddenly aroused by my action, dashed towards me frantically to stay my hand, but she was too late. I had given warning.

She turned to the door, but I barred her passage.

For a moment she looked around in wild despair; then ere I could realise her intention or prevent her, she stuck the point of the deadly needle – the needle she intended to use upon me because I had assisted in clearing out those spies from Suffolk – deeply into her white, well-moulded arm.

Five minutes later, when two policemen came up the stairs to arrest her, they found her lying lifeless.

Observable Justice by Will Murray

Will Murray (b. 1953) is not only one of the most prolific and knowledgeable people in the field of pulp fiction – the author of over 50 books including 40 novels in the Destroyer series and eight Doc Savage novels – he is also a professional psychic and instructor in remote viewing, the subject of the following story. Murray’s remote-viewing novel, Nick Fury Agent of Shield: Empyre (2000) predicted the operational details of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on America more than a year before they occurred.

Two uniforms met Detective Raymond Murex at the door to Room 314 of Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel. “You won’t need that,” one told him.

Murex pocketed the Vicks Vapo Rub and asked, “He doesn’t smell?”

“No, sir. Must have died overnight. Housekeeping found him when she came to make the bed. Looks like natural causes.”

Pulling on latex gloves, Murex stepped in. The dead man lay on the still-made bed in his street clothes, as if napping, hands neatly folded over his stomach. A black sleep mask covered his eyes. On the bedside table lay a calfskin wallet and an open binder-style notebook, both black.

Murex took out his own notebook. “What time was he discovered?”

“Maid said she had to come back several times because of the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. When he wouldn’t respond, she used her key. That was 1:45.”

Murex wrote it down and asked, “Name?”

“Registered as John Doom.”

Murex opened the wallet and confirmed that. Next he looked at the notebook. The page on the left was blank. On the right a set of numbers were centered in 30 point type:

5688

7854

Murex leafed through the rest. Every right-hand page displayed a set of similar numbers. He copied down the exposed set. The binder contained no other writing.

Murex called in the hotel manager, who was waiting outside.

“John Doom, when did he check in?”

“Last night. Reservations were made on Friday.”

“Who saw him last?”

“Not sure. It appears he checked in and went straight to bed.”

“And never woke up,” said Murex. “It happens. Thank you. When can I talk to the desk clerk who checked him in?”

“He comes on duty at 5:00. I’ll call him in early.”

“Appreciate that.”

The ME showed up. Acknowledging Murex, he asked, “What can you tell me about this one?”

“Not much. Found this way in the last hour. Possible natural causes.”

A crime scene photographer took several shots of the dead man.

“Let’s take a look at the color of his eyes.” Carefully, the ME removed the sleep mask. “Hello,” he said.

Murex leaned in. The man’s eyes were wide open, staring. They almost bugged out of his head. Their color was glassy green.

The ME shone a penlight. “Pinpoint hemorrhages, indicating burst capillaries. Normal under certain conditions.”

Murex said, “He looks scared.”

“The eyes look scared. His face is another matter. Thyroid problems can give the eyeballs that protruding effect.”

“So can manual strangulation,” Murex reminded.

“Strangulation ivariably triggers bowel elimination, and I smell nothing of the kind.” The ME was examining Doom’s throat. “No ligature marks. No bruises.” He felt of the windpipe. “Larynx is unremarkable.”

Taking one of the dead man’s hands, the ME started to separate them. “Two chipped fingernails. But no defensive – what’s this?”

Murex extracted a thin microcassette recorder from between the man’s fingers. Rewinding, Murex played it back. A murmuring voice emanated from the tiny speaker: “5688 7854 January 23. 5688 7854.” There was a long pause in which measured breathing could be heard.

“Respiration appears regular,” the ME remarked.

The voice repeated “5688 7854.” Then: “My perceptions of the target are of a winding stone stairwell leading into the bowels of the Earth. It feels cold. Air stagnant. A sickly greenish light is emanating from far below…”

Another pause came in which breathy exhalations were the only detectable sounds. After three minutes of disconnected murmurings, Murex paused the recorder. “Sounds like he just fell asleep.”

The ME looked at him. “I wonder what he meant by ‘target’?”

“Suddenly ‘natural causes’ doesn’t trip off the tongue so easily, does it?”

Murex went to the window. Outside, afternoon traffic flowed by the hotel. This was the heart of Boston’s financial district. The blue glass blade of the Hancock Tower stood just a few blocks north, and beyond that the city’s second-largest office tower, the Prudential Building. Murex thought of the twin World Trade Center towers, and shivered.

“I’d better check in with my commanding officer,” he told the ME. Using his cellphone, Murex spoke briefly, recounting his findings. He listened, then snapped the device shut.

“Captain Hurley would like a priority on this autopsy.”

“Okay. I’ll put a flag on it.”

Minutes later, as the body was being removed out a side door, Detective Murex was talking to the desk clerk.

“Do you remember a John Doom checking in?”

“Sure. Hear he died.”

“In his sleep. Anything unusual about him come to mind?”

“No.”

“Any distinguishing features?”

“No. He wasn’t very tall, about five-four, medium brown hair. Paid by credit card. He reminded me of my cousin.”

“Why is that?”

“My cousin’s in the Air Force. This guy gave me that feeling, too.”

Murex nodded. “Remember him well enough to identify him?”

“I won’t have to go down to the morgue, will I?”

“No. Follow me.”

EMTs were rolling the body into the back of an ambulance. Murex called out, “Hold up.”

Stripping the sheet off the corpse’s face, he asked, “This look like him?”

“Yeah. No, wait. That’s not him.”

Murex said, “No?”

“No. His hair was browner and the eyebrows much thicker.”

“Now take a deep breath,” Murex said. “People can appear different in death. Look again. Is this the man who checked in last evening under the name of John Doom?”

“I – Yeah, it is.”

“You are positive?”

“Absolutely. Can I go now? I feel kinda ill.”

“Stay handy.”

A forensics team from the CSI Unit had taken control of Room 314. They dusted for prints, collected hair samples off the bedspread and said hardly a word.

Murex was bagging John Doom’s personal effects when he noticed the black binder had a logo embossed into it: A human eye in a starburst over the letters TIRV. Uncolored, it was detectable only under direct light.

Grabbing the sleep mask, Murex gave it a second look. Over the right eye, in modest white letters, were the same initials. Outlined on the mask’s brow gleamed a tiny white eye in a starburst.

“What have we here?” he muttered.

Reaching into his coat for his cellphone, Murex discovered the tape recorder. It felt warm. He realized he’d left it on pause. Hitting play, Murex sat and listened. The DOA’s breathing continued for a time. He seemed asleep, but came out of it. He began speaking:

“I’m standing in a chamber hollowed out of solid stone. Instead of a floor, I see grates. Iron grates… it feels hot… the air reeks of sulfur… Below me it’s like a barbeque pit… black smoke… leaping flames… I perceive two burning eyes… like very hot coals. And a black face emerging… it’s-”

Suddenly, the voice rose into a panicky strangled sound. The voice began gasping, struggling for air. It soon choked off. The tape hummed white noise. The absence of breathing noises was unmistakable.

