Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 12, No. 60, November 1948

The Death Position Enigma by Roy Vickers

Roy Vickers has two significant detective-story creations to his everlasting credit. The wore important of the two is the Department of Dead Ends, that fascinating bureau of Scotland Yard which has proved Mr. Vickers to be the most brilliant contemporary manipulator of the “inverted.” detective story. The lesser conception is that of ethereal, saint faced Fidelity Dove, one of the most accomplished lady larcenists in the fictional history of crime... At the time we published THE DETECTIVE SHORT STORY: A BIBLIOGRAPHY (1942), we thought we had a first edition of THE EXPLOITS OF FIDELITY DOVE. As a matter of fact, we had in our collection two copies of this very scarce book, one bound in gray cloth and the second, identical in all other respects, bound in light blue cloth. On the basis of these two variants we listed the first edition as published in 1935 by George Newnes of London. There was nothing about either copy of the book that made us even remotely suspicious — they both seemed like genuine first editions. But recently we discovered a book which confirmed for the umpteenth time the utter fallibility of bibliographic data and research.

From one of our London bookscouts came an orange-cloth book clearly titled THE EXPLOITS OF FIDELITY DOVE. The volume contained twelve tales — exactly the same in number, sequence, titles, and text as the dozen stories in our gray and light-blue books of the same name. Now, however, there was one highly suspicious difference: the orange cloth was much superior in quality to the gray and light-blue cloth of the other copies — and better quality binding invariably suggests the true first edition. Moreover — and this is the astonishing revelation — the orange-bound volume was credited to an author by the name of David Durham!

A transatlantic checkup through our bookscout added further mystery: the British Museum of London had a record of the Durham book but it had no record that David Durham and Roy Vickers are one and the same person! The Durham book, however, was deposited for copyright at the British Museum in 1924 — eleven years prior to the volume signed as by Roy Vickers, thus establishing beyond doubt that the Roy Vickers edition was merely a reprint. Needless to add, our original bibliographic entry on Fidelity Dove was completely inaccurate.

Now, irrelevantly, read “The Death Position Enigma,” the newest Department of Dead Ends story by Roy Vickers, alias David Durham. “The Death Position Enigma” is another excellent example of Roy Vickers’s continuing mastery in the art of writing the “inverted” detective story.

Arnold Habershon, chartered accountant, was the kind of man you would never notice — a fussy little man, the slave of his own routine. When he dressed in the morning, he unconsciously timed his movements to those of the service maid, who was as regular as himself in her habits. He adjusted his tie as the maid left the flat. He knew that his breakfast would be waiting, and that on the table would be The Times and The Daily Record.

It was a largish flat for a man living by himself. Spare bedroom, never used, sitting-room, and dining-room.

From the doorway of the dining-room he could glimpse the headlines of The Record — a glimpse that ended his uncertainty. As usual, he turned and shut the door. Only, on this particular Monday morning, he took longer over it than usual.

In that paper, ran his unspoken thought, I shall probably find that I have made the traditional mistake that leads to the gallows. It will not be possible to take evasive action. It will be possible only to preserve one’s dignity.

When a respectable citizen of mild habits commits murder, his reactions are inevitably different from those of the crook who kill in the course of business. Remorse, however, is rare. Habershon’s sense of sin was transferred to Webber, his victim — for wantonly thrusting Habershon into the horror of committing murder. Such precautions as he had taken against discovery had been inspired less by fear than by a sort of moral duty to himself. If the precautions should fail — again, the blame must be laid at the door of the unspeakable Webber.

HOUSEHOLDER SHOT DEAD, proclaimed The Record. DEATH POSITION ENIGMA.

Death position enigma! “These fellers yell themselves into sheer meaninglessness!” snorted Habershon, and turned in disgust to The Times, where he found only a five-line paragraph. The Record carried two columns. Habershon read, at first with resignation, then with astonishment.

“That isn’t an enigma — it’s an absurdity — and a lie as well!” he exclaimed aloud.

He read on with the growing suspicion that someone else must have entered after he had left.

“But I didn’t enter by the window... Oh yes, I did! When I went back.”

