The French Powder Mystery - (3)

She stood on tiptoe and lifted from the shelf the three hat-boxes. She opened these one by one and scrutinized them briefly. The first two boxes contained hats belonging to Mrs. French, she said hesitantly. This was corroborated by a frigid nod from Hortense Underhill.
    The maid lifted the lid from the third box. She uttered a little choked cry and reeled backward, touching Ellery. The contact seemed to burn her skin. She jumped away, fumbled for a handkerchief.
    "Well?" asked Ellery softly.
    "That's--that's Miss Bernice's hat," she whispered, biting the handkerchief nervously. "The one--she wore when she left the house yesterday afternoon!"
    Ellery eyed the hat narrowly as it lay, brim to the bottom, in the box. The soft blue felt crown, due to its position, had collapsed. A glittering pin was fixed above the turned-down brim, just visible from where he stood.... Ellery made a brief request and the maid lifted the hat from the box and offered it to him. He turned it over in his fingers, then silently handed the hat back to the girl, who as silently took it, put her hand inside the crown, flipped the hat upside down, and deftly returned it to the box in that position. Ellery, who had been about to turn away, stiffened instantly. Nevertheless, he said nothing, watching the girl replace the three hat-boxes on the shelf.
    "The shoes now, please," he said.
    Obediently the maid bent over the silk shoe-rack hanging on the inside of the closet door. As she was about to remove a woman's pump, Ellery stopped her with a tap on the shoulder and turned to the housekeeper.
    "Miss Underhill, will you please verify the fact that this is Miss Carmody's hat?"
    He lifted a long arm, took down the box with the blue hat inside, removed the hat, and handed it to Hortense Underhill.
    She examined it briefly. Unaccountably, Ellery had stepped away from the closet to stand by the lavatory door.
    "It's hers," said the housekeeper, looking up belligerently. "But what that has to do with anything, I don't know."
    "That's honest." Ellery smiled. "Will you please return it to the shelf?" As he said this, he stepped slowly forward again.
    The woman, sniffing, put her hand inside the hat, inverted it, and placed it in that position in the hat-box. She carefully lifted it to the shelf and as carefully returned to her chair.... Weaver observed Ellery's sudden grin with a lost bewilderment.
    Then Ellery did an amazing thing--a thing that brought an unbelieving stare from each of the three people watching him. He reached up to the shelf and took down the same hat-box!
    He opened it, whistling a tuneless little air and, removing the much-handled blue hat, offered it to Weaver for inspection.
    "Here, Wes, let's have your masculine opinion," he said cheerfully. "Is this Bernice Carmody's hat?"
    Weaver regarded his friend with astonishment, taking the hat mechanically. Shrugging, he looked at the hat. "Looks familiar, Ellery, but I can't be positive. I rarely notice women's clothes."
    "Hmm." Ellery chuckled. "Put the hat back, Wes old boy." Weaver sighed, grasped the hat gingerly by the crown and dropped it, brim down, into the box. He fumbled with the lid, affixed it, shoved the box back onto the shelf--for the third time in less than five minutes.
    Ellery turned briskly to the maid. "Keaton, just how fastidious in her habits is Miss Carmody?" he asked, feeling for his pince-nez.
    "I--I don't get you, sir."
    "Does she bother you much? Does she put her own things away generally? Exactly what are your duties?"
    "Oh!" The maid's eyes sought the housekeeper once more for guidance. Then she looked down at the carpet. "Well, sir, Miss Bernice was--is always careful about her clothes and things. Most always puts her hats and coats away herself when she gets in from being out. My work's more doing personal things--fixing her hair, laying out her dresses, and such."
    "A very careful girl," put in Miss Underhill icily. "Rare and unusual, I've always called it. And Marion's the same way."
    "Delighted to hear it," said Ellery with perfect gravity. "Delighted is hardly the word for it.... Heigh-ho, Keaton, the shoon!"
    "Huh?" The girl was startled.
    "Shoes--shoes, I should say."
    There were at least a dozen pairs of shoes, of assorted styles and colors, protruding from separate pockets in the rack. Without exception each of the shoes lay in its compartment with the tip inside and the heel showing, hooked over the lip of the pocket.
    The maid Keaton went to work. She looked over the shoes, lifting out several to examine them closely. Suddenly she snatched at a pair of black leather pumps, lying in adjacent compartments. Each pump sported a large and heavy rhinestone buckle which glittered in a shaft of sunlight as she held them up before Ellery.
