Footprints on the Ceiling

Chapter Sixteen: THE MAN WITH THE BENDS

Inspector Gavigan pivoted like a revolving door. His skepticism was heavy, but hollow. “And does that clear Arnold?”

“No. Maybe not.” Merlini sat on the ping-pong table, took a deck of cards from his pocket, and began to shuffle them with one hand, an indescribable display of manual dexterity in which several, complicated movements of the fingers fused so smoothly that the cards weirdly appeared to be shuffling themselves. Gavigan, seeing the cards, plunged his hand into his own pocket, brought it out empty, and forcefully emitted several words that glowed with an inner fire.

“But, if Floyd’s supposed presence in Buffalo last night at around ten o’clock,” Merlini went on, “has been deliberately faked, it’s an awfully loose end in the case of the People vs. Arnold Skelton.”

“What are you getting at?” Gavigan growled. “A letter written in advance and posted at a prearranged time by a confederate in Buffalo? Another mystery man, Mr. Q? What do you think this is? A gang murder?”

“No more mystery men. It’s simpler and more impromptu — the heel print on the envelope. What do you suppose that means? Postman been tramping about on the mail?”

“Well. What do you suppose?”

“If I should allow my imagination to run riot,” Merlini replied, dealing himself four aces, still with one hand, “I might suppose something like this. If I wanted to mail a letter from some place I wasn’t, I’d take it, all stamped and neatly addressed, to a railroad station, pick out a likely train and board it just before it pulled out, pretending I’d come to see someone off. I’d drop the letter on the floor under a seat — anywhere that it wouldn’t be found immediately, perhaps not until the cars were swept out at the end of the run. Then I’d let the train go without me. Eventually a passenger or some railway employee would find it. Would it go to the Lost and Found Department? U. S. Mail with a special delivery stamp? Of course not. The finder would mail it. But I couldn’t be certain that the envelope wouldn’t arrive somewhat dirtied and possibly stepped on. Buffalo—10:30. I’d like to see a timetable.”

“You aren’t going to tell me you thought that one up all by yourself!” Gavigan retorted.

Merlini’s smile was the magician’s standard enigmatic one.

“Because,” Gavigan kibitzed, “I know damned well you didn’t. That’s not imagination or deduction; it’s just good memory. That’s exactly what happened in the Milne Kidnap Hoax in ’35. The letter was put on an Albany train and mailed back from Poughkeepsie by the conductor. But just because of a smudged envelope I don’t see why—”

“But you’ll check it, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes. We’ll check it. Quinn, call New York Central.”

Quinn headed for the stairs.

Gavigan looked at Merlini suspiciously. “You’ve got more reasons than that up your sleeve. Come on. Give.”

“Yes. There are more reasons. Three of them. One: if Floyd’s handwriting is as easy to read as his signature, then it compares in legibility with my own script about the way 24-point Caslon Bold does to the Mayan alphabet. And yet, though I type all my other correspondence, I don’t lug a typewriter along on train trips. But if we take that letter at its face value, it would appear that Floyd does. I don’t believe it.”

“There could be typewriters in Buffalo, couldn’t there?”

“But if Floyd was headed for Chicago, did he take a stopover just so he could type instead of write?”

Quinn returned and reported. “There are two trains arriving in Buffalo from New York shortly before 10:30. If he got there on the 8:10 he had time to type lots of letters. That train doesn’t go any farther. There’s a 9:57 that stops there, too, with a Michigan Central train out for Chicago a few minutes later. Only that circles clear around the topside of Lake Erie through Canada, takes three hours longer than any other train, and you might as well wait over and take the 20th Century, which arrives in Chicago almost as soon. If he really was on his way to Chicago, that’s a damn funny time for that letter to have been mailed in Buffalo.”

“What time does that 9:57 leave New York, Quinn?” Merlini asked.

“1:20 p. m.”

“Floyd could have had other reasons for a stopover in Buffalo,” Gavigan said, weakening.

“You’re hard to convince, Inspector,” said Merlini. “All right, here’s the pay-off. Answer me this. If Floyd typed that letter in Buffalo last night, how in blue blazes did the typewriter manage to fly back here?”

