The Finishing Stroke (21 page)

‘Yes,' Ellen murmured. ‘You certainly could.'

‘Well, John told me the whole story, and how when the Halls told him the truth about himself they kept pounding away that he was as much entitled to my father's estate as I was, and that when I came into it – Dr. Hall had made it his business to find out the terms of father's will – their John was to show up and demand his share. John grew up with that as his objective. He'd had to lead a pretty hard life, because the Halls were always poor – either Hall wasn't a very good doctor or he didn't have a bedside manner or something; anyway, he only just managed to scrabble along – and John III had to educate himself and work like a hound-dog to make out. You can imagine what a heel I felt when I learned all this. I'd led the life of Riley. I assured my brother he'd get his half of the estate without any fuss or mess.'

‘Of course, of course,' Craig groaned. ‘But why didn't you tell me of this, John?'

‘I was going to, Arthur. But then I thought what a lark it would be if my brother and I kept it a secret for a few months. You remember how long ago we started planning this party – back in early November; and it struck me what a topper it would make on January sixth, when I came into the estate and had my poems published and married Rusty, if I were to spring John III on all of you.'

John turned away again. ‘Well, John thought it was a rare idea, so we went out and bought him a duplicate of every article of clothing I own, I briefed him on everyone I knew, and for months in New York he lived with me secretly and we changed places with each other, trying the stunt out. It worked like a charm. He even took my place with you on a date one night, Rusty, as the acid test. We Figured if we could fool you, we'd fool anybody.'

‘How right you were,' Rusty said in a calm voice. ‘And how completely I was taken in … I wonder which night it was.'

‘And me?' Craig asked heavily. ‘You fooled me, too, John? I mean, passed your brother off –'

‘Well, sure, Arthur. I wanted to surprise you, too. Remember the Thanksgiving weekend? He was up here with me then. I don't know why you're both looking at me this way,' John snapped. ‘All right, maybe it does sound infantile now, but it seemed like fun at the time. Anyway, I brought the duplicate wardrobe up here, smuggled John III in when I came up for Christmas –'

‘And started having your fun,' Ellery said. ‘Such as the Santa Claus bit on Christmas morning?'

John smiled faintly. ‘That's right. That was John III, in a costume we bought in New York. The idea was to mystify everybody and sort of keep the party jazzed up. John hid in my room throughout; I smuggled food up to him, or he raided the fridge late at night. We slept in that oversize bed of mine, and all he had to do if anyone was coming was duck into one of those big closets. We were careful to dress exactly alike, and to be at different places at any given time. That's why you never found him during a search. Actually, you “found” John III a dozen times these past twelve days, only you thought he was I. We had a real wingding.'

‘Er, John.' Dan Freeman coughed. ‘A week ago Monday one of you had a talk with me here in the living room, a talk of a rather personal nature. Was that you?'

John shook his head. ‘It must have been my brother. Sometimes the spirit of the thing got the better of him and he'd start cutting up on his own. Why, Mr. Freeman? What was it about?'

The publisher murmured, ‘Nothing, nothing important, John,' and sank back.

‘And, John,' Roland Payn asked. ‘Last Thursday I, ah, had a similarly personal conversation in my bedroom with … was that your brother, too?'

‘It must have been.'

‘He didn't mention anything about it to you?'

‘No, Mr. Payn.'

And Payn sank back and reached for his drink with a shaking hand.

‘That brawl in the summerhouse,' Marius Carlo said suddenly. ‘That's why you – or he – didn't remember anything about it. It was the other one!' He gulped down half a Scotch and soda.

‘That one was fixed,' John smiled. ‘We were in that together.'

‘And the talk I had in the stable –?' Val Warren's nostrils fluttered. ‘I don't even want to know which one of you
that
was. Of all the detestable tricks!'

Rusty said coldly, ‘I agree with you, Val.'

‘All right, all right,' John said. ‘It was all a mistake. I know it now.'

‘And that business of the nightly Christmas packages and verses,' Ellery murmured. ‘Was that part of your little game of musical chairs, too, John?'

‘Good God, no,' John said irritably. ‘Neither of us had anything to do with
that
. We kicked that one around night after night, in bed. I still don't know what it was all about.'

‘Except that it wound up with your brother's getting the last present in his back,' Lieutenant Luria said.

They all started, including John. They had forgotten Luria was there.

‘Yes,' John muttered. ‘Some joke.'

‘You don't know who stabbed him?'

‘No, Lieutenant. I wish I did.'

‘Now tell me this.' Luria came forward a step. ‘That old man found on the library floor, also stabbed in the back – which one of you smuggled
him
into the house? You or your brother?'

