The Adventures of Ellery Queen Page 2

  Ellery sprang to his feet. “You’ll be Sherlock Holmeses yet….The weapon, dad?”

  “A heavy stone hammer, crudely made—some kind of African curio, our expert says. Spargo must have had it in his bag—his trunk hasn’t arrived yet from Chicago.”

  Ellery nodded; on the bed lay an open pigskin traveling-bag. Beside it, neatly laid out, was an evening outfit: tuxedo coat, trousers, and vest; stiff-bosomed shirt; studs and cufflinks; a clean wing-collar; black suspenders; a white silk handkerchief. Under the bed were two pairs of black shoes, one pair brogues, the other patent-leather. Ellery looked around; something, it seemed, disturbed him. On the chair near the bed lay a soiled shirt, a soiled pair of socks, and a soiled suit of underwear. None exhibited bloodstains. He paused thoughtfully.

  “We took the hammer away. It was full of blood and hair,” continued the Inspector. “No fingerprints anywhere. Handle anything you want—everything’s been photographed and tested for prints.”

  Ellery began to puff at a cigarette. He noticed that Burrows and Crane were crouched over the dead man, occupied with the watch. He sauntered over, Miss Ickthorpe at his heels.

  Burrows’ thin face was shining as he looked up. “Here’s something!” He had carefully removed the timepiece from Spargo’s wrist and had pried open the back of the case. Ellery saw a roughly circular patch of fuzzy white paper glued to the inside of the case, as if something had been rather unsuccessfully torn away. Burrows leaped to his feet. “That gives me an idea,” he announced. “Yes, sir.” He studied the dead man’s face intently.

  “And you, Crane?” asked Ellery with interest. The young chemist had produced a small magnifying-glass from his pocket and was scrutinizing the watchworks.

  Crane rose. “I’d rather not say now,” he mumbled. “Mr. Queen, I’d like permission to take this watch to my laboratory.”

  Ellery looked at his father; the old man nodded. “Certainly, Crane. But be sure you return it….Dad, you searched this room thoroughly, fireplace and all?”

  The Inspector cackled suddenly. “I was wondering when you’d get to that. There’s something almighty interesting in that fireplace.” His face fell and rather grumpily he produced a snuff-box and pinched some crumbs into his nostrils. “Although I’ll be hanged if I know what it means.”

  Ellery squinted at the fireplace, his lean shoulders squaring; the others crowded around. He squinted again, and knelt; behind the manufactured gas-log, in a tiny grate, there was a heap of ashes. Curious ashes indeed, patently not of wood, coal, or paper. Ellery poked about in the debris—and sucked in his breath. In a moment he had dug out of the ashes ten peculiar objects: eight flat pearl buttons and two metal things, one triangular in outline, eye-like, the other hook-like—both small and made of some cheap alloy. Two of the eight buttons were slightly larger than the rest. The buttons were ridged, and in the depression in each center were four thread-holes. All ten objects were charred by fire.

  “And what do you make of that?” demanded the Inspector.

  Ellery juggled the buttons thoughtfully. He did not reply directly. Instead, he said to his three pupils, in a grim voice: “You might think about these….Dad, when was this fireplace last cleaned?”

  “Early this morning by Agatha Robins, the mulatto maid. Some one checked out of this room at seven o’clock, and she cleaned up the place before Spargo got here. Fireplace was clean this morning, she says.”

  Ellery dropped buttons and metal objects on the night-table and went to the bed. He looked into the open traveling-bag; its interior was in a state of confusion. The bag contained three four-in-hand neckties, two clean white shirts, socks, underwear, and handkerchiefs. All the haberdashery, he noted, bore the same dealer’s tab—Johnson’s, Johannesburg, U.S.Afr. He seemed pleased, and proceeded to the wardrobe closet. It contained merely a tweed traveling suit, a brown topcoat, and a felt hat.

  He closed the door with a satisfied bang. “You’ve observed everything?” he asked the two young men and the girl.

  Crane and Burrows nodded, rather doubtfully. Miss Ickthorpe was barely listening; from the rapt expression on her face, she might have been listening to the music of the spheres.

  “Miss Ickthorpe!”

  Miss Ickthorpe smiled dreamily. “Yes, Mr. Queen,” she said in a submissive little voice. Her large brown eyes began to rove.

