Return to Ramble House Page

Return to Harry Stephen Keeler Page

 

 

THE BOX FROM NOWHERE!

 

©2007 by William Poundstone

 

Imitate Keeler Winner 2007

 

HUFFNAGEL KITTENPLAN, the world’s stingiest hillbilly, was dead—dead, moreover, in a place where London’s smart set wouldn’t be caught dead!—namely the bordello run by Madame Yeardleigh Wieczorekiatrwalczakryzclokowiczldchmielewski—an establishment notorious for the fact that all of its women of easy virtue were also trained stenographers—allowing their fees to be deducted—legally!—on the visitor’s income taxes—assuming said visitor itemized! This fact was of commanding importance for Boyce Pettaway, a bright-faced American of about 27-3/4, for unless Pettaway could solve what Scotland Yard was calling the “Kittenplan Enigma”—or the “Conundrum of the Pneumatic Strangler Whore”—posthaste and pronto!—Pettaway’s chances for connubial happiness would be as dead as that skinflint bumpkin!

“The facts are these, Boyce,” began Inspector Livingston Watrous, K.B.E. “On May 17, Huffnagel Kittenplan was seen entering Madame Wieczorekiatrwalczakryzclokowiczldchmielewski’s establishment. The Madame remarked that there was a package for Kittenplan, and had a girl fetch it for him—after he assured himself that no ‘tip’ was expected! This package was a wooden box about 30 inches by 30 inches by 10 inches, with a handwritten label addressed to ‘H. Kittenplan’—but no return address of any kind! He took it into a private room—alone!—and locked the door behind him.”

“Unt dot iss de lasd anyvun efer saw uf dat yillbilly Yuffnagel Kiddenblan—vile alive, dat iss!” interjected Detective Adolfo Bioy Messerschmidt—a consultant on homicides of the uncouth who had autogyro’d in from Buenos Aires. “De next day, two Bridish bolice chimmied de door oben unt fount him strankled!”

“That’s the puzzlement, Boyce!—Kittenplan was strangled—while alone!—in a room locked from inside! There are no other entrances to the room, not even windows. It seems they’re barmy about privacy there because the place adjoins the editorial offices of that gossip rag, The Prynose—and Madame’s clients tend to be loud! The room Kittenplan was in—a simple bedroom and bathroom of miserly proportions—was therefore supplied with velvet drapes, but only a solid expanse of brick wall behind them. After the police broke in, they searched the entire place. There was no one else in that room.”

“You’re saying Kittenplan strangled himself?”

“Nein, nein, dot iss imbossible!” objected Messerschmidt. “In der first blace, de yillbillies ub de Abbalachian region—from vere dis man Kiddenblan iss from!—haf a congenidal quirk, amblified drough inbreeding, dat makes dem combledely unable to taste butterscotch! A zo-called ‘butterscotch idiot’—as id iss known technically!—vill, as a heredidary zide effect, be lacking in ubber-body strength. Id iss a debatable boint vether anyvun coot strankle himself vit his own mitts—bud in Kiddenblan’s case, iss medigally imbossible!”

 

 

Return to Ramble House Page

Return to Harry Stephen Keeler Page