One of the CSI team said, “Sounds exactly like a heart attack.”

Murex called his CO. “Looks like natural causes with a funny twist. Scratch that courtesy call to the FBI.”

Back at District A-l headquarters, Murex Googled the initials TIRV. He got one hit: Technical Institute for Remote Viewing of Nashua, New Hampshire. Linking to the site, Murex was confronted by the eye-in-a-starburst motif, white against a black starfield.

EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE!

During the Cold War, the Pentagon and the Kremlin were locked in a desperate race. Not the space race, but a far more secret enterprise: the Psi Race! Dedicated to penetrating the deepest frontiers of human endeavour, the Department of Defence launched Project Stargate, where specially-selected candidates plucked from every service branch were trained to become true “spooks” – shadowy secret agents who could go anywhere, penetrate any nation’s security, all without leaving the confines of the ultra-secret Stargate training center at Fort Meade, Maryland!

Now, you too can become a Stargate-level psychic explorer. Captain Trey Grandmaison, one of the Stargate unit’s top Remote Viewers, is now teaching qualified civilian candidates in the advanced 21st-century martial art formerly available only to the military elite!

Hearing the knock, Captain Hurley barked, “Come in.”

Murex entered. “Turned up something unusual on that hotel fatality, sir.”

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, Murex set down the black binder, the eye shade and a color printout of the TIRV site home page.

“What the holy hell?” Hurley growled. “You have a nice flair for the dramatic, laying it out for me like this.”

“I figure you can do the math faster than I could explain it.”

“Much obliged,” Hurley said dryly. He read the TIRV mission statement aloud: “‘Remote Viewing is the acquisition and description, by mental means, of information blocked from ordinary perception by distance, shielding or time. TIRV is dedicated to placing this powerful mind technology in peaceful hands.’” He leaned back. “Is this for real?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. According to this website, Captain Grandmaison is ex-Army Intelligence. He trains people to do this stuff. John Doom was apparently trying to remotely view whatever these numbers represent when he expired.”

“Why don’t you take a run up to New Hampshire and see this guy, Grandmaison?”

“I’ll do that.”

As Murex started out, Hurley called after him, “I got a feeling about this one, Ray.”

Former Captain Trey Grandmaison lived in a converted farmhouse just over the Massachusetts border. It was a sprawling structure painted Colonial white, edged with stark black trim. A big barn lay behind it, as colorless and weathered as a Cape Cod fishing shack. The drive leading back to the barn had been plowed clean of snow.

A vaguely European woman with intensely black hair answered the door. Dark circles under her eyes marred a natural beauty.

Murex flashed his shield. “Detective Ray Murex. Boston Homicide. Could I have a word with Mr Grandmaison?”

“I’m sorry. But he’s in the gray room. He can’t be disturbed right now.”

“Gray room?”

“His private viewing room. He’s working a practice target.”

“I should have called first, but I need to ask him about one of his students.”

The door fell open. “Perhaps I can help you. I run the registration side of TIRV.”

“Then I would like to talk with you, Mrs Grandmaison.”

“Call me Effie, please.”

The living room was decorated in the Mission style. Murex searched for signs of a military past and found none. No medals. Not even an American flag on display.

Murex took a chair. “What can you tell me about a John Doom?”

Effie Grandmaison looked blank. “I don’t place that name. Are you sure he was a TIRV student?”

“He was found dead in bed last night wearing one of your sleep masks, a TIRV binder at his bedside. According to a microcassette recorder found on his person, he was actively remote viewing a number in your binder.”

“We call them coordinates. Do you know the cause of death?”

“Not as yet.”

“What were the coordinates?”

Murex recited the numbers from memory.

Effie frowned. “I don’t recognize them, but of course we create new targets all the time. What were his perceptions?”

“Excuse me?”

“Of the target, I mean.”

“I’d like to stick with John Doom for the moment,” Murex said impatiently. “Do you have a class registry?”

“Why is this important? Do you think he was murdered?”

“Right now, it looks like he died of fright.”

Effie Grandmaison abruptly stood up. “I think this is important enough to disturb Trey. Please follow me.”

Rising, Murex followed the woman outside to a cellar door.

“The basement can’t be accessed from inside the house,” she said, throwing up the bulkhead door. She led him down into a work area, past an oil furnace, to the far end. It was very cold. Murex could see his breath. A cobwebby corner was paneled off in pine. The hard-carved sign on the door read:

DO NOT DISTURB! SESSION IN PROGRESS!

Effie Grandmaison pressed a white button. No sound came back.

“Soundproof?” Murex asked, blowing into his hands.

“And lightproof. A bell would freak him out if it went off in the middle of a session. This simply activates a green light. He’ll be a minute or so coming out of session.”

It was two minutes before Trey Grandmaison emerged, looking upset.

“What the hell, Effie?”

“I’m sorry, Trey. But this is Detective Murex from Boston. He’s here about a man who died while working a target from one of our class binders.”

Trey Grandmaison didn’t look very surprised. If anything he seemed spacey. He was a compact individual with hair so brown it verged on black. His smoke-gray eyes had trouble focusing.

“Let’s take this upstairs,” he said at last.

Trey Grandmaison looked up from the computer screen. “There’s no record of a John Doom ever taking one of my classes.”

They were in the den. It too was Spartan. The only photos showed Grandmaison in civilian clothes.

Murex asked, “How would he have gotten hold of one of your binders then?”

Effie inserted, “They are part of our course package of materials. There’s nothing to stop one of our students from loaning or selling one to anyone they want.”

Grandmaison added, “We put a copyright notice on all practice target packs, but many of our target feedback photos are things you can find in any encylopedia – Seattle’s Space Needle, Mount Rushmore, the Titanic-”

Murex interrupted, “Is there anything about doing this work that might induce someone to have a heart attack?”

“No!” Effie said suddenly.

Trey Grandmaison said, “I teach two types of RV, detective. Coordinate Remote Viewing and Extended RV. If he was lying down with an eye shield, he was doing ERV. It’s pretty safe. Half the time, my students drift off into a Delta state.”

Murex looked up from his notebook. “I don’t follow.”

“We RV in different brainwave states, detective. Alpha for CRV. Theta for ERV. Theta is the gateway to the Delta sleep state. If you go too deep, you simply click off like a light.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Effie reiterated.

“I did hear about a candidate viewer who died of fright while working a target,” Grandmaison said slowly.

“Is that so?”

“It was back in ’87, just after I joined the unit. In between working operational targets, they would run us against practice coordinates to keep us in our viewing zone. The duty monitor came in one day and claimed he had worked up a really challenging target. The viewer who worked that one was never seen again. Rumor was he’d had a heart attack. But there was talk he’d died of fright.”

“Fright?”

“Whatever he was viewing scared him so badly his heart gave out.”

