The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

The Art of Deduction

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1973.

The girl in front of me at the loading gate was a slim, shapely brunette with a deep tan, nice features and a cute little nose that was just beginning to peel from sunburn. While we waited, I made up my mind that I would do my best to get the seat next to her, if I could manage it without being too obvious.

When we boarded the plane I was in luck. All the window seats but one were taken. When she took that, it was quite natural for me to slide in beside her. As no one took the aisle seat, I had her to myself.

I made no attempt at conversation right then, because I am always a little nervous on takeoff and landing, but when we were airborne and the stewardess had finished her little welcome-aboard talk, I turned an expansive smile on the girl.

“Hi, seatmate,” I said. “My name is Albert Shelton.”

She looked a little startled, but after examining me speculatively for a moment, she seemed to decide I was harmless. “How do you do, Albert? I’m Diane Wharton.”

“Shall we get the vital statistics out of the way?” I inquired.

“What do you mean?”

“I always talk to the person next to me on a plane, and from past experience it seems likely that in the course of conversation I will reveal a good deal of data about myself, and in return will learn a good deal about you. It would save considerable time if we disposed of this matter at once, so we could get on to more interesting things. I am twenty-five, unmarried, and two months ago graduated from U.C.L.A. I finished school at such an advanced age because I spent from age eighteen to twenty-one in the army. I am en route to Buffalo to accept a job with the Appleton Detective Agency, which happens to be owned by my uncle. Fred Appleton, of whom you may have heard since you also are from Buffalo, is my mother’s older brother.”

She gave me another startled look. “How do you know I’m from Buffalo?”

“Elementary, my dear Wharton. I looked over your shoulder when you handed in your ticket at the gate, and the flight-reservation envelope you took it from showed you had bought a round-trip ticket from Buffalo.”

She emitted a tinkling little laugh. “You’re funny. You sound just like Sherlock Holmes. But I suppose that’s appropriate, since you’re going to be a private eye.”

“We in the profession prefer the term ‘confidential investigator.’”

Her eyes twinkled. “Excuse me. I suppose you took your degree in either criminalistics or police administration.”

I shook my head. “I was not, until a week ago, planning a career as a confidential investigator. I majored in philosophy and logic, but in our technological society there doesn’t seem to be much demand for specialists in those fields. In a sense, I am accepting my uncle’s job offer as a last resort. Yet the prospects interest me intensely, and actually I feel my educational background will be of considerable value. Great criminalists of the past have often depended more on deductive reasoning than on scientific knowledge; men such as the late Raymond Schindler, for example.”

“You seem to have some deductive talent,” she said. “I was quite impressed by your guess that I am from Buffalo. Can you tell me anything else about myself?”

After studying her judiciously, I said, “Well, for starters, your purpose for being in Southern California was simply vacationing.”

“Oh? How did you deduce that?”

“From three factors. First, you wouldn’t have bought a round-trip ticket if you were out here looking for work, or had planned to live here for some other reason, then changed your mind. Second, August is a vacation month. Third, your fresh suntan indicates you have recently spent a good deal of time on the beach. I know it’s a fresh suntan because you got your nose sunburned acquiring it. You neglected to put suntan oil on your nose, didn’t you?”

She regarded me with a mixture of amusement and awe. “You’re amazing. Tell me more.”

“All right. You were visiting your fiancé out here, and just before you left, you broke your engagement.”

She gave me a suspicious side-glance. “You’ve been following me, haven’t you, private eye? Excuse me; I mean confidential investigator.”

“I never saw you until just before we boarded the plane. I know you broke your engagement because the white circle around the ring finger of your left hand is just the size and shape of an engagement ring. Its whiteness indicates you have not been out in the sun since you took it off. Ergo, you gave it back at the very end of your vacation.”

She emitted another of her tinkling little laughs.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“It sounds so simple when you explain it. I would be more impressed if you kept the explanations to yourself. Is that it, or is there more?”

“Oh, yes. Your fiancé either has been studying criminalistics and police administration at U.C.L.A., or is teaching one or the other.”

She cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “How in the world did you deduce that?”

“Because you asked me if I had taken my degree in either subject. Being from Buffalo, how would you know they are taught at U.C.L.A. unless you had a close relationship with either a student or teacher in that department?”

