The French Powder Mystery — 38 (2)

    "It seemed, then, that Mrs. French and Miss Carmody had both been in the apartment Monday night, that Miss Carmody had smoked her unusual cigarets, and that they had played a game of their beloved banque.
    "In the bedroom closet we found a hat and a pair of shoes identified by Miss Underhill, the French housekeeper, and Miss Keaton, a maid in the French employ, as having been worn by Miss Carmody on Monday, the day of the murder, when she left the house and was not seen again. Another hat and another pair of shoes were missing from the closet, seeming to indicate that the girl had changed the damp ones she was wearing for the dry ones that were missing.
    "So much for that." Ellery paused and looked about him, eyes glittering strangely. There was not the slightest sound from his audience. They seemed mesmerized, intent only on watching the slowly rising structure of damning evidence.
    "To make an all-important point.... Now that I knew that the apartment was the scene of the crime, the question inevitably arose: Why was the body removed to the window downstairs? What purpose did it serve? For it must have served some purpose—we saw too many signs of cunning, coördinated scheming to believe that the murderer was an arrant lunatic, doing things for no reason at all.
    "The first alternative was that the body was removed to make it appear that the apartment was not the scene of the murder. But this did not follow from the facts, for if the murderer wished to remove all traces of the crime from the apartment, why did he not also remove the banque game, the cigaret-stubs, the shoes and the hat? True, if the body were not discovered or the murder not suspected, the finding of these articles would indicate no crime. But the murderer could not hope to conceal the body forever. Some day, somehow, it would be found, the apartment gone over, and the cards, cigarets and other things would point to the apartment as the place where the murder was committed.
    "So, it was evident that the body was removed for another reason entirely. What could that be? The answer came after thought—to delay the discovery of the body. How was this arrived at? Simple mental arithmetic. The exhibition was held every single day at noon sharp. This was an unvarying rule. The window was not entered until noon. These facts were common knowledge. If the body were hidden in that wall-bed the murderer had absolute assurance that it would not be discovered before twelve-fifteen. There was the good sharp reason ready made for us—the only gleam of light in the whole muddle, which was complicated by such questions as why the window was used at all when it had so many obvious disadvantages, and so on. So we had no doubt that the murderer took the trouble of carrying the body down six flights of stairs and into the exhibition-room because he knew that the body would not be found all the next morning.
    "Logically, then, the question followed: Why did the murderer desire to delay the discovery of the body? Think it over and you will see that there can be only one convincing reason—because he had to do something on Tuesday morning which the discovery of the body would have rendered dangerous or even impossible!"
    They were hanging on his words now breathlessly.
    "How could this be?" asked Ellery, his eyes sparkling. "Let's shift to a new tack for the moment.... No matter how the murderer entered the store, he must have stayed all night. He had three ways to enter, but no way to get out unobserved. He could have hidden in the store during the day; he could have come in after hours by the Employees' Entrance; or he could have slipped into the building by the freight-door at eleven o'clock at night while the commissary truck was unloading the food supplies for the next day. The chances were that this last was the method used, for O'Flaherty had seen no one enter by his door, and coming in at eleven at night was better for the murderer's purpose than having to stay in the store from five-thirty until midnight.
    "But how to get out? O'Flaherty reports no one left by his door; all other exits were locked and bolted; and the freight-door on 39th Street was closed at eleven-thirty, fifteen minutes before Mrs. French even arrived at the store and a half-hour before she was murdered. So the criminal had no recourse but to stay in the store all night. Then he could not escape until nine the next morning, when the doors were opened to the public. At that time he could walk out of the store as if he were an early customer.
    "But here another factor entered. If he could walk out of the store at nine, a free man, why couldn't he also attend to whatever business he had without the rigmarole of taking the body to the window in order to secure a delay? The point is that he did transfer the body. Then he couldn't walk out of the store at nine, a free man. He needed that delay. He had to stay in the store even after nine!"
