"About ten-thirty. I rose rather late."
"And what time was it Monday evening when you reached your friend
Malone's place and spoke to his valet?"
"Oh, I should say about eight or eight-thirty. I don't recall exactly."
The Inspector sent a mutely humorous glance across the room to Ellery.
Then he shrugged his shoulders. Marchbanks' florid face darkened and he
rose abruptly.
"If you have nothing more to ask me, Inspector Queen, I must be going."
He picked up his hat and stick.
"Ah! Just one other thing. Sit down, Marchbanks." Marchbanks
reluctantly reseated himself. "How do you account for the murder of
your sister?"
Marchbanks sniggered. "I thought you'd ask that. Up a tree, eh? Well,
I'm not surprised. The police of this city are--"
"Answer my question, please."
"I don't account for it, and I can't account for it!" cried Marchbanks
suddenly. "That's your business! All I know is that my sister has been
shot to death, and I want her murderer sizzling in the Chair." He
stopped, out of breath.
"Yes, yes, I realize your natural desire for revenge," said the
Inspector tiredly. "You may go, Mr. Marchbanks, but keep in town."
33
ALIBIS: CARMODY
Vincent Carmody was the next caller. His reticence was as marked as
usual. He folded his astonishing length and sat down quite noiseless in
the inquisitorial chair. And sat waiting.
"Ah--Mr. Carmody," began the Inspector uneasily. The antique-dealer
disdained to reply to what was obviously a question of fact. "Ah--Mr.
Carmody, I've called you in for a little consultation. We are checking
up on the movements of everybody connected directly or indirectly with
Mrs. French. Purely as a matter of form, you understand...."
"Ummm," said Carmody, his fingers in his straggly beard.
The Inspector dipped hastily into his old brown snuff-box. "Now, I
should be happy, sir, to hear an account of your movements on Monday
night--the night of the murder."
"The murder." Carmody said it negligently. "Not interested in that,
Inspector. What about my daughter?"
The Inspector stared with growing irritation at Carmody's
expressionless lean face. "Your daughter's search is being conducted
by the proper authorities. We haven't found her yet, but we have new
information which is likely to produce results. Please answer my
question."
"Results!" Carmody said it with surprising bitterness. "I know what
that word means in the police vocabulary. You're stumped and you know
it. I'll put my own detective on the case."
"Will you _please_ answer my question?" grated the Inspector.
"Keep cool," said Carmody. "Don't see what my movements on Monday night
have to do with the case. I certainly didn't kidnap my own daughter.
But if you must have it, here it is.
"Late Monday I received a telegram from one of my scouts. He reported
the discovery of practically a house full of early American pieces
in the wilds of Connecticut. I invariably investigate finds of that
nature personally. I took the train at Grand Central--the 9:14. Changed
at Stamford and didn't get to my destination until nearly midnight.
It's far off the beaten path. Had the address and immediately called
on the people who owned the furniture. Nobody home, and I still don't
know what went wrong. Had no place to stay--no hotel there--and had to
return to the city. Couldn't make a decent connection and didn't get
back to my apartment until four in the morning. That's all."
"Not quite, Mr. Carmody." The Inspector mused. "Did any one see you
when you returned to the city--at your apartment, perhaps?"
"No. It was too late. Nobody up. And I live alone. I had my breakfast
at the apartment dining-room at ten o'clock. The head-waiter will
identify me."
"No doubt," said the Inspector disagreeably. "Meet any one on your trip
who might remember you?"
"No. Unless the conductor of the train."
"Well!" Queen slammed his hands behind his back and regarded Carmody
with open distaste. "Please make a note of all your movements and mail
it to me at Headquarters. One question more. Do you know that your
daughter Bernice is a drug addict?"
Carmody leaped out of his chair snarling. In an instant he had been
transformed from bored reticence to contorted fury. Ellery half-rose
from his chair in the corner; it appeared for a moment as if the
antique-dealer might strike the Inspector. But the old man stood very
still, examining Carmody coolly. Carmody, fists clenched, subsided in
his chair.
"How did you find that out?" he muttered in a strangled voice. The
muscles rippled under the skin of his dark triangular jaw. "I didn't
think any one knew--except Winifred and me."
"Ah, so Mrs. French knew it too?" queried the Inspector instantly. "Had
she known it long?"
