The Rules of the Game

THE RULES OF THE GAME

  A Short Mystery / Discussion

  by John M. Redoix

  Copyright 2014

  "Thank you, Cobalt." Claire politely smiled at the old butler as he sat the porcelain cup of tea down on the small table before her. "That will be all, thank you." I felt rather uncomfortable that she didn't remember to offer me any, but I wasn't exactly surprised. The old butler merely bowed and exited the parlor doors.

  I had come to Claire's lather large and lavish home for a little private celebration - just the two of us. Well, three - if we counted her husband. She had gotten married three weeks earlier, you see, but due to the fact due to my work, I had been out of the country at the time. The closest I'd gotten to the ceremony were photos set to be forgotten in the family album. Which, considering she saw me as her best friend, wasn't close enough. Thus, she invited me to dine with her and her aforementioned husband, who I will refer to as 'Markham'.

  "How have you been doing?" I asked, slowly falling into depression over the fact that my throat had been extremely dry at the time. In retrospect, I suppose it was my fault for not simply asking for something to drink. I like to think, though, that I was too astonished by the fact that his name was 'Cobalt'.

  "Oh, quite well. You?"

  I giggled. "I thought we came to talk about you?"

  "Oh, you know all about me. It's Markham you should be interrogating. But then again, Lord knows he rarely bothers talking about himself."

  "I thought that was part of my wedding vows?" A male voice came from the figure standing at the doorway of the room. It didn't take long to link its face to Claire's husband.

  "How charming of you." She said with no intention of hiding the sarcasm.

  "Come on, it was too perfect." He sat down on the sofa, next to her. "Hm? You didn't offer Verity any of that tea?"

  "Cobalt had already left." She shrugged. "Besides, she said she didn't want any."

  "It's fine, really." I raised my hands defensively. "It's as she says. I'm not thirsty, really."

  "...Eh. But tea isn't really for quenching your thirst, is it?"

  "It is for me." Claire said.

  "To each his own." Markham crossed his legs. "So, you two were talking about mysteries, huh?"

  "Not exactly." Claire admitted. "We were discussing one of my father's past cases. I wanted to show how the nature of some cases change the way the detective has to look at people."

  "So... you were talking about mysteries." He repeated, with a confident smile on his face. "Well, while we're on the subject, then..."

  "...Is this conversation going to turn about your book idea?" Claire shot an annoyed glare in his direction.

  "Oh, come on. At least let me get some advice on it."

  "I gave you my advice."

  "Less... cruel advice, then."

  "You want to write a detective story, but you don't want to take advice from an actual detective. Makes sense to me."

  "There's a reason why it's called detective 'fiction', dear..."

  "Still doesn't change the fact that 'fiction' of yours doesn't work..."

  "Sorry - book idea?" I butted in.

  Claire took a sip of her tea. "Markham said he would try his hand at writing a mystery novel. He gave me his outline of the crime a few weeks ago."

  "And?" I asked.

  "It was terrible, frankly." She was blunt.

  "Oh, come on, don't be like that..." Markham looked slightly embarrassed. "I think you're just being too nitpicky. The crime works."

  "The crime works in the sense that the chain of events can happen - yes, I'll give you that. But it doesn't make sense from a 'common sense' standpoint."

  "How about I just tell the idea to Verity and see what she thinks?""

  "She'll agree with me. If nothing else, it'll be for the fact that your solution is lame, anyway."

  Regardless of her will, Markham began his tale.

  ...

  I'll give you the abridged version of the crime. I won't go into the main characters or their possible motivations. Just the murder itself.

  ...And yeah, it's murder. It's supposed to be a mystery novel, after all, right?

  So, this is from the point of view of the police:

  A former police detective, Mr. Ian Arts, was killed in the mansion located on his private island. He was found dead in his bedroom. At the time, he was supposed to be holding a party, was, alas, murdered shortly after most of the guests had arrived. (The guests included a police detective, his assistant a crooked defense attorney - so, three people in total).

  It happened like this:

  After the three guests arrived, they were greeted by the victim's butler (the only other person that lived in the mansion besides the victim). However, their host - Mr. Arts - was nowhere in sight.

  About half an hour later, they heard a gunshot. It had apparently come from the victim's bedroom. The defense attorney, the butler and the detective's assistant gathered around the door and tried to open it - it was locked (naturally). The butler unlocked it with his master key - only to find that the chain lock to the room was also set.

  So, the guests had to break down the door - and they did. Inside was Mr. Arts, lying on the floor, dead. And right next to him... was the police detective, slowly getting up from the floor. He had a gun in his hand. The room was dark. The detective's assistant checked the body to determine the cause of death - the victim had indeed been shot.

