The Puzzle
“Listen. Bit by bit it works into the whole, like a picture
puzzle—each segment slipping right into place. There is just one hole
in it all, and I think your Danny’s kindness and unselfishness will
supply that necessary bit.”
She began then—to use her own way of saying it—to put together the
pieces of the puzzle. She was right. Bit by bit it fitted together.
Almost at once she came to the place that she had called a hole.
“There is no hole there,” I told her. “Under those circumstances,
Danny would have been just sweet, and unselfish, and foolish enough to
have done that very thing. She did it. That was why she was worried
and unhappy, all that day.”
“I’m sure of it. Now then . . .” She went on: Danny’s calling after
Gaby that day—easy to understand now, of course, and leading straight
to Chad’s suicide and confessional note. Gaby’s fear; Martha’s murder;
Sam’s ashes on the bag; Gaby’s note to Danny; each one fitting right
into place, until spread in front of me was one of the most hideous
pictures that any human being has ever been forced to look at.
“Only,” I gasped, “there can’t be such wickedness in the world! I
mean—not such long wickedness.”
“In all my experience,” she said, “I have never investigated another
murder case where the thing was so cruelly, vilely premeditated; so
wickedly, cunningly carried out. If this is true, it will be, also,
the first time that I have found a really brilliant mind belonging to
a fiend.”
“If it is true!” I echoed. “But it is proven. You have just proven it
all to me.”
She shook her head. “We have a seemingly perfect fabric made up,
wholly, of circumstantial evidence. As yet, we have nothing else. Now
I have a question to ask you. It will seem to you that I should have
asked you this at least a week ago. I did not, because I was certain
that, unless I shared all of my suspicions with you, your answer would
be exactly the answer that you gave me before. Now, thinking as you
think, I want a very careful answer to this question.”
When she had asked it, I refused my first impulse to answer it, at
once, and sat thinking carefully for several minutes. The answer that
I was forced to give, then, made me sick with shame.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t. I thought, honestly, that I did. But now I
know that I didn’t. That—that,” I knew I was chattering it, “puts
Canneziano’s murder right at my door——”
“Nonsense,” she folded one of my trembling hands into her steady,
capable hands. “We can’t go poking about like that, into the machinery
of fate, and stay sane. The blame in this case is entirely for me.
But, if I had not allowed myself to be misled then, but had worked
straight on, something equally tragic might have happened. We don’t
know. What we do know is, that no more time must be wasted.
“I have spent this past week in trying to obtain the necessary proof.
I have failed. Now, I am going to ask you to help me. Will you?”
“I will, and gladly. But you’ll have to tell me what you want me to
do. I haven’t the faintest idea.”
She told me.
“Lands alive!” I said. “That ought to be easy.”
I could see that she was annoyed. “I haven’t found it so,” she said.
“I have made three attempts, as many as I dared make, this week, and
have failed. Do you realize that it must come simply, and naturally?
You must realize that——”
“See here,” I interrupted, “why not do as Sam wants you to do? Why not
arrest the criminal now, and force the proof, afterwards? This sort of
evidence could be gotten then, as well as now, and a lot safer, too,
it seems to me.”
“Mrs. Magin,” she said, “until we have evidence of guilt we have no
criminal to arrest. Incredible as it seems, we might still be wrong
concerning every bit of this. I once made a horrible mistake. It was
on my third case—that is, after I began to work for myself. I don’t
talk about it. I can’t think about it. But I made myself a promise
then, a promise that I have never broken, and which I never will
break. Except in extreme necessity, proof, positive, and perfect, must
come before any accusation or arrest in a case of mine. Twice, as I
have said, I have had men arrested because of circumstantial evidence.
Each time the evidence was far stronger than anything we have in this
case. The first time, the man would have undoubtedly escaped if he had
not been put in confinement. The second time was on my third case,
which I have mentioned. If you force me to make this the third time——”
“I can’t force you to do anything,” I reminded her, hoping to cool her
down a bit.
“Yes, you can. If you go at this so clumsily that you give the thing
away, and so endanger your own life, I shall have to force matters. I
must, of course, risk a reputation—I’m not speaking of my own, you
understand—in preference to risking a life—again I am not speaking of
my own. But, if we are wrong in this, and remember _we may
be_—circumstantial evidence is the trickiest thing in the world—it
would be bitterly cruel and wrong. It would be even worse than the
other mistake of mine. Will you remember that, when you make your
first attempt?”
“Yes, I’ll remember. When do you want me to make the first attempt?”
“As soon as possible. This afternoon, if you can do it.”
“But—how shall I do it?”
“I am going to leave that to you, and to your natural wit. You can do
it much more spontaneously if you are not attempting to follow set
directions. But do, do be careful. Don’t make a mistake.”
With that she left me. I am ashamed to say that excitement had made me
forget my sorrow. I sat there saying my prayers, planning, and shaking
in my shoes, for a good half hour before I could get up enough courage
to go downstairs. In all probability, the next hour would bring me
face to face with the murderous fiend; and not by the blink of an eye,
not by the ghost of a shiver, must I betray my horrible knowledge.