The French Powder Mystery — 12 (1)

Out the Window....

    A policeman pushed his way into the room, looked about as if to catch the eye of authority, was summoned peremptorily by old Queen, mumbled a few words, and departed almost as quickly as he had come.
    The Inspector immediately took John Gray aside and whispered in the little director's ear. Gray nodded and went to the side of Cyrus French, who was staring blankly into space, muttering to himself. With the aid of Weaver and Zorn, Gray managed to twist French's chair around so that the old man's back was to the body. French noticed nothing. The store physician took his pulse professionally. Marion's hand was at her throat; she stood up quickly and leaned against the back of her father's chair.
    Then the door opened and two white-garbed men with visored caps entered, bearing a stretcher between them. They saluted the Inspector, who jerked his thumb toward the sheeted corpse.
    Ellery had withdrawn into the far corner of the room beyond the bed to hold communion with his pince-nez. He frowned at it, tapped it on the back of his hand, threw his lightcoat on the bed and sat down, taking his head between his hands. Finally, as if he had come to either an impasse or a conclusion, he produced from the pocket of his coat the volume it contained, and began to scribble hurriedly on the fly-leaf. He paid not the slightest attention to the two police doctors stooped over the dead woman.
    Nor did he protest when he was unceremoniously moved by a silent, nervous man who had entered immediately behind the stretcher bearers, and who was now engaged with the help of an assistant in photographing the dead woman, her position on the floor, the bed, the handbag and other articles connected with the victim. Ellery's eyes followed the police photographer, but abstractedly.
    Suddenly he snapped his little book back into his pocket and waited thoughtfully until he caught his father's eye.
    "Lord, son," said the Inspector, coming over, "I'm tired. And worried. And apprehensive."
    "Apprehensive? Come, now—don't fall into that silly frame of mind, dad. Why should you be apprehensive? This case is coming along, coming along...."
    "Oh, you've probably caught the murderer and hidden him in your vest-pocket," growled the old man. "I'm not worried about the murderer, I'm worried about Welles."
    "Sorry!" Ellery moved closer. "Don't let Welles rile you, dad; I don't think he's as bad as you've painted him. And while he's merely heckling you, I'll be working under-cover—grasp the idea?"
    "It's not half bad at that," said the Inspector. "My gosh! He's liable to walk in here any minute now, El! I never thought of that! By this time he has a telephoned report and—Yes! What is it?"
    A bluecoat tramped in with a message and left.
    The Inspector groaned. "Word's just come that Welles is on his way here—now we'll have arrests, interviews, grillings, reporters running over the place, and merry—"
    Ellery's air of raillery vanished. He grasped his father's arm and guided him swiftly to an angle in the wall.
    "If that's the case, dad, let me tell you what is in my mind—quickly." He looked around; they were fairly unobserved. He lowered his voice. "Have you reached any definite conclusions yet? I'd like to have your reactions before I tell you mine."
    "Well—" the old man peered about him cautiously, then cupped his mouth in his small hands—"between you and me, son, there's something queer about the whole business. As far as details are concerned, I'm a little hazy—if you're clearer than I, it's probably because you have had something of the advantage of an observer. But as to the crime itself—the possible motive—the story behind it—I have the inescapable feeling that the murder of Mrs. French is not half so important to us as what may have necessitated the murder...." Ellery nodded thoughtfully. "I have no doubt that this is a carefully planned murder. Despite the weirdness of the place, the apparent sloppiness of the crime, there is amazingly little to go on."
    "What about Marion French's scarf?" asked Ellery.
    "Fiddlesticks!" said the Inspector contemptuously. "Can't see that it means anything intelligible. In all probability she left it somewhere about and Mrs. French picked it up.... But I'll bet a cookie that the Commissioner grabs it."
    "I think you're wrong there," commented Ellery. "He'll be afraid to tackle French. Don't lose sight of French's power as head of the Anti-Vice Society.... No, dad, for the present Welles will keep his hands off Marion French."
    "Well, what have you concluded, Ellery?"
