French Powder Mystery (38 page)

“We have now,” continued Ellery pleasantly, but there was a feverish glitter in his eye, “narrowed the field of inquiry considerably. We might discuss, of course, Mr. MacKenzie, the general manager, who is an employee of the store. No, no! Mr. MacKenzie, don’t rise to protest—we’ve eliminated you already. Because of this last point of ours, which is almost ready for exposition, and because you have been in this apartment within five weeks. But any of the hundreds of employees of the store who have
never
been in this apartment and whose movements Monday night are unaccounted for, might be the murderer. We’ll come to that in a moment. At this time, ladies and gentlemen—” Ellery made a sharp sign to Patrolman Bush at the anteroom door, who immediately bobbed his head and went out, leaving the door open behind him—“at this time I wish to present to you a gentleman who until now has been more or less of an unknown quantity; no less a personage than—” there was a flurry at the outer door; it opened and Bush entered, followed by a detective who held a white-faced man, manacled, tightly by the elbow—“Mr. James Springer!”

Ellery retreated slightly, a grim smile on his face. The detective escorted his prisoner to the front of the room, where two chairs were immediately set by one of the attendant policemen. The two men sat down, Springer holding his manacled hands limply in his lap, staring steadfastly at the floor. He was a middle-aged man with sharp features and grey hair; a livid bruise on his right cheek was mute evidence of a recent scuffle.

Everybody in the room stared at him wordlessly. Old French was speechless with rage at the sight of the employee who had betrayed him. Weaver and Marion both laid restraining hands on his shaking arm. But there were no words in that audience—only hot eager glances, and in one case a frozen steady immutability. …

“Mr. Springer,” said Ellery quietly—yet his voice exploded like a shell in the strained atmosphere of the room—“Mr. Springer has been kind enough to turn State’s evidence. Mr. Springer, who ran away with the deluded thought that he might successfully evade the police, was caught the very day he attempted to escape because we were prepared for it. Mr. Springer has cleared up many little items of procedure which we could not possibly have deduced.

“For example, that the murderer is his chief in the drug ring, which even now is being scattered and pursued throughout the country. That the murderer is the right-hand man of the eloquently termed ‘master mind’ of the drug ring in this city. That Miss Bernice Carmody, who we discovered by investigation was probably a drug addict in an advanced stage, had come under the influence of the heroin habit, had met by devious ways the ‘master mind,’ had been introduced to the code-system, had become so dependent upon the drug that she willingly solicited new customers from her social circle, becoming in a way therefore almost a member of the ring. That Miss Carmody’s pernicious addiction was unsuspected by her family until, as we know, her father, Mr. Carmody, began to suspect and told his former wife, Mrs. French, what he suspected; and Mrs. French, observing, saw that it was true. That Mrs. French, in her assertive way, directly accused her daughter of addiction and finally broke down the girl’s weakened will until she confessed everything—including the name of the man connected with the French store who was supplying her directly with her own drugs. That Mrs. French, who we may suppose did not inform her husband of the true state of affairs because of his violent aversion to this form of vice, on Monday took away from Miss Carmody the newly replenished supply of drugs which she kept in the false bottom of her specially made lipstick. That Mrs. French further forced her daughter to make an appointment for her with this man, this employee in her husband’s store, for Monday night at midnight, secretly, to plead with him for her daughter—to force him, by threats of disclosing to the police what she now knew about the drug organization, to loose his grip on her daughter and allow the girl to be cured secretly by her mother. That this appointment was made on Sunday through Miss Carmody. That this man immediately reported the alarming state of affairs to his chief, the ubiquitous ‘master mind,’ who in his customary cold-blooded fashion commanded him to kill Mrs. French, who by now, in turn, was in possession of too much vital information to be allowed to live; and also to do away with Miss Carmody, who had proved a weak cog in the machine and must also be disposed of. That this man, under threat of being killed himself, laid his plans and made his appointment. That he entered secretly through the freight-door, which as an employee of the store he knew was open at that exact half-hour each night. That he waited until midnight in a store lavatory and then made his way stealthily to the apartment on the sixth floor, knocked, and was admitted by Mrs. French, who had arrived a few minutes before. That she stood by the desk, as we deduced, and they argued; that he was not aware of the heroin-filled lipstick in her bag, or he would have taken it; that without hesitation he shot and killed Mrs. French, who bled profusely, the blood staining the book-end; that on bending over the desk he saw the five books, and realized that someone had been tampering with the code-system; that he saw the blue memorandum announcing the arrival next morning at nine of Mr. Weaver and Mr. French; that he realized he could not communicate with anyone of the ring about this latest unforeseen development, because he was unable to get out before the next morning and could not telephone; that he therefore decided to hide the body in the exhibition-window, which would give him ample time next morning to slip away and warn his gang, for if the body were left in the apartment and discovered at nine, he would be unable for precautionary reasons to leave the building; and finally that he disposed of the body where we found it. Also that on his way back he stopped at the Book Department on the main floor and confirmed his suspicion that the sixth book was also missing. That he took Mrs. French’s key back with him, having been unsuccessful in his attempt to get Bernice Carmody’s that afternoon by the ruse of the telephone call. Finally, that he cleaned up the apartment, fixed the book-end, ‘planted’ the evidence against Miss Carmody, stayed overnight, shaved in the morning, broke the blade and took it away with him; and slipped out shortly after nine, emerging with the early shoppers only to reënter the building at once through the regular Employees’ Entrance, in order to be checked in officially. And that he managed soon after to sneak off and warn his gang leader of the discovery of the book-system. …”