    Simultaneously there came a short gasp from different quarters of the room. Ellery looked around quickly, as if anxious to determine exactly who had been shocked into astonishment and perhaps fear.
    "I see that several of you catch the inference on the wing," he said, smiling. "There could be only one reason to explain why our murderer had to stay in the store even after nine—and that is that he was connected with the store!"
    This time incredulity, suspicion, dread were written on all those plastic faces. Every one drew unconsciously away from his neighbor, as if suddenly aware of the many persons which this last indictment might implicate.
    "Yes, that is where we arrived finally," continued Ellery in an unemotional voice. "If our mysterious criminal were an employee of the store or connected with the store in some official or even unofficial capacity, his absence on the discovery of a murder would certainly be noted. He could not afford to have his absence, which was evidently of paramount importance, noted. He was in a difficult position. The memorandum note"—he exhibited the blue slip on the desk before him—"left on this desk by Mr. Weaver overnight told the murderer that both Mr. Weaver and Mr. French would be in the apartment at nine o'clock the next morning. If he left the body in the apartment, the murder would be discovered at nine, the hue and cry raised, and he would never get his chance to slip out of the store and attend to his secret business. And even telephone calls might be watched. So he had to make sure the body was not discovered until he had time to slip away, or even telephone (for this would be untraceable if there was no reason to check calls). The only method which he knew would surely delay the discovery of the body was to hide it in the window-room. Which he did, and quite successfully.
    "By this time we were able to clear up finally that minor point of how the murderer entered the building. We had the Monday time-chart. Our murderer must be, we said, an employee of the store or in some way connected with it. Yet the time-chart showed that every one had checked out regularly before or at five-thirty. Then the murderer must have entered the building by the freight-door, as the only means left.
    "One other point, while we are on the subject of the murderer's desire to delay the discovery of the body.... It occurred to me, as no doubt it has occurred to you, that our mysterious criminal ran uncommon risks and embarked on numerous voyages of complication when he began to clean up the mess after his crime. For example—that he carried the body downstairs. But that is explained by the fact that he had to have time in the morning to attend to this vague business, an item, incidentally, which we have not as yet explained. Also—why did he go to the trouble of securing a new felt, carefully mopping up the blood, and so on? Again this is answered by the need for time in the morning, and the fact that if a bloody book-end were found by Mr. Weaver, let us say, at nine o'clock a crime would be suspected at once, and undoubtedly the criminal's chance of getting his business done would be seriously jeopardized. Evidently then, what he had to do was of the most pressing importance—so pressing that he could not run the risk of the crime's even being suspected before that business was attended to...."
    Ellery paused and referred to a sheaf of paper which he took from his breast-pocket. "We must leave for the moment our general conclusion that the person we are seeking is connected officially or semi-officially with this establishment," he said at last. "Please bear that statement in mind while I veer off into another lane of speculation entirely....
    "I brought to your attention a few moments ago four concrete evidences of the presence of Miss Bernice Carmody in this apartment on Monday night. These were, in the order in which we found them, the game of banque exclusively indulged in by Miss Carmody and her mother; the La Duchesse cigarets, violet-scented, known to be Miss Carmody's special brand; Miss Carmody's hat, which she was observed wearing on Monday afternoon when she disappeared from sight; and her shoes, which fit the same description.
    "Now I shall show you that, far from proving that Miss Carmody was present here on Monday night, they prove exactly the contrary," continued Ellery briskly. "The banque game contributes nothing to our little refutation; the cards lay there in a legitimate array, and we must leave them for the present.
    "The cigarets, however, present a more illuminating view of my contention. These"—he held up one of the ashtrays on the exhibit-table—"these cigaret-stubs were found on the table in the cardroom." He lifted one of the stubs from the tray and held it high. "As you can see, this cigaret has been almost entirely consumed—in fact, only the small strip which bears the brand imprint is left. Without exception, each of the ten or twelve cigarets in this ashtray have been uniformly smoked to the same tiny stub.
