Footprints on the Ceiling

Chapter Twelve: THE LETTER

Captain Malloy met us at the door of the other house and reported, “The telephone repairman’s fixed the phone and I’ve talked to headquarters. Doc Hesse is on the way. I’ve got statements from Henderson and his wife, and Brady is busy upstairs on fingerprints.”

“Any of these other people up yet?” Gavigan asked.

“They’re dressing now, I think.”

“All right. We’ll go up. Send Quinn along. I’ll need him. And get Colonel Watrous and bring him up.”

The door to Linda’s room stood open. Brady was busy inside with his brushes, powders, and magnifying glass. Gavigan started in, but halted to watch Merlini as the latter went on down the hall and knocked at a closed door. We heard Arnold’s voice, and then the door opened, and he stepped out into the hall. He was in his shirt sleeves, tying his tie. He saw the Inspector, looked at Merlini and asked, “Police?”

I noticed again how very slightly his lips moved, almost as if he were afraid of opening his mouth.

Merlini nodded. “Inspector Gavigan — Arnold Skelton.”

“Good,” Arnold said. “How’d you manage it?”

“Sleight-of-hand and mirrors,” Merlini answered. “I want to know something. Did Linda Skelton have any large amount of life insurance?”

“Insurance? No. She had none at all. Why?”

“I just wondered. The Inspector will want to see you shortly, I think. Will you wait downstairs?” Merlini turned, left him abruptly, and came back, turning into Linda’s room. Arnold looked after him with a perplexed expression, slowly pulled his tie straight, and then, as Gavigan and I followed Merlini, went back into his room.

Gavigan closed the door. “Why were you in such a sweat with that question?”

“Tell you in a minute. Take a look at the body first.”

Gavigan went to the chair and pulled away the sheet. I’d seen all I wanted of that; so I turned away, wandered over to the bookcase that stood between the windows, and looked at the titles. There were a few novels of an average sort, but the books were largely non-fiction and on two subjects only. The mystic sciences, as I expected, were there — Spiritualism, Theosophy, Yoga — the authors all pro and very few con. The other books were technical works on the theater. I pulled out Spence’s Encyclopedia of Occultism and was looking in the index for Crystal Gazing when I heard Merlini say:

“Have Brady dust these, Inspector.” He indicated a pair of shears that lay on the dressing table. “Blades are nicked. I think they were used to cut the phone wire.” He switched on the bright lights that surrounded the mirror, ran his eye over the collection of jars and bottles, and snapped the lights off.

Gavigan said, “Do that, Brady. Try that Do Not Disturb sign on the door too, and—” He halted, his eyes fixed on the corner of the room where the inverted drinking glass hung, so curiously supported in mid-air.

“What the devil’s that?” He strode over to it suddenly and touched it with a forefinger that sent it swinging.

Merlini glanced at me with a now-we’re-in-for-it expression. “It’s a tumbler,” he said. “Upside down and suspended from the ceiling by a black thread.”

Gavigan flashed a quick look at him.

“I can see that.”

“I’m just trying to break it gently, Inspector. It’s — it’s a home-made crystal-gazing outfit.”

Gavigan hesitated perceptibly. “Oh, so?” he said, his calm elaborately studied. And then, as if it were nothing of the sort, he added, “Interesting.” He returned to the body, avoiding Merlini’s gaze. “Why’d you put her in that chair?”

Merlini smiled wryly. “Because she fitted it,” he answered. “I suspect that her body lay in that chair for several hours after death, and that rigor mortis had become complete before she was moved. She didn’t fit the chair at the other house nearly as well. Back was at an uncomfortable angle and one arm that seemed to lie along the chair arm was actually a good half inch above it, resting on nothing.”

Thoughtfully Gavigan said, “You realize that if she died here, the agoraphobia means nothing? It could be suicide?”

“Suicide?” Merlini said quickly. “Then why was the body moved?”

“So we’d think it was murder.”

“And why the nail-polish bottle and the appearance of suicide after the body was moved?”