Ellery cleared his throat, went on relentlessly. “Mr. Springer was also kind enough to clear up the matter of Miss Carmody’s abduction. With the action of Mrs. French on Sunday of taking away her store of the drug, the girl became desperate and got in touch with the murderer. This fitted in with his plans—he told her to come to a rendezvous in the lower part of the city for a new supply. She went on Monday afternoon and was promptly abducted, being taken by confederates to a Brooklyn hide-away and murdered. Her clothes were confiscated and brought back to our murderer, who had as yet committed no capital crime. These clothes the murderer brought with him to the apartment Monday night—the hat and shoes, tied up innocently in a small parcel, but wet a trifle with rain to make the deception perfect.

“There is only one thing more to explain before proceeding to the much-wished-for
dénouement. …
And that is the reason for ‘planting’ the banque game, cigarets, shoes and hat to make it appear as if Bernice herself had been implicated in the crime. And this, too, was outlined—under protest—by Mr. Springer, who has been just a cog—an important cog, perhaps—in the vicious wheel. …

“The murderer left evidences of Miss Carmody’s presence because she had necessarily vanished. Since she had been murdered and would be missing, there was a logical reason for connecting the two events—the disappearance of the girl and the murder of her mother. It would seem perhaps as if the girl had committed the crime. Since this was untrue, the murderer felt that it might confuse the police and put them off the real track. The murderer did not really hope that the deception would be successful for long—it was merely another red herring drawn across the trail, and anything which would lead the scent away from him in another direction he felt was desirable. And the actual ‘framing’ required little enough trouble and work. The cigarets he secured from Xanthos’, Miss Carmody’s tobacconist, since she had once told him where he secured her private supply. The banque he knew about from Miss Carmody, also. The rest was child’s play. …”

They were sitting on the edge of the hard camp-chairs now, straining forward to catch every syllable. Occasionally they looked at each other in a puzzled manner, as if unable to see clearly to the end of the analysis. Ellery brought them back to attention with his next words.

“Springer!” The name cracked out sharply. The prisoner started, paled, looked up furtively. His eyes fell at once to the carpet he had been studiously observing. “Springer, have I given your story faithfully and completely?”

The man’s eyes fluttered in a sudden agony, rolled in their sockets, wildly seeking a face in the swaying crowd before him. When he spoke, it was in a husky monotone, barely audible to those avid ears.

“Yes.”

“Very well, then!” exclaimed Ellery, leaning forward, his tone keenly triumphant. “I have still to expatiate upon that unspoken point which I termed mysterious a few moments ago. …

“You will recall that I spoke of the book-ends and the few grains of powder stuck in the glue between the onyx and the new felt. That powder was ordinary fingerprint powder.

“From the moment that I was certain of the nature of the powder, the veils dissipated before my eyes and I sensed the truth. We thought at first, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, “that the use of fingerprint powder by the criminal indicated a very superior sort of murderer—a super-criminal, in fact. One who would use the implements of the police’s own trade—it was a natural thought. …

“But”—and the word lashed into them with deadly emphasis—“there was another inference to be drawn—an inference which in a fell swoop eliminated all suspects but one. …” His eyes flashed fire; the hoarseness disappeared from his voice. He leaned forward carefully, over the desk with its litter of clues, holding them with the magnetism of his personality. “All suspects—but one …” he repeated slowly.

After a pregnant moment he said; “That one is the man who was employed by this store; who had not been in this room for at least five weeks; who attempted to put us off the track of himself by getting an accomplice without a record to give false information about the ‘movements’ of Bernice Carmody, who was already dead, in fact; who at the same time was clever enough to say, when he saw that we believed Miss Carmody to have been ‘framed,’ that he thought so, too, despite the fact that he himself had done the framing; who was present—the only suspect to be present, by the way—when the full story of the codified books and the culpability of Springer was told, and who took the very first opportunity of warning Springer to flee, realizing that, with Springer caught, he himself was in serious danger;
who, most important of all, was the only personality connected with this investigation to whom the use of fingerprint powder was natural and thoroughly logical. …”

He stopped abruptly, eyes fixed with interest, expectancy, the eagerness of the chase, upon one corner of the room.

“Watch him, Velie!”
he cried suddenly, in a piercing voice.

Before they could turn, before they could grasp the significance of the scene enacted before them so swiftly and vitally, there came the sounds of a short violent struggle, a bull-like bellow of rage, the hoarse panting of breaths, and finally one sharp stupendous deafening report. …

Ellery stood limply, wearily in his fixed position at the desk. He did not move while they rushed concertedly from all sides of the room to the quiet spot where the body of a man lay, already stiff in death, in a pool of blood.

It was Inspector Queen who reached that contorted body first, by a lightning leap; who knelt quickly on the carpet, motioning aside the red-faced, heaving figure of Sergeant Velie; who turned the convulsed corpse of the suicide over; who muttered in words inaudible even to the nearest spectator:

“No legal evidence—and the bluff worked! … Thank God for a son. …”

The face was the face of the head store detective, William Crouther.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1930 by Ellery Queen

Copyright renewed, 1958, by Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay

cover design by Jim Tierney

978-1-4532-8941-9

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