The Devil To Pay

V Gentleman or the Tiger?

Rhys’s heart was a church bell resounding, a measured gong. Val pressed her head against it.

And suddenly it skipped two whole beats.

Val pushed away and looked up into her father’s face. Rhys’s lips parted and framed the word: “Coat.”

“Coat,” said Val, almost aloud.

Coat? Her father’s coat!

They stood still in the bedlam. Inspector Glücke was pinching the tip of his sharp nose and regarding Walter with absorption.

Rhys’s coat, that Walter had taken from the La Salle by mistake. By mistake.

Where was it?

Walter sat stonily behind dead Solly’s desk. His hat, out of shape and streaked with dirt, lay near his left fist. But he was not wearing a topcoat. The camel’s-hair coat, Rhys’s coat, was not on the desk. Nor was it on the back of the chair.

Val no longer feared the dead man. She could return his round frog-eyed stare now without flinching. The coat. Rhys’s coat. That was the important thing. That was the thing to be afraid of.

Casually, carefully, they both made a slow survey of the study. The coat was nowhere to be seen.

Where was it? What had Walter done with it?

The Jardins drew closer together by an inch. It was necessary to concentrate. Concentrate, thought Val desperately. This is murder. Keep your mind clear. Listen.

“Get that reporter out of here,” Inspector Glücke was saying. “How you boys fixed?”

The Surveyor was already gone. The photographers, other men, dribbled off. The room began to enlarge. Then a gaunt young man swinging a black bag came in.

“There’s the stiff, Doc. See what you get.”

The coroner’s physician knelt by Solly’s squatting remains and detectives made a wall about the dead man and the living.

“Take their prints, Pappas.”

“Prints?” said Rhys slowly. “Isn’t that a bit premature, Inspector?”

“Any objection, Mr. Jardin?” rapped Glücke.

Rhys was silent.

The fingerprint man approached with his paraphernalia. Inspector Glücke pulled the tip of his nose again, almost in embarrassment. “It’s only routine. We’ve got the whole room mugged. There are a lot of prints. Weeding ’em out, you understand.”

“You’ll probably find some of mine about,” said Rhys.

“Yes?”

“I was in this room only this morning.”

“Is that so? I’ll take your statement in a minute. Go ahead, Pappas.”

Pappas went ahead. Val watched her father’s strong fingers deposit inky designs on paper. Then the man took her hands. His touch was cold, like the body of a fish; her flesh crawled. But all the while Val was saying over and over inside: Where is pop’s coat? What has Walter done with pop’s coat?

The coroner’s physician broke through the living wall and looked around. He made for the desk.

“Anything the matter?” asked the Inspector.

The doctor spoke into the telephone. “Don’t know exactly. Something queer. C.I. Lab, please... Chemist... Bronson? Polk. I’ve got something for you on the Spaeth murder... Yes, as fast as you can.” He hurried back to the ell and the wall solidified about him once more.

“I think,” began Glücke, when a husky voice said from the corridor doorway: “Hello.”

Everybody turned around.

The bearded young man stood there looking grave; and also looking hard at the scene about him, as if he expected to be kicked out at once and wanted to memorize as many of the details as he could before his eviction.

For an instant Val’s heart jumped. The bearded man was wearing a camel’s-hair coat. But then she saw that there was no triangular tear below the right pocket.

“Here he is,” said a detective beside him. “The guy that bought up all Jardin’s stuff this afternoon.”

“Out,” said Glücke. “Later.”

“Why not now?” asked the young man in a wheedling tone. And he advanced a step into the room, gazing intently at the bandage around Walter’s head.

Glücke looked at him sharply. Walter said in a monotone: “Queen’s all right, Inspector. He merely acted as my proxy in buying up the Jardin furnishings today. He can’t possibly have anything to do with this.”

“No?” said Glücke.

“Fact, he’s a detective.” Walter looked away. “Go on, Queen; I’ll see you later.”

“Queen, Queen,” frowned the Inspector. “Any relation to Dick Queen of the New York police department?”

“His son,” said Ellery, beaming. “Now may I stay?”

Inspector Glücke grunted. “I’ve heard about you. Who killed Solly Spaeth, Queen? You could save us a lot of trouble.”

“Oh,” said Ellery, and he made a face. “Sorry, Walter.”

Walter said again: “It’s all right, Queen. Go ahead. I’ll see you later.”

“He cost me eight hundred bucks,” said Glücke. “All right, Phil, take this down. Let’s go, Spaeth — for the book.”

Val made fists. Oh, Walter, what happened?

Walter looked at Mr. Queen, and Mr. Queen looked away. Nevertheless, he did not stir.

“My father telephoned me at the La Salle about five o’clock,” said Walter in a dreary tone. “He said he was home and wanted to see me.”

“What for?”

“He didn’t say. I drove up here in my car. I had a flat down the hill a way and that’s why I took a half-hour for a ten-minute trip. Well, I parked and began to climb out. As I was stepping off backwards, something hit me on the side of the head. That’s all.”

“We found Spaeth unconscious just after we got here,” explained the Inspector. “On the sidewalk near his car. So you never even got into the grounds?”

“I told you what happened,” said Walter.

“Why’d you park around the corner from the entrance? Why didn’t you drive right in?”

“The mob. I thought I’d stand a better chance of getting inside unrecognized if I went on foot. My name is Spaeth, Inspector.” His lips twisted.

“There wasn’t any mob. There wasn’t a soul near the place late this afternoon, the night man says.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“So you were bumped on the head around five-thirty?”

“Just about.”

“Any idea who hit you?”

“The assault came as a complete surprise.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“How the hell should I know?” growled Walter.

But it was remarkable how he kept looking at Val. Just looking, with the oddest wooden expression.

Val scuffed Solly’s silky antique Indian rug with her toe. Walter didn’t enter the grounds. He was attacked before he entered the grounds. That’s what he said. That’s what he wanted the police to believe.

But Val knew he had entered the grounds. She had spoken to him on the telephone, and he had been on the other end of the wire — Hillcrest 2411, his father’s number. It had been Walter, all right; Val knew his voice better than... better than—

Walter had been in the house.

She studied the intricate floral design. In the house. In the house, for all she knew right at this very extension in the study, where his father had been murdered...

He was lying. Lying.

“Come here without a coat, Spaeth?” asked Glücke absently, eyeing him.

“What?” mumbled Walter. “Oh, coat? No, I didn’t wear a coat, Inspector.”

And he glanced at Val again, and at her father, with that mute wooden expression.

I know! thought Val. He’s hidden it. He hid the coat. He didn’t want to get her father mixed up in it. Walter, you darling... But then she thought; He’s lying. He lied about one thing. Now he was lying about another. Where was the coat? What had he done with that coat?

Rhys’s hand lightly brushed her skirt. She glanced up at him; his brown face was a little pale, but his lips were compressed and he shook his head ever so lightly.

“May I sit down?” asked Val in a tight voice. “Or is this part of the celebrated third degree?”

Glücke waved an indifferent arm and Val felt a chair pushed against her. She looked around; it was that Mr. Queen, smiling sympathy and encouragement. But there was something else in his smile, something that made Valerie sit down suddenly and stare straight ahead at the fireplace. He had noticed. His eyes, which were like washed gray grapes, had noticed the interplay. They would have to be careful. Watch your step. Don’t make a mistake. It’s like being trapped in a cave by wild animals; the least false move... Valerie had never been trapped in a cave by wild animals, but she thought she knew how it must feel.

“Any clue to Spaeth’s assailant, Inspector?” asked Mr. Queen amiably.

“We found one of those rustic benches up against the willow fence inside the grounds near the spot where Spaeth’s car was parked. A little scraped mud on it, so it was stepped on. That looks as if whoever sloughed Spaeth came over the fence from inside. Laying for you, hey, Spaeth?”

Walter looked blank.

“He wouldn’t know, of course,” said Mr. Queen.

“I guess not,” said Inspector Glücke. “McMahon, get Ruhig and Walewski in here.”

Anatole Ruhig came in gingerly, with small arched steps, like a man walking on coals of fire. Val restrained a mad impulse to giggle; it was the first time she had ever noticed his shoes, which had built-up heels, like a cowboy’s. She wondered if he wore corsets; no, she was sure of it. Oh, the coat, the coat!

As for Mr. Ruhig, his bright little eyes made one panorama of the room, resting for the merest instant on Mr. Queen, and then retreated behind their fat lids.

“Too bad, Walter,” he said quickly. “Too bad, Mr. Jardin. Too bad, Miss Jardin.” Then he added: “Too bad,” in a generally regretful tone, and stopped, blinking.