  Ellery grunted and strode to the bureau. Its top was bare. He went through the drawers; they were empty. He started for the desk, but the Inspector said: “Nothing there, son. He hadn’t time to stow anything away. Except for the bathroom, you’ve seen everything.”

  As if she had been awaiting the signal, Miss Ickthorpe dashed for the bathroom. She seemed very anxious indeed to explore its interior. Crane and Burrows hurried after her.

  Ellery permitted them to examine the bathroom before him. Miss Ickthorpe’s hands flew over the objects on the rim of the washbowl. There was a pigskin toilet-kit, open, draped over the marble; an uncleansed razor; a still damp shaving-brush; a tube of shaving cream; a small can of talcum and a tube of tooth-paste. To one side lay a celluloid shaving-brush container, its cap on the open kit.

  “Can’t see a thing of interest here,” said Burrows frankly. “You, Walter?”

  Crane shook his head. “Except that he must have just finished shaving before he was murdered, not a thing.”

  Miss Ickthorpe wore a stern and faintly exultant look. “That’s because, like all men, you’re blinder’n bats….I’ve seen enough.”

  They trooped by Ellery, rejoining the Inspector, who was talking with some one in the bedroom. Ellery chuckled to himself. He lifted the lid of a clothes-hamper; it was empty. Then he picked up the cap of the shaving-brush container. The cap came apart in his fingers, and he saw that a small circular pad fitted snugly inside. He chuckled again, cast a derisive glance at the triumphant back of the heroic Miss Ickthorpe outside, replaced cap and tube, and went back into the bedroom.

  He found Williams, the hotel manager, accompanied by a policeman, talking heatedly to the Inspector. “We can’t keep this up forever, Inspector Queen,” Williams was saying. “Our guests are beginning to complain. The night-shift is due to go on soon, I’ve got to go home myself, and you’re making us stay here all night, by George. After all—”

  The old man said: “Psih!” and cocked an inquiring eye at his son. Ellery nodded. “Can’t see any reason for not lifting the ban, dad. We’ve learned as much as we can….You young people!” Three pairs of eager eyes focused on him; they were like three puppies on a leash. “Have you seen enough?” They nodded solemnly. “Anything else you want to know?”

  Burrows said quickly: “I want a certain address.”

  Miss Ickthorpe paled. “Why, so do I! John, you mean thing!”

  And Crane muttered, clutching Spargo’s watch in his fist: “I want something, too—but I’ll find it out right in this hotel!”

  Ellery smoothed away a smile, shrugged, and said: “See Sergeant Velie downstairs—that Colossus we met at the door. He’ll tell you anything you may want to know.

  “Now, follow instructions. It’s evident that the three of you have definite theories. I’ll give you two hours in which to formulate them and pursue any investigations you may have in mind.” He consulted his watch. “At 6:30, meet me at my apartment on West Eighty-seventh Street, and I’ll try to rip your theories apart….Happy hunting!”

  He grinned dismissal. They scrambled for the door, Miss Ickthorpe’s turban slightly awry, her elbows working vigorously to clear the way.

  “And now,” said Ellery in a totally different voice when they had disappeared down the corridor, “come here a moment, dad. I want to talk to you alone.”

  At 6:30 that evening Mr. Ellery Queen presided at his own table, watching three young faces bursting with sternly repressed news. The remains of a dinner, barely touched, strewed the cloth.

  Miss Ickthorpe had somehow contrived, in the interval between her dismissal and her appearance at the Que
ens’ apartment, to change her gown; she was now attired in something lacy and soft, which set off—as she obviously was aware—the whiteness of her throat, the brownness of her eyes, and the pinkness of her cheeks. The young men were preoccupied with their coffee-cups.

  “Now, class,” chuckled Ellery, “recitations.” They brightened, sat straighter and moistened their lips. “You’ve had, each of you, about two hours in which to crystallize the results of your first investigation. Whatever happens, I can’t take credit, since so far I’ve taught you nothing. But by the end of this little confabulation, I’ll have a rough idea of just what material I’m working with.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Miss Ickthorpe.

  “John—we may as well discard formality—what’s your theory?”

  Burrows said slowly: “I’ve more than a theory, Mr. Queen. I’ve the solution!”

  “A solution, John. Don’t be too cocky. And what,” said Ellery, “is this solution of yours?”