“Alibi,” Gavigan said dryly. “The murderer knew all about Linda’s phobia, knew that an appearance of suicide in that spot wasn’t worth a damn, and figured a fake suicide would point to murder — by someone who didn’t know any better than to fake it where he did. Smart, but not smart enough.”

Merlini grinned. “We’ve heard that one before. Gail suggested it last night. But why would anyone want to make a suicide look like murder? Give two reasons.”

“Two? I’ll give you one. Insurance — beneficiary wants to collect—” Gavigan stopped short, remembering. “Oh. So that’s it?”

“Yes,” Merlini said, a faintly impudent smile on his face. “I’m afraid that’s it. Linda had no insurance. And unless you can suggest a second reason — which I can’t — there was no motive for anyone to try and palm off suicide as murder. Leaving two possibilities. Murder by someone who faked the suicide because he wasn’t aware of Linda’s phobia. Or murder by someone who did know about the phobia and hoped the faked suicide would indicate someone who didn’t know. In any case, murder—not suicide.”

“And,” Gavigan said, a trifle glumly but apparently agreeing, “we don’t know how much our vanishing man knew.” Then he added with some vehemence, “But, if it’s that last, then someone has been too smart for his pants.”

Brady, who was kneeling near the chair in which the body lay, got to his feet and said, “Wish you’d take a look at this, Inspector.” He pointed at the top of the small end table. “There are some fairly good prints on the sign,” he went on as Gavigan crossed the room. “I won’t take the prints off the body until Hesse is through, but I think they’re all hers; I looked at her hands. The shears are clean. Wiped, I think. But this—”

He frowned thoughtfully.

The Inspector looked down at the pad of note paper on the table. The top sheet, near its upper edge, bore some aimless pencil scrawls, meaningless spirals and zigzags like the primary penmanship exercises children are given when being taught to write. Gavigan’s attention jumped from that to the broken pencil on the floor. He picked up the two halves and fitted them together as Merlini had done before.

Brady said, “No. I don’t mean that. Look at the table top. Here, take the glass.”

Gavigan followed instructions.

“Well, you’ve been dusting for prints, but I don’t see any. What—”

“I haven’t dusted there yet. And besides, that’s graphite. I’ve been using the regular black powder and the aluminum and antimony.”

Gavigan looked quickly at the pencil in his hands and then at the scrawls on the pad. The inconsistency was obvious. The penciled marks on the paper had been made with a sharp point. And the pencil had no point at all. The Inspector wheeled to face Merlini. “This point’s been sanded completely off, clear down to the wood, and the graphite used to dust that table top for prints. Damn it! Don’t you know any better — Was the pencil broken when you found it, or did you do that too?”

Merlini took the glass from Gavigan’s hand and looked for himself. “Not guilty on either count,” he said. “Looks as if there were another amateur detective in the woodpile.”

“I don’t think he was dusting the table top,” Brady said. “You spray or sift the dust on and then brush it off. If there’s a print, the grease holds some of the dust and shows up the whorls. The graphite is sprinkled about unevenly and hasn’t been brushed. I’d say someone dusted something else, and the table, underneath, caught the brushed-off dust.”

There was a knock at the door while Brady was speaking. Gavigan waited until he finished, frowned a moment over his deduction, and then, turning, called, “Come!”

Malloy entered with Colonel Watrous and Detective Quinn. The Colonel’s precise pouter-pigeon dignity was fastidiously clothed, as always. The pin-stripe trousers were sharply pressed, the pearl stickpin exactly centered in the neat four-in-hand, and the handkerchief tucked carefully in his cuff. But the prim out-of-the-bandbox appearance was somewhat marred this morning by the adhesive and gauze bandage on his head and by the slightly rocky morning-after look on his face. Nor had he quite regained his customary, talkative, impresario manner. In what was for him a subdued, colorless tone, he said, “Good morning, Inspector.”

Gavigan nodded without enthusiasm.

“You again, eh?”

“Afraid so.” Watrous was apologetic. “Sorry there are always bodies around when we meet. I’d like to meet you sometime when you’re off duty!”

Inspector Gavigan nodded somewhat ungraciously in reply, skipped further preliminaries, and got straight down to business.