“Goodness, you’re remarkable.”

“Quite elementary, really. One last item. You graduated from the University of Buffalo a year ago, probably from the school of nursing.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me again. “I suppose the explanation for that deduction is just as simple as the rest,” she said teasingly.

“Even more so. I cheated a little this time. I recognized the class ring you’re wearing on your right hand because my last year in service I dated an army nurse who had graduated from the University of Buffalo. And the year of graduation is embossed on your ring in large enough figures to be seen quite plainly.”

“That doesn’t explain your deduction that I am a nurse.”

“That was just a wild guess,” I admitted. “Sort of a hunch. Because the only girl I ever knew who wore a similar ring was a nurse, I guess I was guilty of a sophism that just happened to be valid.”

“Sophism,” she said. “I remember that from my one course in philosophy. A specious argument based on a false premise.”

“Yes. All R.N.s graduating from the University of Buffalo are entitled to wear school rings. Therefore all girls wearing U. of B. school rings are R.N.s.”

Diane giggled.

“I’ll concede it was nothing more than a lucky guess,” I said. “But my other deductions were based on sound enough evidence, weren’t they?”

“I think you’re wonderful,” she said with apparent sincerity.

Although by then I was reasonably sure that Diane liked me as much as I was growing to like her, she volunteered very little information about herself other than what I had deduced. For instance, she told me nothing about her ex-fiancé or what had caused their breakup, and naturally I didn’t pry. She did tell me that she lived with her parents in a two-family house on Fillmore in Buffalo, however, and when I asked if I might call her sometime, she consented and wrote her phone number on the inside of a matchbook.

We had left Los Angeles at 11:50 a.m. By the time we landed at Detroit at 5:50 p.m., Detroit time, we had become firm friends.

After the passengers who were getting off at Detroit had deplaned, the stewardess signaled for the rope at the loading gate to be removed and passengers began streaming toward the plane.

The plane took off, and as soon as the seat-belt sign was lifted I excused myself to go back to the rest room. In the last seat on the left, I noticed two men handcuffed together. Both men were in their late forties. It was easy enough to tell which man was the cop and which the prisoner. The man nearest the aisle had to be the cop, because his left wrist was cuffed to the other man’s right. He was a tall, very pale man somewhat resembling Abraham Lincoln without a beard. The other was also tall, but heavier-set and with a round, fleshy face, deeply tanned.

The stewardess was taking dinner orders, and I heard both men order coffee with their meals. I got back to my seat at the same time the stewardess got that far. Diane and I both ordered Swiss steak. Then I told her about the two men in the back seat.

“What does the prisoner look like?” she asked.

“Quite ordinary. Pushing fifty, I would guess.”

We dropped the subject then, because our dinners came.

When dinner period was over and the stewardess had collected everyone’s dishes, a buzz of excited conversation behind us caused us both to rise to our feet and peer toward the rear of the plane. The tall, pale police officer was in the act of lifting the limp form of his seatmate out into the aisle to lay him flat on his back. He had unlocked the cuff from his own wrist, but the other ring was still clamped about the prisoner’s wrist. He knelt next to the unconscious man, feeling his pulse.

The stewardess hurried along the aisle from the front to see what was going on.

Looking up at her, the detective said, “I think he’s having a heart attack. His pulse is very slow and weak.”

Like us, most of the other passengers toward the rear of the plane had risen to their feet to gaze back that way. A lean, rather distinguished-looking man in his mid-forties, who had been seated all alone across the aisle from as and one seat back, stepped out into the aisle as the stewardess started to kneel next to the prone man and said, “I’m a doctor, Miss.”

The stewardess immediately rose and stepped aside so that the doctor could squeeze past her. The detective introduced himself to the doctor as Sergeant Copeland, then got out of the way by reseating himself.

Kneeling next to the unconscious man, the doctor thumbed back an eyelid, peered into the eye, then unbuttoned the man’s suit coat, stripped off his necktie and unbuttoned his shirt. Looking up at the stewardess, he said, “My medical bag is beneath my seat. Will you get it, please?”

