kind enough to clear up the matter of Miss Carmody's abduction. With
the action of Mrs. French on Sunday of taking away her store of the
drug, the girl became desperate and got in touch with the murderer.
This fitted in with his plans--he told her to come to a rendezvous
in the lower part of the city for a new supply. She went on Monday
afternoon and was promptly abducted, being taken by confederates to
a Brooklyn hideaway and murdered. Her clothes were confiscated and
brought back to our murderer, who had as yet committed no capital
crime. These clothes the murderer brought with him to the apartment
Monday night--the hat and shoes, tied up innocently in a small parcel,
but wet a trifle with rain to make the deception perfect.
"There is only one thing more to explain before proceeding to the
much-wished-for _dénouement_.... And that is the reason for 'planting'
the banque game, cigarets, shoes and hat to make it appear as if
Bernice herself had been implicated in the crime. And this, too, was
outlined--under protest--by Mr. Springer, who has been just a cog--an
important cog, perhaps--in the vicious wheel....
"The murderer left evidences of Miss Carmody's presence because she
had necessarily vanished. Since she had been murdered and would be
missing, there was a logical reason for connecting the two events--the
disappearance of the girl and the murder of her mother. It would seem
perhaps as if the girl had committed the crime. Since this was untrue,
the murderer felt that it might confuse the police and put them off
the real track. The murderer did not really hope that the deception
would be successful for long--it was merely another red herring drawn
across the trail, and anything which would lead the scent away from him
in another direction he felt was desirable. And the actual 'framing'
required little enough trouble and work. The cigarets he secured from
Xanthos', Miss Carmody's tobacconist, since she had once told him where
she secured her private supply. The banque he knew about from Miss
Carmody, also. The rest was child's play...."
They were sitting on the edge of the hard camp-chairs now, straining
forward to catch every syllable. Occasionally they looked at each other
in a puzzled manner, as if unable to see clearly to the end of the
analysis. Ellery brought them back to attention with his next words.
"Springer!" The name cracked out sharply. The prisoner started,
paled, looked up furtively. His eyes fell at once to the carpet he
had been studiously observing. "Springer, have I given your story
faithfully--and completely?"
The man's eyes fluttered in a sudden agony, rolled in their sockets,
wildly seeking a face in the swaying crowd before him. When he spoke,
it was in a husky monotone, barely audible to those avid ears.
"Yes."
"Very well, then!" exclaimed Ellery, leaning forward, his tone keenly
triumphant. "I have still to expatiate upon that unspoken point which I
termed mysterious a few moments ago....
"You will recall that I spoke of the book-ends and the few grains of
powder stuck in the glue between the onyx and the new felt. That powder
was ordinary fingerprint powder.
"From the moment that I was certain of the nature of the powder, the
veils dissipated before my eyes and I sensed the truth. We thought
at first, ladies and gentlemen," he continued, "that the use of
fingerprint powder by the criminal indicated a very superior sort of
murderer--a super-criminal, in fact. One who would use the implements
of the police's own trade--it was a natural thought....
"But"--and the word lashed into them with deadly emphasis--"there was
another inference to be drawn--an inference which in a fell swoop
eliminated all suspects but one...." His eyes flashed fire; the
hoarseness disappeared from his voice. He leaned forward carefully,
over the desk with its litter of clues, holding them with the magnetism
of his personality. "All suspects--but one...." he repeated slowly.
After a pregnant moment he said: "That one is the man who was employed
by this store; who had not been in this room for at least five
weeks; who attempted to put us off the track of himself by getting
an accomplice without a record to give false information about the
'movements' of Bernice Carmody, who was already dead, in fact; who at
the same time was clever enough to say, when he saw that we believed
Miss Carmody to have been 'framed,' that he thought so, too, despite
the fact that he himself had done the framing; who was present--the
only suspect to be present, by the way--when the full story of the
codified books and the culpability of Springer was told, and who took
the very first opportunity of warning Springer to flee, realizing
that, with Springer caught, he himself was in serious danger; _who,
most important of all, was the only personality connected with this
investigation to whom the use of fingerprint powder was natural and
thoroughly logical_...."
He stopped abruptly, eyes fixed with interest, expectancy, the
eagerness of the chase, upon one corner of the room.
"_Watch him, Velie!_" he cried suddenly, in a piercing voice.
Before they could turn, before they could grasp the significance of
the scene enacted before them so swiftly and vitally, there came the
sounds of a short violent struggle, a bull-like bellow of rage, the
hoarse panting of breaths, and finally one sharp stupendous deafening
report....
Ellery stood limply, wearily in his fixed position at the desk. He did
not move while they rushed concertedly from all sides of the room to
the quiet spot where the body of a man lay, already stiff in death, in
a pool of blood.
It was Inspector Queen who reached that contorted body first, by a
lightning leap; who knelt quickly on the carpet, motioning aside the
red-faced, heaving figure of Sergeant Velie; who turned the convulsed
corpse of the suicide over; who muttered in words inaudible even to the
nearest spectator:
"No legal evidence--and the bluff worked!... Thank God for a son...."
The face was the face of the head store detective, Thomas Crouther.
THE END