    Ellery produced his small volume and turned to the fly-leaf on which he had scribbled a few moments before. He looked up. "I hadn't thought about the remote nuances of the crime, dad," he said. "Although, now that you've brought it up, it seems to me that you are probably correct about the far-reaching significance of the motive as opposed to the crime itself.... No, I've been chiefly occupied until now with more direct affairs. I have four interesting little puzzlers to elucidate. Listen carefully.
    "First, and probably most important," he began, referring to his notes, "there is the puzzle of Mrs. French's key. We have a fair sequence of incident. The night-watchman, O'Flaherty, observes the victim at about eleven-fifty last night with the gold-disked apartment key in her possession. She is lost sight of until twelve-fifteen to-day, when she is found dead—still in the store, but with the key missing from the scene of the crime. The question arises, then: Why is the key missing? It seems on the face of it a pure matter of discovery, doesn't it? Yet—regard the possibilities. It is plausible enough at this time to suspect that the key's disappearance is connected with the crime, more directly with the murderer. A murderer disappears, a key disappears. It is not difficult to imagine that they disappeared together. Now, if this is so—and for the present let us assume that it is so—why did the murderer take the key? Obviously, we can't answer that question—yet. But—we now know that the murderer has in his possession a key to a certain apartment—French's private apartment on the sixth floor."
    "That's so," muttered the Inspector. "I'm glad you suggested sending one of the boys to watch that apartment this morning."
    "I had that thought," said Ellery. "But something else disturbs me. I can't help asking myself: Doesn't the absence of the key perhaps indicate that the body was brought to this window from some other place?"
    "I can't see that at all," objected the Inspector. "Can't see that it has anything to do with it."
    "Let's not quarrel about it," murmured Ellery. "I can see one very, very interesting possibility that makes my question logical and the item of Marion French's scarf seems to point the same way. I think that I'll be able to check up soon on the facts—which will put me in a position to prove more definitely what I've just postulated.... Let me get on to point number two.
    "The natural thought one has on finding the body in this window is that the crime was committed here. Of course! Usually, one would not even stop to question it."
    "It seemed funny to me, though," said the Inspector, frowning.
    "Ah! It did, eh? Perhaps I can crystallize your suspicion a bit later," said Ellery brightly. "We enter, we see a body, we say: Crime was committed here. But then we stop to observe. We are told by Prouty that the woman has been dead some twelve hours. The body is found a bit after noon. That would make it a short time after midnight when Mrs. French died. In other words, when the crime was committed. Observe that in any case the crime was committed in dead of night. What is the appearance of this window at such a time—of this whole section of the building? Total darkness!"
    "And—?" put in the Inspector dryly.
    "You don't seem to take my dramatics very seriously," laughed Ellery. "Total darkness, I repeat. Yet we are supposing that this window is the scene of the crime. We prowl about the window, ask ourselves: Are there lights in here? If there are, that's the end of it. With the door closed, and these heavy drapes on the street side, light would be unobserved outside the window-room. We investigate and find—no, no lights. Plenty of lamps, plenty of sockets—no bulbs. I doubt, indeed, if the lamps are even wired. So—we suddenly visualize a crime in total darkness. What—you don't like that idea? Neither do I!"
    "There are such things as flashlights, you know," objected Queen.
    "So there are. That occurred to me. Then I asked myself: If there was a crime here, there was some logically necessary antecedent action. A crime presupposes a meeting, a probable quarrel, a murder, and in this case, disposal of the body in a very queer and inconvenient place—a wall-bed.... And all in the rays of a flashlight! As redoubtable Cyrano would remark: No, I thank you!"
    "Might have carried bulbs with him, of course," muttered the Inspector, then their eyes met and they both laughed at once.
    Ellery grew serious. "Well, let's leave the little matter of illumination for the present. You'll admit it reeks slightly of improbability?
    "And now to that exceedingly fascinating little thingamajig," he continued, "the lipstick engraved with the letter C. That's my point number three. In many ways, it's of extreme significance. The immediate conclusion is that Lipstick marked C does not belong to Mrs. French, whose initials, engraved on three other articles in her bag, are W.M.F. Now, Lipstick marked C is of a noticeably darker shade than the paint on the dead woman's lips. Which not only corroborates the premise that Lipstick marked C is not Mrs. French's, but also that there is another lipstick extant somewhere which did belong to Mrs. French. Follow?... Now where is that lipstick? It is not in this window anywhere. Therefore it is somewhere else. Did the murderer take it, along with the key? That seems silly. Ah—but haven't we a clue? Of course! For observe ..." he paused, "the dead woman's lips. Half-finished! And of a lighter shade. What does this mean? Undoubtedly that Mrs. French was interrupted while she was dabbing at her lips with her own lipstick now missing."