She brought him the bag, he drew a stethoscope from it and listened to the patient’s heartbeat. After a few moments he put the stethoscope away, zipped his bag shut and stood up.

“Coronary thrombosis, probably,” he said to the stewardess. “Fortunately you’re equipped with oxygen. How long before we land at Buffalo?”

Glancing at her watch, she said, “It’s seven, and we’re due in at quarter to eight.”

“Roughly three-quarters of an hour,” the doctor said. “I suggest you have the pilot radio to have an ambulance standing by to take the man to City Hospital. He can tell them no intern need come along with the ambulance, as I am on the City Hospital staff and will ride in with the patient. As a matter of fact, no one but the driver will be necessary, as the sergeant and I can act as litter bearers. As soon as you’ve delivered the message, bring a blanket to keep the patient warm.”

“Yes, sir,” the stewardess said, and hurried forward to disappear into the pilot’s cabin.

The doctor said to the detective, “Let’s get him up on the seat so that we can start giving him oxygen. If you’ll retract the armrests between seats, we can lay him on his back.” He glanced around and his gaze fell on me. “You look pretty husky, young man. Will you give us a hand?”

I went back and helped lift the inert form onto the seat. When the patient was on his back across all three seats, the doctor pulled out the seat’s oxygen mask and affixed it to the man’s face. Then he checked his heart with his stethoscope again.

“No worse, but no better either,” he said as he slipped the instrument back into his bag. “He might be more comfortable without that manacle dangling from his wrist, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Copeland took a key from his pocket, unlocked the cuff and dropped the handcuffs into his coat pocket.

“Incidentally, my name is Martin Smith,” the doctor said, offering the detective his hand.

Shaking it, the sergeant said, “Glad to know you, Dr. Smith. And I’m certainly glad you were aboard.”

“My name is Albert Shelton,” I offered.

Both of them looked at me. The doctor said politely, “Thank you for your help, Albert.”

“You’re welcome. Dr. Smith, my seatmate is a registered nurse, if you need her help.”

He gave me a surprised look. “Well, thanks, but there is nothing she could do at the moment.” Turning to the elderly man who was the sole occupant of the seat directly across the aisle from the patient, he said, “Sir, would you mind moving up to the seat I was occupying, so that I can sit here near the patient, in case he—”

“Not at all,” the man said, immediately moving forward.

“Want to sit next to the window, Sergeant?” the doctor asked. “I had better stay on the aisle so that I can keep an eye on him.”

“In a minute,” the detective said. “I just had a weird thought.” Leaning over the patient, Sergeant Copeland rummaged in the unconscious man’s coat pocket and withdrew a small bottle of liquid. He handed it to the doctor. Looking over the doctor’s shoulder, I read the label the same time he did. It said: Sweet-as-Sugar. Below that, in smaller print, was Concentrated Sweetener and No Cyclamates.

Looking up, the doctor said, “A common sugar substitute. What about it?”

“At dinner he wanted to put some in his coffee. After examining the bottle, I let him. It just occurred to me there might be something other than artificial sweetener in there. This could have been attempted suicide, since he was going back to New York to face twenty more years of hard time.”

“Hmm,” the doctor said. Unscrewing the cap, he sniffed at the bottle’s contents, then recapped it. “I really can’t tell, and I’m not about to taste it to find out. We’ll take it along to the hospital and have it analyzed.”

He dropped the bottle into his pocket, then added, “There are a number of poisons that cause the same symptoms as coronary thrombosis. If it were a suicide attempt, I couldn’t possibly guess which one until we can get the contents of this bottle analyzed. But if he’s been in custody, where would he have gotten hold of any poison?”

Sergeant Copeland said, “Until recently he hasn’t been in custody for weeks. He escaped from Sing Sing six weeks ago, and was arrested on the West Coast only about a week back. He may have decided to carry a suicide potion around just in case he was caught. And he would know what to get. He’s been an aide in the prison medical dispensary for the past five years.”

“What was he in prison for?” the doctor asked.

“About three dozen bank robberies. Don’t you remember Willie the Parrot Doyle?”

After considering, the doctor said, “Vaguely. A number of years back, wasn’t it?”