You left out Solly... Val bit her lip, for there was Walewski. Frightened. Every one was frightened. Walewski was an old round-backed man with a crown of grimy white hair which stood on end. He came into the room sidewise, like a crab, his red eyes sloshing about in his old face.

“We’re taking this down now,” said the Inspector, speaking to Ruhig but looking at Walewski.

The lawyer covered a courtroom cough. “Too, too bad... I drove up to the entrance at a few minutes past six. Walewski opened the gate. I told him I had an appointment with Mr. Spaeth—”

“Did you have?”

“My dear Inspector! Well, Walewski telephoned the house from his booth—”

“Hearsay. Walewski, what did you do?”

The old man trembled. “I don’t know nothing. I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t see nothing.”

“Did you or didn’t you ’phone the Spaeth house?”

“Yes, sir! I did. But there wasn’t no answer. Not a bit of an answer.”

“May I ask a stupid question?” said Ellery. “Where were the servants? In all this magnificence,” he said mildly, “I assume servants.”

“Please,” said the Inspector. “Well, if you must know, Spaeth fired ’em last week, the whole bunch. Now—”

“Really? That’s strange. Now why should he have done that?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” The Inspector looked annoyed. “He received several threatening letters right after Ohippi went busted and complained to the police and a district dick spotted the writer in thirty minutes — Spaeth’s own chauffeur, a Filipino named Quital. Spaeth was so scared he fired everybody working here and he hasn’t had a servant since.”

“The wages of high finance,” murmured Ellery. “And where is Mr. Quital?”

“In jail,” grinned Glücke, “where he’s been for a week. So what happened when you got no answer, Walewski?”

“I told Mr. Ruhig. I said Mr. Spaeth must be home, I said,” mumbled the old man. “He ain’t been out for a week, I said. So I let Mr. Ruhig through.”

“Spaeth called me this morning,” said Ruhig helpfully. “Told me to come. So when he didn’t answer I knew something must be wrong. Therefore I insisted Walewski accompany me. Which the good man did. And we found— Well, I notified the police at once, as you know.”

“He was settin’ down on the floor,” said Walewski, wiping the spittle from his blue lips with the back of his right hand, “he was settin’ and he looked so awful surprised for a minute I thought—”

“By the way, Mr. Ruhig,” said Ellery with an apologetic glance at Glücke, “what was the nature of your appointment today?”

“Another change of will,” said Ruhig precisely.

“Another?” Glücke glared from Ellery to Ruhig.

“Why, yes. Last Monday — yes, exactly a week ago — Mr. Spaeth had me come over with two of my assistants and I wrote out a new will, which he signed in the presence of my assistants. This will,” Ruhig coughed again, “disinherited the son, Mr. Walter Spaeth.”

“Oh, is that so?” said the Inspector alertly. “Did you know your old man cut you off, Spaeth?”

“We quarreled,” said Walter in a weary voice, “about his abandonment of the Ohippi plants. He telephoned Ruhig while I was still here.”

“Who benefited by the will he made a week ago?”

“Mr. Spaeth’s protégée, Miss Moon. He left her his entire estate.”

“Then what about this will business today?”

Ruhig breathed on his shiny little fingernails. “I can’t say. All I know is that he wanted to change the will again. But by the time I got here,” he shrugged, “it was too late.”

“Then Spaeth’s estate is legally Winni’s,” frowned the Inspector. “Nice for her that he was bumped before he could change his mind again... Well Jerry?”

“This man Frank, the day gateman. He’s here.”

“Bring him in.”

The one-armed gateman shuffled in, his narrow features twitching nervously. “I’m Atherton F-Frank. I don’t know a single blessed thing—”

“What time did you go off duty?” demanded the Inspector.

“Six o’clock he went,” put in Walewski eagerly. “That’s when I come on. So you see I couldn’t know nothing—”

“Six o’clock,” mumbled Frank. He kept looking at his misshapen shoes.

Walter was sitting forward now, staring at the one-armed man. Val noticed that Walter’s hands were twitching, too, almost in rhythm with Frank’s features.

Afraid, thought Val bitterly. So you’re a coward, for all your brave talk. You’re afraid Frank saw you. He must have seen you. Unless you went over the wall. Went over the wall... Val closed her eyes. Now why should Walter have gone over the wall?

“Listen, Frank,” said Glücke genially. “You’re an important figure in this case. You know that, don’t you?”

“Me?” said Frank, raising his eyes.

“Sure! There is only one entrance to Sans Souci, and you were on guard there all day. You were, weren’t you?”

“Oh, sure I was. Certainly I was!”

“So you know every one who went in and came out this afternoon. Why, Frank old man, you might be able to clear this case up right now.”

“Yeah?” said Frank.

“Think, now. Who went in and out?”

Frank drew his sparse brows together. “Well, let’s see now. Let’s see. Not Mr. Spaeth. I mean — him.” He jerked a dirty thumb toward the ell where the coroner’s physician was working. “I didn’t see him all day... You mean after the auction?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes.”

“After the auction... Well, the crowd petered out. So did the cops. A little while later Miss Moon drove out. She came back about four o’clock. Shopping, I guess; I saw packages. Her aunt, Mrs. Moon, is away in Palm Springs. Did she come back yet?”

“No,” said Glücke, as man to man.

Frank scraped his lean chin. “Let’s see. I guess that’s all... No, it ain’t!” Then he stopped and looked very frightened. “I mean, I guess—”

“You mean you guess what, Frank?” asked Glücke gently.

Frank darted a hungry glance at the door. Walter sat up straighter. Val held her breath. Yes? Yes?

“Well,” said Frank.

“Some one else came this afternoon!” snapped the Inspector, mask off. “Who was it?” Frank backed away. “Do you want to be held as a material witness?” thundered the Inspector.

“N-no, sir,” chattered Frank. “It was him. Around half-past five. Half-past five.”

“Who?”

Frank pointed a knobby forefinger at Rhys Jardin.

“No!” cried Val, springing out of the chair.

“Why, the man’s simply mad,” said Rhys in an astonished voice.

“Hold your horses,” said Glücke. “You’ll get your chance to talk. Are you sure it was Mr. Jardin, Frank?”

The gateman twisted a button on his coat. “I... I was sitting in the booth reading the paper... yes, I was reading the paper. I heard footsteps on the driveway, so I jumped up and ran out and there was Mr. Jardin walking up the drive toward the Spaeth house—”

“Hold it, hold it,” said Glücke. “Did you leave the gate unlocked?”

“No, sir, I did not. But Mr. Jardin had a key to the gate — everybody in San Susie’s got one — so that’s how he must have got in.”

“Was there a car outside?”

“I didn’t see no car.”

“This is a joke,” began Rhys, very pale. The Inspector stared at him, and he stopped.

“By the way,” drawled Ellery, “if you came out of your warren, Frank, and saw a man walking away from you, how can you be so sure it was Mr. Jardin?”

“It was Mr. Jardin, all right,” said Frank stubbornly.

Glücke looked irritated. “Can’t you give me a better identification? Didn’t you see his face at all?”

“I won’t stand here—” cried Val.

“You’ll stand here and like it. Well, Frank?”

“I didn’t see his face,” mumbled Frank, “but I knew it was him, anyway. From his coat. From his camel’s-hair coat. I knew him.”

Walter very slowly slumped back against his chair. Val flashed a glance of pure hatred at him and Rhys sat down, jaws working, in the chair she had vacated.

“Oh, come,” said Ellery with amusement. “Every second man in Hollywood wears a camel’s-hair coat. I wear one myself. Are you sure it wasn’t I you saw, Frank? I’m about the same size as Mr. Jardin.”

Anger shone from Frank’s eyes. “But your coat ain’t torn,” he said shortly.

“Oh,” said Ellery; and the Inspector’s face cleared.

“Torn, Frank?”

“Yes, sir. This afternoon, when Mr. Jardin left after the auction, his coat caught on the handle of his car and tore. Tore a flap right down under the pocket on the right side, a big piece.”

“I thought you said,” remarked Ellery, “that you saw only the man’s back.”

“He was walkin’ slow,” muttered Frank, with a malevolent glance at his tormentor, “like he was thinking about something, and he had his hands behind his back under his coat. So that was how I saw the pocket and the rip. So I knew it was Mr. Jardin.”

“Q.E.D.,” murmured Ellery.

“I even called out to him, I said: ‘Mr. Jardin!’ in a real loud voice, but he didn’t turn around, he just kept walking. So I went back to the booth. Like he didn’t hear me.”

“I absolutely insist—” began Val in an outraged voice, when a man came in and held up something.

“Look what I found,” he said.