    "Why interrupted?" demanded the Inspector.
    "Have you ever seen a woman who began to paint her lips leave them half-painted? It just isn't done. It must have been an interruption which prevented those lips from being entirely daubed. And a violent interruption, I'll wager; nothing short of an unprecedentedly odd occurrence would stop a woman from smearing that last red blob on the right place."
    "The murder!" exclaimed the Inspector with a queer light in his eye.
    Ellery smiled. "Perhaps.—But do you grasp the implication, dad? If she was interrupted by the murder or the incidents immediately preceding the murder, and the lipstick is not in this window—"
    "Of course, of course!" exclaimed the old man. He sobered. "It's true, though, that the lipstick might have been taken by the murderer for purposes of his own."
    "On the other hand," returned Ellery, "if it was not taken by the murderer, then it is still somewhere in or about the building. You might institute a search through six floors of this drygoods mortuary."
    "Oh, impossible! But I suppose we'll have to have a try at it later."
    "Perhaps it won't be necessary in about fifteen minutes," said Ellery. "At any rate, a genuinely interesting question comes up: To whom does the C lipstick belong, if it is not Mrs. French's? You might look into that, dad. I have an idea that the answer to that question will bring complications—à la Scott Welles...."
    At mention of the Police Commissioner's name the Inspector's features lengthened. "You'd better finish what you began, Ellery; he'll be here any minute now."
    "And so I shall." Ellery removed his pince-nez and twirled it recklessly in the air. "Before we proceed to point number four, bear in mind that you're cherchez-ing two feminine accessories—la lipstick de Madame, et sa clef....
    "To point number four, then," continued Ellery with a faraway gleam in his eye. "For point number four we must credit the habitually sharpened perceptions of our grossly underpaid and revered medico, Sam Prouty. He thought it strange that wounds of the nature of Mrs. French's should have bled so little. At least, there was little trace of blood on her body and clothes.... By the way, there was also a smear of dried blood on the palm of her left hand—you noticed it, of course?"
    "Saw it, all right," muttered the Inspector. "Probably clapped her hand to one of the wounds at the moment she was shot, and then—"
    "And then," finished Ellery, "her hand dropped in death and the divine ichor, which by all the laws of physics, according to friend Sam, should have gushed forth, did—what? I should say," he remarked seriously after a pause, "that it obeyed the immutable laws of that exact science and did gush forth freely...."
    "I see what you mean ..." murmured the old man.
    "It gushed forth freely—but not in this window. In other words, we must look for an interesting combination of elements to explain away the phenomenon of two bloody revolver-wounds being practically bloodless on the discovery of the body...."
    "Let me sum up the indications to this point," Ellery continued swiftly. "To my mind the absence of Mrs. French's apartment key; the absence of normal illuminating-facilities in this window; the absence of Mrs. French's rightful lipstick, which she must have had almost directly before her death, since her lips are only half-painted; the absence of blood from two logically bloody wounds; the presence of Marion French's scarf; and another item of a more general but none the less convincing nature—all converge into one conclusion."
    "And that is that the murder was not committed in this window," said the Inspector, taking snuff with a steady hand.
    "Exactly."
    "Just what do you mean by still another item which points toward that conclusion, Ellery?"
    "Has it struck you at all," answered Ellery slowly, "what an utterly preposterous setting this window-room is for the crime of murder?"
    "I did think of it, as I mentioned before, but—"
    "You've been too plunged into detail to get a psychological slant on this affair. Think of the privacy, the secrecy, the conveniences, that a fully planned murder requires. Here—what did the murderer have? An unlit, periodically patrolled window. Dangerous from start to finish. In the heart of the main floor, where the nucleus of the night-watchman's staff is located. Not fifty feet from the constantly present head night-watchman's office. Why? No, dad, it's perfectly silly! It was the first thought I had when I came in here."
