The French Powder Mystery — 21

Keys Again

    Ellery looked quickly about the garish room and strode over to a large door on the side wall. He opened it and uttered a low exclamation of satisfaction. It was a clothes-closet, packed with feminine garments—gowns, coats, shoes, hats in profusion.
    He turned once more to Hortense Underhill, who was regarding him with peculiar disquiet. Her lips compressed as she saw his hand absently ruffle through the mass of gowns hanging from the racks.
    "Miss Underhill, I believe you said that Miss Carmody was at the apartment some months ago, and hasn't been there since?"
    She nodded stiffly.
    "Do you recall what she wore when she was there last?"
    "Really, Mr. Queen," she said in frigid tones, "I haven't such a memory as you evidently give me credit for. How could I remember that?"
    Ellery grinned. "Very well. Where is Miss Carmody's apartment key?"
    "Oh!" The housekeeper was genuinely startled. "That's a funny thing, now, Mr. Queen—I mean your asking that. Because only yesterday morning Bernice told me that she thought she'd lost her key and asked me to get one of the others' keys and duplicate it for her."
    "Lost, eh?" Ellery seemed disappointed. "Are you certain, Miss Underhill?"
    "I've just told you."
    "Well, there's no harm in looking," said Ellery cheerfully. "Here, Velie, lend a hand with these duds. You don't mind, dad?" And in a moment he and the sergeant had attacked the closet with a furious determination, to the accompaniment of the Inspector's chuckle and Hortense Underhill's outraged gasp.
    "You see ..." said Ellery from clenched teeth, as he swiftly passed his hands through coats and gowns, "people don't generally lose things. They merely think they do. In this case, Miss Carmody perhaps searched for it in a few obvious places and gave it up as hopeless.... She probably didn't look in the right garments.... Ah, there, Velie! Splendid!"
    The tall sergeant held up a heavy fur coat. In his left hand gleamed a gold-disked key.
    "In an inside pocket, Mr. Queen. The fur coat would make it heavy weather when Miss Carmody last used the key."
    "Fair and subtle enough," said Ellery, taking the key. It was an exact duplicate of Weaver's key, which he now took from his pocket and compared with the latest discovery—a twin except for the initials B.C. engraved on the disk.
    "Why do you want all the keys, El?" demanded the Inspector. "I can't see any good reason for it."
    "You have enormous powers of perspicacity," said Ellery gravely. "Now how did you know I wanted all the keys? But you're perfectly right—I do, and I shall take up a collection very shortly. The reason is surely as plain as the nose on your face, as Crouther would say.... Don't want anybody getting into that apartment for a while, very simply."
    He deposited both keys in his pocket and turned to the unpleasant housekeeper.
    "Did you carry out Miss Carmody's orders about duplicating this 'lost' key?" he asked curtly.
    The housekeeper sniffed. "I did not," she said. "Because now that I think of it, I don't really know whether or not Bernice was jesting with me when she said she had lost the key. And something happened yesterday afternoon that made me undecided about it, and I thought I'd wait until I saw Bernice again to ask her."
    "And what was that, Miss Underhill?" inquired the Inspector, with a slow gentleness.
    "Something queer, to tell the truth," she replied thoughtfully. Her eyes flashed suddenly, and her expression became remarkably more human. "I do want to help," she said softly. "And I am beginning to think more and more that what happened will help...."
    "You have us simply petrified with excitement, Miss Underhill," murmured Ellery, without changing expression. "Please proceed."
    "Yesterday afternoon, at about four o'clock—no, I think it must have been closer to half-past three—I received a telephone call from Bernice. That was after she had left the house so mysteriously—you know."
    The three men stiffened into strained attention. Velie muttered an indistinguishable curse beneath his breath, but quieted under a flashing glance from the Inspector. Ellery leaned forward.
    "Yes, Miss Underhill?" he urged.
    "It was most puzzling," continued the housekeeper. "Bernice had spoken to me casually about losing the key just before lunch. Yet when she called in the afternoon, the first thing she said was that she wanted her key to the apartment, and would send around for it by messenger at once!"
    "Is it possible," muttered the Inspector, "that she thought you had already had a duplicate key made for her?"
    "No, Inspector," said the housekeeper incisively. "It didn't sound as if she thought that at all. In fact, it seemed as if she'd utterly forgotten about having lost the key. So much so that I immediately reminded her that she'd told me about losing the key, in the morning, and having another made for her. She seemed quite distressed and said, 'Oh, yes, Hortense! Isn't it stupid of me to forget that way,' and began to say something else, when she stopped suddenly and then said, 'Don't bother, Hortense, after all, it isn't particularly important. I thought I might want to drop in at the apartment this evening.' I reminded her that she could get the use of the master-key at the night-watchman's desk if she wanted to go to the apartment so badly. But she didn't seem interested and hung up immediately."
    There was a little silence. Then Ellery looked up with a great light of interest in his eyes.
    "Can you remember, Miss Underhill," he asked, "just what it was that Miss Carmody began to say in the middle of the conversation, and then appeared to reconsider?"
    "It's hard to be exact about it, Mr. Queen," replied the housekeeper. "But somehow I got the impression that Bernice was going to ask me to get one of the other keys to the apartment for her. Perhaps I'm wrong."
    "Perhaps you are," said Ellery whimsically, "but I'd not give even the most preposterous of odds that you aren't...."
    "You know," added Hortense Underhill, as an afterthought, "I also got the impression, when she began to say that and stopped, that—"
    "That somebody was talking to her, Miss Underhill?" asked Ellery.
    "Exactly, Mr. Queen."
    The Inspector turned a startled face toward his son. Velie moved his huge bulk lightly forward and whispered in the Inspector's ear. The old man grinned.
    "Keen, keen, Thomas," he chuckled. "That's just what I was thinking, too...."
    Ellery flicked his finger warningly.
    "Miss Underhill, I can't expect you to exhibit miracles of acuteness," he said in a serious, admiring tone. "But I should like to ask—if you're entirely certain that it was Miss Carmody talking to you over the wire?"
    "That's it!" cried the Inspector. Velie smiled grimly.
    The housekeeper regarded the three men with strangely limpid eyes. Something electric shot through all four.
    "I don't—believe—it—was," she whispered....
    After a while they left the missing girl's bedroom and entered an adjoining room. It was severer in tone and immaculately clean.
    "This is Mrs. French's room," said the housekeeper in a low voice. Her acid nature seemed sweetened by a sudden realization of complex tragedy. Her eyes followed Ellery with grave respect.
    "Is everything in perfect order, Miss Underhill?" asked the Inspector.
    "Yes, sir."
    Ellery walked over to a wardrobe and scanned its neat racks thoughtfully.
    "Miss Underhill, will you please look through this rack and tell us if any of Miss Marion French's clothes are here?"
    The housekeeper went through the racks while the three men looked on. She proceeded carefully, then shook her head in an unhesitating negative.
    "Then Mrs. French was not in the habit of wearing Miss French's things?"
    "Oh, no, sir!"
    Ellery smiled with satisfaction and at once wrote a line of hieroglyphics in his makeshift notebook.