'Dial Home For Murder'
A Locked Room Mystery
By James McGowan
?1998 James McGowan

	I had been alternating between solitaire and my latest 
story on the PC.  The game had been receiving the greater 
part of my time over the last few days : it was always like 
this when a case had been a failure.  It would make a good 
story, and McMillan, my editor and erstwhile agent, would 
pick it up for the weeklies, but I always found it difficult 
to chew over the bones of failure.

	Caitlin knocked on the door, and popped her head 
round. "I have a man here who wants to see you, Jer"  She 
smiled as she saw the scatter of playing cards on the 
computer screen. "He says he needs your help to solve a 
problem the police seem to be ignoring."  I smiled, glad of 
the interruption, but as I got the door of my study, she 
whispered in my ear "I'm afraid he thinks that it might have 
been little green men."

	He was rather unassuming, sitting neatly on the edge 
of my settee.  I asked Caitlin if she would mind making us 
some Earl Gray.  "Of course dear.  Jer, this is Richard 
Bolton, of the... what did you call yourselves again?" 

	"Anglian Extraterrestrial Research Institute, my 
dear." He stood up and shook my hand.  "And I am glad to 
meet you at last, Dr. Enigma."

	"Please, Mr. Bolton, call me Jeremy Maine.  Enigma is 
only a pen-name I use at the insistence of my editor.  I 
find it rather tiresome."  I motioned Bolton to sit down 
again, and Caitlin slipped out to get the tea.  "Now, what 
do you think I can do to help you and your Institute, Mr. 
Bolton?"

	"Well, I am not here on behalf of the Institute, not 
really.  But I do have a mystery that I believe can benefit 
from the application of your sense of deduction."

	"Go on."

	"Where to begin....  I take it you have heard of a man 
called Harry Cuthbertson?  He writes about UFOs mainly, and 
has published quite a few books." 

	"Yes, I have heard of him.  I'm sorry Mr. Bolton, can 
I just say at the outset that I am a borderline sceptic when 
it comes to UFOs and the supernatural?  From what I can 
gather, Cuthbertson's books are full of pseudoscientific 
nonsense.  Lots of 'frequencies' and 'wavelengths' and not a 
lot of solid scientific grounding." 

	Bolton shifted uncomfortably.  "I see.  Yes, there are 
many areas of his research where I can agree with you about 
his method and writing.  However, he has a large following 
in the UFO field, and he has become something of a cult 
figure, despite his lacking in serious scientific 
background."  Bolton added in a whisper "You could say that 
there is no love lost between us, in a professional sense, 
of course." 

	As much as I had been pleased at the distraction from 
my writing, I felt that this conversation was meandering 
beyond interest.  "Mr. Bolton, I would be grateful if you 
could get to the point.  I try to avoid becoming involved in 
mysteries which are a bit.... pardon my expression, but 
'cranky'." 

	"But a man has been murdered, Mr. Maine.  Is that 
serious enough for you?  Murdered in a cottage which was 
locked from the inside.  And I believe that he may have been 
murdered by beings from another planet." 

*   *   *   *

	The ground fell away sharply as we neared the coast. 
Dunwich was a town perched on the continual threat of watery 
destruction.  At one time, the sleepy village which clawed 
at the top of sandy cliffs, was a throbbing mediaeval 
metropolis. Over a dozen of the town's churches had been 
lost to creeping erosion, and it was said that their bells 
could still be heard out to sea on dark, stormy nights.  
What was left of Dunwich had apparently been home to Tarquin 
Bennet, the unfortunate individual who had been found dead 
in his cottage that previous week. 

	I had to pump into second gear as we drove down the 
final sweeping bend into Dunwich.  The road was narrow, and 
the sleepy seaside town still had its quota of tourists even 
then in the off season.  Caitlin was in the passenger seat, 
and Richard Bolton was in the back seat, leaning forward 
between us, directing us to the cottage. 

	We arrived at the end of a row of quaint cottages 
painted in varying tones of Suffolk pink and white.  Bolton 
directed me to the last cottage in the row, which was a bit 
shabbier than the rest, indicating to me that it was a 
rented property. The other cottages looked more loved and 
lived-in. 

	I parked the car up on the verge and turned to Bolton. 
"So how long did Tarquin Bennet live here?" 

	The neighbours say that the cottage was empty for 
quite a while right up until the beginning of summer.  The 
estate agents seem unwilling to talk to me, I imagine they 
see this affair only as a hindrance to their letting the 
property again. Early summer ties in nicely with the start 
of Cuthbertson's sessions with Bennet. 

	"Yes, I'd like to read those transcripts if possible. 
Do you think that Harry Cuthbertson will let me have a 
copy?" 

	Bolton grinned.  "I would say so.  Between you and me, 
Harry Cuthbertson is an unrepentant self-publicist.  He will 
only be too pleased if the famous Dr. Enigma wants to get 
involved with the first ever reported case of alien murder." 

