cards lying on the table there arranged in such a manner as to indicate
immediately that a game of Russian banque had been interrupted. Mr.
Weaver testified that the cardroom had been tidy the evening before,
that the cards had not been there. That meant, of course, that some one
had used them during the night. Mr. Weaver further attested to the fact
that of all the French family and their friends and acquaintances, Mrs.
French and her daughter Bernice Carmody were the only ones addicted to
the game of banque--that in fact it was well known in many quarters how
passionately devoted to it they were.
"The cigaret-stubs in the ashtray on the table bore the brand-name _La
Duchesse_--again identified by Mr. Weaver as Miss Carmody's brand. It
was scented with her favorite _odour_, violet.
"It seemed, then, that Mrs. French and Miss Carmody had both been in
the apartment Monday night, that Miss Carmody had smoked her unusual
cigarets, and that they had played a game of their beloved banque.
"In the bedroom closet we found a hat and a pair of shoes identified by
Miss Underhill, the French housekeeper, and Miss Keaton, a maid in the
French employ, as having been worn by Miss Carmody on Monday, the day
of the murder, when she left the house and was not seen again. Another
hat and another pair of shoes were missing from the closet, seeming to
indicate that the girl had changed the damp ones she was wearing for
the dry ones that were missing.
"So much for that." Ellery paused and looked about him, eyes glittering
strangely. There was not the slightest sound from his audience. They
seemed mesmerized, intent only on watching the slowly rising structure
of damning evidence.
"To make an all-important point.... Now that I knew that the apartment
was the scene of the crime, the question inevitably arose: _Why was the
body removed to the window downstairs?_ What purpose did it serve? For
it must have served some purpose--we saw too many signs of cunning,
coördinated scheming to believe that the murderer was an arrant
lunatic, doing things for no reason at all.
"The first alternative was that the body was removed to make it appear
that the apartment was not the scene of the murder. But this did not
follow from the facts, for if the murderer wished to remove all traces
of the crime from the apartment, why did he not also remove the banque
game, the cigaret-stubs, the shoes and the hat? True, if the body
were not discovered or the murder not suspected, the finding of these
articles would indicate no crime. But the murderer could not hope to
conceal the body forever. Some day, somehow, it would be found, the
apartment gone over, and the cards, cigarets and other things would
point to the apartment as the place where the murder was committed.
"So, it was evident that the body was removed for another reason
entirely. What could that be? The answer came after thought--_to
delay the discovery of the body_. How was this arrived at? Simple
mental arithmetic. The exhibition was held every single day at noon
sharp. This was an unvarying rule. The window was not entered until
noon. These facts were common knowledge. If the body were hidden in
that wall-bed the murderer had absolute assurance that it would not be
discovered before twelve-fifteen. There was the good sharp reason ready
made for us--the only gleam of light in the whole muddle, which was
complicated by such questions as why the window was used at all when it
had so many obvious disadvantages, and so on. So we had no doubt that
the murderer took the trouble of carrying the body down six flights of
stairs and into the exhibition-room because he knew that the body would
not be found all the next morning.
"Logically, then, the question followed: Why did the murderer desire to
delay the discovery of the body? Think it over and you will see that
there can be only one convincing reason--because he had to do something
on Tuesday morning which the discovery of the body would have rendered
dangerous or even impossible!"
They were hanging on his words now breathlessly.
"How could this be?" asked Ellery, his eyes sparkling. "Let's shift to
a new tack for the moment.... No matter how the murderer entered the
store, he must have stayed all night. He had three ways to enter, but
no way to get out unobserved. He could have hidden in the store during
the day; he could have come in after hours by the Employees' Entrance;
or he could have slipped into the building by the freight-door at
eleven o'clock at night while the commissary truck was unloading the
food supplies for the next day. The chances were that this last was
the method used, for O'Flaherty had seen no one enter by his door, and
coming in at eleven at night was better for the murderer's purpose
than having to stay in the store from five-thirty until midnight.