‘What do you mean?' John stammered. ‘I don't know anything about him. I've told you that a dozen times.'

‘I know what you told me. But I'm asking you
now
, Sebastian. You didn't smuggle him into the house?'

‘No!'

‘You don't know how he got in here?'

‘Certainly not!'

‘You don't even know who he was?'

‘Not a glimmer!'

‘Well, maybe I can help you out. We just got the confirmation this evening; I was about to leave for here when Devoe's call came. Would you like to know that little guy's name?'

John was all ruddy. ‘See here, Lieutenant, I'm not in the mood for any more games. Certainly I'd like to know his name! Who was he?'

‘Dr. Cornelius F. Hall.'

‘It was my brother who must have sneaked him into the house,' John I whispered. ‘No one else here knew Hall. And he didn't tell me! He didn't let on once. Now I know why he looked so green around the gills after I let him take my place down here that day so he could have a look at the old man's body. Why didn't he tell me? He must have been scared …'

‘Or guilty,' Luria said dryly. ‘If nobody else here knew Hall, then nobody else would have any reason to plant a shiv in Hall's back, would he? That all adds up to your brother as Hall's killer. What's your opinion?'

‘I don't know,' John said dazedly. ‘It doesn't seem possible. What reason could he have had? He always spoke of Dr. Hall in the most affectionate way.'

‘Yes,' Luria said. ‘And then again maybe old Hall decided he'd like a cut of your brother's share – or maybe that was their idea all along – and your brother welshed and knocked him off. Seem likely to you, Sebastian?'

‘I don't
know'
John said again. ‘That would make him out some kind of monster. I can't believe it.'

‘Lieutenant,' Ellery said.

‘Yes, Queen?'

‘If John III murdered Dr. Hall, who murdered John III?'

‘Now there,' Lieutenant Luria said, ‘there's where you've got me, pal. I'm just an ordinary dick trying to make sense out of a madhouse. Nothing adds up! Nothing!' He turned away, to whirl suddenly. ‘And another thing, Sebastian. You say you and your brother were having yourselves a high old time around here, driving everybody nuts, and then a mysterious old bird nobody seemed to know got himself carved up on the library rug … and you two
still
kept playing games? You expect me to believe two innocent men wouldn't have dropped that kindergarten stuff then and there?'

‘We talked about dropping it, Lieutenant,' John said feebly. ‘We discussed just that. But my brother seemed to feel we ought to follow through, at least till we found out what the score was … the nightly boxes, the murder …'

‘Your brother,' Luria said. ‘Funny how every time one of you did something nasty or suspicious, it turns out it was your brother. To hear
you
tell it.'

‘I resent that, Luria!' John shouted. ‘Next thing I know you'll be accusing me of killing my brother!'

‘That's not such a screwy notion,' the lieutenant said, unmoved. ‘Why not? You could have been putting on an act for little old John III when you found out he was cutting himself in for half of your father's millions – according to your own account, putting on acts is a talent you have. So you string him along, get him up here on the hokey excuse of doing a double act for the benefit of the guests, and when you're good and ready you let him have it.'

‘Why would I do that?' John yelled. ‘If I'd wanted to kill my brother, I'd have lured him up some dark alley in New York or pushed him off a dock somewhere. The last thing I'd have done was bring him to this house!'

‘What's your answer to that, Lieutenant?' Ellery asked amiably.

Luria threw up his hands.

‘As a matter of fact,' John went on, in a sort of fever, ‘it just struck me … Why would
anyone
here murder my brother? Nobody in this house knew he existed. Don't you see?' John cried. ‘
I
'
m
the one these gifts and verses have been aimed at – I'm the one who's been threatened since this holiday began. Whoever sneaked into my room tonight saw my brother sitting there looking just like me, dressed in clothes exactly like mine, and stuck that dagger into what he thought was
my
back!'

Lieutenant Luria was startled. He glanced at Ellery.

‘Now that,' Ellery ruminated, ‘that makes sense to me, Lieutenant. I think John's hit a vital point. But it also suggests a curious possibility.'

‘What's that?'

Ellery turned to John Sebastian. ‘You say you're John – the John that Mr. Craig raised, the John that Rusty fell in love with, the John who wrote the poetry Mr. Freeman is publishing, the John we've all known – John I.'

‘Yes?'

‘And you say the dead man upstairs is your triplet – the brother raised by Dr. Hall in Idaho, who came to New York a few months ago and revealed himself to you – John III.'

‘So what?'

‘So what I'd like to know,' Ellery asked good-humouredly, ‘is the following: Why can't it be just the other way around?'

