The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries by Mike Ashley Page A

stirred uneasily by the wall. “Now,” he said, “you see what’s got the wits of two organizations stymied!”
    Banner was looking down at his stogie. It had gone out, but he wasn’t even thinking about it. He said: “I’ll tell you what I think about it.”
    McKitrick looked at him hopefully. “What?”
    “It couldn’t’ve happened! It’s too damned impossible!”
    Ramshaw must have been about forty-five. A cigarette dangled limply out of his slack lips as he sat on the bench at the special messenger service. He wore a weather-faded blue uniform with shrunken breeches and dusty leather leggings.
    Banner loomed over him, his enveloping black wraprascal increasing his already Gargantuan size. “You remember the envelope you delivered to the New Zealand Legation yesterday?”
    “That’s easy, mister. I never handled one like that before. A 10-year-old kid came into our agency about 10:00 in the morning and said somebody told him to leave the envelope with us to be delivered immediately. We didn’t ask too many questions, seeing as the kid had more than ample money to pay for the delivery.”
    “Did he say whether the someone was a man or a woman?”
    “Nope.”
    “Did anyone tamper with the envelope while it was here?”
    “Nope. I was assigned to do the job, mister. I kept the envelope right in front of me till I delivered it to the Legation at 11:00. It had written on it, Deliver to Mr Kermit Gosling at 11:30a.m. sharp , so I wanted to be sure it got there in plenty of time.”
    Banner glowered. “Didja know there was a gun in it?”
    Ramshaw squirmed as if his shrunken breeches chafed him. “I – I thought there was. That’s what it felt like through the heavy paper.”
    “Nobody stopped you on the way to the Legation? Tell me if someone even bumped into you.”
    “Nope, nope. Clear sailing all the way, mister.”
    Banner looked down at a pocket watch that must have been manufactured by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. He muttered: “I can still ketch Lockyear before lunch.”
    He went out of the agency, leaving behind him a grinning messenger. “Say, mister! Thanks for the tip!”
    Lockyear, in his office on Pittsylvania Avenue, played with his King Tut beard as Banner made himself known to him.
    “It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of, Senator,” said Lockyear. “But I’m afraid I can be of very little help. Gosling was far from dead when I left him.”
    “While you were in the office,” said Banner, “did you notice anything threatening?”
    “Threatening? No, not a thing, Senator.”
    “Perhaps you’d tell me what you were seeing Gosling about.”
    “Of course I have no objection, Senator. I’m an exporter-importer. I’ve been seeing Gosling about clearing some shipments that have been going in and out of New Zealand. Governments are touchy these days about cargoes.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s all, Senator.”
    In a few minutes Banner was on his way back to the Idle Hour Club. As he entered the convivial surroundings and lumbered into the dining room, he found McKitrick waiting for him.
    “The only thing about this case that’s plain,” said McKitrick abruptly, “is the motive. We know why Gosling was killed.”
    “Do you?” Banner squeezed in behind a table and told a waiter he wanted some straight whiskey.
    McKitrick said in a lower voice: “Gosling was collecting information on a spy who’s been selling all our secrets to the Russian Government. Gosling didn’t know exactly who it was, but he was getting dangerously close to that truth. Unfortunately the spy got to Gosling first. The Russian pistol is evidence of that.”
    McKitrick stopped talking long enough to allow the waiter to place Banner’s whiskey before him.
    “Yass?” Banner fired up another big stogie.
    McKitrick continued: “I’ve been thinking about Gertrude Wagner. She admits she’s from East Germany. Her sympathies might easily lie with the Commies. We have only her word that she’d