The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

Benning’s School for Boys by Richard A. Lupoff

Although Richard Lupoff (b. 1935) is most closely associated with the field of science fiction, in which he is an acknowledged expert on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, his overall output shows that he is a writer who refuses to stay tied down. He has produced a bewildering assortment of fiction from oriental fantasies (Sword of the Demon, 1978), to steampunk (Into the Aether, 1974), to horror (Lovecraft’s Book, 1988) and, of course, to mystery, with The Comic Book Killer (1988) and others. In my previous locked-room anthology, I included Dick’s story “The Second Drug”, featuring detectives Chase and Delacroix. That story, along with several others featuring the two sleuths, may now be found in his forthcoming collection, Quintet. The following includes another of Dick’s detectives, Nick Train, and takes as its setting a place very familiar to the author, as it’s where he undertook his army training back in 1954.

Private Nicholas Train was sitting on his bunk polishing his combat boots, wondering if he hadn’t made a mistake when he passed up the chance for an exemption. They considered cops essential, the Selective Service Board did, and he could have filed papers and stayed out of the draft, stayed safely at home. Pounding a beat in Brooklyn wasn’t exactly cherry duty, but it beat the hell out of getting shot at by the krauts or the nips and maybe coming home with some pieces missing, or maybe in a box.

But, what the hell, he hadn’t liked Hitler from the start, and when his Chinese girlfriend asked him to take her to Mott Street for roast duck lo mein and he’d got an earful from her about what was going on in China he decided that the nips were no better than the Nazis.

Pearl Harbor was the last straw. He was ready to sign up the next morning but there would have been nobody to take care of his mother so he kept pounding his beat, mooning around the house when he was off duty, and taking his Chinese girlfriend to Mott Street whenever she asked him to.

Then, almost a year after Pearl Harbor, Mom died. The day after the funeral Train had dressed in civvies, put in his papers at the precinct and signed up for the United States Army.

And here he was halfway through Basic, sitting on his bed polishing his boots. Somebody had brought a portable radio into the barracks and they were playing Christmas music. A couple of guys were writing letters home. There was a lazy poker game going on, the cards smacking down and coins rattling on a foot locker. And Private Aaron Hirsch was sitting on his bunk crying.

“What’s the matter with you, Jewboy?” That was Private Joseph Francis Xavier Schulte, former altar boy, former star fullback of St Aloysius’s Academy, designated barracks anti-Semite. “You got no right to cry at Christmas carols, you Christ-killer.”

Hirsch jumped up. His face turned the same color as his crinkled red hair. “Shut the hell up, Saint. What I do is my business.”

“Oh, listen to the little kike. Ain’t you tough, Hirsch? You want some of what I gave that Jewboy halfback from Maimonides? I put that bastard in the hospital, in case you don’t remember.”

“Cut it out!”

Ah, the voice of authority. The soldier standing in the doorway wore two chevrons on his winter OD’s. His olive drab uniform was neatly pressed. In it he looked like a military fashion plate compared to the trainees in their baggy fatigues. He wore a brassard around one sleeve, designating him as the corporal of the guard.

“Hey, Pops!” He pointed a finger at Train. “Grab your piece and report to the company office. Captain Coughlin wants to see you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Captain Coffin?”

“Very funny. Don’t let him hear you call him that.”

“What’s he want me for?” This had to be something serious. If it wasn’t, Corporal Bowden would have handled it himself, or at most Sergeant Dillard. The company first sergeant was as close to God as they ever saw, most days. Officers were some kind of exotic creatures who kept to themselves and spoke to the GIs only through sergeants and corporals.

“Christ, Pops, how the hell do I know?” Bowden took a few steps and clicked the portable radio into silence. “Hey, it’s Saturday morning. You guys get a few hours off to polish your gear and get your letters written. What’s this?”

He picked up the playing cards and the cash that was laid out on a foot locker between two cots. “You guys know there’s no gambling allowed in the barracks. And it’s payday. How do you have any mazuma left to play for? Now I have to confiscate this evidence.” He stuffed the cards in one pocket and the money in another. “I don’t know, I don’t know, how are we ever going to make soldiers out of you sad sacks?”

Nick Train had shoved his feet into his boots and tucked his fatigue jacket into his trousers. “Coughlin really wants to see me, Bowden?”

“No, I’m just trying to ruin your Saturday. Of course he wants to see you.”

“No idea why?”

“Nope.”

Train smoothed out the blankets on his bunk, took his Garrand rifle down from the rack near the barracks door and headed out into the wintry Georgia air. For a December morning the day wasn’t too cold, certainly no colder than Train was used to in Brooklyn. The sky was clear and sparkling and the sun was a brilliant disk. There were a few patches of snow still on the ground. The last snowfall had been three days ago. Train held his rifle at port arms and quick-timed across the company area toward the office.

The building behind him was new construction, whitewashed wooden walls under a green tar-paper roof. It would probably be hot as blazes in the summer but he wouldn’t know that. It was definitely freezing cold in the winter.

First Sergeant Dillard was working at his desk in the company office. He looked up when Train arrived, then back at his paperwork. He didn’t say anything, didn’t indicate why Train had been summoned.

Train stood at attention facing the First Sergeant’s desk.

After a while, Dillard looked up again and grunted. “Go back to the door and knock the snow off your boots. What kind of pigsty do you think this is?”

