The French Powder Mystery, page 15
“Now, Mr. Carmody,” began the Inspector, striding up and down before the desk at which Ellery sat quietly, “a few unimportant but necessary questions. Hagstrom, you’re ready?” He cocked an eye at the detective, who nodded, notebook in hand. The Inspector resumed his march on the rug. Suddenly he looked up. Carmody’s eyes burned deeply into thin air.
“Mr. Carmody,” said the Inspector abruptly, “I understand that you are the sole owner of the Holbein Studios, dealing in antiques?”
“That is precisely correct,” said Carmody. His voice was startling—low and vibrant and deliberate.
“You were married to Mrs. French, and divorced some seven years ago?”
“That is also correct.” There was a finality in his tones that impinged unpleasantly on the ear. He emanated an aura of complete self-control.
“Have you seen Mrs. French since your divorce?”
“Yes. Many times.”
“Socially? There was no particular unpleasantness in your relations?”
“None whatever. Yes, I met Mrs. French socially.”
The Inspector was slightly nettled. This witness answered exactly what he was asked, and no more.
“How often, Mr. Carmody?”
“As often as twice a week during the social season.”
“And you last saw her—”
“A week ago Monday evening, at a dinner given by Mrs. Standish Prince at Mrs. Prince’s home.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.” Carmody stirred. “Mrs. French was very much interested in antiques, an interest cultivated perhaps during our marriage.” The man seemed made of steel. He showed not the faintest trace of emotion. “We conversed for a time about a Chippendale chair she was particularly anxious to have.”
—”Anything else, Mr. Carmody?”
“Yes. About our daughter.”
“Ah!” The Inspector pursed his lips, pulled at his mustache. “Miss Bernice Carmody was placed in the custody of your wife after your divorce?”
“Yes.”
“You have seen your daughter periodically, perhaps?”
“Yes. Although Mrs. French secured custody of my daughter, our informal arrangement at the time of our divorce was that I might see the child anytime.” A warm color floated into his voice. The Inspector regarded him quickly, looked away. He plunged into a new line of questioning.
“Mr. Carmody, can you suggest any possible explanation to account for this crime?”
“No, I cannot.” Carmody grew colder at once. For no apparent reason his eyes shifted to Ellery, and held there intently for an instant.
“Had Mrs. French any enemies, to your knowledge?”
“No. She was singularly free from the profundity of character which so often breeds animosity in others.” Carmody might have been talking of an utter stranger; his tone, his bearing were wholly impersonal.
“Not even yourself, Mr. Carmody?” asked the Inspector softly.
“Not even myself, Inspector,” said Carmody in the same frozen tones. “If it is any concern of yours, my love for my wife dwindled during our wedded life and when it had entirely disappeared, I secured a divorce. I felt no bitterness toward her then, nor do I now. You will, of course,” he added without a change in inflection, “have to take my word for that”
“Did Mrs. French seem nervous the last few times you saw her? Did anything seem to be troubling her? Did she give you any clue to a possible secret worry?”
“Our conversations, Inspector, were hardly of so intimate a nature. I noticed nothing unusual about her. Mrs. French was an extraordinarily prosaic person. Not at all the worrying kind, I can assure you.”
The Inspector paused, Carmody sat quietly. Then he spoke, without warning, without passion. He merely opened Ids mouth and began to speak, but it was so unexpected that the Inspector started violently and took a hasty pinch of snuff to conceal his agitation.
“Inspector, you are evidently questioning me with the secret hope that I may have something to do with the crime, or that I may be in the possession of vital information. Inspector, you are wasting your time.” Carmody leaned forward, his eyes strangely blazing. “Believe me when I say that I haven’t the slightest interest either in the live Mrs. French—or the dead Mrs. French. Or the whole damned French tribe put together. My own concern is with my daughter. I understand that she is missing. If she is, there has been foul play. If you have any idea in your head that my daughter is a matricide, the more fool you . . . . You will be perpetrating a crime against an innocent girl if you do not immediately seek to discover Bernice’s present whereabouts and the reason for her disappearance. And in that connection, you are welcome to my unstinting cooperation. If you do not look for her immediately, I shall set private detectives on her trail. I think that is all.”