    "True enough," muttered the Inspector. "Yet—if it didn't take place here, why transport the body here at all after the murder, if that is what was done? It seems to me that almost as much danger, if not more, existed in that event as in the first...."
    Ellery frowned. "That had occurred to me, of course.... There is an explanation; there must be. I begin to see the manipulation of a fine Italian hand...."
    "At any rate," broke in the Inspector with a slight impatience, "so much is clear to me after your analysis: this window is certainly not the scene of the crime. I think I see—yes, of course—it's as plain as day—the apartment upstairs!"
    "Oh, that!" Ellery said absently. "Naturally. Wouldn't make sense otherwise. The key, a logical place for the lipstick, privacy, illumination ... yes, yes, the sixth floor apartment by all means. It's my next stop...."
    "And it's positively depressing, El!" exclaimed the Inspector, as if struck by a thought. "Imagine! That apartment has been used by five people incessantly since eight-thirty this morning, when Weaver arrived. Nobody noticed anything up there, so evidently traces of the crime were removed from the apartment before that time. Goodness—if only...."
    "Now don't be bothering your poor grey head with fancy!" laughed Ellery, suddenly restored to good humor. "Of course the traces of the crime have been removed. The top layer, so to speak. Perhaps even the middle layer. But away down deep, underneath, we may find—who knows? Yes, that's my next stop."
    "I can't help worrying about the reason this window was used at all," frowned the Inspector. "Unless it's that time element...."
    "Heavens! You're becoming positively a genius, dad!" chuckled Ellery affectionately. "I've just got over solving that little problem for myself. Why was the body placed in the window? Let's apply unfailing logos....
    "There are two possibilities, either or both of which may be correct. First: to keep attention away from the real scene of the crime, which is undoubtedly the apartment. Second, and more logically, to prevent the body from being discovered before noon. The dead certainty of the daily demonstration time—which, you have reasoned, of course, was common knowledge to all New York—tenons much too snugly."
    "But why, Ellery?" objected Inspector Queen. "Why delay the body's discovery until noon?"
    "If only we knew that!" murmured Ellery, with a shrug. "But in a general way it seems reasonable that, if the murderer left the body to be discovered—and he knew it with certainty—at twelve-fifteen, then he had something to do before noon which the discovery of the body prematurely would have made dangerous or impossible. Do you follow me?"
    "But what on earth—"
    "Yes, what on earth," replied Ellery sadly. "What did the murderer have to do on the morning of the crime? I don't know."
    "We're just stumbling in the dark, Ellery," said the Inspector with a faint groan. "Just staggering from premise to conclusion without a ray of light anywhere.... For example, why couldn't the murderer have done what he had to do last night, in the building? There are telephones, you know, if he had to communicate with some one...."
    "Are there? But—we'll have to check up on that later."
    "I'll do that right away—"
    "Just a second, dad," interrupted Ellery. "Why not send Velie out to that private elevator to look for traces of blood?"
    The Inspector stared at him, made a fist. "Goodness! How stupidly I've managed things!" he cried. "Of course! Thomas!"
    Velie stalked across the room, received an inaudible instruction, and immediately left.
    "I should have thought of that before," growled the Inspector, turning back to Ellery. "Naturally, if the murder was committed in the apartment, the body had to be brought down here from the sixth floor."
    "Probably find nothing," commented Ellery. "I'd pick the staircase, myself.... But look here, dad. I want you to do something for me.—Welles will be here any moment now. To all intents and purposes this window is the scene of the crime. He'll want to hear all the testimony all over again, anyway. Keep him down here—give me an hour upstairs alone with Wes Weaver, won't you? I must see that apartment at once. Nobody has been in it since the meeting broke up—it's been watched all the time—there must be something there.... Will you?"
    The Inspector wrung his hands helplessly. "Of course, son—anything you say. You can certainly tackle it with a fresher mind than I can. I'll keep Welles down here. Want to examine that Employees' Entrance office, the freight room, and that whole section of the main floor, anyway.... But why are you taking Weaver?" His voice sank lower. "Ellery—aren't you playing a dangerous game?"