	With that, we got out of the car and went down the 
path towards the cottage.  I pointed to the untidy front 
garden.  "I see Mr. Bennet wasn't a keen gardener, then."  A 
quick look at the house confirmed my suggestion.  "Look at 
the peeling paint. Mr. Bennet was not very house proud at 
all, was he?" 

	Bolton did not see any significance.  "As I said, he 
only rented the house, many people do not wish to waste 
their money in maintaining a property which isn't theirs."  
He pushed his way to the front.  "Excuse me, Mrs. Maine, but 
I have the key.  I took the liberty of renting the cottage 
for a month or so, the estate agents were only too glad of a 
period of grace." 

	"Why do you want the cottage, Mr. Bolton.?"  Caitlin 
asked him.  "It all seems a bit morbid to me." 

	"For my research."  He pushed the door.  "The lock is 
sticky, it's a new one, of course... the police, you know... 
they had to break the old one to get in.  After you." Bolton 
stood to the side to let us pass into the narrow hallway. 

	My first impression of the house was that it seemed 
unlived in.  I looked for a pile of letters and circulars on 
the mat behind the door, but it was clear.  On a shelf below 
a dusty pitted mirror was a pile of them.  "Did the police 
tidy these letters away, do you know, Mr. Bolton?" 

	"No, I don't think so.  After they took the body away, 
I specifically asked for the house to be left as it is."  He 
closed the door behind us.  "The place was as dusty as you 
see it now, I assume that Mr. Bennet was not too botered 
about housekeeping." 

	 The hallway led to a single door at the end of the 
passage.  Bolton opened up, and led us inside.  The room was 
large and airy, and took up the remaining bulk of the 
building.  There were shoulder-high partitions which divided 
the room into bedroom, living room and kitchen.  A back door 
looked out onto a small garden with a wooden outhouse. 

	"No bathroom?"  Caitlin asked.  "How rustic." 

	"And how long was Mr. Bennet living here, did you 
say?" I wandered across the room, getting the feel of the 
place. 

	"Since the start of summer, say about five months.  It 
was about then that Harry Cuthbertson notes in his session 
scripts that Tarquin Bennet came to his office telling him 
that he was being visited by alien beings, so that ties in 
with when the neighbours say he arrived in the village." 

	He walked over to the window.  "He was found here, 
lying behind the settee, naked.  Samples of skin had been 
taken from his thighs, upper arms and face.  Various 
pockmarks were found in the skull, one causing a hairline 
fracture.  Very tiny holes, Mr. Maine, about the size of an 
upholstery pin.  All made shortly post mortem, according to 
the coroner." 

	"And the cause of death?"  I examined the locus of the 
crime for clues. 

	"A blow to the head, heavy soft object, unidentified. 
There was blood at the scene, if you examine the carpets you 
can see some small staining.  The wounds should have bled 
much more. The police cannot account for it, unless he was 
killed somewhere else and brought here." 

	"And why is that not feasible?  The locked room is a 
puzzle indeed, of course it is.  But there have been several 
cases where a simple piece of trickery enabled a clever 
murderer to leave the scene in a state which appeared to be 
impossible." 

	"True.  True.  But, you see this street.  Look out of 
the window, Mr. Maine.  This is a quiet village, but even 
now, in the off season, this particular street is busy.  The 
shop across the street is the only grocery in the village, 
and it is always busy.  The house next door is a rectory, 
and the morning that Tarquin Bennet was murdered there was a 
children's party in the back garden."  Bolton walked to the 
back door. 

	"Look out the back way."  The marshland, home to 
numerous birds and wildlife, stretched away down to the 
shingle beach and the sea.  "On that morning, the East 
Anglian Kites were having a display out there.  This is a 
busy little street, all day.  Do you think that a stranger 
carrying a naked man would have been noticed?"  Bolton 
pointed out into the street, where several people were 
standing chatting, and throwing suspicious glances at my car 
and the cottage.

	"I suppose so, but there are more than the obvious 
ways to move bodies around, I have found.  I'm sure you are 
correct, though, the neighbours around here seem the type to 
notice everything.  So, he was murdered in the morning, and 
was discovered.. when?" 

	"At 7.30 in the evening.  He had failed to turn up for 
his session at Harry Cuthbertson's.  He was worried since 
Mr. Bennet had been talking about murder and being watched.  
The local police kicked the door in and found him dead and 
alone in a house which was locked up like a fortress.  
Nobody had visited the house all day, the neighbours are 
sure.  Nobody came and he never left.  He warned Cuthbertson 
that aliens were going to murder him, do you have another 
explanation? 

	"And what exactly is your interest in all of this Mr. 
Bolton.  I mean, you honestly don't think that aliens 
murdered Tarquin Bennet, do you?" 