In a mess of sensational verbiage, The Record had smothered a clear-cut account. On Sunday morning, a telephone linesman had called the police to Webber’s brick-built bungalow, which stood by itself on the fringe of an Essex village. A car, not that of the deceased, had left double tire tracks in the garden, from which footprints led to the window of the sitting-room. The dead man was found sitting at his writing table. The position was so unusual that the photographs taken by the police were even more descriptive than the report, more credible than the actuality.

The photographs showed a bulky man, apparently alive, leaning forward in a natural position, his left hand holding the telephone receiver to his ear, the left elbow resting on the table. The right hand was clenched, the thumb extended downwards — the right arm suspended exactly nine and one-half inches above the writing table.

Thus the illusion was complete of a man interrupted in a telephone conversation by the entry of a friend. While continuing to speak on the telephone the man signals to his friend that some joint hope has been frustrated. Or he might have been indicating some fiat object on the table. Whatever it was, the fist and the extended thumb gave an impression of great urgency.

Called on the Sunday morning, Detective Inspector Karslake certainly regarded the position of the corpse as an enigma. It made sense only if one could imagine that Webber had been suddenly frozen to death, whereas in fact he had been killed by a pistol shot. The body of a man who has been shot did not, he knew, behave as if the man had been suddenly frozen to death. The pose was so lifelike — one waited for the thumb to come down on the table! It was like one of those statues of arrested motion — the horse with one hoof perpetually poised.

“We don’t know yet whether he ever said anything on that telephone, Doctor,” said Karslake. “But we know that he lifted the receiver at around nine-thirty on Saturday night. As the receiver was not replaced, the girl sounded the buzzer but got no answer. In the morning a linesman came here and — when he saw that — called the local police.” Karslake glared at the corpse as if it were a personal insult. “Have you ever seen anything like it, Doctor?”

“Not exactly like it. But you’ve seen freak effects yourself caused by rigor mortis.”

“But it isn’t a freak effect! He was doing something. Telephoning and — look at that thumb! If he wasn’t saying ‘thumbs down’ to someone, he was jamming it hard on a bell-push or something. And there’s no bell-push. And there was no one in the house to answer a bell, and there’s no wire from this room anyway. Rigor mortis can’t set in with a bang, can it?”

“No. The time varies very considerably with the state of the body. I can’t give you the duration in this case — that’s a job for the Home Office analyst. Strictly off the record, you can take it that rigor, sufficient to support that arm, couldn’t have set in under an hour at the very soonest.”

“But you told me the body had not been moved since death!” protested Karslake.

“Correct! I can give you this starting point, Inspector. Death would not have been instantaneous. He could have lived for about seven or eight minutes after that wound. He might or might not have been conscious for several minutes. He would be able to move his arms — able to pick up the telephone, but I don’t think he would have been able to speak intelligibly.

“At the moment of death,” continued the doctor, “the left arm could have been as you see it now. But not the right arm. Definitely impossible! The right arm must have been supported.”

The doctor’s tone indicated that he could give no further help.

“What about this, sir?” asked young Rawlings, Karslake’s aide. “The murderer comes in by the window, goes out by the front door, leaving it unlocked. He has forgotten something, comes back an hour or so later and moves it from under the hand of the corpse?”

“Ah!” sighed Karslake. “You mean all we’ve got to do is arrest the murderer and ask him what he came back for. In the meantime, young feller, you go over the whole place and collect all the loose papers containing a name and address.”

The photographers and the rest of the team had completed their preliminary work. In the sitting-room they had found one set of fingerprints, not those of the deceased. There was a third set in the kitchen, later identified as those of a daily help.

When the body had been removed, Karslake made a general survey. It was a bungalow in the sense that it was a well-built house on one floor. The carpet was good: so was the furniture — good, modern stuff, not new in style but very little the worse for wear. There was a wall safe which had not been opened. In the drawer of the writing table, unlocked, were fifteen pounds. A gold cigarette case on the floor. Add thirty-odd pounds on the body of deceased and it became a reasonable inference that the motive had not been robbery.

After ensuring that the staff was usefully employed, he drove to the telephone exchange and interviewed the individual girl concerned.