Train complied. Then he returned to stand in front of Dillard, his Garrand at his side, butt on the linoleum floor beside his polished boot.

“Captain Coughlin wants to see you, Train.”

“Corporal Bowden told me. What’s it’s about, Sarge?”

“Sergeant.”

“Sorry. Sergeant.”

“I don’t know.” First Sergeant Martin Dillard shook his head. “I don’t know, but it’s something big. He’s got Lieutenant McWilliams in there with him. And I heard some walloping a while ago.” He shook his head again. “Just go knock on the door, Train, and maybe say a prayer while you’re at it.”

Lieutenant Phillips McWilliams opened the door to the captain’s office when Train knocked. McWilliams was gussied up in officer’s dark greens, the silver bars shining on his shoulder straps like miniature neon bulbs, the US insignia and crossed rifles of the infantry on his lapels polished to a sheen. He even affected the Sam Browne belt that every other officer Train knew had abandoned.

Train almost expected him to be wearing a parade ground saber with his uniform, but he wasn’t. Instead, there was a holster hooked to his uniform belt, the regulation holster issued to officers along with their.45 caliber Colt automatics.

The lieutenant jerked his head toward Captain Samuel Coughlin’s desk.

Train crossed the room, halted, thumped his rifle butt on the floor and executed a sharp rifle salute, the way he’d been taught a few weeks ago.

Captain Coughlin bounced his forefinger off his right eyebrow, then folded his hands in front of him on his desk. Even in December he sat in his shirtsleeves, his uniform jacket with the railroad tracks on the shoulders on a nearby hanger. Train had never been in the captain’s office before. He kept his posture but even so he was able to see the pictures on the freshly whitewashed wall behind the captain. There was a standard shot of President Roosevelt, one of old General Pershing and one of General Marshall, and a blow-up that must have been made in France during the First War. It showed a very young Samuel Coughlin standing rigidly while an officer who had to be Douglas MacArthur himself pinned a medal on his khaki tunic.

There was a fire axe on Captain Coughlin’s desk. Behind him, Train saw another doorway. The door-frame and the door had been damaged, Train guessed, by the fire-axe.

“They call you Pops, don’t they?” Captain Coughlin asked.

Train said, “Yes, sir.”

“Why is that?”

“They’re mostly kids, sir. All of them, in fact. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. I guess Hirsch is a little older, maybe twenty. They think I’m an old man.”

“How old are you, Train?”

“I’m twenty-four, sir.”

“Used to be a police officer, did you?”

Captain Coughlin knew damned well that Train used to be a police officer. He knew how old he was, knew everything else that was in Train’s 201 file, the personnel folder that every man Jack in the Army had. Still, he answered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Twenty-four.” The Captain smiled sadly. “Twenty-four and they call you Pops. Well, I guess we did the same thing in ’18.” The Captain’s face was leathery and etched with lines, his hair graying at the temples.

Captain Coughlin jerked his thumb in the direction of the damaged doorway. “Do you know what’s in there, Train?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s the company safe room. We keep classified information locked up in there. What passes for classified information in this kindergarten. We also put the payroll in there the night before payday.”

Captain Coughlin pushed himself back from his desk and stood up. He moved toward the damaged doorway. “Take a look, soldier. Go ahead in there.”

It was only a few steps. Once inside the safe room Train stopped. The safe door hung open. Train couldn’t tell what if anything was inside. A coffee mug stood on top of the safe. Corporal Miller, the company pay clerk, sat beside it in a battered wicker chair. His arms hung over the arms of the chair, almost but not quite dragging on the linoleum. His head was canted to one side. His hair was matted with blood. He wasn’t moving, and Train had seen enough bodies in the line of duty as a cop to know that he was dead.

Even so, he flashed an inquiry to the Captain, got a suggestion of a nod in return, then felt the side of Miller’s neck, searching for a pulse. There was no pulse. The body was cold. There were no windows in the room. Most of the light came from a shaded fixture hanging by a long cord from the ceiling, casting macabre shadows on Miller’s face. A little more light filtered through the open doorway from the Captain’s office.

Train turned around. Captain Coughlin was standing with his fists balled and balanced on his hips. “Poor fellow,” Coughlin murmured. “He was one of our good boys, you know. Religious as all get-out. Chapel every Sunday. Rosary in his pocket, Missal in his foot-locker. Poor bastard.”

Coughlin didn’t use strong language very often.

Lieutenant McWilliams stood in the doorway, looking like a photographer’s model.

Turning back to Corporal Miller, Train observed that Miller, too, had been issued a forty-five. The holster hung from Miller’s belt, the butt of the automatic visible from where Train stood.

“I should probably call the Provost Marshal right now,” Captain Coughlin announced. “It’s his business eventually, in any case. But they’re looking to put me out to pasture. I shouldn’t tell you this, Train, I wouldn’t tell it to any of the kids in this outfit, but I’m going to rely on your maturity. If I turn up with a dead payroll clerk and an empty safe, they’ll decide I can’t cut it any more and I’m out of here on a pension. Not for me, Sunny Jim! Not with a big war going on.”

He walked around the safe and the wicker chair with its motionless occupant. “No, sir, not for Samuel Coughlin, USA. If we can solve this thing and present a solution to the Provost Marshal instead of a mystery, I just might get out of this kindergarten and got a chance to do some fighting before I’m through.”

“I don’t know if that’s wise, Captain.”

