French Powder Mystery (16 page)

Ellery nodded gloomily. “We have three apparent indications of the young lady’s alleged visit to the apartment, to be journalistic. … Something told me there were more. Indications that I might not be able to descry. The housekeeper, though—the maid, Bernice’s maid—” He broke off, shook his head with impatience at his own thoughts. He turned to the waiting women. “Miss Doris Keaton.” The maid jumped, stark terror in her eyes. “Don’t be afraid, Miss Keaton,” said Ellery mildly, “I shan’t bite you. … Did you help Miss Bernice dress yesterday afternoon, after luncheon?”

The girl whispered: “Yes, sir.”

“Would you recognize the articles of clothing, for example, that she wore yesterday, if you saw them here and now?”

“I—I think so, sir.”

Ellery walked to the closet door nearest the lavatory, threw it wide—disclosing a rack hung with multicolored gowns, a silken shoe-bag tacked to the inner side of the door, and a top shelf on which lay several hat-boxes—stepped back, and said:

“There’s your territory, Miss Keaton. See what you can find.” He stood directly behind the girl, watching her with quick sharp flashes of his eyes. He was so absorbed in her movements that he did not even feel the presence of Weaver at his side. The housekeeper sat, a thin stone, in her chair, watching them.

The maid’s ringers trembled as she rummaged among the numerous gowns on the rack. After going through the entire rack, she timidly turned to Ellery and shook her head. He motioned her to proceed.

She stood on tiptoe and lifted from the shelf the three hat-boxes. She opened these one by one and scrutinized them briefly. The first two boxes contained hats belonging to Mrs. French, she said hesitantly. This was corroborated by a frigid nod from Hortense Underhill.

The maid lifted the lid from the third box. She uttered a little choked cry and reeled backward, touching Ellery. The contact seemed to burn her skin. She jumped away, fumbled for a handkerchief.

“Well?” asked Ellery softly.

“That’s—that’s Miss Bernice’s hat,” she whispered, biting the handkerchief nervously. “This one—she wore when she left the house yesterday afternoon!”

Ellery eyed the hat narrowly as it lay, brim to the bottom, in the box. The soft blue felt crown, due to its position, had collapsed. A glittering pin was fixed above the turned-down brim, just visible from where he stood. … Ellery made a brief request and the maid lifted the hat from the box and offered it to him. He turned it over in his fingers, then silently handed the hat back to the girl, who as silently took it, put her hand inside the crown, flipped the hat upside down, and deftly returned it to the box in that position. Ellery, who had been about to turn away, stiffened instantly. Nevertheless, he said nothing, watching the girl replace the three hat-boxes on the shelf.

“The shoes now, please,” he said.

Obediently the maid bent over the silk shoe-rack hanging on the inside of the closet door. As she was about to remove a woman’s pump, Ellery stopped her with a tap on the shoulder and turned to the housekeeper.

“Miss Underhill, will you please verify the fact that this is Miss Carmody’s hat?”

He lifted a long arm, took down the box with the blue hat inside, removed the hat, and handed it to Hortense Underhill.

She examined it briefly. Unaccountably, Ellery had stepped away from the closet to stand by the lavatory door.

“It’s hers,” said the housekeeper, looking up belligerently. “But what that has to do with anything,
I
don’t know.”

“That’s honest.” Ellery smiled. “Will you please return it to the shelf?” As he said this, he stepped slowly forward again.

The woman, sniffing, put her hand inside the hat, inverted it, and placed it in that position in the hat-box. She carefully lifted it to the shelf and as carefully returned to her chair. … Weaver observed Ellery’s sudden grin with a lost bewilderment.

Then Ellery did an amazing thing—a thing that brought an unbelieving stare from each of the three people watching him. He reached up to the shelf and took down the same hat-box!

He opened it, whistling a tuneless little air and, removing the much-handled blue hat, offered it to Weaver for inspection.

“Here, Wes, let’s have your masculine opinion,” he said cheerfully. “Is this Bernice Carmody’s hat?”

Weaver regarded his friend with astonishment, taking the hat mechanically. Shrugging, he looked at the hat. “Looks familiar, Ellery, but Į can’t be positive. I rarely notice women’s clothes.”

“Hmm.” Ellery chuckled. “Put the hat back, Wes old boy.” Weaver sighed, grasped the hat gingerly by the crown and dropped it, brim down, into the box. He fumbled with the lid, affixed it, shoved the box back onto the shelf—for the third time in less than five minutes.

