Footprints on the Ceiling

Chapter Thirteen: THIRTY DEADLY POISONS

“Malloy,” Inspector Gavigan ordered impatiently, “get headquarters to work on this at once. I want action at Buffalo and Chicago. I want Floyd Skelton in a hurry!”

Malloy nodded. “And I’ll find out if Arnold knows who Floyd might be after in Chicago.” He turned to Merlini. “That letter’s no alibi for the murder, though. If rigor was complete when the body was found at ten, she must have been dead long enough for him to have made Buffalo by plane.”

Merlini was still examining the envelope. “Yes,” he replied, “though Buffalo would seem to indicate a train. It’s not on the shortest plane route to Chicago. And, in any case, Floyd couldn’t have been either Mr. X, Y, or Z and have mailed that in Buffalo — not even if he went by rocket plane.”

“I’ll check on planes just the same,” Malloy said, starting out. As he opened the hall door he said, “Oh, hello, Doc.”

“Morning.” Dr. Hesse bustled in, took his cigar from his mouth and added, “Where’s the body?”

“Across the hall,” Gavigan said. “Malloy will show you. She was alive as late at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, rigor was complete at 10 last night, and the body’s been moved, probably twice. From here up to the other end of the island and back.”

“I get it,” Hesse said, wrinkling his nose. “Body moved all over the place; you don’t call me for nine or ten hours after death, and you want to know the time of death. Why bother me? Merlini’s the staff magician.”

“Save it, Doc. You wouldn’t be happy without something to growl about. If it’ll help any, there was an M.D. on deck when the body was found. Hunter, you send Gail up.”

“William Gail?” Hesse asked.

“You know him?”

“No. But I’ve read some of his papers in the psychology journals. Knows his subject.”

Hesse and Malloy left, going across the hall. Hunter went downstairs. Gavigan handed the letter to Brady. “You check with Arnold on that signature. Find out if he’s sure it’s Floyd’s. Then go over the letter and envelope for prints. Grimm, you go up to the other house and get tracings of those footprints. As soon as all these people are out of their rooms, go through them and see if you can turn up any shoes that fit. You might begin with this wardrobe here.”

Merlini, seated on the bed, shuffled his cards and began dealing them out on the counterpane into five neat piles. As Grimm left, he murmured softly, “Somebody killed our Linda, and then went away out the winda. Easy as pie for a human fly, contortionist, bird, or a Hindu.”

“Well, which was it?” The Inspector said threateningly,

“You’ve got an idea. Spill it.”

“I’ve just remembered,” Merlini said slowly, “that Houdini—”

The door opened, and Dr. Gail came in. Merlini grinned, and continued silently dealing his cards. Gavigan, in a harassed voice, growled, “Sit down!”

Gail, surprised, sat.

“Your movements for yesterday afternoon, please,” Gavigan barked.

Gail replied promptly, giving the information in a crisp, clinical tone as if it were a prescription. “Polyclinic Hospital all morning. Check with the psychiatry department. Office in the afternoon. Phone my secretary: Park 8-8765. She can also give you a list of patients I saw there during the afternoon. At 5:30 Miss Verrill met me at my office, and we had dinner at the Plaza. I put her in a taxi shortly before 8:30 and returned to my office, where I worked until 10. Then I came out here.”

“Your secretary work all evening, too?”

“No. You have me there. But the driver of the water taxi that docks at 44th Street will tell you I got aboard at 10 and that he landed me here 10 minutes later.”

“What time did you go in yesterday morning?”

“I didn’t. I only come out here week-ends. Friday nights until Monday morning, usually.”

“It’s your opinion Linda Skelton was carried up to that house after death because she couldn’t have gone there alive?”

Dr. Gail nodded, and at Gavigan’s insistence repeated his testimony Concerning agoraphobes and their habits, which Merlini and I had already heard.

“And with all that,” the Inspector said when he had finished, “you wouldn’t certify her as insane?”

“No,” replied Gail quickly. “She was abnormal, yes, but — but not dangerous. Besides, removal to a sanatorium or asylum wouldn’t have been feasible. You’d have had to bring it to her.”

Gavigan thought a moment. “All right,” he said. “That’s all. The medical examiner is looking at the body. Will you go in there? He’d like to see you.”

Gail started out; and Merlini, who had finished dealing poker hands to himself and four imaginary opponents, said, “Wait.” He turned the hands face up to reveal a dreamlike assortment of straights, flushes, and full houses. His own hand turned out to be a nice, neat, ace-high royal flush in spades.

“Are you Arnold’s doctor too?” he asked, gathering up the cards with practiced movements.

I wasn’t sure if the startled expression on Gail’s face concerned the poker hands or Merlini’s question.

“No,” he said shortly. “I am not.”

“Do you know who is?”

“No.”

The cards in Merlini’s right hand sprang out through space in a long flutter and were gathered as they came in his left.

“But perhaps you can tell me what is wrong with his face?”

Gail shook his head at once. “No. I can’t.”

Merlini gave him a quick look and said very casually, “Can’t or won’t?”