Lieutenant McWilliams had a cultured voice. He was the opposite of the Captain.

Train knew-everybody in the unit knew – that Coughlin was a mustang. He’d been an enlisted man in the first World War, earned a commission and spent the Roaring Twenties and the Depression years soldiering at backwoods Army posts. Now he was overage in grade and hanging on by his fingernails.

But McWilliams was the scion of a high society family. Barracks rumors claimed that his mother had wanted him to live out her own thwarted ambitions, to become a great and famous botanist. Either that, or enter the priesthood. Or both, like old Gregor Mendel. Instead, Old Man McWilliams was delighted when Junior opted for the United States Military Academy. All it took was a couple of phone calls and a generous campaign contribution to a United States Senator, and young McWilliams was in. And he’d done his daddy proud. Cadet Captain, top 10 percent in his class, starting quarterback on the Army football team until a knee injury sidelined him for his senior season. And that might have been a blessing in disguise. The team had played badly and wound up the season losing the Army-Navy game for the third year in a row. At least Phillips McWilliams wouldn’t be tarred with that loss. And the 1942 football season hadn’t been much better, ending with another loss to Navy, a disgraceful fourteen – nothing shellacking.

But now Phillips McWilliams was a First Lieutenant in the United States Army, executive officer of a training company at the Infantry School with a glittering future before him and only a careworn middle-aged Captain to climb over – at least for the moment. As an officer his duties weren’t too rigorous. Train knew that. The ordinary GIs knew more about the lives of officers than the other way around. The people on the bottom always knew more about the people on top. That was one of life’s constants. The trainees knew that Lieutenant McWilliams drove a shiny new Packard convertible, one of the last to roll off the line before the factory switched to war production, and he used it to cruise down broad Lumpkin Boulevard to Columbus or across the Chattahoochie River into Phenix City, Alabama, for a night of drinking and gambling and whoring pretty much whenever he felt like it.

McWilliams’s Packard was just one car that all the trainees recognized. All the officers and NCOs in the permanent party had cars: Captain Coughlin’s gray Plymouth, Sergeant Dillard’s battered Ford station wagon, Corporal Miller’s little green Nash. They all bore Fort Benning tags, blue for the officers, red for the NCOs, all carefully logged in or out every time they passed through the post gatehouse.

Captain Coughlin was talking again. Train snapped back to the moment. To the – he grinned inwardly-crime scene. “The First Sergeant called me this morning,” he said. “Told me that he couldn’t get a rise out of Miller. Corporal had spent the night in the safe room, same as every month the night before payday.”

The Captain paused. The room was silent. A platoon of officer candidates passed by outside. Train could hear their boots crashing on the frozen Georgia soil, hear them singing the unofficial Fort Benning Infantry School song.

High above the Chattahoochie

Near the Upatois

Stands our dear old alma mater

Benning’s School for Boys.

They were past the company office now, their voices growing fainter. But Train knew the song, as well.

Forward ever, backward never

Follow me and die

To the ports of embarkation

Kiss your ass good-bye!

“Safe room door is secured with a hasp and padlock inside and out,” Captain Coughlin resumed. “Not exactly Fort Knox, is it, but it’s the best Uncle gives us to work with. Miller locked his side, I personally locked the outside. Sergeant Dillard, Lieutenant McWilliams and I all have keys to the outside lock, but that wouldn’t get us in if Miller didn’t open his. You see?”

Train grunted, then remembered himself and replied, “Yes, sir.”

“That’s why we had to use the fire-axe.” Lieutenant McWilliams sounded as if he disapproved of the whole proceeding.

Train knew the type. It was all beneath him. All beneath Mister Phillips Anderson McWilliams of the Newport and Palm Beach McWilliamses.

Captain Coughlin grasped Train’s bicep. The touch came as a shock. Officers didn’t touch enlisted men. They might become contaminated. Coughlin’s grasp was remarkably powerful. His fingertips dug into Train’s arm.

“What are you doing in this outfit anyway, Train?” He released Train’s arm, stood eye-to-eye with him. Train was taller by four inches easily but he felt no advantage in facing this older man. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you apply for a commission? You ought to be in CID.”

“Criminal Investigation Division? Me, Captain?”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir. I – I just have to get through Basic first, don’t I?”

“Course you do. All right. Look, I’m calling on your skills, soldier. You know how to deal with a crime scene. You know how to conduct an investigation.”

“Sir.” Lieutenant McWilliams interrupted. “Sir, you’re risking big trouble, sir. This is against regulations. Don’t you want me to call the Provost Marshal? I really think that would be best, sir.”

Captain Coughlin said, “Train, I want you to get to work on this. I’m relieving you of your other duties. You don’t need the training anyway, you know everything a soldier needs to know.”

After another silence Coughlin asked, “What do you need, Train?”

“I don’t suppose you could get me an evidence kit, sir?”

“I’d have to get it from the Provost Marshal. The jig would be up.”

Train pursed his lips. He crossed the room, stood near one wall. He touched his fingers gingerly to the thin structure, then examined them. Fresh whitewash. He laid his rifle carefully on the floor, bolt lever upward. He went back to the doorway and examined the splintered wood.

“Who did this?” he asked.

“Sergeant Dillard.”

“Did you see him do it?”

“McWilliams and I were both witnesses.”

“What time was that?”

