The Mysterious Mister Rius (Detective fiction)
By well-wisher
- 484 reads
A fly buzzed about the interview room as Mr Calibre sat down , an irritated look upon his face, then Detective Inspector Kelly opened up a file upon the desk between them in which Calibre saw a sheet of paper with the name Eric Rius on it.
The rest of the sheet of paper was blank, apart from a big question mark drawn in blue ink. The fly temporarily landing upon the paper, squatted upon the dot of the question mark and rubbed its tiny forefeet together.
“Inspector”, said Calibre, brusquely, “If this is regarding the murder of my… of my wife then you
already know, I presume, that I have an iron clad alibi. My neighbour Mr Frinton will tell you that he and his two sons were working in his garden from 12 O’clock to 4 O’clock on the day when my wife was murdered, mowing and mending and what not. She was murdered, so you’ve said, somewhere between 2 O’clock and half past two but he saw me enter my house at 1 O’clock and not exit again till just before 4 O’clock”.
Kelly brushed the fly away with the back of his hand.
“Yes, yes,I know that”, he said, “But it’s not you Mr Calibre…it’s your other neighbour Mr Rius; Mr Eric Rius that I wish to talk to you about. He’s a mystery you see that’s been pestering me for some time and I thought maybe you could help me clear up the mystery”.
“Mr Rius?”, asked Mr Calibre, his face starting to twitch nervously as he gazed towards a nearby window and the traffic slowly moving outside, “I didn’t really know him. I saw him once or twice, coming out of his house. He looked rather peculiar to me, I remember that. Always wore a bowler hat and spoke with a thick, foreign accent; polish, I think and he had a big bushy black beard and little round spectacles. Why do you want to know about him, anyway? Do you think that he had something to do with my wife’s murder?”.
“Perhaps”, said Kelly; noticing, from the corner of his eye, the fly temporarily landing upon the edge of the desk and crawling onto its underside, “In fact, that has been a question that’s been going round in my head like a buzzing fly from the moment I first found out about your neighbour, Mr Rius. whether there was a connection. It’s certainly a coincidence, you see, when two mysteries occur next to each other and hard for any detective to just ignore”.
“But my wife didn’t know him either”, said Calibre, “I’m sure of that, inspector. They’d never met each other. Since our… our divorce she hadn’t been back to the house, except to take her things in a
moving van, and I’m quite certain that Mr Rius moved in next door sometime afterwards”.
“That’s true. Your wife didn’t know Mr Rius, Mr Calibre; I know that but no one did; no one at all”, said Kelly, “That’s what makes him such a mystery. You see, after we questioned your neighbour Mr Frinton we went to knock on the door of Mr Rius’s house to ask him if he could confirm your alibi but Mr Rius didn’t answer his door and he didn’t answer his door the next day or the day after that either; however we’re very persistent especially if it’s a murder case we’re investigating and, eventually, I asked one of our officers, a nimble young lad, if he could climb in through a skylight and open the door from inside but then ,when we looked around the place, there was no one inside”.
“Well that’s not so odd, inspector”, said Calibre, “People go away…without telling anyone. It happens all the time”.
“Yes but where to?”, said Kelly, swatting away the fly that had temporarily landed upon one of his wisps of curly red hair, “Your neighbour Mr Rius has, it seems, just vanished into thin air and there’s no clue in his house as to where he might have gone. Do you know where he might have gone Mr Calibre?”.
“Me?”, said Calibre, becoming defensive, “How would I know where he’s gone? Back to ruddy Poland I expect or wherever he came from but you’re the detective, inspector. Surely finding someone can’t be that difficult ”.
“Oh well I’m afraid that it’s far easier said than done, Mr Calibre”, said Kelly, “Because, you see, not only is there no clue in this man’s house as to his whereabouts now but there is also no clue as to his history or to anyone who has ever known him. We don’t know anything about him; what he did for a living; who his friends or family are; nothing at all. In fact the only person, as far as we are able to ascertain, who has ever met him and spoken to him is the property letting agent from whom he bought the house; a Mr Fullerton, his name is, of the firm of Fullerton and sons and according to Mr Fullerton he did not even examine the property before buying it. He did leave an address and provide some proof of his identity, Fullerton says, but the address turns out to be nothing but an empty warehouse and how genuine his identification was, well, it’s impossible to know. Apart from that brief encounter we have no other information about Mr Rius. He’s a complete enigma or an illusion, perhaps he didn’t exist at all ”.