“The subscriber had dialled ‘Operator’ and I answered in the pre-scribed form.” The girl spoke as if she were answering a call. “Failing to get an answer—”

“Quite so! Did you hear anything at all?”

“No. Except a typewriter.”

That was a surprise. There was no typewriter in the bungalow.

“How long did the typewriting go on?”

“Not as much as a minute.” She dropped the telephone voice. “And if it’s any help, it didn’t sound like proper typewriting. My sister’s a typist, so I know something about it.” She reflected. “It was as if someone was underlining words, only not making a single underline — you know? — putting the underline under the actual words and leaving the spaces.”

The doctor had said Webber would probably have been unable to speak. Karslake borrowed a typewriter.

“D’you mind turning your back on me?” he asked the girl. “I want to get the exact noise you heard.”

He tapped one key at random, several times.

“Well it’s the sort of noise only not the same, if you understand me.”

Karslake tapped out three short, three long, three short — the S.O.S.

“That’s it!” cried the girl. “It was exactly like that!”

He gave her fifteen tests. Each time he tapped the signal she spotted it, though it did not dawn on her that it was Morse.

The reporters did not find her until Monday morning. She gladly told her tale, and by now was able to repeat the signal, which the reporters recognized. She gave them a good story, and in return they left her out of it, knowing that otherwise she would be sacked for talking about her job.

In the afternoon editions, Arnold Habershon learned that the death position was no longer an enigma.

A portable typewriter! Habershon had never even seen a portable typewriter, except in a shop window. That Morse code nonsense too! If the police believed all that, so much the better, for it must mean that they were nowhere near the trail.

Which was true. But Habershon was blissfully unaware that a typewriter which had played no part in the case — which did not, in fact, exist was the kind of clue that could become dangerous after it had been filed — and cross-indexed under the wrong headings — in the Department of Dead Ends.

Habershon found that the typewriter incident steadied his nerve. He had been most afraid of his own absent-mindedness — of leaving something which would act as a visiting card. Obviously, he had not done so, or the police would have pounced by now, nearly forty-eight hours after the murder. Webber himself could have made no note. It was — yes — fourteen years since they had been in touch. In those years, Habershon had built up a comfortable practice as an accountant. His clients regarded his anxious fussiness as an asset. He was intelligent but slow-brained, acting almost invariably on second thoughts. In those years, he knew, he had become a little rabbit of a man. At forty-three he had the personal habits of a man thirty years older.

Suppose Webber had known he was being tracked? Suppose he had stowed away somewhere one of those notes: If I die by violence let the police look for Arnold Habershon. For instance, had Webber perhaps been aware that his car was being followed so often. Anxiously, he began to check up with his diary.

It was now April 7th, 1936. He turned back to an entry for February 15th. There was the one word Match. He wondered idly why he had used a key-word no one else would understand.

He was returning after visiting a client in the City, had stood in a doorway to light a cigarette when Webber had come out of the building. It was a shock, for he had taken for granted that Webber was still in Canada — probably in jail — and would never be heard of again. Then he had seen the brass plate Ress & Webber, Manufacturers’ Agents. He stepped into the building. Five rooms on the ground floor, which meant a very high rent. And the brass plate was not a new one. Evidently Webber had been prosperous and respectable for some years.

It had taken him a fortnight to find where Webber parked his car. Then began a long series of failures to trail the car. Habershon’s temperamental hesitancy made him a poor driver. Webber, of course, was good at anything requiring physical qualities. He began to wait for Webber along the route. The trail eventually led into Essex, where alone may be found genuine country villages within twenty miles of London. Webber’s bungalow was ideally situated for a murder, though Habershon had not consciously thought of it in those terms.

If he intended to murder Webber, Habershon concealed his intention from himself. At their last meeting, fourteen years previously, he had attacked Webber with his fists — in the curious conviction that the man who was conscious of being in the right always won. He was so right and Webber was so wrong that he was surprised when his blow was returned. Webber was six inches taller and forty pounds heavier, and Habershon had taken to his bed for three days.

