Passport to Crime, Locked-Room Style

  The Complete Stories of Locked Room International in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  Translated by John Pugmire et al.

  A

  The Pria Guy F Media

  Ebook

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Call of the Lorelei by Paul Halter

  The Tunnel of Death by Paul Halter

  The Night of the Wolf by Paul Halter, adapted by John Pugmire & Robert Adey

  The Robber’s Grave by Paul Halter

  Nausicaa’s Ball by Paul Halter

  The Gong of Doom by Paul Halter

  The Mystery of the Green Room by Pierre Véry

  The Man with the Face of Clay by Paul Halter

  House Call by Alexandre Dumas

  The Locked House of Pythagoras by Sōji Shimada

  Jacob’s Ladder by Paul Halter

  The Ghost of the Badminton Court by Szu-Yen Lin

  The Lure of the Green Door by Rintarō Norizuki

  The Wolf of Fenrir by Paul Halter

  The Executive Who Lost His Mind by Sōji Shimada

  The Spider by Saburō Kōga

  The Miracle on Christmas Eve by Szu-Yen Lin

  The Scarecrow’s Revenge by Paul Halter

  The Cold Night’s Clearing by Keikichi Ōsaka

  Windfall by Ulf Durling

  The Yellow Book by Paul Halter

  The Running Dead by Sōji Shimada

  Afterword: In Praise of Honkaku

  Introduction

  * * * *

  * * * *

  1. The Call of the Lorelei by Paul Halter July 2004

  2. The Tunnel of Death by Paul Halter March/April 2005

  3. The Night of the Wolf by Paul Halter May 2006

  4. The Robber’s Grave by Paul Halter June 2007

  5. Nausicaa’s Ball by Paul Halter September/October 2008

  6. The Gong of Doom by Paul Halter June 2010

  7. The Mystery of the Green Room by Pierre Véry August 2011

  8. The Man With the Face of Clay by Paul Halter July 2012

  9. House Call by Alexandre Dumas April 2013

  10. The Locked House of Pythagoras by Sōji Shimada August 2013

  11. Jacob’s Ladder by Paul Halter February 2014

  12. The Ghost of the Badminton Court by Szu-Yen Lin August 2014

  13. The Lure of the Green Door by Rintarō Norizuki November 2014

  14. The Wolf of Fenrir by Paul Halter March/April 2015

  15. The Executive Who Lost His Mind by Sōji Shimada August 2015

  16. The Spider by Saburō Kōga December 2015

  17. Miracle on Christmas Eve by Szu-Yen Lin May 2016

  18. The Scarecrow’s Revenge by Paul Halter May 2016

  19. The Cold Night’s Clearing by Keikichi Ōsaka May 2016

  20. Windfall by Ulf Durling November 2016

  21. The Yellow Book by Paul Halter July/August 2017

  22. The Running Dead by Sōji Shimada November/December 2017

  Note on Eastern Names

  In the following book you will encounter a number of stories written originally in Japanese and Chinese. In these cultures, surnames traditionally precede the names. However, we chose to retain the idiosyncratic ways of particular translators and editor, though normalised all the names of the authors in the table of contents to the Western order of name-surname. Thus, the surnames of the writers included in this book are: Shimada, Norizuki, Kōga, Lin, Ōsaka.

  For improvements, contact JPRidgeway at https://www.MyAnonaMouse.net

  The Call of the Lorelei

  by Paul Halter

  Translated by Peter Shulman

  Paul Halter is a native of Alsace-Lorraine and has written over 20 novels, including La Quatrieme Porte (The Fourth Door), which won the Cognac Festival Award in 1987, and Le Brouillard Rouge (The Red Fog), which won the French Adventure Novel Prize in 1988. He is a great admirer of John Dickson Carr, and his mystery novels, which often feature an English investigator, Dr. Twist, are often atmospheric and uncanny like Carr’s.