Gail made no reply for a moment. Then he smiled humorlessly and said slowly and distinctly, “ ‘I think I said, ‘can’t.’ ”

The cards fluttered again. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

Gail turned on his heel and went out quickly.

Gavigan addressed Brady, who had returned a moment before. “Floyd’s writing?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Start on the letter. Quinn, you get Brooke.” Gavigan eyed Merlini. “What do you think is wrong with his face?”

“I don’t know, Inspector. That’s why I asked. He’s wearing make-up — even on his hands. It conceals something. We’ll give Hesse a look at him. Might not be important, but I’m curious. Have you seen this one?”

He exhibited the ace of spades on the face of the deck and passed his hand briefly across it. It changed, with all the ease of a trick motion-picture, into the eight of spades, and then, as if not satisfied, into a card I’d love to draw in a poker game, the fifteen of spades! Another pass wiped the spots away completely. He turned it over, made the blue back red, and dealt it face down on the bed.

Gavigan said, “I’d like to try that.” He held out his hands for the cards.

Merlini and I looked at him, astonished. Merlini said, “Of course,” and passed him the deck. “Better take this, too,” he added picking up the card on the bed and turning it over. The blank face now bore a drawing of a top hat complete with rabbit, Merlini’s signature, address, and phone number!

Gavigan quite flatly and without the faintest hint of expression merely said, “Thanks,” added the card to the deck and dropped it into his pocket. He turned and faced the door.

Ira Brooke came through it, smiling expansively, for no reason that I could see, like a Y. M. C. A. secretary with a new swimming pool. He had a cheerful, almost too-straightforward air about him that the darting movements of his eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles seemed to contradict.

He took the chair before the Inspector and waited brightly, almost eagerly. The change from last night was as astonishing as Merlini’s card transformations. I didn’t believe either of them.

“You say you saw Miss Skelton last at breakfast yesterday morning?” Gavigan began.

“That’s right,” Brooke answered promptly.

“And you worked out at the houseboat all day until dinner time, without coming in for lunch?”

“Yes. I took a bite with me. And Rappourt was there with me all afternoon.” He leaned back comfortably in his chair, crossing his legs. But he straightened a bit at the Inspector’s next question.

“Working on plans for an underwater salvaging device?”

Brooke raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say so last night?”

“I had no way of knowing that that gentleman,” he indicated Merlini, “was a bona-fide investigator, for one thing. For another, I don’t talk about my inventions before they’re patented.”

“Sure it wasn’t because you intended to go after a sunken treasure in the neighborhood without asking permission?”

“Oh. The cat’s out of the bag, I see.” He relaxed again and grinned. “That might have had something to do with it, yes. Treasure hunters don’t talk for publication before the fact. Obviously bad tactics.”

Merlini put in his oar. “How much would this underwater vacuum cleaner of yours cost to build, Mr. Brooke?”

“Underwater vacuum — who has been describing the device, may I ask?” He looked at Merlini coldly.

“Come off it, Brooke,” Gavigan said. “This is a homicide investigation. We’re going to know a lot more than that before we’re through. And we don’t tell the reporters everything. Answer the question.”

Brooke protested, “I fail to see what connection—”

“Linda Skelton was thinking about paying for it, wasn’t she?”

“She was, yes. But—”

“How much would it cost, Mr. Brooke?” insisted Merlini impatiently.

Ira’s bright eyes caught Merlini’s, then dropped. His voice was suddenly expressionless and flat. “About $200,000.”

“Expensive gadget, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But its use will make it possible to get at many previously inaccessible wrecks—$200,000 is only a drop in the bucket if you salvage the cargo of even one Spanish galleon.”

“Eight million dollars would be a 4,000 percent return on the investment. That what you mean?”

“That’s the general idea, yes.”

The Inspector tried out a question.

“How did you happen to pick Linda Skelton to be your good fairy?”

Ira sat up indignantly.

“If you’re insinuating, Inspector, that the Brooke Suction Salvage Device is a gold brick—”

“I’ll reword the question,” Gavigan said patiently, “But I still want an answer. How did you happen to—”

“Floyd,” Brooke said, giving in. “He came to me. Said he had a salvage job that would be an excellent tryout for my device. He said his sister would finance the apparatus.”

“The Hussar?”

“The Hussar? I don’t know. That hasn’t been proved. There is a wreck out there in the river. It may be the Hussar. We won’t know for certain until we actually get at it.”

“Aren’t spirit messages an odd way to locate and gather data on the condition of a sunken wreck prior to salvaging? Or do you usually do it that way?”

“The hulk was not located in that way,” Brooke contradicted sharply. “Madame Rappourt’s messages have only supplemented and amplified Floyd’s soundings. Each one that we’ve so far been able to check has been verified in every detail. I can’t explain that.”

“I wish you could.” Gavigan thought a moment and then added shortly, “That’s all.”

Brooke got to his feet, grinned cheerfully, said, “Thank you” almost too politely and walked briskly out.

“I don’t like his face,” Gavigan said looking after him. “Grins too much.”

“Odd name, too,” Merlini commented.

“Name?”

