The Peaceful Affair: Chapter 6
“The War Treaties are a country’s most cherished possession.”
Myx was seated on the leather swivel chair behind the small worn-out desk. The two wooden chairs — permanent fixtures of the Triangular Office — were occupied by the president and Eve Apples. The television set and the water dispenser had been moved to one side to make room for four chairs brought in to seat the other players: Dorothy Gates, Jennifer Love, Xena Hammerhead, and Captain Napoleon Jefferson. Completing the company, Miss Lipps, the small giant, and the tall dwarf stood next to the door, their backs against the wall.
Myx cast his You’re-Guilty-Even-If-Innocent look at each and every person present, and continued in a grave voice. “These bilateral treaties detail the compensation a losing country delivers to its winning opponent in the aftermath of a war. Our entire planet is crisscrossed with wars, which provide the grist for our global economy’s mill. We send our best boys — our top chess players — to the army, to do war. And every mother prays that her daughter be good enough to enter into service at the United Nations, where wars are negotiated, and treaties are signed. Some of you have experienced the consequences of defeat. Like John here, who spent part of his childhood in French Georgia, and Captain Jefferson who had the fortune — some would say misfortune — to live in German Idaho. Of course, in the end we’d recovered both territories, due to our superior chess skills.”
No one dared interrupt the detective, although none understood the reason behind his recounting ubiquitously known facts.
“The War Treaties are kept hidden, to be revealed only when a war ends and the time for compensation arrives. Only a handful of people have access to these documents, including the heads of states of the two countries involved, and the delegates in charge of the negotiations. We all remember only too well the Belgian-Dutch affair: The War Treaty between Belgium and Holland was stolen and its contents leaked to the world; a mystery to this day, by the way, the perpetrators and the original document still at large. Anyway, as a result it became known that part of the compensatory settlement of Belgium in case of defeat was the handing over of Liège to the Dutch. As a result, the denizens of Liège rose, refusing to send their boys to the army and their girls to the UN. They demanded peace.”
Myx rose from his chair, took a sip of water, and without warning banged his hand on the desk. “For two whole weeks the world hung in the balance, the risk of a domino effect only too real. We came to the edge. We were on the verge of nuclear peace. An end to civilization as we know it. The total collapse of our entire economy, and a reversion to a primitive state. Back to the jungles, the swamps, the caves, the mountains.” Myx was shouting now. “The end of the world!”
“Somehow,” he calmed down most abruptly, “sanity gained the upper hand. After intensive negotiations, Liège joined the war, and even spent some quality Dutch time, when the Belgians lost The Battle of the Frites. We cannot afford to let such a calamity happen again. We cannot — and will not.” Myx had lowered his voice to a bare whisper as he spoke this last phrase, causing his audience to lean forward in anticipation. The world had certainly lost a great thespian when Myx had chosen his current career.
The detective regained his seat. “Who would want to steal the War Treaties and plunge the world into chaos? Who could conceive of such a foul deed? Especially now, with battles raging on the Canadian and British fronts, and daily reports of losses ruling the headlines. Who among you has no conscience?” Myx’s voice echoed throughout the room. The president and his aides had all gone pale. Even the three operatives at the back could not help feeling pangs of guilt. At moments such as this the tall dwarf believed Myx could have made the stone David had thrown at Goliath weep in remorse.
“The facts of the case are simple.” Myx’s voice took on a businesslike quality. “Three nights ago John entered this room at eleven o’clock, with the attaché case containing the War Treaties in hand. The single door” — he pointed to it with a languid finger — “locked automatically behind him. At twelve-thirty, after waking up from a short nap, the attaché case — along with all the documents — had disappeared. Barring magic and some as yet unproven quantum effects, our mystery seems perfect.”
“The only people close enough to John and sufficiently knowledgeable of his habits are present in this room. And yet, lo and behold, they all have airtight alibis. Eve Apples was at home with her husband and his other two wives. Xena Hammerhead was engaged in an act of pure debauchery.” Myx ignored the hissing sound emanating from Hammerhead’s direction.
“Dorothy Gates was at home with her husband and children. Jennifer Love was having dinner with friends. And Captain Jefferson was at home with Lieutenant Colonel Jefferson — her husband. How utterly convenient for all present.” Myx finished the water in his glass. “Oftentimes, to prove that a painting is fake all you need to do is scratch off a minute morsel of paint in the right place. The same is true of alibis. My operatives and I have been vigorously scraping away for the past few days.” He observed with satisfaction the first whiffs of fear in his audience.
“Why don’t we begin with the feisty Miss Hammerhead over here?” said Myx, as he circled the desk and came to rest in front of it, facing his current victim directly from above.
“You said you’d been with your lover, Canada Philadelphia, a statement which you still maintain, I presume.”
“I sure as hell do,” replied Hammerhead sternly.