“The man might attack me again!” That was the way Habershon explained to himself that he must pocket the revolver he had carried in the Kaiser’s war — a foolish act if he had intended murder, as the revolver was registered in his name.

He had turned up about nine. He ran his car into Webber’s garden and switched off the lights — odd behavior if he intended only a few minutes of unfriendly conversation. By the time he reached the front door, it had been opened.

“Good evening!” said Webber coldly, as to a stranger who has taken a liberty.

“I want to talk to you, Webber.”

“My hat, it’s Arnold Habershon! Come in, old man.”

In the hall, Habershon recognized an oak chest that had once been his own — more accurately, his wife’s. That was disconcerting.

Webber ushered him into the sitting-room. Habershon recognized the carpet, the writing table, the chairs, the cabinet. He was thrown out of his stride.

“But this is her furniture!” he exclaimed and immediately wished he had not said it.

“Yes. I managed to save it. Your moral claim is unassailable. You can have it all if you like.”

“Thanks, I don’t want it.” Slow-brained, he could not disentangle himself from the riddle of the furniture. “I was told you had sold it.”

“I pawned it. For my fare to Canada. But I was back in three months. One of my lines turned up trumps. I got a man to finance me over here — he’s my senior partner now — and we never looked back. I returned to Canada for our firm for four years — came home for good last summer. I warehoused it while I was away.” Webber was becoming genial. “You’ve done pretty well, too, haven’t you?”

Habershon let a silence hang.

“Webber, I did not come here to indulge in small talk. I came to ask certain questions. If you feel inclined to answer them, I will not inflict my society on you for any longer than is necessary.”

“I’ll answer any questions you like.” Webber’s tone was indifferent. “But I’m damn well not going to play up to that stagey stuff. Fourteen years ago! If we have to talk about it, we needn’t turn on the slow music. Have a drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Then you’ll have some coffee to show that we both intend to behave ourselves. I’ve just cooked it.”

As ever, he was glib and effective and as stupidly handsome as he had been at twenty-five.

“Very well. Thanks.” There was the coffee layout on the writing table. “The Ashwinden set!” he exclaimed.

“Yes. But I’m afraid there are only two cups left and I keep the other in the cabinet.”

Webber rose to fetch the other cup. The set had been one of the wedding presents from her father, who had designed it himself for Ashwinden’s. The pot was intact and the milk jug and the sugar bowl. He had never really liked that set. It was futuristic — a tower motif with a castellated top, broad and heavy and inappropriate. The metal lid of the milk jug would pop up on its counterpoise like a jack-in-the-box. Isobel had been very fond of it, out of affection for her father, so Habershon had made himself like it too. But he did not like it now. He was almost pleased when Webber babbled:

“By the way, that set isn’t as valuable as we all thought. I declared it at a hundred and fifty pounds, but the warehouse people refused to accept it at more than twenty. D’you take milk?”

“Yes, please.”

Webber poured, the pot in one hand, the milk jug in the other. The familiar action of the lid reminded Habershon vividly of Isobel, fanning his smouldering hatred of Webber.

Webber was facing him across the writing table, leaning forward on his left elbow.

“As you want to talk about things, Habershon, perhaps you’ll let me begin. Your making her take her furniture was a mistake. It kept reminding her that she had walked out on you — with the result that she very soon walked out on me — which was bad for all three of us.”

“Bad for you, Webber? When she left you and took that flat by herself? Before you answer, let me tell you that she wrote to me only once. While she was in that flat. Saying, among other things not complimentary to you, that she was sending you money. I have brought the letter with me. Here it is.” He stretched over the table and put it within the other’s reach. “You may read it.”

“It’s of no interest.” Webber made no move to pick up the letter. “I’ll take anything from you, Habershon. You can make out a case that I injured you by seducing your wife. The seduction element is wholly mythical, but let it stand. She did send me money. She said she wanted to pay back some of the money I had given her.”

Habershon shrugged. Webber continued:

“She had given me the furniture, verbally. I intended to look after it until she asked for it back. I didn’t regard it as mine until after she — until after her death. At that time I was darned nearly penniless — a state you’ve never experienced. And as it was true she had cleaned me out, and as she wanted to repay, I accepted the offer.”

