The Locked Door

Not very surprising for a man who is living his lifelong dream of being a detective, Allen Johnson is a frequent reader of detective novels, particularly the older ones. He especially likes the ‘locked room’ stories that include Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Problem of Cell 13, and the several stories of that genre that C. K. Chesterton wrote for the intrepid Father Brown to solve.

What does surprise him on this day, is that he has a locked room case now that he has to solve. A next-door neighbour in an apartment building had heard a gunshot and called the police. He told them that the old man who lived in the apartment kept a lot of money and valuables in his apartment. It was well-known in the building that he didn’t trust banks.  

When Allen and his fellow officers arrive about half an hour later, they find that the door to the apartment is locked, and there is apparently no one, at least no one still alive in the apartment. He has to kick the door open. Once in, he finds on the couch a dead man covered in blood not long past flowing from what had been a shot through his heart.

He and his partners begin to check out the scene of the crime for possible clues. They find none.

Allen’s Thoughts

           ‘This man was certainly meticulous in his housekeeping. Everything is shiny clean, including the sky-blue curtains that are in the living room and his bedroom. There is also something strange that I could not identify at first. Then I realized that he had two of many objects in the apartment. Every lamp has a partner that is right beside it. His clothing come in pairs. There are identical spares for every pair of pants and every shirt in his closet. I wondered at the time whether he wore a belt and a pair of suspenders at the same time. Maybe he wore two pairs of suspenders, just in case one broke. My partners got a kick out of that idea when I mentioned it to them.  Either that or they were laughing politely as I am no longer just their equal, but their boss. There were two refrigerators side-by-side, the same with stoves and microwave ovens. When we went into the bathroom, I expressed the opinion that we might see two toilets, two sinks and two bathtubs. This was followed by more polite laughter.  But there weren’t twins of those conveniences – only two toothbrushes, two hairbrushes, two identical light blue bath towels, and two bottles of every medicinal drug that he took.

           Unfortunately, although we found the man’s set of keys in his pocket, one painted light blue (like the towels and the curtains) that proved to be the one that fit the lock of the now-disabled door, we could uncover no evidence to help us solve the murder. The gun was there. But as we soon found out, there are no fingerprints anywhere on the gun. It had been wiped clean, but I don’t imagine that victim could have done that after he shot himself. Not a suicide then. There is a killer, then, that we have to find. I really want to solve this one as it is my first in my newly-acquired position of authority. I was impatient to solve this murder, which made me cut short the investigation of every nook and cranny of the apartment.’

The Case Proceeds

Allen Thomson and his fellow officers then put up a large “Do not enter. Ongoing police investigation” sign across the broken door that they would have repaired later.

When they get back to the station, there is a buzz of interest over this being a locked door mystery. They had never had such a case before.

When Allen tells the story of all the pairs of things that the murder victim had kept in his apartment, Tom, the youngest officer on the team, hired the week before and not even a detective, poses an interesting question:

“If the victim had two of everything of any importance, would he not have two sets of keys?” 

This spurs Allen on to complete the thought. He wants to direct the solving here, as he had neglected to direct his team to searching the apartment sufficiently carefully and completely. So he says: “If we find the second set, and it is missing the key to the apartment, then the locked door problem at least will be resolved, if not the identity of the murderer? Right?”

“Yes, sir. That is what I was thinking.”

“Alright, young man, you will now join me in the search through the drawers to see if what you supposed is actually real.”

Revisiting the Scene of the Crime

So Allen and Tom go back to the scene of the crime. The door hadn’t yet been repaired or replaced, but the sign is still up.  Both of them look through the apartment as carefully as they can. Both of them are desperately hoping that they will find the second set of keys, and that it will be missing the light blue apartment key. That would explain how the murderer managed to lock the door after leaving the apartment. At least that part of the mystery would be solved and resolved.

They were just about to give up their search, when Tom looks into the drawer that had held the first set of keys, and finds a false bottom. Moving it aside, he finds the second set of keys. And just as they had hoped, the light blue key is missing. As Tom had suspected, the murderer must have taken it.

Allen is so mentally engaged in this search, that he almost forgets that he should see if the neighbour who had called them is in.  He hadn’t really asked the man sufficient questions when they first met him in the hallway.  It helps in his remembering that he hears footsteps walking down the hall between the apartments.

Allen Enters the Hallway

           Allen pushes the broken door aside, and enters the hallway. There he sees the neighbour approaching the door to his apartment. The man takes out his keys to unlock his door. Then Allen notices that one of the keys is different from the others. It is light blue, like the key to the murdered man’s apartment. 

           “Stop right there,” he cries out. “You have the key to the old man’s apartment. You have some explaining to do.”

           The man begins to run away. Allen pursues, and tackles him before the villain makes it to the stairway. Both of the men are a little stunned by the experience and remain lying on the floor for ten seconds or so. Fortunately for Allen, Tom rushes to them, grabs the murderer and handcuffs him. He did this all before Allen had sufficient time or consciousness to stand up and lend assistance. When Allen sees what Tom has done, he knows that the two of them are going to make great colleagues. They have already in their short acquaintance solved a locked door mystery.