    "These! These shoes!" she cried. "Miss Bernice wore them yesterday when she went out!"
    Ellery took them from her shaking fingers. After a moment he turned to Weaver.
    "Mud splashes," he said laconically. "And here's a spot of wet. Seems indubitable!" He handed them back to the maid, who tremblingly replaced them in their compartments.... Ellery's eyes narrowed at once. She had put the shoes back with the heels inside, despite the fact that all the other shoes in the rack had the heels showing.
    "Miss Underhill!" Ellery withdrew the black pumps from their pockets. The housekeeper rose sulkily.
    "Miss Carmody's?" Ellery demanded, handing her the shoes.
    She eyed them briefly. "Yes."
    "Having reached complete agreement," drawled Ellery with a smiling change of tone, "please be so good as to return these shoes to the rack."
    Without a word she obeyed. And Ellery, watching closely, chuckled to observe that she had duplicated the maid's action in putting the pumps into the rack heels first, so that the tips and buckles protruded from the pockets.
    "Westley!" he said at once. Weaver approached wearily. He had been standing at a window, looking moodily down over Fifth Avenue.... And when Weaver replaced the pumps in the rack, he grasped the heels and stuck the shoes in tips first.
    "Why do you do that?" asked Ellery as the two women, now convinced of his madness, moved uneasily away from the closet.
    "Do what?" demanded Weaver.
    Ellery smiled. "Easy, Hamlet.... Why do you put the shoes into the bag so that the heels hang over the pocket?"
    Weaver stared at him. "Why, they're all that way," he said blankly. "Why should I put them in the opposite way?"
    "Alors," said Ellery, "on a raison.... Miss Underhill, why did you put the shoes back into the rack with the tips showing, when all the others have the heels showing?"
    "Anybody would know that," snapped the housekeeper. "These black pumps have big buckles. Didn't you see what happened when Mr. Weaver put them back tips first? The buckles caught on the material of the bag!"
    "Wondrous woman!" muttered Ellery. "And the others haven't any buckles, of course...." He read confirmation in the housekeeper's eyes.
    He left them standing before the closet and paced silently back and forth the length of the bedroom. His lips puckered fiercely as he mused. Suddenly he turned to Miss Underhill.
    "I want you to look this closet over very carefully, Miss Underhill, and tell me, if you possibly can, whether anything is not there which you know should be there...." He stepped back and waved his hand.
    She stirred into activity, rummaging efficiently through the gowns, the hat-boxes, the shoes once more. Weaver, the maid, Ellery watched her in silence.
    She paused in her work, looked undecidedly at the shoe-bag, then up at the shelf, hesitated, turned to Ellery.
    "I can't be sure," she said thoughtfully, her cold eyes searching Ellery's, "but it seems to me that, while all of Mrs. French's things are here that should be here, two things of Bernice's are not here that should be here!"
    "No!" breathed Ellery. He did not seem unduly surprised. "A hat and pair of shoes, no doubt?"
    She glanced at him quickly. "How did you know?... Yes, that's what I thought. I remember several months ago when I was bringing down some things of Mrs. French's, Bernice asked me to take her grey toque down, too. And I did. And then there was her pair of low-heeled grey kid shoes--two tones of grey, they were--I'm fair certain I brought those down with me once...." She turned sharply on Doris Keaton. "Are they in Miss Bernice's wardrobes at home, Doris?"
    The maid shook her head with vigor. "No, Miss Underhill. I haven't seen them for a long time."
    "Well, there you are. Grey felt toque, close-fitting, no trimming, and a pair of grey kid walking-shoes. They're missing."
    "And that," said Ellery with a little bow that made Miss Underhill stare, "is precisely that. Thank you so much.... Westley, will you escort Miss Underhill and the timidacious Keaton to the door? Tell the man outside to see that they're taken down to Sergeant Velie and kept out of the way of Commissioner Welles at least until everybody troops up here.... Undoubtedly, Miss Underhill, Marion French will be glad," and he bowed again to the housekeeper, "of your maternal and warming presence. Good afternoon!"
    The instant the outer door had closed upon Weaver and the two women, Ellery ran across the library to the door of the cardroom. He entered with swift steps and stared down at the card-table with its neatly heaped piles of pasteboards and its butt-strewn ashtray. He sat down carefully in one of the chairs and examined the cards. Picking up the heavy stack of closed cards before him, he spread them out without disturbing their sequence. He frowned after a while, referred to eleven piles of cards in the center of the table.... Finally he rose, puzzled, defeated. He replaced all the stacks exactly as he had found them.