Carmody rose to his astonishing height and stood immovably waiting.
The Inspector stirred. “I should advise a slight softening of tone in the future, Mr. Carmody,” he said dryly. “You may go.”
Without another word the antique dealer turned and left the apartment.
“Well, what do you think of Mr. Carmody?” asked Queen quizzically
“I’ve never known an antiquarian who wasn’t queer in some way,” laughed Ellery. “Cool customer, however . . . . Dad, I should very much like to see Monsieur Lavery again.”
The Frenchman was pale and nervous when he was conducted into the library. He seemed excessively tired and sank into a chair at once, stretching his long legs with a sigh.
“You might have provided chairs outside in the corridor,” he said reproachfully to the Inspector. “My good fortune to be the last called! C’est la vie, hein?” He shrugged his shoulders humorously. “May I smoke, Inspector?”
He lit a cigaret without waiting for a reply.
Ellery rose and shook himself vigorously. He looked at Lavery, and Lavery looked at him, and both smiled for no apparent reason.
“I shall be brutally frank, Mr. Lavery,” drawled Ellery. “You are a man of the world. You will not be constrained by a false sense of discretion . . . . Mr. Lavery, have you ever suspected during your stay with the Frenches, that Bernice Carmody is a drug addict?”
Lavery started, regarded Ellery with alert eyes. “You have discovered that already? And without seeing the girl? My felicitations, Mr. Queen . . . . To your question, let me reply without hesitation—yes.”
“Oh, I say!” protested Weaver suddenly, from his corner. “How could you know, Lavery? On such a short acquaintance?”
“I know the symptoms, Weaver,” said Lavery mildly. “The sallow, almost saffron complexion; the slightly protruding eyeballs; the bad teeth, the unnatural nervousness and excitability; a certain air of furtiveness constantly maintained; the sudden hysteria and the more sudden recovery; the excessive thinness, growing more patent with every passing day—no, it was not difficult to diagnose the young lady’s ailment.” He turned to Ellery with a quick gesture of his thin fingers. “Let me make it perfectly clear that my opinion is just an opinion, little more. I have no definite evidence of any kind. But, short of medical advices to the contrary, I should be ready as a layman to swear that the girl is a drug fiend in an advanced stage!”
Weaver groaned. “The Old Man—”
“Of course, we’re all terribly sorry about that,” put in the Inspector quickly. “You suspected her of being an addict at once, Mr. Lavery?”
“From the moment I laid eyes on her,” said the Frenchman emphatically. “It was a source of constant astonishment to me that more people did not observe what was so perfectly plain to me.”
“Perhaps they did—perhaps they did,” muttered Ellery, brows drawn taut. He brushed a vagrant thought away and addressed Lavery once more.
“Have you ever been in this room before, Mr. Lavery?” he asked apropos of nothing.
“In Mr. French’s apartment?” cried Lavery. “Why, every day, sir. Mr. French has been more than kind, and I have used this room incessantly since my arrival in New York.”
“Then there is nothing more to be said,” Ellery smiled. “You may now retire to your lecture-room, if it isn’t too late, and carry on the grand work of continentalizing America. Good day, sir!”
Lavery bowed, showed his white teeth all around, and left the apartment with long strides.
Ellery sat down at the desk and wrote earnestly on the flyleaf of his sadly abused little book.
* * *
1 See diagram at frontispiece.
Chapter 19.
Opinions and Reports
Inspector Queen stood Napoleonically in the center of the library, staring vindictively at the anteroom door. He muttered to himself, turning his head slowly from side to side like a terrier.
He beckoned to Crouther, the head store detective, who was assisting one of the photographers at the door of the cardroom.
“Look here, Crouther, you ought to be in a good position to know about this.” The Inspector filled his nostrils with snuff. “Seeing that door there reminded me. What in heaven’s name was French’s idea in having a special spring lock put on the corridor door? Seems to me that for an apartment only occasionally used this is pretty well guarded.”