  Burrows drew a breath from the depths of his boots. “The clue that led to my solution was Spargo’s wrist-watch. Crane and the girl started. Ellery blew smoke and said encouragingly: “Go on.”

  “The two creases on the leather strap,” replied Burrows, “were significant. As Spargo wore the watch, the prong was caught in the second hole, so that there was a crease across the second hole. Yet a deeper crease appeared across the third hole. Conclusion: the watch was habitually worn by a person with a smaller wrist. In other words, the watch was not Spargo’s!”

  “Bravo,” said Ellery softly. “Bravo.”

  “Why, then, was Spargo wearing some one else’s watch? For a very good reason, I maintain. The doctor had said Spargo died between 11:00 and 11:30. Yet the watch-hands had apparently stopped at 10:20. The answer to this discrepancy? That the murderer, finding no watch on Spargo, took her own watch, cracked the crystal and stopped the works, then set the hands at 10:20 and strapped it about Spargo’s dead wrist. This would seem to establish the time of death at 10:20 and would give the murderer an opportunity to provide an alibi for that time, when all the while the murder actually occurred about 11:20. How’s that?”

  Miss Ickthorpe said tartly: “You say ‘her.’ But it’s a man’s watch, John—you forget that.”

  Burrows grinned. “A woman can own a man’s watch, can’t she? Now whose watch was it? Easy. In the back of the case there was a circular patch of fuzzy paper, as if something had been ripped out. What made of paper is usually pasted in the back of a watch? A photograph. Why was it taken out? Obviously, because the murderer’s face was in that photograph….In the last two hours I followed this lead. I visited my suspect on a reportorial pretext and managed to get a look at a photograph-album she has. There I found one photograph with a circular patch cut out. From the rest of the photo it was clear that the missing circle contained the heads of a man and a woman. My case was complete!”

  “Perfectly amazing,” murmured Ellery. “And this murderess of yours is—?”

  “Spargo’s wife!…Motive—hate, or revenge, or thwarted love, or something.”

  Miss Ickthorpe sniffed, and Crane shook his head. “Well,” said Ellery, “we seem to be in disagreement. Nevertheless a very interesting analysis, John….Walter, what’s yours?”

  Crane hunched his broad shoulders. “I agree with Johnny that the watch did not belong to Spargo, that the murderer set the hands at 10:20 to provide an alibi; but I disagree as to the identity of the criminal. I also worked on the watch as the main clue. But with a vastly different approach.

  “Look here.” He brought out the gaudy timepiece and tapped its cracked crystal deliberately. “Here’s something you people may not know. Watches, so to speak, breathe. That is, contact with warm flesh causes the air inside to expand and force its way out through the minute cracks and holes of the case and crystal. When the watch is laid aside, the air cools and contracts, and dust-bearing air is sucked into the interior.”

  “I always said I should have studied science,” said Ellery. “That’s a new trick, Walter. Continue.”

  “To put it specifically, a baker’s watch will be found to contain flour-dust. A bricklayer’s watch will collect brick-dust.” Crane’s voice rose triumphantly. “D’you know what I found in this watch? Tiny particles of a woman’s face-powder!”

  Miss Ickthorpe frowned. Crane continued in a deep voice: “And a very special kind of face-powder it is, Mr. Queen. Kind used only by women of certain complexions. What complexions? Negro brown! The powder came from a mulatto woman’s purse! I’ve questioned her, checked her vanity-case, and although she denies it, I say that Spargo’s murderess is Agatha Robins, the mulatto maid who ‘found’ the body!”

  Ellery whistled gently. “Good work, Walter, splendid work. And of course from your standpoint she would deny being the owner of the watch anyway. That clears something up for me….But motive?”

  Crane looked uncomfortable. “Well, I know it sounds fantastic, but a sort of voodoo vengeance—reversion to racial type—Spargo had been cruel to African natives…it was in the papers….”

  Ellery shaded his eyes to conceal their twinkle. Then he turned to Miss Ickthorpe, who was tapping her cup nervously, squirming in her chair, and exhibiting other signs of impatience. “And now,” he said, “we come to the star recitation. What have you to offer, Miss Ickthorpe? You’ve been simply saturated with a theory all afternoon. Out with it.”

  She compressed her lips, “You boys think you’re clever. You, too, Mr. Queen—you especially….Oh, I’ll admit John and Walter have shown superficial traces of intelligence….”