“About a dozen. He’s been in stir for ten. He was head of the Doyle Gang, which once consisted of eight or nine gunmen. All but two, aside from Willie himself, are now either in prison or dead. Willie’s younger brother Jim and Smooth Eddie Greene, who is a cousin of Willie’s, are both at large. As a matter of fact, Greene has never even been arrested, so we don’t have mug shots of him. Jim Doyle has a record, though, and I’ve seen his mugs. Looks like a younger version of Willie.”

I had been standing there silent all this time, but now I put in, “How did Doyle get his nickname of Willie the Parrot?”

“He used to talk a lot when pulling bank jobs,” the sergeant explained. “Kept up a steady flow of banter with the bank employees and customers as he directed them to lie on the floor on their stomachs, or herded them into vaults. Apologized to the ladies for inconveniencing them, told the ugly ones they were beautiful, cracked a lot of jokes. Just kept up a steady stream of chatter.”

“How about Smooth Eddie Greene?” I asked.

“He’s called that because he’s actually more con man than bank robber. He used to case banks by representing himself as an industrialist who was planning to open a branch factory in town. He would ask to see the manager in order to discuss whether the bank would be capable of handling a million-dollar-a-month payroll. Bank managers have been known to explain their alarm systems in detail in order to convince him his company funds would be safe in their banks.”

The stewardess came along with a blanket, which she handed to the doctor. She said, “The pilot radioed your message. An ambulance from City Hospital will be there. He told them no attendants other than the driver will be needed.”

“Good,” Dr. Smith acknowledged.

After tucking the blanket around the patient, he bent to listen to his breathing. When he straightened again, the stewardess asked, “Is he all right?”

“He’s far from all right,” Dr. Smith told her. “But he’s still alive.”

The stewardess went away again. The doctor turned to the detective. “Will you be wanting to ride along in the ambulance with us, Sergeant?”

“Naturally.”

“In his condition he won’t be running off. And there is a prison ward at City Hospital he couldn’t escape from even if he fully recovered. But it’s up to you.”

“Thanks, I’ll stick with my prisoner,” the detective said in a definite tone.

Dr. Smith shrugged. “If it is a heart attack instead of a poisoning, he probably won’t be able to be moved for at least a month. You won’t wait around all that time, will you?”

“Oh, no. I’ll leave him in the custody of the Buffalo police and come back for him when he’s again able to travel. Why are we still standing here in the aisle? Let’s sit down.”

He slid over against the window in the seat across the aisle from the unconscious man. The doctor took the aisle seat, leaving me the only one standing.

“He’ll probably be assigned as one of my patients, since I’m taking him in,” Dr. Smith said. “If you’ll give me your card, I’ll keep you abreast of his condition.”

The detective took out a wallet, searched through it and said apologetically, “I seem to be out of cards. Do you have a piece of paper?”

Searching his pockets, the doctor came up with his flight-reservation envelope and handed it to the detective. Sergeant Copeland laid it on his knee, took out a pen and began to write on it. I turned away and returned to my seat.

Diane whispered to me in an embarrassed voice, “I thought I would die when you volunteered my services. I am not a registered nurse.”

I gave her a surprised look. “You said you were.”

“No, you said I was, and I just didn’t correct you. I hated to spoil your remarkable record of deductive reasoning.”

“Oh,” I said, somewhat deflated. After a moment of silence, I said, “Well, he doesn’t need your services anyway.” Then something suddenly struck me and I sat bolt upright.

“What’s the matter?” Diane asked.

“I just watched Sergeant Copeland use a pen,” I said in a low voice. “And guess what? He writes left-handed.”

She looked at me blankly. “So?”

“So why did he have his left wrist shackled to the prisoner?”

After considering this, she said, “That is odd.”

Still in a low voice I said, “Actually we have only Sergeant Copeland’s word that he is the police officer and the other man is the prisoner.”

Diane looked startled. “What are you getting at?”

I said, “The prisoner seems pretty suntanned for a convict who has been cooped up ten years. And the sergeant is remarkably pale. You might almost say he has a prison pallor.”

In a slightly unsteady voice Diane said, “The prisoner escaped weeks ago. He could have acquired a tan. And it’s not unusual for people who work in New York City to be pale.”

“In an outside job like a cop’s?”