It was a long narrow strip of tan camel’s-hair cloth tapering to a point.

“Where?” demanded Glücke, seizing it.

“On top of one of those stakes on the fence. Right over the spot where the bench was pushed.”

The Inspector examined it with avid fingers. “It was torn already,” he mumbled, “and when he climbed over the fence the torn piece caught and ripped clean away the length of the coat from the pocket down.” He turned and eyed Rhys Jardin deliberately. “Mr. Jardin,” he said in a cold voice, “where’s your camel’s-hair coat?”

The room was drowned in a silence that crushed the eardrums.

By all the rules of romantic justice Walter should have jumped up and explained what had happened, how he had taken Rhys’s coat by mistake, how— But Walter sat there like a tailor’s dummy.

Val saw why with acid clarity. He could not acknowledge having worn her father’s coat without admitting he had lied. He had said he never entered the grounds at all. Yet it was clear now that he had entered the grounds with the key he also carried, that Frank had mistaken him for Rhys Jardin because of the torn coat, and that he had gone up to his father’s house and... And what? And what?

Was that — Val said it to herself in a chill small voice — was that why Walter had lied? Was that why he had hidden or thrown away the telltale coat? Was that why he sat there so dumbly now, letting the police think Rhys had gone into Spaeth’s house about the time Spaeth had been skewered?

Val knew without looking at him that her father was thinking exactly the same thoughts. It would be so easy for him to say — or for her — to Glücke: “Now look here, Inspector. Walter Spaeth took that coat by mistake this afternoon, and Frank mistook him for me. I haven’t even got the coat. I don’t know where it is. Ask Walter.”

But Rhys said nothing. Nothing. And as for Val, she could not have spoken now if her life depended on one little word. Oh, Walter, why don’t you explain, explain?

“So you won’t talk, eh?” said the Inspector with a wry grin. “All right, Mr. Jardin. Frank, did any one but Miss Moon and Mr. Jardin enter Sans Souci after the auction today?”

“N-no, sir,” said Frank, half out of the room.

“Walewski, when you took over from Frank, was Mr. Ruhig the only one you admitted — and then you both found the dead body of Spaeth?”

“That is the truth, sir!”

Glücke waved his hand at the gateman with a certain grim weariness. “Let ’em go home,” he said to a detective. “And get that Moon woman in here.”

The thought began to pound in Val’s ears now. The more she tried to shut it out the stronger it came back.

Walter, did you murder your father?

VI Thrust and Parry

Winni Moon had been weeping. She paused at the door in an attitude of pure despair, a black handkerchief to her eyes. Fast work, thought Mr. Ellery Queen admiringly; in mourning already!

It was Mr. Queen’s habit to observe what generally escaped other people; and so he now detached a metamorphosis in Attorney Anatole Ruhig. Mr. Ruhig, who had been taking everything in with admirably restrained impersonality, suddenly with Miss Moon’s tragic entrance became excited. He ran over to her and held her hand, whispering a sympathetic word — to her quickly suppressed astonishment, Mr. Queen also noticed; he ran back and pulled up a chair and took her shoulders — he had to reach up for them — and steered her gallantly to the chair, like an orthodox Chinese son. Then he took up his stand behind her, the picture of a man who means to defend beauty from contumely and calumny with his last breath.

Mr. Queen wondered ungraciously if Mr. Ruhig meant, now that Solly Spaeth had gone to join the choir invisible, to assume responsibility for Miss Moon’s nebulous career.

Miss Moon began to weep afresh.

“All right, all right,” said Inspector Glücke hastily. “This won’t take long, and then you can cry your eyes out. Who killed Solly Spaeth?”

“I know who’d wike to!” cried Winni, lowering her handkerchief just long enough to glare at Rhys Jardin.

“You mean Mr. Jardin?”

At this new peril Val felt her skin tighten. That insufferable clothes-horse! But she was too steeped in more pointed miseries to do more than try to electrocute the sobbing beauty with her glance.

“Yes, I do,” said Miss Moon, turning off the tears at once. “He did nothing but quawwel and quawwel with poor, darling Solly. Nothing! Last week—”

“Winni,” said Walter in a choked voice, “shut that trap of yours—”

Now, thought Val, now he was talking!

“Your own father, too!” said Winni viciously. “I will not, Walter Spaeth. You know it’s twue. Last Monday morning he and Solly had a tewwible battle about the floods and the factowies and ev’wything! And only this morning he came over again and thweatened him—”

“Threatened him,” repeated Glücke with satisfaction.

“He said he ought to be hanged, he said! He said he ought to be cut up in little pieces, he said! He said he was a cwook! Then I didn’t hear any more—”

“The woman was obviously listening at the door,” said Rhys, his brown cheeks slowly turning crimson. “It’s true, Inspector, that we had a quarrel. But—”

“It’s also true,” said the Inspector dryly, “that you quarrelled because Spaeth caused the collapse of Ohippi.”

“Yes,” said Rhys, “and ruined me, but—”

“You lost everything, eh, Mr. Jardin?”

“Yes!”

“Solly made you a poor man, while he cleaned up a fortune.”

“But he ruined thousands of others, too!”

“What’s this ape trying to do, Rhys,” yelled a familiar voice, “hang this killing on you?” And Pink bounced into the room, his red hair bristling.

“Oh, Pink,” cried Val, and she fell into his arms.

“It’s all right,” said Rhys wearily to a panting detective. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Listen, you,” snarled Pink to Glücke, “I don’t give a damn if you eat bombs for breakfast. If you say Rhys Jardin pulled this job you’re just a dumb, one-cylinder, cock-eyed heel of a liar!” He patted Val’s hair clumsily. “I would have come sooner, only I didn’t know till I got here. Mibs told me where you went.”

“All right, Pink,” said Rhys in a low voice, and Pink stopped talking. Inspector Glücke regarded him speculatively for a moment. Then he shrugged.

“You’re a sportsman, aren’t you, Mr. Jardin?”

“If you’ll make your point—”

“You’ve won golf championships, you’re a crack pistol shot, you beat this man Pink in the California Archery Tournament last spring, you’ve raced your yacht against the best. You see, I know all about you.”

“Please come to the point,” said Rhys coldly.

“You fence, too, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Glücke nodded. “It isn’t generally known, but you’re also one of the best amateur swordsmen in the United States.”

“I see,” said Rhys slowly.

“He even twied to teach Solly!” shrilled Miss Moon. “He was always twying to make him exercise!”

The Inspector beamed. “Is that so?” he said. And he turned and pointedly looked up at the puce-colored wall above the fireplace.

A collection of old weapons hung there, decorative pieces — two silver-butted dueling pistols, a long-barreled eighteenth-century rifle, an arquebus, a group of poinards and dirks and stilettos, a dozen or more time-blackened swords: rapiers, sabers, scimitars, jeweled court-swords.

High above the rest lay a heavy channeled blade such as were carried by mounted men-at-arms in the thirteenth century. It lay on the wall obliquely. A thin light streak in the puce paint crossed the medieval piece in the opposite direction, as if at one time another sword had hung there.

“It’s gone!” squealed Winni, pointing at the streak.

“Uh-huh,” said Glücke.

“But it was there at only four o’cwock!”

“Was that when you saw Spaeth last, Miss Moon?”

“Yes, when I came back fwom shopping...”

“Is it polite to inquire,” murmured Mr. Queen, “what the beauteous Miss Moon was doing between four o’clock and the time Mr. Spaeth was murdered?”

“I was in my boudoir twying on new gowns!” cried Miss Moon indignantly. “How dare you!”

“And you didn’t hear anything, Miss Moon?”

Ruhig glared. “If you’ll tell me what right—”

“Listen, Queen,” snarled Glücke. “You’ll do me a big favor if you keep your nose out of this!”

“Sorry,” said Ellery.

Glücke blew a little, shaking himself. “Now,” he said in a calmer tone. “Let’s see what that sticker was.” He went to the fireplace with the air of a stage magician about to demonstrate his most baffling trick, and set a chair before it. He stepped up on the chair, craning, and loudly read the legend on a small bronze plaque set into the wall below the streak in the paint. “‘Cup-hilted Italian rapier, seventeenth century,’” he announced. And he stepped down with an air of triumph.

No one said anything. Rhys sat quietly, his muscular hands resting without movement on his knees.

“The fact is, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Inspector, facing them, “that Solly Spaeth was stabbed to death and an Italian rapier is missing. We’ve pretty well established that it’s gone. It isn’t in this house and so far my men haven’t found it on the grounds. Stab-wound — sword missing. It looks as if Solly’s killer took the rapier down from the wall, backed Solly into that corner there, gave him the works, and beat it with the sword.”

