Egyptian Cross Mystery (32 page)

“When Stallings last saw Brad—presumably he was the last person except the murderer who did see Brad—Brad was seated at his checker table playing checkers with himself. There is nothing unusual or incongruous about this; Stallings testified that he often did it, working out moves for both sides—as only an enthusiast and expert will—and I myself can confirm this. Then it would appear that after Stallings’s departure, and while Brad was still playing with himself, Krosac gained access to the study, killed Brad, and so on. Brad had in his hand at the time he was killed one of the red checkers, which explains how we found it near the totem post.”

Ellery rubbed his head wearily. “You say—‘gained access to the study.’ Just what do you mean?”

Yardley grinned. “I was coming to that. You remember I said a moment ago that I had many theories unsupported by evidence. One of them is that Krosac—who, as you’ve repeatedly held, may be someone very close to us—was Brad’s expected visitor that night, which explains how he got into the house. Brad, of course, being ignorant of the fact that some one he thought a friend or acquaintance was in reality his blood enemy.”

“Unsupported!” Ellery sighed. “You see, I can outline this instant an indestructible case for one theory. Not a stab in the dark, Professor, not a conjecture, but a conclusion reached by clear logical steps. The only trouble with it is—it doesn’t thin out the fog in the slightest.”

The Professor sucked thoughtfully at his pipe. “Just a moment. I haven’t finished. I can offer another theory—again unsupported by evidence, but as far as I can see just as likely to be true as the other. And that is, that Brad had
two
visitors that night: the person whom he expected, and for whose visit he sent his wife, stepdaughter, and household away; and Krosac, his enemy. In this case the legitimate visitor, whether he came before or after Krosac—which is to say, while Brad was still alive or when he was already dead—naturally kept silent about his visit, not wishing to be implicated in any way. I’m surprised no one has thought of this before. I’ve been expecting you to propound it for the past three weeks.”

“So?” Ellery took off his pince-nez glasses and placed them on the table; his eyes were red and bloodshot. A lightning flash momentarily illuminated the room, painting their faces a ghastly blue. “Great expectations.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of it!”

“But I’m not. I never mentioned it because it isn’t true.”

“Ha,” said the Professor. “Now we’re getting it. Do you mean to sit here and tell me you can
prove
there was only one visitor to that house on the murder night?”

Ellery smiled feebly. “You place me in an uncomfortable position. Proof is after all dependent not so much upon the prover as upon the approver. … It’s going to be slightly complicated. And you remember what that French moralist with the improbable name, Luc de Clapier de Vauvenargues, said:
‘Lorsqu’une pensée est trop faible pour porter une expression simple, c’est la marque pour la rejeter.’
*
But I’ll get to it in due course.”

The Professor leaned forward expectantly, and Ellery continued, replacing the pince-nez on the bridge of his nose: “My point depends upon two elements: the disposition of the checkers on Brad’s table and the psychology of expert players. Do you understand the game, Professor? I recall you said that you had never played with Brad, or words to that effect.”

“That’s true, although I understand the game. Rather a dub at it. I haven’t played for years.”

“If you understand the game, you’ll understand my analysis. When Stallings entered the study, before quitting the house, he saw Brad beginning a game with himself, saw two moves of the opening, in fact. It was this testimony which led our friends astray. They assumed that because Brad was playing with himself when Stallings last saw him, he was still playing with himself when he was murdered. You fell into the same error.

“But the pieces on the table told an entirely different story. What was the disposition not only of the checkers in play but of those which had been ‘captured’ and taken off the playing board? You will recall that Black had captured nine red pieces, which lay in the margin between the board itself and the edge of the table; that Red had captured only three black pieces, which lay in the margin on the opposite side. Obviously, then, to begin with, Black was vastly superior to Red.

“The board itself, remember, held three kings, or double pieces, for Black, plus three single black checkers; and a meager two single pieces for Red.”

“What of it?” demanded the Professor. “I still don’t see that it means anything except that Brad was playing a game with himself and had worked out a series of moves most disastrous to his hypothetical opponent, Red.”

