Greek Coffin Mystery (26 page)

They left the sitting-room quickly and cautiously. Downstairs they found Sergeant Velie.

“Sent a man for that Hotel Benedict register,” rumbled Velie, “and it ought to be here—”

“Never mind that now, Thomas,” said the Inspector, grasping Velie’s paw. The old man peered about; the corridor was empty. He extracted the key from his vest pocket and pressed it into Velie’s hand, whispering something into the sergeant’s ear. Velie nodded and strode down the hall toward the foyer; a moment later they heard him leave the house.

“Well, gentlemen,” said the Inspector gleefully, inhaling snuff with gusty vigor, “well, gentlemen”—sniff! sneeze!—“it looks like the good old McCoy. Here, let’s go into the library and out of the way.”

He herded Pepper and Ellery into the study and stood by the door, which he had left open to the tiniest crack. They were silent, waiting; and there was a look of tired expectancy on Ellery’s lean face. Suddenly the old man opened the door and tugged; and Sergeant Velie materialized at the end of the Inspector’s arm.

He closed the door at once. Velie’s sardonic lineaments showed distinct evidences of excitement. “Well, Thomas—well, well?”

“It’s the one, sure enough!”

“Jerusalem!” cried the Inspector. “That key from Sloane’s humidor fits the basement door of the empty Knox house!”

The old man was chirping like an aged robin. Velie, standing guard against the closed door, resembled a condor with glittering eyes. Pepper was a hopping sparrow. And Ellery, as might be expected, was the lugubrious raven of black plumage and unuttered croakings.

“This key business means two things,” the Inspector was saying, with a grin that split his taut face in two. “Taking a leaf out of your book, my son. … It indicates that Gilbert Sloane, who had the strongest motive for stealing the will in the first place, owns a duplicate key to the basement in which the will-scrap was found. This means that he must have been the one who attempted to destroy the will there in the furnace. You see, when he stole the will originally from the wall-safe in this room the day of the funeral, he slipped it into the coffin—with the box still unopened probably—and retrieved it either Wednesday or Thursday night.

“The second indication is confirmation. The smelly old trunk, the key to the basement—confirmation that the body of Grimshaw was kept there before burial in Khalkis’ coffin. That empty basement next door would be a safe place. … By God, I’ll have Ritter’s hide for incompetence! Imagine missing that scrap in the furnace!”

“It begins to look interesting,” said Pepper, rubbing his jaw. “Damned interesting. My job’s clear—I’ll have to see Woodruff at once and compare the burnt remnant with his office copy. Got to make sure the scrap is genuine.” He went to the desk and dialed a number. “Busy line,” he said, hanging up for a moment. “Inspector, it looks to me as if somebody bit off more than he could chew. If we can only establish. …” He dialed again and succeeded in getting Woodruff’s house on the wire. Woodruff’s valet regretted that the lawyer was out, but he was expected back within a half-hour, it seemed. Pepper instructed the valet to have Woodruff wait for him, and clamped down the dumbbell instrument with a bang.

“You’d better make it snappy,” twinkled the Inspector. “Or you’ll miss the fireworks. Anyway, it’s necessary for us to be sure the scrap is genuine. We’ll wait here a while, and then—You let me know as soon as you find out, Pepper.”

“Right. We’ll probably have to go down to Woodruff’s office and snag the copy, but I’ll come back here as soon as I can.” Pepper snatched up his hat and coat and hurried out.

“Pretty smug about this thing, Inspector,” remarked Ellery. The humor was gone from his face; he looked worried.

“And why not?” The old man sank into Khalkis’ swivel-chair with a luxurious little sigh. “It looks like the end of the trail—for us and for Mr. Gilbert Sloane.”

Ellery grunted.

“Here’s one case,” chuckled the Inspector, “in which your high-falutin’ methods of deduction aren’t worth a tinker’s dam. Just good old-fashioned straight thinking—no fancy stuff, my son.”

Ellery grunted again.

“The trouble with you is,” continued the Inspector slyly, “you think every case has to be a mental wrestling-match. You won’t give your old man credit for a little common-sense. Heck, that’s all a detective needs, anyway—common-sense. You’re beyond your depth, boy.”

Ellery said nothing.