In the stillness Mr. Queen’s voice could clearly be heard. “That,” he complained, “is precisely the trouble.”

Inspector Glücke slowly passed his hand over his face. “Listen, you—” Then he turned on Jardin and snapped: “You weren’t by any chance trying to teach Solly a few tricks with that sword this afternoon, were you?”

Rhys smiled his brief, charming smile; and Val was so proud of him she could have wept. And Walter, the beast, just sat there!

“Figure it out for yourself,” said the Inspector amiably. “Frank says you were the only outsider to enter Sans Souci late this afternoon. We have the missing piece from your coat in substantiation, and we’ll have the coat very shortly, I promise you.”

“I’d like to see it myself,” said Rhys lightly.

“You’ve admitted to at least two quarrels with the dead man, one only this morning.”

“You left something out,” said Jardin with another smile. “After our tiff in this room this morning, I saw Spaeth again. He walked over to my house — I mean the one I vacated today.” Val started; she had not known that. “We had another little chat in my gymnasium, as a result of which I walked out on him.”

“Thanks for the tip,” said Glücke. “You’d better begin to think about keeping such facts to yourself. Got that, Phil? Well, you had a nice strong motive, too, Jardin — he ruined you and, from what I hear, he wouldn’t do what you asked, which was to put his profits back in Ohippi and salvage the business. And last, you’re a swordsman, and a sword was used to polish him off. You may even have got him off guard by pretending to show him some kind of fencing maneuver.”

“And what was he doing,” said Rhys, “parrying with his arm?”

They looked across the room at each other. “Tell you what, Jardin,” said the Inspector. “You sign a full confession, and I’ll get Van Every to guarantee a lesser plea. We could easily make it self-defense.”

“How nice,” smiled Rhys. “At that, I could almost take my chances with a jury, couldn’t I? They’d probably thank me for having rid the world of a menace.”

“Sure, sure! What do you say, Mr. Jardin?”

“Pop—” cried Val.

“I say I’m innocent, and you may go to hell.”

Glücke eyed him again. “Suit yourself,” he said shortly, and turned away. “Oh, Doc. You finished?”

Dr. Polk was visible now, rolling down the sleeves of his coat. The detectives were strung out around the room; and Val, looking out of one eye, saw that the heap in the corner near the fireplace was covered with newspapers.

“Pending autopsy findings,” said Dr. Polk abruptly, “you may assume the following: The wound was made by a sharp-pointed instrument, the point at surface terminus of entry being roughly a half-inch wide. It just missed the heart. I should say it was made by the missing rapier, although I’d like to see the thing before making a positive statement.”

“How about the time of death?” demanded Glücke.

“Checks with the watch.”

Mr. Ellery Queen stirred restlessly. “The watch?”

“Yes,” said the Inspector with impatience, “his arm banged against the wall as he sank to a sitting position in that corner, because we found his wrist-watch smashed and the pieces of shattered crystal on the floor beside him. The hands stopped at 5.32.”

Rhys Jardin chuckled. Even Glücke seemed surprised at the pure happiness of it. It bothered him, for he kept eying Jardin sidewise.

But Valerie knew why her father laughed. A wave of such relief swept over her that for an instant she tasted salt in her mouth. She felt like laughing hysterically herself.

Solomon Spaeth had been murdered at 5.32. But at 5.32 Rhys Jardin had been entering the self-service elevator at the La Salle with Val, on his way from their apartment to the lobby downstairs to wait for Walter.

5.32... Val’s inner laughter died in a burst of panic. Rhys was all right now — nothing could touch him now, with an alibi like that. But Walter... It was different in Walter’s case. At 5.35, with Rhys in full view of Mibs Austin in the La Salle lobby, Val had telephoned Walter and Mibs had spoken to Walter and even recognized his voice.

If Inspector Glücke should question the little blonde telephone operator, if she should tell him about that call, where Walter was, fix the time...

Val caught a blurry glimpse of Walter’s face as he turned away to stare out the side windows into the blackness of the grounds. There was such agony on his face that she was ready to forgive anything just to be able to take him in her arms.

He had remembered the call, too.

Walter, she cried silently, why did you lie? What are you hiding?

A tall man bustled in lugging a kit.

“Bronson!” said Dr. Polk, the wrinkles on his forehead vanishing. “Glad you’re here. I want you to have a look at this.”

The Bureau Chemist hurried with the coroner’s physician to the ell beside the fireplace. The detectives closed in.

“Go on home,” said the Inspector bruskly to Walter. “I’ll talk to you again in the morning. Unless you want to stay here?”

“No,” said Walter, without moving. “No, I don’t.”

Then he very quickly got out of the chair and groped for his hat and made for the corridor, stumbling once over a fold in the rug. He did not look at the Jardins.

“You can go, too — Miss Moon, Mr. Ruhig. And you, there, whatever your name is.”

But Pink said: “How about taking a jump in the lake?”

“Can’t... can’t my father and I leave, Inspector?” asked Val, staring at the doorway through which Walter had fled. Then she closed her eyes, because Mr. Ruhig was piloting the exquisite Miss Moon deferentially through the same doorway, somehow spoiling the view.

“No,” said Glücke curtly.

Val sighed.

The Inspector strode over to the group near the fireplace and Mr. Queen, unable to restrain his curiosity, hurried after him and peered over his shoulder to see what was going on.

Solly Spaeth was uncovered again. The Chemist knelt over him intently studying the brownish mouth of the stab-wound. Twice he lowered his long nose to the wound and sniffed. Then he slowly shook his head, looking up at Dr. Polk.

“It’s molasses, all right,” he said in a wondering voice.

“That’s what I thought,” replied Dr. Polk. “And it’s not only at the mouth of the wound, but seems to coat the sides for some way in.”

“Molasses,” repeated the Inspector. “That’s a hell of a note... Say, stop shoving me!”

Ellery rubbed his bearded cheeks. “Sorry, Inspector. Molasses? That’s exciting. Did I hear you say, Doctor, the point just missed the heart?”

The doctor regarded him with curiosity. “Yes.”

Ellery shouldered Glücke out of the way and pushed through the group until he was standing directly over the dead man.

“Was the stab-wound serious enough to have caused death?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” growled the Inspector.

“Undoubtedly, but I’ve a faint notion things aren’t quite as they seem. Well, Doctor?”

“Hard to say,” frowned the coroner’s physician. “There wasn’t much bleeding. Given an hour or so, he probably would have bled to death — that is, without medical attention. It certainly is queer.”

“So queer,” said Ellery, “that I’d have Mr. Bronson analyze the molasses.”

“What for?” snarled Glücke.

“The molasses and its physical disposition in the wound,” murmured Ellery, “suggest that it must have been smeared on the point of the blade that made the wound. Why smear molasses on a cutting edge? Well, molasses is viscid. It could be constructed as the ‘binder’ of another substance.”

“I see, I see,” muttered Dr. Polk. “I hadn’t thought of it just that way, but certain indications—”

“What is this?” demanded the Inspector irritably.

“It’s only a suggestion, respectful and all that,” said Ellery with a placative smile, “but if you’ll have Mr. Bronson test that molasses for poison — some poisonous substance that comes in solid rather than liquid form — I think you’ll find something.”

“Poison,” muttered Glücke. He stroked his nose and glanced fretfully at Ellery out of the corner of his eye.

The Chemist carefully scraped a scum of molasses from the wound and deposited it on a slide. Then he opened his kit and went to work.

Molasses. Poison. Val closed her eyes.

“Potassium cyanide,” announced Bronson at last. “I’m pretty sure. Of course, I’ll have to get back to my lab before I can make it official.”

“Cyanide!” exclaimed Dr. Polk. “That’s it.”

“Comes in powder form, of course — white crystals,” said the Chemist. “It was thoroughly mixed into the molasses — a good deal of it, I’d say.”

“Paralyzes certain enzymes essential to cellular metabolism,” muttered the doctor. “Death within a few minutes. He’d have died before complete absorption, so the tissues through which the blade passed ought to reveal traces of the poison in autopsy.” He shrugged at the dead man’s gray-fringed bald spot. “Well, it was a painless death, anyway.”

“Isn’t any one going to congratulate me?” sighed Ellery.

Glücke glared at him and turned his back. “We’ll have to get busy on that cyanide,” he snapped.

“I’m afraid you won’t be very successful,” said Bronson, packing his kit. “It’s too common — used commercially in dozens of ways — film manufacture, cleaning fluids, God knows what else. And you can buy it at any drug store.”

“Nuts,” said the Inspector, plainly disappointed. “Well, all right, Doc, get him out of here. Let’s have your report the first thing in the morning, if you can make it.”

