The Siamese Twin Mystery (9 page)

“No, Mark,” said Mrs. Xavier mechanically; she tore her eyes away from her husband’s corpse and smothered her lips in a red cambric handkerchief.

“Don’t Mark me, damn you!” snarled Xavier. “Well, you—you—Queen—”

“Tut, tut,” said Ellery mildly. “I think your nerves are a little shot, Mr. Xavier. This is no time for argument. Be a good chap and take the ladies away. There’s work to be done.”

The big man clenched his fist and stepped forward to glower in Ellery’s face. “I’ve a good mind to smash you one! Haven’t you two butted in enough? Best thing for both of you to do is beat it. Get out!” Then a thought seemed to strike him; it lit up his blood-streaked eyes like a fork of lightning. “There’s something damned queer about you two,” he said slowly. “How do we know that you—?”

“Oh, you talk to the idiot, dad,” said Ellery impatiently, and stepped into the study. He seemed fascinated by the cards on which the torso of Dr. Xavier rested.

The big man’s face was reddening and darkening and his mouth worked soundlessly. Mrs. Xavier leaned against the door suddenly and covered her face with her hands. Neither Dr. Holmes nor Miss Forrest had so much as stirred a muscle; both looked and looked and looked at the dead man’s motionless head.

The old gentleman felt about in one of his inner pockets and produced a worn black case. He snapped the lid open and held up the case. Inside lay a round embossed-gold shield.

The red drained slowly out of Mark Xavier’s face. He stared at the shield as if he had been blind from birth and was seeing a thing of color and three dimensions for the first time.

“Police,” he said with difficulty, moistening his lips.

At the word Mrs. Xavier’s hands fell away. Her skin was almost green and her ebony eyes a blazing black pain, the pain of naked agony. “Police?” she whispered.

“Inspector Queen of the Homicide Squad, New York Police Department,” said the old gentleman in a matter-of-fact voice. “I daresay it sounds like something out of a book or an old-time melodrama. But there you are and we can’t change it. We can’t change a lot of things.” He paused to regard Mrs. Xavier fixedly. “At that I’m sorry I didn’t announce last night that I’m a copper.”

No one answered. They were all staring at him and at the shield with expressions of mingled terror and stupefaction.

He snapped the lid down and returned the case to his pocket. “Because,” he said, and the old sharpness of the manhunt was glittering in his eyes, “if I had, I’m dead certain Dr. John Xavier would be alive and kicking this morning.” He turned slightly and looked into the study. Ellery was bent over the dead man, touching his eyes, the nape of his neck, the rigid left hand. The Inspector turned back and continued in conversational tones: “This morning. It’s a beautiful morning, at that. Too damned beautiful to be dead in.” He searched them all impartially with eyes that were not only liquid with suspicion but weary with experience.

“B-but,” stammered Miss Forrest, “I d-don’t …”

“Well,” said the Inspector dryly, “people don’t generally commit murders when they know there’s a policeman under the same roof, Miss Forrest. Too bad—for Dr. Xavier. … Now all of you listen to me.” Ellery was moving quietly about the study now. The Inspector’s voice tightened; a whiplash note sprang into it and the two women instinctively shrank back. Mark Xavier did not even stir. “I want Mrs. Xavier, Miss Forrest, and you, Xavier, to stay right here, in the library. I’m going to keep the door open, and I don’t want any of you to leave the room. We’ll attend to Mrs. Wheary and this fellow Bones later. Nobody can get away, anyway; not with that handy little
blaze
down the mountain stopping up the exits. … Come in here with me, Dr. Holmes. You’re the only one on the premises who can make himself useful.”

The little old gentleman stepped into the study. Dr. Holmes shivered, closed his eyes, opened them again, and followed.

The others did not blink or move or make any outward sign that they had heard. They remained precisely where they were, as if they had been frozen to the floor.

“Well, El?” murmured the Inspector.

Ellery rose from his knees behind the desk and absently lit a cigaret. “Very interesting. I think I’ve seen most of it already. Queer affair, dad.”

“It would be with this bunch of lunatics mixed up in it.” He scowled. “Well, whatever it is, it’ll keep for a couple of minutes. A few things to do right off the bat.” He turned to Dr. Holmes, who had paused before the desk and was gazing glassy-eyed at the body of his colleague. The Inspector shook the young Englishman’s arm, not unkindly. “Snap out of it, Doc. I know he was your friend and all that, but you’re the only medical man available and we’ve got to have medical help.”