Effie said, “But, Trey, that was just a rumor.”

“Well, we never saw that viewer again. So I suppose it’s possible whatever your guy was viewing scared him literally to death.”

Murex asked, “Do you recognize this set of coordinates?”

Grandmaison took the offered notebook. “I don’t know these. I use a date system of notation. That way, if another RV instructor steals my targets, I can tell just by looking at the coords.”

“Is that a problem for you – theft?”

“My students don’t pay upwards of two thousand dollars just to remotely experience the summit of Pike’s Peak. My specialty is non-validation targets – UFOS, other planets, historical mysteries. Most were first worked back in Project Stargate. I’ve developed others. Anyone taking my class can teach others using my target packs, so I have to protect my business.”

“Is there any way of determining what these numbers mean?” asked Murex.

“They don’t mean anything.”

Murex looked his question.

“These look like randomly-generated target coordinates,” Grandmaison explained. “That’s how we worked back in the Stargate era. A computer would spit out a set of these and a tasker would assign them to the target. We RV off the coords so we’re not frontloaded as to the nature of the target. Think of the numbers as a metaphysical longitude and latitude.”

“Then how do-?”

“How do they work? Monitor’s intention. Once I assign the number to a target, my intention drives the session.”

Murex tried to keep his face straight.

“Tell you what, detective,” Grandmaison offered. “I have a small ERV class coming in shortly. Why don’t we run the group against this one?”

“I don’t see how that would-”

“Otherwise, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said suddenly.

Murex stood up. “I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

On the way out, Trey Grandmaison handed Murex a business card.

“In case TIRV can help in any way, all my contact numbers are on this card. Call me anytime.”

“Thanks for your cooperation,” Murex told him.

The ME’s preliminary report had come in by the time Ray Murex had returned to his desk. He skimmed it, then took it in to his CO.

“According to this, John Doom hadn’t eaten in four days before he was found. No signs of poison or foul play. Cause of death appears to be heart failure. But the ME thinks the pinpoint eyeball hemorrhages strongly indicate he was lying face down when he died, and for a period of up to six hours afterward.”

“But he was found lying face up, right?”

“Right. With a microcassette recorder carefully nestled in his neatly folded hands.”

“You mean, placed there,” Hurley said. “Looks like we have an attempt at a perfect crime with locked-room overtones. Let’s take it from the top, guy checks in about 9 p.m. Monday night. By which time according to the ME, he could have been dead three or four days. Anyone at the hotel ID the body?”

“Desk clerk who checked him in, but he was a little shaky. However, the driver’s license photo fits the deceased.”

“So if John Doom couldn’t have checked in Monday night, who did? And how did Doom’s corpse get there?”

“There’s another problem,” Murex said. “The body showed no outward indications of decomposition.”

“So he couldn’t have died in the hotel room.”

“Not according to the ME. Wherever he was, Doom was on ice over the weekend. But someone had to flip the body over after those post-mortem pinpoint hemorrhages appeared.”

“Hmmm. What did you get in New Hampshire?”

“I found Grandmaison and his wife. They seem to take this Remote Viewing stuff dead serious. If they’re running a scam, I didn’t detect it in their manner. They claim never to have heard of John Doom. Otherwise, they made absolutely no sense to me. According to them, the coordinates the dead man were working when he died were randomly assigned. Common sense says if they’re random, they can’t possibly do what he claims they can.”

“Go at this from the angle of Doom’s last four or five days. I’m going to put you with Knuckles on this.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. He’s already been informed.”

Detective First Grade Robert Knuckles had been on the job a dozen years longer than Ray Murex and acted it.

“Another day, another stiff,” he sighed.

“This one is complicated. Let me bring you up to speed.”

Knuckles listened with head tilted back and his pale blue eyes gazing off into space, his expression bored. When Murex got to the part about Remote Viewing, Knuckles took his feet off his desk and began to look interested.

“This is a new one,” he said. “I could get to like it. Let me see Grandmaison’s card.”

Murex gave it up. Knuckles read it over, then flipped it. “Whoa. What is this?”

Knuckles showed him the obverse side. Two sets of four digits were marked in blue ink: 2006/0075.

“Look like remote coordinates to you?” Knuckles asked.

“Pretty much,” Murex admitted. “Unless the first one is the year.”

Knuckles frowned deeply. “You say Grandmaison takes this stuff pretty seriously. I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

“Well, maybe he just happened to give you a card on which he scribbled some stray coordinates. But try this on for size: maybe these coordinates are you.”

“Me?”

“Could be he’s tagged you for remote surveillance.”

Ray Murex exploded into uncontrolled laughter.

“You ever work with psychics?” Knuckles asked.

“Never!”

“You know the unwritten rule.”

“Sure. If you’re stuck, you can consult one, you just can’t use what they tell you in a court of law.”

Bob Knuckles grinned wisely. “I’ve invoked that rule a time or two. Never mind the details. Take it from someone who’s been at this longer than you. Take this stuff seriously, but treat it skeptically.”

“Always.” Murex pocketed the card and asked, “What’s your take on this?”

“Obviously someone sneaked a corpse into the Park Plaza, pretending to be the deceased. I think we had better find out more about dead Mr Doom. I took the liberty of starting that ball rolling. He’s single, 44 and lived waaay out of town. Mission Hill.”

Murex frowned darkly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Knuckles said. “Why would a single guy rent an expensive hotel room less than three miles from home?”

“Maybe he needed a quiet place to do his thing?”

“Let’s see how quiet the home front really is.”

The house was a triple-decker, dark chocolate brown, at the top of Parker Hill. Murex and Knuckles had to climb nearly 100 cracked concrete steps to get to the front door. The black woman who answered was the landlady.

“A few questions about John Doom, ma’am,” Murex said, showing his shield.

“Come on in then.”

They were let into the top-floor apartment.

“Lived here five years,” the landlady was saying. “Quiet man. Kept to himself.”

“What did he do for a living?” Murex asked.

“Had different jobs. Didn’t talk much about it. Traveled a lot. I wouldn’t see him for a week or two at a time, and he was always saying as how he’d been to Baltimore or San Diego, or somesuch place. Never said why.”

There were two bedrooms. One was a standard setup with a twin bed, and the usual furniture. The other was something else.

“What the hell he done with this room!” the landlady burst out.

The second bedroom room was all gray-ceiling, walls, even the inside of the door. The windows were hung with blackout shades. Gray, too. Even the rug was battleship gray. In the middle of the rug was a thin futon, gray as mold.

Murex said, “It’s a gray room.”

“I can see that!” the landlady sputtered. “But what-”

“Could you excuse us, please?”

“Fine. I need to call a painter anyway…” She bustled out.

Murex huddled with Knuckles.

“Grandmaison had one in his cellar. I didn’t see the inside. They remote view in gray rooms for some reason.”

“Then why did Doom go to a hotel, if he had this setup handy?”

“Good question.”

They looked around. A bookcase was crammed with books and microcassettes in labeled boxes. Murex selected one, loaded it into a recorder from his pocket.