Ellery backed off as the detectives milled about and Dr. Polk superintended the removal of the body. He seemed worried about something.

“Oh, Dr. Polk,” he said as the coroner’s physician was about to follow Solly’s remains through the doorway. “Does the condition of the body confirm the time of death as indicated by the wrist-watch?”

“Yes. The man died of cyanide poisoning, not of stabbing, and within a very short time after the blow. From the local conditions in this room and the state of the corpse, calculating roughly, he figures to have passed out around 5.30. And the watch says 5.32, which ought to be close enough for any one... Smart work, Mr. Queen. Detective, eh?”

“Enough of one,” sighed Ellery, “to detect traces of hostility in the official atmosphere. Thanks, Doctor.” And he watched Dr. Polk and Bronson depart.

“May we go now, Inspector?” asked Val again, examining the freckle on her left ring-finger. There had been something unpleasant about Solly’s quiet contour under the morgue sheet, and there was a vast desire within her to go somewhere and consume sherry frappés.

“When I’m through with you. Here,” roared Glücke, “what are you doing now, damn it?”

Ellery had dragged a chair over to the fireplace and was engaged in standing on it while he made mysterious movements with his body. He looked, in fact, as if he meant to emulate Dracula and climb the fireplace wall.

“I’m trying,” he said in a friendly tone, stepping down, “to find the answer to three questions.”

“Listen, Queen—”

“First, why did your murderer employ that particular sword for his crime?”

“How the hell should I know? Look—”

“Why,” continued Ellery, going close to the fireplace and raising his arm to the wall above it, “why didn’t he take down this needle-bladed French dueling sword?”

“I don’t know,” barked Glücke, “and what’s more I don’t give a damn. If you’ll be kind enough—”

Ellery pointed. “See where that dustmark on the wall is — where the missing rapier hung. Now, no man could possibly have reached that rapier without standing on something. But why haul a chair over here to reach a cup-hilted Italian rapier of the seventeenth century when you have merely to stand on the floor and extend your arm and reach a nineteenth-century French dueling-sword which will do the work equally well?”

“That’s an odd note in an unpremeditated crime,” said Rhys Jardin, interested despite his preoccupation.

“Who asked you?” said the Inspector, exasperated.

“And who says it was unpremeditated?” said Ellery. “No, indeed, Mr. Jardin. Either the murderer took down the rapier and coated its tip with his molasses-and-cyanide concoction just before the crime; or else he had coated the point some time before the crime — prepared it, as it were. But in either event he had to mix the poison with the molasses before he killed Solly, which certainly rules out a crime of impulse.”

The tips of Inspector Glücke’s ears were burning by this time. “I’m not in the habit of running a forum,” he said in a strangled voice, “on a case I’m investigating. So you’ll all be good enough—”

“You smell from herring,” said Pink, who had formed a violent dislike for Glücke.

“And then,” said Ellery hastily, as if he might not be able to get it out before the catastrophe, “there’s my second question. Which is: Why did he smear the sword with poison at all?”

“Why?” shouted Glücke, throwing up his arms. “What the hell is this — Quiz Night? To make sure he died, that’s why!”

“Isn’t that a little like the man who wears not only suspenders but a belt, too?” asked Ellery earnestly. “Don’t you think you could kill a man very efficiently with merely a naked blade?”

Inspector Glücke had long since regretted his weakness in allowing the bearded young man to linger on the scene. The man was clearly one of those smart-aleck, theorizing amateurs whom Glücke had always despised. Moreover, he asked embarrassing questions before subordinates. Also, by sheer luck he might stumble on a solution and thus rob a hard-working professional of the prey, the publicity, and the departmental rewards of sensational success. All in all, a nuisance.

So the Inspector blew up. “I’m not going to have my investigation disrupted by a guy who writes detective stories!” he bellowed. “Your old man has taken it because he’s got to live with you. But you’re three thousand miles away from Centre Street, and I don’t give a hoot in hell what you think about my case!”

Ellery stiffened. “Am I to understand that you’d like me better at a distance?”

“Understand your left tonsil! Scram!”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day,” murmured Ellery, nettled but trying to preserve an Emily Postian savoir faire. “That’s Hollywood hospitality for you!”

“Mac, get this nosey lunatic out of here!”

“Desist, Mac. I’ll go quietly.” Ellery went over to the Jardins and said in a loud voice: “The man’s an idiot. And he’s quite capable of having you in the clink before you’re an hour older, Mr. Jardin.”

“Sorry you’re leaving us,” sighed Rhys. “I must say I prefer your company to his.”

“Thanks for the first kind word Hollywood has bestowed. Miss Jardin, goodbye... I’d advise both of you to talk as economically as possible. In fact, get a lawyer.”

Inspector Glücke glared at him. Ellery went sedately to the door.

“Not, however,” he added with a grimace, “Mr. Ruhig.”

“Will you get out, you pest?” roared the Inspector.

“Oh, yes, Inspector,” said Ellery. “I almost forgot to mention my third point. You remember I said there were three bothersome questions?” Mac approached grimly. “Now, now, Mac, I must warn you that I’ve just taken up ju-jitsu. The point is this, Inspector: Granting that your eccentric criminal stood on a chair to get a sword for which he had a much handier substitute, granting that he smeared the sword with poison when a good jab by a child could have dispatched Mr. Spaeth just as efficiently — granting all that, why in heaven’s name did he take the sword away with him after the crime?”

Inspector Glücke was speechless.

“There,” said Mr. Queen, waving adieu to the Jardins, “is something for that ossified organ you call your brain to wrestle with.” And he went away.

VII The Camel That Walked Like a Man

Val could scarcely drag one foot after the other by the time they got back to the La Salle. Even the yearning for sherry frappés had dissipated. It was agony just to think.

“I’ll tuck pop in, flop onto my bed, and sleep,” she thought. “Maybe when I wake up tomorrow morning I’ll find it never really happened at all.”

After that strange Mr. Queen’s departure Inspector Glücke had cleared the study and gone to work on Rhys with a grim enthusiasm that made Val vibrant with pure loathing. Pink became rebellious at the tone of the man’s questions and was ejected by two of the larger detectives. They found him later, sitting on the sidewalk near the gate in the midst of a large section of the Los Angeles press, chewing his fingernails and growling at their pleas like a bear.

Even in the excitement of their own miraculous escape from that rapacious crew — Pink said they had the morals of a bulldog, and that they wouldn’t have escaped at all if not for the greater lure still within the Spaeth house — Val’s stomach lay six inches lower than its usual position merely recalling Glücke’s baffled pertinacity.

Throughout the ordeal Rhys had maintained a calm that served only to infuriate the policeman. He was monosyllabic about most things; and about the important things he would not talk at all. The Inspector went over and over the ground: The Ohippi partnership, the holding companies, the collapse of the securities, Rhys’s quarrels with Spaeth, his movements during the afternoon — oh, thought Val, to have been able to tell the truth! — his familiarity with the house, with swords...

Her father could have cleared himself at any moment of the interminable, ferocious, accusing inquisition by merely stating his alibi. But he did not; and Val, sick and exhausted, knew why he did not. It was because of Walter. Walter.... She hardly heard Glücke’s diatribe. Through the verbal storm leered Walter’s face with its incomprehensible expression.

Rhys was deliberately allowing himself to be involved in a nasty crime because Walter meant something to her — Walter, who had always been so boyish and naïve and blunt and was now so frighteningly drawn into himself.

“I’ll fix some eats,” said Pink. “You must be starved.”

“I couldn’t eat now,” said Valerie faintly.

Rhys said. “Pink’s right,” but he was abstracted.

“I laid in a raft of stuff from the market this afternoon,” said Pink gruffly, “on my way back from the studio. If I left it to you capitalists—”

“Oh, Pink,” sighed Val, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“You’d probably die of hunger,” said Pink.

Mibs Austin’s place at the switchboard was occupied by the night clerk, a fat old man in a high collar; so they went through the lobby without stopping and took the cranky elevator upstairs. Val stumbled along the red carpeting of the corridor behind the two men. She wondered dully why Rhys and Pink, who had unlocked the door of 3-C, stood so still in the foyer.

But when she reached the apartment door and looked in she saw why.

Walter was sitting in the living-room on the edge of the armchair. He was sitting in a strangely stiff attitude, his dirty hat crushed on the back of his bandaged head and his eyes like two steamy pieces of glass.

They looked at Walter, and Walter looked back at them, and his head wagged from side to side as if it were to heavy for his neck.

“Stinko,” said Pink, wrinkling his nose, and he went to the windows and threw them wide open.