“Knowing that she had no income? Knowing how she was getting the money to pay you? Knowing that she was driven to drugs to overcome her revulsion?”

The answer came in words which — true or not — may not be spoken of a woman to a man who has loved her.

“Revulsion my foot! You surely didn’t imagine that you were the first — by dozens!”

If Habershon had acted deliberately he would have fumbled with the gun and would almost certainly have missed his mark. He drew and fired across the table in a single instinctive movement.

He felt the sensation of being beside himself — of watching himself, and with vast approval. He put the revolver back in his pocket, went to the door, turned off the light. He swaggered across the hall, opened the front door. He was about to shut it when the light in the hall offended his mood. He left Webber’s home in darkness, banging the door behind him. A moment later he was banging the door of his car. He revved up the engine, making a din.

He drove to London in a leisurely manner, savoring life for the first time in fourteen years. He was no longer a rabbit — no longer a dried pea and a cold codfish — no longer nourishing a parched little soul on its own bitterness.

On his way through London he passed through the West End. The lights welcomed him. In Piccadilly he slowed down. A woman, young and springy, smiled at him as if he were her own age. He stopped and she got in and told him where to drive.

It was after midnight when he left her. The engine had grown cold, sputtered when he used the starter. At the second attempt it started.

“Good lord! I left Isobel’s letter on that writing table!”

Again he stood beside himself, beyond morality and beyond fear. The police would easily track him through that letter.

He must go back for it.

If the police were already in the bungalow he would be no worse off. There was not even any particular need to hurry.

As before, he ran the car into the garden, went up to the front door before he realized that he would be unable to open it. Back to the car for a tire lever with which to force an entry.

Before rummaging for the tire lever he sat on the running board, uncertain how and where he would use it. A moonbeam revealed that a window of the sitting-room had been left open for ventilation. He stepped over the flower bed and wriggled through.

His nerve faltered as he groped for the light switch. He wanted to see nothing but Isobel’s letter. He stopped groping for the switch and took out his pocket torch. He found the letter at once, snapped off the torch. He did not need it in order to reach the window.

With one leg over the sill he hesitated. The torch had shown him not only the letter but a coffee cup. The Ashwinden set. It might not be valuable, but it was an original model and the Ashwinden people probably had a record of it.

Isobel’s father — Isobel’s suicide — Webber — Isobel’s husband. He turned back. He could still manage with the torch.

Cups and saucers, two: sugar bowl: milk jug: he had some difficulty with the coffee pot and nearly knocked it over. He laid the torch on the table while he assembled the items on the tray. He would not be able to manage the tray through the window. He carried it out through the front door. This time he shut it gently.

He set the tray on the floor of the car and drove home. The garage of the block of flats was a converted stable yard, with individual lock-ups. No one saw him with the Ashwinden set.

He went to bed, slept better than he had slept for years, did not wake up until mid-day.

The block provided a seven day service. His breakfast, laid as usual, was cold and uneatable. He would have an early lunch.

“Where’s that coffee set?”

He had put it on the hall table, had gone to wash and had forgotten it.

He found it on a shelf in the kitchen. The maid had washed it up.

If he were to destroy it now, the incident would be impressed in her memory.

Detective Inspector Rason, of the Department of Dead Ends, had never seen a calculating machine in action until one morning nearly a year after the murder of Webber. He had called at a city office about lunch time and found a solitary typist manipulating one in an outer office.

Young women of all classes were apt to discover in Rason the essential qualities of an uncle, and the girl was soon enjoying herself explaining the machine. There was actually only one thing Rason wanted to know about it.

“If you were to poke it without understanding it properly, it would sound like a sort of typewriter, wouldn’t it?”

“You don’t poke it at all!” giggled the girl. “It’s quite easy. Try it if you want to.”

“Then I’ll show you something!” Rason became conspiratorial. “But it’s secret. You know what my job is. I’m trusting you.”

He dialled the Yard and asked for Karslake.

“Rason speaking. Listen a minute, please!” On the machine Rason slowly tapped out three short, three long, three short.

“All right,” said Karslake. “You’ve come out without any money. Where are you?”