“Yes. Ira means calm. Ira Brooke. Calm or still waters. You know about them. They run deep. Who’s next?”

“Rappourt. Quinn, tell Muller to get her. Then Miss Verrill, and Lamb again, in that order.”

When Quinn opened the door, Gavigan called, “Hey Doc!”

“I’m coming. Hold your horses.” Hesse hurried in from across the hall, puffing clouds of tobacco smoke. “The appearance of the body is quite consistent with cyanide poisoning. How soon can I have the body for tests?”

“Now. Get it started. And look into this, too.” He presented Hesse with the hail-polish bottle. “Did you and Gail figure out a time of death?”

“Yes, and don’t howl about it either. A six-hour interval is the best I can do. Probably not before one o’clock yesterday or later than 6. Damn little to go on at this late date except state of rigor, and that can vary like hell. You say she was seen alive last at 2:30. That cuts it down some. If you split the difference you’ll probably come close.”

Inspector Gavigan didn’t seem overjoyed. “Just about what I expected,” he said gruffly. “A whole stack of alibis. All right, get the body started and have them phone the quantitative-test results as soon as possible, or quicker. You stick around a few minutes. Gail, you wait downstairs.”

Then, speaking to no one in particular, he went on, “Lamb and Watrous were in town from 11 to 6, Miss Verrill from 2:30 to 8:30”—he looked across at Merlini—“She must have been with you at the Garden about the time Linda died. Gail was in his office, Brooke and Rappourt together on the houseboat all afternoon. The Hendersons—” He eyed Malloy who had returned with Hesse. “What did they say?”

“They were both over at the Doctor’s cottage from just after lunch until nearly 5, cleaning the place up.”

“Leaving Arnold,” Gavigan finished, “who admits he was in the house — with Linda. But I wish I knew—”

His voice trailed off reflectively; and Merlini said, “Mind reading thrown in free. You wish you knew when Mr. X arrived on the island and where Floyd was.” Gavigan looked up as if half expecting the answers. Merlini added, “So do I.”

Malloy went forward to answer a knock at the door, spoke briefly to Detective Muller outside, and then addressed Gavigan.

“Rappourt’s still in bed. Muller told her to snap out of it. In the meantime, here’s Miss Verrill.”

He stepped aside and Sigrid came in. She stopped just across the threshold, glanced about, instantly picked out the Inspector as the person in authority, and moved toward the chair that faced him. She wore a blue-corduroy housecoat and she moved with a dancer’s springy, alert walk. The attention she got from the assembled males was complete. She sat down, looked gravely at Gavigan, and waited.

“Miss Verrill,” he began briskly, “you ate lunch with Arnold, Rappourt, Lamb, and Miss Skelton yesterday on the terrace. You left for town directly afterward at 2:30, and you saw Miss Skelton for the last time, talking to Madame Rappourt, as you came down the stairs. She went up to her room, and Rappourt went with you and Lamb to the boathouse. Henderson dropped Rappourt off at the houseboat, where Brooke was working, and took you and Lamb on in to town. That all correct?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do in town?”

“I went directly to Merlini’s shop. He wasn’t there. I was told he was probably at Madison Square Garden. I went there and found him.”

“You were afraid of something. What was it? Murder?”

Her blue eyes widened a bit. “No. Rappourt. I wanted Merlini to see one of her séances and tell us what the catch was.”

“Us?”

“Arnold and myself — and Dr. Gail. I’m afraid we’re not too open-minded. Rappourt’s phenomena are ever so convincing, but it won’t quite go down. I was brought up with a circus, for one thing; and I’ve known a few magicians, a lot of grifters, freaks, and spielers. I don’t believe quite everything I see and hear. Arnold and I have been trying to catch her out in an amateur way. With no luck at all. Yesterday morning when she was at breakfast we even searched her room. Results nil. That was when I told Arnold I was going to get Merlini. I should have done it before. I knew that he could trip her up for us if anyone could.”

“What made you think she’d have him around?”

“She couldn’t help herself. I planned to have him come without notice. If Rappourt objected, we’d point out to Linda that only a fraud would fear exposure — and Rappourt’s clever enough to see the point. She’d talked last night’s séance up too much. She was out to impress Linda, and she’d gone too far to back out. She’d have had to go through with it.”

“What was she after?”

“Linda’s money.”

“Oh. Not the Hussar gold?”

“I don’t know. I think perhaps that was a smoke screen. I’d almost believe the wreck story if it wasn’t for the spirit messages. I shy at that.”

Gavigan’s next question was offhandedly casual, but his eyes watched Sigrid carefully. “Who gets Linda’s money now?”

Her reply seemed offhand. “Arnold and Floyd, I suppose.”

“Just a guess, or do you know?”

“No. I don’t know. But, well, they would, wouldn’t they? Doesn’t Arnold know? Didn’t you ask him?”

“I asked him. After you left Merlini, what did you do?”

“It was almost five then. I went to 65th Street and met Bill — Dr. Gail. We had dinner at the Plaza. He went back to work, and I came out here at 8:30.”