“Fine. Yet a simple check of the phone directory revealed no such person in the greater Washington area.”
“She has an unlisted number.”
“My dear Miss Hammerhead, you’ll have to do better than that. Remember, you are not dealing with a dilettante. I do have access to the list of unlisted numbers.” Hammerhead remained silent. “Nothing more to add? Fine.”
“How about you, Miss Apples? You claim to have been with your husband and his other two wives at the time of the crime. I assume you too hold dearly to this statement?” Myx was obviously enjoying this. Apples was obviously not.
“Y … Yes,” she said hesitatingly.
“Good, good.” Myx rubbed his hands, and started pacing across the crowded room, leaving everybody to take care not to trip him. “Interestingly enough, though, Miss Lipps, whom I’d sent to chat with an old acquaintance of mine, came back with a different story. Christina Cohen-McGregor affirmed you were not at home during the time frame in question.” Apples had gone from off-white to white.
“If I may, Miss Apples,” continued Myx, “a small piece of advice that might serve you in the future, though certainly it hasn’t in the past. A common mistake committed by a person selecting an alias is making use of one’s personal biography. A congenial romantic touch, to be sure,” twinkled Myx, “but a tad facilitative for one wishing to unravel the identity of the alias-holder.”
Without warning, Myx jumped onto the desk, and — standing high above the lot — cried in a high-pitched voice, “What do you call a person born in Canada and raised in Philadelphia?” He then spread his arms as if to embrace them all, and shouted, “Canada Philadelphia!” Myx smiled as he looked at Apples.
After a brief moment of shock they were all on their feet in an uproar. “Now, now, kiddies, please settle down, we ain’t done yet. Shucks, the show’s just begun.”
Myx descended from the desk and resumed his grave mien. “Two for the price of one. It seems Miss Hammerhead and Miss Apples — aka Canada Philadelphia — have just lost their alibis.” Apples was deathly pale. Hammerhead was infernally ruddy.
“And what about you Mrs. Gates? I take it you spent a nice quiet evening with your family. And perhaps after putting the kids to bed, you and Mr. Gates rekindled some of that old flame?” Gates’s face was a frozen statue. “Or perhaps you rekindled some other flame? You see, dear Apoka over yonder” — Myx pointed to Lipps — “had a nice little chat with darling Fenestra. Oh, but our sweet Apoka is such a heavenly creature. It always amazes me de novo how men just have to tell her the truth. So where were you that fateful night? Ah, I see you do not wish to confide in group. Such a shame.”
He turned to Love. “Back to Philadelphia, this time the restaurant wherein Miss Love had dined with friends the entire evening. Oh my, did I just say ‘entire’? It seems the maître d’ distinctly remembers a charming young lady matching your description leaving the dinner party for approximately twenty minutes. And although, as you’d indicated, the restaurant is not far from your home, it is even less so from this room. Seven minutes, to be precise. I had this timed by Miss Lipps, who even used high heels for good measure. Seven minutes to march here, seven minutes to march back, which would leave you with six ample minutes to do your deed. Would you care to tell us what took place in those twenty minutes, Miss Love? Recalcitrant, are we? Too bad.”
The detective surveyed the room. “And so it seems we are in the company of four ladies, who have — how shall I put this — slightly bent the truth.”
“What about Captain Jefferson?” interjected the president.
“Captain Jefferson was at home with Lieutenant Colonel Jefferson. She said so herself.”
“And she isn’t lying?” asked Hammerhead incredulously.
“Of course not. Captain Jefferson, does a Marine officer ever lie?”
“Negative, sir.”
Myx turned to Hammerhead. “Satisfied?”
He turned back to the Marine. “By the way, Captain, there’s a small logical mystery I wish to resolve: Does a Marine officer ever smile?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Do you ever smile?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Ah, now I see.”
“But even assuming it’s one of us,” said Apples, “how could we have gotten through the locked door?”
“Elementary, my dear Apples,” replied Myx. “All of you ladies are close personal friends of John. Which means you could have easily obtained a sample of skin, blood, or … any other bodily secretion, containing enough material to fabricate a glove coated with John’s DNA print. Quite an ordinary feat of technology.”
“Ingenious!” cried the president. “Which one of them betrayed me? Who? Who?”
“Patience John, patience,” said Myx. “There are still one or two minor points in need of clarification. Miss Apples, I believe you mentioned your first husband had died in a plane crash.”
Apples tensed.
“Or, perhaps that’s how you would have wanted him to end up, that’s what you’ve been telling everybody ever since he’d left you, having fallen madly in love — I love this bit — with Miss Love.”
Apples sprang out of her chair and attempted to flee from the scene but was met with three stern women at the door.
“Sadly, Miss Apples,” said Myx, “though you may not be aware of it, you’ve had more than your share of revenge.”