A male voice began saying:”9746 0458 April 3rd 9746 0458 My perceptions of the target are…”

Murex hit stop. He popped in the other cassette. The same voice recited different coordinates and a date.

“Doom was really into this stuff,” Knuckles muttered. “I wonder if it’s any good for police work…”

Murex shot him a dark look. They began looking for address books and cancelled checks with the deceased’s signature on it. It didn’t take long.

“This look like the registration signature?” Knuckles asked.

Murex frowned. “No. Not even close.”

A commotion came from down below. Exiting, they found the landlady complaining to a UPS man who was hand-trucking a big burlap-covered box up the 100 steps.

Knuckles demanded, “What’s this thing?”

The landlady huffed, “A damned steamer trunk. Belonged to John. Fool hotel sent it over. What am I supposed to do with it?”

They examined the trunk. It was empty.

“We’ll take this off your hands, ma’am,” Murex said.

Back at the Park Plaza, the hotel manager was saying, “Yes, we did ship the trunk back.”

Knuckles demanded, “Didn’t you understand that it could be evidence?”

“But it was stored outside the room. I was told not to remove anything from the room proper. We have a basement storage facility for large items.”

“Did John Doom arrive with this trunk?” asked Murex.

“The desk clerk will know.”

The clerk didn’t look happy to see Ray Murex.

“Did John Doom check in with a steamer trunk?”

“No, it was delivered later. I don’t remember the company. He requested that it be sent up to his room, and then a few hours later, asked that it be placed in storage.”

“What do you remember about this trunk?”

“Well, the bellman complained that it was pretty heavy.”

“I want to talk with that bellman.”

The bell captain had a poor memory. He couldn’t describe John Doom, but he recalled one thing clearly: “That trunk was very heavy going up, and a lot lighter coming down.”

Murex asked, “What color were Doom’s eyes?”

“Grayish.”

“Not greenish?”

“No, grayish.”

“Thank you.”

Murex and Knuckles conferred. Murex growled, “Doom’s eyes were green as seawater.”

“If it was Doom who checked in,” countered Knuckles.

“My money says that it wasn’t.”

“Your money’s no good in court, Ray.”

“Here’s how I see it. The victim was delivered to the hotel in that steamer trunk. Bellman takes the trunk up to the hotel room, after which the unknown person who checked in under Doom’s name removes the victim from the trunk, lays him out on the bed, calls for the trunk to be removed, then exits quietly.”

“You think he was dead going in?”

“Exact time of death will establish that. But where was he for four days that he didn’t eat, and didn’t decompose if he was already dead?”

“And what really killed him, and how?” said Knuckles.

“I don’t buy death by remote viewing,” Murex muttered.

“Let’s talk to the ME then.”

The Medical Examiner was busy trisecting a human liver. He didn’t even look up from his work. “Heart failure. Your DOA expired of natural causes on or about last Friday, the 21st.”

“Are you sure?” Murex pressed.

“I’m never sure. But I am positive. A contributing factor appears to be malnourishment and dehydration.”

“Could he have been scared to death?” asked Knuckles.

“There’s no known medical test for that. But yes. Could have. It’s within the realm of possibility. But heart failure is what I will certify.”

“Anything else?”

“Under three fingernails I found gray deposits. Paint chips.”

Murex and Knuckles examined these under a microscope.

“Looks like scrapings,” decided Murex.

Knuckles nodded. “Yeah. Probably from his gray room.”

“Except for one thing. These scrapings are slate gray. Doom’s gray room was battleship gray. A lighter shade.”

“Good catch.”

On the drive up to New Hampshire the next morning, Bob Knuckles was saying, “The guy dies of a heart attack while doing his thing in a gray room. Whoever has charge of the gray room in question needed to cover it up for some reason. So he transports DOA Doom to the Plaza and stages it to look like the death happened there.”

Behind the wheel, Murex growled. “It doesn’t fit.”

“Sure it fits. What do you mean, it doesn’t fit?”

“What are you covering up? Heart attacks happen.”

“So do lawsuits. Guy doesn’t want to be sued for negligence by the fatality’s relatives.”

“Trade a lawsuit for criminal mischief and felony transport of a body across state lines? I’ll take the lawsuit any day. It was staged. The date of the tape was Monday, not last Friday.”

“If you’re going to stage a death by remote viewing, why use a TIRV folder?” Knuckles countered.

“Because you’re not TIRV. You’re a rival RV school. Kill two birds with one stone. Dispose of inconvenient body and screw competition.”

“Makes more sense to just dispose of the body, and hope for no traceback.”

“I don’t see it,” Murex insisted.

They were silent for a while. Fresh snowflakes were blowing in the backwash of vehicles ahead. Winter was settling in. After a time, Knuckles spoke. “Try this: it’s a murder.”

“Murder how?”

“Let’s say RV works like they say. No, follow me on this. Victim Doom wants to RV a really hot target. Perpetrator has a reason to want him off the planet. Maybe he knows Doom has a weak ticker. Figures one good scare might – just might – flatline him.”

“Okay. It’s plausible so far as to motivation.”

“Good. So he drops him into the scariest place possible.”

“Which is?”

“Hell.”

“Hell!”

“Hear me out now,” Knuckles said. “What did Doom describe on that first tape? Going down into the Earth and finding himself in a giant barbecue pit with blazing eyes looking up at him. What would that be except Hell?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Listen to it again.” Knuckles replayed the tape.

“5688 7854 January 23.5688 7854. My perceptions of the target are…”

Murex suddenly pulled over. “Wait a minute. Stop! Give me that.”

Ray Murex popped out the cassette and inserted one taken from John Doom’s apartment. He let it play for two full minutes.

“Sound like the same guy to you?” Murex asked.

“Not even remotely,” Knuckles returned.

“Ouch.”

They checked other tapes. All the voices matched. Except for the tape found on the body of John Doom.

“Scratch the theory he died doing what he loved best,” Knuckles muttered as Murex got the car back into northbound traffic.

“Suddenly I like Trey Grandmaison,” said Murex.

“Doesn’t fit.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t fit?”

“Whoever staged Doom’s death scene wouldn’t use TIRV paraphernalia if he was connected to TIRV.”

“I still like him. He bears a general resemblance to the mystery man who checked into room 314. And he has gray eyes. Let’s see how he takes our showing up unexpectedly.”

“You still carrying his business card?”

“Yeah.”

Knuckles grinned. “Then maybe he’ll be expecting you.”

“I’ve been expecting you,” said Trey Grandmaison at the door.

Murex kept his voice flat. “You have?”

“Well, either you were going to solve it, or return for more information. Either way, I expected another visit.”

“I’m Bob Knuckles. We’d like to know more about RV.”

“I’m on my way to teach a class. But follow me.”

Grandmaison led them to the barn.

“What is the purpose of a gray room?” asked Knuckles.

“That started in the unit – Stargate. We needed a quiet sealed environment in which to do our work. Gray is a neutral color that won’t influence the viewer’s imagination.”