After a period of silence she said, “If what you’re suggesting is right, how did he ever work it?”

I pursed my lips and stared out the window at the clouds below until I had my thoughts organized. Finally I said, “Let’s assume both men are left-handed. The real Sergeant Copeland would shackle the prisoner to his right wrist because his gun was strapped to his left side. My guess is that the liquid in that bottle labeled as a sweetener is some kind of poison and that Willie somehow managed to slip it into the sergeant’s coffee. Willie simply waited until the sergeant was unconscious, then switched wallets with him, removed the man’s holster from his belt and put it on his own, then dropped the bottle of poison into the sergeant’s pocket. He unlocked the cuff from his own wrist, but left the other ring still attached, pulled the man out into the aisle and called the stewardess.”

Diane said nothing for some time, merely thinking all of this over. Eventually she said, “Why would he deliberately call the doctor’s attention to the poison?”

“Because he intends to brazen it out just as though he were Sergeant Copeland. No one in Buffalo knows what the sergeant looks like. When the patient arrives at the hospital and it is discovered he did not suffer a heart attack, but was poisoned, no suspicion will be cast on the so-called sergeant because he has already supplied an explanation. He can arrange for the Buffalo police to watch the prisoner for him until he either recovers or dies, then walk off and be halfway to Australia before anyone discovers the patient is really Sergeant Copeland.”

“Unless the patient happens to regain consciousness en route to the hospital. Or even right after they pump him out.”

“Yes, there is that possibility,” I said thoughtfully. “Our pale friend may be insisting on riding along in the ambulance in order to make sure the patient doesn’t regain consciousness. I wonder if we could get ourselves invited to ride in that ambulance too.”

“Whatever for?” Diane asked in a startled tone.

“To make sure the so-called Sergeant Copeland doesn’t have a chance to shut up the patient permanently.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler just to phone the police from the airport, tell them your suspicions and have them meet the ambulance at the hospital?”

“The patient could be dead by then,” I pointed out. “I really don’t think it will be dangerous to ride along. The man isn’t going to do anything to give himself away so long as he believes no one suspects him. And by the looks of the patient, he’s not going to wake up en route, if ever. I just think our presence would be likely to deter any lethal designs the fake sergeant has. Are you willing to go along?”

“I suppose,” she said reluctantly. “But how on earth will we get aboard the ambulance?”

“Leave that to me,” I said with confidence. “They think you’re a nurse, remember? And I never told them what I am.”

Rising, I went back to the rear. The doctor was again leaning over the unconscious man, listening to his heartbeat with his stethoscope. He put it away and resumed his seat as I approached.

“No change,” he said to his pale seatmate.

Halting, I said, “Doctor, I’m a medical student from U.C.L.A. and my companion is a registered nurse. We would be glad to ride along with you in the ambulance.”

The pale man said, “Make it a little crowded, wouldn’t it?”

“Not really,” the doctor said. “No one but the driver will be with the ambulance. There will be plenty of room.”

I don’t think the so-called Sergeant Copeland liked the idea, but he couldn’t very well overrule the doctor. He gave a resigned shrug.

The ambulance was waiting when we landed at Buffalo Airport. Over the intercom the stewardess asked all passengers to keep their seats until the patient could be unloaded. Someone brought a litter, and Dr. Smith, the pale pseudo-sergeant and I lifted the unconscious man onto it. I volunteered to take one end of the litter, the pale man whom I was convinced was Willie the Parrot Doyle took the other, the doctor went ahead and Diane trailed behind us.

A couple of uniformed airport police were standing beside the ambulance. The ambulance driver was sitting in the cab with his back to us, and didn’t even bother to get out. The rear door was already open. We loaded the litter, then the pale man introduced himself to the airport cops as Sergeant Copeland of the NYPD, introduced Dr. Smith and explained the situation. When the airport cops asked who Diane and I were, the doctor explained that we were his assistants and would be riding with him in the ambulance also.

One of the cops said, “Then I guess you’ve got a full house. One of us was going to offer to ride in with you.”

“It won’t be necessary,” Dr. Smith assured him.

We all climbed in, and the doctor pulled the door closed behind us. We all sat on an empty litter next to the patient’s, facing him, the pale man nearest the driver, then me, then Diane, and with Dr. Smith nearest the back door.