“Don’t do it,” said Love in a steely voice.
Myx ignored her. “When Love had been unable to rid herself of what she’d considered to be a pest of a man, she secured the help of her mother.”
“Stop!” said the president. “Stop!”
“Sit down and be quiet!” retaliated Myx with a commanding voice befitting a television newscaster. “Indiana Apples — former husband of Eve Apples — now resides permanently at Loony Prunes and goes by the name of Edgar. He suffers from a unique malady known as Raven Syndrome, brought about by Love’s mother’s announcing her daughter’s death.”
Tears were flowing down Apples’s cheeks. “Indy’s been in a mental institution all this time …” Her voice trailed off.
“Who’s Love’s mother?” asked Hammerhead.
“The answer to that I owe to my brilliant assistants,” replied Myx, pointing to the small giant and the tall dwarf in the back. The two wore bewildered looks on their faces.
“Tell me,” asked Myx, “what did Edgar say when you asked him who caused his illness?” The small giant recited:
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“And the whereabouts of the culprit, according to Edgar?” asked Myx. Again, the small giant recited:
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.
“He even remembered when all this had taken place, did he not?”
This time, it was the tall dwarf’s turn to answer:
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
“Thank you,” said Myx. “Pallas, also known as Athena, is the Greek goddess of wisdom, or, if you will, strength of mind. The same Greek who also admired strength of body and invented the Olympic Games. Do you remember what lies above Edgar’s door?”
The small giant and the tall dwarf racked their brains for a moment — but to no avail. “No need to feel bad. I called up Dr. Skinner and asked him to check it out for me. He didn’t even bother to look. The architect who designed the building, he told me, was a big fan of the Olympics. As proof of his admiration he designed the ventilation grilles above each door in the form of five interlaced circles — symbol of the Games. You see, Edgar was leading us to the Olympic Games. And guess where the seat of the International Olympic Committee is?”
“Lausanne …” murmured the small giant as comprehension descended.
“Indeed. Where you met with …” Myx let the phrase hang.
“Annabelle Doe, the president’s mother,” completed the tall dwarf.
“Precisely,” agreed Myx. “Annabelle Doe, whose father had emigrated from Sweden to Switzerland and then finally to the United States, vowing never again to return to the North. So strong was his loathing toward the motherland, he’d changed his surname to Le Nord.”
“And he’d named his first and only daughter,” added Myx after a dramatic pause, “Plusjamais. A rather unique name, derived from two French words, ‘plus jamais’ — never again.”
He focused on the tall dwarf. “So tell me, what do you make now of a certain tame-duck chase to a mental institution in upstate New York?” The detective’s grin broadened.
“Plusjamais Le Nord,” whispered the tall dwarf. “Nevermore Lenore. Edgar was fingering — ”
“Jennifer Love’s mother,” completed Myx. “The woman responsible for his illness. The woman who had an illicit love affair almost four decades ago, which produced a daughter — John Doe’s half-sister.” He turned to Love. “No wonder you were so enraged at my suggestion of an affair between you and your half-brother.” Love’s eyes narrowed.
“Xena Hammerhead and Eve Apples spent the night together — or so it seems. Dorothy Gates’s whereabouts are unknown. So are the whereabouts of Jennifer Love, the president’s half-sister, for a critical twenty minutes. And all being so close to John, they had the means and opportunity to obtain a DNA print.”
“Noro, hon,” came a husky voice from the rear, attached to a body that was growing bored, “be a sweetie pie and tell us where the documents are.”
Myx swept the room with his gaze, pausing conspicuously to stare each suspect in the eye. Apples was quietly withdrawn, Hammerhead seemed her usual fiery self, Gates appeared meditative, and Love had put on a stony appearance. The president looked like an expectant father in a maternity ward.
“Your wish is my command, Apoka,” said Myx jovially. “I once wrote a small monograph entitled: 52 Ways to Hide Documents inside a Grandfather Clock. Quite a nice piece of work, if I do say so myself, readily available both in print and electronic formats.”
Myx stepped over to the grandfather clock, the one offered to Lincoln by the Swiss. He bent down, reached with his right hand underneath the base, and after a few seconds — with all eyes intently upon him — a secret drawer popped open. Myx pulled out a thick batch of documents. “The case itself is probably at the bottom of a pond or a river. But the documents are all here. To the very last one, including the Canadian and British Treaties.”
“So we’ve averted a worldwide disaster?” asked the small giant, looking relieved.
“Not quite yet,” replied Myx gravely, walking over to stand beside Doe. “We may have found the missing documents, which — as it turns out — had never actually gone missing, but we’re still very much in the woods.”
“What do you mean?” asked Apples.
“Yeah,” continued Hammerhead surly, “anything else missing?”
“Yes,” said Myx quietly. “We’re missing one bona fide President of the United States.”