  BENEATH A GLOOMY SKY, THE WHITE BOAT FULL OF TOURISTS ploughed through the murky waters of the Rhine. Seated at a table near the railings, Dr. Alan Twist, a tall and thin sexagenarian, staidly dressed in tweed, watched as the old feudal villages passed by one after the other. Still and defiant, their haughty silhouettes were perched along the peaks of hills like sentinels, complementing the twilight beauty of this romantic landscape. Were those old stones hiding the ghostly Walkyries? Were they the keepers of the Rhinegold? The old British detective asked himself these questions as he succumbed to the strange charms of the legendary river.

  Suddenly, a murmur rose from the tourists on the bow. Twist followed their gazes and saw a dark and threatening elevated craggy mass emerging like a ghost ship from the mist. The word “Lorelei” buzzed through everyone’s lips.

  So that was the famous rock . . . . That was where the famous siren would use her enchanting melodies to lure the unsuspecting boatmen towards their rocky deaths.

  “Striking, isn’t it?” he remarked mechanically to the person sitting next to him. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by these old legends . . . .”

  The man ventured an answer only after some time had elapsed and the German tourists had finished singing “Die Lorelei.”

  “Old legend?” he said. “That’s how you put it? I can tell you that I knew someone who bloody well saw the siren . . . .”

  Dr. Twist turned to look at his interlocutor, a bearded man in his fifties with a somewhat embittered look about him. There was nothing in his demeanor which would suggest that he was joking in any way.

  “His name was Hans Georg,” he began again, as his eyes looked up towards the deadly rock. “Unfortunately for him, he was unable to resist the call of the Lorelei . . . .”

  The detective eventually befriended his companion, one Jean-Marie Vix, who promised to recount the strange tale of Hans Georg one day if Dr. Twist would honor him with a visit to his house in Munchausen, a small village in northern Alsace. Twist, who, coincidentally, was planning to see some friends in nearby Haguenau, took his new friend up on his offer by paying him a visit.

  Munchausen hugs the right bank of the Sauer, which, in turn, flows into the Rhine. It is a rather wild region which, despite being subject to flooding by the devastating river, is also home to a picturesque scenery made up of ponds and oxbows over which willows cast their latticelike foliage.

  Just north of the village, Jean-Marie Vix’s home seemed to erupt from a dreary plain in the midst of a thicket of beeches that surrounded the last few houses. It was an imposing half-timbered two-story house which did not seem to suffer from its isolated location. An ornamental (but slightly askew) border of tiles ran above the first-floor windows. The front door opened onto a large hallway which ran all the way through the rest of the house to the back door; its lime-bleached walls enhanced the reddish patina of the ground-floor windows, as well as the studwork and the polished wood of the doorways. The old house radiated a pleasant warmth that made Dr. Twist feel immediately at home, as did the ebullient welcome from the master of the house, who relieved him of his tweed coat by placing it on the coatrack by the entrance. Without attaching any particular significance to them, Twist noticed, to his left, a few long and beautiful peacock feathers, which had been placed in a terra-cotta vase resting on a low table.

  His host apologized for his wife’s absence. She was busy with a parishioners’ meeting that night but hoped to be forgiven for her absence by having prepared an amazing choucroute especially for their guest. Dr. Twist was delighted and rejoiced in the mirabelle which was served to him after the meal. It was at that moment that Jean-Marie Vix finally began the strange tale of Hans Georg.

  “It all happened in the mid nineteen twenties. Hans Georg, a young, blond, athletic German traveling salesman, had an uncomplicated approach to life. He had great confidence in himself, and in humanity in general, as though there were no such thing as evil on this planet. When his work brought him to Munchausen, he wasted no time courting my sister Clementine, even though we had just barely been freed from the German boot. Although about ten years had already elapsed since the armistice had been signed, the Alsace region was still licking her wounds. Alsace had been affected more deeply than any other region in France; she had to pay a heavy price for the conflict. Some of her sons, who had been forcibly conscripted into the Prussian army, had to confront their brothers on the battlefield . . . . Our family, therefore, was hardly overjoyed when Clementine told us that she was planning on getting engaged to Hans Georg, the German . . . . It was thanks only to the wisdom he had acquired with time . . . as well as to a few glasses of mirabelle that my father, Panaleon Vix, was able to contain his wrath. My mother simply asked her daughter if she knew what she was doing. I was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time, and as far as I was concerned, Hans Georg was quite nice, with his direct manner and his resounding laughter. Most importantly, he never forgot to bring me a present when he came over to visit. On the other hand, my brother Hubert, who was just a bit older than Clementine, could barely suppress his rancor. He cooled down eventually, at least sufficiently enough to suffer through the German’s company, but he never failed to mock our neighbors on the other side of the Rhine, and that is exactly what he did on the day when Hans Georg, who was alway
s filled with a boundless initiative, took us all on a cruise along the Rhine.