The staring look ebbed out of Dr. Holmes’s eyes and he turned his head slowly. “Just what do you want me to do, sir?”

“Examine the body.”

The young man paled. “Oh, God, no! Please. I can’t!”

“Come, come, youngster, get a grip on yourself. Don’t forget that you’re a professional man. You’ve handled plenty of stiffs in the lab, no doubt. I’ve had this happen before. Prouty, friend of mine in the Medical Examiner’s office in Manhattan, once had to perform an autopsy on the body of a man he used to play poker with. He was a little sick afterward—but he did it.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Holmes hoarsely, licking his lips. “Yes, I understand.” He shuddered. Then he set his jaw and said more quietly: “Very well, Inspector,” and trudged around the desk.

The Inspector examined his squared shoulders for an instant, murmured: “Good boy,” and flung a glance at the group beyond the door. They had not stirred from their positions.

“Here a moment, El,” grunted the. Inspector. Ellery, his eyes extraordinarily bright, drifted to his father’s side. “We’re in something of a funny position, son. We’ve got no proper authority at all, even to touch the body. We’ve got to notify Osquewa—I suppose that’s where the jurisdiction lies.”

“That had occurred to me, of course,” frowned Ellery. “But if they can’t break through the fire—”

“Well,” said the Inspector a little grimly, “it won’t be the first time we’ve handled a case ourselves—and on vacation, too.” He jerked his head in the direction of the library doorway. “Keep an eye on those people. I’m going to the living room and buzz Osquewa. See if I can’t get hold of the sheriff.”

“Right.”

The Inspector trotted past the revolver on the rug as if he did not see it and disappeared through the doorway leading into the cross-hall.

Ellery eyed Dr. Holmes for an instant. The physician, white but composed, had undone the dead man’s shirt, exposing the two bullet wounds. The edges of the holes were blue beneath the dry blood. He peered at them intently without moving the position of the body, flashed a glance diagonally across the room toward the door by which the Inspector had just left the room, nodded, and began to finger the dead man’s arms.

Ellery nodded and sauntered over to the same door. He stooped and picked up the revolver by its long barrel. He held it up to the light streaming in through the windows and shook his head.

“Even if we had some aluminum powder—” he muttered.

“Aluminum powder?” Dr. Holmes did not look up. “I suppose you mean to make a fingerprint test, Mr. Queen.”

“Scarcely necessary. This is a very nicely polished butt, and the trigger shines. As for the barrel—” He raised his shoulders and broke open the weapon. “Whoever used this exercised the usual care and wiped the gun clean of prints. Sometimes I think there should be a law against detective stories. Gives potential criminals too many pointers. Hmm. … Two chambers empty. I suppose there’s no doubt this was the offending weapon. However, you might probe for the slugs, Doctor.”

Dr. Holmes nodded. A moment later he rose, went into the laboratory, and returned with a shining instrument. He bent over the body again.

Ellery turned his attention to the small cabinet. It occupied a part of the wall which was pierced through for the library door, and stood between the library door and the door to the cross-hall. The top drawer was slightly open. He pulled it out. A scratched and discolored leather holster, its belt missing, lay in the drawer; at the rear was a box of cartridges. The box contained only a few cartridges.

“Perfectly suicidal,” he murmured, eying the holster and box. Then he shut the drawer. “I suppose, Doctor, this was Dr. Xavier’s own revolver? I note from the holster and weapon itself that it’s an old U.S. Army weapon.”

“Yes.” Dr. Holmes looked up briefly. “He was in the service during the War. Captain of infantry. He kept the gun, he once told me, as a memento. And now—” He fell silent.

“And now,” remarked Ellery, “it’s turned upon him. Odd how things work out. … Ah, dad. What’s the news, if any?”

The Inspector closed the cross-hall door abruptly. “Managed by dumb luck to catch the sheriff in town while he was back for forty winks. It’s as we figured.”

“Can’t break through, eh?”

“Not a chance. Fire’s getting worse. And even if he could, he said, he’s too busy now. They need all the help they can get. Three people have been burned to death already, and from the way he sounded over the wire,” said the Inspector grimly, “he couldn’t get very excited about another corpse.”

