"A Perfectly Locked Room"

HARDBOILED locked room problem stories are hard to come by. Nevertheless, here we have one, exhorting us to . . .

"Mail Me My Tombstone."

By Charles Larson (1922-2006; ISFDb HERE and FictionMags HERE).

First appearance: Ten Detective Aces, April 1943.

Reprinted in Ten Detective Aces (Canada), April 1944.

Short story (11 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

(Note: Text very faded.)

(Parental caution: Graphic violence.)

   "I’ve read your stories. You've studied murder. You know the tricks . . ."

AN OLD FLAME suddenly flares up in the life of a newly-married detecfic author, threatening connubial bliss. A former girlfriend is accused of murder, but she's confident that, since the death occurred in a locked room (inevitably pointing to suicide), she's automatically eliminated as a suspect. Her confidence is misplaced, though.

   In spite of being a crime writer, this sort of thing isn't normal for our protagonist:

  "Murder? It happened only in my stories, not in real life. And if it did happen in real life, it happened to men like Dillinger and Nelson, not to people I know." 

   However, not only has the abnormal happened but a clever killer has also managed to pull off a murder, locked room or not, and lay it squarely at the old flame's feet . . .

Evocative prose:

  "A thousand years ago I’d loved her—not the way I love Ellen, but sharper, quicker. In the seconds before I answered, I remembered a hundred emotions I thought I’d forgotten. Aching happiness, childish despair. Long lazy college evenings, hot Sunday afternoons, and the sad trail of rain down a paneled sorority window."

Comment: If you pay attention you'll find a clue in the title.

Principal characters:

~ Steven Loring ("hadn't died happy"), Rita Manning ("now they're holding me for it"), Switzer ("Why didn't you get your head out of the way?"), Bjornson ("I don’t know why I'm messing in this thing. But—sometimes I get hunches. I don’t think the girl did it"), Morris Lugg ("claimed he was delivering handbills. He said he'd heard shots too"), Ellen ("Don't try to find me, Jim. I'm leaving. Second fiddle doesn't interest me at all"), Jim ("I'd heard, but I hadn't heard"), Doc ("You see this wound in his temple? Almost free of blood. The point is that his heart had stopped pumping when the wound was made"), and the plainclothesman ("raised his brown bald head and stared at me. His earlobes were tremendous and his face was long and sad. A bloodhound of a man").

References:

- "Dillinger and Nelson":

  Two wildly famous killers of the era:

  "John Herbert Dillinger (1903–1934) was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer, who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide. Dillinger courted publicity. The media printed exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality and described him as a Robin Hood-type figure." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "Lester Joseph Gillis (1908–1934), also known as George Nelson and Baby Face Nelson, was an American bank robber who became a criminal partner of John Dillinger, when he helped Dillinger escape from prison, in Crown Point, Indiana. Later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that Nelson and the remaining gang of bank robbers were collectively 'Public Enemy Number One'.

  "The 'Baby Face Nelson' nickname derived from Gillis being a short man with a youthful appearance; however, in the professional realm, Gillis's fellow criminals addressed him as 'Jimmy.' A violent bank robber, Lester Joseph Gillis has killed more agents of the FBI than any other criminal. FBI agents fatally wounded Baby Face Nelson in The Battle of Barrington (27 November 1934), fought in a suburb of Chicago." (Wikipedia HERE.)

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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