“An intolerable conclusion,” retorted Ellery. “From the standpoint of experiment, an expert gamester is interested only in opening and closing moves. It’s as true in checkers as it is in chess, or any other game in which wits are pitted and the outcome depends solely on the skill of the individual player. Why should Brad, playing purely for practice against himself, bother with a game in which one side has the overwhelming advantage of three full kings and a piece? He would never allow an experimental game to reach such a stage. Experts can tell you by a single glance at the board, even when the advantage is considerably less—a single piece, or even an equality of pieces but a strategic advantage of position—what the outcome will be if both sides play without error. For Brad to have seriously played that unequal game with himself would be tantamount to Alekhine playing an experimental chess game with himself in which one side has the advantage of a queen, two bishops, and a knight.

“So we come to this: Whereas Brad was playing an experimental game when Stallings saw him, he nevertheless played a genuinely competitive game later in the evening. For while an expert wouldn’t experiment with such a one-sided division of strength, that one-sided division becomes comprehensible when you take the alternative: that he played with some one.”

Outside it had begun to pour—sheets of gray water pounded against the windows.

Professor Yardley’s teeth showed white above his black beard in a grudging grin. “Granted. Granted. I see that. But you still haven’t eliminated the plausible theory that while Brad played checkers with his legitimate
visitor
that night, leaving the game as we found it, he was murder by Krosac later, after the visitor had gone, perhaps.”

“Ingenious,” chuckled Ellery. “You die hard. And compel me to fire a double barrel—logic and common sense.

“Look at it this way. Can we fix the
time
of the murder in relation to the time period of the game?

“I maintain in all logic that we can. For what did we find? On Black’s first row one of the two red checkers was still in play. But in checkers when you have reached your opponent’s first row you are entitled to have your piece crowned, or kinged; which as you know means placing a second checker on top of the first. How, then, does it happen that Red in this game has a man on the king row which is nevertheless uncrowned?”

“I begin to see,” muttered Yardley.

“Simply because the game stopped at that point, for it could not have been continued unless the red king were crowned,” Ellery went on rapidly. “Is there confirmation that the game stopped at this point? There is! The first question to settle is: Was Brad playing Black in this game, or Red? We have all sorts of testimony to the fact that Brad was an expert checker player. He had once, in fact, entertained the National Checker Champion and held that worthy even. Is it conceivable, then, that Brad should be the Red in this game where Red was obviously the inferior player—so inferior that his opponent had an advantage of three kings and a piece? No, it isn’t conceivable, and we can assert at once that Brad was playing Black. … Incidentally, to get the record straight, let me interpolate an amendment. Now we know that Black’s advantage over Red was not three kings and a piece, but two kings and two pieces, since one of the red pieces is supposed to be a king.

“Still, however, a tremendous advantage.

“But if Brad was playing Black, then he must have been sitting during the game in the chair near the secretary rather than on the other side of the table, away from the secretary. This is so, because all the captured red checkers were on the side near the secretary, and Black captures Red, of course.

“So far, so good. Brad was playing Black, and he sat in the chair near the secretary; his visitor and checker opponent, therefore, sat opposite, facing the secretary while Brad had his back to it.”

“But where does that—?”

Ellery closed his eyes. “If you have aspirations to genius, Professor, take Disraeli’s advice and cultivate patience. I’m getting in my licks, honored Professor. Many’s the time I’ve sat burning at my desk in your classroom, trying in vain to anticipate your leisurely point about the Ten Thousand, or Philip, or Jesus. …

“Where was I? Yes! There was one missing red checker, and we found it outside near the scene of Brad’s crucifixion. On the palm of his hand there was a circular red stain. He had been holding the checker when he was killed, then. Why had he picked up the red checker and held it? Theoretically many explanations are possible. But there is only one explanation which has a known fact to support it.”

“What’s that?” demanded the Professor.