"But how to get out? O'Flaherty reports no one left by his door; all
other exits were locked and bolted; and the freight-door on 39th Street
was closed at eleven-thirty, fifteen minutes before Mrs. French even
arrived at the store and a half-hour before she was murdered. So the
criminal had no recourse but to stay in the store all night. Then he
could not escape until nine the next morning, when the doors were
opened to the public. At that time he could walk out of the store as if
he were an early customer.
"But here another factor entered. If he could walk out of the store at
nine, a free man, why couldn't he also attend to whatever business he
had without the rigmarole of taking the body to the window in order to
secure a delay? The point is that he _did_ transfer the body. Then he
_couldn't_ walk out of the store at nine, a free man. He _needed_ that
delay. He had _to stay in the store even after nine_!"
Simultaneously there came a short gasp from different quarters of the
room. Ellery looked around quickly, as if anxious to determine exactly
who had been shocked into astonishment and perhaps fear.
"I see that several of you catch the inference on the wing," he said,
smiling. "There could be only one reason to explain why our murderer
had to stay in the store even after nine--and that is that _he was
connected with the store_!"
This time incredulity, suspicion, dread were written on all those
plastic faces. Every one drew unconsciously away from his neighbor, as
if suddenly aware of the many persons which this last indictment might
implicate.
"Yes, that is where we arrived finally," continued Ellery in an
unemotional voice. "If our mysterious criminal were an employee of the
store or connected with the store in some official or even unofficial
capacity, his absence on the discovery of a murder would certainly be
noted. He could not afford to have his absence, which was evidently
of paramount importance, noted. He was in a difficult position. The
memorandum note"--he exhibited the blue slip on the desk before
him--"left on this desk by Mr. Weaver overnight told the murderer
that both Mr. Weaver and Mr. French would be in the apartment at nine
o'clock the next morning. If he left the body in the apartment, the
murder would be discovered at nine, the hue and cry raised, and he
would never get his chance to slip out of the store and attend to his
secret business. And even telephone calls might be watched. So he had
to make sure the body was not discovered until he had time to slip
away, or even telephone (for this would be untraceable if there was
no reason to check calls). The only method which he knew would surely
delay the discovery of the body was to hide it in the window-room.
Which he did, and quite successfully.
"By this time we were able to clear up finally that minor point of how
the murderer entered the building. We had the Monday time-chart. Our
murderer must be, we said, an employee of the store or in some way
connected with it. Yet the time-chart showed that every one had checked
out regularly before or at five-thirty. Then the murderer must have
entered the building by the freight-door, as the only means left.
"One other point, while we are on the subject of the murderer's desire
to delay the discovery of the body.... It occurred to me, as no doubt
it has occurred to you, that our mysterious criminal ran uncommon
risks and embarked on numerous voyages of complication when he began
to clean up the mess after his crime. For example--that he carried
the body downstairs. But that is explained by the fact that he had to
have time in the morning to attend to this vague business, an item,
incidentally, which we have not as yet explained. Also--why did he go
to the trouble of securing a new felt, carefully mopping up the blood,
and so on? Again this is answered by the need for time in the morning,
and the fact that if a bloody book-end were found by Mr. Weaver,
let us say, at nine o'clock a crime would be suspected at once, and
undoubtedly the criminal's chance of getting his business done would
be seriously jeopardized. Evidently then, what he had to do was of the
most pressing importance--so pressing that he could not run the risk
of the crime's even being suspected before that business was attended
to...."
Ellery paused and referred to a sheaf of paper which he took from
his breast-pocket. "We must leave for the moment our general
conclusion that the person we are seeking is connected officially or
semi-officially with this establishment," he said at last. "Please
bear that statement in mind while I veer off into another lane of
speculation entirely....
"I brought to your attention a few moments ago four concrete evidences
of the presence of Miss Bernice Carmody in this apartment on Monday
night. These were, in the order in which we found them, the game of
banque exclusively indulged in by Miss Carmody and her mother; the _La
Duchesse_ cigarets, violet-scented, known to be Miss Carmody's special
brand; Miss Carmody's hat, which she was observed wearing on Monday
afternoon when she disappeared from sight; and her shoes, which fit the
same description.