  “As we approached the Lorelei’s rock, Hans Georg brought up the old romantic legend. Hubert then proceeded to declare drily that the story had been fabricated to explain why so many fatal crashes had occurred at that particularly dangerous spot. Hans simply shrugged his shoulders and laughed, admitting that, after all, such a thing was quite possible. Yet, a few minutes later, when the rock became more perceptible, he became quite tense and his face appeared visibly confused. Only on the way back did he admit to having seen a young blond woman at the top of the promontory. We all dismissed it as a mere coincidence. A few weeks later, however, he thought he had seen the young woman again several times in a row. In town, in the crowds, at a detour on a country road . . . he had seen her signaling to him discreetly. He turned right around each time he saw her, despite his hesitations. He felt an intense attraction to the young blonde’s charms, but his instincts urged him to be cautious.

  “Clementine, however, was convinced that these sightings were proof that a rival existed, a rival who hoped to snatch her fiance away from her by some sort of cryptic trickery. Hans Georg was not spared a few jealous scenes. She eventually began to agree with her mother, who was very superstitious, and saw the uncanny female apparitions as a bad omen. As for my brother and father, they seemed rather sceptical at that point. Then winter came . . . .

  “It was around mid December, when we were celebrating Clementine and Hans’s engagement right here in this house. It was bitterly cold at that time. Munchausen and its surrounding towns shivered beneath heavy layers of snow. But our home was blessed with a deliciously warm ambiance. There were about twenty of us in attendance: our family, some friends, my bachelor uncle Joseph who had limped ever since he had been wounded in the trenches by a shell explosion. He was a jolly chap who was unmatched when it came time to enliven an evening with his accordion. For Hans, the vision of the young woman had become but a distant memory: He no longer made the slightest mention of it. But the moment Uncle Joseph launched into a rendition of the ‘Lorelei,’ an icy frost seemed to envelop the dining room . . . . My parents and the affianced couple suddenly became pale. There was something incongruous about their frozen countenances and the accordionist’s lilting melody. Without probing or attempting to understand what was going on, Uncle Joseph quickly switched to a more engaging tune. It was a minor incident that the others had hardly noticed, but Hans began to show signs of great concern. He continued to act as jovially as possible, but was caught occasionally shooting quick and furtive glances at the windows.

  “By midnight, all the guests had gone home with the exception of Hans. It was still snowing, but not a single snowflake was falling an hour later when the fiance finally took his leave. He had kept my father company in the kitchen for one last drink, while my mother, my brother, my sister, and myself had gone to bed. When the clock struck one, he finally left the house. It must have taken him two attempts, however, as the first time he tried he had to come back for his umbrella, which he had forgotten to take with him. According to my father, he was a little tipsy but not drunk. He usually spoke quite loudly, and we all heard his thunderous: ‘Ach! Donnerwetter! Ich habe mein parapli vergessen!’ A few minutes later, the door slammed a second time. He had opened his umbrella even though it was no longer snowing. My mother was the one who followed his strange behavior from the first-floor bedroom. The heavy snow clouds lifted, and the veiled moon seemed to bathe the landscape in a cadaverous hue. Hans had barely advanced a few meters in the direction of the village. He turned around and appeared to extend his ear. He then went back on his steps, tentatively . . . . Each time he returned, he wanted to go back out towards the village but he seemed to be attracted by something mysterious coming from the north . . . . Had he stumbled upon the famous siren’s song? My mother asserted that she did not hear anything in particular at that moment, neither a song nor a cry, but she was half asleep, and couldn’t say for sure. She had been awakened from her slumber by the German’s door-slamming, and his shouting. Thus, she had seen Hans circle the house from the left side and waited in vain for him to reappear, but then went back to bed because sleep had overtaken her. Hans was found the next morning drowned in the frozen little pond, about a hundred meters north of the house, and not far from the Rhine . . . . The malevolent siren had succeeded in drawing him into her lethal trap!

