Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

The copper dazzle of the setting sun on the lake momentarily blinded Richard Verner as the sheriff, at the wheel beside him, turned the car off the road onto a graveled drive that wound beneath tall hemlocks. To their left, a large sign spelled out, “Grove’s Lake Cabins.” The sheriff braked as he swung to the right, to park in front of a cabin with two large front windows, and two separate front doors, one near either end of the cabin. Above the right-hand door was a small sign lettered Office.

The sheriff shut off the engine, and looked somberly at the cabin.

“Grove’s body was in the right half of this double cabin, flat on his back on the bed with a knife through his chest. His niece lived in the left half of the cabin. She reported the murder, and her own story, and the evidence, show that she must have killed her uncle. I’ve had to take her in. But I don’t believe the evidence.”

“Why not?”

The sheriff shook his head. “I know people. She didn’t do it.”

Verner glanced around at the cabins widely spaced beneath the trees, and looked again at the cabin near the car. “Before I do anything, I have to say again, I’m not a detective. You realize that?”

“I know it. You’re a—” The sheriff shook his head. “I can’t say the word.”

Verner said, “Heuristician. It means a specialist at solving problems. I’ve developed the skill well beyond the usual level, but this isn’t the same thing as expert knowledge. I don’t want to go near this cabin unless you already have every scrap of useful evidence the cabin will yield.”

The sheriff nodded. “One of my deputies is a one-man crime laboratory. He’s taken photographs in there from all angles, collected blood, fingerprints, dust, threads, and cigaret ashes, and he doesn’t know what to make of half of it, and neither do I. Anything you do with that cabin, short of burning it down, is okay with me.”

“Good. Now, tell me again what you said on the phone.”

“At about six-fifteen Monday morning, I had a call from Ellen Grove. She said she had just found her uncle dead on his bed, with the door and windows locked. This cabin has a large room and bath in either end, separated by a heavily insulated wall with no door in it. Ellen had promised to wake her uncle early, couldn’t rouse him, got worried and used an electric saw to cut through the insulated dividing wall, between the two bathrooms.”

“Why did she do that? It sounds crazy.”

“You don’t know Ellen Grove’s uncle. It was the beginning of Grove’s busy season. To smash a door or window would have made extra work. All it would take to repair the opening she’d cut would be to put up a small section of insulating board, and meanwhile the damage wouldn’t be noticeable.”

“When you got here, then, the cabin door and windows hadn’t been touched?”

“Right. I went through this opening, found Grove flat on his back on the bed, a knife through his chest, a bump on his head, and blood all over the floor. The knife-wound looked as if it had killed him instantly. There was no note, nothing to suggest suicide, and from the blood and traces of wiped-up blood, it was clear he wasn’t on the bed when he was stabbed. It follows, somebody put him there.

“Well, the door was locked and bolted with a safety chain on it, and the windows were all locked from the inside. Standing there looking around, I couldn’t help asking myself how the killer got out. By Ellen Grove’s own story, she cut through the wall, went into this heavily locked room, and found the body on the bed. No-one else was there. There’s the problem, Verner.”

“Ellen Grove called you about six-fifteen?”

“Right.”

“How did she find out so early that her uncle had been killed?”

“Grove was a very heavy sleeper. He’d asked her to wake him if he wasn’t up by five-thirty. She rapped on his door, called, and there was no answer. There’s a doorbell in case a guest gets in late, but it was out of order. She was afraid when she couldn’t wake him, wondered how to get in without doing a lot of visible damage, then remembered the electric saw he’d used working on a new cabin.”

“There was no opening in the wall until she cut through it?”

“None.”

Verner looked thoughtfully at the cabin.

“The left side is Ellen Grove’s? The right side belonged to her uncle?”

“Always.”

“Did he have any enemies?”

The sheriff smiled. “He had more enemies than anyone else I know of around here. I was one, myself.”

“Why?” Verner asked.

“He had a flash temper, a tongue like a poisoned dagger, and he would nurse a grudge. Several years ago, he had trouble with a drunk, and called me up just as I was on my way to a pretty bad accident. We were short-handed, and I went to the accident first. Grove lever forgave me. He had a lot so say about electing a sheriff and getting an ambulance chaser. He backed my opponent in the last election, and he was backing the fellow they dredged up to run this time.” The sheriff shook his head. “Not that anyone could blame him for backing his own cousin, however worthless the— Well, that’s beside the point.”