“Did you tell Gail that Merlini was coming out?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing, until the séance at 10.”

Merlini inserted a question. “It’s time we heard about that, Inspector. Would you give us a round-by-round description, Sigrid?”

“She began as usual,” Sigrid said, “by going into her trance state. She does a very special one, everything but froth at the mouth. She takes a pill of some sort — a drug she says, that helps to—” Sigrid stopped uncertainly, wondering at Merlini’s sudden strange behavior. His lax, lazy manner had abruptly vanished, and he was staring at her as if she had just completed a strip tease, his professional magician’s calm definitely askew.

The Inspector raised an interested eyebrow and waited.

“Now why,” Merlini exclaimed, “did I have to forget that? Excuse me a moment.”

He shot out through the door. We heard him go into Linda’s room.

We waited, and then, just as Gavigan was asking Sigrid to continue, Merlini returned. He carried a book open near the back; and his forefinger moved down the page.

“Here we are,” he said excitedly, “Trances: Crandon, Stainton Moses, Rappourt, pages 212-14.” He thumbed rapidly. “The Colonel’s book. Modern Mediums. The last quarter of it is exclusively about Rappourt. Listen: ‘Of the many trance mediums, genuine and fraudulent, that I have encountered in 20 years intensive psychic research, Madame Rappourt is by far the most interesting. If her trance state were only investigated and studied with one-tenth the interest and thoroughness which scientists give to the diseases of the flea, psychology might and psychic research certainly would discover much. She has discovered that the ordinary trance state can he greatly intensified through the use of certain drugs which increase the disassociation of the conscious personality and allow a smoother, more receptive channel for the play of psychic forces.’ And so on. Then he has inserted a most interesting footnote which I’d completely forgotten until just now: ‘Several of the capsules, one of which she takes before each entry into the trance state, I have had analyzed. Since the dose contains two highly dangerous drugs whose use is definitely not recommended except under the strictest medical supervision, I obviously cannot go into detail on this point. The medical fraternity will no doubt understand me when I say that the drugs are one of the related alkaloids of the atropine group and a well known narcotic.’ ”

Merlini’s voice had been quietly matter of fact, but the small explosive crack as he snapped the book shut added the needed exclamation point.

“Hesse,” Gavigan snapped, “it’s your turn. What’s he hinting at? What are the related alkaloids?”

“Hyoscyamine and the ‘Truth Drug,’ scopolamine,” Hesse answered gravely. “The last is the one you want, I think. Used to be used with morphine to produce twilight sleep. If she’s been dosing herself with that on her own, however, she’s a damned fool. They’re both deadly poisons. And you never know just how much will be lethal. The fatal dose of morphine varies according to the individual, and that of scopolamine never has been exactly determined.”

“Twilight sleep anything like a trance state?” Gavigan wanted to know.

“That’s what it amounts to. Scopolamine depresses the central nervous system. The pulse is rapid and the respiration deepened at first. Symptoms of fatigue and stupor set in. Those are trance symptoms. But if you get just a spot too much — the lethal dose of the closely related atropine is only one 20th of a grain — then the subconscious is freed even further of inhibitory control, hallucinations and delirium set in, the respiration and pulse are greatly depressed, numbness, paralysis of the limbs, convulsions, and unconsciousness supervene. Followed by death.”

“Rappourt show those symptoms?” Gavigan asked, turning to Sigrid.

“Yes. She seemed to get awfully sleepy, breathing deeply at the same time. Then she talked deliriously in a rapid-fire stream, most of which didn’t mean anything until the psychic control took over. She even had the paralysis — her arms would stiffen and her hands clench so you couldn’t move them — and the convulsions. It wasn’t pretty to watch.”

“Rappourt in a new role,” Merlini said cryptically, “Rappacini’s daughter and Mithradata.”

“What?” asked the Inspector, not following.

“The poison maids,” Merlini explained. “Hawthorne’s and Garnett’s. Raised on poison diets. Dangerous gals. You couldn’t kiss them and tell, because dead men don’t tell. Rappourt should have some interesting answers for us. I hope she has all of them ready.”

Gavigan turned to Hesse.

“Sure it was cyanide, Doc?”

“No. I won’t swear to anything until after the autopsy. I doubt very much if it was scopolamine or morphine, but I’ll test for all three.”

“Malloy, get Rappourt in here. In a hurry. You may go, Miss Verrill, and if you please, you’ll not mention this to the others.”

She nodded in a scared way and went out after Malloy.

“This case is getting to be a toxicologist’s nightmare,” the Inspector muttered irritably. “More damn poisons than we know what to do with.”

And right there is where yours truly pulled the bomb-rack release and blew up the ammunition dump. I’d been waiting for a good spot for the last half hour or so, ever since I’d got to thinking about those photographs. This was it.

“Inspector,” I said placidly, “you don’t know the half of it. Less in fact.” Gavigan jumped at the sound of my voice as if he had completely forgotten I was there. I got attention from several quarters.

Pointing to a framed photograph on the wall below one of the pirate flags, I asked,

“Have you noticed that? Rather good shot of the East River at twilight. Toned in blue.”