    He was staring gloomily at the cigaret-stubs when he heard the outer door click shut and Weaver reënter the library. Ellery turned at once and left the cardroom. The red-leather door swished softly to behind him.
    "Ladies taken care of?" he inquired absently. Weaver nodded almost with sulkiness. Ellery squared his shoulders, eyes twinkling. "Worrying about Marion, I'll wager," he said. "Don't, Wes. You're acting like a granny." He looked slowly about the library. His eyes came to rest after a time on the desk before the dormer-window. "I think," he announced dictatorially, sauntering toward the desk, "we'll take our ease, in a manner of speaking, and see what we can see. Rest being the sweet sauce of labor, as Plutarch so aptly says--sit, Wes!"
    17
    AT THE APARTMENT: The Library
    They sat down, Ellery at the comfortable swivel-chair behind the desk, Weaver in one of the leather-covered chairs at the conference table.
    Ellery relaxed, letting his glance shift from wall to wall of the library, flicker over the table, the litter of business papers, the pictures on the wall, the glass top of the desk before him.... His glance fell idly on the slip of blue memorandum paper by the telephone. With perfect unconcern he picked it up and read it.
    It was an official memorandum. On it was neatly typed a message.
    Ellery reread the memorandum earnestly. He looked up at the disconsolate countenance of Weaver.
    "Is it conceivable ..." he began. He broke off suddenly. "Tell me, Wes--when did you type this memorandum?"
    "Eh?" Weaver started at the sound of Ellery's voice. "Oh, that! That's a memo I sent around to the Board of Directors. Typed it yesterday afternoon, after the Old Man left for Great Neck."
    "How many copies did you make?"
    "There were seven all told--one for each director, one for myself, and one for the files. This copy is the Old Man's."
    Ellery spoke quickly. "How is it that I find it here on the desk?"
    Weaver was surprised at the seeming inconsequentiality of Ellery's question. "Oh, I say!" he protested. "Just a matter of form. I left it here so that the Old Man could see in the morning that I'd taken care of the matter."
    "And it was here--on the desk--when you left the apartment last night?" persisted Ellery.
    [Illustration: INTER-OFFICE MEMORANDUM
    COPY
    To: Mr. French ✓ Mr. Gray Mr. Marchbanks Mr. Trask Mr. Zorn Mr. Weaver
    Monday, May 23, 19--
    A special meeting of the Board of Directors is hereby called for the morning of Tuesday, May the twenty-fourth, at eleven o'clock, in the Conference Room. Do not fail to attend. Details of the Whitney-French negotiations will be discussed. It is hoped that a final decision may be reached officially at that time. Your presence is imperative.
    Mr. Weaver is to meet Mr. French in the Conference Room at nine a.m. promptly to prepare the notes for final directorial discussion.
    [Signed] Cyrus French,
    [Per] Westley Weaver, Sec'y. ]
    "Well, of course!" said Weaver. "Where should it be? Not only that, but it was still there when I got in this morning." He grinned feebly.
    But Ellery was serious. His eyes glittered. "You're sure of that?..." He half-rose from the swivel-chair in a strange excitement. He sank back. "Seems to fit with the rest of the jigsaw," he muttered. "How beautifully it explains that one unexplained point!"
    Thoughtfully he stowed the blue paper, uncreased, in a capacious wallet which he took from his breast-pocket.
    "You'll say nothing of this, of course," he said slowly.... Weaver nodded and relapsed into apathy. Ellery bent forward, placed his elbows on the glass top, his head in his hands. He stared before him.... Something seemed to disturb his revery. His eyes, blank and preoccupied, focused by degrees on the books between the onyx book-ends, standing austerely on the desk in his direct line of vision.
    After a moment, as if to satisfy a mounting curiosity, he straightened up and became entirely absorbed in the titles of the books. His long arm swooped down on one of them, carried it back for closer observation.
    "By the wisdom of Bibliophilus!" he murmured at last, looking up at Weaver. "What a queer collection of volumes! Does your employer make a habit of reading such heavy stuff as An Outline of Paleontology, Wes? Or is this a text-book hang-over from your undergraduate days? I can't recall your having a particular flair for science. It's by old John Morrison, too."
