very interesting possibility that makes my question logical and the
item of Marion French's scarf seems to point the same way. I think that
I'll be able to check up soon on the facts--which will put me in a
position to prove more definitely what I've just postulated.... Let me
get on to point number two.
"The natural thought one has on finding the body in this window is that
the crime was committed here. Of course! Usually, one would not even
stop to question it."
"It seemed funny to me, though," said the Inspector, frowning.
"Ah! It did, eh? Perhaps I can crystallize your suspicion a bit later,"
said Ellery brightly. "We enter, we see a body, we say: Crime was
committed here. But then we stop to observe. We are told by Prouty
that the woman has been dead some twelve hours. The body is found a
bit after noon. That would make it a short time after midnight when
Mrs. French died. In other words, when the crime was committed. Observe
that in any case the crime was committed in dead of night. What is the
appearance of this window at such a time--of this whole section of the
building? Total darkness!"
"And--?" put in the Inspector dryly.
"You don't seem to take my dramatics very seriously," laughed Ellery.
"Total darkness, I repeat. Yet we are supposing that this window is
the scene of the crime. We prowl about the window, ask ourselves: Are
there lights in here? If there are, that's the end of it. With the
door closed, and these heavy drapes on the street side, light would be
unobserved outside the window-room. We investigate and find--no, no
lights. Plenty of lamps, plenty of sockets--no bulbs. I doubt, indeed,
if the lamps are even wired. So--we suddenly visualize a crime in total
darkness. What--you don't like that idea? Neither do I!"
"There are such things as flashlights, you know," objected Queen.
"So there are. That occurred to me. Then I asked myself: If there was
a crime here, there was some logically necessary antecedent action. A
crime presupposes a meeting, a probable quarrel, a murder, and in this
case, disposal of the body in a _very_ queer and inconvenient place--a
wall-bed.... And all in the rays of a flashlight! As redoubtable Cyrano
would remark: No, I thank you!"
"Might have carried bulbs with him, of course," muttered the Inspector,
then their eyes met and they both laughed at once.
Ellery grew serious. "Well, let's leave the little matter of
illumination for the present. You'll admit it reeks slightly of
improbability?
"And now to that exceedingly fascinating little thingamajig," he
continued, "the lipstick engraved with the letter _C_. That's my point
number three. In many ways, it's of extreme significance. The immediate
conclusion is that Lipstick marked _C_ does not belong to Mrs. French,
whose initials, engraved on three other articles in her bag, are
_W.M.F._ Now, Lipstick marked _C_ is of a noticeably darker shade
than the paint on the dead woman's lips. Which not only corroborates
the premise that Lipstick marked _C_ is not Mrs. French's, but also
that there is _another_ lipstick extant somewhere which _did_ belong
to Mrs. French. Follow?... Now where is that lipstick? It is not in
this window anywhere. Therefore it is somewhere else. Did the murderer
take it, along with the key? That seems silly. Ah--but haven't we a
clue? Of course! For observe ..." he paused, "the dead woman's lips.
Half-finished! And of a lighter shade. What does this mean? Undoubtedly
that Mrs. French was interrupted while she was dabbing at her lips with
her own lipstick now missing."
"Why interrupted?" demanded the Inspector.
"Have you ever seen a woman who began to paint her lips leave them
half-painted? It just isn't done. It _must_ have been an interruption
which prevented those lips from being entirely daubed. And a violent
interruption, I'll wager; nothing short of an unprecedentedly odd
occurrence would stop a woman from smearing that last red blob on the
right place."
"The murder!" exclaimed the Inspector with a queer light in his eye.
Ellery smiled. "Perhaps.--But do you grasp the implication, dad? If she
was interrupted by the murder or the incidents immediately preceding
the murder, and the lipstick is not in this window--"
"Of course, of course!" exclaimed the old man. He sobered. "It's true,
though, that the lipstick might have been taken by the murderer for
purposes of his own."
"On the other hand," returned Ellery, "if it was not taken by the
murderer, then it is still somewhere in or about the building. You
might institute a search through six floors of this drygoods mortuary."
"Oh, impossible! But I suppose we'll have to have a try at it later."
"Perhaps it won't be necessary in about fifteen minutes," said Ellery.