He stared at it dubiously.

“So what?”

Merlini watched me quizzically, one eyebrow lifted. Hesse gave the photo a quick glance and then threw a penetrating one at me.

“There’s a print downstairs that’s a honey,” I went on, enjoying the limelight. “Sailboats. It’s in sepia. There are some others around, here and there, and all signed Arnold Skelton. Yesterday, when Linda died, he was working in the basement. Says he has a workshop there, but carefully avoids saying what kind. If you ask me, it’s a photographic darkroom, and I’d like to get a good close look at it.

Gavigan began to get the idea now. “Yes. Maybe you’ve got something there.”

Merlini was frankly baffled.

“Hey, what goes on here?”

“Photography,” I explained, mimicking his own lecture manner, “is as poisonous a hobby as you can find, short of toxicology itself. The toning formulas use the ferricyanide and oxalate of potassium, oxalic acid, hydrochloric acid, copper sulphate, gold chloride, the acetate and nitrate of lead, borax, and the potassium and ammonium alums — all toxic. Developer ingredients include pyro, formaldehyde, and paraformaldehyde. In reducing, potassium permanganate and sulphuric acid are recommended; for fine-grain developing, paraphenylenediamine, a poisonous dye.” I paused briefly, well satisfied with the startled looks I was getting, drew another lungful of non-toxic oxygen, and dropped the remaining bombs. “Intensification is achieved through the use of that old favorite, bichloride of mercury, and potassium bichromate, silver nitrate, and potassium and/or sodium cyanide! I may have left out a few, but — oh, yes — mercuric iodide, nitric acid, boric acid, and wood alcohol and alcohol propyle.”

I had ticked them off on my fingers as I named them. “A grand total,” I finished, “of 27 poisons. With one or two exceptions you can buy them all in quantity at any photographic supply house and no questions asked. Arnold won’t have ’em all, but if it’s a respectable darkroom, he’s got well over half. Throw in the scopolamine and morphine and you’ve got the nice fat sum of 29 deadly poisons!”

“An expert on women’s wear and a pharmacologist,” said Merlini. “Do you give a course of lectures on the curious marriage rites of the Kwakiutal Indians?”

“Sure,” I cracked back. “All marriage rites are, concerned with the same fundamental—”

“Opportunity,” interrupted Gavigan. “And means!”

Captain Malloy picked that moment to stick his head in at the door and announce with some excitement, “Rappourt just pulled a fast one, Inspector. She gulped down a couple more sleeping tablets before I could stop her, and she’s going to sleep on me.”

“Luminal,” I said under my breath. “Thirty!”

“Hesse!” Inspector Gavigan’s voice had thunder in it.

“Go look at her. And pull her out of it. Use a stomach pump if necessary. She can’t get away with that. Coming, Merlini? I’m going to look at that darkroom.”

Chapter Fourteen:

THE BLUE MAN

INSPECTOR GAVIGAN HAD THE door at the head of the basement stairs open half a foot when he quickly and silently pulled it to again. He looked at us over his shoulder, his hand still on the knob.

“Malloy,” he whispered. “Arnold’s still in the living-room up front, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. Quiet. And stand pat.” He pushed the door in again, slowly this time, just far enough to let himself through.

The rest of us, crowding at the entrance, watched him move softly down the steps. Over Quinn’s shoulder I could see that the basement was fitted out as a game room, a ping-pong table in its center and a dart board on one wall. There was a red-lacquer and chromium-trimmed bar at the further end and, in one corner, a desk with typewriter and letter files.

But what attracted the Inspector was a door in the right-hand wall that was just barely ajar and from which a thin streak of light issued, and, now and then, the faint, almost furtive, rattle of glassware.

He reached the door, listened a moment, and then quickly jerked it open.

Dr. William Gail jumped. The glass-stoppered brown bottle which his outstretched hand was about to replace on a shelf above his head nearly slipped from his fingers. His left hand, darting out automatically, just saved it, and his head jerked around toward the door. He stood there for a half-instant, startled, his eyes wide. Then he smiled slowly, and calmly put the bottle on the shelf. “Oh, hello, Inspector. I was thinking it was about time you got on to this darkroom.”

Without answering, Gavigan reached up and took the bottle down again.

The rest of us surged forward through the door and down the stairs.

Arnold’s darkroom was a 14K honey. The long stainless-steel-sink with its fitted trays, the film-developing bench with electric agitator and built-in negative-viewing box, the print-washing and contact-printing machines, the enlarging table, the dry-mounting press, the supply drawers, cabinets, shelves, storage racks, negative files, even the trimming board, were all neatly designed to fit the space and placed so as to allow maximum operating efficiency. He had the whole works, even a baby refrigerator for cooling solutions, foot-switch operation of lights, and a light-trap ventilator with exhaust fan. I wanted to roll up my sleeves and go to work. If Gavigan only hadn’t appropriated the roll I’d shot the night before, I’d have turned out a set of 11 x 14 enlargements with deckle-edged mounts.

A glance at the chemical supplies indicated that I hadn’t been too enthusiastic about the poisons; there were plenty of the red danger labels in evidence.

