Calendar of Crime

The Adventure of The Medical Finger

In watching over the special interests of women since early Roman times, the queen of heaven has had more names, shapes, and identities than the notorious Sophie Lang. As Caprotina, Juno was worshiped by female slaves. As Sospita, the savior, she was invoked by women in their perils. Under titles like Cinxia, Unxia, and Pronuba she played the leading role in the ritual of marriage; as Iuno Lucina, her protection was implored by occupants of the labor stools; and on the Matronalia the married ladies with their maiden daughters met at her temple in a grove on the Esquiline and made offerings. Also, not to be sentimental about it, Juno is found represented as a war goddess—a fine recognition by the ancients that, where the fairer sex is concerned, all is not moonlight and roses. The animals sacred to her were the goose, which is silly; the peacock, which is beautiful; the cuckoo, which has a monotonous voice and lays its eggs in other birds’ nests; and the serpent, whose nature is too well-known for indictment. She is the goddess of advice and of money—of all things peculiarly interesting to women; and, of course, ever since the hapless judgment of Paris, when—as Hera—Juno was outbribed by Aphrodite, she has been the most jealous and unforgiving of the deities.

In short, Juno is all things to all women, and that is why the poet Ovid has Juno say that the month of June was named in her honor—June being the season of the year most favorable to marriages. “Prosperity to the man and happiness to the maid when married in June” was a proverb in ancient Rome. Multimillions of the sisterhood have put their maiden faith in it ever since, and the elder daughter of Richard K. Troy of Sutton Place and Palm Beach was no exception. She had always wanted a June wedding, and she got one—not quite, perhaps, as she had dreamed. But the calendar was right, she was dressed as a bride, and there was a ring; so the old saying came true, if only for a very short time.

Her father had named her Helen, for Richard K. Troy was that most dangerous of people, a practicing sentimentalist. To Mr. Troy, in the beginning was the word; and since he had an easy vocabulary and a cliché for everything, he had made his fortune in the greeting card business. His first child’s name was a sentimental inspiration of his youth, and when Helen Troy grew to be a marvelously beautiful young woman, her father was not surprised; it was simply another proof, in the whole argument of his life, of the word made flesh.

He always regretted that he had not had the foresight to perform a similar service for his younger daughter Effie, the selection of whose name he had imprudently left to his wife. Mrs. Troy had leaned heavily toward propriety; and Euphemia, the dictionary told her, signified “of good report.” Effie indeed grew up to be well spoken of, but the trouble was she entered conversations very seldom, being plain and always looking as if she were about to get down on all fours. Effie was Mr. Troy’s cross.

But Helen was the apple of his eye — “the golden apple,” he liked to say whimsically. “You’ll remember that was the real reason the Trojan War was fought, haha!” Peaceable as he was, Mr. Troy said it not without a glow; an army of young men had fought over Helen from the time she was beginning to bud above the waist, and she arrived at Junoesque maturity by stepping lightly over a battlefield littered with bloodied noses and broken hearts. Mr. Troy had a moment of uneasiness after Mrs. Troy died when Helen, the vigilant mother-eye finally lidded over, promptly trifled with the wrong kind of man. But Helen laughed and assured her father that she could handle the fellow, and Mr. Troy was fatuous enough to let the moment pass.

That was a mistake.

Victor Luz was a chunky young European with sprouting black eyebrows and really formidable hands. They were the hands of a peasant and he was ashamed of them, because his father—who was attached to one of the United Nations delegations—came from a Louvre of aristocrats and had long slim golden fingers like women’s cigaret holders. Victor had come to the United States as a college student. At Princeton he had been persuaded to put his hands to use, and as he was agile and athletic, with a naturally lethal left hook, he had no difficulty making the boxing team. But intercollegiate competition brought out the depressing fact that when he was hurt, Luz forgot the rules and became a killing animal, gouging and punching wildly low and all but using his powerful teeth. In one bout he rolled to the mat with his opponent, a bewildered junior from Rutgers, and he was disqualified and dropped from the team. But he was charming and handsome, with continental manners and a great deal of money, and he was a social success from the moment he sublet a bachelor apartment on Park Avenue after his graduation. He made rare appearances at Lake Success, where he was known vaguely to have some connection with his country’s delegation. But he was seen regularly at horse shows and hunt clubs and he was a favorite of café society—even being interviewed under his full name, which included a titular prefix, on the Stork Club television program by Sherman Billingsley himself.

