Greek Coffin Mystery (20 page)

The blush, the burn had left Ellery’s cheeks and ears; he was intent now, like the others, on Knox’s recital.

Knox had at once made it clear to Khalkis, he said, that he expected the dealer to appease Grimshaw, at least to the extent of extricating Knox from the tangled situation into which Khalkis had forced him. Nervous and desperate, Khalkis claimed to have no money at all; but the night before, Khalkis had said, after Grimshaw’s first visit, he had thought things over and decided to offer Grimshaw the only payment in his power. Khalkis had then produced a new will which he had had drawn up the same morning, and which he had signed; the new will made Grimshaw legatee of Khalkis’ galleries and establishment, worth considerably more than the half-million he owed Grimshaw.

“Grimshaw was no fool,” said Knox grimly. “Flatly refused. Said he wouldn’t have a chance to collect if the will were contested by relatives—even then he’d have to wait for Khalkis to ‘kick off,’ as he said graphically. No, he said, he wanted his money in negotiable securities or cash—on the spot. He said he wasn’t ‘the only one’ in on the deal. He had one partner, he said, the only other person in the world who knew about the business of the stolen painting and Khalkis’ purchase of it; he said that the night before, after seeing Khalkis, he had met his partner and they had gone to Grimshaw’s room at the Hotel Benedict, and he had told his partner that Khalkis had resold the Leonardo to me. They wanted no will, or truck like that. If Khalkis couldn’t pay on the spot, they were willing to take his promissory note, made out to bearer—”

“To protect the partner,” muttered the Inspector.

“Yes. Made out to bearer. Note for five hundred thousand to be met within one month, even if Khalkis had to sell out his business under the hammer to get the money. Grimshaw laughed in his nasty way and said it wouldn’t do either of us any good to kill him, because his partner knew everything and would hound us both if anything happened to him. And he wasn’t telling us who the partner was, either, he said with a. significant wink. … The man was odious.”

“Certainly,” said Sampson, frowning, “this story changes the complexion of things, Mr. Knox. … Smart of Grimshaw, or his partner, who probably engineered the business. Keeping the partner’s identity secret was a protection to Grimshaw as well as the partner.”

“Obvious, Sampson,” said Knox. “To get on. Khalkis, blind as he was, made out the promissory note, to bearer, signed it and gave it to Grimshaw, who took it and stowed it away in a tattered old wallet he carried.”

“We found the wallet,” put in the Inspector severely, “and nothing in it.”

“So I understand from the papers. I then told Khalkis I washed my hands of the entire affair. Told him to take his medicine. Khalkis was a broken, blind old man when we left. Overreached himself. Bad business. We left the house together, Grimshaw and I; didn’t meet any one on the way out, fortunately for me. Told Grimshaw on the steps outside that so long as he steered clear of me I’d forget everything. Bamboozle me, would they! Mad clear through.”

“When did you see Grimshaw last, Mr. Knox?” asked the Inspector.

“At that time. Glad to be rid of him. Crossed over to the corner of Fifth Avenue, hailed a cab and went home.”

“Where was Grimshaw?”

“Last I saw of him he was standing on the sidewalk looking at me. Swear I saw a malicious grin on his face.”

“Directly in front of the Khalkis house?”

“Yes. There’s more. Next afternoon, after I’d already heard of Khalkis’ death—that was last Saturday—I received a personal note from Khalkis. By the postmark it was mailed that morning, before Khalkis died. Must have written it just after Grimshaw and I left the house Friday night and had it mailed in the morning. Got it with me.” Knox dug into one of his pockets and produced an envelope. He handed it to the Inspector, who took a single sheet of notepaper from it and read the scrawled message aloud:

‘Dear J. J. K.: What happened tonight must put me in a bad light. But I could not help it. I lost money and my hand was forced. I didn’t mean to involve you, didn’t think this rascal Grimshaw would approach you and try to blackmail you. I can assure you that from now on you will be in no way implicated. I shall try to shut up Grimshaw and this partner of his, although it will mean I shall probably have to sell my business, auctioning off the items in my own galleries and if necessary borrowing against my insurance. At any rate you are safe, because the only ones who know of your possession of the painting are ourselves and Grimshaw—and of course his partner, and I’ll shut those two up as they ask. I’ve never told a soul of this Leonardo business, not even Sloane, who runs things for me … K.”