“Back here?” Gavigan expelled the words convulsively, like a punctured balloon. He marched over to the desk and glared at the typewriter there. “Give me the typing Harte did on this machine!”

Merlini drew the sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Gavigan. The latter compared it with Floyd’s letter. His scrutiny was brief. “Why couldn’t you just say so without all this long-winded build-up? Dramatic climaxes may be all right in your conjuring hocus-pocus, but they do slow up a murder investigation.”

“Sorry, Inspector,” Merlini grinned. “An old dog, you know, and new tricks.”

“What’s so obvious?” Gail asked, trying to get a good look over the Inspector’s shoulder.

“The typing,” Gavigan explained. “Both from the same machine. I can spot a dozen points of similarity without even squinting; and, at that rate, the boys at the lab will turn up thirty. The alignment is bad, the ‘e’ and ‘t’ are way out, a serif on the ‘i’ is missing, the ‘a’ is nicked—”

“It’s even better than that, Inspector,” Merlini put in. “If you ever use this letter as exhibit B before a jury, you won’t need to call in the typing experts with their enlarged photos and their ruled charts. Look again.”

Gavigan, glum at having been caught out, scowled at Merlini and turned a fierce glare on the two sheets of paper.

“Don’t get your nose so close. You’ll miss it. It’s as obvious as a parade of elephants. The code, Inspector, the code. I’ve solved it; and there isn’t any international spy ring, you’ll be glad to know. That capital ‘L’ that Gail thought might be the beginning of a word… It is. But the word is coming instead of going. Try spelling it from right to left. Ingenious code, very. I don’t think.”

Gavigan not only spelled; he began reading. “Dear Linda: The eight mil — million—”

“The whole letter,” Merlini continued, “is on that ribbon. Only, as the typewriter carriage moved the paper across from right to left, the ribbon happened to be moving in the opposite direction, and each succeeding letter was placed on it to the left of the one before. When I dictated a while ago, not being Chinese, I naturally read it off in my accustomed West to East manner. Only the first few words are readable because, later, the ribbon reversed its direction and backed up the last part of the letter on what went immediately before.”

“And if he wrote the letter here and mailed it in Buffalo—” Gavigan mused.

“Then we wonder,” Merlini added, “why he wrote it at all, why he didn’t merely tell Linda, or at least leave the note for her instead of taking it along. We wonder why he left here at 8 p. m. Thursday and then waited until 1:20 Friday to take the day’s most inconvenient train; and why, in the letter, he said he had already left. Objections by the gross, you see. Whereas, if the letter was written solely to make it appear that he had left town, the objections all fade away as nicely as you please. And another thing. He never expected anyone would investigate those trains. He — he—” Merlini’s voice came to a bumpy stop. As Gavigan started to talk, I heard something the Inspector didn’t. Under his breath Merlini murmured, “Oh, my hat!”

“I give in,” Gavigan was saying. “Floyd was up to funny business. There’s not much doubt about that. But the rest of this ribbon message. What he wrote before the letter. Unscrambled, it still looks like code to me. Let’s see the whole thing the right way round, Ross.”

I sat down and typed it off rapidly. The spaces between were obvious now; so I inserted them, though where the spaces went among the numerals, as some undoubtedly, should, I had no way of knowing: ppages at different depths in minutes 20 ft 10 ft Total time for ascent in minutes 108-12018-2048-53½ Up to 15 mins 15 to 3030 to 4848 to 60 1 to 1½ hrs 1½ to 2 hrs 2 to 2½ 2½ to 3 over 3257281231015413195152252027102032103042 Dear Linda: The eight milli

“At different depths,” Gavigan read. “Ascent in minutes. Something to do with diving evidently. We’ll ask Mr. Novak. Yes, Grimm?”

Grimm had come in while I was typing and stood waiting to report. “Those footprints on the ceiling,” he said, looking somewhat pained at having to put any such sequence of words together, “were made by seven-and-a-half shoes, Goodyear heels, and they’ve been resoled. There aren’t any shoes in this house anything like that. Brooke wears a nine, the others all larger still. A woman could have worn ’em, but I didn’t find no men’s shoes in their rooms.”

