Halfway House

V The Truth

Until the day Andrea related her curious little story of the half dozen match-stubs, the riddle of Joseph Kent Gimball’s death remained in a state of suspension, fixed there by the dark hands of fate. But when the story was told, animation superseded suspension, mystery became knowledge, suspicion turned into certainty. The case was snatched out of those dark hands by Mr. Ellery Queen, who directed its destiny thereafter with all the carefulness and cunning which years of experience as a diagnostician of crime had taught him.

Ellery was monstrously busy for days after the event. Whatever he was conniving, he meant it to be secret from most; his two hurried trips to Trenton were surreptitious, and no one knew of his dozens of telephone calls except those persons to whom they were addressed. He conferred privately with various hard-looking individuals; he sought the professional advice of Sergeant Velie; and, if the truth had been known, arranged a certain matter of unsuspected and illegal entry with a bland disregard of the civil rights of a free citizenry which would have made his father, the Inspector, shudder.

Then, his plans made, he came out into the open.

He began hostilities, strangely enough, on a Saturday. Whether this was a whim of chance of cynical design Ellery never explained, but the mere fact served to heighten the tension. The persons concerned could not help but recall the bloody events of that other Saturday when Gimball felt the cold bite of metal in his heart; the memory was clearly reflected by their strained faces.

“I’ve called you ladies and gentlemen together,” Ellery announced that afternoon in the Borden apartment on Park Avenue, “out of no idle desire to hear myself make a speech. There’s magic in the wind, and time is crowding me. Some of you may have lulled yourselves into a state of lethargy, feeling secure in the monotony of the status quo ante. If that’s so, it’s unfortunate; before the day is over I promise to awaken you with what may prove considerable rudeness.”

“What do you mean?” snapped Jessica. “Are we never to have any peace? And what right have you—?”

“None whatever, legally speaking. Nevertheless,” sighed Ellery, “it would be wisdom to humor my little fancy. You see, the tragedy of Joseph Kent Gimball’s death is about to be exhumed.”

“You’re reopening the case, Mr. Queen?” growled old Jasper Borden with a bitter half-twist of his lips. He had insisted upon being wheeled downstairs; he sat among them with the immobility of a corpse, only his one good eye alive.

“My dear sir, it has never been closed. Lucy Wilson of Philadelphia has been convicted of the crime, but her conviction did not solve it. Certain forces have been continuously at work since that grotesque débâcle in Trenton. They have never relaxed. I’m happy to announce,” Ellery said dryly, “that their efforts have been rewarded.”

“I can’t see that that concerns these good people,” said Senator Frueh sharply, playing with his beard, his shrewd little eyes intent on Ellery. “If you have new evidence take it to the prosecutor of Mercer County. Why continue to harass this group? If you want to make a fight of it,” he added in a grim tone, “I’ll be glad to oblige personally — I know the rules.”

Ellery smiled. “Oddly enough, Senator, that reminds me of something that was said some time ago by our friend Marcus Valerius Martial. African lions, he pointed out, rush to attack bulls; they do not attack butterflies. As an epigram—”

The lawyer was purple. “You leave these people out of whatever devilry you’re up to!” he shouted.

“Spare the rod?” sighed Ellery. “You wrong me, Senator. If I could, obviously I would. I’m afraid you’ll have to endure the nausea of my company for just a while longer. After that... well, let’s not discuss the future. I’ve found that the future generally gets where it’s going despite every effort of mere Man to arrest its progress.”

Jessica toyed with her handkerchief in an annoyed way, but she was stiff with enforced self-control. Grosvenor Finch stirred uneasily, watching her. Only Andrea, sitting quietly to one side, and Bill Angell, standing behind Andrea’s chair, seemed unaffected. Both kept their eyes riveted on Ellery. “No further objections?” murmured Ellery. “Thank you.” Glancing at his wristwatch, he said, “Then I think we had better be on our way.”

“On our way?” Finch was puzzled. “Where are you taking us?”

Ellery picked up his hat. “To Trenton.”

“Trenton!” gasped Andrea’s mother.

“We are going to revisit the scene of the crime.”

They all went pale at that, and for a moment were too startled to speak. Then Senator Frueh jumped up, brandishing a fat fist. “Now, that is going too far!” he roared. “You’ve no authority — I shall forbid my clients—”

“My dear Senator. Have you a personal objection to visiting the scene of the crime?”

“I’ve never been there!”

“You relieve me. Then that’s settled. Shall we go?”

Nobody stirred but Bill. The old millionaire asked quietly, in his bass voice: “May I ask what you hope to achieve by this unusual procedure, Mr. Queen? I know you would not make such a painful request unless you felt it to be necessary to some end you have in mind.”

“I had rather not explain my hopes, Mr. Borden. But the plan is simple. We are going to engage in a very dramatic undertaking. We shall re-enact the murder of Joseph Kent Gimball.”

The eyelid drooped. “Is that essential?”

“It was necessity that mothered the invention, sir, but the demonstration will be art in imitation of nature. Now, please, ladies and gentlemen. I shall greatly dislike having to exert official pressure to compel your attendance.”

“I shan’t go,” said Jessica Borden sullenly. “I’ve had enough. He’s dead. That woman is — why don’t you let us alone?”

“Jessica.” The old invalid turned his good eye toward his daughter. “Get your things on.”

The woman bit her thin lower lip. Then she said submissively, “Yes, Father,” rose, and went upstairs to her bedroom.

No one said anything until Jasper Borden again broke the silence. “I believe,” he said heavily, “that I shall go, too. Andrea, ring for the nurse.”

Andrea was shocked out of her immobility. “But, Grandfather—!”

“Did you hear what I said, child?”

Ellery retired to the door to wait. They all rose now and began to scatter, moving slowly. The piscine butler appeared loaded with hats.

“Ellery,” said Bill in a low voice.

“Hello, Bill. Well, how has your job worked out during the past few days? I don’t see any scars or wounds.”

Bill was grim. “It’s been hell. The duchess is a demon on wheels. I haven’t been able to get in here at all until today. But Andrea and I worked out a plan. I’ve been spending my days hanging around outside, watching. She agreed not to set foot from the apartment when I wasn’t on duty. At other times, we’ve been out together.”

“Promising start for a young couple with honorable intentions,” grinned Ellery. “Any signs of trouble?”

“No.”

Andrea came down, dressed for the street. She had a light coat on and her right hand was jammed into its pocket. It was almost as if within that pocket she were gripping a gun. Bill took a step toward her eagerly, but she shook her head, looked around, and signaled Ellery with her blue eyes. Ellery frowned, watching the pocket. Then his nod told Bill to wait where he was, and he stepped out into the corridor with Andrea.

She began in a swift whisper, “I had to talk to you before—,” and stopped to look around again, apprehensively.

“Andrea, whatever is the matter?”

“This.” The hand came out of the pocket. “This came in the mail this morning, wrapped in cheap paper, addressed to me.”

Ellery did not take it. His eyes rested on it for a moment and then searched her face. The hand holding the object trembled. It was a cheap little plaster group of figures, colored a mottled red. The group represented three squatting monkeys on a pedestal. One had his paw on his mouth, one on his eyes, one had both paws on his ears. “Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil,” said Andrea in the same whisper. “Or however it goes. Isn’t it insane?” She laughed rather hysterically. “But it frightens me. It’s—”

“Another warning.” Ellery frowned. “Our quarry is growing nervous. Did you save the wrappings?”

“Oh! I threw them away. I’m sure you couldn’t have got anything from them.”

“Tush. You confident people. And you’ve messed that thing up so that even if there were fingerprints on it they’re gone. Have you told Bill about this?”

“No. I didn’t want to worry him. Poor Bill! He’s been such a comfort these past few days—”

“Put it back in your pocket,” said Ellery sharply. “Someone’s coming.” The elevator-door opened and a tall figure stepped out. “Ah, Jones! Good man. Nice of you to come,” said Ellery.

Andrea blushed and fled into the apartment. Jones’s surly, blood-shot eyes remained fixed on the open doorway through which she had vanished. “Got your message,” he said thickly. He was apparently very drunk. “Don’t know why I came. They don’t want me here.”

“Well,” said Ellery cheerfully, “they don’t want me here, either.”

“What’s up, Sherlock? More deep stuff?”

“I thought you might like to join us. We’re bound for Trenton and an experiment.”

Jones laughed. “Or for hell. It’s all the same to me.”

The sun was a sliver of orange arc over the trees beyond the Delaware when they reached the isolated shack near the Marine Terminal. Ellery, piloting his Duesenberg in the van of the fleet of cars, had led them by a circuitous route on the outskirts of Trenton to Lamberton Road with a caution that indicated his reluctance to attract the attention of some inquisitive reporter roving the city streets.

It had been a sultry day; the leaves of the trees surrounding the shack were motionless. The foliage was so still, stood up so woodenly, that there was something unreal about the scene, as if it were a crude and lifeless imitation of nature. Even the surface of the river, glimpsed beyond the wooded shore, was only a glassy representation of living water. In this solitude the shack stood silently, a poor daub on a brutal landscape.

There was no conversation as Ellery, with a quick glance about, led his unwilling guests into the shack. They were making stern efforts to control themselves, all except Jasper Borden, whose grim eye in that iron face missed nothing. Finch and Bill Angell had some difficulty in maneuvering the old invalid’s wheelchair, which had been carted along, into the house. But finally they were all inside, disposed along the walls, quiet as awed children, the lamp on the table lit against the dimness of dusk and Ellery holding the center of the stage.