"Now I shall show you that, far from proving that Miss Carmody was
present here on Monday night, they prove exactly the contrary,"
continued Ellery briskly. "The banque game contributes nothing to our
little refutation; the cards lay there in a legitimate array, and we
must leave them for the present.
"The cigarets, however, present a more illuminating view of
my contention. These"--he held up one of the ashtrays on the
exhibit-table--"these cigaret-stubs were found on the table in the
cardroom." He lifted one of the stubs from the tray and held it high.
"As you can see, this cigaret has been almost entirely consumed--in
fact, only the small strip which bears the brand imprint is left.
Without exception, each of the ten or twelve cigarets in this ashtray
have been uniformly smoked to the same tiny stub.
"On the other hand, in Miss Carmody's bedroom at the French house we
found these stubs." He exhibited the second ashtray, picking out one of
the cigarets from its cluttered, dusty depths to show to his audience.
"You will observe that in the case of this stub, the cigaret, also
a _La Duchesse_ of course, has been little more than one-quarter
consumed--Miss Carmody evidently having taken only five or six puffs
before crushing the remainder in the tray. Every stub in this tray from
Miss Carmody's bedroom has been similarly treated.
"In other words," he said with a bare smile, "we find the amusing
phenomenon of two sets of cigarets, both presumably smoked by the
same person, exhibiting distinctly opposite physical remains. On
investigating, we discovered that Miss Carmody, for reasons soon to be
clarified, is extremely nervous--so much so that none of those persons
who know her best can recall any occasion on which she has not smoked
her favorite cigarets in exactly this wasteful, convulsive manner.
"What is the inference?" A perceptible pause. "Merely that Miss
Carmody did _not_ smoke the cigarets we found on the cardroom table;
that they were smoked or prepared by some one else who did not know
Miss Carmody's unvarying method of throwing away cigarets one-quarter
consumed....
"Now, as for the shoes and hat," Ellery said without allowing his
auditors time in which to digest this latest pronouncement, "we found
further signs of a tampering hand. The appearance of things is that
Miss Carmody was here Monday night, having been wet by the rain of
the afternoon and evening, and that before leaving the apartment
she changed her soaked hat and shoes, putting on others from the
small stock of her clothing already in the bedroom closet. _But_ we
discovered that the hat had been inserted in a hat-box with its brim to
the bottom. And that the shoes had been stuck into the shoe-bag with
their heels projecting from the pocket.
"In testing the habituary nature of such a procedure, we considered
that an over-whelming percentage of women put their hats away in
hat-boxes with the crowns _to the bottom_ and the brims to the top;
also that when shoes have large buckles, as this pair has, they are put
away with the heels inside, so that the buckles will not catch on the
material of the bag. Yet both articles denoted this peculiar ignorance
of feminine custom. Here the inference is also obvious--Miss Carmody
did not put away those shoes and the hat; _a man did_. For it is the
masculine custom to put hats away with the brim downward; and a man
would not grasp the significance of the buckle. All the shoes in the
rack had the heels showing, because none happened to have buckles;
whoever put Miss Carmody's shoes in the rack automatically followed
suit, which a woman would not have done.
"Now these points, taken by and of themselves, are, I will confess,
rather weak and inconclusive. But when you put the three together, the
evidence is too strong to be overlooked--it was not Miss Carmody who
smoked the cigarets and put away shoes and hat, but some one else--a
man."
Ellery cleared away a huskiness in his throat. His tone was barbed
with earnestness, despite a growing hoarseness. "There is another
item of considerable interest in this last connection," he continued.