Luz was introduced to the Troys by Henry Middleton Yates, who had known him at Princeton and now sold bonds for a Wall Street house. Yates had been in love with Helen Troy since his first crew cut. He was one of the warriors whose nose had been bloodied, but his heart remained intact; being a born bond salesman, Henry was undiscourageable. Long after most of his rivals had consoled themselves with lesser prizes, he was still in dogged pursuit of the Troy beauty. Helen was fond of him; he was good-natured, good-looking, comfortably manageable, and he had just the right promise of static electricity; she might in fact have married him long before if the battle had still not warmed her blood a little and... of course... her mother had approved, which she had not. Henry was aware of the two impediments to his happiness, but he was patient; he knew time would remove both of them. When Mrs. Troy died, Henry was ready. He threw Victor Luz at Helen.

Henry was a planner, and his plan depended on his knowledge of Helen and his shrewd appraisal of her state of mind. Adoration at arm’s length would not satisfy her forever, and there were signs that the Trojan wars were palling. What she needed, he reasoned, was a final passage of arms, in which her appetite for conquest would be glutted. Victor Luz, thought Henry, was just the man for the job. Luz could hardly fail to be smitten, and Helen would lead him on automatically. There was no danger that she would fall in love with him or that his name would tempt her to do something silly; Luz was too foreign for Helen’s emotional tastes and she was too sensible to sell her freedom for a title. He would amuse her for a while; then she would drop him, expecting him to accept his dismissal, as the others had done, with a broken heart but a sporting smile. What she would not know until it was too late was that Luz, when balked, forgot the rules. So he would be a bad loser, and the whole episode would end disagreeably. Henry was sure such an experience at this period in Helen’s life would drop her, finally and gratefully, into his lap.

And that was a mistake also, even though it all came to pass exactly as Henry hoped.

He brought Victor Luz to the Troy house, Luz was enchanted, Helen was interested, they began to see a great deal of each other, Luz pressed an ardent courtship, Helen played with him until her interest dribbled away, she broke it off—and Luz hung on. Helen looked at him then really for the first time. There was something alarming in the quality of his persistence, the quivering intensity of a sealed tank building up a pressure. He did not hang on like a gentleman, unobtrusively. He took to following her, threatening her escorts with violence, sending her wild notes, hounding her on the telephone, proposing suicide pacts, weeping on the garden wall outside her bedroom window, jumping out at her from doorways in broad daylight and falling at her feet. The climax came one night at El Morocco, when Luz made a scene so outrageous and humiliating that Helen fled in tears—into Henry Middleton Yates’s arms.

As far as Henry Middleton Yates was concerned, that was the end of the play. Unfortunately, Victor Luz was following a script of his own.

The morning after the scandalous scene in the night club, Richard K. Troy was peacefully finishing his decaffeinized coffee when his younger daughter, Euphemia, came in and said with unfamiliar vivacity, “Victor Luz is in the library asking for you.”

“That fellow?” said Mr. Troy, frowning. “What’s he want?”

“I don’t know, Father,” said Effie. “But he looks awfully stiff and correct. Maybe he wants to apologize for last night.”

“I suppose I ought to punch him in the nose,” said her father helplessly. “Where’s Helen?”

“She won’t see him. Anyway, she’s in the garden with Henry Yates. I’ll bet Henry would punch him in the nose!”

“I’m entirely capable of handling my children’s affairs,” said Mr. Troy, sounding the reverse; and he went to the library unhappily.

Victor Luz was seated on the edge of a chair, knees spread slightly, big hands grasping suède gloves and a Homburg over the head of a furled umbrella. His dark skin was quite yellow. He rose immediately.

“See here, Luz—” began Mr. Troy with a scowl.

“Excuse me, Mr. Troy,” said Luz, “but I call this morning for two purposes. I wish to abase myself before your daughter for having been so gauche as to make a public scene last night. But she will not see me. Therefore, sir, I address my apologies to you.”

“Well, ah, yes. Yes, I see,” said Mr. Troy.

