The French Powder Mystery, page 9
“That’s so,” muttered the Inspector. “I’m glad you suggested sending one of the boys to watch that apartment this morning.”
“I had that thought,” said Ellery. “But something else disturbs me. I can’t help asking myself: Doesn’t the absence of the key perhaps indicate that the body was brought to this window from some other place?”
“I can’t see that at all,” objected the Inspector. “Can’t see that it has anything to do with it.”
“Let’s not quarrel about it,” murmured Ellery. “I can see one very, 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 sightly 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—a 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 nightwatchman’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 in coming 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 reentered. 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 etymologic ally 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
Chapter 13.
At the Apartments