“What are you doing out here?”

Quinn opened his notebook.

Watrous sat on the edge of the bed. “I wrote Miss Skelton some weeks ago asking permission to investigate the haunted house. She replied, asking me to come and see her and requesting that I bring Madame Rappourt, whom she wanted very much to meet. When we came she invited — insisted, almost — that we stay on for a while as her guests. We found that she was greatly interested in psychic matters. She had read several of my books and was particularly interested in Madame Rappourt’s mediumship and in the Psychical Research Laboratories for which I am making plans.”

“You accepted, then?”

“Madame Rappourt did — for both of us. I wasn’t too keen on it at first because she put me off on the matter of the haunted house. She hadn’t promised to let me see it in her reply, but I had assumed that the invitation indicated assent. However, since Eva wanted to accept, I stayed on hoping that Miss Skelton would finally give me her permission.”

“When was this?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“You had not met Miss Skelton previously?”

“Neither of us had, though Rappourt discovered that she had met Floyd. She invested some insurance money, against my advice, in the Carribean Salvage Corp. Floyd was one of the other investors.”

“Treasure-hunting outfit? She lose it?”

“Yes. They were after some Spanish galleons off Florida somewhere, but the company folded without paying any dividends. I suspect it was a swindle.”

“Thought she was a clairvoyant.” The Inspector was more than faintly sarcastic. Then, with one of his abrupt changes of subject: “What was everyone on this island doing yesterday from noon on, Colonel? As far as you know?”

“I can’t help you much there, I’m afraid. I went in to town at eleven in the morning and did not return until six.”

“You went to ask Merlini to come out and trip up your friend, Rappourt?” Gavigan’s doubt was frank.

The Colonel turned to Merlini. “He had to know that, I suppose. But is he going to tell Rappourt? If she suspects that I am doubtful of her — I–I may never have a chance to settle it one way or the other. It’s important to me. I—”

“Murder, Colonel,” Gavigan interposed heavily, “is more important than whether Rappourt’s been shaking the tambourines with her feet. Why did you call Merlini in? I thought you were so damned sure she was genuine? Last time we met you nearly had a fit when I hinted she might be phony.”

“I did believe her phenomena genuine,” Watrous said slowly. “I still do. There’s no real evidence yet to the contrary.”

“But you had doubts enough to make you call Merlini?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Those slate messages what worried you, maybe?”

Watrous hesitated slightly before he replied. “Yes. I don’t know why, but—” He shrugged vaguely.

“Would it have anything to do with the fact that the subject of the messages concerns—$8,000,000?”

“Oh,” he said, not as startled as I thought he’d be, “you know about that?”

“Yes. Why haven’t you mentioned it?”

“I thought it might come better from Rappourt and Floyd and the others. It’s their secret.”

“They have no salvage permit but were going to dive for it anyway?”

Watrous nodded.

“And you don’t think the wreck is where Rappourt’s spooks say it is?”

“I don’t know, Inspector. Floyd, who’s an authority on such things, seems satisfied, as does Brooke.”

“I see. He’d know about such things, too, would he? What is it he invents that he won’t talk about?”

“Submarine salvage apparatus. He’s working on something new, an underwater suction device — a vacuum-cleaner affair which he says can clear away the silt over the wreck and allow divers to get at it.”

Merlini, browsing among Linda’s books, asked, “That what he works on out on the houseboat all the time?”

“Yes.”

“He finished it yet?”

“Oh, no. He’s been completing his final drawings and working on a scale model.”

Merlini nodded but offered no further questions; and Gavigan resumed, on a new tack. “When you went in to town, Colonel — Henderson take you?”

“Yes.”

“And you returned at six o’clock with Lamb?”

“That’s right. Henderson always makes a six o’clock trip, picking up anyone who is in town and getting them back in time for dinner.”

“You were with Merlini for an hour or so at noon. What’d you do the rest of the time?”

“I spent the afternoon at the Psychical Research Society Library on 54th Street.”

“Librarian corroborate that?”

“Yes. Mr. Porter Welch.”