	"I like to keep an open mind."  He walked to the 
window and peered out, as if looking for alien craft.  "If 
it wasn't aliens, who else could have murdered Bennet?  I 
mean, the house was locked up like a fortress, the doors and 
windows bolted from the inside.  There was no way for a 
human murderer to get out.  No cellar or attic.  It has to 
be aliens, there are numerous reports of them bypassing 
security..."

	"Yes, quite.  I would like to do a bit of digging on 
this one, however, before coming to such rash explanations." 

	"Of course, of course.  That is why I asked you to 
look into this before Harry Cuthbertson releases his version 
to the press. This will really make him, you know?  This is 
the sort of thing he's been waiting for." 

	"And you, of course, purely in the name of science, 
wish to take the wind out of his sails with an ordinary 
explanation, rather than the alien one." 

	Bolton smiled mirthlessly.  "As I said before, there 
is no love lost between us.  We are both scratching for the 
scraps of the truth in a field which has been forsaken by 
proper science.  I just want to make sure that Cuthbertson 
really has beaten me to the best UFO story of the century." 

	It was time to visit Harry Cuthbertson in the flesh. 

*   *   *   *

	He looked like the type of forty-something trying to 
give the air of someone much younger.  His neatly-cropped 
brown hair was flecked with gray at the temples, and he 
looked slightly uncomfortable in his motorcycle leather 
trousers and tight-fitting black T-shirt. 

	  His office was lined with hundreds of books, from 
aged Necronomicons to university physics textbooks.  His 
dress gave the impression of aging hippiness, but the desk 
and computer belied a professional sense of business.  His 
house on the Suffolk coast was affluent yet unabrasive, 
unlike it's owner. 

	"Sure I'm happy to talk with you about Tarquin Bennet, 
but I must insist that it is all off-record until the book 
comes out next week.  I really must protect my interests." 

	"I'm not after saleable copy, Mr. Cuthbertson, I'm 
trying to satisfy, in my own mind, the question of the 
murder.  It is known that Mr. Bennet was visiting you over a 
period of time before his murder." 

	"That is correct.  Tarquin came to me in June and told 
me that he was being abducted by aliens."  He saw the sour 
look on my face.  "I know, you don't believe in them.  But 
Tarquin did, and I must say that on recent events, I tend to 
agree with him." 

	"What do you mean?" 

	"He told me that they would murder him eventually.  
His life was absolute hell, Mr. Maine.  He was being 
experimented on, samples of his skin were being taken, and 
certain probes were being implanted which caused him some 
pain.  You don't need to believe all this.  The very 
circumstances of his death prove that his story was true." 

	"The locked cottage, you mean?" 

	"Not just that, although you have to admit that it 
would be a clever human indeed who could pull that one off." 

	"It does seem strange.  Had you ever been to his 
house, Mr. Cuthbertson?  Before the murder, I mean." 

	"No, never.  He asked me to visit in August to examine 
some burn marks in his back garden.  But I was on another 
field trip to Warminster that weekend, and somehow I didn't 
get around to it.  Is it important?" 

	"And there were burns?" 

	"Yes, of course there were.  It's all in the book, Mr. 
Maine.  If you can just hold your curiosity for a few days 
more." He thumbed a manuscript, and seemed to come to a 
decision.  "I don't care to discuss the matter any more I'm 
afraid.  I can tell from your tone that you don't believe a 
word of this." 

	I was taken aback by his rudeness.  "I'm... I'm sorry 
you think that, Mr. Cuthbertson.  I try to have an open mind 
on most things, it's the very thing which helps me think 
sideways on problems such as this." 

	"Ah yes, the famous Dr. Enigma."  The friendly smile 
was back, but this time I saw through it.  "Look, if you 
really want to exercise your powers of deduction on this 
case, speak to the policeman who found the body.  He can 
tell you that there was no way that Bennet's murder was an 
ordinary event."

	"The next name on my list, Sergeant Cornell, at the 
Saxmundham station.  Not exactly the local police.  Can I 
ask a final question?  Why didn't you phone the local 
Dunwich police station when you began to get worried about 
Bennet? Why phone one 20 miles away?" 

	"I know Cornell, in fact I've known him for years.  I 
felt more comfortable telling a sympathetic ear my concerns. 
That's all." 

*   *   *   *

	And then I left it for a few days.  Caitlin had been 
upset by the grisly scene as told by Richard Bolton at the 
Dunwich cottage, and I decided to drop the case pro tem.  
The change had been good for my writing, and I finished the 
report on my previous case, a much less horrific affair 
concerning an amount of money which had gone missing from a 
brief-case which was in full view of a courier all the time.  
I counted it as one of my failures : it seemed the young 
courier must have stolen it after all, which was a pity, 
since I had felt sorry for his distraught mother who had 
contacted me in the first place. 

	The story would sell, Dr. Enigma would solve the 
crime, and the readers would be happy.  But I wasn't.  I 
hated not solving a case, because it meant I had called the 
shot wrong in the first place.  I prided myself on being 
able to sniff out who was the injured party in these cases. 