"So it's out," growled Carmody. "Good God!" He raised a haggard face
to Queen. "I've known it for about a year. Winifred--" his face
hardened--"Winifred didn't know it at all. Eyes of the mother, and all
that," he added bitterly. "Rot! She thought chiefly of herself.... So
I told her--two weeks ago. She didn't believe it. We quarreled. But
at the end she knew--I saw it in her eyes. I had talked to Bernice
countless times about it. She was shameless. She would not divulge
the source of her drug supply. In desperation I turned to Winifred.
I thought Winifred might succeed where I had failed. I don't know
any more...." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I was going to take
Bernice away--somewhere--anywhere--cure her.... And then Winifred was
murdered and Bernice--gone...." His voice died away. Huge welts stood
out under his eyes. The man was suffering--how deeply, by what perverse
psychology only Ellery, sitting quietly in his corner, realized.
And then, without another sound, without so much as a word of
explanation, Carmody sprang to his feet, snatched his hat, and dashed
from the Queen apartment. The Inspector, at the window, saw him running
wildly down the street, hat still clutched in his hand.
34
ALIBIS: TRASK
Trask was a half-hour late for his appointment at the Queen apartment.
He appeared indolently, indolently greeted the two Queens, indolently
sank into the chair, indolently applied a match to his cigaret, which
was stuck rakishly in a long jade holder, and indolently awaited the
Inspector's questions.
Where was he Monday night? Oh, about town--vaguely, with an idle
gesture of his arm. He tweaked the points of his mustache.
Where "about town"? Well, really--can't remember. Some night-club or
other at first.
At what time? Must have started about eleven-thirty.
Where was he before eleven-thirty? Oh, he'd been disappointed by some
friends, and had dropped into a Broadway theater at the last moment.
What was the name of the night-club? Really, don't recall it.
What did he mean by "not recalling it"? Well--to tell the truth, he
had some bootleg liquor and it must have contained dynamite--ha, ha!
Put him out like a light. Got awfully drunk. Didn't remember anything
except dashing cold water on his face at ten o'clock Tuesday morning
in the lavatory of the Pennsylvania Station. All mussed up, too. Must
have had an awful night of it. Probably kicked out of the night-club in
the morning. And all that. Just had time to dash home and get into some
fresh clothes. Then the directors' meeting at the French store.
"Beautiful!" muttered the Inspector, eying Trask as if he were an
obnoxious little animal. Trask flicked the ashes from his cigaret in
the general direction of a tray.
"Trask!" The whip in Queen's voice brought the tall, dissipated
director's body up with a start. "Are you sure you can't remember what
night-club you were in?"
"I say now," drawled Trask, sinking back, "you scared me that time,
Inspector. I've told you no. Went completely out of my head. Don't
recall a thing."
"Well, that's just too bad," grunted the Inspector. "If I'm not
disturbing you, Trask--do you know that Bernice Carmody was a habitual
drug-user?"
"Not really!" Trask sat up straight. "Then I _was_ right!"
"Oh, you suspected it?"
"A number of times. Bernice was queer quite frequently. Showed all the
symptoms. I've seen plenty of 'em." He brushed a speck of ash from his
gardenia with languid distaste.
The Inspector smiled. "Which didn't daunt you from going ahead with
your contemplated engagement to Miss Carmody?"
Trask looked virtuous. "Oh, no--really! I'd intended to cure her after
we were married. Without her family's knowledge, and all that. Too
bad--too bad," he sighed. He sighed again.
"What has your relationship been with Cyrus French?" demanded the
Inspector impatiently.
"Oh, that!" Trask brightened. "Absolutely of the best, Inspector.
You--er--you would rather expect a chap to get along with his future
father-in-law. Haw-haw!"
"Get out of here," said the Inspector distinctly.
35
ALIBIS: GRAY
John Gray folded his gloves neatly, deposited them in his rich black
derby, and handed them with a cheerful smile to Djuna. Then he shook
hands decorously with the Inspector, nodded to Ellery with just
the proper note of heartiness, and obediently seated himself at the
Inspector's request.
"Well!" he chuckled, smoothing his white mustache. "Very charming
household, I see. Very! And how is the investigation proceeding,
Inspector? Tchk, tchk!" He chattered like a spry old parrot, his
twinkling eyes never still.
The Inspector cleared his throat. "A little matter of check-up, Mr.
Gray. Routine. I haven't inconvenienced you by this summons?"
"Not at all, not at all," said Gray amiably. "I've just come from a
visit to Cyrus--Cyrus French, I should say--and he's much better, by
the way, much better."
"That's nice," said the Inspector. "Now, Mr. Gray, just to make it
legal--can you account for your movements on Monday night?"