I noticed one oddity on a shelf in the corner by the towel rack whose photographic use I couldn’t guess — a jar of cold cream.

The Inspector looked at the bottle he held and read the label. “AgNO₃, Silver Nitrate. What are you up to, Gail?”

“I was wondering,” Gail said easily, “if Arnold has a supply of potassium or sodium cyanide, and if so, whether he keeps it out in the open, or under lock and key.”

The Inspector ran his eye over the shelves. “And you found out?”

“That all his other poisonous chemicals, some of them cyanides, are easily accessible. But the potassium and sodium salts seem to be missing. Some photographers avoid their use as far as possible because they’re so dangerous, and yet—”

He pointed to a formula tacked with several others on the wall:

“As poisonous a formula as I ever saw,” Gail said. “It contains just about 100 lethal doses of bichloride of mercury, 100 of cyanide, and perhaps half a dozen of silver nitrate. Definitely not recommended as a tonic.”

The Inspector put the silver-nitrate bottle down rather suddenly, I thought, as if it might jump up and bite him. “Everybody clear out of here,” he commanded sharply. We backed out into the larger room and waited, watching Gavigan through the door. The Inspector scowled heavily as he noted the proportion of red poison labels on the array of bottles. Then he gave the place a rapid, thorough examination, pulling out all the drawers and investigating the cupboards.

Finally he called, “Merlini. Job for you. Padlock on one of these cupboards. See what you can do.”

Merlini stepped quickly in, took a brief look, and said confidently, “Ross. Paper clip. Desk.”

“Sorry you have to use such makeshift tools,” Gavigan apologized. “I’ll get you a burglar’s kit for Christmas.”

“Thanks,” Merlini said as he caught the clip I tossed him. “Don’t need it. Rather have a police pass. Several shows around town I’d like to see.” He straightened the paper clip, put a few new kinks in it, and began on the lock.

Gavigan came out from the darkroom and faced Gail. “Empty your pockets, please,” he ordered.

Gail, seated on the ping-pong table, was holding a match to his cigarette. He took the cigarette from his mouth, stood up and looked steadily at the Inspector, the match flame, forgotten, burning on. Then he flicked it out and without a word started laying the contents of his pockets on the table.

Dr. Hesse appeared at the head of the stairs, just then, asking, “Do you want Rappourt now?”

Gavigan looked up at him surprised. “Fast work, Doc. How’d you do that?”

“Stomach pump, enema, emetic. I just mentioned them and she began to wake up. Thought that would do it. She didn’t swallow any sleeping tablets. That was an act for Malloy. Some symptoms you can’t fake. Hunter’s watching her.”

“Good. See her in a minute.” Gavigan turned back to Gail, slapped his now empty pockets in a practiced manner, looked for a moment at the innocent-appearing collection of keys, change, handkerchief, pencil, pen, billfold, letters, and clinical thermometer on the table, and said, “Okay.”

As Gail began to refill his pockets, Gavigan added, “You fancy yourself as a detective, is that it?”

Before he had time to answer, Merlini came from the darkroom and captured our attention with what he carried. He had two pint-sized chemist’s bottles and a drinking glass half filled with what, under other circumstances, I would have dismissed as water. There was a saucer lying across its top, bottom up. Of the bottles, one was clear glass with a label bearing in heavy red letters the word: POISON, and, in a smaller size the symbol NaCy and the two words, Sodium Cyanide. The glass of the other bottle was a brownish color and, though half-filled with a heavy crystalline substance, had no label at all.

“Someone around here has been doing some amateur detecting,” Merlini said. He put the glass down on the ping-pong table and turned it slowly. On one side we saw a dark smudge of whorls and lines that was a fingerprint. On the opposite side there were four more, arranged vertically down the glass. The cyanide bottle, too, showed prints, many of them. The other bottle had none.

“Thumb and four fingers,” Merlini said indicating the glass. “Smallish. Probably a woman’s.”

Gavigan put his nose down close. “The powdered graphite.”

“Yes. Our amateur sleuth, whoever he is, used it as an impromptu homemade fingerprint powder and with success. Had you noticed that there was a vacuum water carafe in Linda’s room and no glass?”

“Of course,” Gavigan retorted, “I’m not blind.” He turned to Dr. Hesse. “Can you test this for cyanide at once?”

Hesse came forward, nodding. “You’re lucky this time. Knowing it was cyanide, I brought the reagents for the Prussian Blue test with me. Would you have my bag brought down, Captain?” He lifted the glass carefully, thumb on the top edge, forefinger on tile bottom, and took it into the darkroom.

Malloy jerked an upward thumb at Quinn; and, as the latter started up, Gavigan called, “Send Brady down here too, and bring Arnold. I’m going to—”

“Just a minute!” It was Gail’s voice, sharp, insistent. “Before you get him, I’ve got something to say.”

“Well?”