  The room was your basic bedroom, with the exception of a balcony door (it should be mentioned that it was opened at the time the door was broken down) - a balcony door which was also closed and locked by the three guests shortly after discovering the corpse (also note that it, the balcony door I mean, can only be locked from the inside). They searched the room and found nobody else aside from the people they had previously found there.

  (So, was it just me at the time or is this sounding a bit familiar? -- J. R.)

  The guests restrained the detective and took him downstairs, called the police and waited. When the police arrived and were taken to the scene, however...

  ...The body was gone.

  All that had remained was a bloodstain. There didn't appear to be any traces of somebody hiding in the room, yet again. In addition, the only key to the room was in the butler's possession at the time. IN ADDITION, everyone alive was downstairs together after discovering the body. They didn't leave the room they were in until the police arrived.

  The police began with the crime scene.

  First, the door. It was quickly established that the chain could've only been set from inside of the room. However - the door apparently had an auto-lock system in place - so you did not need a key to lock it; it was locked automatically whenever you closed it. The door itself could be unlocked without a key, but only from inside of the actual room. In addition, after talking to the butler, it appeared he really was the only person with a key to the room, which was the master key. According to him, the victim had broken his own key to the room sometime before the party and thus always needed the butler to get into the room.

  The police then began their questioning, establishing the timeline of the crime.

  They first questioned the detective - the man found in the room. He confessed to killing the victim. He claimed that he had entered the room through the balcony's open door and waited for the victim to come. The room was pitch-black, which served him just fine. Eventually, the Mr. Arts entered the room, closed the door and set the chain behind him. It was then that the detective attacked him. The two men fought. The detective pulled out his gun. Now, Mr. Arts was a detective himself, so he was quick to struggle over it with the suspect.

  Eventually, Mr. Arts kicked him away and the detective h
it his head. Because of the fact that the detective had an injury in the back of his skull from a past incident, he began losing consciousness quickly. Mr. Arts, probably realizing that he wouldn't have enough time to get out of the room through the door (unsetting the chain and unlocking the door would've probably taken too long), headed for the balcony door. The detective, in his last bit of consciousness, shot at the victim. The victim stumbled backwards and fell into the room. It was then that the detective fainted. The only thing he remembers after that was being woken up by the sound of the door being broken down and him being restrained by the others.

  Next, they questioned the butler. He claimed that he helped the victim get into his room (due to the auto-lock and the fact that the victim didn't have their key, as established before). He saw the victim enter the room and close the door behind them. The butler headed down the hallway and began his descent to the floor below when he heard the gunshot (I should've probably mentioned that the bedroom was on the second floor of the mansion's two floors). He rushed back and found that the defense attorney was already at the door. The detective's assistant showed up a little after that.

  The defense attorney claimed they were exploring the mansion and were in the room across the bedroom (in other words, in the room across the crime scene). Upon hearing the shot, they rushed outside. They saw the butler running towards them from the direction of the stairs. They also confirmed that the assistant showed up after that.

  The police assistant claimed he was downstairs, on the other side of the mansion, when they heard the shot. Upon hearing it, he ran upstairs and found the two - defense attorney and the butler - standing at the door.

  Another thing to mention is that all three of the guests had a good reason to hate Arts. The reasons for all of them accepting the invitation for the party are unknown.

  The police had a more-or-less clear picture of the crime and the people involved in it. They then examined the evidence - well, the only piece of evidence that was left - the gun. It had only the defendant's fingerprints. It was also determined that it had been fired once and quite recently, too.

  What puzzled them above all, though, was the body's disappearance. You see, there was only one way onto the island - via a bridge (you can't get to the island via a boat or something - the rocks make it impossible to dock anywhere; and the police found no boat or anything resembling like the remains of the boat around the island). This bridge has a camera security system - only the guests were seen arriving on the day of the murder. In addition, it was highly questionable anyone else actually knew about the victim's whereabouts besides those three to begin with. Arts was an introvert and nobody knew his location after he had retired. The only speak of his location came from the invitation to the party itself - which the guests received just the day before the murder.

  So, what happened? How did the body disappeared?

  ...

  "Hm, that's it, huh...?" It was... quite an interesting concept, admittedly. Where the mystery is more of what followed the crime than what preceded it. "Well, let's see."

  "Don't bother. It's impossible to solve it from the information he's given you." Claire said, putting her tea back on the table once more. "There's a reason he told you that the he was telling you the whole thing from the perspective of the police and none of the suspects. And the reason is:

  They all lied."

  "They didn't lie!" Markham furrowed his brow. "There's a difference between lying about something and hiding something, you know."

  "They might as well have lied, then. People lie to hide the truth, after all." She turned to me. "You see, all of them had conveniently forgotten to mention the fact that the detective's assistant was left alone in the room as the detective himself was being taken downstairs by the butler and the defense attorney. He was also given the only key to the room to lock up after he was done examining the scene. Then it becomes simple - he opened the door to the balcony, took the body, and was able to get it into the sea in a relatively short amount of time - according to Markham, there wasn't much distance from the mansion to the edge of the island (which I'm not sure he even mentioned in the narration - wasn't really paying that much attention). He then closed the door from the outside with the key and went downstairs with the others."