Crouther grinned deprecatingly. “Now don’t go bothering your head about that, Inspector. The old boy’s just a bug on privacy, that’s all. Hates to be interrupted—that’s a fact.”
“But a burglar-proof lock in a burglar-proof building!”
“Well,” said Crouther, “you either have to take him that way or go nuts. Matter of fact, Inspector,” he lowered his voice, “he’s always been a little queer on some subjects. I can remember like today the morning I got a written order from the boss, with signatures and a lot of that bunk, requisitioning a special made lock. That was when they were remodeling the apartment, about two years ago. So I followed my orders and had an expert locksmith manufacture the dingus on that outside door. Boss liked it pretty much, too—was happy as an Irish cop.”
“How about this business of setting a man at the door?” demanded the Inspector. “Certainly that lock would keep out anybody who wasn’t wanted.”
“We-ell,” said Crouther hesitantly, “the boss is such a bug on this privacy business that he didn’t even want knocks on the door. Guess that’s why he asked me for a man to stand guard every once in a while. Always kept the boys in the corridor, too—they hate the job, the whole crew of ‘em. Couldn’t even come into the anteroom and sit down.”
The Inspector scowled down at his regulation policeman’s boots for a moment and crooked his finger at Weaver.
“Come here, my boy.” Weaver trudged wearily across the rug. “Just what’s behind French’s craze for privacy? From what Crouther tells me, this place is like a fortress most times. Who in heaven’s name is allowed in here besides his family?”
“It’s just an idiosyncrasy of the Old Man’s, Inspector,” said Weaver. “Don’t take it too seriously. He’s a good deal of an eccentric. Very few people see the inside of this apartment. Apart from myself, the immediate family, the Board of Directors, and during the last month Mr. Lavery, practically no one in the store organization is allowed in here. No, that’s not quite true. MacKenzie, the store manager, is called in occasionally to get direct orders from the Old Man—was in last week, in fact. But aside from MacKenzie, this place is a complete mystery to the store forces.”
“You tell ‘em, Mr. Weaver,” put in Crouther jocularly.
“And that’s how it is, Inspector,” continued Weaver. “Not even Crouther has been here in the past few years.”
“Last time I saw this place before this morning,” amended Crouther, “was two years ago when they were redecorating and refurnishing it.” He grew red in the face at the thought of some secret injury. “That’s a heck of a way to treat a head store detective, believe me.”
“You ought to work for the city, Crouther,” said the Inspector grimly. “Shut up and be satisfied with a soft job!”
“I should explain, if I haven’t done so before,” added Weaver, “that the taboo is more or less limited to employees. A great many people come here, but most of the visits are strictly by appointment with the Old Man, and his visitors come on Anti-Vice League business. Clergymen, most of them. A few politicians, not many.”
“That’s a fact,” put in Crouther.
“Well!” The Inspector shot a keen glance toward the two men before him. “It looks mighty bad for this Carmody girl, eh? What do you think?”
Weaver looked pained and half-turned away.
“Well, I don’t know about that, Inspector,” said Crouther with heavy importance. “My own ideas about this case—”
“Eh? Your own ideas?” The Inspector looked startled, then suppressed a smile. “What are your own ideas, Crouther? Might be of some value—never can tell.”
Ellery, who had been sitting abstractedly at the desk, listening to the conversation with half-cocked ears, jammed his little volume into his pocket, rose, and sauntered idly over to the group.
“What’s this? A post-mortem?” he demanded, smiling. “And what do I hear, Crouther, about an idea of yours on the case?”
Crouther looked embarrassed for a moment and shuffled his feet. But then he squared his thick shoulders and lashed out into speech, openly enjoying his role of orator.
“I think,” he began—
“Ah!” said the Inspector.
“I think,” Crouther repeated, unabashed, “that Miss Carmody is a victim. Yes, sir, victim of a frame-up!”
“No!” murmured Ellery.
“Go on,” said the Inspector curiously.
“It’s as plain as the nose—beg pardon, Inspector—on your face. Who ever heard of a girl bumping her own mother off? It ain’t natural.”
“But the cards, Crouther—the shoes, the hat,” said the Inspector gently.