“Hold that kind thought,” chirped Rason. “I’ll come along to your room this afternoon. Goo’bye!”

Rason turned back to the machine and studied the superscription. Ashwin Comptometers Ltd. He wrote the name and nearby address in his notebook. Then he called on the Ashwin Company, unscrupulously suggested that he was a potential customer and obtained advertising matter.

Karslake did not return to the Yard until three. Rason had time to turn up the dossiers of the Webber case which, after a Coroner’s verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, had come to him.

Then occurred one of those pieces of “luck” which often misled him but never surprised him.

In the inventory supplied by the Repository which had stored Webber’s furniture while he was in Canada was the item Ashwinden Set (agreed £20).

“Webber case, sir. I’ve got a line. Only one end of it so far, but it’s a line. You thought I was using a typewriter on the telephone this morning. I wasn’t! I was using a comptometer.” Misled by a movement of Karslake’s jaw, he explained: “It’s a sort of typewriter that’s very good at arithmetic. Look here! I’ve got the literature. That’ll show you the keyboard. Note the name of the firm. It’s going to be important!”

“I’m glad that’s important,” grunted Karslake. “Webber used a comptometer instead of a typewriter. And so what?”

Rason smiled indulgently.

“Here — is the inventory of Webber’s bungalow which your staff took. No mention of a comptometer! Here — is the inventory of goods stored while Webber was in Canada. That item I’ve marked with a cross.”

“AshwinDEN set!” shouted Karslake. “AshWIN comptometer!”

“Ford car — FordSON tractor!” returned Rason. “It’s probably a fancy model.”

“It’s a comptometer, is it? Then why do they list it under ‘china’?” said Karslake. “You run along and consult your niece. She’ll tell you that ‘Ashwinden set’ means a set of china made by a world famous Pottery. Ask that telephone girl whether what she heard was not a machine but somebody tapping with a teacup. Better take a box of chocolates with you.”

Rason picked up his papers and departed. Karslake, he thought, was a good man, but he always took a narrow view. After all, there might be lots of firms called Fordson of whom Henry Ford had never heard. Perhaps Mr. Ashwin had never heard of the Ashwinden Potteries. And anybody might list anything under the wrong heading.

He decided to call on the Repository people.

His official card took him straight I to the managing director, who passed him to the assessments department with instructions that he was to be given the utmost assistance. The correspondence with Webber was turned up.

“It all comes back to me now,” said the head of the department. “Webber declared the value at a hundred and fifty pounds. We communicated with the Pottery—”

“It was teacups, then?” asked Rason, crestfallen.

“A coffee set. They told us the model had been scrapped and never put into production. As such, it might have a collector’s value but not a very high one — they put it at twenty to fifty pounds.”

So that, decided Rason, was that! The comptometer was definitely out of it. Back to the typewriter. Over a cup of tea, he reminded himself that Karslake had scored heavily. With a muddled idea of salvaging his day’s work, he alarmed the waitress by tapping the cup on the saucer in a vain attempt to produce a noise like a typewriter.

While he was tidying his desk, replacing the invoices in the Webber dossier, it occurred to him that the real coffee set had, in one way, taken the place of the imaginary comptometer.

The Ashwinden set was in the Repository’s inventory and not in the police inventory!

Webber might have sold it in the interval. But Webber had no need to sell his household effects. He had died with several thousands in the bank, a share in the business, and no dependents.

Rason decided to have a chat with the woman who had cleaned Webber’s bungalow.

“I used to do his breakfast every day except Sundays,” she told Rason. “He took his other meals in London, which meant I finished my work by mid-day.” Pressed as to his coffee habits: “I never had nothing to do with that except buy the coffee for him. He made it himself — used to wash up too, making a rare mess on my sink. I suppose he thought I’d be sure to have an accident with his precious china, which I wouldn’t have, knowing he kept it in that cabinet in the sitting-room.”

“You told the police you thought there was nothing missing from the bungalow. Did you see his precious china he made all that fuss about when they let you go in on the Monday morning?”