“Well, he certainly existed, inspector. I saw him on several occasions as did my neighbours although I have to admit”, said Calibre, “He does seem like a very mysterious character”.
“Very”, replied Kelly, “But you know, I haven’t even told you the oddest thing of all”.
“What?”, asked Calibre, his agitation starting to fade.
“Well”, continued the detective, “The oddest part of it is that when we entered his house there was not one piece of furniture in it, no chairs; no tables; no cupboards; not even a bed and Mr Rius was never seen taking any furniture into or out of his house. Now do you suppose he slept upon the floor?”.
“I really don’t know?”, said Calibre starting to laugh, “Though I admit, that is bizarre”.
“And yet he must, according to all your neighbours accounts, have lived in the house”, continued Kelley, “Because, as you rightfully say, he was seen many times, coming and going from the house. In fact he was seen by several of your neighbours leaving his house shortly before the time of your wife’s murder and returning shortly after ”.
“Well perhaps”, said Calibre, “But as I said, inspector, I’m sure that my wife didn’t know him and so he wouldn’t have had any reason to murder her”.
“Right, yes”, said Kelley, his tone suddenly changing, becoming more accusatorial, “But you had a motive for killing your wife didn’t you, sir. According to the man she lived with, who had several run ins with you and threatening phone calls from you, you were jealously possessive of her and couldn’t forgive her for leaving you; couldn’t bear the thought of her with any other man but you”.
Calibre’s face turned red and started to shudder.
“I thought you wanted to discuss my neighbour, inspector”, he said, speaking slowly and deliberately as if trying to restrain an enormous flood of anger, “As I’ve already said. I have a perfectly solid Alibi and so, no matter what motive you may think I had for killing my wife, I simply could not have killed her”.
Mr Calibre started to rise from his chair but Kelley stopped him, his tone softening.
“Oh, but…I’m sorry… if you wouldn’t mind, please, there is one more thing, sir”, said the detective.
Mr Calibre slumped back down in his chair, now full of rage; narrowly missing the fly that buzzedupwards as he banged his right fist upon the table.
“What?”, he asked, speaking rapidly with irritation, “And it better not be any more of your ridiculous accusations, inspector, otherwise you’ll be hearing from my lawyers because this seems to me like nothing short of police harassment”.
“No, no, it’s about your neighbour, Mr Rius although it does concern you; very much so, in fact”, said the detective, “You see, we did learn one very interesting piece of information from your other neighbour Mr Frinton about Mr Rius, one that started me on a bit of a hunch. You see, apparently, about a month ago he was seen taking a pick and shovel into his house as well as other tools; carpenters tools which sticks in your neighbours memory, he says, because, although he had a pick and shovel, he never saw him doing any work in his garden after that day. Now that’s very strange isn’t it, sir; bringing a pick and shovel into your house but not to dig outside? It surely suggests that someone intends to dig inside their house, doesn’t it?”.
Mr Calibre put his head in his hands.
“Do you know why your neighbour, Mr Rius might have been digging in his house Mr Calibre?”, asked the inspector, “Perhaps, there was something buried in his house. Do you think?”.
“No”, said the man, now glaring at the detective, his eyes seeming to glow white with anger, “I don’t know why he was digging and I don’t know why this man’s pick and shovel or his digging has anything to do with me or my wife’s murder”.
“Oh, but I think you do Mr Calibre”, said Kelley, a confident smile now spreading across his face, “I will spell it out for you, shall I? We found some lose floorboards in Mr Rius’s house. Quite an innocuous thing; lose floorboards. The first time I entered the house I didn’t even notice them. Only, when we lifted up those floor boards, we found something very interesting; a little hatch in the floor and underneath that hatch, do you know what we found, Mr Calibre?”.
Calibre didn’t say anything but he looked as if he knew the answer; the expression of a doomed man upon his face.
“Underneath that hatch we found a tunnel, leading directly from Mr Rius’s house to your house; a tunnel which allowed you to, regularly, after disguising yourself as your fictitious neighbour, Mr Rius, travel from one house to the other, exiting from Mr Rius’s door just as you did shortly before your wife was found murdered”.
Calibre put his head back in his hands, this time out of despair.
“I’m afraid that you have no alibi whatsoever, Mr Calibre” said Kelley, closing the file on the desk and squashing flat a bothersome fly in the process , “but you have had, I feel, ample opportunity to confess to your crime which you have chosen not to do and so now there’s nothing left but for me to place you under arrest for the murder of your wife”.
- Log in to post comments