Rhys carefully closed the corridor door and Val advanced two steps into the living-room and faltered: “Well?”

Walter’s tongue licked at his lips and out of his mouth came a mumble of sounds that conveyed nothing.

“Walter. How did you get in?”

Walter placed his right forefinger to his lips. “Shh. Sh — snuck up. Sh — swiped housh-key. Deshk.”

He glared up at her from the armchair in an indignant, almost a resentful, way.

“Well?” said Val again. “Haven’t you anything to say to me, Walter?”

“’Bout what? Tell me that. ’Bout what?”

“You know very well,” said Val in a low voice. “About — this afternoon.”

“What ’bout ’sh afternoon?” said Walter belligerently, trying to rise. “You lemme ’lone!”

Val closed her eyes. “Walter, I’m giving you your chance. You must tell me. What happened today? Where’s pop’s coat? Why did you—” she opened her eyes and cried— “why did you lie, Walter?”

Walter’s lower lip crept forward. “None o’ y’r bus’ness.”

Val ran over to him and slapped his cheek twice. The marks of her fingers surged up in red streaks through the pallor beneath the stubble.

He gasped and tried to rise again, but collapsed in the armchair.

“You drunken bum,” said Val passionately. “Coward. Weakling. I never want to see you again!”

Val ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.

“I’ll handle him,” said Pink. Rhys quietly sat down on the sofa without removing his coat. He just sat there drumming on the cushion.

Pink hauled Walter out of the chair by his collar, half strangling him. Walter sawed the air feebly, trying to fight. But Pink pushed his arm aside and dragged him into Rhys’s bathroom. Rhys heard the shower start hissing and a medley of gaspy human sounds.

After a while Walter lurched back into the living-room, the shoulders of his plaid jacket drenched, his bandaged head and face dripping. Pink tossed a towel at him and went into the kitchen while Walter dropped into the armchair and tried with ineffectual swipes of the towel to dry himself.

Rhys drummed softly.

“Put this away, big shot,” said Pink, returning with a tall glass. “What a man!”

Walter groped for the glass and gulped down the tomato juice and Tabasco, shuddering.

Pink lit a cigaret and went back to the kitchen. Rhys heard the clangor of clashing pans.

“I think,” said Rhys politely, “I’ll go down to the drug store for a cigar. Excuse me, Walter.”

Walter said nothing. After a moment Rhys rose and left the apartment.

Alone, Walter inhaled deeply and stared fog-eyed at the dusty tops of his suède sport shoes. Pink was slamming dish-closet doors in the kitchen, growling to himself.

Walter got up and tottered to Val’s door. “Val,” he said thickly.

There was no answer. Walter turned the knob and went in, shutting the door behind him.

Val lay, still in her hat and coat, on the bed, staring numbly at the Van Gogh on the opposite wall. Her hat, a toque, was pushed over one eye rakishly; but she did not look rakish. She looked cold and remote.

“Val.”

“Go away.”

Walter reached the bed by a heroic lunge and dropped. His eyes, bleared and shadowed, peered anxiously at her through a haze. He put his right hand clumsily on her slim thigh. “Know ’m drunk. Coul’n’ help it. Val. Val, don’t talk t’me ’at way. I love you, Val.”

“Take your hand off me,” said Val.

“I love you, Val.”

“You’ve a fine way of showing it,” said Val drearily.

Walter sat up with a jerk, fumbling to button his collar. “Aw right, Val. Aw right, I’ll get out. ’M drunk.”

He rose with an effort and stumbled toward the door.

Val lay still, watching his weaving progress across the room... She jumped off the bed and flew past him to the door, setting her back against it. Walter stopped, blinking at her.

“Not yet,” she said.

“’M drunk.”

“You’re going to answer me. Why did you lie to Inspector Glücke? You know you were in that house at 5.35 this afternoon!”

“Yes,” muttered Walter, trying to stand still.

“Walter,” Val’s heart sank. Her hands, spread against the door, gripped it harder. She could almost see past him through the rubbed aspen-crotch panel of her Hepplewhite bureau, where a certain automatic pistol lay hidden under a layer of chemises. She whispered: “Walter, I must know. Did you kill your father?”

Walter stopped rocking. His lower lip crept forward again in a curiously stubborn way. At the same time his bloodshot eyes shifted, almost with cunning.

“Lemme go,” he muttered.

“Did you, Walter?” whispered Valerie.

“Goodbye,” said Walter in a surprisingly sharp tone. He put his arm out to push her aside.

“If you didn’t,” cried Val, running to the bureau and digging into the drawer, “why were you carrying this?” She held up the automatic.

Walter said contemptuously: “Going through m’ pockets, huh? Gimme!” Val let him take the pistol away from her. He looked at it, snorted, and dropped it into his pocket. “Threat — threat’ning letters. Dozen of ’m. Son of man who ruined thousan’s. So I bought a gun.” His shoulders hunched and he said painfully: “I love you, but min’ y’r own bus’ness.”

This wasn’t Walter. Not the Walter she had known for so many years. Or was it? Wasn’t it always a crisis like this that showed a man up in the true ugliness of his naked self?

“You let that Inspector think my father went to Sans Souci this afternoon,” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell him that you were the one Frank saw sneaking up the drive — that you were wearing pop’s coat?”

Walter blinked several times, as if he was trying to peer through a week’s collection of Hollywood’s evening mists. “Gotta trus’ me,” he mumbled. “Don’ ask questions, Val. No questions.”

“Trust you! Why?” flared Val. “After the way you’ve acted? Haven’t I the right to ask questions when your silence implicates my own father?” But then she grasped his sodden lapels and laid her head on his chest. “Oh, Walter,” she sobbed, “I don’t care what you’ve done, if you’ll only be honest about it. Trust you! Why don’t you trust me?”

It was queer how humble he could be one moment and how hard, how frozen hard, the next. It was as if certain questions congealed him instantly, making him impervious to warmth or reason or appeal.

He said, trying to control his lax tongue: “Mu’n’ fin’ out I was in father’s house. If you tell’m... Don’ you dare tell’m, Val, y’un’erstan’ me?”

Then it was true. Pop! goes the weasel.

Val pushed away from him. Faith was all right in its place, which was usually in drippy novels. But a human being couldn’t accept certain things on faith. Appearances might be deceptive in some cases, but usually they were photographic images of the truth. Real life had a way of being harshly unsubtle.

“Apparently,” she said in a remote voice, “the fact that Glücke suspects my father of murder, that one word from you would clear him, doesn’t mean a thing to you. Not when your own skin is in danger.”

Walter was quite steady now. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he closed it without having uttered any sound whatever.

“So you’ll please me,” said Val, “by getting out.”

He did not know, could not know, that Rhys had an alibi for the time the crime was committed.

“Aw right,” said Walter in a low tone.

And now he would never know — not through her! If she told him, how easy it would be for him to crawl out, to say he had known about her father’s alibi all the time, that Rhys had never been in real danger and that it was necessary to him to protect himself. When he sobered up, he might even invent some plausible story to account for his damning actions. Walter was persuasive when he wanted to be. And in her heart Val knew she could not trust herself.

So she said again, bitterly: “Your secret, whatever it is, is safe with me. Will you get out?”

Walter plucked violently at his collar, as if he found its grip intolerable. Then he wrenched the door open, stumbled across the living-room, and zigzagged out of the apartment, leaving his hat behind.

Val picked the hat up from the living-room floor and threw it after him into the corridor.

That was that.

“Pink, I’m starved,” she called out, going into the kitchen. “What’s on the menu?” But then her eyes narrowed and she said: “Pink, what is that?”

Pink was guiltily hiding something in his trouser pocket.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. And he got up from the chair in the breakfast nook and made for the gas range, where several pots and pans were bubbling. “Is crackpot gone?”

“Pink, what are you hiding?” Val went over to him and pulled him around. “Show me that.”

“It’s nothing I tell you!” said Pink, but his tone carried no conviction.

Val thrust her hand into his pocket. He tried to dodge, but she was too quick for him. Her hand emerged with a flat, small, hard-covered pamphlet.

“Why, it’s a bankbook,” she said. “Oh, Pink, I’m dreadfully sorry—” But then she stopped and little schools of goose-pimples rose to the surface of her flesh.

The name on the bankbook was Rhys Jardin.

“Pop deposited Walter’s money,” she began, and stopped again. “But this is a different bank, Pink. The Pacific Coastal. Spaeth’s bank.”

“Don’t bother your head with it, squirt,” muttered Pink; he began to stir beans with a ladle as if his life depended on their not sticking to the pan. “Don’t look inside.”