“The second purpose of my visit is to seek your permission to ask your daughter’s hand in marriage,” said Victor Luz. “I am madly in love with Helen, Mr. Troy. I cannot—”

“—live without her. Yes, yes,” sighed Mr. Troy. “It’s surprising, though, how many of you fellows manage to survive. Mr. Luz, my only mission in life is to see my daughters happy. If Helen thinks you’d do it, it doesn’t matter what I think. Go ahead and ask her.”

“Ah, you are a great man!” cried Luz joyfully.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Troy with a grin. “I’m just passing the buck to more capable hands.”

But Luz was raptly soliloquizing, “I have spoken to her of my love, of her beauty, and so on, but the word ‘marriage’... How could she have failed to misunderstand? I’ll ask her now!”

At this moment the library door opened and the fair Helen appeared, followed by Henry Middleton Yates. Behind Henry hovered Effie, trembling.

Luz blinked as if at an unbearable radiance. He went to her swiftly, engulfing her hand. “Helen. I must speak to you!”

Helen laughed, withdrawing her hand and wiping it carefully with her handkerchief. Then she went up to her father and she said, “Dad, Henry has something to say to you.”

“Henry,” said Mr. Troy. “Oh! Oh, yes, yes.”

“I’ve asked Helen to marry me, Mr. Troy,” said Henry Middleton Yates, “and she’s said yes. Is it kappazootic with you?”

Mr. Troy looked bewildered. For a cry came from an unexpected quarter, the throat of his daughter Effie. After that single noise, Effie became silent and mousier than ever; then she scurried down the hall as if cats were after her. Helen looked thoughtful and Henry Yates blank.

It was all too much for Mr. Troy, especially since in the very next instant Henry Yates was on his back on the library floor, giving an incredible imitation of a man fighting for his life. He had been bowled over by the ninepin head of Victor Luz, and Luz now had his great hands about Henry’s throat and was banging Henry’s head against the floor. Mr. Troy was conscious of his daughter Helen making some unpleasantly shrill sounds.

“Descendant of body lice!” shouted Luz, his dark skin now magenta. “You will never have her! I will kill her first!”

Henry gurgled something indignant, and Helen whacked Luz’s head with the handle of his umbrella. Mr. Troy found himself growing strong with anger. He had always believed in the brotherhood of man, and he had supported the United Nations wholeheartedly, but this episode...!

And Mr. Troy throttled Victor Luz so vigorously that, between the grip on his throat and the blows on his head, Luz released his hold on poor Henry Yates and fell back blanched and impotent.

Helen was on her knees beside her gasping cavalier, crooning solace. Luz got to his feet, fumbling for his umbrella. He did not look at either of them.

“I said I would kill her,” he said in a bubbly voice to no one in particular, “and if she marries Yates I will.”

“But that isn’t all of it, Mr. Queen,” Mr. Troy said a month later. “When my prospective son-in-law got to his feet, he knocked the fellow kicking, and you’d have thought that would be the end of it. But it was only the beginning.”

“More threats?” said Ellery. “Or actual attempts on your daughter’s life?”

“No, no, it was the beginning of an entirely new relationship. I don’t pretend to understand young people nowadays,” said Mr. Troy, using his handkerchief. “In my day he’d have been horsewhipped or put in jail, and no amount of crawling on his—I beg your pardon, Miss Porter, is it? — but this has really got me down.”

“I don’t think we follow, Mr. Troy,” said Nikki corporately.

“Why, he no sooner recovered from Henry’s knockout than Luz was a changed man. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Sucking dove—ate humble pie as if he enjoyed it. Apologized practically on his knees. Positively embarrassed me. The next day he sent Helen a bushel of orchids with the inscription, With Best Wishes for the Coming Event, Your friend, Victor Luz — he wouldn’t go very far in the greeting card business, I’m afraid, haha! — and he sent Henry Yates a case of sixty-five-year-old cognac, and the result of all this was that within a week Helen had forgiven him and Henry was saying he wasn’t such a bad scout after all.”

“And within two weeks?” asked Ellery. “Because it’s evident it didn’t stop there.”

“You’re darned right it didn’t,” said Mr. Troy indignantly. “Within two weeks Helen had invited him to the wedding, because Luz threw a big party at the Versailles at which Helen and Henry were guests of honor and, as I understand it, the fellow spent most of the evening proposing champagne toasts to their happiness.”

“How very sweet,” said Nikki.