“Well, I didn’t actually see it, not with my own eyes, since you’re that particular. But I did see that he’d opened a new packet of coffee which I’d left for him on the Saturday morning. So I nach’rally thought he must have had his coffee as usual before he met his fate, poor gentleman!”

“Was the sink in a rare mess when you saw it on the Monday morning?”

“Come to think of it — no, it wasn’t. I expect the local police washed up, knowing I’d be out of my mind with all that botheration.”

So Webber had not sold the set, nor otherwise disposed of it. Yet it had been missing. On the way back, Rason tried to work it out.

The murderer turns up with a gun and a portable typewriter, which he takes out of its case. He means to kill Webber and pinch his coffee set. He plugs Webber, thinks he’s killed him outright. He grabs the coffee set but forgets the typewriter. Webber taps out his S.O.S. on the typewriter. Before morning the murderer goes back for his typewriter — or it might after all be his comptometer — packs it in its case. If he hasn’t taken the coffee set on the first trip he takes it now. That would mean two hands employed, hindering his second getaway.

Rason was stimulated by his own nonsense. Whenever the facts proved that a desperate man was behaving like an imbecile child, it meant that one of the facts had slipped in upside down.

What was the upside-down of wanting a coffee set? You couldn’t say “not wanting it.” You had to say “wanting it not to exist.”

The next day he called at the Ashwinden Potteries.

“That set was designed for us by a man named Thane. He made a great many successful designs, but that one, I regret to say, was one of his few failures. The firm allowed him to buy it for a nominal sum. Here are the photographs and specification.”

“Very novel! Sort of Windsor Castle effect!” said Rason, meaning to be polite. “Can you give me Mr. Thane’s address?”

“He’s dead. His widow draws a pension from the firm. I could give you her address.”

Rason called on Isobel Habershon’s mother and heard the tragic story of the girl’s life and death. It was evening before he made contact with Detective Inspector Karslake.

“You were right, sir. Only it was coffee, not tea. I’m talking about the Webber case. I’ve got it all nicely buttoned up. If you’re tired, I’ll see to the arrest myself.”

“I wasn’t tired, but I am now.” Karslake demanded details. He listened with growing interest, nearly lapsed into an expression of approval.

“So you’d have made an arrest if I hadn’t stopped you! And what would you use instead of evidence?” As Rason looked glum, Karslake continued: “If he took that coffee set to destroy evidence he destroyed the evidence, meaning the coffee set. D’you think he’s keeping it in the drawing-room cabinet until you have time to call for it? Your next step, Rason, is to get Habershon’s fingerprints. If they correspond, we’ll talk to him. Here, I’d better come with you.”

In a year Habershon himself had changed a good deal. The hesitancy had become a mere mannerism. He was growing plump. The service maid returned his occasional greeting with increasing wintriness, due to her discovery of lipstick and even more definite evidence of a way of living of which she disapproved.

In the weeks that had followed the inquest his reborn courage enabled him to take stock of his position. He made a night trip to Holland for the purpose of dropping his revolver into the North Sea. When that had been accomplished he reckoned that he could deal with any questions that might be asked.

He was entertaining a fair friend in the drawing-room when Rason and Karslake called. While he was taking them into the dining-room, he had to make a definite effort of memory to marshal the items of his defense.

“I think, Mr. Habershon,” began Rason, “that you knew Francis Webber?”

“Well — er — yes. That is, I saw a lot of him at one time.”

“When did you last see him?”

“At his bungalow, round about eight o’clock on the night he was murdered.”

He had worked out that answer ten months ago. It was the opening gambit of Plan A, which dealt with routine inquiries. He saw the detectives exchange puzzled glances — which was in line with the plan. He continued:

“I did not come forward at the time as I could contribute nothing. And I had very strong reasons for remaining in the background. The fact that you have come here suggests you know that a good many years ago he eloped with my wife.”

“That was not a sufficient reason,” said Karslake severely. “We found unidentified fingerprints, which gave us a lot of trouble.”

“I’m very sorry. I was in his sitting-room for about five minutes. The prints are probably mine.”

“Very probably!” agreed Rason. “We’ll soon see.” It was Rason’s case. Karslake, though senior, produced the print-frame from his bag and instructed the excessively willing Habershon.