"At any rate, a genuinely interesting question comes up: To whom does
the _C_ lipstick belong, if it is not Mrs. French's? You might look
into that, dad. I have an idea that the answer to that question will
bring complications--_à la_ Scott Welles...."
At mention of the Police Commissioner's name the Inspector's features
lengthened. "You'd better finish what you began, Ellery; he'll be here
any minute now."
"And so I shall." Ellery removed his pince-nez and twirled it
recklessly in the air. "Before we proceed to point number four, bear in
mind that you're _cherchez_-ing two feminine accessories--_la lipstick
de Madame, et sa clef_....
"To point number four, then," continued Ellery with a faraway gleam in
his eye. "For point number four we must credit the habitually sharpened
perceptions of our grossly underpaid and revered medico, Sam Prouty. He
thought it strange that wounds of the nature of Mrs. French's should
have bled so little. At least, there was little trace of blood on her
body and clothes.... By the way, there was also a smear of dried blood
on the palm of her left hand--you noticed it, of course?"
"Saw it, all right," muttered the Inspector. "Probably clapped her hand
to one of the wounds at the moment she was shot, and then--"
"And then," finished Ellery, "her hand dropped in death and the
divine ichor, which by all the laws of physics, according to friend
Sam, should have gushed forth, did--what? I should say," he remarked
seriously after a pause, "that it obeyed the immutable laws of that
exact science and did gush forth freely...."
"I see what you mean ..." murmured the old man.
"It gushed forth freely--but not in this window. In other words,
we must look for an interesting combination of elements to explain
away the phenomenon of two bloody revolver-wounds being practically
bloodless on the discovery of the body...."
"Let me sum up the indications to this point," Ellery continued
swiftly. "To my mind the absence of Mrs. French's apartment key; the
absence of normal illuminating-facilities in this window; the absence
of Mrs. French's rightful lipstick, which she must have had almost
directly before her death, since her lips are only half-painted; the
absence of blood from two logically bloody wounds; the presence of
Marion French's scarf; and another item of a more general but none the
less convincing nature--all converge into one conclusion."
"And that is that the murder was not committed in this window," said
the Inspector, taking snuff with a steady hand.
"Exactly."
"Just what do you mean by still another item which points toward that
conclusion, Ellery?"
"Has it struck you at all," answered Ellery slowly, "what an utterly
preposterous setting this window-room is for the crime of murder?"
"I did think of it, as I mentioned before, but--"
"You've been too plunged into detail to get a psychological slant on
this affair. Think of the privacy, the secrecy, the conveniences,
that a fully planned murder requires. Here--what did the murderer
have? An unlit, periodically patrolled window. Dangerous from start
to finish. In the heart of the main floor, where the nucleus of the
night-watchman's staff is located. Not fifty feet from the constantly
present head night-watchman's office. Why? No, dad, it's perfectly
silly! It was the first thought I had when I came in here."
"True enough," muttered the Inspector. "Yet--if it didn't take place
here, why transport the body here at all _after_ the murder, if that is
what was done? It seems to me that almost as much danger, if not more,
existed in that event as in the first...."
Ellery frowned. "That had occurred to me, of course.... There is an
explanation; there must be. I begin to see the manipulation of a fine
Italian hand...."
"At any rate," broke in the Inspector with a slight impatience, "so
much is clear to me after your analysis: this window is certainly not
the scene of the crime. I think I see--yes, of course--it's as plain as
day--the apartment upstairs!"
"Oh, that!" Ellery said absently. "Naturally. Wouldn't make sense
otherwise. The key, a logical place for the lipstick, privacy,
illumination ... yes, yes, the sixth floor apartment by all means. It's
my next stop...."
"And it's positively depressing, El!" exclaimed the Inspector, as
if struck by a thought. "Imagine! That apartment has been used by
five people incessantly since eight-thirty this morning, when Weaver
arrived. Nobody noticed anything up there, so evidently traces of the
crime were removed from the apartment before that time. Goodness--if
only...."
"Now don't be bothering your poor grey head with fancy!" laughed
Ellery, suddenly restored to good humor. "Of course the traces of the
crime have been removed. The top layer, so to speak. Perhaps even the
middle layer. But away down deep, underneath, we may find--who knows?
Yes, that's my next stop."
"I can't help worrying about the reason this window was used at all,"
frowned the Inspector. "Unless it's that time element...."