“You didn’t see Miss Skelton after you had returned?”

Watrous shook his head. “I saw her only once all day. She was talking to Lamb in the living-room as I went out at eleven to go to the boathouse. The Do Not Disturb card was on her door when I returned. I noticed it when I went up to my room to dress for dinner. Her absence was mentioned at dinner, but no one thought it unusual, though Rappourt seemed worried for fear Linda wouldn’t appear for the séance.”

“And after dinner?”

“Miss Verrill came in shortly after we had left the table, and all of us — except Arnold — sat about talking, until nine o’clock, when I pleaded a headache and excused myself, going to my room.”

“So you could sneak out your window and meet Merlini?”

The Colonel drew himself up, some of his formal dignity returning. “No,” he said indignantly. “So that I could let Merlini in when he arrived. I did go out, however, when I saw a light up in the old house. I thought that a bit odd, if as I had been told, the house was always locked.”

Casually Gavigan asked, “You’ve never been in that house before you went in with Merlini last night?”

The Colonel adjusted his pince-nez with a nervous hand.

“No,” he said emphatically. “I have not.”

Gavigan’s sharp eyes were on the Colonel as he took out a handkerchief and, holding it in his palm, carefully unfolded the corners to expose the gold cigarette lighter.

The Colonel gazed, fascinated, and his head bobbed slowly in a mechanical nod, his face gray. “I thought that would be what you were coming to,” he said in a small voice. He sat suddenly on the edge of the bed as if his knees were weak.

He looked up at Merlini. “You took it from my pocket last night, didn’t you?”

Gavigan said harshly, “You admit you picked it out of that fire last night, then?”

“Yes. I can’t very well do anything else, can I?”

“No. But you’d like to. Why?”

“I–I guess I was excited. I was afraid you’d suspect the owner of the lighter of having set the fire.”

“I see. How do you know he didn’t?”

“The lighter”—Watrous moistened his lips—“happens to be mine.” He faltered a bit, took a grip on himself, and then talked rapidly. “I’m afraid I got the wind up. We discover Linda’s body and a moment later I find my lighter there in that fire.… I — well, I think anyone’s natural reaction would be to — to hide it until he’d had time to think it over.”

“You’ve had all night to think it over,” Gavigan said. “What’s the answer?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to accuse anyone — though I would like to know if my lighter was used merely because it happened to be handy — or because it was my lighter.

If I thought it was the latter—”

“Stop stalling. Let’s have it.”

The Colonel crumbled before the Inspector’s insisting roar. “It disappeared from my room,” he said, “night before last. It was on my dressing table when I was dressing for dinner. I’d taken it out of the suit I’d worn in the afternoon and put it there with my keys and change. When I started to transfer the articles to my pocket again — the lighter was gone.”

“It didn’t just vanish. What happened?”

“I — well, I didn’t actually see him take it — but—”

“Who? Get on with it!”

Watrous said somewhat doubtfully:

“Floyd Skelton stopped in and talked to me while I was dressing.”

“You’ll swear it was there before he came in and that it was gone afterward?”

“Yes. I think so — yes.”

“Well,” Gavigan flared angrily, “make up your mind.”

Watrous coughed nervously; then more deliberately, said, “He took it. He must have. But I couldn’t swear to that in court. I didn’t actually see him take it.”

Gavigan threw an inquisitive glance toward Merlini, which got no response.

“All right, Colonel. You can go.”

Watrous got up quickly. “Thank you.” At the doorway, he turned. “And I would appreciate it if you’d not find it necessary to tell Madame Rappourt of my suspicions. It will—”

Gavigan was obviously not listening. Watrous stopped, frowned, and went out.

The Inspector scowled at Merlini. “Well, what do you think of that?”

“It’s like a lot of things that go on around here,” Merlini answered. “It makes me anxious to meet brother Floyd.”

“You’ll get the chance, or I’ll know why not,” Gavigan growled. “Malloy, get Arnold in here.”

His eye rested on the body. “No, not here. One of the other rooms.”

“Floyd’s,” Merlini suggested. “Across the hall.”