John looked puzzled. ‘What?'

‘So far I've seen and heard nothing from you to prove you're John I except your unsupported allegation that it's so. I therefore ask you: How do we know the dead man isn't John I?
How do we know you're not John III
?'

Mouths were open all about the room.

John shut his long enough to gasp, ‘You're balmy!'

‘I've thought often in this case that that might help,' Ellery nodded. ‘But in the absence of corroborative evidence it makes an interesting speculation, John, delusional or not, don't you think? You see the kind of game you and your brother started.

‘Because if in fact you are John III, then you did have a motive to kill the brother upstairs, a strongly understandable one. You've told us yourself how bitter John III has been all these years over having been deprived of the goodies left by your father. Such a mood might well have nourished the conviction that, since the accepted brother had had the exclusive enjoyment of the father's property for twenty-five years, it was now as a matter of simple equity the deprived one's turn to enjoy it exclusively … not to divide the principal of the estate with his brother, you see, but to take it all for himself. And so John III murders John I … and thereafter claims to
be
John I, who wasn't bitter at all.'

And Ellery asked in a sort of sadness, ‘Can you tell us anything, John, that would indicate what I have just said to be the vapourings of a disordered mind?'

16 … And Thereafter

In Which There Is Much Ado About Nothing Trivial, Love's Labour Is Lost, and All Is Not Well in the Tragedy of Errors

John spluttered, ‘Well, but of course I can prove I'm me – I! Of all the nincompooperies …' He glanced about wildly, caught sight of his own right hand, and held it up in triumph. ‘Here! This will prove it beyond the shadow of a ghost of a doubt. I sprained my wrist Friday, didn't I? Who's got a scissors? Dr. Sam, take these bandages off!'

Dr. Dark rose and in silence removed the bandages, John glaring all the while at Ellery with resentful pride, like an offended racehorse. And there it was – an iodine-painted, badly swollen wrist.

‘Is that the wrist you treated, Dr. Sam?' John demanded.

‘It certainly is.' Dr. Dark glanced at Ellery and added hastily, ‘I mean, it certainly looks like the same one.'

‘Oh, for God's sake,' John groaned. ‘Look, this
is
a sprained wrist, isn't it?'

‘I would say so …'

‘And
I
sprained my wrist Friday! Lieutenant, you take a look at my brother's wrist, I mean under the bandage. You'll find the dressing is a fake. His right wrist is perfectly all right.'

‘That's a little something I was saving,' Lieutenant Luria muttered. ‘Dr. Tennant's removed the bandage. No sign of a recent sprain, he says – no swelling, and there's no iodine on it, like on yours.'

‘There you are.' John's look at Ellery was killing. ‘Satisfied?'

‘Well, no,' Ellery said. ‘And I'll tell you why, John. You say you're John I – right?'

‘Right!'

‘And you say that you, John I, were the one who went galloping in the snow Friday, fell and sprained your wrist – right?'

‘Right-
o
!'

‘And now you produce a sprained wrist, while the wrist of your brother upstairs shows no sprain – still correct?'

‘To the fourth decimal point!'

‘Well, what have you proved? The thing to be proved – that you're John I – still remains a matter of your statement to that effect. Don't you see that the question is, not which one of you sprained his wrist, but whether the man who did is John I or John III? All you've actually proved is that you were the brother who was thrown from the horse. We still don't know who
you
are.'

John sat down abruptly. But then he looked up. ‘Fingerprints. Fingerprints don't lie! Dr. Sam, my brother and I wouldn't have the same prints, would we?'

‘No. The fingerprints of identical twins or triplets are similar, but there are readily detectable differences.'

‘All right,' John snapped. ‘Take my prints, take his prints and –'

‘And what?' Ellery asked sadly. ‘Compare them? Very well, they'd show distinctive characteristics. But the question would remain, Which set of prints belonged to John I and which to John III?'

‘But my rooms in New York –' John faltered ‘– my room upstairs …'

‘Would show prints of both,' Ellery nodded, ‘with no way of telling which was whose, because you've told us you and your brother lived together for months in the New York flat, and you've both certainly been handling the same things in this house since you arrived for the holiday. Were you ever arrested on a criminal charge?'

‘Certainly not,' John said indignantly.

‘Was your brother?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Ever had your fingerprints taken by a government agency? By anyone, for that matter? For any reason?'

‘No.'

‘Had your brother?'

John mumbled. ‘He never mentioned –'

‘Those documents you say your brother brought with him, birth certificates and so on–does any of them show a set of prints – infant handprints, for example, or footprints?'

John shook his head.