  “Will you be explicit, Miss Ickthorpe?”

  She tossed her head. “Very well. The watch had nothing to do with the crime at all!”

  The boys gaped, and Ellery tapped his palms gently together. “Very good. I agree with you. Explain, please.”

  Her brown eyes burned, and her cheeks were very pink. “Simple!” she said with a sniff. “Spargo had arrived from Chicago only two hours before his murder. He had been in Chicago for a week and a half. Then for a week and a half he had been living by Chicago time. And, since Chicago time is one hour earlier than New York time, it merely means that nobody set the hands back; that they were standing at 10:20 when he fell dead, because he’d neglected to set his watch ahead on arriving in New York this morning!”

  Crane muttered something in his throat, and Burrows flushed a deep crimson. Ellery looked sad. “I’m afraid the laurels so far go to Miss Ickthorpe, gentlemen. That happens to be correct. Anything else?”

  “Naturally. I know the murderer, and it isn’t Spargo’s wife or that outlandish mulatto maid,” she said exasperatingly. “Follow me….Oh, this is so easy!…We all saw that the powder on Spargo’s dead face had been applied very smoothly. From the condition of his cheeks and the shaving things in the bathroom it was evident that he’d shaved just before being murdered. But how does a man apply powder after shaving? How do you powder your face, Mr. Queen?” she shot at him rather tenderly.

  Ellery looked startled. “With my fingers, of course.” Crane and Burrows nodded.

  “Exactly!” chortled Miss Ickthorpe. “And what happens? I know, because I’m a very observant person and, besides, Old Icky shaves every morning and I can’t help noticing when he kisses me good-morning. Applied with the fingers on cheeks still slightly moist, the powder goes on in streaks, smudgy, heavier in some spots than others. But look at my face!” They looked, with varying expressions of appreciation. “You don’t see powder streaks on my face, do you? Of course not! And why? Because I’m a woman, and a woman uses a powder-puff, and there isn’t a single powder-puff in Spargo’s bedroom or bathroom!”

  Ellery smiled—almost with relief. “Then you suggest, Miss Ickthorpe, that the last person with Spargo, presumably his murderess, was a woman who watched him shave and then, with endearment perhaps, took out her own powder-puff and dabbed it over his face—only to bash him over the head with the stone hammer a few minutes later?”
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  “Well—yes, although I didn’t think of it that way….But—yes! And psychology points to the specific woman, too, Mr. Queen. A man’s wife would never think of such an—an amorous proceeding. But a man’s mistress would, and I say that Spargo’s lady-love, Jane Terrill, whom I visited only an hour ago and who denies having powdered Spargo’s face—she would!—killed him.”

  Ellery sighed. He rose and twitched his cigarette-stub into the fireplace. They were watching him, and each other, with expectancy. “Aside,” he began, “from complimenting you, Miss Ickthorpe, on the acuteness of your knowledge of mistresses”—she uttered an outraged little gasp—“I want to say this before going ahead. The three of you have proved very ingenious, very alert; I’m more pleased than I can say. I do think we’re going to have a cracking good class. Good work, all of you!”

  “But, Mr. Queen,” protested Burrows, “which one of us is right? Each one of us has given a different solution.”

  Ellery waved his hand. “Right? A detail, theoretically. The point is you’ve done splendid work—sharp observation, a rudimentary but promising linking of cause and effect. As for the case itself, I regret to say—you’re all wrong!”

  Miss Ickthorpe clenched her tiny fist. “I knew you’d say that! I think you’re horrid. And I still think I’m right.”

  “There, gentlemen, is an extraordinary example of feminine psychology,” grinned Ellery. “Now attend, all of you.

  “You’re all wrong for the simple reason that each of you has taken just one line of attack, one clue, one chain of reasoning, and completely ignored the other elements of the problem. You, John, say it’s Spargo’s wife, merely because her photograph-album contains a picture from which a circular patch with two heads has been cut away. That this might have been sheer coincidence apparently never occurred to you.

  “You, Walter, came nearer the truth when you satisfactorily established the ownership of the watch as the mulatto maid’s. But suppose Maid Robins had accidentally dropped the watch in Spargo’s room at the hotel during his first visit there, and he had found it and taken it to Chicago with him? That’s what probably happened. The mere fact that he wore her watch doesn’t make her his murderess.