"In examining the lavatory inside, Mr. Weaver and I ran across an
intriguing theft. A safety-razor blade of Mr. Weaver's, which he had
used after five-thirty Monday afternoon and had cleaned and restored
to the case because it was his last blade and he knew he would have
to shave in the morning--this blade, I say, was missing on Tuesday
morning. Mr. Weaver, who was busy Monday night and consequently forgot
to put in a new supply of blades, came to the apartment Tuesday
morning early--at eight-thirty, in fact, because he had to clear up
some business and reports before the arrival of Mr. French at nine. He
intended to shave in the apartment. The blade, which he had put away
only the late afternoon before, was gone. Mr. French, let me explain,
does not keep a razor, never shaving himself.
"Now why was the blade gone? Of course, it was plain that the blade
must have been used Monday night or early Tuesday morning before Mr.
Weaver arrived here. Who could have used it? One of two people--Mrs.
French or her murderer. Mrs. French could have used it as a cutting
instrument of some sort; or her murderer could have used it.
"Of the two alternatives, surely the second is more tenable. Remember
that the criminal was constrained by circumstances to pass the night
in the store. Where could he stay with most safety? Certainly in the
apartment itself! He could not roam about the dark floors, or even hide
among them with as great a margin of safety as in the apartment--not
with the watchman prowling about all night! Now--we find a blade
used. It suggests normally the process of shaving. Well, why not? We
know that the murderer had to make an appearance in the morning as an
employee or official of the store. Why shouldn't he shave while he was
temporarily occupying the apartment? It predicates a cold-blooded
personality, but that is an argument for rather than an argument
against it. Why is the blade missing? Evidently something happened
to it. What could have happened to it? Did it break? Why not! The
blade had been used a few times; it was brittle. A little extra force
in screwing the parts of the razor together, and the blade might
easily have snapped. Let us suppose that this happened. Why didn't
the murderer merely leave the broken blade? Because the murderer is
a canny scoundrel and in his own way an excellent psychologist. If a
broken blade remains it is more likely to be recalled that it was _not_
broken at a former date than to take it for granted that the blade
_was_ broken at that former date. If the blade is missing there is no
incentive to suspicion or memory. An altered object is a more vigorous
mental stimulant than a missing one. At least, that is what I should
have thought if I had been in the murderer's place; and in effect I
believe the person who planned this affair did the correct thing in
taking away the blade--correct according to his lights. The proof is
that Mr. Weaver thought little or nothing of the missing blade until
I probed it out of him; and then it was only because I brought to the
investigation an unprejudiced, impersonal observation."
Ellery grinned a little. "I have been working on presumptions and more
or less feeble deductions, as you can see; yet if you put together
all the scattered, flimsy facts which I have outlined in the past ten
minutes, I think you will see that common sense simply cries out that
the blade was used for shaving, that it was broken, and that it was
taken away. We find no evidence that the blade might have been used
for anything but its legitimate purpose; and this only strengthens
the contention. Let me leave this line of thought temporarily and go
to another, altogether different, and in its way one of the most
significant in the entire investigation."
There was a surreptitious rustling of bodies in hard chairs, a quick
intake of breaths. The eyes on Ellery did not waver.
"It may have come to you," he said in a quiet, merciless voice, "that
more than one person could have been implicated in this affair;
that, perhaps, if Miss Carmody did not put away her shoes and
hat--disregarding the damning evidence of the cigarets--she still might
have been present; for another--a man--could have disposed of the shoes
and hat while she stood by or did something else. I shall disprove that
with the most gratifying expedition."
He put his palms flat on the desk, leaned slightly forward. "Who,
ladies and gentlemen, had rightful access to this apartment? Answer:
The five possessors of the keys. That is--Mr. French, Mrs. French,
Miss Carmody, Miss Marion French, and Mr. Weaver. The master-key in
O'Flaherty's desk was closely guarded, and no one could have got it
without either his knowledge or the knowledge of the day-man, O'Shane.
And no such knowledge exists, which makes it plain that the master key
in no way enters our calculations.
"Of the six keys _in esse_, as it were, we are now able to account for
five. Mrs. French's is missing. All the others are absolutely accounted
for as having been exclusively in the possession of their owners.
Mrs. French's key has been sought for by the combined cunning of the
detective force. It is still missing. In other words, it is not on
these premises, despite the fact that O'Flaherty positively avers that
Mrs. French had it in her possession when she entered the store Monday
night.