“Now you take this case against Gilbert Sloane,” went on the old man. “It’s open-and-shut. Motive? A-plenty. Sloane bumped Grimshaw for two reasons: one, Grimshaw was dangerous to him, maybe even tried to blackmail him for all we know. But that isn’t the important motive. Because Grimshaw, as beneficiary of the Khalkis Galleries by Khalkis’ new will, was doing Sloane out of his inheritance. With Grimshaw out of the way, the will destroyed for the reason you pointed out—that Sloane wouldn’t want it known he was Grimshaw’s brother, wouldn’t want to inherit in a dangerous way—well, with the will destroyed Khalkis would be considered to have died intestate and Sloane would get his cut through his wife anyway. Slick!”

“Oh, very.”

The Inspector smiled. “Don’t take it so hard, younker. … I’ll bet you an investigation of Sloane’s personal affairs will show he has money troubles. He needs the old do-re-mi. All right. That takes care of motive. Now for another tack.

“As you pointed out before, in your analysis about Khalkis as the criminal, it’s dead certain that whoever choked Grimshaw must have planted those false clews against Khalkis later, and therefore must have known of Khalkis’ possession of the painting to have depended on his silence. All right. Yet the only outsider, as you also showed, who could have planted the false clews and known of Knox’s possession of the Leonardo was Grimshaw’s phantom ‘partner.’ Right?”

“Gospel.”

“Now then,” continued the old man with a judicious frown, placing the tips of his fingers together, “—Thomas, stop fidgeting!—now then, that being the case, Sloane to be the murderer must also have been. Grimshaw’s ‘unknown’ partner—something I find it easy to believe, in the light of the fact that they were brothers.”

Ellery groaned.

“Yes, I know,” said his father indulgently, “it means that Sloane therefore was lying in two important points of his spiel a while ago. First, if he was Grimshaw’s partner, then Grimshaw must have known that Sloane, as Sloane, was his brother, and therefore knew Sloane’s position in the Khalkis business. Second, Sloane must have been the one who came into the Benedict with Grimshaw, not the man who followed directly after, as he claimed to us. This means that Sloane having been Grimshaw’s unknown companion, the single unidentified visitor, must have been the second—and where he fits in the Lord alone knows, if he fits in at all.”

“Everything should fit,” said Ellery.

“And well you know it, eh?” grinned the Inspector. “But this satisfies
me,
my boy. In any event, if Sloane is the murderer and Grimshaw’s partner, the will motive was the vital one, getting rid of Grimshaw as a personal menace was a contributing motive, and clearing the field for realizing by blackmail on Knox’s illegal possession of the Leonardo, still a third motive.”

“An important point,” remarked Ellery. “We must watch for that particularly. Now that you have arranged everything to your satisfaction, I should appreciate a reconstruction of the crime. This seems to be an object-lesson for me, and I crave further instruction.”

“Why not? It’s as simple as a, b, c. Sloane buried Grimshaw in Khalkis’ coffin last Wednesday night—the night Mrs. Vreeland saw him snooping about the court. I suppose she saw him on a second trip, which would account for the fact that she didn’t see him carrying the body. He must’ve already lugged it into the graveyard.”

Ellery shook his head. “I have no argument at my command to refute anything you say, dad, but—it doesn’t ring true.”

“Fiddlesticks. Sometimes you’re as stubborn as a mule. Rings true to me. Naturally Sloane buried Grimshaw before he had any reason to believe the coffin would be opened by the law. When he dug it up to put the body inside he probably took out the will at the same time to make sure of destroying it. No extra risk to himself—the coffin was open already—get the idea? Sloane must also have taken the promissory note from Grimshaw’s body at the time he murdered him, and destroyed it later to protect the estate, which he was going to inherit indirectly anyway, against any claim if the note were found and presented for payment by some one else. Boy, it fits like a glove!”

“You think so?”

“I know so, darn it! Why, that basement duplicate key in Sloane’s tobacco-jar—that’s
evidence.
The burnt scrap of will in the furnace next door—that’s
evidence.
And then on top of that—the fact that Grimshaw and Sloane were brothers. … Son, wake up. You can’t shut your eyes to a case like that.”

“Sad, but true,” sighed Ellery. “But please leave me out of this, dad. Take all the credit for this solution, I want none of it. I’ve had my fingers burnt once by clews which turned out to be deliberate plants.”

