fingernails. ‘The answer is, even I can’t contradict myself. Ha!’
Ha indeed. One crummy idea, in a half-dozen lines, and that cribbed from Aquinas. Nor any explanation of the fingernails. (Can the Infinite grow?) Why can’t God contradict himself, anyway?
I look out over the blue city. At any moment, the alien invasion could begin. For centuries, the hordes of Acamar have been on the way: Levering themselves slowly through space; hand-over-hand (if they have hands) along weightless ropes, through frictionless pulleys, dragged along by perpetual motion …
When the first few loaves appear in the sky, I begin the incantation:
‘A certain barber of Acamar shaves all the Acamarians who do not shave themselves. Does he shave himself?’
They think it over and mail a card to me:
Can there be such
a
barber?
There can’t. He twinkles out of existence.
Taking a deep breath, I say, ‘If a barber does not exist, neither do his customers.’
No one on Acamar shaves himself. Already plumes of smoke trail from a few loaves, before sunset the fields will be full of warm toast: fodder for the gentle, lowing, purple beasts.
T HE L OCKED R OOM
A NOTHER F ENTON W ORTH M YSTERY
Fenton Worth instructed his valet Bozo to turn away all callers for the rest of the evening.
‘I mean to spend a quiet evening with a good book,’ said the popular private detective, and indicated a new, calf-bound volume on the library table.
Bozo smirked, knowing what usually happened to all such ‘quiet evenings’ in the life of a famous sleuth. ‘I imagine, sir,’ he said, ‘that a beautiful lady will burst in, begging you to save her life. That, or else Inspector Grogan will ask you to help recover the Stilton diamonds.’
The well-known private dick smiled. ‘Not tonight, Bozo. I mean it: No calls of any kind. If it is a matter of life and death, as is usual, refer our caller to the police. Other cases I can look into in the morning. For now, I’m going to lock myself in the library, and I don’t want to be disturbed.’
With that, the eminent criminologist shooed his servant from the room, turned the key and settled into his favourite Morris chair with the ‘good book’. It was a detection novel, entitled
The Locked Room.
‘The Locked Room,
eh? That should be of considerable interest,’ he mused, toying with his letter opener. This curious instrument was actually a Moro weapon, an example of that knife with a wavy blade familiar to crossword buffs as a
kriis.
Opening the volume, Fenton used the
kriis
to slit a few pages, then began to read.
The plot of this novel, shorn of its ornaments, misdirections and other fanciful elements, was simple: A man was found dead in a sealed room, locked from the inside. No one else was found in the room, and though the death was certainly a homicide, no weapon could be found. Suspects were abundant, yet how could any of them have done it?
Fenton had met a great many such cases in real life; indeed, they formed the bulk of his murder investigations. He had opened locked rooms containing corpses which had been done to death by strangulation, shooting, stabbing, poison, smothering, drowning, burning, being chopped to bits, electrocution; by the action of deadly snakes and spiders – and far worse.
A few of such cases involved rooms which were not really locked at all. These included rooms with secret panels and one room where the midget assassin lay hidden in a chest. Fenton had left all such ‘cheating’ cases to the police.
More interesting were the cases where the rooms were really locked, but ingeniously locked from the outside. One killer, having simply lockedthe door and concealed the key in his hand, helped smash a panel of the door to get into the room. Then he reached through the panel and ‘found’ the key in the lock. Others relied on clever systems of string, pins, wires and so on, to drop latch-bars, shoot bolts and turn locks from outside the door. One killer simply
Ha indeed. One crummy idea, in a half-dozen lines, and that cribbed from Aquinas. Nor any explanation of the fingernails. (Can the Infinite grow?) Why can’t God contradict himself, anyway?
I look out over the blue city. At any moment, the alien invasion could begin. For centuries, the hordes of Acamar have been on the way: Levering themselves slowly through space; hand-over-hand (if they have hands) along weightless ropes, through frictionless pulleys, dragged along by perpetual motion …
When the first few loaves appear in the sky, I begin the incantation:
‘A certain barber of Acamar shaves all the Acamarians who do not shave themselves. Does he shave himself?’
They think it over and mail a card to me:
Can there be such
a
barber?
There can’t. He twinkles out of existence.
Taking a deep breath, I say, ‘If a barber does not exist, neither do his customers.’
No one on Acamar shaves himself. Already plumes of smoke trail from a few loaves, before sunset the fields will be full of warm toast: fodder for the gentle, lowing, purple beasts.
T HE L OCKED R OOM
A NOTHER F ENTON W ORTH M YSTERY
Fenton Worth instructed his valet Bozo to turn away all callers for the rest of the evening.
‘I mean to spend a quiet evening with a good book,’ said the popular private detective, and indicated a new, calf-bound volume on the library table.
Bozo smirked, knowing what usually happened to all such ‘quiet evenings’ in the life of a famous sleuth. ‘I imagine, sir,’ he said, ‘that a beautiful lady will burst in, begging you to save her life. That, or else Inspector Grogan will ask you to help recover the Stilton diamonds.’
The well-known private dick smiled. ‘Not tonight, Bozo. I mean it: No calls of any kind. If it is a matter of life and death, as is usual, refer our caller to the police. Other cases I can look into in the morning. For now, I’m going to lock myself in the library, and I don’t want to be disturbed.’
With that, the eminent criminologist shooed his servant from the room, turned the key and settled into his favourite Morris chair with the ‘good book’. It was a detection novel, entitled
The Locked Room.
‘The Locked Room,
eh? That should be of considerable interest,’ he mused, toying with his letter opener. This curious instrument was actually a Moro weapon, an example of that knife with a wavy blade familiar to crossword buffs as a
kriis.
Opening the volume, Fenton used the
kriis
to slit a few pages, then began to read.
The plot of this novel, shorn of its ornaments, misdirections and other fanciful elements, was simple: A man was found dead in a sealed room, locked from the inside. No one else was found in the room, and though the death was certainly a homicide, no weapon could be found. Suspects were abundant, yet how could any of them have done it?
Fenton had met a great many such cases in real life; indeed, they formed the bulk of his murder investigations. He had opened locked rooms containing corpses which had been done to death by strangulation, shooting, stabbing, poison, smothering, drowning, burning, being chopped to bits, electrocution; by the action of deadly snakes and spiders – and far worse.
A few of such cases involved rooms which were not really locked at all. These included rooms with secret panels and one room where the midget assassin lay hidden in a chest. Fenton had left all such ‘cheating’ cases to the police.
More interesting were the cases where the rooms were really locked, but ingeniously locked from the outside. One killer, having simply lockedthe door and concealed the key in his hand, helped smash a panel of the door to get into the room. Then he reached through the panel and ‘found’ the key in the lock. Others relied on clever systems of string, pins, wires and so on, to drop latch-bars, shoot bolts and turn locks from outside the door. One killer simply
Similar Books