"I told you at the beginning of this impromptu demonstration that the
murderer probably took that key. Now I tell you not only that he took
it, but that _he had to take it_.
"We have one confirmation in fact that the criminal _wanted_ a key. On
Monday afternoon, some time after Miss Carmody left the French house
furtively, Miss Underhill, the housekeeper, received a telephone call.
The caller claimed to be Miss Carmody. The caller asked Miss Underhill
to have Miss Carmody's key to the apartment ready, that a messenger
would be sent for it at once. Yet only the very same morning, Miss
Carmody had told Miss Underhill that she had lost her key, she thought,
and asked Miss Underhill to secure one of the other keys and make a
duplicate for her!
"Miss Underhill doubts that the caller was Miss Carmody. She is ready
to swear that some one stood by the telephone at the other end and
prompted the caller's reply when Miss Underhill reminded the caller
about the lost key and the morning's instructions. The caller then hung
up in some confusion....
"What is the inference? Surely that the caller was not Miss Carmody,
but a hireling or accomplice of the murderer, who prompted the call in
order to secure a key to the apartment!"
Ellery drew a long breath. "I leave you for the moment to your own
cogitations on the interesting inflections this incident raises.... Now
let me conduct you through a logical maze to another conclusion--the
one with which I began this branch of my thesis.
"Why did the murderer want a key? Obviously, to secure a means of
access to the apartment. He could not get in except through the agency
of a second person who possessed a key, if he had not one himself.
Presumably he expected to be admitted to the apartment by Mrs. French,
but in the careful planning of the crime the possession of a key for
himself might conceivably be important, and this explains the call and
the projected 'messenger.' But to the case in point!
"The criminal killed Mrs. French in the apartment. Now that he had a
corpse and knew that he must take it down into the window-room, for
the various reasons I have given, he pulled up with a sudden thought.
He knew that the door to the apartment had a spring lock that snapped
shut. He had no key, having failed in his effort to get hold of Bernice
Carmody's. He must carry the body out of the apartment. Yet he had much
to do in the apartment afterward--clean up the evidences of blood,
'plant' the shoes and hat, the banque game and cigarets. As a matter of
fact, even if he cleaned up the room and 'planted' the false evidence
before he took the body down, he still needed means of reëntry into
the apartment. He had to pussyfoot through the store for the felt,
the glue, and other paraphernalia needed to fix the book-ends. How
was he to get back into the apartment? He also meant to sleep in the
apartment, apparently--again, how was he to get back? You see, whether
he took the body downstairs before or after he cleaned up, he still
needed a means of reëntry to the apartment....
"His first thought must have been to insert something between the
door and the floor to keep the springed door from clicking shut. But
what about the watchmen? He must have thought: 'The watchmen make
rounds through this corridor by the hour. They will be sure to notice
a partly open door and investigate.' No, the door had to be closed.
But--a thought! Mrs. French had a key, her own key--the one by which
she herself entered the apartment. He would use that. We can picture
him opening her bag while she lay, bleeding and dead, across the desk,
finding the key, putting it into his own pocket, picking up the corpse
and leaving the apartment, now certain of a means of reëntering it
when he was through with his grisly task.
"_But_"--and Ellery smiled grimly--"he had to bring the key back
upstairs with him, obviously, to get into the apartment again.
Therefore we didn't find it on the body. True, he might have gone
upstairs, done his cleaning up, and then taken the key downstairs
again. But--of course that's inane--how would he get back again?
Besides, the danger he would encounter--taking still another chance
of being detected on the main floor getting into the window.... It
was dangerous enough the first time, but that was inescapable. No, he
probably figured that the best thing he could do would be to pocket the
key and dispose of it when he left the building in the morning. True,
he might have left it in the apartment, on the card-table for example.
But the fact that it isn't in the apartment shows that he took it away
with him--he had two alternatives and chose one of them.
"We find then--" Ellery paused for the merest instant--"that our
criminal committed the murder _without accomplices_.