    "Oh, that!" Weaver was momentarily embarrassed. "No, that's the--the Old Man's, I suppose, Ellery. His books entirely. Don't think I've ever observed the titles, as a matter of fact. What did you say--paleontology? Didn't know he went in for it."
    Ellery regarded him keenly for a brief moment, then replaced the book. "And what's more--do you know," he said softly, "this is fetching!"
    "What?" asked Weaver nervously.
    "Well, bend an ear to these titles: Fourteenth Century Trade and Commerce, by Stani Wedjowski. There's a rare one for you, although it is fitting that a department store magnate be interested in the history of merchanting.... And this one--A Child's History of Music, by Ramon Freyberg. A child's history, mind you. And New Developments in Philately, by Hugo Salisbury. A passion for stamps! Queer, queer, I tell you.... And--good heavens!--Nonsense Anthology, by that surpassing idiot, A. I. Throckmorton!" Ellery lifted his eyes to Weaver's troubled ones. "Dear young Dane," he said slowly, "I can understand a chronic bibliophile having this bizarre collection on his desk, for some dark purpose of his own, but I'll be immortally damned if I can make it jibe with my conception of Cyrus French, head of the Anti-Vice League and merchant prince.... Your employer does not impress me as having the intellectual potentialities of a paleontological field worker, who is a stamp-collecting addict, who has a passion for medieval commerce, who knows so little of music that he must read a child's history of it, and finally who indulges in the sickening horseplay of the year's best--or worst--vaudeville jokes!... Wes, old boy, there is more here than meets the vacillating eye."
    "I'm quite at sea," said Weaver, shifting in his chair.
    "And you should be, you should be, my child," said Ellery as he rose and walked over to the bookcase on the wall to his left. He lightly hummed the thematic air of Marche Slav as he scanned the titles of the volumes behind the glass partitions. After a moment's scrutiny he returned to the desk, where he sat down and again fingered the books between the book-ends in an absent way. Weaver's eyes followed him uneasily.
    "From the books in the case," resumed Ellery, "my suspicions seem to be borne out. Nothing but works on social welfare and sets of Bret Harte, O. Henry, and Richard Harding Davis, et al. All of which compress nicely into the obvious intellectual stratum of your nice Old Man. Yet on the desk...." He mused. "And they show no signs of use," he complained, as if disturbed further by this heinous crime against literature. "In two cases, where the volumes are bound that way, the leaves are still uncut.... Westley, tell me truthfully, is French interested in these subjects?" He flipped his finger at the books before him.
    Weaver answered immediately. "Not to my knowledge."
    "Marion? Bernice? Mrs. French? The directors?"
    "I can answer positively in the case of the French family, Ellery," replied Weaver, jumping from his chair and pacing up and down before the desk. "None of them reads such stuff. As for the directors--well, you've seen them."
    "Gray might be interested in this preposterous mélange," said Ellery thoughtfully. "He's the type. But that child's history of music.... Well!"
    He bestirred himself. On the fly-leaf of the little volume in his coat pocket he made a careful memorandum of the titles and authors of the desk volumes. With a sigh he dropped the pencil back into his vest pocket and once more began to stare blankly at the books. His hand played idly with one of the book-ends.
    "Mustn't forget to ask French about these books," he murmured, more to himself than to Weaver, who still paced furiously up and down the room. "--Sit down, Wes! You disturb my train of thought...." Weaver shrugged, sat down quiescently. "Nice things, these," Ellery said in a casual voice, indicating the book-ends. "That's a very curious bit of carving on the onyx."
    "Must have cost Gray a pile of dollars," mumbled Weaver.
    "Oh, they were a gift to French?"
    "Gray gave them to him on his last birthday--in March. They were imported, I know--I remember Lavery commenting on their rarity and beauty a few weeks ago."
    "Did you say--March?" asked Ellery suddenly, bringing the black shining book-end closer to his eyes. "That's only two months ago, and this--" He quickly picked up the companion piece to the book-end in his hand. He placed them side by side on the glass top of the desk, all at once handling them with meticulous delicacy. He beckoned to Weaver.
    "Do you see any difference between these?" he asked in some excitement.
    Weaver leaned over, put out his hand to lift one of them....
    "Don't touch it!" said Ellery sharply. "Well?"
    Weaver stood up straight. "No call to shout, Ellery," he said reproachfully. "As far as I can see, the felt under this one seems faded a little."