“Mr. Troy, I think, Nikki,” said Ellery, “detects a dry bouquet.”

“Mr. Queen, I yield to no man in lovingkindness,” said Mr. Troy earnestly, “and I’m not saying this because the fellow comes from Europe—some of my best friends are Europeans—but I tell you this particular individual isn’t to be trusted. He’d be dangerous if he were a one hundred per cent American. I consider myself a judge of character, and I saw his face when he heard that Helen was going to marry Henry Yates. There was murder there!”

“Clarence Darrow once remarked that he’d never killed anyone, but he frequently got satisfaction reading the obituary notices,” murmured Ellery. “However. You distrust this man—”

“I know his kind!”

“—and he’s to be at your daughter’s wedding—”

“He’s not only going to be at it,” howled Mr. Troy, “he’s going to be the best man!”

There was a silence.

“Oh, dear,” said Nikki. “How did he get to be that?”

“He’s stuck close to Henry ever since the fight in my library,” said Mr. Troy wildly, “and apparently he’s made Henry feel that the only way Henry can show there are no hard feelings is to let him be best man at the wedding. I’ve appealed to Helen, but she’s walking on clouds these days and she thinks it’s simply too romantic! I tell you, it’s enough to—”

“When and where is the wedding, Mr. Troy?” asked Ellery thoughtfully. “And what kind of wedding will it be?”

“Quiet, Mr. Queen, very quiet. My wife died recently and of course a big church wedding is out of the question. I wanted Helen to wait a few months, but June starts on Friday, and she insists on a June wedding—June weddings are lucky, of course—and she won’t wait another year till next June. So it’s to be at home, with a small, select guest list—immediate family and a few friends—this coming Saturday... I’d have gone to the police, Mr. Queen,” said Mr. Troy glumly, “except that... Would you consider coming to the wedding to sort of keep an eye on things?”

“I really don’t think you have much to worry about, Mr. Troy,” said Ellery with a smile, “but if it will ease your mind—”

“Thank you!”

“But wouldn’t this man Luz,” asked Nikki, “be suspicious of the presence of a complete stranger?”

“Let him!” said Mr. Troy violently.

“Mr. Troy’s right, Nikki. If Luz knows he’s being watched, he’s much less likely to try anything. If, of course,” added Ellery indulgently, “he has any such intention.”

Indulgent or not, Ellery did not wait for Saturday to make the acquaintance of Victor Luz. He set about getting to know him immediately, by remote control. In addition, Ellery confided in Inspector Queen, and the Inspector assigned Sergeant Thomas Velie of his staff to special duty, which consisted in following Mr. Luz conspicuously wherever he went. The Sergeant executed his assignment as ordered, grumbling at the affront to his professional pride. As a result, by the day of the Troy-Yates nuptials, Ellery had an approximate knowledge of Mr. Luz’s life and habits, and Mr. Luz had the certain knowledge that he was being shadowed. As for the dossier on Luz, Ellery found nothing in it of interest beyond repeated evidence that Luz had a beastly temper and went berserk occasionally, and that he came from a long line of European noblemen with a history of elegant sadism and, in the older days, refined savagery toward peasants, pour le sport. For the rest, Luz lived well and honorably on his father’s money, and his personal life was neither more nor less questionable than that of any other young Park Avenue bachelor.

Nevertheless, because he was thorough, Ellery arranged with Richard K. Troy for Sergeant Velie to attend the wedding, too.

“Acting the part of a detective,” Ellery explained.

“What d’ye mean, acting?” growled the Sergeant.

“Private detective, Sergeant, ostensibly watching the wedding presents.”

“Oh,” said Sergeant Velie; but he went to the wedding unmollified.

The June day was as rare as any bride could have yearned for. It was a garden wedding, with the high Troy walls invisible under thousands of roses and the river invisible beyond the walls. The bride’s gown was by Mainbocher, the floral decorations and bouquets were by Max Schling, the catering was by the Ritz, the presiding clergyman was a bishop, and there were no more than five dozen wedding guests. And Juno Regina smiled down from the battlements of heaven.

As far as Ellery could see, he was merely wasting an afternoon healthily. He and Velie, in striped trousers, had arrived early and they had elaborately searched the house and grounds, making sure that Mr. Luz saw them at their labors. Mr. Luz had paled slightly on seeing the heroic figure of Sergeant Velie, and he had made some remark to the bride’s father.