Dr. Dark shook his in unison. ‘They didn't take prints of newborn babies in 1905, Mr. Queen.'

Ellery sighed. ‘Then fingerprints aren't going to get us anywhere. If we could only strike a frame of reference … Operations! Ever undergo surgery, John?'

‘No.'

‘Yes!' Dr. Dark said. ‘I took out John's tonsils myself – I mean our John's – when he was five! Lieutenant, do you mind –?'

‘If you can tell me which is which, Doctor,' Luria said wearily, ‘you have my permission to turn him inside out.'

Dr. Dark hastened to John, unclipping a pencil flashlight from his vest. ‘Open your mouth and stick your tongue out.' He depressed John's tongue with the flash, and relief broadened his face. ‘No tonsils. This is our John, all right!'

‘Thank God,' Arthur Craig said, wiping his face.

‘Time,' Ellery said.

‘Now what?' John shouted.

‘Lieutenant, is the coroner's physician still working upstairs?'

‘He's through, but he hasn't left yet.'

‘Ask him if the corpse has his tonsils.'

Luria said something distinctly not nice and dashed out. He was back in three minutes.

‘No tonsils, either.'

The general nail-biting resumed.

‘Are there any operation scars or birthmarks and so on on the body, Lieutenant – does Tennant say?'

‘None he could spot on superficial examination.'

‘Any such marks on you, John?'

John muttered, ‘No such luck.'

‘Back where we started from.' Ellery mused deeply. ‘Of course! Teeth. Your dentist – I mean, John I's dentist in the East here and/or John III's back in Idaho – can clear this up in five minutes.'

‘No dental work,' John said hollowly, ‘aside from a prophylaxis once in a while. Unless my brother –'

‘No dental work, either,' the lieutenant said, just as hollowly. ‘Tennant looked him in the mouth.'

‘It Figures,' Dr. Dark said with a scowl. ‘My John has had exceptionally strong and healthy teeth from babyhood. It's not surprising that his triplet has, too, because tooth structure in identical multiples is similar.'

‘And blood type,' Ellery muttered, ‘would be identical, too, I suppose.'

‘Yes.'

‘Bone structure, skull measurements?'

‘So similar that even if a record clearly ascribable to John III exists in Idaho or elsewhere, you still couldn't be sure which is which. On this end, as far as I know, my John's never even had occasion to be X-rayed.'

There was a silence. It was broken, surprisingly, by Dan Z. Freeman.

‘If I may offer a suggestion … Next to fingerprints, one of the most obvious ways of differentiating identical individuals would be by handwriting. Isn't it true, Doctor, that the influence of entirely different environments would cause marked chirographic differences?'

‘I would think so, Mr. Freeman, though we don't know much about the effect of different environments on identicals.'

‘Well, then, why not compare handwritings? Plenty of authentic specimens of each brother's handscript must exist from before the time they met,' the publisher said. ‘All this John has to do –'

‘Is write with a sprained wrist, as he wrote in that unrecognizable scrawl in those books?' Ellery shook his head. ‘With one brother unable to write because of rigor mortis and the other because of rigor vitae, so to speak, a handwriting comparison test isn't likely to yield a satisfactory result, at least not for some time. And a determination tonight is what I'm yearning for. For a lot of reasons, the chief one of which is named Rusty Brown.'

‘It's just as well this way, Ellery,' Rusty said. ‘The way I feel now–'

‘Yes?' John flashed at her. ‘What about the way you feel now, Rusty? I suppose you don't believe me, either!'

‘The Sebastian boys set out to make a fool of me once and succeeded – remember your saying that so proudly a while ago?' Rusty flared back. ‘I neither believe nor disbelieve. I just don't
know.
Until I do –'

John said through his teeth, ‘You mean you've changed your mind? You're calling off the wedding?'

‘I didn't
say
that. And I'm
not
going to discuss such personal matters in front of a roomful of people. Anyway, I'm all at sea. I don't know what to think. Let me alone!' And Rusty burst into tears and rushed from the room.

‘Let her alone!' Olivette Brown screamed, and she followed.

‘You … stand-in!' Val Warren screamed, and
she
followed.

Mr. Gardiner followed, too, but without saying anything.

Lieutenant Luria glared at each in passing with a frightful impotence. Ellery tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Simmer down, Lieutenant. You're hung up till the sprained wrist recovers, and there's nothing you can do about it.' And he glanced over at John, who was icily pouring himself a huge whisky. ‘It's going to be interesting to see how fast it does recover, John. If you're Number One Boy, as you claim, it will be the fastest sprain recovery on record. But if you're John III in John I's clothing, it wouldn't surprise me if you suddenly had a rash of accidents, each of which somehow managed to immobilize your right hand.'