Val looked inside. There was one deposit listed, no withdrawals. But the size of the deposit made her eyes widen. It was impossible. It must be a mistake. But there were the figures.

$5,000,000.00.

She seized Pink’s arm. “Where did you get this? Pink, tell me the truth!”

“It was this morning,” said Pink, avoiding her eyes, “in the gym over at San Susie. I was packing the golf-bags. I found it hidden under a box of tees in a pocket of that old morocco bag of Rhys’s.”

“Oh,” said Val, and she sat down in the breakfast nook and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Pink,” she went on in a muffled voice, “you mustn’t... well, don’t say anything about this. It will look as if... as if what those people said about pop not really being broke is true.”

Pink stirred with absorption. “I didn’t know what the hell to do, Val. There was a chance some nosey, thievin’ express-man might find it. I had to take that stuff Rhys gave away over to the Museum, so... well, I just put it in my pocket.”

“Thanks, Pink,” said Val from stiff lips. And neither said another word as the gas hissed and Pink stirred and Val sat at the table and looked at the bankbook.

The front door banged. Rhys called out: “Val?”

Neither made a sound.

Rhys came into the kitchen smoking a cigar and shaking his wet hat. “It’s raining again. Pink, that smells wonderful.” He stopped, struck by the silence.

The yellow-covered bank book lay on the maple table in full view. He glanced at it, frowned, and then studied the two stony faces.

“Is it Walter?” he asked in a puzzled way. “Wouldn’t he talk?”

“No,” said Val.

Rhys sat down in his soggy coat, puffing at the cigar. “Don’t go off half-cocked, puss. I watched him. He’s concealing something, it’s true, but I have the feeling it isn’t what you think. Walter’s always been close-mouthed — after all, he never had the benefits of a normal upbringing — he’ll always depend on himself, keep things to himself. I’ve studied him, and I’m sure he’s incapable of viciousness. I couldn’t be wrong in him, darling—”

“I wonder,” said Val tonelessly, “if I could be wrong in you.”

“Val.” He examined her with surprise. “Pink, what’s the matter? Something’s happened.”

“Don’t you know?” muttered Pink.

“I know,” he said a trifle sharply, “that you’re both being childishly mysterious.”

Val pushed the bankbook an inch toward her father with the very tip of one fingernail.

He did not pick it up at once. He continued to look at Val and Pink. As he looked, a curious pallor spread under the brown of his flat cheeks.

He took the bankbook slowly, stared at his name on the cover, opened the book, stared at the figures, stared at the date, the cashier’s initials...

“What is this?” he asked in a flat voice. “Well, don’t look at me like sticks! Pink, you know something about this. Where did it come from?”

“It’s none of my business,” shrugged Pink.

“I said where did it come from?”

Pink flung the ladle down. “Damn it, what do you want from me, Rhys? Don’t put on an act for my benefit! It’s a bankbook with a five-million-dollar deposit, and I found it this morning in your morocco golf-bag!”

Rhys rose, holding the bankbook in one hand and the fuming cigar in the other, and began to walk up and down the narrow kitchen. The brown wrinkles on his forehead deepened with each step. The paleness was gone now; the brownness had an angry red tinge.

“I never thought,” said Pink bitterly, “you’d be that kind of a heel, Rhys.”

Rhys stopped pacing.

“I can’t help being angry,” he said quietly, “although I don’t blame either of you. It looks damned bad. But I’m not going to deny this more than once.” Pink paled. “I know nothing about this deposit. I’ve never had an account at Spaeth’s bank. This five million dollars isn’t mine. Do you understand, both of you?”

Val felt a great shame. She was so tired she could have cried for sheer exhaustion. As for Pink, his pallor, too, vanished in a blush that reached to the roots of his red hair; and he leaned against the gas range biting his fingernails.

Rhys opened the book and glanced again at the stamped date of deposit. “Pink, where was I last Wednesday?” he asked in the same quiet tone.

Pink mumbled: “We ran the yacht down to Long Beach to see that guy who decided not to buy.”

“We left at six in the morning and didn’t get back to town until after dark — isn’t that so?”

“Yeah.”

Rhys tossed the bankbook on the table. “Look at the date of that deposit. It was made last Wednesday.”

Pink snatched the book. He said nothing at all. But the blush turned burning scarlet. He kept looking at the date as if he could not believe his eyes. Or perhaps because it was the only way he could cover his embarrassment.

“Pop,” said Val, resting her head on her arms, “I’m sorry.” There was a long silence.

“It could only have been Spaeth,” said Rhys at last. “He visited me in the gym this morning, as I told Glücke. He must have slipped it into the golf-bag when my back was turned.”

“But why, for the love of Mike?” cried Pink. “My God, who gives away five million bucks? I had to think—”

“I see it now.” Rhys flung his cigar into the drip-pan. “I’ve never told you before, but when things began to go wrong with Ohippi I came to my senses and had a confidential accountant and investigator look into things.”

“I had to think—” said Pink again, miserably.

Rhys began to pace again, nibbling at his lips. “I found that friend Solly, who up to a certain point had been perfectly coached by Ruhig, had gone on his own in one connection — and slipped very badly. He issued a prospectus for the further sale of stock in which he falsified the cash position of the companies. He had to make the stocks look sound, and he did — with false figures.”

Val raised her head. “He was always a thief,” she said wearily.

“Suppose he did?” demanded Pink.

“Using the mails to defraud is a serious offense, Pink,” said Rhys. “It was the penitentiary for Spaeth if the government ever found him out.”

“Why didn’t you hold him up?” asked Pink hoarsely.

“At the time there was still a chance to recoup. But later, when the floods ruined the plants completely, I threatened to send him to prison if he didn’t rehabilitate them.” Rhys shrugged. “He made a counter-threat. He said he had something on me which would so blacken my reputation and so completely destroy public confidence that nothing would ever save the plants. This deposit must have been the answer, making it look as if I’d cleaned up, too, and was a hypocrite besides.”

“But five million dollars!”

“If paying out ten percent of fifty millions in profits would keep him out of jail,” said Rhys dryly, “he was a good enough business man to pay it out.”

“The dirty rat,” said Pink passionately. “Mixin’ people up! Why the hell do they have to look for people who bump off rats like that? It ain’t fair!”

“It puts me on a spot,” sighed Rhys. “I can’t keep the money, of course — it isn’t mine. Yet if I used it to start a fund to salvage Ohippi, nobody’d believe the story. The auction, my being broke... I can’t keep it, and I can’t give it away. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Yeah,” muttered Pink, “we’ll have to think about it.”

Rhys went heavily out of the kitchen into the foyer, taking off his coat. Pink turned blindly to the range as something began to burn. Val pulled herself to her feet and said: “I don’t think I’m hungry any more, Pink. I’m going to—”

Rhys said, strangling: “Good God.”

Val was paralysed by the horror in her father’s voice.

“Pop!” She found her voice and her strength at the same instant. She almost capsized Pink trying to get to the foyer first.

Rhys had turned on the overhead light. The door of the foyer closet was open. He was squatting on his heels and staring into the closet.

On the floor of the closet lay two objects.

One was a long cup-handled rapier with a red-brown stain on its point.

The other, crushed into a ball, was a tan camel’s-hair topcoat.

VIII The Glory That Was Rhys

“Your coat,” said Val. “Your coat. The... the sword!”

Rhys grasped the rapier by the hilt and brought it out of the closet, turning it this way and that in his two shaking hands, as if he were too stupefied to do more than simply look at it.

It was the Italian rapier which had hung on Solly Spaeth’s wall; there was no question about that. And if there had been a question, the stained point would have answered it.

“Don’t handle it. Don’t touch it,” whispered Val. “It’s... it’s poisoned. You might get a scratch!”

“Put it away,” mumbled Pink. “No. Here. Gimme that. We’ve got to get rid of it. Rhys, for God’s sake!”

But Rhys kept holding the rapier and examining it as a child might examine a strange toy.

Pink, reached in and snared the coat. He shook it out; it was Rhys’s coat; there was no question about that, either. For from the right pocket to the hem a narrow strip of camel’s-hair cloth was missing, leaving a long gap.

“Oh, look,” said Val faintly, pointing.

The breast of the coat was smeared with a dirty brown liquid which had dried and crusted.

Fresh red blood turns dirty brown under the corrupting touch of the outer world.

Rhys got to his feet, still clutching the sword; his red-streaked eyeballs were bulging slightly. “How in the name of red devils did these things get here?” he croaked.

Before Val’s eyes rose the unlovely vision of Mr. Walter Spaeth, grimy, slack with drink, and pugnacious, sitting on the edge of the armchair in their living-room when they had reached the apartment after Glücke’s inquisition. He had stolen the house-key from the desk downstairs; he had confessed that. He had let himself in. He had... he had—

“Walter,” said Val in a still small voice. “Walter!”