“McWilliams and I had breakfast together at the mess hall. Sergeant Dillard came pounding in there to get us.” He looked at Lieutenant McWilliams.

The younger officer said, “We ate at 0530 hours, Train. We were finishing our meal at approximately 0555 hours when Sergeant Dillard arrived. He was out of breath, seemed upset.”

Captain Coughlin grunted. “Go on, McWilliams.”

The Lieutenant looked annoyed. For a moment Train was puzzled as to the reason, then he realized that Captain Coughlin had called him McWilliams, not Lieutenant McWilliams. Train held back a smile.

“We came through the day room, saw the lock was open from the outside. We tried to raise Miller but we couldn’t. So the Captain had Sergeant Dillard use the fire axe.”

“And this room-?” Train inquired.

“What about this room?”

“Did you touch anything? Move anything? Sir?”

McWilliam said, “Nothing.”

Train stationed himself just inside the doorway, studying the damaged wood and the area around it. The walls themselves were made of thin plasterboard. They had been recently whitewashed. Train bent closer to the door-jamb. He studied the wood and the adjacent plasterboard. He didn’t say anything.

Behind him, Lieutenant McWilliams said, “Aren’t you even going to look at the corpse, Private?”

Train turned back, made what might have been an almost imperceptible bow to McWilliams, then addressed Captain Coughlin. “I’d like to be alone at the crime scene, sir. If that’s possible, please. I know, well, normally in police work there are a lot of professionals present. Photographers, fingerprint men, coroner’s people, detectives. I’m not a detective myself, sir, but I’ve been at a lot of crime scenes and I was hoping for a promotion to detective. But we don’t have those professionals here, so if I might, sir, I’d like to be alone in this room.”

“Not possible!” McWilliams sounded furious. “This – this buck private, this plain GI – just because he used to be a flatfoot pounding a beat, wants to act like a big shot and order us around, Captain? Who does he think he is? He belongs back in his barracks, the Provost Marshal should be in charge.”

Captain Coughlin let out a sigh. “Just go and – I tell you what, Lieutenant, scamper over to the mess hall and get us some coffee, will you?”

“I’ll have Sergeant Dillard send a man.”

“No, McWilliams, you go yourself.”

This time Train couldn’t restrain his grin. The Lieutenant looked as if Captain Coughlin had asked him to march around the parade ground in his skivvies. The air in the room was so full of tension you could have picked it up on a Zenith radio. But at last the Lieutenant took his leave.

Captain Coughlin said, “Train, I’ll be in my office. You call me if you need anything, otherwise just come on out when you finish in here.”

Captain Coughlin winked at Private Train. Yes, he did, he actually winked at the buck private. Then he left the safe room. He stopped and drew the damaged door shut behind him, the hole that the fire axe had gouged out admitting light from the outer room.

Train took one more, confirming look at the splintered wood and the adjacent plasterboard. The whitewash was recent enough to show traces of fingers dragging vertically on the door-jamb, then sliding horizontally onto the plasterboard.

Returning to the corpse, Train knelt and examined the two cold hands, first one and then the other. As he’d already noted, the fingertips were white. He lifted them and sniffed. There was whitewash on them.

He studied the wound on the side of Miller’s head, feeling through the bloodied hair to try and determine whether the skull was damaged. It didn’t seem to be. He scuttled across the linoleum and returned with his rifle. He stood over the body, holding the weapon so that its butt-plate was adjacent to the wound. He walked around the body and tried again, from behind.

It didn’t fit. Miller had been hit with something smaller than a rifle butt.

Train studied the safe. He wasn’t an expert safe man, he didn’t know very much about locks, but there was no evidence that the safe had been forced or blown open. If it had been, there would surely have been some reaction to the blast. Who had the combination of the safe? He’d have to find out.

In any case, Sergeant Dillard had tried to rouse Miller shortly before 0555 hours and failed to do so. He had a key to the outer lock and presumably used it – something else to check on-only to be stymied by the fact that the inner lock was dogged.

Captain Coughlin, Lieutenant McWilliams, and Sergeant Dillard all had keys to the outer lock. Only Miller had a key to the inner lock. Where was it? The lock itself was in Captain Coughlin’s office, still attached to its hasp and the splintered wood that the hasp had been screwed to. But where was the key? Train searched Miller’s pockets but failed to find it. The room was not brightly lighted, but Train searched anyway, going to his hands and knees and covering every square inch of floor.

The key turned up in the last place he looked – of course – a darkened corner of the room five or six feet away from the door.

Train stood up, squeezing the padlock key as if it could tell him what had happened. It couldn’t, but he was convinced that the contents of the room could, if only he asked them the right questions.

Once again he studied the damage to Miller’s head. He was convinced that was not the cause of death. Eventually the Provost Marshal’s people or the Quartermaster’s people would come and take away the body, and the Medics would perform an autopsy and pronounce cause of death, and Miller’s parents would get a telegram from the Secretary of War and they would go out and buy a service flag with a gold star to hang in their window in place of the one with the blue star that Train was sure hung there now.

But he didn’t want to wait.

He knelt in front of the corpse and studied its face. He leaned forward and smelled Miller’s nostrils and his mouth but detected no odor. The features were relaxed in death. There was no rictus. He stood up and placed himself behind the wicker chair and tried to imagine Miller’s last minutes.

