The French Powder Mystery — 24 (1)

The Queens Take Stock

    Dusk was descending on the city when Velie took leave of the Queens outside the French mansion to manipulate the official machinery already operating on the shadowy trail of the vanished Bernice Carmody.
    After Velie had gone, the Inspector looked at the quiet River, looked at the darkening sky, looked at his son, who was energetically polishing his pince-nez and staring down at the pavement.
    The Inspector sighed. "The air will do both of us a lot of good," he said tiredly. "I need something to clear my addled brain, anyway.... Ellery, let's walk home."
    Ellery nodded, and side by side they sauntered down the Drive toward the corner. At the corner they turned east and settled down to a slow, thoughtful pace. They walked another block before the silence was broken.
    "This is really the first chance," remarked Ellery at last, grasping his father's arm encouragingly at the elbow, "that I've had to mull over the multitude of factors that have arisen so far. Significant factors. Telling factors, dad! There are so many they give me mal à la tête."
    "Really?" The Inspector was depressed, morose. His shoulders sagged.
    Ellery regarded him keenly. He tightened his grip on the old man's arm. "Come, dad! Buck up. I know you're at sea, but it's because of the trouble and worry you've had on your mind recently. My brain has been more than usually free from occupation lately. It's been clear enough to grasp the amazing fundamentals this case has spewed up to-day. Let me think aloud."
    "Go ahead, son."
    "One of the two most valuable clues this affair has given us is the fact that the corpse was found in the Fifth Avenue exhibition-window."
    The Inspector snorted. "I suppose you'll tell me now that you already know who did the job."
    "Yes."
    The Inspector was so taken aback that he stopped in his tracks and stared at Ellery with an expression of complete dismay and unbelief.
    "Ellery! You're joking. How could you?" he finally managed to splutter.
    Ellery smiled gravely. "Don't misunderstand me. I say I know who murdered Mrs. French. I should qualify that by saying that certain indications point with incredible consistency at one individual. I have no proof. I don't grasp one-tenth of the implications. I am entirely ignorant of the motive, the undoubtedly sordid story behind the crime.... Consequently, I shall not tell you whom I have in mind."
    "You wouldn't," growled the Inspector, as they walked on.
    "Now, dad!" Ellery laughed a little. He tightened his hold on the small package of books from French's library table, which he had carried stubbornly from the moment they had left the department store. "I have a good reason. In the first place, it's quite conceivable that I'm being misled by a series of coincidences. In that case, I should merely be making an ass of myself if I accused some one and then had to eat crow.... When I have proof—you'll know, dad, the very first one.... There are so many unexplained, seemingly inexplicable things. These books, for example.... Well!"
    He said no more for a few moments as they strode through the streets.
    "I began," he said at last, "with the suspicious fact that Mrs. French's body was found in the exhibition-window. And it was suspicious, to say the least. For all the reasons that we went over before—the lack of blood, the missing key, the lipstick and the half-painted lips, the lack of illumination, the general preposterousness of the window as the scene of the crime.
    "It was quite plain that Mrs. French had not been murdered in that window. Where had she been murdered, then? The watchman's report that she had signified the apartment as her destination; the missing apartment key which she had when O'Flaherty saw her go toward the elevator—these suggested that the apartment should be examined at once. Which I immediately proceeded to do."
    "Go on—I know all that," said Queen grumpily.
    "Patience, Diogenes!" chuckled Ellery. "The apartment told the story quite graphically. Mrs. French's presence seemed indubitable. The cards, the book-ends and the story they told...."
    "I don't know what story they told," grunted the Inspector. "You mean that powder?"
    "Not in this instance. Very well, let's forget the book-ends for the moment and go to—the lipstick which I found on the bedroom dressing-table. That belonged to Mrs. French. Its color matched the color on her half-painted lips. Women don't stop fixing their lips unless something of a tremendously serious nature intervenes. The murder? Possibly. Certainly the events leading to the murder.... So, for this reason and that, all of which you will know in greater detail to-morrow, I hope, I came to the conclusion that Mrs. French had been murdered in that apartment."