There was no partition between the cab and the rear of the ambulance, so that conversation could be carried on with the driver. Dr. Smith said, “All right, driver, we’re all in.”

The ambulance moved on, its red light blinking and its siren beginning to whine. Shortly after we pulled through the airport gate the siren cut off, though, and the reflection of the flashing red light suddenly stopped appearing alongside the road.

Diane said sharply, “Why are you turning north, driver?”

The driver made no answer. From the corners of my eyes I was conscious that Dr. Smith was unzipping his medical bag. My attention was primarily fixed on the pale man next to me, however, alert for any false move he might make.

He made one. He was staring past me at the doctor when suddenly his right hand disappeared beneath his coat, then reappeared gripping a snub-nosed.38 Detective Special.

My reaction was a hangover from hand-to-hand combat training in the army. My left hand snaked out to clamp around the cylinder, preventing the gun from firing because the cylinder could not rotate. The edge of my right palm sliced down on the man’s wrist. He emitted a yowl of pain and the gun came away in my hand.

“Thanks,” the doctor said sardonically. “I think he was beating me to the draw.”

I turned to look at him, and my jaw dropped. He was covering all of us with a.45 automatic he had taken from his bag. I gazed from it to the snub-nosed revolver I was uselessly gripping by the cylinder with my left hand. Then I looked back at the doctor.

“I don’t understand,” I said. Sergeant Copeland was flexing his right fingers and rubbing his wrist. “I do,” he growled. “I just tumbled when he started to pull that cannon from his medical bag. Dr. Smith is really Smooth Eddie Greene, and this fake heart attack was rigged as an escape plan.”

“Right,” the patient said, sitting up and removing the gun from my grip. “It was sparteine sulphate in that bottle, Sergeant. It has the temporary effect on the heart of making it beat slower, causing a slow, weak pulse. Probably wouldn’t fool a doctor, but it makes a convincing enough heart attack to fool a layman.” He looked at the fake doctor. “Why the devil did you bring along these two kids?”

“I thought some cops might be waiting to ride along, and there were. With them in tow, I had the excuse that there was no more room in the ambulance.”

Sergeant Copeland said to me, “Do you mind explaining why you disarmed me, young man?”

I said sheepishly, “I thought you were Willie the Parrot and had switched places with the real sergeant. I’m sorry.”

“What gave you that harebrained idea?” he asked curiously.

“Well, I saw you write left-handed, and you had been cuffed to the prisoner by your left wrist. Also you are so much paler than Willie. I thought it might be prison pallor.”

“I’m ambidextrous and I shoot with my right hand,” he informed me. “My pale complexion is because I’m on the homicide night trick.”

“Oh.” I said in a subdued voice.

Willie the Parrot said to the driver, “All okay back here, Jim. Have any trouble?”

“No,” the driver said. “The siren told me when the ambulance was getting close. I pulled out of the side-road and blocked the way with the panel truck just before he got there. When he stopped, I stuck a gun in his face. He’s tied up in the back of that hot panel truck. We should be switched to the sedan and be a couple of hundred miles into Canada before anybody finds him on that side-road.”

“Your kid brother Jim?” Sergeant Copeland asked Willie, jerking his head toward the driver.

“Uh-huh. We Doyles stick together.”

“What are your plans for us, Willie?”

“Well now, Sergeant, what would you do in our position?”

I felt a chill crawl along my spine. I gave Diane an apologetic look. She smiled back at me bravely, but her eyes were brimming with tears.

Willie the Parrot glanced at Smooth Eddie, saw his gun was effectively covering us, and dropped the revolver into his coat pocket. The fake doctor’s automatic rested on his knee, aimed past Diane in the general direction of me and the detective.

Diane made a sniffling noise. In a woeful voice she asked Smooth Eddie Greene, “May I get my handkerchief from my purse, please?”

“Sure, go ahead,” he said generously.

Unsnapping her purse, she dipped her hand into it and brought out a snub-nosed revolver similar to Sergeant Copeland’s. It was cocked and aimed at Smooth Eddie’s head before he could even start to react. He froze.

