The French Powder Mystery - (1)

Introduction to ARS CRIMINALIS By John Strang
    [Illustration:
    A--Cardroom
    B--Card table with banque cards
    C--Ash tray with stubs
    D--Servant's bedroom
    E--Anteroom
    F--Library
    G--Conference table and chairs
    H--Library desk
    I--Bedroom
    J--Lavatory
    K--Spring door to private apartment
    L--Elevator shaft
    M--Stairway
    N--Dressing table ]
    13
    AT THE APARTMENT: The Bedroom
    Ellery and Westley Weaver picked their way unnoticed through the throngs on the main floor. At the rear of the store, Weaver indicated around the bend of the wall a small grilled door. A policeman stood guard with his back to the ironwork.
    "That's the private elevator, Ellery."
    Ellery exhibited a special police pass signed in Inspector Queen's punctilious hand. The policeman touched his cap and opened the grilled door.
    Ellery noted the staircase door around the corner, then entered the elevator. He closed the door carefully, touched the button marked 6, and the elevator began to ascend. They stood in silence, Weaver's lip creased under his teeth.
    The elevator was finished in bronze and ebony, with an inlaid composition-rubber floor. It was spotlessly clean. On the further wall was a low divan-like seat covered with black velvet. Ellery adjusted his pince-nez and looked about him with interest. He bent over to examine more closely the velvet seat, craned his neck at a suspicious darkening in an angle of the wall.
    "Might have known Velie would overlook nothing," he thought.
    The elevator clicked to a stop. The door opened automatically and they stepped out into a wide, deserted corridor. At one end of the corridor was a high window. Almost directly opposite the elevator exit was an unpaneled door of heavy mahogany. A neat small tablet, with the words:
    PRIVATE CYRUS FRENCH
    was affixed to this door.
    A detective in plain clothes indolently leaned against the frame. He seemed to recognize Ellery at once, for he greeted him and stepped aside.
    "Going in, Mr. Queen?" he asked.
    "Righto!" said Ellery, cheerfully. "Be a good man and stick it outside here while we're sniffing around the apartment. If you see any one--with authority--coming, rap on the door. If it's just anybody, shoo 'im away. Understand?"
    The detective nodded.
    Ellery turned to Weaver. "Let's have your key, Wes," he said in a natural tone. Without a word Weaver handed him the key-case which Inspector Queen had examined in the window not long before.
    Ellery selected the gold-disked key and inserted it in the keyhole. He turned and the tumbler slipped back noiselessly. He pushed open the bulky door.
    He seemed surprised at its rigid weight, for he stepped back, taking his hand from the door, and it immediately swung shut. He tried the knob. The door was again locked.
    "Stupid of me," he muttered, as he again unlocked the door with the key. He waved Weaver inside the apartment before him, and then allowed the door to swing shut once more.
    "Special spring lock," commented Weaver. "Why are you surprised, Ellery? It's to insure absolute privacy. The Old Man's rather a bug on that."
    "The door can't be opened from the outside without a key, then?" asked Ellery. "There's no way of fixing the bolt so that the door is temporarily unlocked?"
    "The door is always as stubborn as that," said Weaver, with a fleeting grin. "Although I can't see what difference it makes."
    "Perhaps all the difference in the universe," said Ellery, knitting his brows. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked about him.
    They stood in a small, almost bare anteroom with a cunningly converted skylight roof.... A Persian rug on the floor, a long leather-upholstered bench flanked with standing ashtrays against the wall opposite the door.... To the left was a single chair and a little magazine rack. And that was all.
    The fourth wall was cut through for another door, smaller and not so formidable-looking.
    "Not especially prepossessing," remarked Ellery. "Is this the usual taste of our multimillionaires?"
    Weaver seemed to have recovered something of his natural buoyancy, now that he and Ellery were alone. "Don't misjudge the Old Man," he said hastily. "He's really a regular old duck, and knows a plain room from a fancy one. But he keeps this anteroom for the purpose of herding together the people who come to see him on business of the Anti-Vice League. This is a sort of waiting-room. Although, to tell the truth, it hasn't been used much. You know, French has an enormous suite of offices further uptown for Anti-Vice League affairs; most of that business is transacted there. I suppose, though, he couldn't resist the thought of entertaining some of his cronies here when he had the place designed."