    "I shan't argue with you, because it's probably true, although your reasons are ludicrous right now. But go ahead—get down to more concrete things," said the Inspector.
    "You must grant me some premises," laughed Ellery. "I'll prove that apartment business, never fear. At this time, grant me that the apartment is the scene of the crime."
    "It's granted—for the time."
    "Very well. If the apartment was the scene of the crime, and the window was not, then very simply the body was removed from the apartment to the window and crammed into that wall-bed."
    "In that case, yes."
    "But why? I asked myself. Why was the body removed to the window? Why wasn't it left in the apartment?"
    "To make it appear that the apartment wasn't the scene of the murder? But that doesn't make sense, because—"
    "Yes, because no pains were taken to remove traces of Mrs. French's presence, like the game of banque, the lipstick—although I'm inclined to think that leaving the lipstick was an oversight. It is evident, then, that the reason the body was removed was not to make it appear that the apartment was not the scene of the crime, but to delay the discovery of the body."
    "I see what you mean," muttered the Inspector.
    "The time-element, of course," said Ellery. "The murderer must have known that at 12 o'clock sharp, every day, that window was exhibited, and that the window was locked and unused before 12 o'clock. I was looking for a reason to explain the removal of the body. The fact that it would not be discovered until after the noon hour gave the answer in a flash. For some reason the murderer wanted to delay the discovery of the crime."
    "I can't see why...."
    "Not definitely, of course, but we can make a generalization that will serve the immediate purpose. If the murderer arranged it so that the body would not be found before noon, it meant that he had something to do during the morning which the discovery of the body would have prevented him from doing. Is that clear?"
    "It follows," conceded the Inspector.
    "Allons—continuer!" said Ellery. "At first glance, that business about having to do something which the discovery of the crime would make impossible of accomplishment, is something of a poser. However, we know certain facts. For example, no matter how the murderer entered the store, he must have stayed all night. There were two ways of getting in unnoticed but no way of getting out unnoticed after the murder. He could have remained hidden somewhere in the store until after closing-hours, and then stolen up to the apartment; or he could have slipped through that open freight-door on 39th Street. He certainly couldn't get out through the Employees' Entrance, because O'Flaherty was there all night, in a perfect position to see somebody leave that way. And O'Flaherty saw no one. He couldn't have got out through the freight-door, because that door was locked for the night at eleven-thirty, and Mrs. French didn't arrive until eleven-forty-five. If he had slipped out via the freight-door, he couldn't have committed the murder. Obviously! The freight-door was closed to him at least a half-hour before the woman was killed at all. So—he must have had to remain in the store all night.
    "Now, that being the case, he could not escape until at least nine o'clock the next morning, when the doors were opened to the public and any one could walk out as if he were an early customer."
    "Well then, why all that rigmarole about stowing the body in the window in order to prevent its discovery before noon? What for?" demanded the Inspector. "If he could get out at nine o'clock and he had something to do, why couldn't he have done it then? In that case he wouldn't care when the body was found, because he could do what was necessary immediately after nine."
    "Precisely." Ellery's voice sharpened with a certain zest. "If he were free to walk out at nine and stay out, he would have no reason for delaying the discovery of the body."
    "But, Ellery," objected the Inspector, "he did delay the discovery of the body! Unless—" A light dawned on his face.
    "That's it exactly," Ellery said soberly. "If our murderer was in some way connected with the store, his absence would be noted or at least would be in danger of notice after a murder was discovered. By secreting the body in a place where he knew it would not be found until noon, he had all morning to watch for an opportunity to slip away and do what he had to do....
    "Of course, there's something else. It's an open question whether the murderer planned in advance to secrete the body in the window after killing Mrs. French in the apartment. I rather think the switch of locale was not planned on much before the crime. For this reason. Ordinarily the apartment is not entered until about ten o'clock in the morning. Weaver has his own office, and French doesn't get down until that hour. So that the murderer must have figured, in his original plan, on committing the crime in the apartment and leaving the body there. He would have ample time to get out of the building after nine and return before ten, let us say. So long as the body was found after he attended to his nefarious morning business, he was safe.