“Uh-huh,” said Murex.

Knuckles said, “We think John Doom died in a gray room. Could we see yours?”

“Not much to see. But come on.”

The gray room was a flat hue from floor to ceiling. Behind a drop ceiling hung a battery of indirect lights. A gray blanket covered a floor mattress. It was very cold.

Murex asked, “No heat?”

“Ceiling lights will warm it up enough. Most sessions last less than 50 minutes. And I’ve had survival training. Cold doesn’t bother me.”

“What would you call this shade of gray?”

“Slate.”

“Doom had a room like this. But it was lighter in color.”

Grandmaison cocked an eyebrow. “He had a gray room? Then what was he doing RVing in a hotel?”

“That’s what we’d like to know. Where were you over the weekend, Mr Grandmaison?”

Grandmaison didn’t blink. “I returned from teaching an Advanced Applications class in Richmond, Virginia on Sunday morning.”

“How long were you there?”

“All week. Class started that Monday morning.”

“Witnesses?”

“Over 60 people took my AARV class. I can give you their contact information.”

“We may or may not need it,” Murex said glumly.

Knuckles scratched at the inner door. Gray paint flaked off. “Ever lock yourself in by accident?”

“Impossible. There’s no exterior lock.”

Knuckles looked. “You’re right. My mistake.”

“Where was Mrs Grandmaison last week?” asked Murex.

A vein in Trey Grandmaison’s forehead began throbbing. “With me. She assists me on the road. Is there anything else? I have to begin my ERV class.”

Knuckles asked, “Would you mind if we observe? I’m kinda curious about this RV stuff.”

“Happy to. Come on.”

The barn was insulated inside, and quartz space heaters radiated warmth from all four corners. It was barely enough. About a dozen people ranging in age from twentyish to fiftysomething sat on pine folding chairs facing a long table. Behind that stood a portable blackboard. Most shivered in their coats.

Grandmaison announced, “We have two guests from the Boston police investigating a mysterious death in the RV community.”

A woman raised a hand. “Are we going to work it?”

“If we were, you know I wouldn’t frontload you first, would I?”

The class laughed.

“Detectives Murex and Knuckles are just here to satisfy their curiosity.”

Murex stepped forward, showing a morgue photo. “Does anyone here know this man? John Doom?”

No one stirred.

“Does anyone here have a gray room, or knows someone who does?”

Heads shook all around. Murex stepped back.

Grandmaison said, “We’ll begin by debriefing on the overnight target. Who wants to start?”

A man stood and began reciting from a black binder notebook. “My perceptions of the target were of a tall spidery latticelike structure situated in a wide flat area.”

“Good. Next?”

“My perceptions of the target suggest an oil derrick on a land platform-”

Grandmaison interrupted, “Stop. How many times do I have to drill this into you guys? Describe, do not identify. Premature target identification will get you into trouble every time.”

“Sorry. Target was metallic, vertical, man-made, and I got strong sensory impressions of cross-braces and oil smells.”

“Probably associational noise from the derrick concept. Next!”

As the class went around the room, they described structures ranging from a NASA shuttle on its launch pad to high-voltage power line transmission towers.

Murex whispered to Knuckles, “They’re all over the map.”

When the last student was done, Grandmaison rolled up a portable overhead projector.

“Target 2004/0013 is very challenging because of the tendency of the viewer’s conscious mind to force a familiar identification. Hence, a class will bring back similar descriptions, dimensionals and other data, but will often lean toward different interpretations, usually biased by personal knowledge or analytic overlay.”

Grandmaison clicked a switch. The Eiffel Tower appeared on the screen – a white sheet nailed to the wall behind him.

A woman gasped, “No one got it!”

“On the contrary. Most of you got it. The Eiffel Tower is structurally similar to an oil derrick or a electrical transmission tower, and because it also functions as a TV and radio broadcasting antenna, those of you who are sensitive to energetics will perceive it that way. Who described a Shuttle on its pad? You decoded the Eiffel Tower and its elevator as a gantry structure and its elevator. Good signal acquisition. Not so good decoding.”

The class seemed impressed. Murex was not.

“How do they know he’s not throwing up a picture to match what they get?” he whispered to Knuckles.

“Why were they getting basically the same stuff?” Knuckles countered.

“Okay!” Grandmaison announced. “Ten minute comfort break.”

The class made for the house.

A woman walked up to Murex and Knuckles, saying, “If you guys need help with your case, I’m a professional spirit communicator.”

When Murex hesitated, Knuckles took the card. “We’ll keep you in mind, Miss… Carter.”

“No problem!”

Grandmaison drifted over, grinning. “Not bad for only three days’ training.”

Murex asked, “Your class didn’t seem to react when I flashed Doom’s photo.”

“The RV community is exploding. I teach people. My former Stargate colleagues teach other people. We don’t all keep track of each other.”

Bob Knuckles asked, “Where were you the night John Doom checked into the Plaza?”

“Here. Home. We were selecting targets for next week’s ERV class in LA.”

Knuckles nodded. “You teach all over the country?”

“And local classes in between.”

“We’ve determined that Mr Doom was dead approximately four days before he checked in to the hotel,” Ray Murex said suddenly.

Trey Grandmaison didn’t skip a beat, although a vein in his forehead suddenly leaped to life. “You have your work cut out for you. And so have I. Excuse me.”

The class was filing back in. The break over, Grandmaison wrote a set of coordinates on the chalkboard and said, “Okay, this is your next target. Go to it.”

The class gathered up sleeping bags, futons and the like and spread them out at scattered places on the floor.

“Target is to be viewed in present time. You have one hour. View until the data starts to repeat or the signal line runs dark. Don’t interpret. And no snoring.”

Grandmaison led them out, saying they needed absolute quiet.

“Where’s Mrs G?” asked Knuckles.

“Shopping.”

“I have a hypothetical question.”

“Shoot.”

“Would it be possible, in your professional opinion, to remote view Hell? Assuming of course that there is such a place?”

Grandmaison didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

Murex asked, “Are there any other RV instructors or schools in this area to your knowledge?”

“No. I’m the only one in New England. There were only a dozen or so people in the unit, and those who are teaching civilians are scattered around the country.”

“Would you know of any other gray room in the area other than yours or Doom’s?”

“I thought mine was the only one. I would suggest you look into other schools. I didn’t train this guy, but if he built a gray room, he’s a very serious viewer.”

“How do I go about that?”

“Google,” smiled Trey Grandmaison.

On the ride back to Boston, Murex was very quiet while Knuckles cleaned his fingernails with a nailfile, carefully placing the scrapings in a napkin.

“Guy had survival training,” Knuckles said quietly.

“So?”

“So – he was ex-intelligence. Probably knows a lot of ways to kill a guy so that it looks like natural causes.”

“It still doesn’t fit.”

“No, it does not,” said Knuckles, looking at the business card that read Beverly Carter, Spirit Communicator. “If Grandmaison made that Hell tape, he’s a fabulous voice actor. Guy has a voice like a bullfrog.”