    "Any visitors of that sort lately?" inquired Ellery, his hand on the knob of the inner door.
    "Oh, no! Not for several months, I think. The Old Man's been too wrapped up in the approaching merger with Whitney. Anti-Vice League has suffered, I guess."
    "Well, then," said Ellery judiciously, "since there's nothing here of interest, let's proceed."
    They walked into the next room, and the door swung shut behind them. This door, however, had no lock.
    "This," said Weaver, "is the library."
    "So I see." Ellery slouched against the door, surveying the room with open eagerness.
    Weaver seemed afraid of silences. He wet his lips and said, "This is also the conference room for directors' meetings, the Old Man's hideaway, et cetera. Rather neat layout, don't you think?"
    The room was at least twenty feet square, Ellery estimated, and presented a businesslike, if informal, appearance. In the center of the room stood a long mahogany table, surrounded by heavy red-leather-covered chairs. The chairs presented a ragged appearance, distributed unevenly around the table, showing signs of the haste with which the morning's meeting had been adjourned. Papers in disorderly piles were scattered over the table.
    "Not usually that way," commented Weaver, noticing Ellery's grimace of distaste. "But the conference was an important one, everybody was excited, and then the news of the accident downstairs.... It's a wonder everything isn't in more of a mess than it is."
    "Naturally!"
    On the wall opposite Ellery was a severely framed portrait in oils of a ruddy-faced, masterful-jawed man, dressed in the fashion of the 'Eighties. Ellery lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.
    "Mr. French's father--the Founder," said Weaver.
    Under the portrait were built-in bookcases, a large comfortable-looking chair, and an end-table of modern design. An etching hung over the chair.
    The wall on the corridor side and the wall near which they stood were tastefully furniture-covered. On both walls, left and right, were identically decorated doors of the swinging, rotary-hinged type. The doors were finished in a fine-grained reddish leather, studded with brass bolts.
    The Fifth Avenue side of the room held a large flat-topped desk, at about five feet from the rear wall. Its shining surface held a French-style telephone, a slip of blue memorandum paper, and at the edge of the desk facing the rest of the room a half-dozen books between handsome onyx book-ends. Behind the desk the wall was pierced by a large dormer-window, draped in heavy red velvet. This window overlooked Fifth Avenue.
    Ellery completed his stationary examination with a frown. He looked down at Weaver's key-case, which he still held in his hand.
    "By the way, Wes," he said suddenly, "is this your own key? Ever lend it to anybody?"
    "That's my own, all right, Ellery," replied Weaver indifferently. "Why?"
    "I merely thought that it might be interesting to discover whether the key has ever been out of your possession."
    "Nothing there, I'm afraid," said Weaver. "It's never been off my person. As a matter of fact, as far as I know, all five keys have been exclusively in their owner's possession since the apartment was built."
    "Hardly," said Ellery in a dry tone. "You forget Mrs. French's." He eyed the key contemplatively. "Greatly bother you, Westley, if I appropriate yours for the time? I do believe I shall go into the business of collecting this particular type of key."
    "Help yourself," replied Weaver in a small voice. Ellery detached the key from the case, which he forthwith returned to Weaver. The key he put into his vest-pocket.
    "By the way," said Ellery, "is this your office too?"
    "Oh, no!" replied Weaver. "I have my own office on the fifth floor. I report there in the mornings before coming up here."
    "Enfin!" Ellery moved suddenly. "Aux armes! Westley, it is my earnest desire to peep into the privacy of Mr. French's bedroom. Will you oblige by leading the way?"
    Weaver indicated the brass-studded door on the opposite wall. They traversed the thick-carpeted distance silently and Weaver swung the door inward. They emerged into a large squarish bedroom, with windows overlooking both Fifth Avenue and 39th Street.
    The bedroom was, to Ellery's unaccustomed eyes, astonishingly modernistic in tone and decoration. Twin beds sunk almost to the floor level, both based on concentric ovals of a highly polished wood, caught the eye at once. A queerly shaped man's wardrobe and a daringly designed woman's dressing-table indicated that the room had been laid out for the use of Mrs. French as well as of her husband. Two diversions in the quietly toned but cubistic design of the walls pointed to closets within. Two chairs of unorthodox shape, a small night-table, a telephone table between the twin beds, a few bright scatter-rugs--Ellery, unacquainted with the Continental vogue at first hand, found the French bedroom a most engaging study.