Gray looked blank. Then he smiled slowly. Then he burst into an
infectious chuckle. "I see, I see! Clever, Inspector, quite clever. You
want to be sure of everything. Very interesting! I suppose every one is
coming in for a similar quiz?"
"Oh, yes!" said the Inspector reassuringly. "We've had a number of
your colleagues on the carpet to-day already." They both laughed. Gray
became politely serious.
"Monday night? Let me see." He plucked his mustache thoughtfully.
"Of course! Monday night I spent the entire evening at my Club. The
Penny Club, you know. Had dinner there with some of my cronies, played
billiards--the usual thing. At about ten o'clock, I believe, or perhaps
a little after ten, Zorn--you remember Zorn, of course, one of my
fellow-directors--Zorn dropped in for a chat. We discussed the coming
merger, the details of which we were to work out in conference the next
morning with French and the rest, and about a half-hour later Zorn
left, complaining of headache."
"Well, that tallies nicely," said Queen, with a grin. "Because Mr. Zorn
was here not long ago and told us about your meeting at the Penny Club."
"Really?" Gray smiled. "Then I gather there is little left to be said,
Inspector."
"Not quite, Mr. Gray." The Inspector clucked cheerfully. "You see, just
to keep the record straight--how did you spend the rest of the evening?"
"Oh! In a commonplace manner, sir. I left the Club at about eleven and
walked home--I live not far from there, on Madison Avenue. Simply went
home and to bed."
"You live alone, Mr. Gray?"
Gray grimaced. "Unfortunately, being a misogynist, I have no family,
Inspector. An old servant keeps house for me--I live in an apartment
hotel, you know."
"Then your housekeeper was up when you returned from the Club, Mr.
Gray?"
Gray spread his hands briefly. "No. Hilda had left on Saturday evening
to visit a sick brother in Jersey City, and did not get back until
Tuesday afternoon."
"I see." The Inspector took snuff. "But surely _some one_ saw you get
home, Mr. Gray?"
Gray looked startled, then he smiled again one of his twinkling smiles.
"Oh, you want me to establish my--alibi, is it, Inspector?"
"That's what it's called, sir."
"Then there's nothing more to be said," replied Gray happily. "Because
Jackson, the night-clerk, saw me when I entered the building. I asked
for mail and stood chatting with him for several minutes. Then I took
the elevator to my suite."
The Inspector's face brightened. "Then really," he said, "there
_is_ nothing more to be said. Except--" his face lengthened
momentarily--"what time was it when you stopped talking with this
night-clerk and went upstairs?"
"Just eleven-forty. I remember glancing at the clock above Jackson's
desk to compare it with my own watch."
"And where is your hotel, Mr. Gray?"
"Madison and 37th, Inspector. The _Burton_."
"Then I think--Unless, Ellery, you would like to ask Mr. Gray a
question or two?"
The aged little director turned quickly, in open surprise. He had
forgotten the presence of Ellery, who was sitting quietly in his corner
listening to the conversation. Gray looked expectant as Ellery smiled.
"Thank you, dad--I _have_ something to ask Mr. Gray, if we're not
keeping him too long?" He looked questioningly at their visitor.
Gray expostulated. "Not at all, Mr. Queen. Anything I can do to help
you--"
"Very well, then." Ellery hoisted his lean length from the chair and
stretched his muscles. "Mr. Gray, I'm going to ask you a peculiar
question. I rely upon your discretion to preserve silence, for one
thing, and upon your undoubted loyalty to Mr. French and your concern
in his bereavement to answer frankly."
"I'm entirely at your service."
"Let me present a hypothetical case," continued Ellery rapidly. "Let us
suppose that Bernice Carmody was a drug addict...."
Gray frowned. "A drug addict?"
"Exactly. And let us suppose further that neither her mother nor her
stepfather suspected her malady and condition. Then let us suppose that
Mrs. French suddenly discovered the truth...."
"I see, I see," murmured Gray.
"The hypothetical question arising from this hypothetical case is:
What do you think Mrs. French would do?" Ellery lit a cigaret.
Gray grew thoughtful. Then he looked into Ellery's eyes. "The first
thing that occurs to me, Mr. Queen," he said simply, "is that Mrs.
French would _not_ confide in Cyrus."
"That's interesting. You know them both so well...."
"Yes." Gray set his small wrinkled jaw. "Cyrus has been a lifelong
friend. I know--or knew--Mrs. French perhaps as well as any one
acquainted with the French family. And I am certain, familiar as I am
with Cyrus's character and Mrs. French's knowledge of his character,
that she would not dare to tell him such a thing. She would keep it
strictly to herself. She might possibly inform Carmody, her first
husband...."