For a time he said nothing at all, content to let them steep themselves in the atmosphere of the place. Nothing, apparently, had altered since that eventful night weeks ago except that the area beyond the table was clear, the suits of clothing on the wall-rack were gone, and the odor of death had dissipated. But as they stood and sat there, watching emptiness, it came back distilled by their imaginations until they could almost see the dead flesh of Gimball frozen in its agony on the floor between them.

“Now if you will excuse me,” said Ellery suddenly, striding to the door, “I’ll get the props. As long as we’re staging a drama, we may as well use the technical terms. Please don’t move, anyone.”

He went out quickly, shutting the door behind him; and Bill moved over and set his back against it. The side door was shut. But suddenly, in the deep and awkward silence, it made a noise; and their eyes flew about in something like panic. It was open. The tall willowy figure of Ella Amity stood framed in the doorway.

“Hullo,” she said slowly, looking around. She wore no hat. Her red hair against the light of outdoors was a flaming and untidy nimbus about her hair. “It’s little Ella, folks. May I come in?” She calmly moved forward, closed the door, and stood there with roving, gleaming eyes. After a moment they looked away. The newspaper-woman’s nostrils began to quiver.

“So this is the dump where he got it, eh?” muttered young Jones, staring at the floor beyond the table with his blood-streaked eyes.

“Shut up, Burke,” said Finch irritably. Senator Frueh’s hand paused in its restless stroking of his beard, then resumed with a queer energy. Andrea sat in the armchair Lucy Wilson had occupied on the night of the murder. She was very still and seemed asleep. Bill’s head swiveled from side to side carelessly; there was a febrile flush on his tan cheeks.

The front door opened, and they started again, but it was only Ellery, lugging a large suitcase. He shut the door and turned. “Ella Amity,” he murmured. “Well, well, Ella. Where did you come from?” He seemed in a strange and secret way disturbed.

“A birdie whispered to me today,” the red-headed woman said lightly. “Told me something was going to pop around here. So here I am. I think you’re a heel for not letting me know.”

“How did you get here?”

“Walked. Good for the figure. Don’t worry, darling, I’ve nothing up my sleeve, and my record’s clean. I’ve been out back mooning at the river. Or is it sunning? Well, no matter. What’s going on here?”

“Keep quiet and perhaps you’ll find out.” Ellery went abruptly to the table, slung the suitcase on it. “Bill. I want you to run into town for me on an errand.”

Bill growled: “What—”

But Ellery pounced on him and spoke for some time in an urgent sotto voce. Bill nodded. Then, with a glance about that was oddly savage, Bill shoved the door open and disappeared. Ellery, who seemed especially solicitous about the door, closed it again. Without a word he went back to the table, opened the suitcase, began pulling things out of it. They were realistic stage properties, the actual articles removed by Chief De Jong from the scene of the crime after the initial investigation. As he worked in silence, they heard the sound of a motor outside. The curtains had been drawn at the windows, so they could not see what was going on, but they knew it was Bill Angell leaving for Trenton on his mysterious errand, and they glanced uneasily at one another. Bill seemed to be having difficulty in getting started. His car made a good deal of noise as he raced the engine. The racket was so loud that when Ellery began to speak they had to lean forward to hear. By this time they were grateful for the light of the lamp; darkness had fallen unexpectedly outside.

“There,” said Ellery, depositing the last article in its proper place and returning to the table to stand tall and motionless in the lamp’s radiance. “The stage is set. You will observe that Gimball’s clothes are now back on the wall-rack; that the wrapped package containing his birthday gift of a desk-set to Bill Angell is again on the mantel above the fireplace; that the clean, empty plate is once more on the table near the lamp. The only thing that’s missing is the body of the victim. But that, I feel sure, will be supplied by your own imaginations.”

He flicked one hand over his shoulder. Their eyes went obediently to the spot on the floor indicated, and although it was still a bare patch of fawn rug, it was dreadfully easy to visualize the sprawled body that was no longer lying there.

“Now let me retrace for you,” continued Ellery in a brisk tone, his eyes glittering in the lamplight, “the antecedent events of that day, June the first. A recapitulation will help you understand what happened subsequently. I’ve compiled a timetable which may not be completely accurate, but it gives the relative times involved closely enough to serve our purpose.”

Senator Frueh tried to interrupt, but he had to pause and lick his dry lips first. “Whatever that purpose is. I think this is the most preposterous—”

“The gentleman from Eighty-seventh Street,” said Ellery, “has the floor, Senator. I will be grateful for your absolute silence, as well as the silence of everyone else here. You will have unfettered opportunity later to talk to your hearts’ content.”

“Keep quiet, Simon,” said Jasper Borden out of the side of his mouth.

“Thank you, Mr. Borden.” Ellery waved a finger. “Observe. This is the afternoon of Saturday, June first. It is raining outside — raining hard. The rain is lashing at the windows. There is no one here. It is still light, the lamp is unlit, the package is not on the mantelpiece. The doors are closed.”

Someone drew a tremulous breath. Ellery went on in a swift, merciless voice. “It is five o’clock. Joseph Kent Gimball is in New York, at his office. He has come in from Philadelphia in the old Packard, probably not stopping here on his way in, otherwise he would have left the Packard here and taken his Lincoln to New York. The fact that the Packard was found parked in the side driveway indicates that that was the last car he used.

“Now. He has already sent two telegrams, one to Bill Angell, one to Andrea, both worded identically and asking the addressees to meet him in this place at nine tonight and giving minute instructions about how to find it. In the afternoon he has supplemented his telegram to Bill by telephoning Bill at his Philadelphia office, again urging him to be present at the rendezvous tonight.

“What does he do at five? He leaves his office, goes down to where he has parked the Packard near his New York office, and drives off to the Holland Tunnel bound for Trenton. In the car he has the dummy sample-case of his Wilson personality and the wrapped birthday gift he has purchased in Wanamaker’s Philadelphia yesterday intended for his brother-in-law. He reaches this shack at seven o’clock, runs up the side drive. It is still raining. A little later the rain stops. Meanwhile, the rain has washed away all traces of former footprints and tire marks, leaving, as it were, virgin ground.”

Senator Frueh muttered something that sounded like “tiresome old wives’ tale,” but promptly stopped as the old millionaire glared at him.

“Pipe down, Senator,” snapped Ella Amity. “This isn’t Congress, you know. Go on, Ellery. You fascinate me.”

“Gimball is in this room,” said Ellery coolly, as if there had been no interruption. “He wanders about, puts the gift on the mantel, pauses at the window to scan the sky. He sees the sky has cleared. It is still early; he is restless, worried; he needs something to take his mind off the ordeal of confession to come. So he goes out by the side door and trudges down the path to the boathouse, leaving his footprints in the hardening mud. He hauls out his sailboat and scuds off down the Delaware to quiet his nerves. It is seven-fifteen.”

They were sitting forward gripping the arms of their chairs, those who sat, and those who stood clutched the backs of the chairs. “To this point I have described what probably occured,” Ellery went on, “because the description concerned itself with a man dead and buried. But now we come to the living. Andrea, I shall need your assistance. It is eight o’clock. You have just driven up to the shack and parked the Cadillac roadster you borrowed from Mr. Jones, parked it in the main driveway facing toward Camden. Will you re-enact what you did?”

Andrea rose without a word and went to the door. She was pale now with a cold pallor that made her fresh young face ghastly. “Shall I... go outside?”

“No, no. You’ve just opened the door, let us say. Pretend that it’s open.”

“The lamp,” she whispered, “was off.”

Ellery moved. The room went black. From the darkness his voice came, disembodied, sending a chill up their spines. “It was not so dark as this. There was still some light outdoors. Go on, Andrea!”

They heard her moving slowly forward toward the table. “I–I looked in. The room was empty. Of course, I could see, although it was getting dark here. I went to the table and switched on the lamp — this way.”

The light clicked on; they saw her standing by the table, face averted, hand on the chain under the cheap shade. Then her hand fell. She stepped back, looked around at the fireplace, the clothes-rack, the dingy crumbling walls. She glanced at her wrist. Then she turned and went to the door again. “That’s all I did — then,” she said, again in a whisper.

“End of Scene I. Thank you; you may sit down now.” She obeyed. “Andrea realizes that she is an hour early; she goes out, gets into the roadster, drives off toward Camden, probably onto Duck Island, for what she has testified was an hour’s spin. The criminal,” said Ellery curtly, “arrives at eight-fifteen.” He paused, and the silence was unbearable. Their features might have been carved out of the living rock of an age-old convulsion of nature. The night, the sullen lowly room, the grisly whispers of outdoors, were twisted about their consciousness, not to be shaken off.

“The criminal has driven up at eight-fifteen from the direction of Camden in the Ford coupé she has stolen from Lucy Wilson’s garage in Fairmount Park — no matter when. She is outside now. She steps carefully onto the stone ledge outside the door. She opens it, comes in swiftly, closes it again, whirls about, prepared for—”

He was at the door now, acting out his recital. They followed him, fascinated. “She sees the place is empty, however. She relaxes, pushes back her veil. For a moment she is puzzled; she has expected to find her victim here. Then she realizes that he has gone off somewhere, but that he has been here: the Packard is outside, the lamp inside is lit; Gimball must be nearby. She will wait. She expects no interference; this is an isolated spot and she believes that no one in the world except herself and Gimball are aware of its relationship to Gimball. She prowls, restless. She sees the package on the mantelpiece.” He strode to the fireplace, reached up, tore away the wrappings of the package ruthlessly. The gift-set lay revealed. Ellery took the bundle to the table, bent over it. “Needless to say,” he murmured, “she wore protecting gloves.” He lifted out the still blood-stained paper-cutter, the little card, stained now by the many fingers that had handled it.