“It’s about motive.” Dr. Gail returned the Inspector’s stare coolly, but his finger tapped nervously on his cigarette, sending flakes of ash to the floor. “Linda was a selfish, pigheaded spinster fury. As a psychiatric study she was a honey; as a person to live with or around I imagine she was holy hell. She also controlled the lion’s share of a fortune which one or two other persons might naturally feel they should have shared. There’s plenty of motive there, and yet—”

“And yet what?” Gavigan’s voice was sub-zero.

Gail frowned at his cigarette, dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. “There’s a better motive than those,” he said somberly, “a much better motive. If anyone ever had a good and sufficient reason for murder—” He threw a quick look at Merlini. “You asked me about Arnold’s face. I’ll tell you now.”

“I thought you knew,” Gavigan said.

“Yes. But I couldn’t say so until I was sure it had something to do with Linda’s death. Arnold wears make-up all the time, not only on his face, but even on the backs of his hands. There’s a proprietary make-up on the market called Coverfault, which may be what he uses. It’s designed for hiding small discolorations and blemishes of the skin, but Arnold uses it over his whole visible skin surface. I saw him without it once — though he doesn’t know that. I caught him in swimming early one morning — in trunks alone.”

“Well?” Gavigan growled impatiently.

“His body is blue.”

“Blue!” The Inspector didn’t care for the idea at all. His quick eyes scrutinized Gail’s face suspiciously.

I began to think the Doctor might have something there. His theory would explain the dirty streaks I had glimpsed on Arnold’s face the night before — streaks the rain had made in his make-up.

“So that’s it!” Merlini said with some surprise. “Moor’s skin, Doctor?”

“Yes. Argyria. How did you know?”

“I’ve known a few Blue Men. But isn’t Arnold a bit young? I thought they’d mostly died off by now.”

Gail nodded. “They have. That’s just it. How do you suppose he comes to have it?”

Gavigan wanted attention. He slapped his hand flat on the table. “Wait a minute! Go on, Quinn, get Brady and Hesse’s bag.” He eyed Merlini and Gail belligerently. “Now, what are you two talking about? Will someone please exp—”

Merlini obliged. “The Blue Men I knew, Inspector, were circus freaks. Forty years or so ago the medical profession prescribed silver nitrate for stomach ulcers. I don’t know if it cured them, but the medicos were startled when some of their patients started to turn blue — especially when the patients stayed that way — permanently. There wasn’t any cure. Some of them went into side shows. And one that I knew — billed as The Great What-Is-It From Mars—used to dose himself with the stuff to increase the color. He figured as long as he was blue and no hope for it, he might as well be good and blue, and try for a raise in pay.”

“But—” Gavigan began to object.

“The same thing,” Gail said, adding to Merlini’s information, “happened in the early 19th century and again around 1850, when silver salts were prescribed for epilepsy and tabes. It created a whole generation of blue men and women. It’s a slaty, dark, bluish-gray discoloration caused by the tendency of the silver salt to deposit itself in finely divided metallic form in the skin. Silver, of course, turns dark on exposure to light — the reason for its photographic use. And the pigmentation of the skin appears first in the parts exposed to light and particularly the conjunctivae and mucus membranes. You’ve noticed that Arnold barely opens his mouth when he speaks? That’s because the inside of his mouth and his tongue are blue. Even his internal organs—”

“But—” Gavigan got his objection on record this time—“silver nitrate is poisonous taken internally.”

“Sure,” Gail agreed, “it’s a violent corrosive poison if given in a sufficient dose, but that’s 30 grains or more. Minute quantities are neither toxic nor appreciably injurious to the general health. But, when given over an extended period of time, they produce the intense discoloration that Arnold tries to conceal.”

“And you said you were hunting for cyanide when I walked in on you in the darkroom. What were you doing with the silver-nitrate bottle?”

“You mean the bottle with the silver-nitrate label, Inspector. With this bee buzzing in my bonnet, I decided to check up. I discovered that Arnold’s silver-nitrate bottle contains salts all right, salts that look superficially like AgN0₃ but not silver salts. Merely common sodium chloride — in the rock salt form. It’s not only not silver nitrate, but one of its antidotes.”

Gail turned and picked up the brown bottle that had no label. He removed the glass stopper and tilted perhaps a teaspoonful of the crystals the bottle contained out onto the table. He took one smallish one and touched it lightly to his tongue.

“Bitter, metallic taste,” he said. “That’s silver nitrate.”

Brady came in with Quinn. Gavigan addressed the former, “Finish with that letter?”

Brady nodded. “Couple of faint smudges on the note paper and lots of good ones on the envelope. Postal clerks and mailmen probably. But if you think the letter prints might not be Floyd’s I’ll shoot it to the lab. I can’t bring out a lot of detail with the powder but the silver nitrate bath might do it.”

“Now that,” Merlini commented smilingly, “is what I call a useful chemical to have on hand. Regular little Jim Dandy jack-of-all-trades. Sail right in, Brady. The silver nitrate’s there in front of you.”

“Well,” Brady said, “it’s not as simple as that. I’d need—”

“I’ll take care of the letter, Brady,” Gavigan broke in. “No hurry about that just now. I want you to go through this darkroom with particular attention to the poison bottles you’ll find there.” Gavigan turned again to Gail. “I don’t get it. Photographers that use it don’t all turn blue, and Arnold certainly wouldn’t be dosing himself with it.”