"Heavens! You're becoming positively a genius, dad!" chuckled Ellery
affectionately. "I've just got over solving that little problem for
myself. Why was the body placed in the window? Let's apply unfailing
_logos_....
"There are two possibilities, either or both of which may be correct.
First: to keep attention away from the _real_ scene of the crime, which
is undoubtedly the apartment. Second, and more logically, _to prevent
the body from being discovered before noon_. The dead certainty of the
daily demonstration time--which, you have reasoned, of course, was
common knowledge to all New York--tenons much too snugly."
"But why, Ellery?" objected Inspector Queen. "Why delay the body's
discovery until noon?"
"If only we knew that!" murmured Ellery, with a shrug. "But in a
general way it seems reasonable that, if the murderer left the body to
be discovered--and he knew it with certainty--at twelve-fifteen, then
he had something to do _before noon_ which the discovery of the body
prematurely would have made dangerous or impossible. Do you follow me?"
"But what on earth--"
"Yes, what on earth," replied Ellery sadly. "What did the murderer have
to do on the morning of the crime? _I_ don't know."
"We're just stumbling in the dark, Ellery," said the Inspector with a
faint groan. "Just staggering from premise to conclusion without a ray
of light anywhere.... For example, why couldn't the murderer have done
what he had to do last night, _in the building_? There are telephones,
you know, if he had to communicate with some one...."
"Are there? But--we'll have to check up on that later."
"I'll do that right away--"
"Just a second, dad," interrupted Ellery. "Why not send Velie out to
that private elevator to look for traces of blood?"
The Inspector stared at him, made a fist. "Goodness! How stupidly I've
managed things!" he cried. "Of course! Thomas!"
Velie stalked across the room, received an inaudible instruction, and
immediately left.
"I should have thought of that before," growled the Inspector, turning
back to Ellery. "Naturally, if the murder was committed in the
apartment, the body had to be brought down here from the sixth floor."
"Probably find nothing," commented Ellery. "I'd pick the staircase,
myself.... But look here, dad. I want you to do something for
me.--Welles will be here any moment now. To all intents and purposes
this window is the scene of the crime. He'll want to hear all the
testimony all over again, anyway. Keep him down here--give me an hour
upstairs alone with Wes Weaver, won't you? I must see that apartment
at once. Nobody has been in it since the meeting broke up--it's been
watched all the time--there _must_ be something there.... Will you?"
The Inspector wrung his hands helplessly. "Of course, son--anything you
say. You can certainly tackle it with a fresher mind than I can. I'll
keep Welles down here. Want to examine that Employees' Entrance office,
the freight room, and that whole section of the main floor, anyway....
But why are you taking Weaver?" His voice sank lower. "Ellery--aren't
you playing a dangerous game?"
"Why, dad!" Ellery's eyes opened wide in honest astonishment. "What do
you mean? If you've any suspicion of poor Wes, disabuse your mind of
it right now. Wes and I were bunkies at school; remember that summer
during which I stayed with a chum in Maine? That was Westley's father's
place. I know the poor boy as well as I know you. Father's a clergyman,
mother's a saint. Background clean, life's always been an open book. No
secrets, no past...."
"But you don't know what he's bumped into in the city here, Ellery,"
objected the Inspector. "You haven't seen him for years."
"Look here, dad," said Ellery gravely. "You've never made a mistake
following my judgment, have you? Follow it now. Weaver's as innocent of
this crime as a lamb. His nervousness is plainly connected with Marion
French.... There! The photographer wants to talk to you."
They turned back to the group. Inspector Queen spoke to the police
photographer for a few moments. Then, dismissing the man, he resolutely
beckoned the Scotch store manager.
"Mr. MacKenzie, tell me--" he asked abruptly, "what is the condition of
your telephone service after shopping hours?"
MacKenzie said: "All 'phones except on one trunk line are cut off at
six o'clock. That line is connected with O'Flaherty's desk at the night
exit. If there are any incoming calls, he takes them. Otherwise, there
is no telephone service at night."
"I see by O'Flaherty's time-sheet and report-sheet that there were
no incoming or outgoing calls last night," remarked the Inspector,
consulting the chart.
"You can rely on O'Flaherty, Inspector."
"Well," pursued Queen, "suppose some department is working overtime?
'Phone service kept open?"