“Observe what chance has thrown into the path of this woman,” he said sharply, straightening up. “She finds the card, indicating that the desk-set is a gift from Lucy Wilson and Joseph Wilson. She has stolen Lucy Wilson’s car to frame her for the crime, but here, at hand, is something even better: a weapon identifiable with Lucy Wilson! Whatever weapon the criminal has intended to use, she discards it at once. She will use the paper-cutter. It will be another and stronger link to Lucy Wilson. She does not know, of course, how fortunate she is, for it is quite impossible that she should have known that Lucy Wilson’s fingerprints were on the knife. At any rate, she puts the package back on the mantel. But the knife is not with it; the knife is in her hand.”

The society woman made a moaning sound through stiff lips. She was evidently unconscious of what she had done, for she continued to glare at Ellery with an unwavering glassiness. Ellery grasped the bloody knife firmly, stole toward the side door. “She hears footsteps, coming from the river-side. It must be her victim. She stands behind this door, knife raised. The door opens, concealing her figure. Joseph Kent Gimball stands there, back from his sail on the river; he scrapes the mud off his shoes on the doorsill; he closes the door and walks in, unconscious of the menace at his back. The time is a little past eight-thirty, a matter of seconds or minutes.” Ellery suddenly lunged. “She makes a sound in moving. Gimball, behind the table, whirls. For an instant they see each other; she has turned down her veil again, but he sees her figure, her clothes. Then the knife plunges into his heart and he falls — apparently dead.”

Amazingly, Andrea’s mother began to sob. Still glaring at Ellery. The tears rolled slowly down her faintly lined cheeks. She sobbed almost indignantly.

“What happens?” Ellery whispered. “The knife is in Gimball’s heart. Only flight is necessary to complete the crime. Then—”

“I came back,” said Andrea in a low voice.

“Good God,” croaked Finch. “I thought you said, Andrea—”

“Please!” snapped Ellery. “Never mind what you thought. There has been a great deal of misrepresentation going on through which we’ve had to stumble to reach the truth. Andrea! Go through it for us.”

He ran toward the front door, took up his stand beside it.

“The criminal hears the sound of the returning car. Someone is coming. A miscalculation! She hopes the car will pass; instead, it stops outside door. She still has time to escape by way of the side door. But she wants to drive that Ford back to Philadelphia. She can handle herself. She crouches behind the door...”

Andrea was at the door now. She moved like a somnambulist, slowly, across the fawn rug toward the table, eyes fixed on the patch of rug behind it.

“Only the legs are visible,” said Ellery softly.

Andrea stopped by the table, looked at it, hesitated. Then Ellery sprang at her and his arm descended toward her head. Andrea drew in her breath.

“The criminal attacks Andrea from behind, knocks her unconscious. Andrea slips to the floor. The woman works swiftly. She sees now whom she has assaulted. It is necessary to leave a note of warning. She has no writing implements herself; she searches Andrea’s bag; none there. She searches the house; no pen or pencil. The pen on Gimball’s body has run dry. There is no ink in the desk-set. What to do?

“Then she sees the cork which came from the tip of the paper-knife, has an inspiration. She tears off a piece of wrapping-paper, goes to the table with the cork, takes the knife out of the dead man’s body, sticks the cork on its tip again, begins to char the cork with paper-matches. She chars, writes, chars, writes, dropping the burnt matches on the plate. Finally the note is finished — a warning to Andrea to say nothing whatever about what she has seen this night, or her mother’s life will be forfeit.”

“Andrea. Darling,” moaned Jessica feebly.

Ellery gestured with one hand. “The woman thrusts the note into Andrea’s limp hand. She drops the knife with the burnt cork on it on the table. She leaves, drives off in the Ford. Andrea comes to about nine. She reads the note, sees the body, recognizes her stepfather, thinks he is dead, screams, and flees. Then Bill Angell arrives, talks to the dying man. That,” said Ellery with a peculiar intonation, “is the script as it has been related to me.”

Again the dreaded silence fell. Then Senator Frueh said slowly, quite without anger or rancor, “What do you mean, Queen?”

“I mean,” said Ellery in a cold voice, “that a page of the script is missing. Something has been omitted. Andrea!”

She raised her eyes. There was something very strange in the air. She was wary, tense, sitting forward. “Yes?”

“What did you see when you came in here the second time, before you were struck on the head? What did you see on this table?”

She moistened her lips. “The lamp. The plate. With — with—”

“Yes?”

“With six match-stubs on it.”

“How interesting.” Ellery leaned toward them, his eyes narrow and completely dangerous. “Did you hear that? Six match-stubs. Well, let me go into this a little more scientifically. Andrea says that before she was struck, while the murderess was still here, she saw six half-burnt match-stubs on the plate. An obviously significant fact. It changes everything, doesn’t it?” There was such an odd quality in his tone that they searched one another’s faces for a confirmation of their own confused, timid, and terrible thought. His voice pulled them up again. “But this was before the cork was charred. Therefore those six matches had not been used for charring the cork, the deduction I made when I thought that all twenty matches had been ignited after the crime. No, no, six of them were used for a different purpose altogether. Well, if they weren’t employed in charring the cork, why were they struck?”

“Why?” asked Ella Amity swiftly. “Why?”

“Simple — so simple. Too simple! Why are matches struck, generally speaking? Well, for conflagration? But nothing was consumed by fire — there was no débris or ashes anywhere on the premises, inside or out, as I’ve once before explained; nor to char the cork, for the knife was still in the body when Andrea says she saw the six stubs. So conflagration is out.

“For light, to find a way in the dark? The light was on in here, and outside there were no footprints except Gimball’s. But Gimball would have needed no illumination outside; it was still daylight when he returned to get a knife in his chest. For heating? No ashes in the fireplace grate, and the broken-down old coal-stove is utterly useless. And there is no gas. For — improbably — torture? Logically, it is possible; this was a violent crime, and conceivably the victim might have been tortured to give information. But I once asked the coroner to discover if there were signs of burnt flesh on the victim. No, there were none. Then what the devil were those six matches used for?”

“It sounds screwy to me,” muttered Jones.

“It would be,” retorted Ellery, “if there weren’t still one more possible use. It’s the only one left. They were used for smoking.”

“Smoking!” Ella Amity’s lips parted. “But you said at the trial that they couldn’t have been used for smoking!”

Ellery’s eyes flickered. “I didn’t know then that Andrea had seen six matches before the cork was charred. Let’s leave that now. Andrea?”

“Yes?” Again the wariness, the stolidity, so alien to her.

Ellery snatched an envelope out of the discarded suitcase. He shook its contents onto the plate on the table. Half-burnt matchsticks poured out. They watched him, puzzled. He put all but six back in the envelope. “Come here, please.”

Andrea rose wearily, trudged toward him with stiff limbs. “Yes?” she said again.

“It works out so neatly, doesn’t it?” Ellery murmured with a trace of irony in his voice. “All right. You’re back here at eight thirty-five that night, at the table, about to be hit on the head. Here are the six matches on the plate.”

“Well?” Even her voice was tired, strangely old, as if in the midst of youth she had come to the end of the road.

“Look at this table, Andrea.” At the steel in his tone she seemed surprised out of her stolidity, for she took a backward step, looked down, looked up at the table. “The lamp. The plate with the six matches. Was that all?”

“All?”

“Wasn’t there something else? Think, Andrea! Think and look and tell the truth.” He added in a merciless voice: “I want the truth, Andrea, this time.”

Something in the way he said it touched a live nerve somewhere in her; she glanced about at the intent, stupid faces wildly. “I—” And then the most incredible thing happened. Her glance returned to the table, to the plate with the matches. It remained there for an instant and slowly, as if impelled by a force against which resistance was futile, moved to a spot three inches beyond the plate. A bare spot; there was nothing there. But Andrea saw something there; her face said so, her eyes, the clenching of her hands, the quick breath. Knowledge flooded through her like liquid through a blotter; it was as plain to those who watched as the distress, the indecision, the agony on her face. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, dear—”

“What lie,” and Ellery’s voice cracked like a whip, “are you going to tell me now, Andrea?”

Her mother jumped up, stopped. Grosvenor Finch said something inarticulate. Senator Frueh was white. Burke Jones was gaping. Only the old man in the wheelchair sat unmoved, a corpse among living, fluttering beings.

“Lie—?” choked Andrea. “What do you mean? I was just going to tell you—”

“Another lie,” Ellery said with terrible softness. “Spare us the pain of listening. I know now, young woman. I’ve known for some time. Lies, all lies. Lies about the six matches. Lies about being struck over the head. Lies about the ‘warnings’ you received. Lies about everything! Shall I tell you why you lied? Shall I tell you what factor you represent in this bloody equation? Shall I tell you—?”

“Good merciful God,” said Andrea’s mother hoarsely. On the right half of old Jasper Borden’s blue lips there was a blind and groping protest. The others sat so still...

In the light of the lamp Andrea stood fast, cemented to the floor by what was so horribly evident to them all: her guilt. Her lips moved, like her grandfather’s, but they made no sound. Then, with a swiftness that caught them — already steeped in horror — by complete surprise, Andrea streaked toward the side door and was gone.