“Floyd’s size?” Gavigan said.

“Ten.”

“All right. Stick around.”

“And Lamb’s size?” Merlini asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” replied Grimm. “But he don’t wear no 7½. More like an 11— double E width at that.”

“Yes. And you didn’t get his exact size, because—?”

“There weren’t any extra shoes in his room. As far as I can see the only clothes he’s got are the, one’s he’s wearing.”

“Oh. Slim outfit for a retired broker. And he’s been out here two weeks. Hm!” Merlini sneaked a sideways glance at the Inspector. “Would you run up, Grimm, and take a look at his shaving things, razor and so forth, his toothbrush, comb — all his toilet articles. He may not change his underwear, but he must shave. I didn’t notice a beard.”

“What should I look for?”

“Anything odd. I think you’ll know if you see it.”

Grimm looked at the Inspector for permission, got it, and said, “Okay.” He started to go.

Gavigan had been watching Merlini thoughtfully. Suddenly he added, “And take a look at his luggage too, Grimm.”

The door opened just before Grimm reached it, and he stepped aside to let Madame Rappourt come in, followed closely by Malloy.

Madame Rappourt had an obstinate, angry look, and she threw Merlini the same glance she would have used on a hoptoad with scarlet fever. The woman really had an eight-cylinder personality, her own special two-faced brand. Her maiden name was the exotic one of Svoboda and she came, or pretended to, from Hungary, the land where vampires and big bad werewolves are still said to populate the night. She could radiate mystery like a sphinx, and she affected the habit of smoking small black cigars. Then, when she was trying to convince you that her spooks were all wool and a yard wide, she was as sincere, naive, and straightforwardly direct as St. Francis of Assisi. But she wasted none of that on Merlini and Gavigan. She took the attitude, not without cause, that conjurers and cops had all turned in a verdict of Guilty and wouldn’t change it.

The Inspector began to work on her gently. But that didn’t last long. He sailed smoothly through a few questions that put her whereabouts the previous day on record and contradicted nothing we had heard before. Then he took a header into the subject of the séances, and sparks began to fly.

“You’ve been holding séances here at Miss Skelton’s invitation?”

“We conducted a few experiments in psychical communication.” She didn’t appear to like the word séance.

“And you do that by going into a trance?”

“Yes.”

“Linda Skelton was especially interested in these trances?”

“Yes.” Her eyes touched Gail briefly. “She said that Dr. Gail recommended them as treatment for her phobia.”

“He did. And that made her a push-over for the ones you stage. You take capsules that you say help you to go off into one. I want them.”

Gavigan held out his hand.

“You want them? Why?” I’ve seen people more pleased than she was at that request.

“Never mind why. Hand them over.”

“I’m sorry, Inspector. I don’t have any more.”

The effect of that on the Inspector was about the same as if he’d taken two fingers of Monckhoven’s Intensifier neat.

“Linda Skelton,” he said with a visible effort at control, “was poisoned. Your capsules, according to the analysis you let Colonel Watrous make, contain poisons.”

“Oh, I see. And would I take them if the dose was fatal?”

“No. But the one you gave Miss Skelton could have contained plenty.”

Rappourt’s deep-pitched voice was a little higher, and a shade wobbly. “But Linda took cyanide.” Her eyes moved rapidly, suspiciously at us all. “Do you mean she was poisoned with — not with, cyanide after all? Last night—”

“You don’t deny you gave her a capsule?” Gavigan’s words had sharp edges.

“No. I suppose Lamb told you I did. But I don’t see—”

“What was in it?”

Rappourt’s surprised bewilderment looked genuine enough; but she snapped out of it abruptly, suddenly becoming very quiet, only her shrewd black eyes moving, alertly intent. “Linda said that she and Dr. Gail had had so little success with hypnosis or any sort of trance that it was a great disadvantage in her treatment. She was sure my trance capsules would help. She begged me to let her try one. I refused at first. But she kept insisting. Finally, after lunch yesterday, I gave her one.” Rappourt fumbled at her neck and drew a thin silver chain from beneath the collar of her dress. A small vial hung from it. “That capsule contained what all these others do.”