Someone had struck Miller high on the skull on his left side. The blow didn’t look serious enough to cause unconsciousness no less death. Who had struck Miller? Who could get into the safe room once it was locked from both inside and out? Only Captain Coughlin, Lieutenant McWilliams, or First Sergeant Dillard, and then only if Miller let them in by opening the inside lock.

He heard voices from the outer office and a moment later Captain Coughlin invited him to join him.

Lieutenant McWilliams was standing in front of Captain Coughlin’s desk. There was a tray on the desk, with a steaming pot and three cups. First Sergeant Dillard stood nearby looking uncomfortable.

Captain Coughlin addressed Train. “Come in, soldier. Pour yourself a cup of java.”

McWilliams, uniform pressed and buttons polished, was red-faced, his jaw clenched. With an obvious effort he said, “Sir, I must protest. This soldier – there are only three cups-it’s a violation of protocol-”

Coughlin waved his hand. “We’ll make do somehow, Lieutenant.”

McWilliams drew himself up, suddenly taller than he’d been. “If the Captain will excuse me, sir, I have to return to my duties.”

Coughlin signaled Sergeant Dillard to approach. “What’s today’s schedule, Sergeant?”

“We’ve been pushing the trainees pretty hard, sir. They have the morning off, then grenade drill this afternoon.”

“Good.”

“And, Captain-it’s payday, sir. The men expect to be paid today.”

“All right.” Captain Coughlin swung around in his chair and raised his eyes. It was impossible to tell whose picture he was consulting: President Roosevelt’s, General Pershing’s, General Marshall’s, or Douglas MacArthur’s. Or possibly, Nick Train thought, he was communing his own younger self, the bright young soldier who went to France to whip the Kaiser.

Coughlin swung back to face the others. “McWilliams, Dillard, here’s what I want. Lieutenant, find yourself a swagger stick.”

“I have one, sir.”

“I expected as much. All right. And, Sergeant, grab a clipboard. I want the two of you to inspect the trainees’ barracks. I want you to find at least a dozen gigs. I don’t care how hard you have to poke around to find ’em. If they’re not there, make some up.”

Lieutenant McWilliams’s anger was clearly turning to pleasure. Sergeant Dillard kept a straight face. Nick Train made a supreme effort to become invisible.

Captain Coughlin leaned back in his chair and drew in his breath audibly. “Go slow. Keep those trainees braced. When you finish, you get out of there, McWilliams. Sergeant, you tell those trainees they’re confined to barracks except for meals and training exercises. They’ll have a GI party tonight. The works. Swamp out the barracks, polish the plumbing, climb up in the rafters and get the dust out. They have a barracks leader, do they?”

Sergeant Dillard said, “Schulte, sir. Saint Schulte, they call him.”

“All right. You tell him that he’s responsible for supervising the party. When the barracks is ready for reinspection, he’s to notify you. You’ll bring Lieutenant McWilliams back in and reinspect.”

“Yes, sir,” Dillard grinned.

“And tell ’em that we’re holding onto their pay for them, they’ll be paid as soon as they pass reinspection.” He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a guffaw. “That’s all. Lieutenant, Sergeant.”

They saluted and left.

“Well, Private Train, what do you think?” the Captain asked.

“I think I have an idea, sir.”

“All right, soldier, what is it?”

“May I take this with me?” He filled one of the cups on the tray Lieutenant McWilliams had brought back, then held it up.

“All right.”

Train took the cup with him, back into the safe room. He placed it carefully on top of the safe, beside the cup that had been there when he first entered the room. He studied the cups. They were identical. Of course that didn’t prove much. But there was a small Infantry School crest on each of them. That meant that they came from either the Officers Club or the NCO Club, not the mess hall, despite the instructions that Coughlin had given McWilliams.

He sniffed the coffee in the cup he’d brought, then bent over the other cup. Being careful not to touch the cup or its contents, he tried to detect an odor coming from it, but without success. Even so, he thought, even so, he was making progress.

He’d been attempting to recreate Corporal Miller’s actions when Lieutenant McWilliams had arrived. Now he resumed that effort. He squatted beside Miller’s wicker chair and reached for his coffee cup, the cup that was resting on top of the safe. He lifted the cup, sipped at the coffee, lowered the cup once more and pushed himself erect.

He crossed the room to the door and extracted the padlock key from his pocket.

So far, so good. But Miller had not opened the lock. Instead he had struck the wood and plasterboard repeatedly with his hands, as if he was trying to grasp the lock and insert the key. The key had tumbled from his fingers and clattered across the room.

Why would it do that? Why did that happen?

If Miller was dizzy, losing consciousness, trying to leave the room, he would have done that. He would have opened the lock, trying to get out of the safe room. Of course he would have failed, the outer padlock would have stopped him. But if he was confused, struggling, he might not have thought that through.

With the key lost, lying in a dark corner of the room, his vision and equilibrium failing, Miller would have staggered backwards.

Train duplicated the act.

Two, three, four steps and – Miller would have collapsed into the wicker armchair. Train collapsed, found himself sitting in the lap of a cold cadaver, leaped to his feet.

No, the blow to Miller’s head had not caused his death. It was a red herring, designed to direct the investigation of Miller’s death – the inevitable investigation of Miller’s death-away from what had really happened. He’d have to have Miller’s coffee tested, but in all likelihood that was the means by which a lethal dose had been administered.