In a flat, matter-of-fact voice too low to be heard by the driver, she said, “If you reach for your gun, Willie, I will have to put a bullet through Eddie’s head, then shoot you. Eddie, set the safety, then very carefully hand your gun to me.”

Eddie did as directed, very carefully. Diane relayed his automatic to Sergeant Copeland, leaned over to lift the revolver from Willie the Parrot’s pocket and handed that to him also. The sergeant placed his own gun against the back of the driver’s head. “Pull over, Jim,” he ordered. “Then pass your gun back, butt first.”

Jim did as directed.

Neither Sergeant Copeland nor I made any attempt to solve the mystery of how Diane happened to be carrying a gun until all three bank robbers were thoroughly under control. The sergeant cuffed Willie the Parrot’s hands behind him, tied Smooth Eddie’s behind him with his necktie, and used Willie’s necktie on Jim, because the younger brother wasn’t wearing any. When they were all loaded into the back of the ambulance and we three were standing behind it, the detective finally looked at Diane.

“I didn’t know nurses carried guns, Miss Wharton,” he said. “Particularly on planes, where it happens to be a federal offense.”

“I’m not a nurse,” she said. “I’m a policewoman. And, as you know, the airlines encourage police officers to carry their guns on flights as an added precaution against hijackers.”

“A policewoman?” I said. “You’re a cop?”

“Yes,” she said in an oddly defensive tone. “Do you mind?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s always an advantage for a confidential investigator to have a friend on the force, and I can’t think of a nicer friend to have.”

“You may not feel that way when you learn what I did to you,” she said ruefully.

“What’s that?”

“I’ll tell you later. We’d better get our prisoners down to police headquarters now.”

“Yeah,” Sergeant Copeland said. “This is all very interesting, but let’s get moving. Can you drive this thing, Shelton?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Then take the wheel and I’ll ride guard in back. You can sit up front with him, if you want, Miss Wharton.”

She took the offer. We rode in silence for some minutes before I finally said, “What was it you did to me?”

She didn’t answer immediately, and when she did her tone was both apologetic and slightly apprehensive. “You’re going to be mad at me. I put you on a little about your deductive talent.”

“Oh? How?”

“I didn’t exactly lie, but I gave you the impression that some of your deductions were correct by not saying anything, when actually they weren’t.”

“I see. Which ones?”

“Well, I wasn’t vacationing in L.A. I was taking a summer course in criminalistics at U.C.L.A. I did spend some weekends at the beach, which is how I got my tan, but I got my nose sunburned playing tennis. Incidentally, I attended Fredonia State College, not the University of Buffalo.”

I looked sidewise in surprise. “Then why are you wearing a U. of B. ring, if I may inquire?”

“It isn’t mine,” she said, taking it off to show me the string wound around its underside to make it fit because it was too large for her. “Around here, girls wear boys’ class rings on their engagement fingers as a symbol of going steady.”

“It isn’t on your engagement finger.”

“No,” she said, replacing it on her right hand. “But it was when I left for the West Coast. He doesn’t yet know I’m not still wearing it there.”

“Oh, so your fiancé wasn’t in Los Angeles after all. You broke the engagement by long distance.”

“Not an engagement,” she corrected. “Just going steady. I had been considering ending it all summer. It started going sour even before I left for summer school, and a couple of weeks ago I decided to break it off as soon as I got back home. But I hadn’t run into anyone else out there who particularly interested me, so there wasn’t much point in removing the ring.”

“Then why did you?” I asked.

“I saw you admiring me when we were standing in line at the loading gate. I rather suspected you would like to sit beside me, and I thought seeing the ring might discourage you so I switched it to my right hand while we were waiting in line.” Her revelation that she had been laughing at me on the plane all the time I was posturing as a deductive genius hadn’t made me angry at her, as she had expected, but it had considerably deflated my ego. Her statement that some of my deductions had been incorrect was more than kind. Actually, the only thing I had gotten right was that she was from Buffalo.

Now my ego suddenly inflated again, though, with her confession that she had been as instantly attracted to me as I was to her, and her contrition at having put me on sounded sincere enough to merit forgiveness.

Perhaps I was a total flop at the art of deduction, but it looked as though I might have a promising future in the art of seduction.