The next two days were bleak. The weather was bleak. Progress of the case was bleaker. The weatherman kept promising snow, but all the skies mustered up were flurries.

A forensic handwriting analysis of the hotel signature proved that John Doom had not checked himself into the Plaza. No known relatives or friends of John Doom could be found.

Trey Grandmaison’s military records revealed that he received a dishonorable discharge for psychological reasons in 1993. The records were sealed. Otherwise he checked out clean. No record anywhere.

On the third day, Bob Knuckles was trolling the net and came across a website advertising an on-line course called Tom Morrow’s Practical Remote Viewing. The instructor’s photo caused him to say, “What ho!”

Ray Murex took a look and said, “That’s John Doom.”

“Now we know what he does for a living. Time to give Miss Carter a buzz.”

“Why?”

Knuckles smiled broadly. “Why not?” He dialed a number.

“Miss Carter, this is Detective Knuckles. How are you? Good, I’m calling you rather than bother Mr Grandmaison. Do you keep your class assignments? You do? Good. If I read you a set of coordinates, could you identify them for me? Sure, I’ll hold.” To Murex, he said, “She’s getting her class notes. Hand me that TIRV business card, will you?”

Murex scaled it over.

“The numbers are 2006/0027… You did! When? What did you get? Interesting. What did the class get? Really? Could you do me a big favor? Would it be possible to view those coordinates now? And call me back.”

Knuckles hung up. “She’s calling back in twenty minutes.”

“And?”

“Let’s see what she comes up with.”

Twenty minutes later. Knuckles took the call. He was on less than two minutes. “That’s very helpful. Thank you.”

Murex looked his question.

“She got a guy sitting at a desk. Dejected.”

“So?”

“So. You’re sitting at a desk looking pretty forlorn to me.”

“Oh, come off it!”

“She said the class worked those numbers Tuesday night. You interviewed Mr G. on Tuesday. They got the same thing then. A guy at a desk concentrating on something serious. Three students got a law-enforcement vibe. Looks like he tagged you. Why? Forget about whether RV really works or not. Just speculate with me: why would he do that?”

“Because he’s dirty.”

“Or knows more about Doom’s demise than he’ll let on,” Knuckles countered.

Murex sat up in his chair. “Let’s go at this from another angle. Trey Grandmaison is out of town all last week. That checked out. No holes. He comes back and finds a dead guy in his gray room. He’s gotta do something.”

“Wait a minute. What’s Doom doing there?”

“We’ll figure that part out later. But maybe Mrs G – Effie – is moonlighting.”

“So why does he stage the death with TIRV material?”

“He figures his airtight alibi makes it a perfect crime. What has he got to lose? Also, this gives him a direct pipeline into any investigation.”

“No. It points any investigation directly at him.”

“Right, also. If things get hot, he sees it coming. He can take steps.”

“How was Mrs G. when you talked to her?” asked Knuckles.

“Nervous. Showed signs of being severely short on sleep too. Seemed worried about the impact of bad publicity on the business.”

“But Mr G. isn’t, is he? Why not? Think motive.”

Murex gave it some thought. “Maybe he wants the publicity.”

“Why would he want bad publicity?”

“Maybe in his business bad publicity is good publicity. Or any publicity is better than none.”

“Student RV’s Hell and drops dead,” Knuckles shot back. “How is that good?”

Murex made a face. “Maybe to the whackos who take these classes, it’ll sound like the ultimate thrill ride.”

“Maybe his business is failing and he’s teaching Doom privately. Discovers he’s an incognito rival. Offs him somehow and sets it all up.”

“Possible. But why is he so cooperative?”

“He’s ex-Army Intelligence. Versed in psychological operations. Being cooperative and up front could be a way of deflecting suspicion.”

“Which he actually wants in a perverted way.”

“Sure. It’s basic reverse psychology – mind games.” Knuckles leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Try this: DOA Doom croaks. His teacher couldn’t find a way to get him back into his apartment – all those steps must have been too daunting – but checking him into a hotel was easier. Calls and makes reservations to boot.”

“Why not a motel?”

Knuckles shrugged. “Big hotel, easier to penetrate. Lot of people coming and going. No car directly involved. No license plate on record with the hotel. He fakes the tape because how else are the investigating parties going to know what Doom was supposedly RVing?”

The phone rang. Knuckles took it. “Yes? Yep. Yep. Good.” He hung up. “That was the lab. The paint chips found under Doom’s fingernails match the ones I scraped off Grandmaison’s gray room. Postive match. No question.”

Murex blinked, then remembered Knuckles cleaning his nails.

“Can we use that in court?”

“Won’t need to. We can get admissible paint samples later. The question is, did Doom die naturally, or was he snuffed?”

“And if so, who did it?”

“That’s easy. Mrs G.”

“Too many unknowns to assume that.” Pressing a button on his desk, Murex picked up the telephone. He dialed the number off the TIRV card and said, “Mrs Grandmaison? This is detective Ray Murex down at Boston Homicide. Sorry to wake you. I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind. Were you in Richmond during the week your husband taught that class? You were? No reason. Except this: lab tests have proven conclusively that John Doom did not expire in his own gray room. We only know of one other in this area. That one belongs to your husband. Well, until we can rule something out, we have to consider it ruled in. So we’ll be in touch.” Murex hung up.

Knuckles looked at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Sometimes, you light a fuse. Other times you’re just setting fire to a string. Let’s see which it is.”

The call came from Trey Grandmaison within the hour.

“I’d love to help you guys close out this investigation,” he offered. His tone was fluttery.

“Because we can’t rule your gray room out of the picture?” said Murex.

“No. Because my wife is becoming upset with your questions. Look, I offered to help before. Why don’t I personally RV John Doom’s last hours and see what I come up with? Maybe that will give your investigation a fresh direction.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Murex said dryly.

“I’ll assign the coords and get back to you with whatever data I get.”

“Appreciate that.”

Knuckles looked at Murex. “This could go either way.”

Hours later, the promised pages came sliding out of the office fax machine. Knuckles read it first.

“This is interesting. Seems dead Mr Doom liked to frequent bondage and domination rooms. According to this, he died in someone’s ‘dungeon’ and his mistress relocated his inconvenient remains, using his RV hobby as a cover-”

“Forget it!” Murex snapped angrily. He slid the TIRV business card over.

Knuckles took it, compared it to the coordinates recorded on the session report. “I’ll be damned! The same coordinates. He didn’t even try. No question now that he’s dirty.”

“We’ll see what the lab says,” Murex said darkly.

“About what?”

“About the voice analysis of that call I recorded yesterday.”

Knuckles cocked a questioning eyebrow. “Mrs G?”

“I have a hunch her voice patterns will match up with the Doom tape.”

“You illegally recorded an interstate telephone call. That’s not admissible evidence, either.”

“We’ll worry about that if there’s a matchup,” muttered Ray Murex.

The aural spectrography report was three days coming through. It arrived one day too late to do any good.

