Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes

The Mammoth Book of
LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES
AND IMPOSSIBLE CRIMES

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Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2000

Collection and editorial material copyright Mike Ashley 2000

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN 1-84119-129-9
eISBN 978-1-78033-356-4

Printed and bound in the EU

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

David Renwick

Life for Alvy Singer in Annie Hall can be divided into two categories, the horrible and the miserable. I would add a third: the unbearably tedious. Reality, when its not simply hideous or depressing, tends to be largely unremarkable or in other words, real. And if, like Sherlock Holmes and me, you abhor the dull routine of existence, then books and television shows whose mission is accurately to reflect the world around us will leave you feeling either suicidal or bored witless.

Of course there is a place in detective fiction for the gritty social document, but its not a place Id want to go to for a holiday. Personally I like my dramas to be a little improbable and my comedies a little absurd. I like, I suppose, to be taken to the edge: to teeter on the brink of plausibility, where logic lives dangerously yet somehow still manages to survive. For me this is where storytelling becomes exciting: when the writer is prepared to take risks; to bend the limits of invention. And if for Holmes there was respite from the routine in the form of a seven-per-cent solution perhaps the rest of us can at least find solace in a good locked-room mystery.

Although the impossible crime genre has long been well respected in the world of publishing few people in recent times have been so foolish as to try and make it work on television. This is because we are all so highly sophisticated now that heaven forbid a detective series should be fun. But in the certain knowledge that Jonathan Creek would be branded preposterous and far-fetched I was cheerfully prepared to have a go, with the quiet conviction that people, not plots, are the key to an audiences acceptance. Providing the characters are real and respond truthfully to whatever you throw at them it is my view that you can take as many liberties with the storylines as you like. (Thus Victor Meldrews I dont believe it in One Foot in the Grave is an honest reflection of our own incredulity at the bizarre twists of fate to which he is so often subjected.) Then, as Gideon Fell declares in John Dickson Carrs The Three Coffins , the whole test is, can the thing be done? If so, the question of whether it would be done does not enter into it. Or as Creek himself points out in Jack in the Box , We mustnt confuse whats impossible with whats implausible. Most of the stuff I cook up for a living relies upon systems that are highly implausible. Thats what makes it so difficult to solve. No one ever thinks youd go to that much trouble to fool your audience.

Of course the problem, as Carr also observed, is that when the effect of a particular crime is magical we expect the cause to be magical also. And when the explanation for our baffling scenario turns out as it must to be more prosaic than the events leading up to it we may emerge from the experience feeling cheated. Even the most famous detective story ever written cannot escape this charge: did anyone ever learn that the Hound of the Baskervilles was bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road without a sense of anti-climax? Yet the novel is rightly celebrated because it performs what I believe to be the essential task of any creative work: it pushes the buttons. Within its pages I can think of at least half a dozen classic moments that never fail to send a thrill down the spine; moments that consume and intrigue, that defy you to put the book down. At its very least the supernatural mystery has a magnetic power over and above the conventional detective story: when someone appears to have violated the laws of nature we cannot but yearn to know how it was done. At its best it delivers a chillingly clever solution that reverses our whole perspective on events and sends us away with a warm and satisfying glow. When this happens Carter Dicksons The Judas Window , Jacques Futrelles The Problem of Cell 13 , Melville Davisson Posts The Doomdorf Mystery then you have a rare treat indeed.

All of which is to argue that a fascination for the impossible crime represents, in all of us, no more or less than a primal thirst for escapism. Like the spectral assailant who has miraculously vanished from the scene of the crime its comforting occasionally to give reality the slip and retreat into the more fantastical world of our imagination.

Introduction
HEY, PRESTO!

Mike Ashley

The impossible-crime story is like a good trick. In fact it has to be better than a good trick. Not only must the puzzle fascinate and mystify, but the solution must be just as surprising, yet believable. How often have you had a magicians trick explained and then felt deflated? It almost feels a cheat. Well, these stories had to avoid that. When you read the solution to the crime, you should be able to say, That was clever. Id never have thought of that.

Thats what I hope weve done in this book. Ive endeavoured to bring together a collection of stories that seem utterly baffling and where the solution is equally amazing. Not an easy trick.