The Inspector nodded and started in that direction. “I don’t know how many blasted mystery men were running about on this island last night,” he said over his shoulder, “but I’ll bet Floyd was one of them.” He stopped short just within the room as he saw the wall decorations, grunted a bit incredulously, and then, as we followed him in, began duplicating Merlini’s snooping actions of the night before. He was looking in the wardrobe at what the well-dressed man should wear when Grimm, to whom Malloy had relayed the order, brought Arnold in.

Arnold’s face still had that pale look and now seemed drawn and nervous. He carried an unlighted pipe in his hands; and his fingers fussed with it absently, tamping the tobacco down in the bowl. He was wearing brown checked slacks and a brown pullover sweater.

Gavigan indicated a chair.

Arnold shook his head.

Gavigan asked, “You saw your sister last at lunch time yesterday?”

“That’s right.”

“Where were you all afternoon?”

“In the basement. I have a workshop down there. I went there directly after lunch and didn’t come up until just before dinner. I met Watrous and Lamb as they came in from the boathouse, arriving from town.”

“That sign hung on your sister’s door then?”

“Yes.”

“And after dinner?”

“Basement again. Until just before the séance began. I came up for that. Rather got the impression Rappourt didn’t want me in on it. So I made it a point to sit in.”

“Time?”

“Shortly before 9:30. Sigrid, Rappourt, and Lamb were there. I didn’t see the Colonel. Sigrid told me then that you”—he looked at Merlini—“were coming and that Watrous was going to sneak you in. I thought the fireworks should be interesting. Ira arrived at quarter to ten; and then, though Rappourt seemed considerably upset because there was no sign of Linda — I rather got the impression the hocus-pocus was largely for her benefit — she decided to start anyway.”

“Hocus-pocus? Rappourt’s a fraud?”

Arnold raised an eyebrow.

“Naturally.”

“Prove it?”

“That’s the rub. All I know is that the dead don’t come back. It’s a contradiction in terms. Anyone who says they do is either a liar or a damn fool. And Rappourt’s no fool. She’s too clever by half. I don’t understand those conjuring tricks of hers, but they’re not supernatural — there ain’t no sech animal.”

“Your sister thought so.”

“Yes.” He smiled cynically. “Lamb, Brooke, and Watrous go for it, too. In the damned-fool category, I should say. And Floyd also, for that matter. Somehow I never expected him to go psychic on us. Sigrid and myself seem to be the only sane ones in the booby hatch. Linda’s had a loose rocker on that subject all along.”

“She was your half sister and Floyd’s?” Gavigan asked.

“Yes. Daniel Skelton — that’s father — married again after Mother died. Sister of Sigrid’s father. Daniel was an opinionated old so-and-so. Family trait. Floyd and I didn’t get along with him too well — pigheaded ourselves, I guess. He felt sorry for little Linda with her mental quirks, so much so that he left her the whole damned Skelton fortune — except for a few thousand apiece to Floyd and myself. Pin money. You’d think a couple of million would do for three, but the old man said that we were boys, and could look out for ourselves. Linda was a girl, and ill, and couldn’t. I’ve always suspected one of her mediums of talking him into that. He was a pushover for spooks, too.”

“Not Rappourt, eh?”

“No. That was just before he died, in ’21 during that table-tipping — ouija craze. But I think Rappourt’s up to something similar.”

“What does that mean?”

“That Rappourt’s been trying to get Linda to change her will so that a nice big slice is diverted to some spiritualistic cause. In Rappourt’s name probably. Usual racket.”

“As far as you know, that hasn’t happened?”

“I haven’t seen Linda’s lawyer out here. And I’ve kept my eyes open.”

Merlini, who now sat on the bed, idly manipulating a deck of cards, put in, “And what does happen to the inheritance?”

Arnold’s laugh had no humor in it. “That’s a good one, too. But you can’t say she was murdered for her money. Floyd and I don’t see any of it. Whole thing goes, lock, stock, and barrel to Sigrid. Linda’s practical jokes always were crude.”

“Sigrid’s not a possibility, then?”