Train peered into the corpse’s face again. If it hadn’t been for the blow to Miller’s head, any investigation would have found that he’d died of natural causes. Even young men have heart attacks, and the rigors of military life on a man whose former lifestyle had been sedentary could bring on a sudden deadly embolism.

But who had administered the blow to Miller’s head, and why, and when?

Nick Train retraced his route from the door to the wicker chair, to the safe, back to the door, back to the chair. Then he stopped, staring down at the remains of Corporal Fred Miller, company pay clerk.

He wasn’t an expert on poisons but he’d learned a little bit about them, first in high school and then at the police academy. Miller had apparently realized there was something seriously wrong with him, tried to get help, then staggered backwards and collapsed into his wicker armchair to die. The only mark on his body was the obviously superficial head wound.

What would cause a death like Miller’s?

Based on Train’s police training, the likely suspect was digitonin, an easily soluble form of digitalis. That would come from a common plant called purple foxglove, also known as bloody fingers or dead men’s bells. The victim might well drink it, for instance in a cup of coffee, and not notice anything for as long as several hours. Then his heart action would slow, he would become dizzy and disoriented, lose consciousness and die quietly.

Just as Corporal Fred Miller had died.

Train made his way to Captain Coughlin’s office and told the captain his conclusions. He described his reconstruction of Miller’s movements from the wicker chair to the padlock, the struggle with the key, and Miller’s collapse and death.

“I don’t know what an autopsy will show, Captain. I’m not sure what signs that poison would leave in the body. Maybe none. I’m not a trained toxicologist, sir. But I’d bet my month’s pay that a chemical test will show digitonin in Miller’s coffee.”

Captain Coughlin grunted. “Sounds very plausible, Train. And we’ll get the right people in to check those things damned soon. I don’t think I can hold out on this thing more than another hour or two.” He put his face in his hands and rubbed, as if that would stimulate the blood flow and help his brain to work.

“Great job so far,” he resumed. “But if that’s how Miller was killed, you still haven’t told me how the money was removed from the safe. Not to mention – what do you call it in the detective business, Train-Who Dunnit?”

“Sir, I’m not a detective. But I have an idea of how the money was removed. I think that Miller was working with his killer. Whoever was his partner double-crossed him.”

Coughlin picked up his cup of coffee and raised it to his lips. An odd expression crossed his face. He lowered the cup without taking any coffee.

“What would you call that, Train – an inside job, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Train paused for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. The silence was punctuated by a booming sound. An artillery unit was practicing coordination with an infantry brigade on the other side of the post. The sound was that of a 155-millimeter howitzer.

“Captain, here’s the way I think it happened. Miller’s partner opened the outer padlock, Miller opened the inner one. The partner brought a cup of coffee with him. Miller thought that was nice. He left it on top of the safe. Miller’s partner opened the safe.”

He stopped, then asked, “Who knows the combination to the safe, Captain?”

“Same people who have keys to the padlock. Lieutenant McWilliams, Sergeant Dillard, and myself.”

“Yes, sir. Well, Miller’s partner opened the safe and removed the cash. Then he hit Miller. The wound looked to me as if it could have been inflicted with the butt of a forty-five. Miller was still conscious. His partner left, taking the money with him. Miller relocked the door from the inside and his partner relocked it from the outside. The idea was that Miller would claim he’d been attacked by an unknown assailant, maybe a masked safecracker who managed to open the safe and get away with the payroll. That would send the CID off on the trail of an imaginary crook from outside, someone who had managed to get copies of the keys to both padlocks, while in fact Miller and his partner had the money.”

“And what would they do with the payroll?”

Train shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. But I have a suggestion.”

There was another boom, another howitzer round fired.

“The first thing to do is check Miller’s belongings. No telling what we’ll find there.”

Captain Coughlin summoned the Sergeant of the Guard and had a corporal and a private stationed outside the company office. They had strict orders not to step inside, not even to look inside, on pain of court martial. Then the captain told Nick Train to come with him.

Train was feeling less like a soldier and more like a cop by the minute.

Permanent party had better housing than transients at Benning. Corporal Miller had lived in a tiny room, partitioned in an NCO barracks. Train used a pair of bolt-cutters to open the padlock on Miller’s door and then to remove a second padlock from Miller’s foot locker.

The locker contained clean uniforms, underwear, toilet articles, all in inspection-ready order. Boots and shoes lined up beneath Miller’s bunk. Civvies on wire hangers on a wall-mounted rod.

The only non-regulation items in Miller’s foot locker were his religious paraphernalia. Rosary, Douay Bible, religious pictures, a couple of saint’s medals.

Train was kneeling in front of the foot locker, carefully examining its contents. He sensed Captain Coughlin standing behind him and turned to look at him. Captain Coughlin was studying the contents of the locker, as well.

“I don’t see anything here,” Train said.

“I do.” Captain Coughlin frowned.

“Sir?”

“You know Miller was a very religious man, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“His most precious belonging was his Missal. He always carried it around with him. But it wasn’t in the safe room, was it, Train?”

“No, I’d have seen it.”

“Then it should be in his foot locker. Not here, is it?”

Train shook his head.

“Where is it?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“How’s this, Train? Maybe the old man can play detective, too. It was just a little book, you know. He could have put it in a uniform pocket. Could have had it with him in the safe room. Probably did. It’s a long night in there, no companions, no entertainment, another man might ask permission to bring in a radio, or might smuggle in some comic books or magazines. But a man like Miller would bring either a Bible or a Missal and spend his time communing with the Almighty.”

