Time for Murder: Macabre Crime Stories. Sydney J. Bounds
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BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY SYDNEY J. BOUNDS
Boomerang
Time for Murder
The World Wrecker
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Sydney J. Bounds
Individual Stories Copyright © 1954, 1955, 1964, 1976, 1988, 1991 by Sydney J. Bounds; and Copyright © 2007, 2011, 2012 by the Estate of Sydney J. Bounds
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For Maureen Shine
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These stories were previously published individually as follows, and are reprinted by permission of the author’s Estate and his agent, Cosmos Literary Agency:
“Time for Murder” was originally published in Authentic Science Fiction, October, 1955. Copyright © 1955 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“Terror in the Séance Room” was first published in Suspense Stories #2, September 1954. Copyright © 1954 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“The House in the Pines” appears here for the first time. Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Sydney J. Bounds.
“The Organ Bank Caper” was originally published in Mystique: Tales of Wonder, January 1988. Copyright © 1988 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“The Crime at Black Dyke” appears here for the first time. Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Sydney J. Bounds.
“The Book Miser” was originally published in Whodunit? The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories, edited by Robert Reginald, Borgo Press, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by the Estate of Sydney J. Bounds.
“The Footprints” was originally published in The First UK Paperback and Pulp Bookfair Official Souvenir Booklet. September 1991. Copyright © 1991 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“Downmarket” was originally published in The Mammoth Book of Monsters. Copyright © 2007 by the Estate of Sydney J. Bounds.
“Knife for a Canary” was originally published in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine #3, October 1964. Copyright © 1964 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“Cordillo’s Shadow” was originally published in London Mystery Magazine #20, 1954. Copyright © 1954 by Sydney J. Bounds.
“A Little Night Fishing” was originally published in The Twelfth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. Copyright © 1976 by Sydney J. Bounds.
TIME FOR MURDER
The corpse was dressed in a well-cut suit of black pinstripe, with white shirt, stiff collar, and black bow tie. It lay across a Persian rug with the pointed toes of patent leather shoes aimed at the ceiling. A neat round hole, rust-brown at the edges, spoilt the freshly laundered shirt.
Inspector Burton listened attentively while the local constable read aloud from his notebook:
“Gerald Laver, age sixty-three, financier, bachelor, lived alone except for one servant. Shot through the heart from a distance of three yards by a .45 automatic—that’s the gun on the table—died instantly. Time of death established by medical evidence, nine to nine-thirty p.m. Wrist watch smashed and stopped at nine twenty-one p.m.”
Burton glanced at his own watch. It was ten thirty-two. “An hour ago. How did you get here so fast?”
“Tip-off by phone—anonymous, of course.”
“The servant?”
“No. He was at the cinema—arrived back at ten-three. We were here before that.”
Burton’s gaze shifted from the two C.I.D. men taking measurements to the gun lying on the table top.
“Any prints?”
“Yes, good and clear—he’ll swing for this.”
“Motive?”
“Established—this case is so easy, a recruit out of Hendon could wrap it up! Papers in the desk show that Clifford Webb, a research physicist, was heavily in debt to Laver, that tonight repayment fell due. With Laver dead, he doesn’t have to pay a penny.”
“Sounds too easy. Where’s the catch?”
The constable shook his head. “No catch.”
“All right,” Burton said. “Let’s pick up Webb.”
* * * *
They picked up Webb. The prints on the gun were his. The serial number proved he had bought the gun only a week before. He admitted that he was in debt to Laver.
Clifford Webb was arrested, charged with the murder of Gerald Laver and brought to trial.
He pleaded not guilty and, when the question of timing was brought out, caused a sensation by proving conclusively that he was nowhere near Laver’s house at nine twenty-one on the night of the murder.
As a member of the Royal Society, he had arrived at Burlington House at ten minutes to eight, listened with a hundred other members to Professor Smythe’s paper—then, at eight forty-five, commenced reading his own paper on Thermodynamics for a Space-Time Continuum. He finished reading the paper at nine thirty-five, answered a number of questions, and left Burlington House shortly after ten o’clock. With more than a hundred witnesses, his alibi could not be broken.
Clifford Webb was acquitted of a charge of murder.
* * * *
Inspector Burton stared glumly at his desk and wondered how the gun that had killed Laver could clearly show Webb’s fingerprints, and no others, if Webb had not been the last man to handle it. He already had a headache from thinking about that.
His sergeant brought him a mug of sweetened tea. “Tough time with the commissioner, inspector?”
“The old man damn near read me the book. It’s a perishing wonder I’m not pounding a beat again!”
The sergeant clucked like a sympathetic hen. “Odd sort of case, inspector. If it weren’t for that alibi—”
Burton spluttered and slammed down his mug of tea. It slopped over the desk, ruining a report he was working on. “Don’t mention alibis to me!”
The sergeant offered his cigarettes. Burton took one, flicked the wheel of his lighter, and inhaled gratefully. The sergeant waited a few seconds, then said, hesitantly: “There was another odd thing I noticed—”
He paused.
“Yes?” prompted the inspector.
“I didn’t mention it before because it seemed crazy—it still does, but maybe you ought to know about it. After you’d left Laver’s house, I was alone with the corpse, waiting for the mortuary van to come. It was quiet in that room. Just me and the deceased—then, all at once, there was this rabbit.”
“Rabbit! What rabbit?” Burton stared at the sergeant. “Did you say, rabbit?” he repeated.
“That’s right, sir—a fluffy white rabbit with pink eyes and long ears. It was running round the room, then, suddenly—it wasn’t there anymore. Vanished right under my nose!”
Burton looked at his sergeant long and hard. “Drinking intoxicating liquor on duty?” he suggested.
“No, sir, hadn’t touched a drop.”
Burton thought of the fingerprints on Webb’s automatic...and now a white rabbit!
“You’re not suggesting it was the rabbit who shot Gerald Laver?”
“Of course not, sir. But it does seem odd, that rabbit coming from nowhere and then disappearing. I just thought I’d mention it.”
Burton stubbed out his cigarette, taking his time about it, but before he could think