Arnold frowned at Merlini in a startled way. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “She wouldn’t murder anyone, and you know it. Only person that really got along with Linda, anyway.”

“Floyd knows about the will provisions, too?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Sigrid?”

Arnold said emphatically, “No. I’m sure she hadn’t the slightest idea! You see, I don’t think Linda ever really intended to leave the will that way. If she had, she wouldn’t have told us. She was just being nasty. Result of her phobia. She was eaten up with jealousy because Floyd and I could go where we liked and she couldn’t. Gail will tell you that that’s a common agoraphobic symptom. Human nature gets a bit curdled under those conditions. Sorry if I sound a bit rough on her, but she was no fun to live with.”

“Why did you, then?”

“She had the money. As long as we hung around and acted like good little ‘Yes men’ she’d dole out some of it.”

Gavigan said quietly, “Can you suggest other motives?”

“Other motives?”

“Yes. You and Floyd didn’t like her much and Sigrid gets the money. Those are motives.”

“But you’re not serious?” he asked a bit shakily. “I thought it was fairly obvious that whoever killed her couldn’t have known about her phobia. No one that did would have faked a suicide up — up there where you found her.”

Gavigan didn’t comment on that. He spoke quickly and loudly, trying, I think, to break up the silence that threatened to fall on us, before Arnold should become aware of it.

“There wouldn’t be a motive in this treasure hunt would there? Eight million dollars is quite a bit to be lying around loose, waiting for the first finder.”

Arnold smiled. “It’s hardly doing that, Inspector. It’s been there over 150 years and no secret about it. But that’s hardly a motive. Linda was thinking about underwriting the salvage. Why kill the goose that’s about to lay the golden eggs? No, I don’t think so. There must have been someone on this island yesterday who didn’t belong here. You aren’t forgetting the man in the motorboat, are you?”

“No,” Gavigan said, “I’m not. She was going to put up the cash for Brooke’s apparatus. That it?”

“Yes.”

“And just how did this Hussar business start?”

“Floyd,” Arnold said. “His pet theory. He was in the Navy during ’17 and ’18. Submarine service. He did some diving, though not a lot. He was too heavy, or something. But, with his interest in treasure lore, that particular subject has a fascination. Anyway, he knows a good bit about it from actual experience and a lot more from research. He’s been fooling around with an echo-sounding device, and he found a hulk on the river bottom that he thinks is the Hussar.”

Arnold stepped toward the dresser and pointed up at a Geodetic Survey chart tacked above it on the wall. “His theory is that the Hussar, which sank about here—” Arnold indicated the spot off 134th Street which the doctor had said was correct—“has evaded all recent searching parties because its hulk has shifted. Sounded all right to listen to. I wouldn’t know. He has the tidal currents all checked and mapped out. Notice the odd conformation of Skelton Island and the submarine sinkhole indicated by the depth markings inside the small peninsula on the west shore. Floyd says that sometime in the last 50 years the wreck was swept clean of silt, due to current changes caused by near-by dredging and blasting in the channel. She was then shifted by the natural action of the tidal currents and moved gradually outward, until, on her way toward the Sound, she was scooped up by the arm of the island, and settled into the sinkhole. He says the measurements he’s taken of the hulk with the echo sounder fit those of the Hussar.”

“I see,” Gavigan said. “The theory is based on something more than spirit messages, then?”

“Yes. Captain Pole’s information from the astral plane or something is supplemental; and, though Floyd says it all checks, that’s where I get off. Rappourt and Watrous wander out here one day, get invited to stay, and before you can say ‘Fraud,’ she’s suddenly contacted the Hussar’s captain and is fishing spirit messages out of the beyond that give depth readings and nice neat instructions for salvaging. Mere coincidence, of course.”

“Where does Lamb fit in?”

“Floyd picked him up in some night club. He came out here with the screwy idea of buying the upper half of the island from Linda. Thought, since she never used it, she might sell. He’d like to tear down the old house and build there. Got an island complex, I guess. Linda rather fell for him; so maybe his idea wasn’t as screwy as I thought. Anyway, she invited him to stay while she thought it over, and then when the séances started, he got interested. Whether it was the spooks or the possibility of fishing up $8,000,000, I don’t know.”