    "But when he entered that apartment, or perhaps after he committed the crime, he saw something which made it absolutely essential for him to remove the body to the window." Ellery paused. "On the desk was a blue official memorandum. It was there all afternoon on Monday, and Weaver swears he left it there on the desk when he quit Monday evening. And it was in exactly the same position on Tuesday morning. So it was there for the murderer to see. And it said that Weaver would be there at nine o'clock! It was an innocent little memo calling a board meeting, but it must have put the murderer into something of a panic. If somebody was coming to the apartment at nine, he wouldn't have a chance to do what evidently was of desperate necessity, although we still don't know what it is. Therefore the removal of the body to the window and the rest of it. Follow?"
    "Seems holeproof," grunted the Inspector, but there was a light of absorbing interest in his eye.
    "There's one vital thing to be done almost immediately," added Ellery thoughtfully. "Unquestionably whoever committed the crime did not hide in the store yesterday afternoon and wait for closing hour. I'll tell you why. The complete time-sheet is a check-up on everybody connected with this investigation. The time-sheet gives the checking-out time of everybody. All the people we're interested in are reported as having left the building at five-thirty or before, with the exception of Weaver and this man Springer, the head of the book department. And since they were definitely seen leaving, they couldn't obviously have stayed for the crime. You remember the names? Although people like Zorn, Marchbanks, Lavery and the rest do not check out, their name and time are noted when they leave the building, as was the case yesterday. Since everybody did leave, then the murderer must have got into the building by the only way left—the freight-door on 39th Street. It would be the more logical thing for the murderer to do anyway, because he could establish an alibi for the evening, and still have time to get into the store through that freight-entrance between eleven and eleven-thirty."
    "We'll have to double-check everybody's movements last night," said the Inspector dolefully. "More work."
    "And probably unproductive. But I agree that it's necessary. We should do that as soon as possible."
    "Now." Ellery's lips twisted into a rueful smile. "There are so many ramifications to this case," he said apologetically, interrupting his line of thought. "For example—why did Winifred come to the store at all? There's a question for you! And was she lying when she told O'Flaherty that she was going to the apartment upstairs? Of course, the watchman did see her take the elevator, and it is a fair assumption that she went to the sixth floor rooms, especially since we have definite evidence of her presence there. Besides, where else could she go? The window? Preposterous! No, I think we may assume that she went directly to the private apartment."
    "Perhaps Marion French's scarf was already in the window and for some obscure reason Mrs. French wished to retrieve it," suggested the Inspector, grinning wryly.
    "Yes, you don't think," retorted Ellery. "That business of Marion's scarf has a perfectly simple explanation, I'm positive, whatever else may be mysterious about the girl.... But here's a point. Did Winifred French have an appointment with a particular person, in the store, in the apartment? Granted the whole affair is cloaked in mystery—a clandestine meeting in a deserted department store and all that—yet the hypothesis that the murdered woman came for a definite purpose to meet a definite person seems too inevitable to discard. In that case, then, did she know about the strange manner in which her fellow-conspirator, and as it turned out her murderer, entered the store? Or did she expect him to walk in as she did, through the regular night-entrance? Evidently not, because she made no mention of another person to O'Flaherty, which she might have done had she nothing to conceal, but gave him the distinct impression that she had dropped in for something. Then she was involved in some shady business, did know that her companion would take mysterious precautions against discovery—openly and submissively.
    "Was that companion Bernice or Marion? We have reason to believe, from the mere look of things, that it might have been Bernice. The banque game, Bernice's cigarets, Bernice's hat and shoes—very significant and alarming, those last two items. On the other hand, let us examine some sidelights on the question of Bernice.