    On the wall toward the corridor was a door. It was partly open. Through it Ellery saw a lavatory in colored tiles as strikingly modern as the bedroom itself.
    "Just what are you looking for, if you're looking for anything specific at all?" inquired Weaver.
    "Lipstick. Should be here.... And key. Let's hope it isn't here." Ellery smiled and stepped into the center of the room.
    He observed that the beds were made up. Everything seemed in perfect order. He strode over to the wardrobe, looked at its bare top. The dressing-table caught his eye. He walked toward it as if half afraid of what he might find. Weaver followed him curiously.
    The top surface of the dressing-table held few articles. A small tray of mother-of-pearl; a powder-jar; a hand-mirror. On the tray were some feminine accoutrements--tiny scissors, a file, a buffer. Nothing had the appearance of recent use.
    Ellery frowned. He turned his head away, turned it back as if fascinated by the dressing-table.
    "Really," he muttered, "it should be here. Of all places. The logical one. Of course!"
    His fingers had touched the tray. Its shell was slightly curved at the edges. As the tray moved, something rolled off the table, where it had nestled under the tray's edge, and fell to the floor.
    With a grin of triumph Ellery picked up the article. It was a small, gold-chased lipstick. Weaver came over in some astonishment to see the find. Ellery pointed to the three initials on the cap: W.M.F.
    "Why, that's Mrs. French's!" cried Weaver.
    "Dear Mrs. French," murmured Ellery under his breath. He lifted the cap of the stick and twisted. A pinkish blob of paste appeared.
    "Seems to jibe," he said aloud. As if struck by a thought, he searched his coat pocket and pulled out the larger, silver-chased lipstick from the dead woman's bag in the window.
    Weaver suppressed an exclamation. Ellery looked at him pointedly.
    "So you recognized it, Wes?" he asked, smiling. "Now tell me--since we're tête-à-tête and your innocent mind can grope trustingly in my presence.... To whom does this lipstick marked C belong?"
    Weaver winced, raised his eyes to Ellery's cool ones. "To Bernice," he said slowly.
    "Bernice? Bernice Carmody? The missing lady," drawled Ellery. "I suppose Mrs. French was her real mother?"
    "Mrs. French was the Old Man's second wife. His daughter by his first wife is Marion. First wife died about seven years ago. Bernice came along with Mrs. French when the Old Man remarried."
    "And this is Bernice's lipstick?"
    "Yes. I recognized it immediately."
    "Evidently," chuckled Ellery, "from the way you jumped.... Just what do you know, Wes, about this Bernice's disappearance? From Marion French's demeanor, I gather that she knows something.... Now, now, Wes--be patient with me! I'm not a lover, you know."
    "Oh, but I'm sure Marion's not keeping anything back!" protested Weaver. "When the Inspector and I went out a while ago to meet her near the entrance, she told him that Bernice and Mrs. French had not slept at home...."
    "Not really!" Ellery was genuinely startled. "How is that, Wes? The facts, old boy, the facts!"
    "This morning, just before the conference," explained Weaver, "the Old Man asked me to call his home and let Mrs. French know that he had returned from Great Neck safely. I talked to Hortense Underhill, the housekeeper--really more than a housekeeper; she's been with the Old Man for a dozen years. Hortense said that the only one up and about was Marion. This was a little after eleven. French spoke to Marion, told her the usual thing.
    "At a quarter to twelve Hortense called up in something of a panic. She'd been worried over the silence of Mrs. French and Bernice, and on going to their bedrooms had found both empty, and the beds not slept in. Which meant, of course, that both women had not been home all night...."
    "And what did French say to that?"
    "He seemed annoyed rather than worried," replied Weaver. "Seemed to think that they had probably stayed overnight with friends. We went on with the conference, which broke up when we received the news about the--you know."
    "Why on earth dad hasn't followed up that disappearance ..." muttered Ellery with a singular facial contortion. He sprang to the telephone and ordered the store operator to summon Sergeant Velie. When Velie's voice boomed over the wire, Ellery rapidly acquainted him with the facts, advised him to let the Inspector know that he considered it imperative that Bernice be searched for immediately; and added that Commissioner Welles be kept downstairs as long as it was in Inspector Queen's power to do so. Velie grunted complete understanding and hung up.