	I might have forgotten about it altogether if a 
package hadn't arrived on the morning a week after our visit 
to the Dunwich cottage.  It was Harry Cuthbertson's book, 
entitled 'Phone Home for Murder' with a lurid depiction of 
grey alien intruders invading a quiet coastal cottage while 
the owner slept.  On it was a Post-It note from Richard 
Bolton, with a scribbled line of text on it: 'Bestseller?  
Phone me.' 

*   *   *   *

	Bolton was only too glad to take me to Saxmundham 
police station to see Sergeant Cornell.  "Yes, I spoke to 
him at some length just after the post mortem.  A strange 
sort of fellow, not a typical policeman.  Soft spoken, quite 
a nice chap really." Bolton pulled into the visitors parking 
space outside the low tidy building with a blue lamp 
outside. 

	"And he was the first person into the cottage?" 

	"Yes, he broke down the door and discovered Bennet 
lying where I showed you.  He examined the body and called 
for the mortuary to come pick him up." 

	"Is that correct procedure?  I always thought that 
they needed a doctor to pronounce death at the locus before 
any body could be taken away?" 

	"That's true, but there's no legal requirement, so it 
seems.  It does seem a bit strange, though.  Especially with 
the unusual state of the body.  Perhaps you should ask him 
when we go in. 

	We got out of Bolton's car and entered the police 
station.  It was small, yet tidy and well-kept.  You could 
see that this station didn't see much crime.  The young 
constable on the front desk smiled as we approached.  On 
giving our names, we were ushered through the security door. 

	We entered a small bare room, with a table and four 
chairs.  A sophisticated tape recorder looked out of place 
in the otherwise spartan room.  Cornell bade us to sit down, 
and he sat across from us.  Momentarily, I felt that I had 
just been arrested and was about to undergo a severe 
grilling. 

	"How can I help you?" 

	I began hopefully.  "We'd like to ask a few questions 
about the Tarquin Bennet murder case, if we could." 

	  Cornell smiled sickly.  "I thought you had asked all 
your questions at the time, Mr. Bolton.  I really have 
nothing more to add to the whole sorry affair." 

	Bolton was not deterred.  "Are you any further down 
the road to catching the murderer?" 

	"Look, Mr. Bolton.  We can't even see how any murderer 
could have got in and out, leaving the cottage completely 
locked from the inside.  At the moment the file is marked as 
unsolved, and I doubt we ever will solve it.  Off the 
record, we aren't the people with the explanations at the 
moment." 

	I wasn't happy with Cornell, something about his tone. 
"You are referring to the extraterrestrial theory, I 
presume? Surely you, as a rational member of the police 
force, aren't telling me that you believe that aliens killed 
Mr. Bennet?" 

	"Of course not, and if you publish anything which 
indicates that I do, then it will go very badly for you."  I 
didn't like being threatened.  We were skirting around the 
truth here, I knew. 
	
	"I don't mean to publish anything about this.  For the 
moment."  I let him calm down for a moment before asking 
another inflammatory question.  "I understand that you had 
the body removed to the mortuary without a doctor's 
certificate of death.  Is this normal procedure?" 

	"I don't see what police procedure has to do with you.  
I did nothing which contradicted procedures.  Now I think I 
have said everything I want to on this matter." 

	I almost had it.  "One more question, Sergeant.  How 
long have you known Harry Cuthbertson?" 

	Cornell looked at me, almost growling.  "Not long.  In 
fact, I had never met him before the murder investigation." 

	Bolton spluttered, "But-".  I waved him into silence. 

	"Thank you Sergeant.  You have been very helpful."  My 
mind was racing as we walked back to the car.  Why had 
Cornell denied knowing Cuthbertson before the murder? 

*   *   *   *

	I decided to visit the scene again.  Something about 
the cottage disturbed me, it was so dirty and unkempt.  
Perhaps the neighbours could shed a bit of light on it. 

	As I parked up on the verge again, I took note of the 
shabby exterior of the building amongst the almost fanatical 
neatness of the rest of the village.  The shops across the 
road were open, so I walked across. 

	There were two shops, back to back.  One was the local 
grocery which apparently served as the main information 
transfer location in the village.  Bolton had already asked 
in there, and they had assured him that nobody had come or 
gone on the day of the murder.  The other shop was a 
seasonal tourist shop, selling local crafts and postcards.  
I went in out of curiosity. 

	The old boy behind the counter was typical of these 
parts, dressed in sailing get-up with a white beard and 
pipe, but dignified with it.  As I entered, he greeted me 
heartily, mistaking me for a late season tourist. 

	I wandered about the shop for a while, and worked my 
way round to the till.  On the counter was a set of nicely 
framed photographs of the local area, some of the more 
picturesque cottages, and scenes form the local agricultural 
year, and town events.  I examined these closely. 