“No,” Gail said with deliberation, “but doesn’t it look as if he might have hidden his silver nitrate, substituting rock salt in its place, in order to escape being dosed with it?”

Merlini picked some of the crystals from the table between thumb and finger and examined them closely. “You mean Linda?” he asked.

Gail said, “I’d like to make my position clear. I wasn’t Arnold’s doctor. The fact that he has argyria interested and puzzled me, but it wasn’t my business exactly. He said as much once when I tried to mention the subject. It wasn’t until last night, when we found Linda, that I started to put two and two together. I couldn’t mention it before, because it was only a wild and libelous speculation. But the fact that he keeps his silver nitrate under lock and key with a harmless decoy salt in its place — well, it begins to look as if I had something.”

“Yes,” Gavigan agreed slowly, “it looks as if Arnold had tumbled to the fact that he was being dosed and had taken secret precautions to avoid it. But why would Linda — this makes her crazier than you thought, doesn’t it?”

“It means she was more dangerous than I thought, yes. And her reasons are obvious. Jealousy is a natural agoraphobic state of mind. In Linda’s case it concerned Arnold and Floyd — but particularly Arnold. He is — or was — an actor and a good one. Linda has always wanted to be one — you may have noticed the books in her room and the theatrical make-up table. Her acting ambitions were, because of her phobia, quite impossible of fulfillment. She couldn’t stand seeing Arnold free to go where he liked, independent of her and successful on the stage. She found out about the effects of silver nitrate somehow and she simply fed it to him — taking it from his own darkroom. He wouldn’t notice the taste because of the very small amounts. She might as well have given him her phobia; it had the same effect. Like her, he disliked to go out, though for a physical rather than mental reason.”

Gavigan frowned at the brown bottle and the scattered crystals on the table. “Opportunity, means, and motive!” he said. “Get him, Malloy. This case is all washed up.”

Malloy hurried up the stairs. His stride was purposeful and determined.

Merlini’s voice came from the corner of the room. “You know, Inspector, I think we’ve got a break at last.”

“Yes,” Gavigan agreed, “Arnold’s out on the end of a long, long limb.”

“Arnold? Oh, yes. But I don’t mean that.”

We all swung around on him together. He was seated at the desk behind the typewriter. He had removed the ribbon from the machine and was holding it, a spool in each hand, close under the desk lamp. He was squinting at it with fascination; and, without looking up, he said:

“Ross, there’s another ribbon or two in this upper left hand drawer. Put one in this machine and take dictation.”

He got up then to make room for me; and I acted quickly, following instructions.

Gavigan said, “That a new ribbon?”

“Yes,” Merlini said. “Let me have that magnifying glass of yours. There are a couple of feet here in the center that carry only a single layer of impressions. They’re crowded but quite distinct. The rest, on each side has been gone over twice. Your men at the lab should be able to untangle those with photographic enlargements, but I think I can decipher the single impressions now. Ready, Ross?”

I nodded, and with the ribbon close to the light he began reading, slowly and with frequent pauses, but with certainty. He read, not words, but single letters: “i-l-l — i—m — t-h-g — i—e-e-h-capital t-colon-a-d—”

“No spaces?” I interrupted.

“They wouldn’t show,” he said. “The ribbon doesn’t travel when the space bar is struck. We’ll have to put those in ourselves, later.”

He continued spelling out the message, and my enthusiasm waned rapidly. I didn’t see that we were getting much in the way of sense, and then, as the letters suddenly became numerals, we got even less. The Inspector and the Doctor when I had finished, were both leaning over my shoulder and looking at this:

It reminded me of the mathematician’s assertion that a monkey at a typewriter could, if given a sufficiently great number of millions of years, eventually turn out, by pure chance and according to the laws of probability, all the books in the British Museum. This batch of characters looked to me like the monkey’s work on an off day.

Gavigan glanced at Merlini and said, “Well?”

“Looks a bit cryptic, doesn’t it?” Merlini replied.

“You might insert spaces before each capital letter,” Gail suggested, “except that ‘Lrae’ doesn’t look very promising.”

Gavigan scowled at it a moment longer, then remarked impatiently, “You can have it, Merlini. You like puzzles. And you’ll probably decode it and come up with a six-way substitution cipher, an international spy ring, and stolen naval secrets. While you’re doing that, I’ll finish off Arnold.”

The Inspector didn’t appear to think highly of the message, if that’s what it was. I wasn’t sure that I did myself; it didn’t even look like a worth-while finger exercise. If it meant anything at all, it would appear to be a combination code and cipher, though Gavigan seemed to consider that as too romantic for serious consideration. I eyed Merlini, trying to fathom what he thought. He seemed more hopeful, because, after a moment, a smile suddenly grew on his face and he leaned above me.

“Ross,” he began, “if you’ll just—”

But the stairway door opened; and Arnold hurried down, followed by Malloy. Gavigan moved quickly to stand before the bottles on the table, hiding them with his body.