She gave it to Gavigan.

The vial was large enough to hold four capsules, one above the other. It contained three.

“Hesse,” Gavigan said, looking around. “Where is he?”

“He went upstairs to get his coat and hat,” Malloy said. “He’s leaving.”

“Catch him. Give him these. He knows what to test for.”

“Does he?” Rappourt asked.

“He does. Scopolamine, morphine, and cyanide.”

“No, Inspector. None of those. Sugar.”

“What?”

“Sugar,” she repeated. “And nothing more. I know just how much scopolamine and morphine I can take safely. I don’t know how much Linda could. I filled those capsules with sugar. In Linda’s case that would have probably worked just as well — by suggestion — and it was much safer.”

The Inspector retrieved the capsules from Malloy, split one open with his thumbnail and let the white crystals pour out on his hand. He touched them lightly with his right forefinger, started to put it to his tongue and then changed his mind. He looked at Rappourt uncertainly, scowled, and tipped the crystals, broken capsule and all, into an envelope. He returned it with the vial to Malloy.

“Tell Hesse to rush it,” he said. And then, facing Rappourt again, “So. The scopolamine and morphine was just a gag to give Watrous something to write about?”

Rappourt let that pass.

“Well, was it?” Gavigan insisted.

“The theory’s an interesting one, Inspector. It will at least prevent you from insinuating that I gave Linda poison.”

“Yeah? Sugar in these capsules don’t prove there was sugar in that one. We’ll discuss that again. You can go.”

As she got up and moved toward the door, I watched her, trying to classify the expression on her face. I failed. Poker faces in this crowd were apparently four for a nickel. Merlini, Gail, Lamb, and now Rappourt, all boasted lovely examples right out of the top drawer.

“Rock salt in the silver-nitrate bottle,” Merlini said when she had gone. “Silver nitrate in the tooth powder. Sugar in the scopolamine capsules. I wonder what Mrs. Henderson keeps in the can labeled, ‘Baking Soda.’ Hemlock probably. And curare in the tea canister. Which reminds me it’s a good hour after my lunch time and unless something is done soon we’ll have missed two meals entirely.”

“What do you think about that sugar?” asked Gavigan.

“I’d like some,” I said, seconding Merlini’s motion. “With coffee around it. Perhaps if we crossed Mrs. Henderson’s palm with some silver—”

“See what you can do, Muller,” Gavigan ordered. And then, thinking out loud, “Arnold says Linda didn’t change her will because her lawyer never came out. I’ll check that. She could have written a new one, long hand, without witnesses. If I can find anything like that and Rappourt’s Psychic Society gets a slice, she’s sunk. I’ll bet ten to one the cyanide was in that capsule.”

As he said that, Grimm and Hesse came down the stairs. The Doctor wore his hat and coat and had started on a new cigar. He picked up his bag. “My office just phoned? Inspector. Two policy racketeers, or what’s left of them, just came in peppered with machine-gun bullets, and somebody found half a body floating past the Battery. I suspect Merlini sawed a lady in two and his sleight-of-hand slipped. The District Attorney’s been burning up my phone line all morning. I’m leaving. The autopsy report on Miss Skelton is far enough along so that we know she swallowed enough cyanide to have killed about eight people and a couple of guinea pigs. The nail-polish bottle contained sodium cyanide in an aqueous solution. That satisfy you for a while? I’ll rush through a test on Rappourt’s capsules. I wish you luck.” He started off.

“Cyanide in the capsule,” Merlini said to no one in particular. “And yet, as accomplished an actress as Rappourt is, if she wasn’t bowled over when it was suggested, I’ll — I’ll take six rabbits out of one hat with both hands tied behind me!”

Gavigan looked at him, thinking that over. Then just as Hesse reached the door, he called, “Oh, by the way, Doc, the P. M. report on the stiff we found in the McKinley Hotel yesterday. See that Inspector Barnes gets that, will you? He’s taking over.”