"Yes," replied MacKenzie. "But only on written request of the head of
the department.--I should add that we have very little of that sort of
thing here, sir. Mr. French has always insisted that the closing hour
be kept more or less strictly. Of course, there are exceptions every
once in a while.--If there is no record on O'Flaherty's chart of such a
request, you may be sure no lines were open last night."
"Not even in Mr. French's private apartment?"
"Not even in Mr. French's apartment," returned the store manager.
"Unless Mr. French or Mr. Weaver instructs the head operator to the
contrary."
The Inspector turned questioningly to Weaver, and Weaver shook his head
in an emphatic negative.
"One thing more, Mr. MacKenzie. Are you aware of the last time before
yesterday that Mrs. French visited the store?"
"I believe it was a week ago Monday, Inspector," replied MacKenzie
after some hesitation. "Yes, I'm fairly certain. She came in to speak
to me about some imported dress material."
"And she did not appear at the store after that?" Inspector Queen
looked around at the other occupants of the room. There was no answer.
At this moment Velie reëntered. He whispered to his superior and
stepped back. The Inspector turned to Ellery. "Nothing in the
elevator--not a sign of blood."
A policeman stepped into the window-room and made for the Inspector.
"The Commissioner's here, Inspector."
"I'll be right out," said the Inspector wearily. As he left the room,
Ellery gave him a meaning glance. He nodded slightly.
When he returned a few moments later, escorting the portly, pompous
figure of Commissioner Scott Welles and a small army of detectives and
deputies, Ellery and Westley Weaver had vanished. And Marion French sat
in her chair, clutching her father's hand, watching the window-door as
if with Weaver had gone some of her heart and courage.
THE SECOND EPISODE
_"As for the word CLUE, we are indebted for its genesis to
mythology.... Clue has descended etymologically from_ CLEW _(in
common with many other words of similar endings; i.e._, TREW, BLEW,
_etc.) ... being a literal Old English translation of the Greek
word for thread, directly traceable to the legend of Theseus and
Ariadne and the ball of cord she gave him with which to grope his
way out of the Labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.... A clue in
the detectival sense may be of an intangible as well as a tangible
nature; it may be a state of mind as well as a state of fact; or it
may derive from the absence of a relevant object as well as from
the presence of an irrelevant one.... But always, whatever its
nature, a clue is the thread which guides the crime investigator
through the labyrinth of nonessential data into the light of
complete comprehension...."_
--From WILLIAM O. GREEN'S
Introduction to ARS CRIMINALIS
_By_ John Strang
[Illustration:
A--Cardroom
B--Card table with banque cards
C--Ash tray with stubs
D--Servant's bedroom
E--Anteroom
F--Library
G--Conference table and chairs
H--Library desk
I--Bedroom
J--Lavatory
K--Spring door to private apartment
L--Elevator shaft
M--Stairway
N--Dressing table
]
13
AT THE APARTMENT: _The Bedroom_
Ellery and Westley Weaver picked their way unnoticed through the
throngs on the main floor. At the rear of the store, Weaver indicated
around the bend of the wall a small grilled door. A policeman stood
guard with his back to the ironwork.
"That's the private elevator, Ellery."
Ellery exhibited a special police pass signed in Inspector Queen's
punctilious hand. The policeman touched his cap and opened the grilled
door.
Ellery noted the staircase door around the corner, then entered the
elevator. He closed the door carefully, touched the button marked 6,
and the elevator began to ascend. They stood in silence, Weaver's lip
creased under his teeth.
The elevator was finished in bronze and ebony, with an inlaid
composition-rubber floor. It was spotlessly clean. On the further wall
was a low divan-like seat covered with black velvet. Ellery adjusted
his pince-nez and looked about him with interest. He bent over to
examine more closely the velvet seat, craned his neck at a suspicious
darkening in an angle of the wall.
"Might have known Velie would overlook nothing," he thought.
The elevator clicked to a stop. The door opened automatically and they
stepped out into a wide, deserted corridor. At one end of the corridor
was a high window. Almost directly opposite the elevator exit was an
unpaneled door of heavy mahogany. A neat small tablet, with the words:
PRIVATE
CYRUS FRENCH
was affixed to this door.
A detective in plain clothes indolently leaned against the frame. He
seemed to recognize Ellery at once, for he greeted him and stepped
aside.
"Going in, Mr. Queen?" he asked.