Train struggled to his feet. He was pushing a quarter century and his knees weren’t as flexible as they’d been ten years ago.

“You think Miller’s partner took the Missal?”

“Yep.”

“But why, Captain?”

Coughlin shrugged. “Who do you think Miller’s partner was, Train?”

“It had to be someone who had the key to the outer lock.”

“Yes.”

Another distant howitzer boom.

“Who, Train? Don’t be afraid. Who was Miller’s partner?”

“It had to be Lieutenant McWilliams or Sergeant Dillard, sir.”

“Or – who else?”

“You, sir.”

“That’s right. We have three suspects now, Train. That’s progress. That’s real progress. It has to be McWilliams or Dillard or Captain Coffin. Oh, I know what they call me. Don’t be naïve.” He paused. “Three suspects. Don’t be afraid to say it.”

He walked to the window. At least Miller had had a window in his room. He peered outside for a long moment. Looking past the captain, Train could see the patches of snow covering the red west Georgia clay.

“Where do you think the money is, Train?”

“I don’t know. Sir.”

“Try. If you were the killer, Train, if you were McWilliams or Dillard or Old Man Coughlin, Captain Coffin, and you had just robbed the company safe, what would you do with the money?”

“I think I’d try and get it off the post, Captain.”

“I think so, too. All right, come on back to the company office, soldier.”

The two soldiers posted outside the company office rendered smart rifle salutes to Captain Coughlin as he and Private Train returned. The captain motioned Train to sit opposite him, then picked up a telephone and placed a call. He picked up a pencil and scribbled a few notes, then grunted into the receiver and hung it up.

“McWilliams and Dillard both drove off post last night. McWilliams left around 2300 hours. Returned at 0400 this morning. Dillard left at 2346 hours and returned shortly after 0500. There’s no record of my leaving the post, and in fact I did not. What do you make of it, Train?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Train followed Coughlin’s glance to a wall-mounted clock. It was well into the afternoon. He and Captain Coughlin had missed the noon meal. Train’s barracks-mates would be on the practice range, throwing dummy hand grenades at cardboard targets.

From outside the building, Train heard a familiar voice. It was Lieutenant McWilliams, dressing down the two soldiers for what Train knew would be some petty offense. A moment later, McWilliams strode into the office and halted before Captain Coughlin’s desk. He snapped a sharp salute and all but clicked his heels, Gestapo-fashion.

“Sit down, Lieutenant,” Coughlin instructed. “Good. Make yourself comfortable. Don’t worry about sitting next to an enlisted man, you won’t catch a disease.”

McWilliams sent a filthy glare at Train.

“Where were you last night, Lieutenant?”

“I was here, sir. In the company office. Catching up on paperwork, looking over training schedules.”

“Right. And then?”

‘Then, sir?”

“Then, Lieutenant. You didn’t spend the night here, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, where did you go?”

“I went to my quarters, sir. I got a good night’s sleep, then I went to the mess hall and met you there for breakfast.”

“Right.”

Coughlin picked a sheet of paper off his desk, fingered it briefly, then dropped it again.

“Gate guards indicate that you left the post at 2300 hours last night and returned at 0400.”

“Oh. Yes, sir. That’s true.”

“That’s all right, Lieutenant. You’re an officer and a gentleman. You don’t have to stand bed check. So long as you’re present for all duties, you can come and go as you please. That’s per regulations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you, though?”

“Am I required to answer that, sir?”

“I am directing you to answer, yes, Lieutenant.”

McWilliams had removed his visored cap and was holding it in his lap. “Sir, I met some friends and enjoyed a social visit.”

“Right. And where was that?”

“Columbus, sir.”

“Broad Street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You get laid, McWilliams?”

“Sir!”

“Jesus Christ, man, you have a pair of gonads, don’t you? What did you do, pick up a woman in a bar? Do you have a steady girlfriend? Go to a whorehouse? This isn’t a Sunday School class, Lieutenant, we’ve had a murder and robbery here. Where were you last night?”

“The, ah, that one, Captain.”

There was another boom. It was louder than the howitzer booms, but in fact it seemed to be a smaller explosion, sharper, closer to the company area.

“Which one?”

“Ah, the last one, sir.”

“Please, McWilliams, let’s have it in plain English.”

“All right, sir. I was at the Cardinal Hotel.”

“Okay. We all know what that place is. I just hope you were careful, Lieutenant.”

“I was, sir.”

The young officer’s face was crimson.

“All right. One more thing. I want to inspect your vehicle.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right now, McWilliams.” The captain turned to Nick Train. “Did your police training include checking out vehicles for contraband, Private?”

“It did, sir.”

Train wound up inspecting Lieutenant McWilliams’s 1942 Packard Darrin One-Eighty. The convertible came up spotlessly clean and innocent, inside and out. McWilliams stood by fuming, Captain Coughlin watched noncommittally. Nothing under the hood but a perfectly maintained straight-eight engine. Nothing in the trunk but a jack, a tire-iron, a tool kit, and a spare tire. At the end, Train crawled out from under the car, dusted himself off and presented himself to Coughlin.

“Nothing, sir.”

“All right, Train. Lieutenant McWilliams, you hurry out to the grenade range and have a look-see. That was a nasty pop a little while ago. I hope somebody didn’t set off a real grenade. Train, you come with me. We’re going to have a look at Corporal Miller’s vehicle. McWilliams, you don’t mind if we borrow your tire iron, do you? Just in case we need it to pry open Miller’s car?”