Bob Knuckles was checking with the Richmond hotel that had hosted the TIRV class the week before. He thanked someone and hung up.

“That’s the last staffer,” he said. “They all confirm that Mrs G. arrived with her husband and departed with him six days later. But no one can verify her whereabouts in between.”

“So she could have flown home any time in that six-day period. Or taken a train.”

“Very possible. Boston and Richmond are at opposite ends of the Northeast corridor.”

“And the fingerprint bureau says that every print taken off that steamer trunk matches up with the people known to have handled it.”

“So Mr G’s hands are clean, after all.”

“Too clean. John Doom’s prints are not to be found, either. That old trunk was almost forensically pristine. All prints are post check-in.”

“And so another perfect crime unravels owing to excessive prep.”

“We’ll see,” Murex said.

The first news reports of the Manchester to Los Angeles airliner making an emergency landing due to a passenger emergency made no immediate impression on either Detectives Murex or Knuckles. The followup, reporting that a female passenger had been taken off dead, also passed by unremarked on. The passenger’s name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. But when the morning papers reported that Efthemia Grandmaison had been found dead in seat 23C on the overnight flight to Los Angeles, Bob Knuckles exploded out of his chair.

“He did it! I know he did!”

“Calm down. Let’s go at this the right way.”

“Son of a bitch killed Doom, and then took out his wife because she knew he did it!”

“Doesn’t fit.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t fit? Of course it fits. It fits perfectly.”

“A wife can’t be made to testify against her spouse. There’s more to it.”

Murex reached out to Los Angeles police department and asked for the detective in charge of the case to contact him ASAP. A detective John Burks returned the call. After Murex explained his interest, Burks gave him what he had:

“The deceased and her husband, this Grandmaison, take the red eye and upon their arrival at LAX, the husband attempts to awaken his wife. She was nonresponsive. EMT’s are called to the plane. Wife was pronounced dead at the scene. The husband is telling a crazy story.”

“How crazy?”

“Claims he was with some secret project during the Cold War that employed mental powers to spy on the Russians. He and the wife teach this Remote Viewing. The wife, he says, was remote viewing something while the husband slept in the adjoining seat. He says this is not the first time someone expired while doing these experiments

“Is there an audio tape of the session?” Murex explained. “Usually, they record the experience.”

“Yeah, we do have a cassette. But we haven’t listened to it yet.”

“You might want to call me back after you do.”

“Why don’t I just play it this minute and we’ll both listen?”

Moments later, a hushed voice came over the line.

“2004 8547 January 31st. 2004 8547… I am in a dark room. I can see a door, but it is closed. Something is stirring above the door, where the wall joins the ceiling. Ominous. Black. A cloud. I see eyes… It’s speaking, ‘Death is coming for you!’ It’s moving toward me. Trey! Trey! Wake up! Ahhhh…”

“Sounds like she was having a nightmare,” Burks suggested.

Murex snapped, “I don’t buy it.”

“You say you’re investigating a death tied to the Grandmaisons,” Burks prompted.

“Right.” Murex gave him the investigation thusfar.

“Seems to me like these people were poking their noses into places human noses don’t belong,” Burks opined.

“Can we get a copy of that tape for voiceprint comparison?”

“Consider it done.”

“Thanks. What are you going to do with Trey Grandmaison?”

“Depends on what the ME says. But he’s being very cooperative.”

“We’d like to be informed either way.”

LAPD got back to them the next morning.

“ME says natural causes,” Burks reported. “Heart failure. Probably as a result of night terrors, also known as sleep paralysis.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Murex admitted.

“It’s a documented medical condition. According to the ME, when you dream at night, your body shuts down so you don’t act out your dreams by kicking and flailing around. Sometimes nightmares wake people up in the middle of it, and they find that they can’t move for a minute or two. It’s apparently a frightening experience when it happens.”

“So how does the ME know that’s what really happened?”

“Because it happened to him once. Says he was having a nightmare just like the one the woman recorded. A black cloud came at him, threatening to kill him. It roosted on his chest and he discovered he couldn’t breathe. Shock woke him up. Found he couldn’t move a muscle. But the cloud was gone. The experience scared him so much he talked to his doctor about it. The doc told him about sleep paralysis. End of story.”

“Are you satisfied with that explanation?” Murex asked.

“Not especially. But the death technically took place over some other state’s jurisdiction. ME says she was dead before she reached California airpace. So we’re dropping the matter. The ME will release the body to the husband tomorrow.”

“I’ll let you know what the voiceprint analysis says.”

“Don’t run up too big a phone bill on our account,” Burks said dryly.

The aural-spectrography report was succinct. Murex frowned as he read it.

“Not the same voice, huh?” Knuckles said.

“The contrary. Perfect match. Effie Grandmaison made Doom’s tape. But what good does that do us now? She’s dead and can’t be questioned.”

“Okay. Let’s think this through. We’re not at rope’s end. Yet. Effie Grandmaison slips home during the time her hubby is teaching that RV class down in Virgina, probably by Amtrak.”

“Right. While she’s home, she snuffs Doom. Leaves him in the cellar gray room where he’ll keep for a few days, and returns to Richmond. Later, she accompanies Grandmaison home, where he hatches an elaborate hoax to make it look like Doom died elsewhere. All seems well.”

“Until we start digging and making Mrs G nervous. Mr G decides the wife is a growing inconvenience, and somehow snuffs her during the flight to LA while crew and passengers are sound asleep.”

“This time, he concocts a more plausible version of the original perfect crime. One that will stand up in court, provided an expert in sleep paralysis is called in to testify.”

“Obviously, he recorded the tape.”

“Let’s see what the Effie tape tells us.”

The FedEx package from LAPD arrived later that afternoon. Murex and Knuckles rushed it over to the lab, twisting arms until a technician agreed to look at it over his lunch break. He came back with a fast answer: “Not the same voice at all. Guaranteed.”

Murex took Knuckles aside and said, “That leaves only one voice possible: Trey Grandmaison. After he takes out the wife, he makes the tape in the toilet of the plane. Plants it and he’s home free, thinking no one is going to see through to the truth.”

“Thinking wrong. But how do we prove otherwise? He’s off the hook and walking free under the perfect alibi: asleep beside her the entire time.”

Murex said, “I don’t buy this sleep paralysis stuff.”

“It’s ironclad, according to that ME. It happened to him, didn’t it?”

Murex went to an idle PC and and started a search. He found several websites devoted to sleep paralysis. One read: Sleep paralysis is an REM sleep parasomnia, and a symptom of narcolepsy, although it can affect about 40 per cent of the general population. It’s characterized by frighteningly vivid hypnogogic hallucinations and accompanied by acute respiratory distress. First-time sufferers often assume that they are dying.

Murex snorted, “I don’t buy this at all.”

“Says it’s a legit medical condition,” Knuckles pointed out.

