Page 191 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Slow Burn

She really hit a nerve with that one. The quints were having a lot of
trouble keeping up their facade of skeptical indifference. But what
the hell was a quincunx?
“This pattern of five points, four at the corners of a square and
one at its center—like the five dots on dice and dominoes—provides
equal travel time along the lines of a ninety-degree grid—our city
streets—between any one of you at a corner and three others, or
between the one at the center and the four corners. That increment,
fifteen minutes, is also the travel time between Al Carbone’s
apartment and the three nearest quints. All other travel times
between points are double that amount, thirty minutes.”
“That—that’s just a coincidence,” croaked a Carbone quint.
“No way,” replied Labelle, with ice in her voice. “As a pool of
talent, you possess skills in cooking, acting, gambling, forgery and
mathematics. These were all used in the plot, a plot suggested by a
book Quentin checked out from the university library several months
ago. He was researching games for his computer scam and came
across an old volume of puzzles by Sam Loyd, a master at creating
enigmas. In that book is the description of a toy he invented called
Get off the Earth. It is a volvelle, consisting of two concentric paper
circles riveted at the center and freely turning against each other; the
one on top is about an inch shorter in diameter. Across the
boundaries of these circles, along the outer edge of both, are printed
images of thirteen identical Chinese men with swords. Each figure is
in an active stance, just ahead of and behind another man. The edge
of the smaller wheel cuts each figure at more than one place, leaving
arms and legs and torso overlapping both cardboard wheels. When
one of the wheels is turned slightly, these truncated body parts shift,
those on the inner wheel rotating to link up with the analogous set on
the next boy on the outer wheel. But now, instead of thirteen figures,
there are only twelve. Loyd, by cleverly shaving a bit off each figure’s
components, made the same body parts fit together as either twelve
or thirteen boys.”
“Quentin saw that and adapted it, as all of you tend to do, to a
criminal goal: he shuffled the five of you in time and space so that
five people could appear to be in six locations at once—five
quintuplets at home and one murderer at Uncle Al’s apartment. Like
the Chinese men, the five shifting bodies had to be identical, so that

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