The Late Mr Early

“Edgar Early is dead; of that, there is no doubt”, said Detective Inspector Kelly, talking to himself as he often did when unobserved, scratching his graying and balding head, with a look of utter astonishment upon his face. “When my men broke down his bedroom door this morning, they found him flat out upon the carpet, stabbed with his own gold-handled, oriental dagger. Just as Mr Cadwallader said he would be, in his letter. He kept his promise, alright”.

The whole of London knew what the amazing and terrifying Mr Cadwallader had done. It was on the front of every London newspaper the following morning. “American Conjurer Commits Perfect Murder”.

About a month or so ago, he had arrived in London from New York to perform his “Mystifying conjuring skills and dazzling, death defying feats of escapology” at the Alhambra theater in Leicester square.

No one in London knew him or had heard of
him when he first arrived but,by the end of
the month,everyone in the city knew his name.

The reason for his extraordinary leap to fame was that, only about a week ago, the Amazing Cadwallader had posted letters to the police and to all the London Newspapers claiming:

“On the 24th of December, 1907. I, the Amazing Cadwallader will attempt the most daring feat ever performed by any magician. I shall commit the perfect murder. The victim shall be the noted American Mystery author Edgar C. Early. The police may try and arrest me but they will never
find me and, after I have murdered Mr Early, I shall, like all good conjurers, vanish into thin air".

And, as Inspector Kelly had observed, Cadwallader had kept his promise. Despite all their best efforts the police were unable to find Cadwallader
in order to arrest him and by Christmas morning, Early was dead.

“And I’m buggered if I know how he did it”, said Inspector Kelly, eating stuffed goose and drinking mulled wine by himself as he did every Christmas, “Early’s room and his whole house were locked up tighter than Wormwood Scrubs and my men were all around the outside. There was even a constable standing guard outside his door all night and there was no way in which he could have gotten in through the bedroom window which, come to mention it, had bars across it; not without one of our constables spotting him. It was,furthermore, a third story window and he’d have had to have climbed up carrying some sort of hacksaw with him”.

Inspector Kelly had originally suggested that Mr Early be locked up in a police cell all night but Mr Early, a rather temperamental and curmudgeonly recluse, had refused to be taken into protective custody.

“No!”, he’d insisted, “If I’m going to die as a result of Mr Cadwalladers bizarre shennanigans then I’d prefer to die in the comfort of my own house and not in some dank police dungeon, thank you very much”.

The Inspector had tried to reassure Mr Early that Cadwallader would fail in his attempt to murder him, but Early didn’t seem to have great confidence in the abilities of the London
police.

"You haven't had much success, so far, in finding
this Cadwallader. I doubt if you'll have any
more success in protecting me from him ",
snapped Early.

"And he was right", thought Kelly, sipping sherry as he reread the notes that had been taken at the scene of the crime, “Despite the fact that Early’s window was barred and his door double bolted from the inside and guarded by an armed constable; somehow, Cadwallader had managed to enter Early’s bedroom carrying Early’s own gold handled dagger and thrust it into Edgar Early’s stomach.

Yet there were no fingerprints in the room apart from Early’s own fingerprints and no sign of forced entry nor of any struggle between Early and his assailant; nothing in his room had been disturbed nor did Early make any sort of sound, like a scream or a cry for help, as he was being murdered, otherwise the constable guarding the door would have heard him”.

“What about one of the constables guarding the house and the one outside his room. Could any of them have been in Cadwallader’s employ or perhaps even Cadwallader himself in disguise”,he asked himself, his crepe paper crown slipping from his head.

“Not one”, he replied , with unwavering confidence in his voice, as he accidentally bit into the sixpence that he had planted for himself within his Christmas Pudding, “I handpicked those constables. I know them all as a good officer knows his regiment and would trust every one of them with my own life”.

Perhaps he had mesmerized them all, thought Kelly. He had certainly managed to mesmerize all of London. Edgar Early’s London home had,by boxing day, become a strange sort of sideshow, a macabre shrine for high society ladies longing to see where the wicked, yet dashing and mysterious Mr Cadwallader had carried out his daring crime and even Early seemed to benefit from the crime for, almost overnight, Early’s lurid and sensational crime novels had become best sellers throughout most of the English speaking world.

“Best that we put Cadwallader’s three ring circus behind us, eh?”, said Kelly, putting the file on the Early murder case in a filing cabinet marked “unsolved”, happily slamming it shut and hanging a holly wreath on it, “I don’t think we’ll ever discover the real truth or find that devil, Cadwallader, now”.

But, not long after Cadwallader’s disappearance, another American arrived in London, a woman dressed in black, with bright red hair, who claimed to be the widow of the late Edgar Early and she had an envelope with her which was addressed to Detective Inspector John Kelly of Scotland Yard.

“My late husband sent this telegram to his attorney,shortly before he died, with the instructions that I should give it to you in person”, she said, holding out the white envelope with Kelly’s name upon it. "He also instructed that I should not read it and I have respected his wishes".

Kelly had a look of awkward embarassment on his face, “ I thank you for coming, Mrs Early”, he said, taking the envelope and turning it nervously in his hands as he spoke, “and for delivering your husbands letter but, before I read it, I would just like to apologize personally for failing to protect your husband”.

“That’s quite alright, Inspector”, said Mrs Early, with a look of kindness, “From what I have managed to gather from his attorney and from the newspapers, you did all that you possibly could do to protect him. I only wish I’d known what was happening to Edgar but he was always so secretive and never told me any of it in his telegrams. He always just said that everything in London was fine and that he missed me and that was all”.

“Well, perhaps he didn’t wish to alarm you”, replied the Inspector, “Or perhaps he was worried that you might try to join him in London and he was concerned about your safety”.

Mrs Early said goodbye to him and left, sobbing very quietly and Kelly hoped that he hadn’t been the cause of her sobbing, “Poor woman”, he thought, as he tore open the telegram from her husband, “And at Christmas time of all times”.

He only half glanced at it, at first, believing it to be some kind of letter of gratitude to the police for their time and effort, but when he saw clearly what was written on it, his eyes went as wide as cake-tins and he gave out a small gasp.

“If reading this, Inspector -(STOP)-", read the telegram, “Then have seen wife -(STOP)- seen how beautiful she is -(STOP)- hair like gold flecked flame -(STOP)- skin as pure as snow -(STOP)- eyes like flawless emeralds -(STOP)- should also know she is pregnant -(STOP)- and that I am deep in debt -(STOP)- debts so large that writing not enough to pay them off -(STOP)- needed something -(STOP)- astounding publicity stunt -(STOP)- that would make books sell -(STOP)- so could leave fortune to wife and child -(STOP)- had always been good at magic -(STOP)- and have friends in the theater -(STOP)- so some amazing magic trick seemed best way to grab public attention -(STOP)- Shall be thinking of wife -(STOP)- when plunging knife into my own stomach -(STOP)- and bleeding to death -(STOP)- They say stomach wound most painful kind of wound -(STOP)- but -(STOP)- hopefully -(STOP)- because am determined sort of man -(STOP)- will not scream or make sound to alert constable -(STOP)- that you will post outside door -(STOP)- Merry Christmas -(STOP)- From Edgar Early alias Cadwallader -(STOP)-”

Inspector Kelly thought for a moment about the telegram, then smiled.

“I don’t think we’ll ever find out how Cadwallader killed Edgar Early, will we?”, he said, tearing up the telegram, “Merry Christmas, Mr Early”.