    Ellery instantly demanded the French house telephone number from Weaver, and transmitted it to the operator.
    "Hello!" An indistinguishable murmur in the depths of the instrument. "Hello. This is a police officer talking. Miss Hortense Underhill?... Never mind that now, Miss Underhill.... Has Bernice Carmody returned yet?... I see.... Please! Take a cab immediately and come straight to the French store. Yes, yes, immediately!... By the way, has Miss Carmody a maid?... Very well. Bring her with you.... Yes, to Mr. French's private apartment on the sixth floor. Ask for Sergeant Velie when you get downstairs."
    He hung up. "Your Bernice has not returned," he said mildly. "For what reason Fortunatus alone knows." He looked thoughtfully at the two lipsticks in his hand. "Was Mrs. French a widow, Wes?" he asked after a pause.
    "No. She was divorced from Carmody."
    "That's not Vincent Carmody, the antique-dealer, by any chance?" asked Ellery, without changing expression.
    "That's the man. Know him?"
    "Slightly. I've been in his establishment." Ellery frowned as he regarded the lipsticks. His eyes keened suddenly.
    "Now, I wonder ..." he said, putting the gold stick aside and turning the silver one over in his fingers. He unscrewed the cap, twisted the body so that the dark red paste emerged. He kept twisting absently until the entire carmine length was visible. He tried to twist it still further. To his surprise, there was a distinct click! and the entire paste in its metal setting fell out of the silver case into his hand.
    "What have we here?" he asked in honest astonishment, peering into the cavity. Weaver leaned over for a better view. Ellery tipped the case and shook it.
    A little capsule about a half-inch around and perhaps an inch long fell out into his hand. It was filled with a powdery white crystalline substance.
    "What is it?" breathed Weaver.
    Ellery shook it, held it up to the light. "Well, sir," he said slowly, a grim smile lifting the corners of his lips, "it looks very much like heroin to me!"
    "Heroin? The drug, you mean?" asked Weaver excitedly.
    "Precisely." Ellery restored the capsule to the lipstick case, screwed the paste section into place, and put the lipstick into his pocket. "Nice commercial heroin. I may be wrong, but I doubt it. I'll have the stuff analyzed for me at Headquarters. Westley," and he turned squarely to French's secretary, "tell me the truth. To your knowledge is--or was--any member of the French family a drug addict?"
    Weaver replied with unexpected promptitude. "Now that you've found this heroin, if that's what it is, it seems to me that I recall something queer in the conduct and actions of Bernice, especially of late. That's her lipstick, isn't it?--Ellery, I shouldn't be at all surprised if Bernice is addicted to the stuff. She's been jumpy, nervous, peaked-looking--alternated fits of gloom with spasms of hilarity...."
    "You're describing the symptoms, all right," said Ellery. "Bernice, eh? The lady becomes more and more interesting with every passing moment. How about Mrs. French--French himself--Marion?"
    "No--not Marion!" almost shouted Weaver. Then he grinned in shame. "Sorry. No, Ellery, you forget that the Old Man is head of the Anti-Vice League--good Lord!"
    "Quite a situation, eh?" smiled Ellery. "And Mrs. French was normal in that respect, you think?"
    "Oh, absolutely."
    "Anybody in the family besides yourself suspect that Bernice is a dope fiend?"
    "I don't think so. No, I'm pretty sure no one did. Certainly not the Old Man. Marion has commented at times about Bernice's conduct and queer actions, but I'm positive she doesn't suspect--this. As for Mrs. French--well, it's hard to tell just what she thought. Always was tight-mouthed when it came to her darling Bernice. Though if she did suspect, she did nothing about it. I'm inclined to believe she was ignorant of the whole business."
    "And yet--" Ellery's eyes gleamed, "it's passing strange, Westley, that the evidence should be found on Mrs. French's body--in her handbag, in fact ... now, isn't it?"
    Weaver shrugged his shoulders wearily. "My head's in a perfect whirl."
    "Westley, old boy," pursued Ellery, fingering his pince-nez, "what do you think Mr. French would say if he knew there was drug-addiction in his own family?"