It happened so suddenly that until the cough of an automobile engine came muffled to their ears they were too stupefied to stir. Even Ellery stood rooted to the spot. Then the motor roared and they heard a car thunder away, receding with incredible swiftness.

Senator Frueh screamed, “What’s she done, damn her?” and scrambled toward the door. His cry snapped the spell; they awoke and boiled in a mass after him. In a moment the shack was empty except for the old man in the wheelchair. He sat alone, staring sightlessly with his one good eye at the open doorway.

Outside they stumbled over one another in their haste. In the darkness that tail-light of a car was rapidly diminishing on Lamberton Road in the direction of Duck Island. Everybody ran for a car. A voice shouted: “My car — it won’t go!”

Other shouts arose. “Mine, too! What—?”

“The gas. Smell the gas,” muttered Ellery. “Someone’s drained the tanks...”

“That damned Angell!” There was a blistering oath. “He’s in cahoots with her! The two of them—!”

And then someone else yelled: “Mine — there’s still some...” They heard a flywheel turn over. A car shot out of the driveway and careened on two wheels into Lamberton Road. It was soon lost to sight behind the first car.

They grouped themselves in the road, straining into the darkness. Everything was unreal. Nothing seemed possible in this night, on this road, by this house, under this sky. They could only stare and breathe, stupidly, like animals.

Then Ellery said, “She can’t get far. There must be some gas left in each tank. We’ll pool the dregs and follow!”

The occupant of the second car, nerves singing, drove recklessly, intent on the speck of crimson light far ahead. The road was pitch-dark; they were somewhere on Duck Island already. The night, the sky, the road, seemed interminable. Crazily, that red speck in the distance danced, bobbed, fell, stopped. It grew larger and larger as the second car hurtled toward it. Something had happened. In Andrea’s condition — panic-stricken, blind, driven by fear — it was a wonder she had managed to control the car at all.

The brakes of the second car squealed, the car staggered, stopped dead, throwing its driver against the wheel. Across the road Andrea’s face, behind her wheel, was a cerulean smudge; she was slumped in the seat, staring hopelessly into the sea of the night. She had taken a huge sedan in her flight; it had run slightly off the road and smashed into a tree. The only light came from the stars, and they were far away.

“Andrea!” She did not seem to hear; her right hand stole to her throat and pressed. “Andrea, why did you run away?”

She was afraid now, very plainly afraid. Her head turned slowly, pivoted by her terror. In the faint light her eyes glowed with it. The pursuer stood calmly in the road between the two cars, hands hanging loosely. “Andrea, my dear. You needn’t be afraid of me. God knows I’m tired of it all. I wouldn’t harm you. If you only knew.” The dim face between the two cars stirred, settled, was still. “They’ll be along soon. Andrea, you did remember seeing, on the table that night, the...?”

Andrea’s lips moved soundlessly, as if even her vocal cords had been paralyzed by the pressure of her fear.

Far up the road a car was coming, swimming in dark dust. Its headlights, stuck on the tips of the tubular beams like the antennæ of an insect, probed the darkness, lightened the sky a little.

“Before they come.” The speaker stopped, sighed with a childlike weariness. “I wanted you to know I never intended you any harm. I mean, after you walked in on me that night so unexpectedly. I didn’t know it was you when I struck. Then, when you fell... I couldn’t kill you, Andrea. That would have been insane. I killed Joe Gimball because he was no longer fit to live. Only death could wipe out what he had done, and someone had to send him along. Why not I? Well, it’s done. It’s over. This man thinks you killed Joe, ran away because you are guilty. I know why you ran away, Andrea — because just now you remembered what it was you saw on the table that night.

“Of course I can’t permit you to keep quiet any longer when you yourself are suspected. I thought I could be clever; I didn’t see why I should sacrifice my life in taking a life which had to be taken. I see now that I should have done it simply, without plan, and then given myself up. It would have been — well, cleaner.” There was a wry smile on that steady face hanging in the road. Andrea cried out suddenly, a sobbing cry torn from her throat not by horror but by pity.

Something flashed in the hand so near her. There was a lightning movement from inside the sedan, simultaneous with the calm words, “Goodbye, Andrea. Remember me — well, remember me. I hope... she will remember me.” The hand flashed again, upward this time.

Andrea screamed, “Oh, don’t!”

Bill Angell roared from the back of the second car: “Andrea, for God’s sake! Down!”

Men were spewed forth from the side of the road behind the sedan, guns in their hands. The rear door of the sedan swished open; Bill Angell sprang down to the road.

The face of the pursuer on the road convulsed; a finger tightened, there was a stunning report, smoke, a flash of fire. But the figure merely staggered, it did not fall; an expression of immense surprise came over that handsome face, to be replaced instantly by bitterness and then determination. “Sold out!” It was a mutter.

Then the figure leaped forward, dropping the useless revolver, and grappled with Bill, groping fiercely for the weapon in Bill’s hand. They struggled all over the road, brilliantly illuminated by the headlights of the third car, just roaring up. The men who had materialized from the side of the road were upon them like ants, swarming, clutching, shouting.

There was another report; as if it were a signal, the struggle ceased, the men fell away. There was silence under the dark sky. The people pouring out of the third car stopped in their tracks. This time there was no surprise on the face of the executioner of Joseph Kent Gimball; only peace. The figure lay peacefully in the road, relaxed in death, asleep forever.

Andrea said stiffly: “Bill. Oh, Bill. You’ve killed—”

Bill was panting, drawing huge gulps of the night air into his lungs. As his chest heaved he looked down at the quiet figure. Bill’s revolver was still clutched in its fingers. “Suicide. Fought me for the gun. I couldn’t prevent it. Dead?”

Chief De Jong was squatting in the road, listening with his head on the motionless chest. Then he rose, looking grave. “Dead, all right. Mr. Queen?”

Ellery ran up. He demanded abruptly, “Are you all right, Andrea?”

“All right.” Her voice was muffled. Suddenly she fumbled with the front door of the sedan, slipped down, stumbled weeping into Bill’s arms.

“Mr. Queen?” said Chief De Jong again; he seemed embarrassed. “We got it all down — stenographer took it from the side of the road. It’s a confession, all right, and you’ve prevented... well, I guess Pollinger and I owe you an apology.”

“The one to be congratulated,” said Ellery, “is this young woman.” He pressed the cold fingers clasped about Bill’s neck. “That was well done, Andrea; well done, my dear. The only thing I was doubtful about was our friend’s reaction to your flight. It might have ended in tragedy for you. I prevented that by sending some friends of mine to the right place well in advance, for a little job of substituting blank cartridges for lethal ones. Well done, Andrea; you followed my instructions to the letter.”

The group at the third car said nothing, did nothing, nothing at all. They just stared at the body lying in the road.

“Naturally,” said Ellery on Monday morning, “although I’m a busy man I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

They were in Judge Ira V. Menander’s private chambers at the Mercer County Court House. Certain formalities had prevented the release of Lucy the previous day, Sunday. But this morning Bill had made a motion before Judge Menander for a new trial on the ground of “new evidence” in which Prosecutor Pollinger had automatically joined. The judge had thereupon set aside the old conviction of Lucy Wilson, Pollinger had moved to discontinue the indictment, the motion had been granted, and Bill with Andrea clinging to him had hurried across the Bridge of Sighs into the adjoining prison with an official order to the warden for Lucy’s release.

Now they were back at the old jurist’s request, Lucy quite bewildered at the suddenness of her freedom, dumb and flushed with happiness. Paul Pollinger was with them, looking sheepish.

“I have been told, Mr. Queen,” remarked Judge Menander after he had made his apologies to Lucy for the ordeal she had gone through, “that there is an extraordinary story connected with your solution of this case. I confess I’m a little curious. Yours seems to be a strange destiny, young man. I’ve heard tales about you. What magic did you perform this time?”

“Magic,” muttered Pollinger. “That’s what it was, all right.”

Ellery glanced at Bill, Lucy, Andrea; they sat on the Judge’s leather sofa with their hands joined, like three children. “Magic? For old hands, gentlemen, that’s naïve. The ancient formula: pick out the facts and put them together. Mix thoroughly with plenty of logic. Add a dash of imagination. Presto!”

“It sounds delicious,” said Judge Menander dryly, “but not very informative.”

“By the way,” said Pollinger, “how much of that little scene Saturday night was planned? I’m still sore at the way you and De Jong ignored me.”

“All of it. It was our job, anyway, Pollinger. When Andrea told me the story of the six matches, I saw through the whole fantastic business. I could develop a logical case, but none that would satisfy your damned courts of law. So it was necessary to be subtle. My criminal had to be trapped. It had been evident to me all along that one of the most curious characteristics of this criminal had been a really remarkable solicitude for Andrea. Now, if Andrea possessed knowledge dangerous to the criminal on the night of the crime due to something she saw on that table, why didn’t the criminal take her life as well as Gimball’s? Then the ‘warnings’, the dainty chloroforming! Another killer would have resorted at the last to really desperate measures against Andrea; this one was content with mere admonitions, threats made empty by the lack of force employed. So, I reasoned, if the criminal was solicitous of Andrea’s welfare, my logical plan was to put Andrea in danger.

