Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish Read Free

them were locked room mysteries.   He created a hero called Dr. Gideon Fell, and it was Dr. Fell who solved the crimes."
    Sergeant Lee tapped the side of her head. "By using ze little grey cells," she said, in a halfway passable French accent.
    Inspector Zhang smiled. "Exactly," he said.   "Now, in his book 'The Hollow Man', itself a locked room mystery, John Dickson Carr used Dr. Fell to expound his seven explanations that lead to a locked room murder." He nodded at his Sergeant. "You might want to make a note of them, Sergeant Lee," he said. "Now come with me."   They went back into the sitting room. Miss Berghuis was sitting on the sofa next to Mercier.   The waiter was standing close to the door as if he was keen to get out of the suite as quickly as possible. The two assistant managers stood by the desk in the corner of the room, looking at each other nervously.
    Inspector Zhang walked to the window and stood with his back to it. "So, I have now examined the CCTV footage covering the corridor outside this room, and I have examined the crime scene."   Sergeant Lee fumbled for her notebook as Inspector Zhang continued.   "The CCTV footage shows that Mr. Wilkinson arrived at his room with a guest at eight-thirty and that his guest, a young woman who is known to the police, left exactly one hour later. What I need to know is when Mr. Wilkinson ordered from room service."
    "That will be on the bill, inspector," said Miss Berghuis. She went over to the trolley and picked up a small leather folder and took out a slip of paper. She studied it, and nodded. "The order was placed at nine thirty-six," she said.
    "Excellent," said the inspector. "So from that we can assume that Mr. Wilkinson was killed sometime between the placing of the order at nine thirty-six and the arrival of the order at nine fifty-five." He frowned. "That does seem remarkably quick, Miss Berghuis."
    The manager smiled. "Inspector, we are a five-star hotel. And Mr. Wilkinson ordered only a club sandwich and a pot of coffee. Hardly a challenge for our chefs."
    "Very good," said the inspector, as Miss Berghuis went back to sit on the sofa. "We can therefore rule out Mr. Wilkinson's guest as the killer, as we know for sure that he was still alive at nine thirty-six."
    Miss Xue nervously raised her hand. "Actually, Inspector, we know that he was alive after that because he spoke to his wife at about a quarter to ten," she said.
    "How so?" asked Inspector Zhang.
    "She phoned at nine forty-five," said Miss Xue. "I was on the desk and I was there when the call came through from America. Mrs. Wilkinson was on the phone to her husband for almost five minutes."
    "Are you sure?" asked the inspector.
    "I am sure that it was his wife, and they spoke for several minutes," she said. "Whether it was for three, four or five minutes I am not sure."
    Inspector Zhang nodded. "Then we can assume that it was indeed Mr. Wilkinson that she spoke to," he said. "I cannot believe that a wife could be fooled by an imposter. So we therefore know that Mr. Wilkinson was alive just five minutes before the waiter arrived at his door. Yet we know for a fact that no one entered the room prior to the arrival of the waiter." He drew himself up to his full height of five-feet seven inches and looked in turn at the faces of everyone in the room. "That means that what we have here is what we detectives refer to as a Locked Room Mystery."
    He paused for several seconds, nodding wisely before continuing.   "As I was explaining to my colleague earlier, there are basically seven explanations as to how a body can be found in a locked room. Explanations provided by the talented mystery writer John Dickson Carr. I think it would be helpful to run through them. The first possibility is that the murder is in fact not a murder, but a series of coincidences or accidents that give the impression that a crime has been committed. A man stumbles and hits his head on a piece of heavy furniture, for instance.