Ellery examined the silent figure of the tall blond man against the jamb. “I see. And so?”

“When I introduced myself over the wire he jumped at the chance and made me a special deputy with full authority to conduct the investigation and make the arrest. He’ll get up here with the county coroner as soon as it’s possible to break through the fire. … And so it’s up to us.”

The man in the doorway uttered a curious sigh—whether of relief, despair, or sheer fatigue Ellery could not decide.

Dr. Holmes straightened; his eyes were deadly dull. “Quite finished now,” he announced in a flat voice.

“Ah,” said the Inspector. “Good man. What’s the verdict?”

“Precisely what,” demanded the physician, resting the knuckles of his right hand on the edge of the card-cluttered desk, “do you want to know?” He spoke with difficulty.

“Shots cause death?”

“Yes. No other marks of violence on the body, on superficial examination. Two bullets in the right breast, a little to the left of the
sternum,
one rather high. One smashed the third sternal rib and ricocheted into the summit of the right lung. The other was lower and passed between two ribs into the right
bronchus,
near the heart.”

From beyond the doorway came a sick gulp. The three men paid it no attention.

“Hemorrhage?” snapped the Inspector.

“Quite so. Bloody froth on the lips, as you can see.”

“Death instantaneous?”

“I should say not.”

“I could have told you that,” murmured Ellery.

“How?”

“Get to it in a moment. You haven’t had a really good look at the body, dad. Tell me, Doctor—what about the direction of the shots?”

Dr. Holmes passed his hand over his mouth. “I scarcely think there’s any mystery about that, Mr. Queen. The revolver—”

“Yes, yes,” said Ellery impatiently. “We can see that very clearly, Doctor. But do the angles of fire bear it out?”

“I should say so. Yes, unquestionably. Both passages show the same angle of direction. The weapon was fired from approximately that spot on the rug where you picked up the revolver.”

“Good,” said Ellery with satisfaction. “A little to Xavier’s right, but facing him. He could scarcely have been unaware of the presence of his murderer, then. By the way, you’ve no idea, I suppose, whether the weapon was in that drawer yesterday evening?”

Dr. Holmes shrugged. “I’m sorry, no.”

“It’s not really important. Probably it was. All the indications point to a crime of impulse. At least as far as the question of preparations is concerned.” Ellery explained to his father that the revolver had come from the cabinet drawer, had belonged to Dr. Xavier, and had been wiped clean of fingerprints after the crime.

“It’s easy enough, then, to figure out what happened,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “No way of telling through which of the four doors the murderer entered: chances are it was through the library or hall. But this much is clear: when the murderer came in here the doctor was playing cards with himself right where he is now. Murderer opened the drawer, took out the gun. … Was the gun kept loaded?”

“I believe so,” said Dr. Holmes dully.

“Took out the gun, standing just about at the cabinet there near the hall door, fired twice, wiped the gun clean, dropped it on the rug, and beat it into the cross-hall.”

“Not necessarily,” remarked Ellery.

The Inspector glared. “Why not? Why cross the room and go out by a far door when there’s one right behind you?”

Ellery said mildly: “I merely said ‘not necessarily.’ I suppose that’s what occurred. It still tells nothing. No matter which door the murderer used to enter the room and leave, there’s nothing to be learned from specific determination. None of these doors leads into a room from which there is no other exit. All of them were accessible to anyone in the house who descended unobserved to this floor, say, from upstairs.”

The Inspector grunted. Dr. Holmes said wearily: “If that’s all you want me for, gentlemen … The bullets are here.” He indicated two battered slugs coated with blackish blood which he had tossed to the desk.

“The same?” demanded the Inspector.

Ellery examined them indifferently. “Yes, same make as the ones in the revolver and cartridge box. Nothing there. … Before you go, Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“How long has Dr. Xavier been dead?”

The young man consulted his wrist watch. “It’s almost ten now. Death occurred, I should judge, no later than nine hours ago. Roughly at one
A.M.
this morning.”

For the first time Mark Xavier in the doorway moved. He jerked his head up and drew in his breath with a whistling sound. As if this were a signal, Mrs. Xavier moaned and tottered back to a library chair. Ann Forrest, biting her lip, bent over her and murmured something sympathetic. The widow shook her head mechanically and leaned back, fixing her eyes upon the rigid left hand of her husband, just visible to her through the doorway.