	I cleared my throat.  "You don't happen to have one of 
these photographs for a children's party at the rectory last 
week, do you?  It's just my son was there, and it would be 
nice if..."  Maybe the photographer could have accidentally 
snapped some vital piece of evidence to support the wild 
theory that was starting to form in my mind. 

	"I'm afraid not sir.  We didn't do the rectory party 
this month.  I do have some from the one during the summer, 
if you'd care to wait a moment?" 

	"You mean that these are held regularly?" 

	"Yes, once a month, more or less.  I have some from 
the June party, I realize it was for your son, but we sell 
so little at this time of the year that if you would care to 
have a look, just in case?" 

	"Yes, of course."  The old boy went through to the 
back shop and came back with a box of ready framed 
photographs.  He rummaged around in them for a minute before 
pulling out two fake sepia-toned photographs, dated late 
June.  The first had been taken from completely the wrong 
direction - Bennet's house must have been behind the 
photographer when it was taken. 

	The second one had more potential.  Bennet's house was 
in the background of some forgotten party game.  I pulled 
out my Swiss Army knife, and twisted out the tiny spyglass 
lens. I examined the windows of the house closely.  I 
couldn't believe how fortuitous the photograph was. 

	"I'll take it." 

	"Very good, sir.  It is a lovely photograph..." 

	"Do you know the photographer?  It is important." 

	"I should do, sir.  It was me who took the photo, and 
did the developing.  I have this little darkroom out 
back..." 

	"And you would be willing to stand up in court and 
testify to the date you took this photograph?" 

	"Well...my goodness!  I suppose... I suppose I would 
be, if you think it's that important, sir?" 

	"I think you might be." 

*   *   *   *

	All the best hacks have a policeman as a friend.  We 
like to paint ourselves as the master detectives who solve 
the crimes that the poor plodding police cannot crack, but 
the truth is that we need the backup of the police records 
system if we hope to do our bit.  And tradition states that 
it has to be through a friend on the inside, and I was no 
exception. 

	I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder.  "Mike, 
hello, it's Jer, how is Catherine?" 

	"She's great, Jer.  So what is it you want me to risk 
my job providing this time? 

	"Hehe, you know me too well.  I'd like you to pull up 
a couple of people on your system.  Before we start, one is 
a cop. Is that still OK with you?" 

	"What stickiness are you into this time, Jer?" 

	"I don't know yet.  Can you do it for me?" 

	"I'll see.  What's the gen?" 

	"Sergeant Cornell of the Saxmundham cop-shop.  And the 
other one is Harry Cuthbertson." 

	"The writer?  Ah, I see what you're doing, it's that 
Bennet murder in Dunwich.  We had the television news round 
here today asking for comment, it should be on now if you 
want to have a look.  You know the local news bods, anything 
to make a change from the usual rural non-news and they get 
all excited.  I'll get back to you on those names, if I get 
anything."

	"Could you get me all you have on Tarquin Bennet also? 
I would be eternally grateful." 

	"Sure, Jer.  Wait and see if I get anything first.  
Catch you later, Dr. Enigma!"  I dropped the handset onto 
the phone, and flicked the remote control onto the news.  I 
sat through a story about rent rises before it came on. 

	"Suffolk had it's own murder mystery this week.", the 
reporter began.  "When police discovered the body of Tarquin 
Bennet in a locked cottage at the start of last week, they 
were stumped.  How could the murderer leave the house locked 
from the inside?  Local police refused to comment, but a 
spokesman from the Constabulary said that lines of inquiry 
were being followed, and that no further information would 
be released at the moment. 

	"One man, however, is convinced that he alone has the 
answer to the mystery.  Harry Cuthbertson, local UFO expert, 
believes that Mr. Bennet was being contacted by 
extraterrestrial beings for a period of time before the 
murder and he is sure that these same beings are the ones 
responsible for his death. 

	"In his latest book, 'Phone Home For Murder', Mr. 
Cuthbertson gives details of therapy sessions he allegedly 
conducted with Mr. Bennet in the weeks before his death.  
These reveal a series of terrifying encounters with beings 
from another world, who could apparently defy the laws of 
physics.  Cuthbertson insists that the only explanation for 
the locked cottage is that Bennet was telling the truth, and 
that the aliens are responsible for his murder.  He adds 
that the full story can be found in his book. 

	"We were out and about in Ipswich today, asking people 
what they thought of the idea of aliens from outer space.  
One man we spoke to is sure that aliens took his friend, who 
was sleeping rough." 

	The scene cut to a street in Ipswich town centre.  A 
dirty man, in his late twenties, with a punk look about him 
was telling the roving reporter his story.  "Oh yes, my mate 
was 'ere sleeping just beside those steps.  I heard a 
struggle and he was gone, so it was them aliens, you see?" 