    "We are fairly agreed that the murderer of Mrs. French took away Mrs. French's apartment key. This might point to Bernice on first thought, because we know she did not have her own key that afternoon—in fact, she couldn't have had her own key, since we actually found it in her closet at home to-day. Yes, it appears that if Bernice had been in that store last night, she would have taken her mother's key away. But was she in the store?
    "The time has come, I do believe," said Ellery quizzically, "to lay that particular ghost. Bernice was not in the French department store last night. Perhaps I had better say at this point that Bernice is not a matricide. In the first place, despite the presence of the game of banque, which is known by many people to be a passion of both women, the presence of the cigarets betrays the frame-up. Bernice, who is a drug addict, has been indicated beyond a doubt as always smoking only one-quarter of the length of her La Duchesse cigarets, and crushing out the long stub. Yet the stubs we found were without exception smoked carefully down almost to the tip. This is so unnatural as to be conclusive. One or two cigarets might conceivably be found so consumed; but to find a dozen! It's no go, dad. Bernice did not smoke those cigarets we found on the card-table. And, of course, if she did not, then some once else prepared them with the obvious intention of throwing suspicion on the missing girl. Then there's the matter of the 'phone call to Hortense Underhill, presumably from Bernice. Fishy, dad—exceedingly piscine! No, Bernice didn't forget about her key so foolishly. Somebody wanted her key badly enough to risk a call and a messenger."
    "The shoes—the hat," murmured the Inspector suddenly, looking up at Ellery in a startled way.
    "Exactly," said Ellery somberly, "very significant and alarming, as I said before. If Bernice was framed, and we find on the scene of the crime the shoes and hat she wore the day of the murder—then it simply means that Bernice has met with violence herself! She must be a victim, dad. Whether she is already dead or not I don't know. It depends on the masked story behind the crime. But certainly this deduction links the disappearance of Bernice and the murder of her mother very closely. Now why should the girl be done away with also? Perhaps, dad, if she were left at large, she might be a dangerous source of information—dangerous as far as the criminal is concerned."
    "Ellery!" exclaimed the Inspector. He was trembling with excitement. "Mrs. French's murder—Bernice's kidnapping—and she was a drug fiend...."
    "I'm not particularly surprised, dad," said Ellery warmly. "You have always been quick on the scent.... Yes, it looks that way to me, too. Remember that Bernice walked out of her stepfather's house not only willingly, but eagerly. Is it too much to suppose that she was going—to replenish a waning supply of drugs?
    "If that is so, and it seems a good sound possibility, then this whole case is shrouded and complicated by the manipulations—of drug distributors. I'm very much afraid we've fallen into just such a prosaic business as that."
    "Prosaic your left eyebrow!" cried Inspector Queen. "Ellery, it gets clearer and clearer. And with all this rumpus about the increase in drug distribution—if we should uncover the ring that's been operating so hugely—if we should actually nab the ringleaders—Ellery, it will be a remarkable achievement! How I'd like to see Fiorelli's face, when I tell him what's behind this!"
    "Well, don't be over-sanguine, dad," said Ellery pessimistically. "It may be a tour de force. At any rate it's sheer conjecture at this stage of the game, and we shouldn't be too uplifted by hope.
    "We have another angle that helps us localize the geography of the crime even more precisely."
    "The book-ends?" Inspector Queen's voice was uncertain.
    "Of course. This too is based on pure reasoning, but I'll wager any one anything that in the end we find it's true. Conclusions that fit a series of circumstances so snugly have an overwhelmingly high percentage of probability in their favor....
    "Westley Weaver avers positively that the onyx book-ends have neither been repaired nor removed from the apartment library since they were presented to French by John Gray. In examining the book-ends we find a noticeable difference in the color of the green felt, or baize, pasted on the bases, the under surfaces. Weaver offers the suggestion that something is wrong. Why? Because this is the first time he has noticed the differing shades of green. He has seen those book-ends for months. He is certain that when the book-ends were new the felts were alike in color, that they must have been alike all along.