“Right.” Hesse stopped with his hand on the door. “Did you ever find out what happened to his clothes and how he got into that room?”

“No. It makes about as much sense as — as footprints on the ceiling. I do get the damndest cases lately. Tell Barnes I’ll see him as soon as I get back.”

“His clothes, Doctor?” Merlini asked quickly. “What was wrong with his clothes?”

“He didn’t have any.”

“You mean he wore none?”

“He wore none and he had none. Not a sign of any luggage.” Hesse grinned faintly. “A practicing nudist, by the looks.”

“Go on, Doc. Beat it,” Gavigan said. “The Great Merlini has his hands full of upside-down footprints, and I don’t want my tame expert on impossibilities to take on too many at once.”

“Impossibilities,” Merlini said, treating the word reverently. “Corpse in a hotel at 43rd and Third, nude, and you don’t know how he got there. I want to hear more. Cause of death? Doors and windows locked?”

“Damn your eyes, Hesse. See what you’ve done. Merlini, haven’t we got enough on the fire now? You supply some of the answers to this mess, and I’ll let you play with that hotel case as a reward. It’s not murder, but it has a locked room.”

“Oh, it does, does it? I thought I smelled one. Now you have said too much. I can’t resist locked rooms. I want to hear about it at once, or I won’t tell you who killed Linda.”

The Inspector scowled at him steadily for a moment. “Oh. You know that, do you?”

Merlini’s noncommittal smile was the same exasperating sphinxlike one he used when you asked him how he produced lighted cigarettes from the air.

“Bluff,” Gavigan snapped. “All right. I’ll see you. Let’s have that paper you’ve got, Hesse.”

The doctor produced a Tribune from his coat pocket and dropped it over the stair rail. Grimm caught it and brought it to Gavigan, who opened it out before Merlini on the table.

“Page one,” he said. “Human interest story for the day.”

Merlini cast a hungry eye over the headlines. “Where?” he asked, “I don’t see it.”

“There.” The Inspector placed a broad forefinger above an unlikely-looking one-column head: NEW YORK TOO MUCH FOR TOPEKA TEACHER—

“No wonder you were annoyed when I phoned you this morning, Inspector,” Merlini said, looking up. “With that on your mind.” He called to Hesse. “Sure about that heart disease?”

“No. I was misquoted as usual. I said, ‘It could be a lot of things, including heart disease.’ Considering the absence of any evidence of foul play, that seemed a likely possibility. The only external symptom of any importance was a red mottling on the body due to subcutaneous bleeding. The autopsy—”

Gail’s voice came suddenly from the corner where he had been sitting, nearly forgotten. “Wow! You’d better get that report, Doctor, because if your man found any hemorrhages in the spinal cord, myocardial degeneration, or blebs in the brain substance, he’s probably bothered as hell. And if he did, then I think we can help him.”

Hesse blinked at him in a startled manner. “I’m afraid not, Doctor,” he said. “This man wasn’t the type at all. Too heavy, flabby muscles, evidence of alcoholism, no identification tag. He’d never have been hired as a sand-hog.”

Gail smiled. “Your description fits nicely.”

Inspector Gavigan spluttered. “What are you two gibbering about?”

“Caisson disease, Inspector. Compressed-air illness. The bends.” Gail turned to Hesse. “Of course he’s not the type. That’s just it. He wouldn’t be hired as a compressed-air worker because he’d be too likely to get the bends. But mightn’t that be just why he did get them?”

Merlini pointed a forefinger at Gail and said flatly, “You’ve got other reasons for that hunch.”

Gail nodded and started to speak, but Merlini forestalled him. “I thought so. Inspector, if you don’t have Hesse phone for that report this instant I’ll have apoplexy, fainting fits, glanders, and volcanic eruptions. Because if the verdict is caisson disease—”

“It’ll look damned fishy!” exclaimed Gavigan. “Go get it, Doc. And hurry!”

“Fishy?” Merlini said simply. “I should think so. It will mean that we’ve found Floyd!”