“Oh, detectives,” growled Mr. Troy, trying to sound careless.

Luz had bitten his lip and then, impeccable in his cutaway, he had gone upstairs to the rooms set aside for the groom. When he found Ellery at his heels, he ground his teeth. Ellery waited patiently outside the door. When Luz, after a long time, emerged with Henry Yates, Ellery followed them downstairs.

“Who the devil is that?” he heard Yates ask Luz.

“A detective, Mr. Troy said.”

“What on earth for?”

In the crowded room downstairs Ellery nodded to Sergeant Velie, and Sergeant Velie collided with Luz.

“Here, fellow! What are you doing?” cried Luz angrily.

“Pardon,” said the Sergeant; and he reported to Ellery that their man was not heeled.

Neither man took his eyes off Luz for an instant.

When the ceremony began, Ellery was in the front row of chairs, directly behind Luz. Sergeant Velie was in the doorway of the reception room off the terrace, one hand tucked under his coat in Napoleon’s classic pose.

Ellery concentrated on the best man, letting the bishop’s murmur trickle over him. It had all long since begun to seem unreal and silly. Luz stood a little behind and to the side of the groom, looking properly solemn, and quite conscious of the watchful stranger behind him. Yates’s big body was between him and Helen Troy; he could not possibly have reached her without interception. And the bride was too beautiful in her wedding gown to give credence to thoughts of death—far more beautiful than any woman there, in particular her maid of honor, who was her sister Euphemia and seemed precariously on the verge of tears. And Mr. Troy, to the side of the bride, kept his beetled glance directly on the best man, as if challenging him to violate the loveliness of the moment by so much as a thought.

Too silly for words...

“And now the ring, if you please,” the bishop was saying.

The groom turned to the best man, and the best man’s fingers automatically went to the lefthand lower pocket of his vest. They probed. They probed deeper. They stopped probing, paralyzed. A horrified titter ran through the garden. Victor Luz began to search frantically through all his pockets. The bishop glanced heavenward.

“For... for God’s sake, Victor,” whispered Henry Yates. “This is no time to gag!”

“Gag!” choked Luz. “I assure you... I could have sworn...”

“Maybe you left it in your topcoat!”

“Yes. Yes! But where...?”

Effie Troy stretched her skinny neck their way and hissed, “Your topcoat’s in the clothes closet in the upstairs hall, Victor. I put it there myself when you got here.”

“Hurry up,” groaned the groom. “Of all the idiot... Darling, I’m so sorry... Bishop, please forgive...”

“It’s quite all right, young man,” sighed the bishop.

“Won’t be a minute,” stammered Luz. “So terribly sorry...”

Ellery pinched his nose, so when Victor Luz disappeared in the reception room Sergeant Velie clumped after him.

When Luz emerged from the house Ellery quietly rose and made his way to the terrace, where the Sergeant stood waiting. Luz was advancing across the lawn holding a ring aloft shamefacedly, and everyone was smiling. He handed it to Henry Yates with careful ceremony, looking relieved. The bishop, looking martyred, resumed.

“Now if you will repeat after me...”

“What did Luz do, Sergeant?” whispered Ellery.

“Went upstairs to a hall closet, fished around in a man’s topcoat, came up with the ring—”

“That’s all he did?”

“That’s all. Just beat it back downstairs with it.”

They watched.

“It’s all over!”

“And I had to miss my Turkish bath for this.” Sergeant Velie sounded disgusted.

Ellery hurried out onto the lawn. The bride and groom were surrounded by laughing people, kissing and being kissed, shaking hands, everyone talking at once. The newly minted Mrs. Henry Middleton Yates had never looked more mythically happy, her sister Effie more realistically plain, the groom more dazedly successful, the bride’s father more puzzled and relieved. As for Luz, he had quietly congratulated the bride and groom and he was now on the edge of the crowd, smiling and saying something to the white-cheeked Effie, whose eyes were tragically on her sister’s husband. Mr. Troy was conversing animatedly with the bishop. Waiters were beginning to wheel out veritable floats of tables, others were beginning to circulate with portable bars. Two photographers were busy setting up. The sun was mild, the roses sugared the air, and a barge beyond the river wall hooted its good wishes.