"Righto!" said Ellery, cheerfully. "Be a good man and stick it outside
here while we're sniffing around the apartment. If you see any
one--with authority--coming, rap on the door. If it's just anybody,
shoo 'im away. Understand?"
The detective nodded.
Ellery turned to Weaver. "Let's have your key, Wes," he said in a
natural tone. Without a word Weaver handed him the key-case which
Inspector Queen had examined in the window not long before.
Ellery selected the gold-disked key and inserted it in the keyhole. He
turned and the tumbler slipped back noiselessly. He pushed open the
bulky door.
He seemed surprised at its rigid weight, for he stepped back, taking
his hand from the door, and it immediately swung shut. He tried the
knob. The door was again locked.
"Stupid of me," he muttered, as he again unlocked the door with the
key. He waved Weaver inside the apartment before him, and then allowed
the door to swing shut once more.
"Special spring lock," commented Weaver. "Why are you surprised,
Ellery? It's to insure absolute privacy. The Old Man's rather a bug on
that."
"The door can't be opened from the outside without a key, then?"
asked Ellery. "There's no way of fixing the bolt so that the door is
temporarily unlocked?"
"The door is always as stubborn as that," said Weaver, with a fleeting
grin. "Although I can't see what difference it makes."
"Perhaps all the difference in the universe," said Ellery, knitting his
brows. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked about him.
They stood in a small, almost bare anteroom with a cunningly
converted skylight roof.... A Persian rug on the floor, a long
leather-upholstered bench flanked with standing ashtrays against the
wall opposite the door.... To the left was a single chair and a little
magazine rack. And that was all.
The fourth wall was cut through for another door, smaller and not so
formidable-looking.
"Not especially prepossessing," remarked Ellery. "Is this the usual
taste of our multimillionaires?"
Weaver seemed to have recovered something of his natural buoyancy, now
that he and Ellery were alone. "Don't misjudge the Old Man," he said
hastily. "He's really a regular old duck, and knows a plain room from
a fancy one. But he keeps this anteroom for the purpose of herding
together the people who come to see him on business of the Anti-Vice
League. This is a sort of waiting-room. Although, to tell the truth,
it hasn't been used much. You know, French has an enormous suite of
offices further uptown for Anti-Vice League affairs; most of that
business is transacted there. I suppose, though, he couldn't resist the
thought of entertaining some of his cronies here when he had the place
designed."
"Any visitors of that sort lately?" inquired Ellery, his hand on the
knob of the inner door.
"Oh, no! Not for several months, I think. The Old Man's been too
wrapped up in the approaching merger with Whitney. Anti-Vice League has
suffered, I guess."
"Well, then," said Ellery judiciously, "since there's nothing here of
interest, let's proceed."
They walked into the next room, and the door swung shut behind them.
This door, however, had no lock.
"This," said Weaver, "is the library."
"So I see." Ellery slouched against the door, surveying the room with
open eagerness.
Weaver seemed afraid of silences. He wet his lips and said, "This
is also the conference room for directors' meetings, the Old Man's
hideaway, et cetera. Rather neat layout, don't you think?"
The room was at least twenty feet square, Ellery estimated, and
presented a businesslike, if informal, appearance. In the center
of the room stood a long mahogany table, surrounded by heavy
red-leather-covered chairs. The chairs presented a ragged appearance,
distributed unevenly around the table, showing signs of the haste with
which the morning's meeting had been adjourned. Papers in disorderly
piles were scattered over the table.
"Not usually that way," commented Weaver, noticing Ellery's grimace
of distaste. "But the conference was an important one, everybody was
excited, and then the news of the accident downstairs.... It's a wonder
everything isn't in more of a mess than it is."
"Naturally!"
On the wall opposite Ellery was a severely framed portrait in oils
of a ruddy-faced, masterful-jawed man, dressed in the fashion of the
'Eighties. Ellery lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.
"Mr. French's father--the Founder," said Weaver.
Under the portrait were built-in bookcases, a large comfortable-looking
chair, and an end-table of modern design. An etching hung over the
chair.
The wall on the corridor side and the wall near which they stood were
tastefully furniture-covered. On both walls, left and right, were
identically decorated doors of the swinging, rotary-hinged type. The
doors were finished in a fine-grained reddish leather, studded with
brass bolts.