“The best way to do this was to make it seem that I thought her guilty of the crime. The criminal could do only one of two things after this: kill Andrea to prevent her from finally disclosing the dangerous knowledge she had; or confessing to the crime to save Andrea from further complicity, which was — under the circumstances — the more plausible possibility. I didn’t believe the criminal would attempt her life because of past performances; however, I took no chances and had the teeth drawn from the criminal’s weapon. And, of course, I had De Jong and his men waiting at the place planned for the ‘breakdown’ of the ‘escape’ car, and Bill here waiting outside the shack in the car itself, hidden from sight and armed. He didn’t go to Trenton; that was just an excuse to get him out of the shack; he raced his motor while some of De Jong’s men emptied the necessary gasoline tanks and then left for the rendezvous. I had instructed Andrea beforehand in her rôle; told her just what to do in the shack and when to do it; arranged for Andrea’s and the criminal’s car to be let alone while the others were tampered with; and thereby insured the criminal’s following Andrea a little in advance of the others and providing an opportunity for the confession to Andrea.”

“Then you knew in advance who was the guilty party?” asked the prosecutor.

“Certainly. The plan could not have been concocted without that vital knowledge to build on. How would I have known whose car to let alone if I hadn’t known who killed Gimball?”

“It seems like a nightmare now,” sighed Andrea. Bill said something to her and she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Well, Mr. Queen,” said the Judge, “when am I going to hear that story?”

“If Your Honor please, right now. Where was I?” Ellery repeated for the benefit of the old gentleman and the prosecutor the reasoning he had gone through in the shack on Saturday night. “So, you see, it was evident that the six burnt matches Andrea saw before the criminal charred the cork had been used for smoking. The logical question, then, was: By whom had those six matches been used for smoking?

“On Andrea’s first visit to the shack at eight o’clock that night, there was no one in the place, and the plate on the table, she said, was quite clean and empty. At that time Gimball’s car was parked on the side driveway. When Andrea returned at eight thirty-five, the car was still there, and another car stood before the house, on the main driveway. And inside the shack the plate contained the six burnt match-stubs.

“Clearly, then, those six matches were burned in Andrea’s absence, between eight and eight thirty-five. Who was in the house during Andrea’s absence? Gimball, of course, returned to be knifed. And the evidence of the tire tracks established that the other car, the Ford, was the only car to come while Andrea was away. No one came on foot: for there were no footprints in the mud except Gimball’s. Therefore, since Gimball was killed in the interim between Andrea’s two visits, and only one car arrived in that interim, and no one came on foot, the criminal must have come in that one car. Therefore, the only ones who could have burned those six matches were Gimball and his killer.

“Now, if the six matches had been used for smoking, I could eliminate Gimball at once. He never smoked — scads of testimony and evidence to that effect. That left only the criminal.

“Theoretically, of course, it was possible that Andrea had used the six matches herself, despite what she told us to the contrary. But it was she who found the match-stubs and it was upon her story that the entire logical structure of my solution rested. If I doubted the veracity of her story I simply could not proceed. So, working on the assumption that she was telling the truth, I eliminated her. Obviously, if she came in and found those matches, then it wasn’t she who had used them.”

The old jurist’s eyes narrowed. “But, my dear Mr. Queen—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Ellery hastily. “Trust the judiciary to put a finger on the weakness. But it isn’t a weakness, as I shall demonstrate later. Let me go on. I knew now that the criminal had smoked in that shack before Andrea’s arrival at eight thirty-five, and had used six matches in the process. Well, what had the criminal smoked? I saw at once how important and at the same time arresting the question was.”

“Important,” smiled the judge, “but to me baffling.”

“Had the criminal smoked cigarets? Quite impossible.”

“How the deuce,” demanded Pollinger, “do you arrive at that?”

Ellery sighed. “Six half-burnt matches meant as many as six cigaret butts; cigarets scarcely ever require more than a single match. Six matches, well burnt down as they were, surely implied a multiplicity of cigarets, if cigarets were smoked. Very well. What had the smoker done with those butts? Where had they been ground out? We know that the criminal used the plate as an ashtray, for Andrea found the six burnt matches there. Wouldn’t the criminal have ground cigaret butts out in the plate as well? But Andrea saw no butts or ashes in that plate at a time when the killer could not have anticipated being interrupted and therefore would have had no reason to hide the butts elsewhere.

“If the killer had been smoking cigarets before Andrea’s arrival, the butts and ashes should have been either in the plate on the table, on the rug, in the fireplace, or under the windows outside the shack. But they weren’t in the plate or on the table; there wasn’t a trace of even a single butt or the slightest speck of ash on the rug or anywhere inside the shack — not a shred of tobacco or anything else, for that matter. There were no burns on the carpet, such as might have been made by a foot grinding out a cigaret; and such burns would have been left even if the criminal had ground the cigarets out on the rug and then taken away the ashes and butts so ground. As for the area beneath the windows outside the shack, none were found in the muddy earth or I should have been informed, and I was definitely told that there were no footprints anywhere outside the shack except Gimball’s, indicating that the murderer had not thrown butts or ashes through a window and then retrieved them before fleeing from the scene.

“And so it was quite clear, after this analysis, that although the criminal had smoked before Andrea’s arrival, it had not been cigarets. That left,” continued Ellery with a shrug, “only a cigar or a pipe as possibilities.”

“How did you eliminate?” asked Pollinger curiously.

“Well, obviously a cigar would have left ashes, too, although not necessarily a butt. The same analysis that eliminated ashes in the case of cigarets would eliminate ashes in the case of a cigar. On the other hand, a pipe would leave no ashes at all, unless it were knocked out to dispose of the dottle, which wasn’t necessary; and besides the use of six matches was consistent with the theory of a pipe. Pipes are always going out and having to be relit. It wasn’t essential for me, however, to pin it down specifically to either a pipe or a cigar. The true significance arose from the mere elimination of cigarets, per se.”

Pollinger frowned. “Yes, yes, of course. I see that now.”

“It’s obvious, certainly. If the criminal smoked a cigar or a pipe, then the criminal was a man!”

“Beautiful.” Judge Menander nodded enthusiastically. “Quite so. A woman would naturally be ruled out by that line of reasoning. But all the evidence indicated that the criminal was a woman.”

“Then all the evidence,” retorted Ellery, “was wrong. If you rely on logic, you must stick by it or fall back on mere guesswork. The deduction pointed indisputably to a man; the evidence indicated a woman; the evidence, then, must have been either misleading or false. The evidence said a heavily veiled woman committed the crime; the deduction said: no, it was a man; therefore it was a man dressed as a woman, and the veil becomes important and significant as the essential cloak to a man’s undisguisable features.

“As a matter of fact, the more I thought over this deduction the more convinced I became of its truth. There was at least one psychological confirmation of the sex of the criminal — a small point, but it is on small points that the world’s most startling discoveries are built.”

“What was that?” demanded the judge.

“It was the curious phenomenon of the lipstick that wasn’t used,” smiled Ellery.

They were puzzled. Pollinger scrubbed his chin and said: “The lipstick that wasn’t used? By George, Queen, that sounds like something out of Doyle.”

“A handsome compliment. Surely it’s evident? We knew that the criminal, who at the time we supposed to be a woman, found it necessary in an emergency to write a note to Andrea. We knew that there were no ordinary writing implements available — I’ll take that up later — and that ‘she’ was forced to char a cork in order to write. A laborious process, eh? Well, didn’t it occur to you that every woman, almost without exception, carries with her a natural writing instrument? A lipstick? Why go through the slow and unsatisfactory process of charring a cork when all she had to do was open her bag, take out her lipstick, and write? The answer was, psychologically, that she had no lipstick. This in itself pointed to the fact that the ‘woman’ wasn’t a woman at all, but a man.”

“Well, suppose by chance this was really a woman and she didn’t carry a lipstick?” argued Judge Menander. “It’s possible.”

“Very well, it’s possible. But there was Andrea lying on the floor, unconscious! Didn’t Andrea have a bag? Didn’t Andrea, a woman, carry a woman’s natural weapon, a lipstick? Of course she did; it was unnecessary to mention it. Then why didn’t this ‘woman’ open Andrea’s bag and borrow Andrea’s lipstick to write with? The answer again was that ‘she’ didn’t think of it. But a woman would have thought of it, being a woman. Again a psychological indication of a man.”

“But lipsticks in these modern days of scientific criminology,” objected Pollinger, “can be traced by the chemical formula.”

“Can they? How nice. But then why didn’t the criminal use Andrea’s lipstick? Even if it were traced, it would be traced back to Andrea, not the criminal. No, no, no matter how you look at it, there is still psychological confirmation in this point that the criminal was a man masquerading as a woman. We now have, in fact, two points of description in the murderer’s portrait: he is a man, and he smokes most probably a pipe.”

“Beautiful, beautiful,” said the Judge again.

“Now,” said Ellery briskly. “The use of paper-matches inevitably suggested a match-packet. I asked Andrea specifically if she couldn’t remember having seen anything else on the table — with a packet in mind. Of course, the criminal might have put the packet away in his pocket, but then again he might not have done so. Remember again that Andrea’s appearance that night was unexpected and came directly after the crime when the murderer was still not finished with the bloody work at hand. Yes, said Andrea, she did remember that when she saw the six matches in the plate there was also a closed paper match-packet on the table near it. Perfect! It gave me the last clue.”

“I confess,” said the Judge ruefully, “that I don’t see how.”

“Well, perhaps you aren’t aware of a further fact which also came out in Andrea’s story the other day. That was that when she recovered consciousness, the packet was gone. Now, if it was gone, the criminal had taken it away. Why?”