Ellery shrugged. Now that Helen Troy was safely Mrs. Yates, the gyrations of the past two hours seemed infantile. He would have to see Mr. Troy...

“Darling! What’s the matter?”

The voice was the groom’s. Ellery craned. The mob around the couple had stopped milling with a curious suddenness. Mr. Troy and the bishop had turned inquiringly.

With violence, Ellery shoved through the crowd.

“Henry...” The bride was leaning against her husband. Her cheeks were chalky under the make-up. She had a hand to her eyes, as if shading them from an intolerable sun.

“What is it, dearest?… Helen!”

“Catch her!” Ellery shouted.

But the bride was already on the grass in a broken white pile, staring into the sun.

Inspector Queen was definitely a menace that day. He had an unusually bitter altercation with Dr. Prouty of the medical examiner’s office, a few searing words for the bewildered Sergeant Velie, and deathly subtemperatures for his son. Having already been exposed to absolute zero in the person of Richard K. Troy before the poor man was put to bed by his physician, Ellery was thoroughly refrigerated. He hung about the proceedings like a fugitive drip of stalactite. Effie Troy was in her room in hysterics, in care of a nurse; Henry Yates sat on a chair in the reception room vacantly, drinking brandy by the water glass and not even looking up when addressed; Victor Luz was in Troy’s library chainsmoking under the murderous eye of Sergeant Velie; there was no one to talk to, no one at all. Ellery wandered miserably about, yearning for Nikki Porter.

About the only thing everyone agreed on without argument that abrasive afternoon was that it had been the quickest June marriage in society history.

Finally, after a century, the Inspector beckoned.

“Yes, Dad!” Ellery was at his father’s side like an arrow. “Why the freezeout?”

Inspector Queen looked positively hostile.

“I still don’t know how it happened.” Ellery sounded as if he were about to cry. “She just dropped, Dad. She was dead in a few minutes.”

“Seven minutes from the time the poison was administered,” the Inspector said frigidly.

“How? She hadn’t had time to eat or drink anything!”

“Directly into the bloodstream. With this.” And the Inspector opened his fist. “And you let him!”

“Her wedding ring?”

The ring gleamed on his father’s palm. It was a plain, very broad and massive gold band.

“You can handle it. The sting’s removed.”

Ellery shook his head, then he seized the ring and scrutinized it fiercely. He looked up, incredulous.

“That’s right,” nodded the Inspector. “A poison ring. Hidden automatic spring on the inner surface of the band that ejects a hollow needle point under pressure. Like the fang of a snake. And this was loaded, brother. Right after the ceremony everybody was congratulating her, kissing her, shaking her hand... Quite a gimmick. The handshaker exerts just the right amount of pressure on the hand wearing the ring, and wham—a dead bride in seven minutes. If she felt the sting, she was too excited to call attention to it. I’ve heard of the kiss of death, but the handshake of death—that’s a new one!”

“Not so new,” muttered Ellery. “Poison rings go back at least to the time of Demosthenes. And Hannibal, who killed himself with one. But those weren’t like this. This is the anello della morte with reverse Venetian. In the medieval model the hollow point was in the bezel and scratched the person with whom the wearer of the ring was shaking hands. This one pricks the wearer.”

“Medieval. Europe.” The Inspector sounded very grim; he was an incurable softie, and the sight of the beautiful young corpse in her wedding gown under the June sun had infuriated him. “It’s an antique; I’ve had it expertized. This is the kind of cute gadget an Old World blueblood like Luz might have had in his family locker for centuries.”

“It’s also the kind of thing you might pick up in a New World Third Avenue pawnshop,” said Ellery. “Is it an exact duplicate—except for the mechanism—of the ring Yates had bought?”

“I haven’t been able to get much out of Yates, but I gather it’s not quite the same. It wouldn’t be. Yates’s ring, of course, is gone. The killer counted on the excitement and tension of the ceremony preventing Yates from noticing that the poison ring was a bit different when Luz handed it to him. Yates bought his ring two weeks ago and showed it to all of them except Helen, so the killer had plenty of time to dig up a poison ring resembling it... if he didn’t have one handy all the time.”

“When did Yates turn the regular ring over to Luz?”