	I flipped the remote.  The world was going mad, I 
thought. But I was sure Cuthbertson's book sales were doing 
just fine. 

*   *   *   *

	Mike phoned late.  "Seems that you're not the only one 
with suspicions about Cornell.  He's been raising eyebrows 
in high places." 

	"Tell me more." 

	"Right.  He has no criminal record, obviously.  But I 
asked around.  It seems he has something of a reputation as 
a moaner.  He reckons he's been passed over, and is stuck as 
a sarge in a rural station because he's not a freemason.  
It's rubbish, of course, he has been passed over, but it's 
because he's a bit slipshod." 

	"What do you mean?" 

	"Take this case, for instance.  He ordered the 
mortuary to take away the body without life extinction being 
certified by the FME.  Now, that only happens in exceptional 
circumstances, for example, when the body is in danger from 
the environment or from interference from people.  He has 
been cautioned about it internally, but no action is being 
taken.  He isn't well liked in the force.  He's being given 
voluntary redundancy next year, and the word is that he's 
taking it." 

	"Mmmm.  Interesting.  And what about Cuthbertson?" 

	"Oh, he's well-known to us.  Actual Bodily Harm three 
years ago, he got eighteen months for that, but it was 
suspended. Also various drug offences, none of them pursued 
by the CPS, one for grand trafficking which had to be 
dropped on a technicality. But he's no murderer, according 
to his psych profile." 

	"At least that you know of...what about Bennet 
himself?" 

	"Ah, he's a mystery man.  We have turned up nothing 
about him at all.  He wasn't registered anywhere that we 
could find. No birth certificate.  He might have been from 
elsewhere, we are still searching." 

	"A completely invisible man, you could say?" 

	"From an official records point of view, he didn't 
exist.  Well, that's what we have.  Has it helped?" 

	"Er... yes, Mike, thanks for that.  I think I might 
have the inklings of a theory, and I think I might be able 
to prove it now."  I fingered the sepia photograph frame.  
"Can you come to the Dunwich cottage later today, about 
midday?  I might be able to give you a murderer." 

*   *   *   *

	In fact, everyone turned up.  Mike was there, keeping 
to the background, in case Sergeant Cornell got suspicious 
that he was being investigated.  Cornell was skulking with 
Harry Cuthbertson, by the sofa.  Caitlin and Richard Bolton 
were chatting in the kitchen area, she knew I had something, 
and Bolton was trying to get it out of her.  I had told her 
to warn him to be on his guard in case there was trouble.  
Mike had been warned, but the more people ready for problems 
the better. 

	I brought the meeting to attention.  "Thank you for 
coming.  I have to warn you that I know who murdered Tarquin 
Bennet, and he is in this room right now." 

	Everyone looked at everyone else.  Harry Cuthbertson 
smiled sarcastically.  "I'm sure you have, Dr. Enigma.  Now 
can we get on with this and get home?  I have a radio 
interview to give, and it will be an excellent opportunity 
to plug the book." 

	"OK, I will begin by laying out the facts, and hoping 
that one or more of you will reach the same conclusions I 
have reached, apart from the murderer, of course, who 
already knows how it was done.  So, here are the facts as we 
all know them. 

	"Tarquin Bennet came to Mr. Cuthbertson's office in 
June, and began a series of sessions in which he reported 
alien visitation and a fear or being murdered.  He rented 
this cottage about the same time, and appeared very little 
in the village.  The house appears to be going to rack and 
ruin, dusty inside and shabby out. 

	"Now on the day of the murder, nobody was seen 
entering or leaving the cottage.  The police, headed by the 
able Sergeant Cornell here, broke down the door, and 
discovered Mr. Bennet lying here, already dead.  Nobody 
could see how the murderer could have left the house locked 
up from the inside. 

	"Now Mr. Cuthbertson here, coincidentally is finishing 
off a book about alien visitation, including the sessions 
with Tarquin.  The murder enables him to finish the book 
with a spectacular ending, and the publisher rushes through 
the first editions to catch the local notoriety.  The book 
is doing very well on the bookshelves, I believe.  You will 
soon be a very rich man, Mr. Cuthbertson. 

	"Those are the facts as are generally known, does 
everyone agree?" 

	"Really, Mr. Maine, if you dragged us all here merely 
to tell us a story we already knew then..." 

	I raised a hand.  "Now I have unearthed some facts of 
my own.  First, Tarquin Bennet himself.  The police have had 
a difficult time tracking his history.  Before arriving in 
this village in June, he does not appear anywhere in the 
country under that name.  It may have been a false name.  In 
any case, we know nothing at all of a Tarquin Bennet until 
the start of your sessions with him, Mr. Cuthbertson. 

	"Secondly, Harry Cuthbertson.  Please do not be 
alarmed or offended Mr. Cuthbertson, but I have been 
checking up on you.  You have a rather nasty criminal 
record, don't you?" 