    Weaver shuddered. "You don't know what a temper the Old Man has when he's aroused. And I think that that would arouse him--" He stopped short, looked at Ellery suspiciously. Ellery smiled.
    "Time grows apace," he said with heartiness, but there was a disturbed light in his eye. "On to the lavatory!"
    14
    AT THE APARTMENT: The Lavatory
    "I hardly know what we may expect to find here," said Ellery dubiously, as they stood in the glittering bathroom. "As a matter of fact, the lavatory is the last place to look.... Everything all right, Westley? Anything strike you as being out of place?"
    Weaver answered rapidly enough, "No," but a tinge of uncertainty shaded his voice. Ellery glanced at him sharply, then around at the room.
    It was long and narrow. The tub was sunken. The washbowl was slender and modern-looking. Above it hung a cunningly disguised chest. Ellery pulled open its concealed door. It held on its three glass shelves some bottles of house medicines, hair tonic, ointment, a tube of tooth-paste and one of shaving cream, a safety-razor in an odd-looking wooden case, two combs, and several other articles.
    Ellery slammed the door shut in a little flurry of disgust. "Come on, Wes," he growled. "I'm doddering. There's nothing here." Nevertheless, he stopped to open a door on the side. It was a closet for lavatory linens. He poked his hand into a hamper and pulled out several soiled towels. These he examined carelessly and threw back, looking at Westley....
    "Well, spill it, son!" he said, pleasantly enough. "There is something on your mind. What's rotten in Denmark?"
    "It's queer," said Weaver thoughtfully, pulling at his lip. "I thought it queer at the time, and now that things have happened, well--I'm thinking it's even queerer.... Ellery, there's something missing!"
    "Missing?" Ellery's hand shot out and closed about Weaver's arm in a mighty grip. "My God, and you've kept mum! What is it that's missing, man?"
    "You'll think I'm an idiot ..." said Weaver hesitantly.
    "Westley!"
    "Sorry." Weaver cleared his throat. "Well, there's a razor blade missing, if you must know!" He scanned Ellery's face for a sign of levity.
    But Ellery did not laugh. "A razor-blade? Tell me about it," he urged, leaning against the closet door. He eyed the cabinet above the washbowl speculatively.
    "I got here this morning a bit earlier than usual," began Weaver, with a worried frown. "Had to prepare for the Old Man's arrival, and there were a number of papers to straighten out for the directors' meeting. Usually, you know, the Old Man doesn't get here until ten o'clock; it's only on special occasions--like this one of the conference--that he comes earlier.... So I left the house in something of a hurry, intending to shave up here. I do that quite often, by the way--which is one of the reasons I keep a razor in the apartment.... When I got here--it was about eight-thirty--I dashed for my razor. And there wasn't any blade."
    "That seems not so extraordinary," said Ellery with a smile. "You simply didn't have any in the cabinet."
    "Oh, but I did!" protested Weaver. "The reason I felt something was funny was that last evening, before I left the store, I had shaved up here. I left the blade in the razor."
    "Didn't you have any others?"
    "No. I'd run out of them and intended to get some more. But I forgot to bring some in with me this morning. Consequently, when I wanted to scrape some of the old beard off there wasn't anything to do it with. Blade had vanished! Sounds silly, doesn't it? And I particularly left that blade in the razor yesterday because I've forgotten to restock before, and I found that you can always squeeze another shave out of the old blade."
    "You mean that it had gone, absolutely? You're sure you left it in the razor?"
    "Positive. I cleaned it and slipped it back."
    "You didn't break it, or anything like that?"
    "I tell you no, Ellery," Weaver replied patiently. "That blade was there."
    Ellery's lips curved upward humorously. "A pretty problem at that," he said. "Is that why your face is fuzzed?"
    "Right enough. I haven't had a chance all day to go out for a shave."
    "Seems peculiar," said Ellery thoughtfully. "I mean that you should have had only one blade left in the cabinet. Where are French's blades?"
    "He doesn't shave himself," replied Weaver a trifle stiffly. "He never has. Patronizes the same barber every morning."
    Ellery did not comment further. He opened the cabinet and took down the wooden razor-case. He examined the plain silver razor inside, but could see nothing of interest.
    "You handled the razor this morning?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "Did you take it out of the case?"
    "Oh, no! I didn't at all. When I saw the blade was missing, I didn't even bother."