“Last night. Luz claims, of course, that he knows nothing about this poison ring. He says—he says — when he went upstairs to the hall closet during the ceremony and fished around in his topcoat and felt the ring, he just took it out and hurried downstairs with it without taking a good look at it, and Velie confirms that.”

“And then he handed it to Yates, who may have palmed it,” said Ellery.

“Yates? The groom? Palmed it? I don’t—”

“Suppose Henry Yates had the poison ring concealed in his hand. Luz hands him the innocent ring, Yates palms it and puts the poison ring on Helen’s finger.”

The Inspector seemed to pop from all directions. “Are you out of your mind? That boy want to kill the girl he was marrying? And what a girl! And in such a way!”

“I don’t say he did, but you’ll find,” said Ellery, “that Helen Troy came into a wad of money the instant she got married. By the will of her mother, who had an independent fortune. And Henry Yates is, after all, merely a bond salesman—a very smart bond salesman, incidentally, or he’d never have snagged the Troy girl. And you can’t ignore the corollary fact that such a time and method of murdering his bride would give Yates the perfect fall guy... the man who handed him the ring, the man who had been rejected by the bride, the man who had actually threatened to kill her if she married Yates. Not to mention the psychological advantages to Yates in picking such a time for his crime—”

Inspector Queen said through his dentures: “You know what your trouble is, son? A degenerate imagination.”

“It’s not imagination at all. It’s logic.”

“It’s—it’s corruption!”

“And then there’s Effie Troy,” Ellery continued surgically. “Effie is hopelessly in love with Yates—a strabismic jackass could see that. And it was Effie, by her own admission, who hung Luz’s topcoat in the upper hall closet. Velie says none of the wedding guests or hired help had access to that closet, Dad. He had the staircase in view the whole time and he says only Luz and the immediate family used those stairs from the time Luz arrived at the house.”

The Inspector fixed his son with a skewering eye. “Then you don’t believe Luz did this?”

“I don’t see anything that pins it on him. There are at least two other possible theories, either of which makes more sense.”

“To you on cloud eighty-eight,” rasped his father. “To my simple brain it’s simple. Luz threatened to kill Helen Troy if she married Yates. That’s motive—”

“One motive,” said Ellery patiently.

“As best man Luz had charge of the wedding ring and had the best chance to substitute the poison ring for the real one. That’s opportunity.”

“One opportunity, and only equally as good as Effie Troy’s and Henry Yates’s,” mumbled Ellery. “Not best at all.”

“Luz shook hands with the bride right after the ceremony—”

“So did dozens of other people.”

The Inspector glared, turning an eggplant color. “If no evidence to the contrary turns up in the next twenty-four hours,” he snarled, “father of a genius or no father of a genius, I’m arresting Luz for the murder of that girl!”

It must be faced: Ellery did not shine in the Troy-Yates-Luz case. In a lesser way, that June wedding was as unlucky for him as for the bride. Not only had he failed to prevent the tragedy he had been commissioned to prevent, not only was he an honorless prophet in his own house, but he found that he had suddenly lost caste in the eyes of his secretary. Nikki was Juno’s messenger to her mortal sex; licit love and blessed betrothal had no more fanatical advocate on earth. The murder of a beautiful bride on her wedding day—more, with the first holy kiss of her husband still warm on her lips—struck Miss Porter as a more inhuman crime than the drawing and quartering of newborn babes. She was all for applying vigilante law to the monster Luz—she was positive he was a monster—and after reading the details in the Sunday paper she came to the Queen apartment, notwithstanding it was her day off, expressly to whip Mr. Queen into the proper bloodthirsty frame of mind... after telling him, of course, what she thought of his bungling.

“How could you have let it happen, Ellery?” cried Miss Porter scathingly. “Under your high-priced nose! When you were supposed to be watching!”

“Surely,” said Mr. Queen wearily, “I can be forgiven for not anticipating that somebody was going to bump her off with a wedding ring? Even geniuses—to quote a certain relative of mine—can’t be expected to think of wedding rings as dangerous weapons. We’re not living in the days of the Borgias, Nikki.” Ellery jumped up and began to walk about his cell violently. “It was diabolical. The whole body of myth and folk belief that surrounds the institution of marriage got in the way. Did you ever hear of the medical finger?”

“What an odd way to change the subject,” said Miss Porter coldly, and coloring slightly.

