Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

“A week ago I was kidnapped on my way to visit the baron’s new manufacturing facility in Milan and held in an old farmhouse north of Naples. From what my kidnappers said among themselves, I gathered I was being held so that someone could impersonate me here. I suspected the Old Father William people meant to steal our formula.” The new arrival struck a kick-boxing stance. “No novice at the art of self-defence, I waited for my chance, knocked one of my captors down with a kick to the solar plexus, and escaped. But what was I to do then? Go to the police and they’d waste precious time confirming my story. So I decided to come directly here. In San Sebastiano I rented a rig, rode out here, and approached the chateau on foot. The rest you know.”

Cipriani put on pince-nez glasses, drew the Friday edition of the Milan Correro out of his pocket, and said, “Oh yes, and this may interest you. It seems I wasn’t the only Vieux Gaspard representative to be kidnapped.” The article he tapped with his glasses read: “The police, acting on an anonymous informant, have determined the murdered man discovered Sunday last at the Hotel Europa and previously identified as Franz Gruber of Leipzig was, in fact, Lars Thorwald of Christiania.”

Flanel snatched an invisible fly out of the air and shook it in his tight fist. “Got him!” he said. Then, as footsteps approached down the hall, he turned triumphantly to face the door.

But the policeman sent to find Thorwald had returned alone. “He’s gone, sir, escaped from his room down a rope of knotted bed sheets.”

“After him!” shouted Flanel, prancing out of the room. “He can’t have gotten far! Lars Thorwald is the Gooseberry Fool!”

Ganelon stayed behind to explain to the amazed Cipriani how his identity had been used in the Gooseberry Fool’s plan to murder the Nawab. When he had finished, Cipriani bowed and said, “I come at an inconvenient time. I will return tomorrow to put myself at the baron’s disposal.”

Ganelon pointed to the window where Flanel and a crowd of shouting policemen were dashing across the lawn. “Don’t leave yet. You’ll miss all the excitement.”

“It looks like they’ve picked up his trail,” said Cipriani. As the pursuers entered the trees he added a worried, “If that’s the way the villain went, and he holds to that course, he should emerge from the woods near where I tied my rig.” Ganelon made no reply. “But hell get away!” Cipriani insisted, starting toward the door. “Somebody has to warn the police.”

“No need. Thorwald’s still here in the chateau. As for the trail, I saw him fake those footprints this morning. At the time, I thought he was looking for the Phantom Balloon.”

“The Phantom Balloon?”

Ganelon sighed. “Please, let us avoid these needless explanations, Mr. Fool. Or may I call you Gooseberry? You are a regular one-man band. First you were one Cipriani, then Thorwald. And now you are another Cipriani, sneaking downstairs like you’d just arrived fresh from the arms of your kidnappers.”

The master of disguise gave a resigned smile. Then his eyes turned cold, he shifted his feet, and asked, “What gave me away? After all, if we don’t profit from our mistakes, why make them?”

“You’d thought everything through so carefully I knew you’d have a safer escape plan than dropping from a rope of knotted bed sheets into the rubble of an excavated moat and then limping off across country with the police close behind.”

The assassin shifted his feet again. “I really am a kickboxing expert, you know. And you, I understand, are a master of the via felix, the Happy Way. Or is that your father?”

“You were right the first time. Shall we find out which martial art is the better?”

“I’m tempted. But tell me, does the via felix actually change your opponent’s character?”

Ganelon nodded. “By redistributing the bodily humors. But the effect is only temporary.”

The assassin grimaced. “Then I’m afraid I am your prisoner. Temporary or not, a human chameleon must treasure his own personality, his inner core, above all else.”

“Come along, then,” ordered Ganelon. “We’ll hunt up your rig where you really left it and drive in to the prefecture. I hope we don’t meet Chief Inspector Flanel along the way. You are my prisoner. Besides, an afternoon’s run in the woods will do his character no end of good.”

The Collusionists by Scott Mackay