	Cuthbertson seemed nonplused.  "I was a bit wild in my 
youth, if that's what you mean.  It doesn't make me a 
murderer, and I'll sue you for defamation if you so much 
as..." 

	"Hang on Mr. Cuthbertson, I didn't say you were the 
murderer. I don't intend to reveal his identity... yet."  
Cuthbertson bit his lip, and I continued.  "I merely state 
your record in order to allow the facts to be appraised.  It 
does throw some doubt on your testimony, in a criminal law 
sense.  Your sessions with Bennet, for instance.  We may now 
have to look at them with the knowledge that you may not 
always be completely truthful." 

	"Thirdly, Sergeant Cornell."  The graying policeman 
bristled visibly.  "Now you told us last week that there was 
nothing out of the ordinary in you calling for the mortuary 
and not getting a medical examiner to certify the time of 
death. Now I know for a fact that you received chastisement 
from your superiors over this matter.  Why did you not want 
the body to be examined by a doctor at the scene?  I will 
explain in a moment why I think you acted like this. 

	"You are not happy in your job, you are due to retire 
soon, I know all this.  What I didn't know at the time is 
why you denied knowing Harry Cuthbertson.  You see, he was 
eager to admit that the had known you for years. 

	The two looked at each other in panic.  Cornell said 
"Alright, so I know Cuthbertson, so what?  I wasn't under 
oath, you weren't a police officer.  I was under no 
obligation to tell you anything." 

	"Quite so, Sergeant.  Still, your stories did not tie 
up, and that led me down a particular train of thought which 
led ultimately to me discovering what I believe happened. I 
will now tell you, please don't interrupt until I have 
finished." 

	"This is what I believe happened.  Everyone wonders 
how the murderer managed to do the dirty deed unseen by the 
world outside, and leave the house locked up from the 
inside.  The obvious answer is that nobody could have 
performed such a feat. So who killed Tarquin Bennet? 

	"The answer is a simple extension of the logic.  If 
nobody could have killed him in such a way, then there was 
no murder.  I believe that there never was a Tarquin Bennet 
and the murder was an elaborate hoax alien abduction gone 
wrong, perpetrated by these two in order to boost the sales 
of a mediocre UFO book." 

	Cornell and Cuthbertson looked at each other.  
Cuthbertson was visibly shaken, but wasn't going to take it 
lying down.  "A very nice theory, Dr. Enigma.  But you 
forget that there were a dozen or more police officers when 
the body was discovered and they all say that there was a 
body.  If you go down to the mortuary, you can see it for 
yourself.  I think you have overstreched yourself this 
time..." 

	"A moment, Mr. Cuthbertson.  I will explain, but 
before I do, I'd like to introduce Mike Harrier, DCI from 
the Constabulary. Also, there is a two-tone outside, ready 
to come in at the merest sign of trouble. 

	"This is what I think happened.   Harry Cuthbertson is 
a UFO researcher and erstwhile writer of books in that 
genre. Recently, they haven't been doing too well, so he 
concocts a plan to hoax an alien abduction.  He invents a 
person called Tarquin Bennet, and rents a cottage in a quiet 
village.  He is little seen in the village, which isn't 
surprising, since he is Harry Cuthbertson in vague disguise, 
and could only manage to be there for relatively short 
periods of time. 

	"He invented the sessions with Bennet, with his usual 
conscientiousness for the truth.  All a fabrication, 
including the supposed alien death threat.  He and Sergeant 
Cornell, a misfit in the force agree to share the profits of 
the book that he is writing, if he helps with the eventual 
hoaxed abduction of Tarquin Bennet. 

	"I believe that the night before the discovery, one of 
these two men was in Ipswich, looking for a down-and-out to 
co-opt into their hoax.  Perhaps the original intention was 
to share the profit with him, get him to play the part of an 
abductee who would mysteriously vanish, but something went 
wrong. Many rough sleepers have psychological problems, 
there was a scuffle, and the man was killed.  The post 
mortem said that the fatal blow was a soft heavy object to 
the head, and when I phoned him up last night, he agreed 
that the object could feasibly be a crash helmet with a 
leather jacket draped over it."  I walked over to where 
Cuthbertson's crash helmet was lying on the window sill 
beside his jacket. "This looks new, Mr. Cuthbertson.  I 
wonder what happened to the old one." 

	"Very entertaining, Mr. Maine.", Cuthbertson hissed.  
"But your ingenious tale still doesn't answer how the house 
came to be locked up from the inside, and how I was supposed 
to carry a naked body up my pathway without being noticed.  
Now really, Mr. Maine, do you think..." 

	"This meant a change of plan.", I continued.  "But all 
was not lost.  Tarquin Bennet could just as easily be 
murdered as abducted.  And, of course, it meant a bigger 
share of the profits from the book sales for Cuthbertson and 
Cornell. 

