Deshil Hemmet - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 31, No. 4. Whole No. 173, April 1958

John Dickson Carrs celebrated specialty: the locked room, the impossible crime, the miracle problem, the always fascinating murder as if by magic...

He could never understand afterward why he felt uneasiness, even to the point of fear, before he saw the beach at all.

Night and fancies? But how far can fancies go?

It was a steep track down to the beach. The road, however, was good, and he could rely on his car. And yet, halfway down, before he could even taste the sea-wind or hear the rustle of the sea, Dan Fraser felt sweat on his forehead. A nerve jerked in the calf of his leg over the foot brake.

Look, this is damn silly! he thought to himself. He thought it with a kind of surprise, as when he had first known fear in wartime long ago. But the fear had been real enough, no matter how well he concealed it, and they believed he never felt it.

A dazzle of lightning lifted ahead of him. The night was too hot. This enclosed road, bumping the springs of his car, seemed pressed down in an airless hollow.

After all, Dan Fraser decided, he had everything to be thankful for. He was going to see Brenda; he was the luckiest man in London. If she chose to spend weekends as far away as North Cornwall, he was glad to drag himself there even a day late.

Brendas image rose before him, as clearly as the flash of lightning. He always seemed to see her half laughing, half pouting, with light on her yellow hair. She was beautiful; she was desirable. It would only be disloyalty to think any trickiness underlay her intense, naive ways.

Brenda Lestrange always got what she wanted. And she had wanted him, though God alone knew why: he was no prize package at all. Again, in imagination, he saw her against the beat and shuffle of music in a night club. Brendas shoulders rose from a low-cut silver gown, her eyes as blue and wide-spaced as the eternal Eves.

Youd have thought she would have preferred a dasher, a roaring bloke like Toby Curtis, who had all the women after him. But that, as Joyce had intimated, might be the trouble. Toby Curtis couldnt see Brenda for all the rest of the crowd. And so Brenda preferred

Well, then, what was the matter with him?

He would see Brenda in a few minutes. There ought to have been joy bells in the tower, not bats in the

Easy!

He was out in the open now, at sea level. Dan Fraser drove bumpingly along scrub grass, at the head of a few shallow terraces leading down to the private beach. Ahead of him, facing seaward, stood the overlarge, overdecorated bungalow which Brenda had rather grandly named The Kings House.

And there wasnt a light in it not a light showing at only a quarter past ten.

Dan cut the engine, switched off the lights, and got out of the car. In the darkness he could hear the sea charge the beach as an army might have charged it.

Twisting open the handle of the cars trunk, he dragged out his suitcase. He closed the compartment with a slam which echoed out above the swirl of water. This part of the Cornish coast was too lonely, too desolate, but it was the first time such a thought had ever occurred to him.

He went to the house, round the side and toward the front. His footsteps clacked loudly on the crazy-paved path on the side. And even in a kind of luminous darkness from the white of the breakers ahead, he saw why the bungalow showed no lights.

All the curtains were drawn on the windows on this side, at least.

When Dan hurried round to the front door, he was almost running. He banged the iron knocker on the door, then hammered it again. As he glanced over his shoulder, another flash of lightning paled the sky to the west.

It showed him the sweep of gray sand. It showed black water snakily edged with foam. In the middle of the beach, unearthly, stood the small natural rock formation shaped like a low-backed armchair, eternally facing out to sea which for centuries had been known as King Arthurs Chair.

The white eye of the lightning closed. Distantly there was a shock of thunder.

This whole bungalow couldnt be deserted! Even if Edmund Ireton and Toby Curtis were at the formers house some distance along the coast, Brenda herself must be here. And Joyce Ray. And the two maids.

Dan stopped hammering the knocker. He groped for and found the knob of the door.

The door was unlocked.

He opened it on brightness. In the hall, rather overdecorated like so many of Brendas possessions, several lamps shone on gaudy furniture and a polished floor. But the hall was empty too.

With the wind whisking and whistling at his back Dan went in and kicked the door shut behind him. He had no time to give a hail. At the back of the hall a door opened. Joyce Ray, Brendas cousin, walked toward him, her arms hanging limply at her sides and her enormous eyes like a sleepwalkers.

Then you did get here, said Joyce, moistening dry lips. You did get here, after all.

I

Dan stopped. The sight of her brought a new realization. It didnt explain his uneasiness or his fear but it did explain much.

Joyce was the quiet one, the dark one, the unobtrusive one, with her glossy black hair and her subdued elegance. But she was the poor relation, and Brenda never let her forget it. Dan merely stood and stared at her. Suddenly Joyces eyes lost their sleepwalkers look. They were gray eyes, with very black lashes; they grew alive and vivid, as if she could read his mind.

Joyce, he blurted, Ive just understood something. And I never understood it before. But Ive got to tell

Stop! Joyce cried.

Her mouth twisted. She put up a hand as if to shade her eyes.

I know what you want to say, she went on. But youre not to say it! Do you hear me?

Joyce, I dont know why were standing here yelling at each other. Anyway, I... I didnt mean to tell you. Not yet, anyway. I mean, I must tell Brenda

You cant tell Brenda! Joyce cried.

Whats that?

You cant tell her anything, ever again, said Joyce. Brendas dead.

There are some words which at first do not even shock or stun. You just dont believe them. They cant be true. Very carefully Dan Fraser put his suitcase down on the floor and straightened up again.

The police, said Joyce, swallowing hard, have been here since early this morning. Theyre not here now. Theyve taken her away to the mortuary. Thats where shell sleep tonight.

Still Dan said nothing.

Mr. Mr. Edmund Ireton, Joyce went on, has been here ever since it happened. So has Toby Curtis. So, fortunately, has a man named Dr. Gideon Fell. Dr. Fells a bumbling old duffer, a very learned man or something. Hes a friend of the police; hes kind; hes helped soften things. All the same, Dan, if youd been here last night.

I couldnt get away. I told Brenda so.

Yes, I know all that talk about hard-working journalists. But if youd only been here, Dan, it might not have happened at all.

Joyce, for Gods sake!

Then there was a silence in the bright, quiet room. A stricken look crept into Joyces eyes.

Dan, Im sorry. Im terribly sorry. I was feeling dreadful and so, I suppose, I had to take it out on the first person handy.

Thats all right. But how did she die? Then desperately he began to surmise. Wait, Ive got it! She went out to swim early this morning, just as usual? Shes been diving off those rocks on the headland again? And

No, said Joyce. She was strangled.

Strangled?

What Joyce tried to say was murdered. Her mouth shook and faltered round the syllables; she couldnt say them; her thoughts, it seemed, shied back and ran from the very word. But she looked at Dan steadily.