“He looks as if he had money.”

“Yes. Acts like it, too. But they always want more, don’t they? His type.”

“Who is he?”

Arnold shrugged. Better ask him. He shies at the subject. Insists vaguely he’s a retired broker, but no details. Maybe the Exchange Commission kicked him out. I shouldn’t wonder.”

“You sleep pretty soundly?” Gavigan’s sudden change of tack startled Arnold.

“I — why, yes. I do. How did you know?”

I thought I detected a hint of tenseness in Arnold’s easy nonchalant attitude. He stood, suddenly, just a little too still.

“You got a good night’s sleep last night in spite of what had happened?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I did.” Arnold frowned. “That doesn’t condemn me, does it? I’ve told you there wasn’t a lot of love lost between Linda and myself.”

“You heard nothing unusual during the night?”

“No. Should I have? What happened?”

“You’ll hear later. That’s all at the moment, unless—” Gavigan looked at Merlini, who had stepped toward Arnold.

Merlini did have a question this time. “Arnold, did Linda always keep the old house locked up?”

“Yes. I haven’t been inside in years. Reporters used to come out now and then wanting a look. She always ran them off.”

“Where did she keep the keys?”

“In the wall safe in her bedroom. Behind that Bakst drawing on the wall. And a fine time we’ll have getting at them, or anything else. She wouldn’t trust anyone with the combination, not even her lawyer.”

All Merlini said to that was, “Um.”

Hunter put his head in at the door and asked, “See you a minute, Inspector?”

“Yes. Come in. Malloy, you ring headquarters. The instant they turn anything up on Floyd I want to hear about it. That’ll be all, Mr. Skelton.”

He waited until Arnold had gone. “Just a minute, Hunter. Merlini, let’s see that will.”

Merlini produced it and passed it over. “Arnold’s right,” he said, “Sigrid gets the money — all of it.”

As Gavigan scanned the paper hastily, Merlini turned up the top card of his deck — the Queen of Hearts. He looked at it absently and buried it deep in the deck. He flicked the deck lightly with his forefinger, turned up the top card again, and found — the Queen of Hearts. He repeated the action once more with the same result, and then murmured, “Arnold wasn’t too convincing about his undisturbed slumber.”

Gavigan folded the will. “No, he wasn’t.” He turned to the waiting Hunter.

“Yes?”

“There’s a Mr. Novak and a couple of assistants downstairs. Says he’s a diver from the Submarine Salvage Company. They’re asking to see Mr. Lamb. He hired them yesterday to come out and make a diving survey.”

“Good,” Merlini said at once. “Send them out to the houseboat and tell them to go to it. We want a report of what’s on the bottom just under that houseboat, and, if they can locate them, a report on the present state of those boats that sank last night.”

Hunter looked at Gavigan, and the latter nodded assent. Then Hunter said, “There’s something else.” He handed a letter to the Inspector. “Henderson made his morning trip in for mail. I looked it over. The rest was all magazines and bills, but this might be important. Henderson says Miss Skelton never got much mail at all.”

Gavigan held it gingerly, at his fingertips, and examined all sides. It was a plain white envelope bearing a special delivery stamp and the typewritten address: Miss Linda Skelton, Skelton Island, New York. On the back of the envelope I saw a dirty smudge that looked like the dusty imprint of a man’s rubber heel. Gavigan regarded it uneasily for a moment, then said, “Dime store stationery, which is no help.”

He stepped over to one of the curio cases, lifted the glass top, and drew out a knife with a carved bone handle and a thin, two-edged blade. He inserted it under the envelope’s flap and slit it neatly.

The single sheet of notepaper inside, when opened put, revealed this message:

Merlini reached out a long arm and picked up the envelope.

Gavigan, watching him, said glumly, “The postmark reads, ‘Buffalo, April 14, 10:30 p. m.’ ”

“Last night,” Merlini said. “Yes. Floyd appears to have a nice neat alibi.”