A little flicker of interest disturbed the beatific expression on Bill’s face. “Why not, El? Smokers do that all the time. Especially pipe-smokers; they’re always running short of matches. They use the packet and put it right back in their pockets.

“Touché,” murmured Ellery, “but not in a vital spot, my son. Putting it back in your pocket implies that there are still matches left in the packet, n’est-ce pas?”

“Of course!”

“But you see,” said Ellery gently, “there couldn’t have been any matches left in the packet the criminal first used.”

“Hold on, young man,” said the Judge in haste. “This seems to be the magic I referred to. How do you arrive at that remarkable conclusion?”

“By a simple process. How many matches were found in the plate — all the matches, those used for smoking and those used for charring the cork?”

“Twenty, I believe.”

“How many matches are there in these cheap, common, universal match-packets?”

“Twenty.”

“Precisely. What does that mean? That means that at least one packet of matches was fully depleted by the criminal in the shack that night. Even if the criminal didn’t start with a full, fresh packet but with, say, a packet already started and having only ten matches left, and then pulled out another packet to complete the total of twenty found, the first packet would have been emptied in the process.

“Well, there we were with one empty packet. Yet the criminal took it away with him. Why? People don’t do that, you know. When you use up a packet, you throw it away.”

“Ordinary people, perhaps,” retorted Pollinger, “but you’re forgetting that this man was a murderer on the scene of his crime, Queen. He might have taken his packet away out of sheer caution — not to leave a clue.”

“Aptly phrased,” murmured Ellery with a sly grin. “Not to leave a clue. But how would an ordinary packet of matches leave a clue, Pollinger? These things are used for advertising anything and everything under the sun. You may say that the product or place advertised on the cover has an address which the murderer might feel would leave a trail to his place of origin or recent movements. Indefensible; you can’t base a single conclusion on the address of a match-packet advertisement. In New York you may be handed a packet originating in Akron, Tampa, or Evansville. I’ve been given packets with my purchases of cigarets and tobacco emanating from as far away as San Francisco. No, no, it wasn’t the address or the advertisement on the packet that forced the murderer to take it away.” Ellery paused. “Yet take it away he did. Why? What other kind of clue was he afraid the leaving of the packet might give? Obviously a clue, direct or indirect, that would lead to himself — a clue to his identity.” The two men nodded soberly; the three on the sofa sat forward.

“Now, remember this. From the beginning the murderer was afraid that Andrea had seen something damning on the scene of the crime. It couldn’t have been his face or figure; he had struck her from behind and she had never had an opportunity to glimpse the person who assaulted her. Yet he must have considered what Andrea saw of terrible importance: he took time out on the scene of his crime, still smoking with the blood of the victim, to go through that slow and difficult process of writing the note; he wired her another warning the day after the crime; he sent her a more subtle warning only last Saturday when he felt the trail getting hot. These things were fraught with peril for him, even though he negotiated them without detection. Nevertheless, he persisted in warning Andrea to keep quiet. Why? Why? What had she seen, or what did he fear she had seen, that made him so apprehensive? It could only have been that match-packet which he had taken away and which she had observed on the table with the six match-stubs just before she was struck on the head.

“But we’re looking for a reason for his having taken the packet away. There’s only one feasible reason. The packet was closed. He knew that; it was lying on the table in full view. Whatever it was that worried him about that packet, it was something simple, direct, seen at once, understood in a flash, and connected with the outside of the packet. Was he afraid she had recognized it as belonging to him? Implausible; people don’t ordinarily ‘recognize’ match-packets, and even if they do anyone else might be using an identical one. So it could only have been that there was an insignia, a monogram perhaps, some simple inscription on the cover of that packet which Andrea could identify at once with a specific individual.”

“It’s so funny, all this,” said Andrea with a catch in her throat. “To think—”

“The irony of it,” said Ellery grimly, “was that Andrea didn’t remember anything special about the cover of that packet. She saw it, but it didn’t register in her mind, upset and scared as she was at the time. It was the other day, while I was planning our little drama for Saturday night, that I recalled it to her mind by a direct question after I’d deduced the answer; and then, for the first time, she remembered. But the criminal couldn’t take the chance that she hadn’t seen. After all, he had observed her staring directly at it. He never doubted for an instant that she had read what was on it and knew his identity as the murderer. And so I now had another element in the description of the murderer. He was a man. He smoked a pipe. He used match-packets with some sort of identifying inscription on their covers.”

“Remarkable,” muttered Judge Menander, when Ellery paused to light a cigaret. “But surely that isn’t all? I still don’t see—”

“All? Scarcely. It was merely the first link in the chain. The second was forged by that charred cork. I’ve demonstrated in the past that if the criminal used the cork as a writing instrument, then clearly there was no more practical writing instrument at hand that he thought of. I add this last, of course, because of the lipstick which he didn’t think of using, being a man. This meant that he himself carried no pen or pencil on his person at the time — remember, the necessity for writing the note arose unexpectedly — or, if he did have a pen or pencil, there was something about it that made him unwilling to use it.” Ellery paused again. “Pollinger, do you recall my little extemporaneous effusion shortly after the crime, when I pointed out that you could not say who had been killed, Gimball or Wilson?”

Pollinger made a wry face. “I do. I remember you said it would prove important in the solution.”

“How important even I didn’t grasp at the time. It’s proved incalculably vital in the solution. Without this knowledge — in which personality the man was killed — no final logical elimination could have been made. For this knowledge led to the most revealing characteristic of the murderer. The picture of the murderer would have been vague and meaningless lacking the answer to this question. I can’t stress too much the totality of the point.”

“You make it sound portentous,” observed the Judge.

“It has proved portentous to the murderer,” replied Ellery dryly. “Now. In what personality had our victim been killed: as Gimball or as Wilson? I was now in a position to answer the question.

“Follow me: Since the murderer had killed his victim and framed Lucy Wilson for the murder, then he must have known that Lucy Wilson would be believed by the police to possess a powerful motive for the crime. For no one frames an innocent person without knowing that that person has a conceivable and credible motive. The mere fact that Lucy was the wife of the victim didn’t make her in any sense a logical victim of the frame-up. Well, what were Lucy Wilson’s ‘motives’? What motives, in fact, were actually ascribed to her during her trial? It was pointed out by our clever friend here that: one, she could have learned just before the crime that Joseph Wilson was really Joseph Kent Gimball, having deceived her about his true identity and other life for ten years, and that this knowledge would turn her love to hatred; two, that by his death she stood to gain a million dollars. These, it was said, were Lucy Wilson’s motives — there were no others, for she and Wilson had led an ideal domestic existence. But for the murderer to have visualized these motives for Lucy Wilson meant that the murderer was aware of them. He knew, then, that Joseph Wilson was really Joseph Kent Gimball; he knew, then, that at the death of Joseph Wilson, Lucy Wilson would be paid the million dollars of Joseph Kent Gimball’s insurance. To know these two facts the murderer therefore must have learned somehow that his intended victim was both Gimball and Wilson, that the man had been leading a double life for many years.

“But if the murderer knew his intended victim was leading a double life, he also knew that he was killing not Joseph Kent Gimball alone, not Joseph Wilson alone, but both. The man was murdered, then, in neither personality exclusively, but in the two collectively; and how important this is I leave you to judge.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it to you,” grinned Pollinger.

“Pshaw! If the murderer killed Gimball-Wilson, the man of two lives, knowing that he was killing Gimball-Wilson, the inevitable question was: How had the murderer learned of those two lives? How did he know that Gimball of New York, the society man, was also Wilson of Philadelphia, the itinerant peddler? For years Gimball had taken every precaution to keep his double life a dead secret; for years no one suspected; for years apparently Gimball made no mistake and went unsuspected; and Wilson kept his Gimball identity equally secret for the same length of time. He had told Bill here in so many words, according to the story Bill told De Jong and me on the night of the crime, that no one he knew was aware of the existence of the shack. Yet the murderer chose Halfway House for the scene of the crime. True, Gimball meant to reveal his secret to Bill and Andrea that night, but he was murdered before he could carry out his intention. Had he meant to tell a third person, he would have certainly told that third person no earlier than the night of the murder. Yet the murderer knew the whole story. How, then, had the murderer learned it?”

“That was the logical question, of course,” nodded the Judge.

“And there was a logical answer to it,” drawled Ellery.

“But couldn’t he have learned the story,” demanded Bill from the sofa, “by sheer accident?”

“Possibly, of course, but very unlikely. Gimball, we know on good authority, never relaxed his vigilance. The two telegrams, had they fallen into the hands of the murderer, would have revealed nothing but the location of Halfway House — I love that phrase! But if the location of the place had been the only thing the murderer learned, it would not have been enough. The murderer must have known well in advance of the day Gimball sent the telegrams — the day he died — all about the Gimball personalities. He had to know not only the location of Halfway House but the identity of Gimball’s real wife, where she lived, something of her character and background. He had to have time to plan the crime, to find out about Lucy’s car, to learn her Saturday-night movie habit so that he could depend on her probable lack of an alibi, and so on. All this would have taken time. Not a day — perhaps more than a week, if the man were investigating surreptitiously as he must have. No, Bill, hardly an accidental discovery.”

“Then how?” cried Pollinger.