While Karslake was comparing Habershon’s prints with the chart of those taken in the bungalow, Rason asked:

“When you went into Webber’s sitting-room, did you notice any object that was familiar to you?”

That told Habershon that they were on the track of the Ashwinden set. Plan A of the defense assumed that the set would not be mentioned. The question brought Plan B into action — which was several points closer into the wind.

“I noticed a great many. All the furniture in the sitting-room and in the hall — I daresay throughout the bungalow — had belonged to my wife and was part of our home. It was indirectly on that account that I went to the bungalow. Please let me explain.

“I lost touch with Webber some fourteen — fifteen — years ago.” Habershon had written the explanation and memorized it last year: he must not make another slip over time. “I heard he had gone to Canada. My wife was dead and that unhappy chapter in my life was closed. In February last year Webber and I met in the City by chance. We recognized each other but did not speak.

“On April 5th when I returned home, he was waiting outside the garage here for me. He must have been waiting for hours. He told me that he still had my wife’s furniture and felt that he must return it to me if I would accept it. We were both civil, but not cordial. I said I did not want the furniture, but would like to have a certain coffee set which had personal associations. It had been designed by her father, who had been with Ashwinden Potteries.”

“Oh!” At this wholesale admission a sound like a wail came from Rason. Karslake grinned. “Go on, Mr. Habershon.”

“Webber, of course, agreed. I said I would not give him the trouble of packing it, but would collect it myself. We arranged that I should follow his car to the bungalow there and then. We arrived about eight.”

“What’s become of that coffee set?” asked Rason.

“Nothing. I have it in a cabinet in the drawing-room. I’ll get it, if you’d like to see it.”

Habershon went out, leaving the door open. Karslake spoke in an undertone.

“So far the evidence amounts to a grand total of nix! D’you remember your little piece about you making the arrest if I was too tired to help?”

From the hall came Habershon’s voice, speaking to the fair friend.

“No, no! There’s no need to go. When they’ve inspected this set, we shall have finished.”

Habershon put the set on the dining table. The coffee pot and the milk jug, looking like fragments of Windsor Castle; the sugar bowl; two surviving cups.

Rason sat down in front of it, took out the photograph and specification, to check. While doing so, he started a new line.

“You were commissioned in the Infantry in 1915, Mr. Habershon. Have you still got your revolver?”

“No — er — no!” Habershon was disconcerted. 7116 revolver had not figured even in Plan B. “I missed it years ago. I suppose it was stolen.”

Karslake had winced at the question. Rason, instead of following it up, was fooling with the coffee pot and a tape measure. Karslake cut in with his own question.

“When you were in the sitting-room, was there a typewriter on the table — or a comptometer?”

“I don’t remember noticing one.” Plan B covered that question. “I read in the papers of something of the kind being used to send a signal in Morse, but I can’t offer any suggestion.”

Rason had produced another photograph from his dispatch case.

“Take a look at that, Mr. Habershon.”

Habershon took the photograph, mounted on a millboard. He caught his breath and nearly dropped it.

It was a photograph of Webber taken after death, emphasizing the “death position enigma.”

“I confess I find that somewhat — er — nauseating!” said Habershon.

“Then keep your eye on the diagram at the side,” snapped Rason. “Note that dotted line down from the dead man’s arm to the table. That arm was standing nine and a half inches above the table in midair. Got that? Your coffee pot is exactly nine and a half inches high! You collected that set some hours after you’d shot him, Habershon.”

“I — er—”

“Shut up! Anything you say will be used in evidence against you. Not that it matters what you say now. Here’s the set-up!”

Rason leaned over the dining table, his left hand near his ear, as if holding a telephone receiver. His right arm was partly extended, the forearm resting on the castellated roof of the coffee pot.

“Thumb seven and a half inches above the table. If you measure this, Mr. Karslake, you’ll find it’s okay.”

He turned his right thumb down till the tip rested on the knob on the lid of the milk jug. Half of the metal lid sprang up on its counterpoise like a jack-in-the-box.

Rason stabbed with his thumb. Three short — three long — three short.