“This must be the letter,” growled the Inspector, “that Khalkis gave the Brett girl to mail last Saturday morning. Scrawly sort of writing. Pretty good for a blind man.”

Ellery asked quietly: “You’ve never told any one about this affair, Mr. Knox?”

Knox grunted: “No indeed. Up to last Friday naturally I thought Khalkis’ yarn gilt-edged—no publicity on the Museum end, so on. My private collection at home is visited very often—friends, collectors, connoisseurs. So I’ve always kept the Leonardo hidden. And never told a soul. Since last Friday I’ve naturally had even less reason to talk. Nobody on my end knows about the Leonardo, or my possession of it.”

Sampson looked worried. “Of course, Mr. Knox, you realize that you’re in a peculiar position …”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“What I meant to say,” Sampson went on lamely, “was that your possession of stolen property is in the nature of—”

“What Mr. Sampson meant to say,” explained the Inspector, “is that technically you’ve compounded a felony.”

“Nonsense.” Knox chuckled suddenly. “What proof have you?”

“Your own admission that you have the painting.”

“Pshaw! And suppose I chose to deny this story of mine?”

“Now, you wouldn’t do that,” said the Inspector steadily, “I’m sure.”

“The painting would prove the story,” said Sampson; he was gnawing his lips nervously.

Knox did not lose his good humor. “Could you produce the painting, gentlemen? Without that Leonardo you haven’t a leg to stand on. Not a wooden leg.”

The Inspector’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, Mr. Knox, that you would deliberately secrete that painting—refuse to hand it over, refuse to admit your possession of it?”

Knox massaged his jaw, looking from Sampson to the Inspector. “Look here. You’re tackling this the wrong way. What is this—a murder or a felony you’re investigating?” He was smiling.

“It seems to me, Mr. Knox,” said the Inspector, rising, “that you are adopting a very peculiar attitude. It’s our province to investigate any criminal aspect of public relations. If you feel this way about it, why have you told us all this?”

“Now you’re talking, Inspector,” said Knox briskly. “Two reasons. One, I want to help solve the murder. Two, I’ve my own ax to grind.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been buffaloed, that’s what I mean. That Leonardo I paid three quarters of a million for
isn’t a Leonardo at all!”

“So.” The Inspector eyed him shrewdly. “That’s the angle, is it? When did you find this out?”

“Yesterday. Last night. Had the painting examined by my own expert. Guarantee his discretion—he won’t talk; only one knows I have it; and he didn’t know until late yesterday. He thinks the painting is by a pupil of Leonardo’s, or maybe by Lorenzo di Credi, one of Leonardo’s contemporaries—they were both pupils of Verrocchio. His words I’m quoting. Perfect Leonardo technique, he says—but bases his opinion on certain internal evidence I won’t go into now. Damned thing isn’t worth more than a few thousands … I’ve been stuck. That’s the one I bought.”

“In any event, it belongs to the Victoria Museum, Mr. Knox,” said the District Attorney defensively. “It should be returned—”

“How do I know it belongs to the Victoria Museum? How do I know that the one I bought isn’t a copy some one dug up? Suppose the Victoria’s Leonardo
was
stolen. Doesn’t mean that that’s the one offered to me. Maybe Grimshaw pulled a fast one—believe he did. Maybe it was Khalkis. Who knows? And what are you going to do about it?”

Ellery said, “I suggest every one here keep perfectly quiet about the whole story.”

They let it go at that. Knox was master of the situation. The District Attorney was a most uncomfortable man; he whispered heatedly to the Inspector, and the Inspector shrugged his shoulders.

“Forgive me if I return to the scene of my ignominy.” Ellery spoke with unfamiliar humility. “Mr. Knox, what actually occurred last Friday night with regard to the will?”

“When Grimshaw refused it, Khalkis mechanically went back to his wall-safe and, locking the will in a steel box there, closed the safe.”

“And the tea-things?”

Knox said abruptly, “Grimshaw and I entered the library. The tea-things were on the taboret near the desk. Khalkis asked us if we would have tea—he had already, I noticed, started the water in the percolator to boiling. We both refused. As we talked, Khalkis poured himself a cup of tea—”

“Using a tea-bag and a slice of lemon?”

“Yes. Took the tea-bag out again, though. But in the excitement of the conversation that followed, he did not drink. Tea got cold. He didn’t drink all the time we were there.”