"We needn't go into that, Mr. Gray," said Ellery. "But why would she
keep it a secret from French?"
"Because," said Gray frankly, "Cyrus is hypersensitive on the subject
of vice, particularly drug addiction. You must remember that most of
his latter years have been devoted to wiping out as much of this sort
of vice in the City as possible. To find it in his own family would, I
firmly believe, unbalance him.... But, of course," he added quickly,
"he doesn't know; I'm positive Mrs. French would keep a thing like that
to herself. She might try to cure the girl secretly, perhaps...."
Ellery said clearly: "One of the major reasons for Mrs. French's
silence in a case like this would be, I suppose, that she was aiming to
secure for her daughter a generous slice of her husband's fortune?"
Gray started uncomfortably. "Well.... I don't.... Yes, if you must
have the truth, I think that is so. Mrs. French was a calculating--not
necessarily unscrupulous, mind you--but a calculating and very
practical woman. I believe that, motherlike, she was determined that
Bernice come in for a good share of Cyrus's estate when Cyrus should
pass on.... Is there anything else, Mr. Queen?"
"That is," said Ellery, smiling, "quite sufficient. Thank you
immeasurably, Mr. Gray."
"Then," said the Inspector, "that will be all."
Gray looked relieved, accepted his coat, hat and gloves from Djuna,
murmured polite adieux, and left.
The Inspector and Ellery heard his light quick step on the staircase as
he descended to the street.
36
"THE TIME HAS COME ..."
The Queens had dinner in silence. Djuna served in silence, and in
silence cleared the table afterward. The Inspector dipped into the
browned interior of his snuff-box and Ellery held communion with first
a cigaret, then a pipe, then a cigaret again. In all this time no word
was spoken. It was a silence of sympathy, not infrequent in the Queen
household.
Finally Ellery sighed and stared into the fireplace. But it was the
Inspector who spoke first.
"As far as I am concerned," he said with a grim disappointment, "this
day has been entirely wasted."
Ellery raised his eyebrows. "Dad, dad, you grow more irascible with
every passing day.... If I didn't know how upset and overworked you've
been of late, I'd be annoyed with you."
"At my obtuseness?" demanded the Inspector, twinkling.
"No, at the lapse of your usual mental vigor." Ellery twisted his head
and grinned at his father. "Do you mean to say that to-day's incidents
have meant nothing to you?"
"The raid flat, Springer skipped, nothing tangible from the alibis of
these people--I can't see any cause for celebration," retorted the
Inspector.
"Well, well!" Ellery frowned. "Perhaps I'm over-sanguine.... But the
whole thing is so clear!"
He sprang to his feet and began to rummage in his desk. He produced his
voluminous sheets of notes and thumbed rapidly through them under the
Inspector's wearied and bewildered eyes. Then he slapped them back into
their receptacle.
"It's all over," he announced, "all over but the shouting and--the
proof. I have all the threads--or rather, all the threads which lead
inexorably to the murderer of Mrs. French. They don't make solid proof,
such as is demanded by our venerable courts of law and our prosecuting
system. What would you do in a case like that, dad?"
The Inspector wrinkled his nose in self-disgust. "I take it that what's
been a hopeless maze to me has been a clear thoroughfare to you. That
rankles, son! I have raised up a Frankenstein to haunt my old age ..."
Then he chuckled and laid a slightly infirm hand on Ellery's knee.
"Good lad," he said. "I don't know _what_ I'd do without you."
"Shucks." Ellery blushed. "You've gone sentimental, too, dad ..." Their
fingers met covertly. "Now, look here, Inspector! You've got to help me
to a decision!"
"Yes, yes ..." Queen dropped back, embarrassed. "You've got a case, an
explanation and no proof. What to do.... Bluff, my son. Bluff as if
you'd raised the pot before the draw on a pair of fours and then found
real opposition staring at you. Raise again!"
Ellery looked thoughtful. "I've been tottering on the edge....
Christmas!" His eyes brightened with a sudden thought. "How stupid I've
been!" he cried at once. "I've a beautiful card up my sleeve and I've
forgotten all about it! Bluff? We'll just about sweep our slippery
friend off our slippery friend's feet!"
He yanked the telephone toward him, hesitated, then turned it over to
the Inspector, who was regarding him with gloomy fondness.
