The Siamese Twin Mystery (27 page)

“Another one,” whispered Mrs. Carreau.

“Precisely. In other words, both dying men left half a knave of diamonds as a clue to the identity of their murderer—their common murderer, obviously, since the same clue was used. What did they mean by half a knave of diamonds?”

He searched their faces deliberately. The Inspector leaned against the wall, watching with bright eyes.

“No suggestions? It’s quite
outré,
as I’ve said. Well, examine it point by point. The ‘knave’ element first. A curious coincidence, but scarcely more than that. Certainly a murderer may be termed a knave, but that scarcely helps any one but the panting collector of classic understatements. The fact that ‘knave’ is commonly called ‘jack’? There is no Jack in our little company; the only one to whom it might have applied, John Xavier, having himself been the first victim. Well, then, how about the suit-symbol—the diamond? There’s no question of gems involved; the only possible connection here would be—” he paused, “the rings that seem to have been stolen. But none of these was a diamond ring. On the surface, then, no indication of what the meaning might be.” And then he whirled so unexpectedly upon Mrs. Carreau that she shrank back in her chair. “Mrs. Carreau, what does the word
carreau
mean in English?”

“Carreau?”
Her eyes became enormous brown pools. “Why”—her eyes flickered—“it means so many things, Mr. Queen. A hassock, and a tailor’s goose, and a lozenge, and a pane of glass …”

“And a ground floor, and a certain kind of tile. Quite so.” Ellery smiled coldly. “There’s also a very significant idiom:
rester sur le carreau,
which may be translated to:
to be killed on the spot,
a singularly felicitous French version of our Chicagoese expression … all of which however we may discount as irrelevant.” He continued to eye her steadily. “But what else does
carreau
mean?”

Her eyes fell. “I’m afraid—I don’t know, Mr. Queen.”

“And the French so sportively inclined! Have you forgotten that in French the word ‘diamond’ as applied to playing cards is
carreau
?”

She was silent. Each face mirrored amazement and horror.

“But, good lord,” breathed Dr. Holmes. “That’s insane, Mr. Queen!”

Ellery shrugged without removing his fixed glance from the shrinking woman. “I’m recounting facts, not fancies, Doctor. Doesn’t it strike you as enormously significant that the fatal card is a diamond, that ‘diamond’ is
carreau
in French, and that we have several Carreaus in this house?”

Miss Forrest jumped from her chair and advanced with white lips upon Ellery. “I have never heard such unmitigated and cruel nonsense in my whole life, Mr. Queen! Do you realize what you’re insinuating on the basis of such—such flimsy evidence?”

“Sit down, please,” said Ellery wearily. “I realize a good deal more, I think, my loyal lady, than you do. Well, Mrs. Carreau?”

Her hands were twisting like snakes. “What do you expect me to say? All I can say is that—you’re making a terrible mistake, Mr. Queen.”

The twins leaped from the sofa. “You take that back!” cried Francis, doubling his fists. “You can’t s-say things like that about our mother!”

Julian shouted: “You’re crazy, that’s what you are!”

“Sit down, boys,” said the Inspector quietly from the wall.

They glared at Ellery, but obeyed.

“Let me continue, please,” said Ellery again in a tired voice. “I don’t relish this any more than the rest of you. The word ‘diamond’ in the card sense is, as I’ve pointed out,
carreau.
Is there anything in our facts which bolsters this admittedly fantastic theory that a Carreau, so to speak, was designated by John and Mark Xavier when they left the jack of diamonds as clues to their murderer? Unfortunately there is.” He waved his hand and repeated: “Unfortunately—there is.”

From the wall came the Inspector’s voice, calm and impersonal.
“Which one of you boys,”
he said clearly to the Siamese twins,
“killed those two men?”

Mrs. Carreau sprang to her feet and bounded across the intervening space like a tigress. She stood before the speechless boys, her arms outspread, her whole body vibrating with passion. “This has gone far enough!” she cried. “I think even you stupid men must see the absurdity of accusing these—these children of murder. My sons murderers! You’re mad, both of you!”

“Absurdity?” Ellery sighed. “Please, Mrs. Carreau. You’ve evidently failed to grasp the significance of the clue. That card was not only a diamond, but a jack of diamonds. What is the appearance of the knave card?
It represents two joined young men.
” Her mouth came open. “Ah, I see you’re not quite so certain of its absurdity. Two joined young men—not old men, mind you, for a king would have sufficed for that—but young men. Joined! Incredible? I told you it was. But we
have
two joined young men in this house, and they
are
named Carreau, you see. What is one to think?”