    "On the other hand, in Miss Carmody's bedroom at the French house we found these stubs." He exhibited the second ashtray, picking out one of the cigarets from its cluttered, dusty depths to show to his audience. "You will observe that in the case of this stub, the cigaret, also a La Duchesse of course, has been little more than one-quarter consumed—Miss Carmody evidently having taken only five or six puffs before crushing the remainder in the tray. Every stub in this tray from Miss Carmody's bedroom has been similarly treated.
    "In other words," he said with a bare smile, "we find the amusing phenomenon of two sets of cigarets, both presumably smoked by the same person, exhibiting distinctly opposite physical remains. On investigating, we discovered that Miss Carmody, for reasons soon to be clarified, is extremely nervous—so much so that none of those persons who know her best can recall any occasion on which she has not smoked her favorite cigarets in exactly this wasteful, convulsive manner.
    "What is the inference?" A perceptible pause. "Merely that Miss Carmody did not smoke the cigarets we found on the cardroom table; that they were smoked or prepared by some one else who did not know Miss Carmody's unvarying method of throwing away cigarets one-quarter consumed....
    "Now, as for the shoes and hat," Ellery said without allowing his auditors time in which to digest this latest pronouncement, "we found further signs of a tampering hand. The appearance of things is that Miss Carmody was here Monday night, having been wet by the rain of the afternoon and evening, and that before leaving the apartment she changed her soaked hat and shoes, putting on others from the small stock of her clothing already in the bedroom closet. But we discovered that the hat had been inserted in a hat-box with its brim to the bottom. And that the shoes had been stuck into the shoe-bag with their heels projecting from the pocket.
    "In testing the habituary nature of such a procedure, we considered that an over-whelming percentage of women put their hats away in hat-boxes with the crowns to the bottom and the brims to the top; also that when shoes have large buckles, as this pair has, they are put away with the heels inside, so that the buckles will not catch on the material of the bag. Yet both articles denoted this peculiar ignorance of feminine custom. Here the inference is also obvious—Miss Carmody did not put away those shoes and the hat; a man did. For it is the masculine custom to put hats away with the brim downward; and a man would not grasp the significance of the buckle. All the shoes in the rack had the heels showing, because none happened to have buckles; whoever put Miss Carmody's shoes in the rack automatically followed suit, which a woman would not have done.
    "Now these points, taken by and of themselves, are, I will confess, rather weak and inconclusive. But when you put the three together, the evidence is too strong to be overlooked—it was not Miss Carmody who smoked the cigarets and put away shoes and hat, but some one else—a man."
    Ellery cleared away a huskiness in his throat. His tone was barbed with earnestness, despite a growing hoarseness. "There is another item of considerable interest in this last connection," he continued. "In examining the lavatory inside, Mr. Weaver and I ran across an intriguing theft. A safety-razor blade of Mr. Weaver's, which he had used after five-thirty Monday afternoon and had cleaned and restored to the case because it was his last blade and he knew he would have to shave in the morning—this blade, I say, was missing on Tuesday morning. Mr. Weaver, who was busy Monday night and consequently forgot to put in a new supply of blades, came to the apartment Tuesday morning early—at eight-thirty, in fact, because he had to clear up some business and reports before the arrival of Mr. French at nine. He intended to shave in the apartment. The blade, which he had put away only the late afternoon before, was gone. Mr. French, let me explain, does not keep a razor, never shaving himself.
    "Now why was the blade gone? Of course, it was plain that the blade must have been used Monday night or early Tuesday morning before Mr. Weaver arrived here. Who could have used it? One of two people—Mrs. French or her murderer. Mrs. French could have used it as a cutting instrument of some sort; or her murderer could have used it.
