The Bell Without a Clapper

[SFX: Winter wind. Car tires on gravel; iron gate closes]

NARRATOR: Mourning House stood above the frozen lake like a verdict no court had dared deliver. Ada Mercer arrived after midnight with a locksmith's case on her knee and snow filling the road behind her. The invitation had come from Gideon Mourning, manufacturer of bank locks, church safes, and the private doors of men who feared their own families. He had promised Ada a puzzle that would make her reputation. He had neglected to mention that he would be dead before she saw it.

PETER BELL: Nobody leaves until the police cross the pass. The avalanche took the lower road at ten.

ADA MERCER: Then nobody touches the music room. Who opened it?

CELESTE MOURNING: No one. That is why Leon telephoned you. Father locked himself inside at eight. At nine the tower bell rang, and he did not answer.

[SFX: Key turns. Heavy door opens]

NARRATOR: Gideon sat upright beside a silent pipe organ. A cup of black tea rested under his hand. The only key lay on the carpet inside the room. Frost sealed the two windows, the chimney was barred, and the oak door carried a Mourning patent lock whose bolt could not be thrown from the corridor. Above the ceiling, the tower bell swayed gently. Its clapper had been removed forty years earlier.

LEON VALE: The doctor believes poison. We all heard the bell at nine. We were together in the drawing room.

IMOGEN ROOK: Not together. Peter went for coal. Celeste took a call. Leon stood by the gramophone.

LEON VALE: And you were recording the storm, Miss Rook. A profession built from noises nobody else can verify.

ADA MERCER: The lock was not picked. The scratches are old, the key is genuine, and the bolt moved from inside. But this room was not sealed when Gideon died.

CELESTE MOURNING: You have been here three minutes.

ADA MERCER: Long enough to see dust on his shoes and no dust beneath them. Someone placed the body in that chair after the floor was last swept.

[SFX: Distant bell tone]

NARRATOR: A single bronze note passed through the walls. Everyone looked upward. Ada looked at the organ bench. A narrow brass pedal was sinking by itself, one patient inch at a time.