Ellery turned briskly to the maid. “Keaton, just how fastidious in her habits is Miss Carmody?” he asked, feeling for his pince-nez.

“I—I don’t get you, sir.”

“Does she bother you much? Does she put her own things away generally? Exactly what are your duties?”

“Oh!” The maid’s eyes sought the housekeeper once more for guidance. Then she looked down at the carpet. “Well, sir, Miss Bernice was—is always careful about her clothes and things. Most always puts her hats and coats away herself when she gets in from being out. My work’s more doing personal things—fixing her hair, laying out her dresses, and such.”

“A
very
careful girl,” put in Miss Underhill icily. “Rare and unusual, I’ve always called it. And Marion’s the same way.”

“Delighted to hear it,” said Ellery with perfect gravity. “Delighted is hardly the word for it. … Heigh-ho, Keaton, the shoon.”

“Huh?” The girl was startled.

“Shoes—shoes, I should say.”

There were at least a dozen pairs of shoes, of assorted styles and colors, protruding from separate pockets in the rack. Without exception each of the shoes lay in its compartment with the tip inside and the heel showing, hooked over the lip of the pocket.

The maid Keaton went to work. She looked over the shoes, lifting out several to examine them closely. Suddenly she snatched at a pair of black leather pumps, lying in adjacent compartments. Each pump sported a large and heavy rhinestone buckle which glittered in a shaft of sunlight as she held them up before Ellery.

“These! These shoes!” she cried. “Miss Bernice wore them yesterday when she went out!”

Ellery took them from her shaking fingers. After a moment he turned to Weaver.

“Mud splashes,” he said laconically. “And here’s a spot of wet. Seems indubitable!” He handed them back to the maid, who tremblingly replaced them in their compartments. … Ellery’s eyes narrowed at once. She had put the shoes back with the heels
inside,
despite the fact that all the other shoes in the rack had the heels showing.

“Miss Underhill!” Ellery withdrew the black pumps from their pockets. The housekeeper rose sulkily.

“Miss Carmody’s?” Ellery demanded, handing her the shoes.

She eyed them briefly. “Yes.”

“Having reached complete agreement,” drawled Ellery with a smiling change of tone, “please be so good as to return these shoes to the rack.”

Without a word she obeyed. And Ellery, watching closely, chuckled to observe that she had duplicated the maid’s action in putting the pumps into the rack heels first, so that the tips and buckles protruded from the pockets.

“Westley!” he said at once. Weaver approached wearily. He had been standing at a window, looking moodily down over Fifth Avenue. … And when Weaver replaced the pumps in the rack, he grasped the heels and stuck the shoes in tips first.

“Why do you do that?” asked Ellery as the two women, now convinced of his madness, moved uneasily away from the closet.

“Do what?” demanded Weaver.

Ellery smiled. “Easy, Hamlet. … Why do you put the shoes into the bag so that the heels hang over the pocket?”

Weaver stared at him. “Why, they’re all that way,” he said blankly. “Why should I put them in the opposite way?”

“Alors,”
said Ellery,
“on a raison. …
Miss Underhill, why did you put the shoes back into the rack with the tips showing, when all the others have the heels showing?”

“Anybody would know that,” snapped the housekeeper. “These black pumps have big buckles. Didn’t you see what happened when Mr. Weaver put them back tips first? The buckles caught on the material of the bag!”

“Wondrous woman!” muttered Ellery. “And the others haven’t any buckles, of course. …” He read confirmation in the housekeeper’s eyes.

He left them standing before the closet and paced silently back and forth the length of the bedroom. His lips puckered fiercely as he mused. Suddenly he turned to Miss Underhill.

“I want you to look this closet over very carefully, Miss Underhill, and tell me, if you possibly can, whether anything is not there which you know should be there. …” He stepped back and waved his hand.

She stirred into activity, rummaging efficiently through the gowns, the hat-boxes, the shoes once more. Weaver, the maid, Ellery watched her in silence.

She paused in her work, looked undecidedly at the shoe bag, then up at the shelf, hesitated, turned to Ellery.

“I can’t be sure,” she said thoughtfully, her cold eyes searching Ellery’s, “but it seems to me that, while all of Mrs. French’s things are here that should be here, two things of Bernice’s are
not
here that should be here!”

“No!” breathed Ellery. He did not seem unduly surprised. “A hat and pair of shoes, no doubt?”