  “The police officer from the gendarmerie, who was dispatched to the scene that very afternoon, undertook an extremely detailed investigation. As it had not snowed since the previous evening, he was able to retrace the victim’s path with ease. Hans Georg had indeed followed the contours of the house, working his way along the entire left side of it before making his way to the back door. His steps were not entirely clear because he had been so visibly hesitant, advancing and then retreating. Moreover, the layer of snow was not thick, as the roof had sheltered the edges of the house. Curiously, when Hans veered decisively northward, the steps became quite distinctive. Even though the steps seemed uncertain after an evening of heavy drinking, the footprints here evidenced a rather heavy gait. Hans had headed straight towards the pond, the frozen surface of which had disappeared beneath a pristine layer of snow. He did, however, know it was there. He knew that it was a dangerous place to tread, and yet, this had not been enough to stop him from making his way to the center of the pond, where the ice collapsed beneath his feet. It reconstituted itself during the night above the unfortunate fellow’s corpse, which cast a vague shadow from the depths of the icy water. As for his umbrella, it remained on the ice’s surface, right next to the fatal jaws of the opening he had fallen through. Because the water temperature had been particularly cold that night, he must have died rather quickly.

  “But what would have propelled Hans Georg towards such a dangerous spot? What had he heard right after leaving the house? The officer from the gendarmerie was asking himself that very question, especially after learning of the existence of the enigmatic blonde, who, it turns out, had only been seen by the victim himself. Did she actually exist? He firmly rejected the ‘diabolical siren’ theory which my mother and sister seemed to completely believe. And yet, Hans’s death was shrouded in mystery. The suicide hypothesis did not hold up, given the victim’s personality. Hans Georg had apparently no reason to put an end to his days, especially on the eve of his engagement. An accident? That, too, was unlikely, so bizarre had been his behavior that night. The investigator never brought up the possibility of some criminal mischief, but it surely must have crossed his mind at some point or another. Nonetheless, it was established that no one could have approached the victim on the path he took after leaving the house, either to push him from behind or otherwise make him fall through the ice. The distinctive and isolated footprints Hans left behind proved at least that much. Nor could anyone have walked in his footsteps, tracing them back to the shore, or performing any other perilous act of that nature. Furthermore, the space around the house and the pond were perfectly untrammeled as well. The trees which bordered the north bank of the river were too far from the spot where the ice had cracked to imagine the possible involvement of a tightrope walker or any other kind of acrobatic trick. The theory that the victim’s death had been caused by his own momentary alcoholic frenzy was the one that was ultimately accepted, but I can assure you, Mr. Twist, that from my family’s and my point of view, there is another explanation for Hans Georg’s tragic death.”

  “What you’re saying, then, if I understand you correctly,” Dr. Twist playfully suggested, “is that you believe the siren may have played a role in all of this?”

  His interlocutor seemed embarrassed. He stroked his reddish beard before sighing. “Yes, since there is no other conclusion that I find satisfactory . . . .”

  With these words, he took the bottle of mirabelle, filled the glasses, then added: “But something seems to tell me you are not entirely convinced of this, Mr. Twist . . . .”

  “Well, let’s say that my experiences with criminal affairs have taught me to be somewhat sceptical . . . . But before giving you my opinion, I would like to ask you a few questions . . . . Do you remember any kind of detail that might stick out, any kind of innocuous event that might have occurred then?”