But Miller’s little ’36 Nash 400 had been left unlocked. The True Believer in All Things Holy had trusted his fellow man to that extent. Or maybe he had nothing worth stealing. There was no trunk lid in the odd little car. Train scrambled over the seat to get into the trunk. The car wasn’t as well maintained mechanically as McWilliams’s Packard, nor was the interior quite as clean and innocent.

Train emerged with a half-empty bottle of Bourbon in one hand and a stack of ratty publications in the other. “Girly books,” he grinned, offering the loot to Captain Coughlin.

The captain grinned and shook his head. “So little Miller had a pair of gonads, too.” He brushed his hand across his forehead. “Well, we’ll just toss that stuff. No need to upset his family, they’ve got grief enough coming. No Missal, though?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, soldier. On to Sergeant Dillard’s wagon.”

But before they got to that vehicle, a soldier in olive fatigues came panting up, perspiring profusely despite the winter chill. Train recognized the ruddy complexion and the curly rust-colored hair sticking out from under the man’s fatigue cap. It was Aaron Hirsch. He wasn’t crying, just sweating.

He managed to pull himself together and salute the captain.

“Sir, Lieutenant McWilliams sends his respects and a message for the captain.”

“Yes, yes.” Coughlin returned the salute. “What is it, Hirsch?”

“It’s Sergeant Dillard, sir.”

“What happened?”

“He was demonstrating grenade technique, sir. He had a practice grenade. It was painted the way they are, to show they’re not armed. He pulled the pin and counted down to show us how long it took for the fuse to burn. It went off, sir. It wasn’t a practice grenade. It was a live grenade. He it went off, sir. It blew him to bits, sir.”

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Jesus. The poor bastard. He must have known the jig was up. All right, here comes McWilliams now.”

And Lieutenant McWilliams arrived, polished shoes covered with red Georgia dust even in winter, uniform spotless and pressed, every brass button glittering in the December sunlight. Even before McWilliams got off his salute, Captain Coughlin barked at him.

“You’ve sent for the medics, of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cancelled the rest of the session and sent the men to barracks.”

“Under command of Private Schulte, sir. A fine soldier, I can see that already.”

“I’m sure of it. All right, McWilliams. Let’s have a look in Sergeant Dillard’s vehicle.”

They found it concealed inside the spare tire in Dillard’s Ford. Miller’s missing Missal. The annotations were in a simple code; the Provost Marshal’s men and the CID investigators would have no problem cracking it. Poor innocent Miller, the payroll clerk had made notes to himself in the Missal, notes that gave the key to his carefully maintained records. It was obvious that he never thought anyone would see the contents of the Missal except himself and his God.

Everything was there. The identities of the gamblers, the amounts they owed. The monthly payroll would have got a lot of military men out of debt with whoever held their IOU’s. A lot of military men including Sergeant Dillard and Corporal Miller. And Lieutenant McWilliams.

“You, Lieutenant? That’s hard to believe. You drive that Packard, you wear custom-tailored uniforms, you’re from old money, McWilliams. How could you get in so deep? Why didn’t you just ask your family to bail you out?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Captain. With due respect to your rank, sir, you really wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t go to my family. I had to work this out myself.”

Captain Coughlin moaned, as if he and not Lieutenant McWilliams had been caught. “It was the Army-Navy game that did it, wasn’t it? Loyal to the old school, you went double-or-nothing on everything you owed, and Navy whipped Army again, didn’t they? You poor sap, McWilliams. You poor, poor sap.”

The captain drew in a deep breath. Then he said, “I take it you and Sergeant Dillard and Corporal Miller were all in this together? Who was your bookie, that’s not in Miller’s book. Was it Jackalee Jennings in Columbus? Or somebody in Phoenix City? Big Mike Norris? Larry Sunday? You know, those fellows don’t keep their operations very secret, they’re pals with the sheriffs on both sides of the river. Who was it, son?”

McWilliams looked angry for a moment when he heard Captain Coughlin use that last word. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think I should say anything, Captain. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice I have the right to a civilian attorney and I will ask my family to provide one. That much, I will accept from them.”

“Did you kill him, McWilliams? Tell me that much. Was it you or was it Dillard? Which one of you killed Miller?”

“I’m not going to answer any questions, sir.”

“Dillard is dead now. Very convenient, McWilliams. You can lay it all on his grave. I suppose that’s what your lawyer will do, isn’t it?” He looked up, looked over McWilliams’s cap with its glittering eagle ornament and its polished leather visor. Train wondered what Captain Coughlin saw. He couldn’t guess. Coughlin said, “All right, Lieutenant. Report to the Provost Marshal and tell him to place you under arrest pending investigation.”

Nick Train watched Lieutenant McWilliams salute, execute a smart about face, and march off like a good little soldier.

“Where did they get the poison?” Captain Coughlin asked. He didn’t direct the question to anyone in particular, but Private Train and Private Hirsch were both within earshot.

“Foxglove is common,” Train said, “it grows in every ditch in the State of Georgia.”

“Lot of it in Spain, too,” Hirsch volunteered. “I was there with the Lincolns, you know. Saw plenty of Foxglove.”

Captain Coughlin said, “All right, boys, you go back to your barracks and polish your boots.”