“Just hooey, Inspector,” said Crouther with confidence. “Hell! That’s no trick, to plant a pair o’ shoes and a hat. No, sir, you can’t tell me Miss Carmody did the job. Don’t believe it and won’t believe it. I go on common sense, and that’s a fact. Girl shoot her own mother! No, sir!”
“Well, there’s something in that,” remarked the Inspector sententiously. “What do you make of Miss Marion French’s scarf, while you’re analyzing the crime, Crouther? Think she’s mixed up in it anywhere?”
“Who? That little girl?” Crouther expanded, snorted. “Say, that’s another plant. Or else she left it here by mistake. Kind o’ like the plant idea, though, myself. Fact!”
“You would say, then,” interpolated Ellery, “while you’re on the Holmesian track, that this is a case of—what?”
“Don’t get you entirely, sir,” said Crouther stoutly, “but it looks darned near like a case of murder and kidnapping. Can’t see any other way to explain it.”
“Murder and kidnapping?” Ellery smiled. “Not a bad idea at that. Good recitation, Crouther.”
The detective beamed. Weaver, who had resolutely refrained from commenting, heaved a sigh of relief when a knock on the outer door interrupted the conversation.
The policeman stationed outside opened the door to admit a wizened little man, completely bald, carrying a bulging brief-case.
“Afternoon, Jimmy!” said the Inspector cheerfully. “Got anything for us in that bag of yours?”
“Sure have, Inspector,” squeaked the little old man. “Got down here as fast as I could.—Hello, Mr. Queen.”
“Glad to see you, Jimmy,” said Ellery, and the expression on his face was one of intense expectancy. At this moment the photographers and fingerprint investigators trooped into the library, hats and coats on, their apparatus stowed away. “Jimmy” greeted them all by name.
“Through here, Inspector,” announced one of the photographers. “Any orders?”
“Not at the moment.” Queen turned to the fingerprint men. “Anybody find anything?”
“Got a lot of prints,” reported one of them, “but practically all came from this room. Not a one in the card-room and none in the bedroom, except for a few stray prints of Mr. Queen’s, here.”
“Anything in the prints from this room?”
“Hard to say. If the room’s been used all morning by this Board of Directors, chances are they’re all legitimate. We’ll have to get hold of these people and check their prints. Okay, Inspector?”
“Go ahead. But be nice about it, boys.” He waved them toward the door. “So long, Crouther. See you later.”
“Good enough,” said Crouther cheerfully, and departed behind the police workers.
The Inspector, Weaver, the man called “Jimmy,” and Ellery were left standing in the center of the room. The detectives personally attached to Queen lounged about in the anteroom, conversing in low tones. The old man carefully closed the anteroom door and hurried back toward the group, rubbing his hands briskly together.
“Now, Mr. Weaver—” he began.
“Perfectly all right, dad,” said Ellery mildly. “No secrets from Wes. Jimmy, if you’ve anything to tell, tell it rapidly, graphically, and above all rapidly. Talk, James!”
“Okay,” responded “Jimmy,” scratching his bald pate dubiously. “What would you like to know?” His hand dived into the bag he carried and reappeared with an article painstakingly wrapped in soft tissue paper. He carefully unwrapped the package, and one of the onyx book-ends emerged. The second book-end, similarly sheathed in tissue, he placed by the side of the first on the glass top of French’s desk.
“The book-ends, eh?” muttered Queen, bending forward curiously to examine the barely visible glue fines where felt and stone met.
“In the onyx itself,” ventured Ellery. “Jimmy, what were those whitish grains I sent you in the glassine envelope?”
“Ordinary fingerprint powder,” replied “Jimmy,” at once. “The white variety. And how it got there, maybe you can answer—I can’t, Mr. Queen.”
“Not at the moment,” smiled Ellery. “Fingerprint powder, eh? Did you find any more in the glue?”
“You got nearly all of them,” said the little bald-headed man. “Did find a few, though. Found a bit of foreign matter, of course—some dust chiefly. But the grains are what I’ve told you. There’s not a print on either of them, except your own, Mr. Queen.”