“Plants!” The Inspector snorted derisively. “You mean you think that key was stuck in Sloane’s humidor by somebody in order to frame the man?”

“My reply must be cryptic. Please observe, however, that my eyes are as wide open as nature permits,” said Ellery, rising. “And although I can’t see clearly what lies ahead, I pray
le bon dieu
to grant me that ‘double pleasure’ of which La Fontaine speaks so eloquently: the pleasure of deceiving the deceiver …
de tromper le trompeur.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried the Inspector, springing from Khalkis’ swivel-chair. “Thomas, get on your hat and coat and collect some of the boys. We’re going to pay a little visit to the Khalkis Galleries.”

“You mean you’re going to confront Sloane with what you’ve found?” asked Ellery slowly.

“Yes, sirree,” said the Inspector. “And if Pepper brings an authentification of the will-scrap, Mr. Sloane will be behind nice shiny bars in the Tombs to-night charged with murder!”

“Only,” rumbled Sergeant Velie, “they ain’t so shiny.”

M
ADISON AVENUE IN THE
vicinity of the Khalkis Galleries was a dark and quiet region when Inspector Queen, Ellery Queen, Sergeant Velie and a number of detectives descended upon it from several directions later that evening. They worked without clamor. The shop itself, as they could see through the wide front pane, was dark; and the entrance to the shop was barred, protected by familiar electrically wired lattice-work. A separate entrance, however, to one side of the shop door held their attention; and the Inspector and Velie whispered together for a moment. Then the sergeant pressed his big thumb on a button above which appeared the words:
Night Bell,
and they waited in silence. There was no response, and Velie rang again. Five minutes passing without a sound or a light from within, Velie grunted, waved several of his men to join him, and together they broke down the door. It gave with a grinding and screaming of wood and steel hinges, and they tumbled in a heap in the blackness of the hall beyond.

They swarmed up a flight of steps, came to another door which they found in the rays of their flashlights to be protected by another burglar-alarm device, attacked this door with callous vehemence and no apparent fear of the alarm they were setting off in the central bureau of the protective agency, and crashed through.

They found themselves in a long black gallery, extending the entire length of the floor. Their torches revealed in flitting glimpses the unmoved features of numerous painted faces on the walls, the gleam of floor-cases containing
objets d’art,
and many pieces of pale statuary. Everything seemed quite in order, and no one appeared to challenge their coming.

Almost at the end of the gallery, to their left, a stream of light gashed across the floor, emanating from an open doorway. The Inspector cried: “Sloane! Mr. Sloane!” but there was no answer. They hurried in a body to the source of the illumination and found themselves in a doorway, steel door gaping open and on it lettered the legend:

MR. GILBERT SLOANE
,
Private

But their eyes were not long occupied with such fleeting details. For, as one man, they sucked in their breaths, thronging the doorway, now still as death … still, in fact, as the figure of death that was sprawled at a desk in the room, the light of a desk-lamp pitilessly revealing the stark body of Gilbert Sloane.

There was little material for speculation. They stood about the room—some one had snapped on the electric switch—and gazed down at the shattered, bloody head of what had been Gilbert Sloane.

The desk at which he sat, head lying on its left side on a green desk blotter, was in the center of the private office. One end of the desk was squarely facing the doorway, so that the view of Sloane’s body from the gallery outside was a sidewise view. He sat slumped forward in a leather chair, his left arm extended along the top of the blotter, his right arm dangling to the floor along the side of his chair. And a revolver lay on the floor directly under his right hand, a few inches below the tips of his dead fingers, as if it had slipped from his hand. The Inspector leaned over and, without touching the body, examined the dead man’s right temple, which lay exposed to the glare of the office lights. There was a deep, torn, crimson hole in the temple, spattered with blackish powder marks—unquestionably the point of the bullet’s entry. The old man knelt and, very carefully, broke open the revolver. It was fully loaded except for one chamber. He sniffed the muzzle and nodded.

“If this isn’t suicide,” he announced, getting to his feet, “I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

Ellery looked about the room. It was a small, neat office; everything in it seemed precisely in its accustomed place. There was no slightest sign of a scuffle anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Inspector had sent a detective off with the revolver, wrapped in tissue, to determine its ownership. He turned back to Ellery as the man went out. “Well, isn’t this enough for you? Still think it’s a frame-up?”