She glanced at him quickly. “How did you know? … Yes, that’s what I thought. I remember several months ago when I was bringing down some things of Mrs. French’s, Bernice asked me to take her grey toque down, too. And I did. And then there was her pair of low-heeled grey kid shoes—two tones of grey, they were—I’m fair certain I brought
those
down with me once. …” She turned sharply on Doris Keaton. “Are they in Miss Bernice’s wardrobes at home, Doris?”

The maid shook her head with vigor. “No, Miss Underhill. I haven’t seen them for a long time.”

“Well, there you are. Grey felt toque, close-fitting, no trimming, and a pair of grey kid walking-shoes. They’re missing.”

“And that,” said Ellery with a little bow that made Miss Underhill stare, “is precisely that. Thank you so much. … Westley, will you escort Miss Underhill and the timidacious Keaton to the door? Tell the man outside to see that they’re taken down to Sergeant Velie and kept out of the way of Commissioner Welles at least until everybody troops up here. … Undoubtedly, Miss Underhill, Marion French will be glad,” and he bowed again to the housekeeper, “of your maternal and warming presence.
Good
afternoon!”

The instant the outer door had closed upon Weaver and the two women, Ellery ran across the library to the door of the cardroom. He entered with swift steps and stared down at the card-table with its neatly heaped piles of pasteboards and its butt-strewn ashtray. He sat down carefully in one of the chairs and examined the cards. Picking up the heavy stack of closed cards before him, he spread them out without disturbing their sequence. He frowned after a while, referred to eleven piles of cards in the center of the table. … Finally he rose, puzzled, defeated. He replaced all the stacks exactly as he had found them.

He was staring gloomily at the cigaret-stubs when he heard the out door click shut and Weaver reënter the library. Ellery turned at once and left the cardroom. The red-leather door swished softly to behind him.

“Ladies taken care of?” he inquired absently. Weaver nodded almost with sulkiness. Ellery squared his shoulders, eyes twinkling. “Worrying about Marion, I’ll wager,” he said. “Don’t, Wes. You’re acting like a granny.” He looked slowly about the library. His eyes came to rest after a time on the desk before the dormer-window. “I think,” he announced dictatorially, sauntering toward the desk, “we’ll take our ease, in a manner of speaking, and see what we can see. Rest being the sweet sauce of labor, as Plutarch so aptly says—sit, Wes!”

The Library

T
HEY SAT DOWN, ELLERY
at the comfortable swivel-chair behind the desk, Weaver in one of the leather-covered chairs at the conference table.

Ellery relaxed, letting his glance shift from wall to wall of the library, flicker over the table, the litter of business papers, the pictures on the wall, the glass top of the desk before him. … His glance fell idly on the slip of blue memorandum paper by the telephone. With perfect unconcern he picked it up and read it.

It was an official memorandum. On it was neatly typed a message.

Ellery reread the memorandum earnestly. He looked up at the disconsolate countenance of Weaver.

“Is it conceivable. …” he began. He broke off suddenly. “Tell me, Wes—when did you type this memorandum?”

“Eh?” Weaver started at the sound of Ellery’s voice. “Oh, that! That’s a memo I sent around to the Board of Directors. Typed it yesterday afternoon, after the Old Man left for Great Neck.”

“How many copies did you make?”

“There were seven all told—one for each director, one for myself, and one for the files. This copy is the Old Man’s.”

Ellery spoke quickly. “How is it that I find it here on the desk?”

Weaver was surprised at the seeming inconsequentiality of Ellery’s question. “Oh, I say!” he protested. “Just a matter of form. I left it here so that the Old Man could see in the morning that I’d taken care of the matter.”

“And it was here—on the desk—when you left the apartment last night?” persisted Ellery.

“Well, of course!” said Weaver. “Where should it be? Not only that, but it was
still
there when I got in this morning.” He grinned feebly.

But Ellery was serious. His eyes glittered. “You’re sure of that? …” He half-rose from the swivel-chair in a strange excitement. He sank back. “Seems to fit with the rest of the jigsaw,” he muttered. “How beautifully it explains that one unexplained point!”

Thoughtfully he stowed the blue paper, uncreased, in a capacious wallet which he took from his breast-pocket.

“You’ll say nothing of this, of course,” he said slowly. … Weaver nodded and relapsed into apathy. Ellery bent forward, placed his elbows on the glass top, his head in his hands. He stared before him. … Something seemed to disturb his revery. His eyes, blank and preoccupied, focused by degrees on the books between the onyx book-ends, standing austerely on the desk in his direct line of vision.