“How? There was one means by which the murderer could have learned which was so plain I couldn’t ignore it. While it’s impossible by pure logic to eliminate beyond doubt the murderer’s accidental discovery of Gimball’s dual-life background, we can discard the unlikely accident-theory for a positive indication, which clearly exists. Gimball was slain very shortly after he decided to make a clean breast of his predicament and tell the story of his double life to representatives of both his families. When you consider that his first step along the road to confession was to change his insurance-policy beneficiary from his false wife Jessica to his true wife Lucy, the fact becomes too overwhelming to be coincidence. Don’t you see? At last there was a record of his double life — nine records, so to speak: the name and address of the new beneficiary on the original application and on the eight revised policies! And then, on the heels of these records, he was murdered. How could I doubt that it was by this means that the murderer had learned that Gimball was Wilson and Wilson Gimball? Anyone who learned of this change, or had access to the policies, could have investigated; learned the secret from the name and address; followed Gimball on one of his stopovers at Halfway House; and in two weeks discovered all that was necessary to plan the murder and implicate Lucy as the murderess.”

Lucy was crying softly; Andrea sat up and put her arm around the weeping woman. At the spectacle Bill began to smile rather fatuously, like a proud parent watching the antics of his two children.

“And so,” said Ellery, “I now had a complete portrait of the criminal. I’ll give the characteristics numerically.

“1. The criminal was a man.

“2. The criminal was a smoker, probably a pipe-smoker, certainly heavily addicted to the weed, for only one chronically in the grip of tobacco would have resorted to it on the scene of an intended crime while waiting for his victim.

“3. At the time of the murder the criminal carried a monogrammed or similarly identifiable match-packet.

“4. The criminal had motive against both Gimball and Mrs. Wilson.

“5. The criminal had no writing implement on his person, or the one he did have he preferred not to use because its use might in some way be traceable to him.

“6. The criminal came most probably from the Gimball side of the fence — his deliberate framing of Lucy implied that.

“7. The criminal had a tender feeling for Andrea, indicated by the mildness of his attacks despite great provocation. The criminal had an even tenderer feeling for Andrea’s mother, for he didn’t once attempt to carry out his threat to harm her — an attempt which, had it been made even as a feint, would have very effectually sealed Andrea’s mouth forever.

“8. The blow which killed Gimball, said the coroner, was delivered with a right hand. So the criminal used his right hand.

“9. The criminal knew that Gimball had changed the beneficiary of his policy.”

Ellery smiled. “In mathematics, you know, you can do a lot of tricks with the number nine. Now let me show you a little trick I was able to do in a murder-case with the same number. With nine definite characteristics of the murderer, the analysis became child’s-play. All I had to do was to go through my list of suspects and test each one against the nine characteristics.”

“Fascinating,” beamed Judge Menander. “Do you mean to say that by this method you can reach a definite conclusion?”

“By this method,” retorted Ellery, “I can eliminate every suspect but one. I’ll discuss them one by one.

“In the first place, of course, point number one eliminates in a single swoop all women. The criminal had to be a man. Who are the men? Well, old Jasper Borden first...”

“Oh!” gasped Andrea. “You horrid thing! Do you mean to say that you suspected Grandfather for a single instant?”

Ellery grinned. “My dear child, everyone is suspect in an objective analysis; we can’t afford to be sentimental because one person is old and decrepit and another young and beautiful. As I say, Jasper Borden. Well, you say, he’s an invalid; he never leaves his house; this was the crime of an active man; and all that is quite true. But let’s pretend that this is a detective story where Mr. Borden would probably have been shamming and slipping out of his Park Avenue apartment quite spryly at ungodly hours and doing all sorts of dreadful things under cover of the night. How do we stand, logically speaking, on Jasper Borden? Well, he is eliminated on point two completely: he does not smoke any more, as he told me before a witness — his grim nurse, who certainly was in a position to deny this if it hadn’t been true. Besides, since this isn’t a detective story, we know that Mr. Borden is a semi-paralytic and could not possibly have committed the crime.”

“Next, Bill Angell.”

Bill half rose from the sofa. “Why, you damned Judas!” he grinned. “You don’t mean to tell me you actually considered me a possibility?”

“Of course I did,” said Ellery calmly. “What did I know about you, Bill? I hadn’t seen you for over ten years — you might have become a hardened criminal in the interval, you know. But seriously, you were eliminated on several counts: points four, five, and six. That is, while you might have had motive against Gimball, you certainly had no motive against Lucy, your own sister, whom the criminal framed. Five, the criminal had no usable writing implement on his person. Ah! but you did!”

“How on earth,” said Bill, astonished, “do you know that?”

“You gullible people,” sighed Ellery. “By the simplest method in the world — I saw them. Remember? I even mentioned in our little chat in the taproom of the Stacy-Trent that, from the pocketful of nicely sharpened pencils I saw, you must be a busy man. Well, that was only a matter of minutes after the crime. If you had a pocketful of pencils and were the criminal, you would certainly have used one in writing the note to Andrea. Pencils, with all our science, are untraceable. And point six, the criminal came from the Gimball side of the fence. Obviously you didn’t. So you were eliminated logically.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Bill feebly.

“Now, our pompous friend Senator Frueh. But what have we? An amazing thing! Senator Frueh, I find to my astonishment, fits all the characteristics! I mean, conceivably. But in his case alone one fact is sufficient to eliminate him which doesn’t even appear on the list of characteristics, although I might have included it, at that. He wears a beard. Nothing phony about that brush! It’s been his pride and joy for years; it has decorated newspapers for a generation. But no man with a beard as long as his — it reaches to his chest, remember — could possibly have concealed it, even with a veil. There was one witness who saw the veiled ‘woman’ quite clearly: the garageman. He could not have avoided noticing a beard if the ‘woman’ wore one. The veil didn’t reach below the chin; the beard would have shown. Besides, the ‘woman’, said the witness, was husky and large; Frueh is short and fat. And even if Frueh had shaved off his beard for the crime, he exhibited one afterward. Was it false? Most improbable, with all the worrying he does to it. If there’s still any doubt in your mind, the next time you see it just pull it.

“Now friend Burke Jones. Eliminated at once on point eight. There could have been no chicanery in the report that he had suffered a broken arm in a game of polo — it was reported in the papers and obviously had been witnessed by hundreds of people. But it was Jones’s right arm that was broken. The criminal delivered the lethal blow with his right arm. Jones couldn’t physically, therefore, have committed the crime.

“The portrait was complete,” said Ellery quietly, “and so was the process of elimination. I had painted the picture of only one person, who fitted all nine characteristics so perfectly that there could be no doubt whatever. That person, of course, was Grosvenor Finch.”

There was a long interlude, during which the only sound was Lucy’s tired and curiously happy sobbing.

“Remarkable,” said Judge Menander again, clearing his throat.

“Not at all. Sheer common sense. How did Finch fit?

“1. He was a man.

“2. He was addicted to smoking, and a pipe at that; the day I visited his office his secretary, Miss Zachary, offered me some of his personal pipe-tobacco, blended for him by a famous tobacconist. Now only a hopelessly incorrigible pipe-smoker goes to the length of having his tobacco specially blended for him.

“3. He possessed match-packets even more distinctive than logic had indicated! For his secretary that same day, when I approved vocally of Finch’s tobacco, promised to have the tobacconist Finch patronized send me some — with, she took the liberty of adding, Finch’s compliments! The tobacconist, Pierre of Fifth Avenue, eventually delivered a pound; and with it came a box of match-packets with my name printed on each one! Pierre was even kind enough to add in his note that this was his usual custom. If he sent match-packets with all deliveries of tobacco to his customers, and mine had come with my name printed on the covers of the packets, and this was Pierre’s usual procedure, then obviously Finch possessed numerous match-packets with his name on them! Not a monogram, not an insignia, but his name in full. No wonder he was worried. No wonder he snatched that empty packet away. He had every reason to believe that Andrea had seen the name Grosvenor Finch on its cover.”

“Good Lord,” exclaimed Pollinger; he threw up his hands.

“4. The criminal had motive against both Gimball and Mrs. Wilson. This followed as a result of the criminal’s learning about Gimball’s double life, which I shall come to in a moment. But, knowing this, it is clear that anyone from the Gimball side of the fence would have reason to wish the death of Gimball, the author of Jessica’s shame, and might seek to revenge himself on Lucy, the living symbol of Gimball’s double life. And Finch was very close to Jessica.

“5. The writing implement? Curious note. The same day I visited Finch’s office he offered me a cheque as a retainer for investigating the crime for the National Life. Before my eyes he wrote on that cheque with a fountain-pen I saw him take from his pocket. When he showed me the cheque the only thing in script was his signature written in green ink. Green ink! Distinctive; not at all usual. He could not afford to take the chance of writing the note on the scene of the crime in that ink. So, he had to use other means. Unquestionably, he had the pen with him. Now that he’s dead, we shall never know the exact truth about how he was dressed that night, but the probabilities are that he rolled his trousers up and slipped a woman’s dress over himself as he was, fully dressed. The coat he put on would conceal the neckline. That’s how he came to have matches and his pipe with him — they must have been in the pocket of the male clothing beneath the feminine outer attire.

“6. Certainly he came from the Gimball side of the fence. He had known both the Gimball and Borden families intimately for years.

“7. That he had a tender feeling for Andrea is unquestionable — we’ve had repeated evidences of it from his actions. As for Andrea’s mother, well, there are no specific facts to base the opinion on, but his solicitude for her, his constant attendance on her since Gimball’s death, were clear enough implications of a fondness that may have been even more.”