She sank onto the sofa beside the boys, unable to speak. Their young mouths were working soundlessly.

“Moreover, we ask the question: why was the card torn in half in both instances, leaving—so to speak—only one of the two joined men as a clue?” Ellery continued with weary inexorability. “Obviously because the dead men intended to show that one, not both, of the Carreau twins was the murderer. How could this be? Well, if one was dominated by the other, was compelled to be present against his will because of sheer physical inability to hang back, was a mere bystander while the other committed the actual crimes … Which of you shot Dr. Xavier and poisoned Mark Xavier, boys?”

Their lips quivered; the fight had quite gone out of them. Francis whispered in a voice close to tears: “But—but we
didn’t,
Mr. Queen. We didn’t. Why, we—we couldn’t do …
that.
We just couldn’t. And why should we? Why? It’s so … Oh, don’t you see?”

Julian shuddered. His eyes were fixed on Ellery’s face with a sort of fascinated horror.

“I’ll tell you why,” said the Inspector slowly. “Dr. Xavier was experimenting with Siamese-twin animals in his laboratory. You people had some notion when you came up here that the doctor could perform a miracle, could separate the boys surgically—”

“That’s nonsense,” muttered Dr. Holmes. “I’ve never believed—”

“Exactly. You’ve never believed it could be done, Holmes. It’s never been done successfully, has it, with twins of this type? So I say that it was you who threw the monkey-wrench into the works; you went on record as not ‘believing,’ you made these people doubt the ability of Dr. Xavier. You talked to the twins, to Mrs. Carreau, about it, didn’t you?”

“Well …” The Englishman was writhing. “Perhaps I did advise them that it was a very dangerous experiment—”

“I thought so. And then something happened.” The Inspector’s eyes were bright marbles. “I don’t know what, exactly. Maybe Dr. Xavier was stubborn, or insisted on going ahead. The boys, Mrs. Carreau, got frightened. It was a murder in self-defense, in a way—”

“Oh, don’t you see how ridiculous that is?” cried Miss Forrest. “How childish? There was nothing Machiavellian about Dr. Xavier. He wasn’t the ‘mad scientist’ of the thrillers and movies. He
wouldn’t
have gone ahead with such an operation without the full consent of all parties concerned. Besides, what was to prevent us from just leaving? Don’t you see? It simply won’t stand examination, Inspector!” Her voice rang with triumph.

“Besides,” snapped Dr. Holmes, “there was no certainty at all about the surgery. Mrs. Carreau brought the boys up here for observation only. Even had everything been otherwise settled, an operation here would have been impossible. But then Xavier’s experiments on animals were a matter of pure research, antedating Mrs. Carreau’s arrival. I assure you that Dr. Xavier never had anything in mind concerning these lads, Inspector, other than mere theory. This is all very shockerish, Inspector.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Miss Forrest again, her eyes flashing, “and now that I come to think of it, Mr. Queen, there’s something fallacious in your
reasoning.
You claim that tearing the double-jack in half to achieve just one jack means the—the dead men were indicating one of two joined men. Suppose I say to you that the reason they tore the cards in half was to
prevent
anyone from believing that Francis and Julian did it? I mean that if they’d left just the jack, which shows two joined figures, somebody might think of the twins. By tearing the two figures apart they might have been saying: ‘
Don’t
think the twins did it. It’s just one unjoined person. That’s why I’m not leaving a whole card!’ ”

“Brava,” murmured Ellery. “That’s genius, Miss Forrest. But unfortunately you’re forgetting that the cards
were
diamonds, and that the only male Carreaus here
are
the twins.”

She subsided, biting her lip.

Mrs. Carreau said steadily: “The more I think of it the more convinced I am that somehow this is all a hideous mistake. Surely you don’t mean to—to arrest …” She stopped.

The Inspector, who was feeling uneasy, scratched his chin. Ellery did not reply; he had turned back to the window again. “Well,” the old man said, hesitating, “can you suggest another meaning for the card?”

“No. But—”

“
You’re
the detective,” said Miss Forrest with a rebirth of spirit. “I still maintain the whole argument is—is lunatic.”

The Inspector went to one of the windows and stepped out upon the terrace. After a moment Ellery followed.