‘You and I, Mr. Queen,' John said, ‘are
fini, kaput
. I hereby give you notice that I have severed diplomatic relations. Go peddle your brain-teasers elsewhere. Here's mud in your eye, and I hope it's permanent!' And he downed six ounces of whisky without winking.

Ellery looked philosophical, ‘However, Lieutenant, sooner or later the identity mixup will be settled. And then –'

‘I know,' Luria said, ‘then my troubles just start. You know what I think about this case, Queen?'

Ellery glanced over at Ellen, sitting stiff as an embalmer near her uncle. ‘Can you say it in front of a lady?'

Luria roared,
‘Goddamittohellno
!' and stamped out.

They were detained in the Craig house for another thirty-six hours. Teams of police took turns questioning them, over and over, until harried suspects and questioners alike were brown-brained with fag. Luria drove them all, including himself, remorselessly. But in the end, looking hangdog, the lieutenant had to let them all go.

Ellen said her farewells to Ellery as he sat, empty-souled, behind the wheel of the Duesenberg in the Craig driveway. He had offered to drive her back to Wellesley, but she had declined the offer.

‘I'm sorry it's been such a washout, Ellery,' Ellen remarked.

‘I know just what you mean.'

Whereupon Ellen smiled like Mona Lisa and said, ‘Do you?'

Ellery was halfway to Manhattan before he figured out what Ellen had been talking about.

As it developed, no one had to wait for the surviving brother's wrist to heal in order to determine his numerical identity. In a case as queer as the average Scotch label, the dilemma was dehorned by two barbers 2000 miles apart. The one-eyed barber of Missoula, Montana, site of Montana State University, spoke with authority on the subject of John III; and the mustachioed barber with the eleven children, who ran the five-steps-down tonsorial parlour on MacDougall Street in Greenwich Village, New York City, rendered like testimony
in re
John I.

The initial credit was ascribed to the survivor himself (Ellery read all this in his daily news paper, like anyone else) in unconscious collaboration with a pretty trained nurse named Winifred (‘Winnie') Winkle who happened to be on duty in the Emergency Room of the Upper Westchester Hospital in Guildenstern, New York, when the patient was carried in.

What happened was that the living John Sebastian – after the red-eyed departure of John (I) Sebastian's fiancée, Rusty Brown, from the Craig premises – retired to his room (the body of his brother having been removed to the morgue), clutching a full quart of Maryland Panther Whisky (which had somehow got mixed up with Arthur Benjamin Craig's impeccable liquor supply), worked up a full charge, and in attempting (as he was to explain afterward to Lieutenant Luria in the hospital) to duplicate the New Year's Eve feat in Cleveland of the Fokker trimotor which had set a new speed record for commercial airplanes of 203 m.p.h., did misadventurously fly down an entire flight of stairs, making a one-point landing (on his head) at the junction of the newel post and the hallway floor.

On-the-spot first aid having been administered by Sergeant Stanley (‘Zbyszko') Devoe and Mr. Arthur Craig, the Alderwood Icarus was rushed to Upper Westchester Hospital, nine miles from Alderwood, where he arrived looking more like a freshly butchered steer (in Sergeant Devoe's phrase to newsmen later) than a human being. An intern made the first medical examination, determined that the cause of bleeding was a severe gash in the scalp, and ordered Nurse Winkle to shave off the patient's hair in the area of the wound while he prepared sutures. By this time Dr. Samson Dark of Alderwood had arrived and, independently, Lieutenant Luria. It was while Dr. Dark was taking over from the intern that Lieutenant Luria heard Nurse Winkle make the sprightly remark, ‘Oooh, he's not going to like it, having this ugly birthmark show!'

The rest is history. The patient, on recovering consciousness with nothing worse than a split-head hangover and some aching bones, and being informed by Lieutenant Luria of the birthmark on his head, swore with what energy he could muster that he had never been aware of same, having had naturally thick hair all his life and not ever having been given to lingering narcissistically over his reflection in mirrors. Dr. Dark, his lifelong physician, and Mr. Craig, his lifelong guardian, also disclaimed knowledge of it, neither having ever had occasion to examine the patient's scalp at nose length, man
or
boy. Lieutenant Luria made a hurried phone call to the coroner's physician, Dr. Tennant, and a hurried drive to the morgue, where Dr. Tennant hurriedly joined him. Dr. Tennant commandeered the remains of John (I or III) Sebastian, examined the head in the area indicated by the lieutenant, and proclaimed to the lieutenant triumphantly, “This one has
no
birthmark!'