    "Don't mind my rude manners, old son," Ellery said. "I thought that difference in shade wasn't wholly my imagination."
    "I can't understand why the green felts should vary in color," remarked Weaver in a puzzled way, returning to his chair. "Those book-ends are nearly new. They must have been all right when the Old Man got them--they were, in fact. I'd have noticed the discoloration had there been one."
    Ellery did not answer at once. He stared down at the two pieces of carved onyx. They were both cylindrical in shape, with the carving on the outer sides. On the under sides, where the book-ends were to be placed against the desk, were pieces of fine green felt. In the strong clear afternoon sun, streaming through the big window, one exhibited a marked difference in the shade of green.
    "Here's a pretty mystery," muttered Ellery. "And what it means, if it means anything at all, I can't see at the moment...." He looked up at Weaver with a glint in his eye. "Have these book-ends ever been out of this room since Gray presented them to French?"
    "No," replied Weaver. "Never. I'm here every day, and I would know if they'd been moved."
    "Have they ever been broken, or repaired, even here?"
    "Why, of course not!" said Weaver, puzzled. "That seems sort of silly, El."
    "And yet essential." Ellery sat down and began to twirl his pince-nez, his eyes riveted on the book-ends before him. "Gray's an intimate of French, I take it?" he asked suddenly.
    "His best friend. They've known each other for over thirty years. They have good-natured quarrels periodically about the Old Man's obsession in the matter of white slavery, prostitution and the like, but they've always been unusually close."
    "Which is as it should be, I suppose." Ellery sank into deep and concentrated thought. He did not take his eyes from the book-ends. "I wonder, now...." His hand dipped into his coat pocket and emerged with a small magnifying-glass. Weaver regarded his friend in astonishment, then burst into laughter.
    "Ellery! Upon my word! Just like Sherlock Holmes!" His mirth was unadulterated, inoffensive, like the man himself.
    Ellery grinned sheepishly. "It does seem theatrical," he confessed. "But I've found it a handy little tool at times." He bent lower, applied the glass to the book-end with the darker green felt.
    "Looking for fingerprints?" chuckled Weaver.
    "You can never tell," said Ellery sententiously. "Although a glass isn't infallible. You need fingerprint powder to make absolutely sure...." He discarded the book-end and bent the glass on its mate. As he scanned the lighter green of its felt, his hand shook convulsively. Disregarding Weaver's cry of "What is it?" he fixed his attention rigidly on a portion of the material where the felt met the onyx, at an edge. A thin line, so thin that to the naked eye it was like a hair, broadened slightly under the magnification of the lens. This line, which extended all around the bottom of the book-end, was actually composed of glue--the glue with which the felt was pasted to the onyx. The second book-end also had the glue-line.
    "Here, take the glass, Wes, and focus it at the juncture of felt and onyx," commanded Ellery, pointing to the under-side of the book-end. "Tell me what you see--be careful you don't touch the surface of the onyx!"
    Weaver bent over and eagerly looked through the glass. "Why, there's a sort of dust stuck in the glue--it's dust, isn't it?"
    "Unorthodox-looking dust," said Ellery grimly, seizing the lens and again examining the felt at that portion of the glue-line. In another moment he had swept the eye of the glass over the other surfaces of the book-end. He employed the same tactics with the second book-end.
    Weaver uttered a short exclamation. "I say, El, mightn't it be the same stuff you found in Bernice's lipstick? Heroin, I think you called it!"
    "Smart guess, Westley," smiled Ellery, his eye fast to the lens. "But I seriously doubt it.... This will require analysis, and immediately. Something twitters a warning message in my subconscious."
    He dropped the magnifying-glass on the table, thoughtfully regarded the two book-ends once more, then reached for the telephone.
    "Get Sergeant Velie--yes, detective-sergeant--on the wire for me immediately." He spoke rapidly to Weaver while he waited, receiver to ear. "If this stuff is what I am beginning to think it is, old boy, the plot thickens like a purée. However, we'll see. Get me a good wad of absorbent cotton from the bathroom-closet, will you, Wes? Hello, hello--Velie?" he said into the telephone, as Weaver disappeared through the brass-studded door, "this is Ellery Queen speaking. Yes, from the apartment upstairs.... Velie, send me one of your best men at once.... Who?... Yes, Piggott or Hesse will do. At once! And mum's the word in the hearing of Welles.... No, you can't help--yet. Hold in, you bloodhound!" He chuckled as he hung up.