The Mammoth Book of Locked Room Mysteries & Impossible Crimes by Mike Ashley

Author:Mike Ashley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780333564
Publisher: Constable & Robinson

THE MOTOR BOAT

Jacques Futrelle

One of the many tragedies linked with the sinking of the Titanic was the death of author Jacques Futrelle (1875–1912). Futrelle was the creator of Professor S.F.X. Van Dusen, better known as “The Thinking Machine” because of his remarkable grasp of logic and deduction in solving apparently impossible crimes. Van Dusen came to prominence in one of the best known of all locked-room mysteries, “The Problem of Cell 13”, serialised in The Boston American in 1905. Dusen claimed that he could escape from a locked cell in the strongest prison kept under constant watch. The story was run as a contest to see if anyone could come up with the solution. The way in which Futrelle achieves his escape is perhaps the most ingenious in all fiction. I have not selected that story here, partly because it is almost constantly in print in some book or another, but mostly because it is not a crime story, but an extremely clever challenge. After this story Dusen is consulted, usually by newspaper reporter Hutchinson Hatch, on all manner of bizarre and seemingly impossible crimes. The following story, which first appeared in the Sunday Magazine (9 September 1906) is much less well known, though it is wonderfully bizarre.

Captain Hank Barber, master mariner, gripped the bow-rail of the Liddy Ann and peered off through the semi-fog of the early morning at a dark streak slashing along through the grey-green waters. It was a motor boat of long, graceful lines; and a single figure, that of a man, sat upright at her helm staring uncompromisingly ahead. She nosed through a roller, staggered a little, righted herself and sped on as a sheet of spray swept over her. The helmsman sat motionless, heedless of the stinging splash of wind-driven water in his face.

“She sure is a-goin’ some,” remarked Captain Hank, reflectively. “By Ginger! If she keeps it up into Boston Harbor, she won’t stop this side o’ the Public Gardens.”

Captain Hank watched the boat curiously until she was swallowed up, lost in the mist, then turned to his own affairs. He was a couple of miles out of Boston Harbor, going in; it was six o’clock of a grey morning. A few minutes after the disappearance of the motor boat Captain Hank’s attention was attracted by the hoarse shriek of a whistle two hundred yards away. He dimly traced through the mist the gigantic lines of a great vessel – it seemed to be a ship of war.

It was only a few minutes after Captain Hank lost sight of the motor boat that she was again sighted, this time as she flashed into Boston Harbor at full speed. She fled past, almost under the prow of a pilot boat, going out, and was hailed. At the mess table later the pilot’s man on watch made a remark about her.

“Goin’! Well, wasn’t she though! Never saw one thing pass so close to another in my life without scrubbin’ the paint offen it. She was

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