    "Of the two alternatives, surely the second is more tenable. Remember that the criminal was constrained by circumstances to pass the night in the store. Where could he stay with most safety? Certainly in the apartment itself! He could not roam about the dark floors, or even hide among them with as great a margin of safety as in the apartment—not with the watchman prowling about all night! Now—we find a blade used. It suggests normally the process of shaving. Well, why not? We know that the murderer had to make an appearance in the morning as an employee or official of the store. Why shouldn't he shave while he was temporarily occupying the apartment? It predicates a cold-blooded personality, but that is an argument for rather than an argument against it. Why is the blade missing? Evidently something happened to it. What could have happened to it? Did it break? Why not! The blade had been used a few times; it was brittle. A little extra force in screwing the parts of the razor together, and the blade might easily have snapped. Let us suppose that this happened. Why didn't the murderer merely leave the broken blade? Because the murderer is a canny scoundrel and in his own way an excellent psychologist. If a broken blade remains it is more likely to be recalled that it was not broken at a former date than to take it for granted that the blade was broken at that former date. If the blade is missing there is no incentive to suspicion or memory. An altered object is a more vigorous mental stimulant than a missing one. At least, that is what I should have thought if I had been in the murderer's place; and in effect I believe the person who planned this affair did the correct thing in taking away the blade—correct according to his lights. The proof is that Mr. Weaver thought little or nothing of the missing blade until I probed it out of him; and then it was only because I brought to the investigation an unprejudiced, impersonal observation."
    Ellery grinned a little. "I have been working on presumptions and more or less feeble deductions, as you can see; yet if you put together all the scattered, flimsy facts which I have outlined in the past ten minutes, I think you will see that common sense simply cries out that the blade was used for shaving, that it was broken, and that it was taken away. We find no evidence that the blade might have been used for anything but its legitimate purpose; and this only strengthens the contention. Let me leave this line of thought temporarily and go to another, altogether different, and in its way one of the most significant in the entire investigation."
    There was a surreptitious rustling of bodies in hard chairs, a quick intake of breaths. The eyes on Ellery did not waver.
    "It may have come to you," he said in a quiet, merciless voice, "that more than one person could have been implicated in this affair; that, perhaps, if Miss Carmody did not put away her shoes and hat—disregarding the damning evidence of the cigarets—she still might have been present; for another—a man—could have disposed of the shoes and hat while she stood by or did something else. I shall disprove that with the most gratifying expedition."
    He put his palms flat on the desk, leaned slightly forward. "Who, ladies and gentlemen, had rightful access to this apartment? Answer: The five possessors of the keys. That is—Mr. French, Mrs. French, Miss Carmody, Miss Marion French, and Mr. Weaver. The master-key in O'Flaherty's desk was closely guarded, and no one could have got it without either his knowledge or the knowledge of the day-man, O'Shane. And no such knowledge exists, which makes it plain that the master key in no way enters our calculations.
    "Of the six keys in esse, as it were, we are now able to account for five. Mrs. French's is missing. All the others are absolutely accounted for as having been exclusively in the possession of their owners. Mrs. French's key has been sought for by the combined cunning of the detective force. It is still missing. In other words, it is not on these premises, despite the fact that O'Flaherty positively avers that Mrs. French had it in her possession when she entered the store Monday night.
    "I told you at the beginning of this impromptu demonstration that the murderer probably took that key. Now I tell you not only that he took it, but that he had to take it.
    "We have one confirmation in fact that the criminal wanted a key. On Monday afternoon, some time after Miss Carmody left the French house furtively, Miss Underhill, the housekeeper, received a telephone call. The caller claimed to be Miss Carmody. The caller asked Miss Underhill to have Miss Carmody's key to the apartment ready, that a messenger would be sent for it at once. Yet only the very same morning, Miss Carmody had told Miss Underhill that she had lost her key, she thought, and asked Miss Underhill to secure one of the other keys and make a duplicate for her!
    "Miss Underhill doubts that the caller was Miss Carmody. She is ready to swear that some one stood by the telephone at the other end and prompted the caller's reply when Miss Underhill reminded the caller about the lost key and the morning's instructions. The caller then hung up in some confusion....