The Pilot Who Wore a Dress: And Other Dastardly Lateral Thinking Mysteries

The troublesome signpost (#ucefa55a4-8356-5892-adbe-849a11948a6d)

The mystery

Everybody who is old enough to remember the event recalls where he or she was when President Kennedy was shot, or when the World Trade Center was attacked. For those who witnessed its aftermath, the Great Storm of 1987 is another of those memorable events.

During the night of 15 October violent hurricane-force winds tore roofs off houses in London, demolished the seven oaks in Sevenoaks, and blew beach huts half a mile across the sea road in Hove. Roads and railways blocked by downed trees kept commuters at home, and fallen electricity lines left many without power. London, East Anglia and the Home Counties were particularly badly hit, being buffeted by winds the like of which will probably not be felt again for another 200 years. Gorleston in Norfolk chalked up a gust of 122 mph.

I remember this all as if it was yesterday. I was living in Muswell Hill, in North London. As I walked through the woods to the Tube station the next morning – I was meant to travel to Sussex – I had to step over branches and jump over whole trees. No trains were moving so I postponed my visit until the following week. When Monday arrived I set off on my journey.

I enjoy the countryside so I decided that I would walk the few miles from Brookbridge station to the home of my great friend Arthur Van Houghton, the famous opera tenor and popular siffleur, who I was going to see. I had never been to the area before but he’d told me it was a pleasant stroll from the station to Rotherborough High Street, where we were to meet.

This was in the days long before smartphones and digital maps, and Arthur had told me to get out at the station and walk past the Wheatsheaf pub and then along the bridleway that travels straight as an arrow through the pretty fields and woods towards Martinsbrook. I was to go as far as the fingerpost at the crossroads in the little village of Brookstead Heath. The signpost, he said, would point me in the direction of Rotherborough, once the hometown of the celebrated aviatrix Betty la Roche. Arthur was to meet me at the top of the high street, under the bronze sculpture of the famous airwoman.

The train journey was uneventful and I got out at the station, and set off as instructed. There were many indications of hurricane damage in the dappled autumn sunshine, but much of the fallen wood and bits of demolished fence had been tidied into piles.

It was indeed a lovely walk and I finally reached the crossroads where the signpost was. And that’s where the trouble started.

The sign was a charming black and white fingerpost of the old style, with four ‘fingers’ pointing from its central pillar. The problem was that the hurricane had blown the sign down and it was lying flat on the grass. I looked at it lying there uselessly for a moment, wondering what to do.

One of the signpost’s fingers pointed to Martinsbrook and Coppesfield, a second, at right angles to that one and stuck in the mud, pointed to High Woodhurst and Rotherborough (my destination), a third, pointing in the opposite direction to the one to Coppesfield, pointed to Brookbridge, and a fourth, opposite the Rotherborough one, pointed to Buxfield Cross, a place I’d never heard of.

And then a thought struck me. I realised that I could easily discover which way I needed to go by using the sign, even as it lay there on the ground.

The problem

How did I discover from the blown-down signpost the proper direction to take in order to reach my destination?

Tap here for the solution. (#litres_trial_promo)

The Knightsbridge barber (#ucefa55a4-8356-5892-adbe-849a11948a6d)

The mystery

Nowadays, Knightsbridge is an exclusive shopping district in London, but it began as a little hamlet that extended into the parishes of Kensington and Chelsea. Its ancient name comes from the Knight’s Bridge that once crossed over the River Westbourne, which still flows through the city, but now underground.

One of Knightsbridge’s most celebrated residents was Raymond Bessone, Britain’s first celebrity hairdresser. Born in Soho in 1911, Bessone anglicised his name to the more palatable Peter Raymond, but was known to everybody as Mr Teasy-Weasy.

Mr Teasy-Weasy was always impeccably coiffed and turned out, swooshing around Mayfair in bow ties, buttonholes and an expensive overcoat, which he wore without putting his arms in the sleeves. His Italianate looks were enhanced by his pencil moustache, but undermined by his entirely fake French accent.

Building his business and developing an exclusive clientele over the years was second nature to Mr Teasy-Weasy. Mixing as he did with the most fashionable people, he was always popping up in the news. Once, in 1956, the blonde bombshell Diana Dors flew him to the States to shampoo her hair. This reportedly cost £2,500, about £59,000 in today’s money.

Mr Teasy-Weasy was never short of an opinion. He claimed that women over the age of twenty should avoid wearing long hair because it was ageing. If he was interrupted while doing nothing he would announce, ‘Madam! Can you not see that I am meditating?’

One of Mr Teasy-Weasy’s most famous reported remarks concerned the backgrounds of those whose hair he was styling. He said, ‘I would rather cut the hair of three Cockney women than that of one Yorkshirewoman.’ This, as you might imagine, caused quite a stir among his northern clientele, of whom, admittedly, there weren’t hundreds.