	  "You ask how you managed to get the poor murdered 
wretch into the house without being noticed?  That's a 
simple extension of the same logic.  You couldn't have 
managed it, so the body was never in this cottage." 

	"But the police...", Bolton interrupted. 

	"The police broke down the door at 7:30pm that 
evening. Cornell's report says that they found a naked man, 
dead, with several obvious flesh wounds.  I know, I have 
read it.  What I also read was the accounts of a junior 
officer at the scene." I read from a photocopy I had 
received from Mike that morning. "After breaking the lock on 
the door, we entered the main room of the house.  There we 
found a naked man, late forties, short brown graying hair, 
flesh wounds on legs and arms, very little blood.  Sgt. 
Cornell examined body and said it was dead.  He called for 
the mortuary to come pick it up." 

	"So?  I can't see what your point is.", Cornell said. 

	"The man in the mortuary is late twenties, with black 
collar-length hair.  He does have several flesh wounds, and 
pin-sized holes in his head, all post mortem.  The death 
blow was a large soft object.  So you see, the body which 
the police found in here was not the same one examined at 
the mortuary. 

	"It has worried me from the start why Cornell didn't 
call for the medical examiner to certify the time of death 
at the locus.  The reason is obvious: the man lying in this 
cottage wasn't dead at all.  He was none other than Harry 
Cuthbertson." 

	I let the revelation sink in.  "Now there is still the 
problem of how the real dead body came to arrive at the 
mortuary instead of the live Mr. Cuthbertson with his 
theatrical wounds.  Mike will explain." 

	Mike stood up.  "I spoke to the mortuary driver who 
came to the cottage that evening.  You see, we contract out 
our mortuary services now, and it was not difficult to find 
out who was on the run at that time.  He told me that you 
went with him to the mortuary that evening, is that 
correct?" 

	Cornell looked sick.  "Yes, so what?" 

	"He also said that you told him to vanish for 10 
minutes and that everything would be OK.  Now he is just a 
contract driver, and when a police sergeant tells him to 
lose himself for a while then he does it, but he's not 
perjuring himself for it. What happened during that 10 
minutes, Mr. Cornell?  Did you switch the very much living 
Mr. Cuthbertson for the very dead body which arrived at the 
mortuary?" 

	Cornell said nothing.  Cuthbertson was agitated.  "I 
think you've all lost it.  Yeah, maybe Cornell did it, but 
there's no way you can prove that I pretended to be a dead 
man.  I'd never even been here before the murder." 

	"Really?  Are you sure?", I handed him the photo that 
I'd bought from the tourist shop across the street.  "Look 
closely at the photo.  Both you and Sergeant Cornell are 
visible in this very cottage, which places you both here as 
early as June." 

	Mike added, "I phoned your publisher this morning, Mr. 
Cuthbertson.  He confirmed to me that he had sent you a 
cheque for fifty thousand pounds advance on royalties.  Mr. 
Cornell's bank manager was a little harder to crack without 
a court order, but he did reveal that a five figure sum had 
been deposited in his name in the last week." 

	Cornell and Cuthbertson looked at each other.  I 
expected one of them to crack, Cuthbertson with his temper 
and record of violence, or Cornell, with his years of 
frustration and a comfortable retirement going down the 
tubes, but neither of them said a thing.  There was still 
one thing that worried me.  "Cuthbertson?" 

	He looked at me, a fiery rage burning behind his eyes. 

	"Did you enjoy mutilating that body after you had 
killed him?  The skin which was removed, the pin holes in 
the head... why?  Why did it have to be so authentic?" 

	He smiled and I was momentarily chilled. 

	Mike signalled at the window and two uniformed 
officers came in and bound Cornell and Cuthbertson.  The 
young constable who cuffed Cornell did not look him in the 
eye, but kept his gaze fixed on the chevrons on his sleeve.  
"Back to the Constabulary HQ, please.", Mike said.  "I'll be 
back in half an hour, so get them booked in and ready for 
questioning.  And please brief them on their rights in the 
car.  We don't want to fly in the face of police 
regulations, do we?" 

	Cornell and Cuthbertson were led silently out of the 
cottage. Bolton was still pensive.  "What's the matter, Mr. 
Bolton?", I asked him.  "Sorry it wasn't your aliens?" 

	"Well, of course.  Common murder doesn't have the same 
air of mystery, does it?  I do congratulate you on your 
powers of observation.  It was really an ingenious solution.  
Shall we go out into the garden?  I am finding the air in 
here a bit stifling." 

	I followed him through the door out into the afternoon 
air.  It was cold, but true winter had not bitten into the 
late autumn sun yet.  I stopped near the bottom, where the 
fence separated the garden from the rambling marshland which 
rolled down to the seafront.  I bent down to examine some 
strange burn marks in the grass.  "Well I never..."  
Something caught my eye, to the left, above the treeline, 
but when I looked it had gone.

The End.

25/01/98						?1998 James McGowan