“Not that. The black clouds. Almost every account here says the same thing. Subject is sleeping and has the same nightmare. A malignant black cloud comes into the bedroom, starts threatening them, and lands on their chest. Subject can’t breathe. Panic sets in. Fear of death wakes them up. They find they’re paralyzed until their body goes back to normal. Ridiculous.”

“Maybe it’s the opposite of the tunnel of light some people report during the near-death experience,” Knuckles suggested. “A trick of the brain.”

“Show me where in mythology or literature there are legends of evil black clouds and I’ll-” Murex froze at the screen.

“You what?”

“I just found the hole in Trey Grandmaison’s alibi.”

“Big?”

“Big enough for a black cloud to come in through. Let’s find out when Mrs Grandmaison is coming home.”

They called every Nashua New Hampshire funeral home until they found the one responsible for waking Effie Grandmaison.

Knuckles hung up. “The body is coming in on a 7 p.m. flight. Odds are Mr G is accompanying said body.”

“Let’s go meet the grieving spouse.”

Trey Grandmaison looked appropriately startled to see Detectives Murex and Knuckles patiently waiting for him at his Manchester Airport gate.

“We’re very sorry to hear about your wife,” said Ray Murex.

“A true tragedy,” added Bob Knuckles.

“We’d like to clear up a few things. The airport has allowed us to use one of their offices.”

Trey Grandmaison followed them willingly, but pensively.

“Let me start with what we know for certain,” Murex told him after they took seats. “We know that John Doom died in your gray room while you were in Richmond, and was left there for several days while you were presumably absent. We also know that your wife did not expire as a result of sleep paralysis.”

Trey Grandmaison looked at both men by turns. “Sleep paralysis is a medical condition my wife had for years,” he said gravely. “This time, it killed her.”

“It did not kill her. Therefore, you did.”

“I did not! Look, Effie developed narcolepsy. Probably from too much RVing in altered brainwave states. Her doctor can produce the medical records proving it.”

“The reason we know sleep paralysis did not kill your wife is that tape she made.”

A vein pulsed in Grandmaison’s forehead. “Tape?”

“The one recorded in-flight,” Knuckles put in. “You didn’t think we knew about that, did you?”

“I discarded that tape in LA.” The vein continued pulsing.

“Not surprising. Loving husband that you are. Of course you’d throw out your wife’s last recorded words-except she didn’t record them. You did.”

Trey Grandmaison almost cracked a grin. He turned it into a grimace. “I wish now I had saved that tape. We could disprove your theory electronically.”

“Yeah,” Murex went on. “Too bad. But let me continue. The reason we know your wife did not die of sleep paralysis any more than she or John Doom died while remote viewing something that frightened them to death is that if Mrs Grandmaison had been suffering sleep paralysis at the time, she would not have been able to record her experience. Sleep paralysis doesn’t just freeze the major muscles in the body, but the vocal cords as well. A person suffering from SP can’t speak. If they can’t speak, they can’t describe menacing black clouds threatening to murder them. Can they, Mr Grandmaison?”

Trey Grandmaison said nothing. But that vein pulsed more strongly.

“You didn’t think it through very thoroughly, did you?” Knuckles pressed. “You knew you couldn’t pull that remote viewing Hell smokescreen twice. So you had to top it. But plausibly. Maybe Mrs G. did suffer from SP. But we all know she didn’t die of it.”

Gray eyes opaque, Grandmaison said, “No one knows that.”

“I know what you’re thinking. If a person dies of fright as result of sleep paralysis, only they and God would know the truth.”

Trey Grandmaison threw up his hands. “I wish I had saved that tape. It would resolve everything.”

“Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for you, LAPD made a dupe. And here it is.” Knuckles slid a microcassette recorder across the table. He hit play.

“2004 8547 January 31st. 2004 8547… I am in a dark room. I can see a door, but it is closed. Something is stirring above the door, where the wall joins the ceiling. Ominous. Black. A cloud…”

Murex stopped the tape. “Fair job of masking your voice. How hard do you think it will be to match your voiceprint to that recording?”

Trey Grandmaison turned pale and then flushed. He lunged for the recorder, fumbled it open and almost got the minicassette into his mouth before Murex and Knuckles fought it out of his hands.

After they had cuffed him, and his rights were read, Bob Knuckles asked, “Would you say that we’ve got your number, or your coordinates?”

Ray Murex said, “You can tell us about it, if you’d like.”

Grandmaison surprised them. He did exactly that.

“John Doom was a student of mine. One of my earliest students. He kept taking my courses and then he started teaching RV under another name. Using my coordinates. It was getting out of hand. He’d steal my students from my own classes. Charge half what I did. Between him and the sagging economy, I was having a hard time. Something had to be done.”

“So you decided to do away with him?” Murex prompted.

“That was Effie’s idea. She came home from Richmond on the pretext of giving Doom some private training and while he was insession, she sat on his chest, holding a pillow over his face until he suffocated. I showed her how to hold his arms down with padded knees so he wouldn’t bruise.”

“In other words,” Knuckles said, “she burked him.”

Murex looked blank. “Burked?”

Grandmaison nodded sullenly. “An old assassination technique. Leaves no marks. Looks just like natural causes. Effie had him fast for four days beforehand, promising that it would improve his session work. That was so his bowels wouldn’t empty and create a sanitary problem while the body cooled in my gray room.”

“Except the body was flipped over after telltale pinpoint haemorrhages appeared in the whites of the eyeballs,” said Murex. “Either his eye capillaries burst while he was smothered, or gravity did it. Either way, the position of the body gave the show away. You can skip the part about how you staged the death scene in the hotel room. We figured that out. Why did you do your wife?”

“She was starting to become unglued. Guilt. Fear. I don’t know. But I knew she couldn’t hold it in forever. So while everyone was asleep on the plane, I did the same thing to her she did to Doom.”

“What goes around, comes around,” clucked Knuckles.

The throbbing vein in Trey Grandmaison’s forehead became still. “It was easy. I booked seats in the last row. There was no one for six or seven rows around of us. And they were dead to the world.”

“You’re kind of a control freak, aren’t you?” Knuckles pressed. “That’s why you staged the death scene using TIRV class materials, isn’t it? To baffle us and provide you the opportunity to send us off on wild-goose chases?”

Grandmaison shrugged. “It’s elementary psychological warfare. What kind of murderer would leave a trail leading directly to his front door?”

“One who was drummed out of the Army for reasons of mental instability. You were so wound up in your Stargate razzle-dazzle, you didn’t think we’d look beyond it. You were dead wrong.”

Murex frowned. “So you killed this rival Doom because he was stealing your coordinates.”

“They’re worth thousands of dollars,” he said leadenly. “And they’re my livelihood.”

“But they’re only numbers. You told me so yourself.”

Trey Grandmaison’s composed face wavered, recovered, then fell completely apart. His voice broke.

“It’s all I salvaged from my military career,” he sobbed. “My business was everything I had. You don’t know remote viewing, so you wouldn’t understand.”

Ray Murex stood up.

“Maybe not. But I understand observable justice. Let’s go.”