“There were three cups and saucers all told, on the tray?”

“Yes. Other two remained clean. No water was poured into them.”

Ellery said in a bitter-cold voice, “It is necessary for me to adjust certain misconceptions. I seem to be, plainly speaking, the goat of a clever adversary. I have been toyed with in Machiavellian fashion. Made to appear ridiculous.

“On the other hand we must not permit personal considerations to befog the greater issue. Please attend carefully—you, Mr. Knox; you, dad; you, Sampson; you, Pepper. If I slip anywhere, catch me up.

“I have been the dupe of an astute criminal who, giving me credit for a laborious mentality, has deliberately concocted such false clews for my edification as I would seize upon in the construction of a ‘clever’ solution—that is, a solution which tended to reveal Khalkis as the murderer. Since we know that for a period of several days after Khalkis’ death there was only one dirty tea-cup, the fixing of the three tea-cups must have been a ‘plant’ left by the murderer. The criminal deliberately used only the water from Khalkis’ full but untouched tea-cup in his process of dirtying the two clean cups, and then poured the tea-water out somewhere, leaving the original water-content of the percolator to provide me with the basis for a false deduction. Miss Brett’s story establishing the time when she saw the cups in their original condition completely absolves Khalkis from having himself left the three-dirty-cups false clew; for at the time Miss Brett saw the cups in their original condition Khalkis was already dead and buried. There is only one person who had the motive for planting such a false clew, and that is the murderer himself—the person who was furnishing me with a made-to-order suspect leading away from himself.

“Now,” continued Ellery in the same bleak voice, “the clew which tended to show that Khalkis was not blind … The criminal must have taken advantage of a fortuitous circumstance; he discovered or knew what Khalkis’ schedule called for, and he found the packet from Barrett’s on the foyer-table, probably at the same general time when he fixed the tea-cups, and, taking advantage of the discrepancy in the colors, put the packet in the highboy drawer in Khalkis’ bedroom to make sure I would find it there and use it as part of my deductive framework. The question arises: Was Khalkis really blind, despite the ‘plant,’ or was he not? How much did the criminal know? I’ll leave this last consideration for the moment.

“One thing, however, is important. The criminal could not have so arranged matters that Khalkis wore the wrong tie the Saturday morning of his death. The whole chain of reasoning on which I based the deduction that Khalkis had regained his sight is fallacious somewhere, provided we work on the theory now that Khalkis really was blind, although it is still possible that he was not …”

“Possible but not probable,” commented Sampson, “since, as you pointed out, why did he keep quiet if he suddenly regained his sight?”

“That’s perfectly right, Sampson. It would seem that Khalkis
was
blind. So my logic was wrong. How account, then, for the fact that Khalkis knew he was wearing a red tie, and yet was blind? Is it possible that Demmy, Sloane or Miss Brett
did
tell Khalkis he was wearing a red tie? This would explain the facts; on the other hand, if all told the truth, the explanation is still floating about somewhere. If we cannot discover a satisfactory alternative explanation, we shall be forced to conclude that one of the three lied in his or her testimony.”

“That Brett girl,” growled the Inspector, “isn’t my idea of a reliable witness.”

“We’ll get nowhere with unsupported inspirations, dad.” Ellery shook his head. “Unless we are to confess the inadequacy of reasoning, which I am loath to do … I have been going over the possibilities mentally during Mr. Knox’s recital. I see now that my original logic overlooked one possibility—a possibility rather amazing, if true. For there
is
one way in which Khalkis could have known he wore a red tie without having been told and without having been able to
see
the color. … Easy enough to prove or disprove. Excuse me a moment.”

Ellery went to the telephone and put in a call to the Khalkis house; they watched him in silence. This was somehow, they felt, a test. “Mrs. Sloane. … Mrs. Sloane? This is Ellery Queen. Is Mr. Demetrios Khalkis there? … Excellent. Please have him come to Police Headquarters in Center Street at once—to Inspector Queen’s office … Yes, I understand. Very well, have Weekes bring him, then … Mrs. Sloane. Tell your cousin to bring with him one of your brother’s green ties. This is important. … No, please don’t tell Weekes what Demmy is bringing. Thank you.”

He joggled the receiver and spoke to the central police operator. “Please locate Trikkala, the Greek interpreter, and have him come to Inspector Queen’s office.”