A locked-room mystery is one in which the victim of a murder is found in a “locked room,” with no clear way for the perpetrator to have entered or exited. Basically, they’re puzzles centered on logically impossible murders that detectives must figure out. John Dickson Carr’s Hollow Man is arguably the greatest locked-room mystery; Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue falls under the same category, and Agatha Christie dabbled in them as well.
They’re very fun reads, and in this week’s episode of Patience, Patience Evans was practically giddy at the opportunity to solve one. It involves a reclusive crime fiction writer, Harry Franklin, who was found poisoned to death in a room that was locked shut. He died from cyanide poisoning, and obviously, everyone’s first thought is suicide. There was cyanide in his glass, but no traces of cyanide were found in the bottle of amaretto he was drinking or anywhere else in the room. If no one could have brought cyanide into the room, and Harry didn’t put it in his glass, how was he poisoned?
Patience was clearly familiar with crime-fiction tropes (and Columbo) and quickly surmised that the poison came from ice cubes laced with cyanide. The poison wouldn’t be released until the ice melted, after the murderer had left, providing the perfect alibi.
But that was only the first 15 minutes of the episode. The rest centered on who put the cyanide in the ice cubes, and there were really only two suspects. Harry had made plans to write his memoir, and there were two people concerned about its contents: Edmund Lennox, a close friend of Harry’s and a fellow novelist, and Aldous Tate, who owned the cabin and ran the writers’ retreat that Edmund, Lisa Pressman, and Harry were attending. Many years earlier, Lennox and Harry were both in love with the same woman, Lisa. She died in a cabin fire that left Harry with burn injuries on his right hand, although Edmund survived the fire unscathed.
Both Edmund and Aldous were concerned that Harry’s memoir would accuse them of murdering Lisa. Given that Aldous was seen captured in CCTV footage outside of Harry’s residence the day he died, Aldous becomes the chief suspect, at least until he’s found inside his car, poisoned to death with the same cyanide, leaving only one suspect: Edmund.
After some self-doubt, a mistake, and getting snapped at for touching evidence, Patience ultimately solves the case in very Agatha Christie fashion. Edmund and Harry used the same typewriters, and by examining their writing, Patience concluded that when Harry typed, strokes from his left hand were lighter due to the burns he suffered in the fire. She then surmised that Edmund had actually written all of Harry’s books and made him famous.
So, why did Edmund kill Harry? Because, as Edmund eventually confessed, he had killed Lisa and set the fire to cover up the murder. Harry knew the truth, and in exchange for not turning him in, forced Edmund to write all of his novels. But the blackmail wasn’t why Edmund killed Harry; it was because he feared Harry would reveal the truth about Lisa’s murder in his memoir.
It was only after Edmund confessed that it was revealed Harry’s memoir contained no such bombshell. He was going to reveal that Edmund had written all of his novels and that he blamed Aldous Tate for Lisa’s murder. So, Edmund killed two more people for no reason at all.
It was another very satisfying episode of Patience, the summer’s best Sunday night show. It airs on PBS and streams on PBS Masterpiece.