The problem

Why did Mr Teasy-Weasy say that he would rather cut the hair of three Cockney women than one Yorkshirewoman?

Tap here for the solution. (#litres_trial_promo)

The fastest beard in the world (#ucefa55a4-8356-5892-adbe-849a11948a6d)

The mystery

In 1963 Sean Horn was seventeen and living at home with his parents in the USA. He was a precocious child and had a particular knack for the church organ, which he had learned from his father, a sober black-suited minister, who was himself proficient on the instrument.

Sean was also precocious in the matter of facial hair. His beard had begun growing at the age of sixteen and would by now have been long and bushy if his parents had not insisted on him shaving it off. They refused to allow men with long hair or beards to enter the house, on old-fashioned ‘moral’ grounds that were a mystery to Sean’s normal, Beatles-loving friends. ‘When you are eighteen, My Son, and have come of age,’ said his mother one day, ‘only then may you grow a beard. If you must.’ Sean was an obedient boy so he shaved his face every day without fail.

Sean’s friend Olivia Carlson had invited him to her all-night Christmas party on 18 December, in the centre of the city, so he asked his parents’ permission. They were already trying their best to accommodate themselves to the galloping changes taking place in the USA at that time. Boys with long hair, girlfriends staying over, jeans, drugs, swearing and pop music all seemed so alien to their world. But, though old-fashioned and strict, they realised that their son was nearly a man so they agreed that he could go to the party if he was back before sunrise. He promised he would be. ‘Make sure to shave before you go, Son, and don’t forget to take along a posy of flowers,’ said his mother.

On the night of the party, Sean put on his best clothes and had a close shave. His parents approved. He waved them goodbye as he jumped on the evening bus into town.

When he returned home just before the following sunrise his parents were astonished to see that he had a bushy black beard. They pulled it in disbelief but it didn’t come off. It was a real beard.

The problem

Sean’s hair grows at a normal rate. His beard is his own real hair, and there’s nothing wrong with him. So how did he manage to grow a proper bushy black beard before sunrise?

Tap here for the solution. (#litres_trial_promo)

The high window (#ucefa55a4-8356-5892-adbe-849a11948a6d)

The mystery

The sloping walls at the foot of the newish-looking Leeds Combined Court Centre are no doubt designed to prevent people from standing around smoking or relieving themselves against the building. They add an extra element of charmlessness to an edifice that, in its orange-brick brutalism, is already a bit short on good looks.

Not so long ago this was the scene of an interesting dispute, which sprang up during the trial of Mr Joe Slepkava, who was being tried for the crime of murder.

The story was that a man had been stabbed outside a pub overlooking the River Aire, which flows through Leeds city centre. Along the river’s banks stand many renovated industrial buildings. Some are businesses, others hotels, and some are tall private dwellings. It was from a high window in one of these skinny 19th-century conversions that the witness for the prosecution, structural engineer Marmaduke Snarbes, claimed to have seen Slepkava arguing with the victim before stabbing him and heaving him over the side into the water. Here is an extract from the trial records.

MR CUMMING (PROSECUTION): ‘Just tell us, Mr Snarbes, what it was you saw from the house in Chandler’s Walk.’

MR SNARBES (PROSECUTION WITNESS): ‘Well, I was in this small room at the top of number 69, inspecting it for my client. The main beam, which functions as a drag strut in the lateral-load-resisting system, seemed to have a problem with its acquired axial loading.’

CUMMING: ‘Just tell us what you saw, thank you, Mr Snarbes.’

SNARBES: ‘Oh yes, well it’s an unused room on the third floor. Dark and dusty. Unfurnished …’

CUMMING: ‘Was it locked?’

SNARBES: ‘No. It was jammed closed from outside with an old chair, under the handle. The wind whistles through any open doors up there. There is one very small square window in the room. It’s got bars on it. No furniture, no chimney or anything in the room. Nothing – it’s completely bare. Peeling wallpaper, bare floorboards, very dirty. Now, in the course of taking notes I heard raised voices, so I looked out of the window and I noticed a big fat man down beside the river. He had a spider web tattoo on his face. I saw him stab this other man in the chest and lift the body over the side, into the water. He threw the knife in afterwards.’

CUMMING: ‘You say you got a good look at this man. If you see him in court today would you please point him out to the jury? Thank you. For the record, the witness has pointed at Mr Slepkava.’

HIS HONOUR JUDGE QUATERMASS: ‘You are certain, are you, that this is the man you saw?’

SNARBES: ‘Yes Sir. The missing ear and the facial tattoo are distinctive.’