“That’s true, I think,” said Andrea in a low voice. “I’m sure he — he was in love with her. From ’way back. He was a bachelor, of course. Mother’s often told me that he never married because she married my father — my real father, Richard Paine Monstelle. And when father died and mother married Joe...”

“Love for your mother was the only plausible reason I could ascribe to Finch as the murderer of your stepfather, Andrea. Discovering that Gimball had betrayed your mother into an illegal marriage, that he was spending most of his time with another woman in another city, that his own sacrifice had been in vain, Finch decided to kill your mother’s betrayer.

“8. The criminal was right-handed, or at least used his right hand in striking the lethal blow. This was rather indeterminate in adapting Finch to the complete portrait, but in the light of the overwhelming evidence of the other eight points, it was unimportant. At least it was possible for Finch to have used his right hand.

“9. The last point and in many ways the most important. That Finch knew of the change of beneficiary of the million-dollar policy. The point was simply resolved. Who knew of this change of beneficiary? Two persons. One was Gimball himself. But Gimball had told no one; I’ve been over that ground already. The other was Finch. Finch, and Finch alone of the possible murderers, had known of the beneficiary change before the crime.”

Ellery smoked thoughtfully. “You know, this last point wasn’t all plain sailing. It presented certain difficulties of theory. Access to the application and the policies was the only way in which someone could have discovered the clue to Gimball’s double life. But from the time of the change until Gimball deposited the sealed envelope with Bill, only the insurance companies involved had access to the policies. We can eliminate the insurance-company employees who performed the clerical work involved on the ground of sheer improbability. But we cannot eliminate Finch, who on his own confession was aware of the change, having been notified by his company in his capacity as personal ‘broker’ for Gimball that an application for change-of-beneficiary had been received.

“The problem that naturally arises is: Despite Finch’s protestations to the contrary, did he really tell someone else of the change of beneficiary, thus placing another person in possession of the vital clue? I will ignore the fact that Finch, in insisting that he did not, made the most damaging statement possible under the circumstances, since he was virtually naming himself, and himself alone, as the sole possessor of the vital knowledge. Had he been conscious of the implications, he certainly would have managed to tell someone else, just to spread the possibilities of guilt.

“But even if you choose not to believe him, whom could he theoretically have told? A woman? Mrs. Gimball — the then Mrs. Gimball, for example? But as a woman she is eliminated from suspicion; the criminal was a man. Had she told another woman in turn, this other woman would be eliminated for the same reason. Had she told another man, or had Finch told another man directly, then we merely have to see if that man, or any man involved in the case, fits the characteristics of the criminal as we have now developed them. Well, what happens? There is no man except Finch who fits those characteristics completely. So, by a circuitous route, we arrive at the conclusion that Finch told no one; or if he did, his telling had no bearing on the murder as it subsequently developed.

“What followed I have already reconstructed: his suspicions, his probable secret visit to Philadelphia, his discovery of the background, his discovery of Halfway House, his plan for the crime and frame-up, and so on.”

“The masquerade, of course,” muttered Pollinger, “was necessary.”

“Oh, yes. If Lucy was to seem to have committed the crime, there must be evidence that a woman drove her coupé. The veil, of course, he had to use to mask his masculine features, and naturally he couldn’t speak to the garageman that evening because his voice would have given the masquerade away. As I pointed out once before, he deliberately stopped for gas there to leave an open trail to Lucy! Not being a lawyer, he didn’t realize how flimsily circumstantial a case he was weaving about her; if he hadn’t luckily found that paper-cutter and Lucy hadn’t handled it the night before in her home I don’t doubt that she would have been acquitted.”

“Without the fingerprint evidence I should have thrown the case out at the first motion for dismissal by defense counsel,” said the Judge, shaking his head. “As a matter of fact, even with that evidence the case was weak — I beg your pardon, Paul, but I think you realize that, too. It was a poor jury, I’m afraid. It all came down to a matter of believing Mrs. Wilson, and why they didn’t believe her story I don’t know to this day.”

“The stout lady,” said Ellery darkly. “Well, that may be as it may be, but there’s the story. No magic now, eh, Your Honor? Just common sense. I shouldn’t explain how I do these things; it disillusions people.”

The two New Jersey lawyers laughed; but Bill was suddenly very serious. He gulped twice and then said in a formal voice, “Judge Menander, sir—”

“One moment, Mr. Angell.” The old jurist leaned forward. “It seems to me, Mr. Queen, you’ve left something out. How about explaining away that weakness I pointed out some time ago? You worked on the ‘assumption’, you said, that Miss — may I call you Andrea, my dear? — that Andrea had told you the truth about the matches and so on. What right,” he asked severely, “did you have to assume any such thing? I thought you work strictly by rule of established fact. If the young woman had told a lie, the entire structure of your solution would have collapsed.”

“The legal mind,” chuckled Ellery. “How I enjoy discussing these things with lawyers! Perfectly true, Judge. It would have collapsed. But it didn’t, because Andrea told the truth. I knew she had told the truth when I reached the end of my mental journey.”

“That’s a bit over my head,” said Pollinger. “How the devil could you have known that?”

Ellery patiently lit another cigaret. “Why should Andrea have lied? It could only have been because she herself had killed Gimball and meant to confuse the trail.” He waved the fuming cigaret about. “But what did her lie, if it was a lie, lead to? It led to the guilt of Grosvenor Finch. How silly! For if she were the real criminal, she had originally framed Lucy Wilson for the crime! And where was Lucy Wilson? In prison, convicted of the crime. The frame-up of Lucy, then, had been successful from Andrea’s point of view if Andrea were herself the criminal. Now when did she tell her lie which led me to the guilt of Finch? After Lucy Wilson’s conviction! So I say: would she invalidate her successful frame-up of one person by then framing another person entirely? Unthinkable, of course. And even if in telling the lie she didn’t know where it would lead, why should she lie at all if she had killed Gimball and framed Lucy? Her crime was safely committed; her victim, her living victim, was safely convicted. There would be utterly no point in a further confusion of the trial. So I knew that Andrea was telling the truth.”

“I’ll bet,” said Andrea, “that you’d suspect your own father!”

“That was meant,” grinned Ellery, “as a spiteful remark, but it turns out to be a shrewd guess. As a matter of fact, I investigated a crime some time ago in which that very thing happened: all the logic pointed to my father, Inspector Queen, as the criminal! Well, I had a time of it, you may be sure.”

“What happened?” asked Judge Menander eagerly.

“That,” said Ellery, “is another story.”

“You’re not finished with this one yet,” said Pollinger with a certain humorous grimness. “I don’t like to appear pernickety, but it seems to me if the fact that Finch knew about the insurance change was so vital to your solution, you haven’t exactly shone, Queen. After all, you knew that Finch knew that from the very beginning of the case.”

“Oh, Lord,” groaned Ellery. “Why did I ever choose lawyers as an audience? Clever, Pollinger, very astute indeed. But you’ve missed the point. Finch’s knowledge of the change of beneficiary had utterly no significance until the case with its various deductions had been completely developed. The fact meant nothing to me until I proved by logic that the criminal had to know of the beneficiary change. I couldn’t know that the criminal had to know until I’d made all the preliminary deductions. The thing that told me that the criminal had to know of the beneficiary change was that the criminal knew of Gimball’s double life. The thing that told me that the criminal knew of Gimball’s double life was that he had deliberately framed Mrs. Wilson. The thing that told me that the criminal had framed Mrs. Wilson was that Mrs. Wilson was innocent because the criminal was a man. Without all those steps the final fact would have meant nothing.”

“QED,” said Bill hastily. “Swell. Great. Bravo. Judge Menander—?”

“What is it, young man?” said the old gentleman a little testily. “If you’re worried about that insurance, I can promise you there will be no hitch in the proceedings. Your sister will be paid the full amount of the policy.”

“No, no, Judge,” stammered Bill, “It’s not—”

“I don’t want that money,” said Lucy simply; she had stopped crying. “I wouldn’t touch it for...” She shuddered.

“But, my dear child,” protested Judge Menander, “you must take it. It’s yours. It was the will of the deceased that you should have it.”

Lucy’s black eyes, shadowed and tired as they were, managed a sudden smile. “You mean it’s mine — to do with as I wish?”

“Of course,” he said gently.

“Then I give it,” said Lucy, putting her arm about Andrea’s slim shoulders, “to someone who, I think, is going to be related to me very soon... Will you accept it, Andrea, as a gift from me and... Joe?”

“Oh, Lucy!” cried Andrea, and then she began to weep.

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about, Judge,” said Bill hastily; his cheeks were fiery. “I mean, Lucy’s feeling that Andrea — you see, well, last week Andrea and I drove out one day to — well, sir,” he managed to blurt at last as he took something out of his pocket, “here’s the license. Will you please marry us?”

The Judge laughed. “I should be delighted to.”

“Trite, trite,” said Ellery gloomily. “Very unimaginative, Bill. That’s what always happens. The hero marries the heroine and they live happily ever after. Do you know what marriage means? It means mortgages and warming bottles at two o’clock in the morning and commuting and all sorts of dreadful things that the author wisely neglects to mention.”

“Nevertheless,” said Bill with a nervous grin, “I’d like you to be my best man, Ellery. Andrea, too!”

“Ah,” said Ellery. “Now that’s different.” He walked over to the leather sofa and stooped and raised Andrea’s tearful face and kissed her resoundingly. “There! Isn’t that the prerogative of best men? At least,” he chuckled, dabbing tenderly at his lips with a handkerchief, “I’ve had my reward!”