“Well?” he said.

“I don’t like it.” The Inspector gnawed his mustache. “There’s a lot in what they say—not about the card business, but about that operation and all.” He groaned. “A hell of a lot. Why should one of those kids have bumped the doctor off? I tell you I don’t like it.”

“We discussed that, I believe, before we tackled them,” Ellery pointed out with a shrug.

“Yes, I know,” said the old man miserably, “but—Cripes, I don’t know what to think. The more I think the dizzier I get. Even if it’s true and one of the lads is a murderer, how the devil can we ever establish which one? If they refuse to talk—”

A gleam came into Ellery’s troubled eye. “The problem has its interesting points. Even if one of them confesses—we’ll suppose the most convenient theory—have you stopped to consider what a beautiful headache the case would give America’s prize legal talent?”

“What d’ye mean?”

“Well,” murmured Ellery, “let’s say young Francis is our man. He confesses on the stand, exonerating Julian who, it devolves, was under Francis’s thumb and was forced to stand by while Francis did the dirty work. Julian, we prove, was completely innocent in both intent and activity. So Francis is tried, convicted, and condemned to death.”

“Cripes,” groaned the Inspector.

“I see you envision the possibilities. Francis is tried, convicted, and condemned to death; and all the while poor Julian is forced to undergo extreme mental suffering, physical imprisonment, and finally the degradation of—what? Death? But he’s an innocent victim of circumstances. Surgery? Modern science—minus at least the voice of the late Dr. John S. Xavier—says that Siamese twins with a common major organ cannot be successfully disjoined; result, death to the innocent boy as well as to the guilty. So surgery is out. What then? The law says a person condemned to death shall be executed. Shall we execute? Clearly impossible without also executing an innocent individual. Shall we not execute? Clearly in defiance of the
lex talionis.
Ah, what a case! The irresistible force meeting the immovable barrier.” Ellery sighed. “I should really like to confront a group of smug lawyers with this problem—as neat a conflict of rights, I’ll wager, as the whole history of criminal law has to offer. … Well, Inspector, what do you think
would
happen in your precious case?”

“Let me alone, will you?” mumbled his father. “You’re always raising the most ridiculous questions. How do
I
know? Am I God? … Another week of this and we’ll all be in a bughouse!”

“Another week of this,” said Ellery gloomily, looking at the frightful sky and trying to draw a breath without soiling his lungs, “and it begins to look as if we’ll all be cold cinders.”

“It does seem silly to break our heads about a matter of individual crime and guilt when we’re one step from the last furnace ourselves,” muttered the Inspector. “Let’s go back inside. We’ll have to take stock, organize, and do what we—”

“What’s that?” said Ellery sharply.

“What’s what?”

Ellery bounded off the terrace. He was down the steps in one leap and standing on the drive to stare up at the ruddy night sky. “That noise,” he said slowly. “Don’t you hear it?”

It was a faint rumbling roar and it seemed to emanate from a region of the heavens a great distance away.

“By George,” cried the Inspector, scrambling to the ground, “I believe it’s
thunder
!”

“After all this horrible waiting, it doesn’t seem …” Ellery’s voice trailed off in a mutter. Their faces were raised to the skies nakedly, two white blurs of hope.

They did not turn at the pound and clatter of feet on the terrace.

“What is it?” screamed Mrs. Xavier. “We heard … Is it thunder?”

“Glo-o-ory!” shrieked Miss Forrest. “If it’s thunder it’s rain!”

The rumble was growing appreciably louder. It possessed a curiously living quality, and there was something metallic in its overtones. It rattled. …

“I’ve heard of such things before,” cried Dr. Holmes. “It’s an unusual meteorological phenomenon.”

“What is?” demanded Ellery, still craning at the sky.

“Under certain conditions of the atmosphere, clouds may very well form over the area of a widespread forest fire. Condensation of moisture in the updraft of air. I read somewhere that fires of this sort have actually been extinguished by the clouds they themselves generated!”

“Thank God,” quavered Mrs. Wheary.

Ellery turned suddenly. They were lined up at the rail of the terrace—a row of pale straining faces raised to the sky. On every face but one there was livid hope. Only on Mrs. Carreau’s delicate features sat horror, the horror of realization. If it were rain, if the fire were blotted out, if communication were re-established … Her grip tightened on the shoulders of her sons.