  "But... why didn't none of them mention that? Seems... something that's suspicious enough to point out when the police question you."

  "Ah, yes. This is where the characters themselves would've come in. Naturally, the assistant did what they did so they could shelter their boss - that is, lower the amount of evidence usable in court and perhaps even show the possibility of a different culprit (for example, that somebody was hiding on the island). So, of course - that's why they didn't say anything about it when questioned by the police (they did it, after all). Next, the detective himself didn't mention the fact that the assistant was left alone in order to shield them right back (I'd personally say it was for their own benefit, but fair enough, Markham). The defense attorney didn't say anything because they wanted to take the detective's case in court and thus believed that the fact that the corpse disappeared would be their strongest point in making their case. Finally, the butler didn't say anything because he was the true killer."

  "Of course it's the butler." I chuckled.

  "Actually, it wasn't." She stayed completely serious, on the other hand. "You see, the butler was actually Ian Arts himself. He'd accidentally killed his butler and decided to cover it up. He sent the invitations to people who had the motive to kill him and hoped to manipulate one of them into stumbling onto the crime scene, where he would knock them out, fire a shot, plant a gun in their hand (the gun the murder was actually done with) and escape out of the balcony.

  The body itself was in the room from the very start - however, the detective never noticed it because the room was really dark. (Markham's words, not mine). As for the 'butler's' testimony - the truth was that he had lied about letting his master into the room - the person that the detective saw entering the room at the time was the butler himself."

  "Hey, I hinted at that." Markham chimed in. "The fact that the victim and the detective struggled over the gun while the actual gun itself had no other fingerprints..."

  "...Means nothing.

  You never specified what kind of struggle it was - for all the reader or Verity knew, the 'victim' never grabbed the gun to begin with. And so, the fact that the butler was the only person that had gloves means absolutely nothing.

  But let's continue, shall we? After killing him, the only way out would've been through the balcony - as at that time, the door would've been impossible due to the fact that the chain was set. This means he had to scale down the balcony, re-enter the mansion and make his way up the second floor. Surely, the time between the gunshot and him showing up would've been something that the lawyer noticed and so thus - he must've lied in his testimony, yet again. Both of them did. And thus, the defense attorney must be an accomplice. Yet again, we must chalk up this blatant lying to the fact that they wanted to have an ace up their sleeve for the trial (which would've meant they would be admitting to perjury, how charming)."

  "Yeah, but it makes sense." Markham insisted.

  "My dear Markham, it's not the crime itself that's the issue - it's the reasons behind it ever happening! Why didn't Arts simply dump the body into the river right after killing the butler? Who would've known he was even missing? And even if someone DID know he was missing, surely it would've been a much lesser risk than all of this, no? In addition, what about blood tests? There was blood left in the room from the initial gunshot."

  "Well, in the story, I intended to have him destroy the bloodstain under the excuse that--"

  "Bah, I'm not talking about the bloodstain. I'm talking about the BODY.

  There's no way he could've predicted that the assistant would do what they did! And if he intended to make the body disappear from the start, then, again - why even bother with such an elaborate scheme? Why a n
eed to frame? In addition, you've already established nobody knew about the man's whereabouts, anyway. So why intentionally reveal it and have a chance that all three would inexplicably somehow find the body TOGETHER - thus putting all the suspicion on himself? Was it a gamble? If so, it was a rather idiotic and unnecessary one.

  Ah, but there's more. Even if someone HAD found out about his whereabouts earlier, why didn't he simply disappear into the night?

  All of these methods seem much more logical and safer than your hair-brained scheme!

  ... Sorry. I went too far, but..."

  Markham sighed. "...I guess." He was obviously bitter.

  "In addition..." Claire, however, still continued, even after apologizing. "Nobody likes the 'they were all somehow in on it' solution in detective fiction. Your method is a bit more innovative, I suppose, but it's still no fun that the reader couldn't have solved the mystery from the start. You're essentially setting the entire thing up under false pretenses. If everyone's lied at some point, why even trust that the crime happened the way they said they did? Why even trust that the locked room exists? Why even believe in your mystery?

  There's a difference between lying and hiding, as you said - but it still has the same effect on the reader. It's the equivalent of conveniently leaving out that the ceiling of a room is missing!"

 

  She was getting excited. "I believe," she continued, "that to create a solid locked room murder mystery - there are certain rules that need to be followed. Not those by Knox or Van Dine - those are supposed to apply to every murder - but the rules which apply only to locked rooms. MY rules." There was a sense of pride behind those words.