“It is the subject. The medical finger was what the English centuries ago called the third finger—not counting the thumb. Their leeches used that finger in stirring drugs and potions—”

“Educational,” began Nikki.

“—and it was believed that that finger was connected with the heart directly by a special nerve and that no poisonous substance could come in contact with it without giving a warning. And that’s the finger, Nikki, wedding rings are worn on.”

“And poetic,” finished Nikki, “but, considering what happened, a lot of horse malarkey, don’t you agree? And it hardly puts Victor Luz where he belongs, does it? Why isn’t he in the clink? Why did the Inspector grill poor Effie Troy and that poor, poor Henry Yates last night till all hours? What is everybody waiting for? — What’s the matter?”

For Ellery had stopped in the middle of the room, stealthy-still and staring as if he were peering into the fourth dimension and being revolted by what he saw there.

“Ellery, what’s wrong?”

Ellery came back to the solar system with an unmistakable shudder. “Wrong?” he said feebly. “Did I say anything is wrong?”

“No, but you looked—”

“Electrified, Nikki. I’m always electrified by my own stupidity. Get Dad on the phone,” he muttered. “Try headquarters. I’ve got to talk to him... God help me.”

“He’s tied up,” Nikki said when she had put the phone down. “He’ll call you back. You’re acting awfully strange, Ellery.”

Ellery backed into a chair and fumbled unseeingly for his cigarets. “Nikki, a premise of this case has been that the pressure of a handshake, exerted a certain way, was required to release the spring in the poison ring. When you shake hands with somebody, which hand do you offer?”

“Which hand do I offer?” said Nikki. “My right, of course.”

“And which hand does the other person offer?”

“His right. He has to.”

“But on which hand does a woman wear her wedding ring?”

“Her... left.”

“Merest detail, you see. Trivial. The only thing is, it solves the case and, of course, I forgot it until just now.” From his tone, Nikki expected him to produce scorpions and iron-tipped whips. “How could a normal righthanded handshake have released that poisoned needle, when the ring was on Helen’s left hand?”

“Impossible,” said Nikki excitedly. “So it wasn’t done by a handshake at all!”

“That’s not the alternative, Nikki—it had to be done by a handshake. The alternative is that, since the poisoned ring was on Helen’s left hand, it was her left hand which was shaken.”

Nikki looked blank.

“Don’t you see? In the press of people around her just after the ceremony, the murderer came up and extended his left hand, forcing Helen to extend hers.”

“So what?”

“So the murderer was lefthanded.”

Miss Porter considered this. “Come, come,” she said at last, with no respect at all. “Being a wedding ring, it had to be on her left hand, therefore the killer had to give her a lefthanded handshake, therefore he isn’t necessarily lefthanded at all.”

The master, sorely tried as he was, managed a smile. “His crime, Nikki, necessitated a lefthanded handshake. The brain is modified and restrained by the nature of the machine it runs. If a righthanded man were planning a crime that depended on the use of a hand, he’d instinctively plan a crime that depended on the use of his right hand. The very conception of a lefthanded crime indicates a lefthanded criminal.” Ellery shrugged. “When the bishop asked for the ring during the ceremony and the groom turned to his best man, his best man’s hand automatically went to the lower lefthand pocket of his vest. Had he been righthanded, he would have searched, or pretended to search, his righthand pocket, because a righthanded man—when he has a free choice of sides and there are no conditioning factors present—will automatically reach for a right-side pocket. Victor Luz automatically reached for a leftside pocket, so he’s lefthanded.

“So for once,” Ellery sighed, “logic comes to the support of a circumstantial case. Luz meant his threat, and left the ring in his topcoat deliberately to make it look later as if anyone could have switched rings, not merely himself. Dad was ri—”

The telephone rang.

“Ellery?” It was Inspector Queen’s sharp voice.

“Dad—” began Ellery, inhaling manfully.

But the Inspector said, “I told you Luz was our man. Dumb as hell, besides. We traced that poison ring to an antique shop on Madison Avenue, and when Luz was faced with the evidence he broke. I’ve just got through blotting the ink on his signed confession. All that fancy big-brain stuff about Henry Yates and Effie Troy! What did you want, Ellery?” Ellery swallowed. Then he said, “Nothing, Dad,” humbly, and hung up.