"Here's a list," he said, scribbling on a piece of paper, "of some
people of importance. Will you blow the conch, dad, while I begin a
memorization of these pesky notes?"
"The time is--" asked the Inspector submissively.
"To-morrow morning at nine-thirty," replied Ellery. "And you might call
the D.A. and tell him to close in on our friend Springer."
"Springer!" cried the Inspector.
"Springer," replied Ellery. And thereafter there was silence, broken
periodically by the voice of the Inspector on the telephone.
PARENTHESIS AND CHALLENGE
I have often found it a stimulating exercise in my own reading of
murder fiction to pause at that point in the story immediately
preceding the solution, and to try by a logical analysis to
determine for myself the identity of the criminal.... Because
I believe that numerous gourmets of this species of fictional
delicacy are as interested in the reasoning as in the reading,
I submit in the proper spirit of sportsmanship an amiable
challenge to the reader.... Without reading the concluding pages,
Reader--Who killed Mrs. French?... There is a great tendency among
detective-story lovers to endeavor to "guess" the criminal by
submitting to the play of a blind instinct. A certain amount of
this is inevitable, I will admit, but the application of logic and
common sense is the important thing, the source of the greater
enjoyment.... Whereupon I state without reservation that the reader
is at this stage in the recounting of _The French Powder Mystery_
fully cognizant of all the facts pertinent to the discovery of the
criminal; and that a sufficiently diligent study of what has gone
before should educe a clear understanding of what is to come. _A
rivederci!_
E. Q.
THE LAST EPISODE
"_Forty years in the service of the_ SÛRETÉ, _one might hazard,
would dull the edge of one's zest for the hunt. Thank the good
Lord, this is not so! at least in my own case, which has been
as full of interest, I dare say, as the next.... There was the
admirable Henri Tencqueville, who cut his throat before my very
eyes when we cornered him in his Montmartre hideaway ... and Petit
Charlot, who shot two of my faithful lads to death and bit off a
piece of the good Sergeant Mousson's nose in the_ mêlée _before he
was subdued.... Ah, well! I grow tender in reminiscence, but ... I
would make the point that even to-day, old and enfeebled as I am,
I would not give up the thrill of that final_ coup de main, _that
last stage of the chase when the quarry, panting and desperate, has
his back to the wall--no, not for all the everlasting delights of
the Turkish heaven!..._"
--From THE MEMOIRS OF A PREFECT,
_By_ Auguste Brillon.
37
MAKE READY!
They came in one by one--furtive, curious, impassive, bored, reluctant,
openly nervous. Quietly they came in, conscious of the tight police
cordon, of a quivering strain in the atmosphere, of shrewd eyes that
noted and calculated their least movement--conscious most of all of
grim over-hanging disaster, to whom and with what dire effects they did
not know and could only guess.
It was nine-thirty of the fateful Thursday morning. The door through
which they shuffled in silence was the door marked PRIVATE: CYRUS
FRENCH.... They passed inside through the bare lofty anteroom,
into the heavy quiet of the library, sat down in incredible camp-chairs
set up martially facing the dormer-windows.
They crowded the room. In the front row sat old Cyrus French himself,
a white and trembling figure. His fingers were desperately entwined
in the fingers of Marion French by his side. Westley Weaver, harried
face gaunted by sleeplessness, occupied the seat next to Marion's. To
French's left was Dr. Stuart, the old man's physician, watching his
patient with a professional pantherishness. By Stuart's side sat John
Gray, dapper and bird-like, occasionally leaning over the doctor's
bulky abdomen to talk into the sick man's ear.
In the row behind were Hortense Underhill, the housekeeper, and Doris
Keaton, the maid. Both sat rigidly, whispering to each other out of the
corners of their mouths, peering about with frightened eyes.
In serried ranks.... Wheezing Marchbanks; the portly Zorn fingering his
watch-chain; a befurred and aromatic Mrs. Zorn dispensing smiles to
the grave Frenchman, Paul Lavery, who stroked his short beard; Trask,
a flower in his lapel, but utterly pale, with enormous leaden rings
under his eyes; the antique-dealer Vincent Carmody, a saturnine figure,
uncompromising, somber, even in his chair towering above the heads of
the company; mild-mannered Arnold MacKenzie, the general manager of the
store; Diana Johnson, the Negress who had discovered Mrs. French's dead
body; the four watchmen--O'Flaherty, Bloom, Ralska, Powers....
There was little conversation. Each time the anteroom door opened
people twisted about in their seats, craned, jerked their eyes back to
the window again with guilty side-glances toward each other.