“The fact that a red checker was on Black’s king row, and that it was uncrowned. In Brad’s hand—in the hand of Black, observe—was the only missing red checker. I don’t see,” said Ellery crisply, “how you can escape the conclusion that Red, Black’s opponent, managed to get one of his pieces on Black’s king row; that Black, or Brad, picked up one of the captured red pieces to place it on top of the red piece just arrived on his king row;
that before he could so place the red piece he had picked up, something occurred which effectually terminated the game.
In other words, the fact that Brad had picked up a red piece for the specific purpose of crowning his opponent’s man, but never completed the action, shows us by direct inference, not only when the game stopped, but why.”

Yardley remained silent and intent.

“The inference? Simply that Brad never completed his action because he could not.” Ellery paused, and sighed. “He was attacked at that moment and, to put it mildly, rendered incapable of crowning Red’s king.”

“And the bloodstain,” muttered the Professor.

“Exactly,” said Ellery. “And there is the confirmation—the position of the bloodstain on the rug. The bloodstain lay two feet behind the chair in which Black—or Brad—was sitting. We have long ago proved that the murder took place in the study; and that bloodstain is the only one in the study. If Brad had been struck on the head from the front, as he sat at the table, about to crown the red piece, he would have fallen backwards, between his chair and the secretary. And that is precisely where we found the bloodstain. … Dr. Rumsen maintained that Brad must have been struck on the head originally, since no other mark of violence showed on his corpse; then it was a free-flowing wound which stained the rug where he fell, before his murderer could lift the body and remove it to the summerhouse. All the details dovetail. But the salient fact stands out:
Brad was attacked as he sat playing checkers with his assailant. In other words, Brad’s murderer was also his checker opponent. …
Ah, you have objections.”

“Certainly I have,” retorted Yardley. He relit his pipe, and puffed energetically. “What is there in your argument which invalidates the following? That Brad’s checker opponent was either innocent or an accomplice of Krosac’s; that while this innocent checker opponent played with Brad, or while the accomplice played with Brad to distract his attention, Krosac sneaked into the study and struck Brad from behind, as I said the day we discovered the bloodstain.”

“What? A muchness, Professor.” Ellery’s eyes twinkled. “We showed long ago that Krosac would not have an
accomplice.
Summarily these are crimes of vengeance, and there is nothing in the crimes to tempt an accomplice from a monetary standpoint.

“The possibility that there were two people all the time, one of them Krosac, the other an innocent visitor who played checkers with Brad? … Please consider what this would mean. It would mean that Krosac deliberately attacked Brad in the presence of an innocent witness! Preposterous; surely he would have waited for the witness to leave. But suppose he did attack in the presence of a witness. Wouldn’t he then make every effort to silence this witness? A man like Krosac, with so much blood on his conscience, would scarcely balk at the necessity of taking another life. Yet the witness apparently left unharmed. … No, Professor, no witness, I’m afraid.”

“But how about the witness coming before Krosac, and leaving before—a witness who played checkers with Brad?” persisted the Professor.

Ellery clucked with concern. “Dear, dear, you’re becoming groggy, Professor. If he came before or after Krosac, he wouldn’t be a witness, would he?” He chuckled. “No, the point is that the game we found was the Brad-Krosac game, and that if there were a previous or later visitor, this would not invalidate the fact that Krosac—the murderer—did play with Brad.”

“And your conclusion from all this rigmarole?” muttered Yardley.

“As I said before: That Brad’s murderer played checkers with him. And that Krosac was well-known to Brad, although not, of course, as Krosac but as someone else.”

“Aha!” exclaimed the Professor, slapping his thin shank. “I’ve got you, young man. Why well-known? Eh? You mean to say that’s logic? That because a man like Brad played checkers with someone, that that someone was necessarily a friend of his? Fiddlesticks! Why, Brad would play with a manure collector. Any stranger was prey, provided he could play the game. It took me three weeks to convince him that I really wasn’t interested!”

“My nerves, Professor. If I gave you the impression that it was from the checker game that I deduced Brad’s opponent to have been a friend of his, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to. There is a much more potent reason. Did Brad know that Krosac, enemy of the Tvars, was abroad thirsting for that good old Tvar blood?”