Rhys rubbed his left eye with his left hand and said painfully: “Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t jump, Val. It’s— We’ll have to sit down and think this out, too.” He stood there holding the rapier, holding it because he did not seem to know what to do with it.

Pink said in an agonized treble: “Well, don’t be a dope, Rhys, for God’s sake. You can’t just stand here with that thing. It’s too risky. It’s too—”

Just then some one pounded on the foyer door.

It was all so unreasonable, so theatrical, so ridiculous, that Val could only laugh. She began to laugh softly — more a titter than a laugh, and the laugh swelled until it was no longer soft and until tears rolled down her cheeks.

The buzzer rang. It rang again. Then some one leaned on it and forgot to remove his elbow.

Pink gripped Val’s jaws in his iron fingers and shook her head furiously, as he might have shaken a recalcitrant puppy.

“Shut up!” he growled. “Rhys, if you don’t put those things away — hide ’em... In a minute!” he yelled at the door.

“Come on, open it,” said a clipped voice from the other side. It was Inspector Glücke’s voice.

Inspector Glücke!

“Pop, p-pop,” stammered Val, looking around wildly. “Throw it out the window. Anywhere. They can’t find it here. They’ll— They mustn’t—”

Sanity came back to her father’s face. “Here,” he said slowly. “This won’t do.”

“Open up, Jardin, or I’ll have the door broken down.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, pop,” whispered Valerie.

“No.” Rhys shook his head with maddening slowness. “There’s something inevitable about this. He’s been tipped off. He’s bound to find it. No, Val. Pink, open that door.”

“Rhys, don’t be a cluck!”

“Let them in, Pink.”

Val shrank back. With a scowl of baffled fury Pink stepped over to the door. Rhys picked up the coat and carried it and the rapier into the living-room and laid them down on the sofa.

Men boiled in, headed by Glücke.

“Search warrant,” he said curtly, waving a paper. He pushed past Val and stopped in the living-room archway.

“Is this what you want?” asked Rhys tiredly, and he sat down in the armchair and clasped his hands.

The Inspector pounced on the objects on the sofa. His three companions blocked the corridor door.

“Ah,” said Glücke; he said nothing more.

“I suppose,” murmured Rhys, “it won’t do any good to assure you we just found those things on the floor of our foyer closet?”

The Inspector did not reply. He raised the coat and examined it curiously.

Then he turned and made a sign to his men, and two of them came forward with cotton bags and wrapping paper and began to stow away the coat and rapier, handling them as if they had been made of Ming porcelain.

“He’s telling it to you straight,” said Pink desperately. “Listen, Inspector, don’t be a jackass. Listen to him, to me. We just found it — the three of us. He’s being framed, Rhys is! You can’t—”

“Well,” said Glücke lightly, “there may be something in that, Mr. Pincus.”

“Pink,” muttered Pink.

“Western Union in downtown L.A. ’phoned a wire to Headquarters — anonymous — telling us to search this apartment right away. The telegram was ’phoned in to the Western Union office and we haven’t been able to trace the call. So maybe all this is phony at that.”

But he did not sound as if he meant what he said. He sounded as if he were merely trying to make agreeable conversation.

He nodded at his men, and two of them followed him out of the apartment. The third man set his back against the open door and just stood there, shifting from one foot to another from time to time, as if he were tired.

Val cowered against her supporting wall in the foyer, unable to move, to think. Rhys got up from the chair in the living-room and turned to go into his bathroom.

“Hold it,” said the detective at the door.

Rhys looked at him. Then he sat down again.

“Hullo,” said a voice from the corridor.

Pink went to the door and dug his elbow into the detective’s abdomen, and the detective shoved his arm angrily away. Pink saw the two other detectives leaning against the balustrade of the emergency stairway which led down to the lobby. They were no more than five feet from the door, and they returned his glance without expression.

“Hullo,” said the same voice.

Pink looked through him. It was Fitzgerald, of the Independent.

The detective at the door said: “Nobody in.”

Fitz’s eyes under their bird’s-nest brows roved, took in Val before him, Rhys sitting motionless in the living-room. “I see they’re keeping the death-watch here. Come on, Mac, this is the press.”

“You heard him,” said Pink, stepping up to him.

“I got a tip from some one I know at Headquarters,” said Fitz. “It seems— Come on, mugg, out of the way.”

The detective at the door closed his eyes. Pink said: “Get the hell out of here.”

“Rhys,” called Fitz. “I want to talk to you. This is serious, Rhys. Maybe I can give you a right steer—”

Pink put his broad palm on Fitz’s chest and pushed, stepping through the doorway.

The man at the door did not open his eyes, and the two detectives across the hall did not move.

“Do you want a sock in the teeth,” said Pink, “or will you go nice and quiet, like a good little man?”

Fitz laughed. He lashed out with his fist. Pink sidestepped and brought his left up in a short arc. Fitz grunted. He had been drinking, and droplets of alcoholic saliva sprayed Pink’s face.

“Here, stop that,” said one of the men leaning against the balustrade. “Do your brawlin’ outside.”

Pink grabbed Fitz by the seat of his pants and ran him down the stairs.

Val trudged into the living-room and sat down on the floor by Rhys’s knee. She rested her cheek on it.

“I don’t think we have much time,” said Rhys in a very low voice. “Val, listen to me.”

“Yes, pop.”

“Glücke will be back soon.” He glanced cautiously at the detective in the doorway. “Maybe in five minutes, maybe in an hour. But whenever he comes back it will be with a warrant for my arrest.”

Val shivered. “But he can’t do that. You didn’t do it. You couldn’t have done it. You were right here—”

“Val, he’ll hear you.” Rhys bent low over her face, speaking into her ear. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The police — no one — must find out about that alibi.”

Val felt her forehead. It was hard to think.

“I’m in no danger,” whispered Rhys. “The Austin girl will testify at any time that I was in the La Salle lobby when Spaeth was murdered. Don’t you see?”

“Yes,” said Val. “Yes.”

“And there’s at least one vital reason why I must let Glücke arrest me, puss... No, don’t make any noise, Val. That detective mustn’t hear.”

Val sank back, her face drawn, her eyes screwed up. They felt hot, brittle, sore; they felt like her brain.

“I don’t— I can’t seem to—”

“I think,” whispered Rhys, “I’m in danger.” He held her shoulders down. “I’ve just thought the whole thing through. Some one planted the sword and coat in our closet tonight, tipped the Inspector off that they were here. Whoever did that is framing me for the murder.”

“No,” said Val. “No!”

“It must be, Val; it’s the only reasonable explanation. So that means some one not only hated Spaeth, but hates me, too. He killed Spaeth and is taking his revenge on me by framing me for the crime.”

“No!”

“Yes, puss. And if I produce my alibi now and the police clear me, what happens? The maniac who’s doing all this, seeing that his frame-up has failed, will be more determined than ever to have his revenge. If he finds he can’t get the law to kill me, he’s liable to kill me himself. He committed murder once; why shouldn’t he do it again?”

There’s something behind this, thought Val. It’s all mixed up and there’s something behind it.

“I’ll be safe in jail, safer than here. Don’t you see?” Something... “And there’s another reason.” Rhys paused. “It’s Walter. If I produce my alibi now, Val, he’ll be directly involved in the crime.” Walter. That’s it. That’s what’s behind it. Walter. “The police will learn he was wearing my coat. He certainly had a motive of revenge against his father — being cut out of the will. They’ll find out he was in that house at the time of the crime. They’re bound to find it out — if we let them know about my alibi.”

“But how—?”

“Don’t you see, puss?” he said patiently. “My alibi depends on the testimony of this Austin girl. She can place me in this lobby at the time of the crime, all right; but she also knows that it’s tied up with that telephone call to the Spaeth house. And she spoke directly to Walter. The merest questioning on the part of the police would bring that out. We’ve got to see that she isn’t questioned.”

“No,” said Val. “I won’t let you do it. You’ve got to tell them about the alibi. You mustn’t sacrifice yourself—”

“Walter didn’t kill his father, Val. He isn’t the killing kind. I’m protected, but he’s not. Don’t you see?”

“I see. I see that I’m smaller than the smallest wiggly thing that crawls. And you’re so big, so warm, so dear.”

Rhys tilted her face. “Val, you’ve got to trust my judgment in this.”

Val shivered again. Her tongue seemed tied up in knots.

“There’s one other thing. I think I’ve got a clue that may lead somewhere. While I’m in jail covering Walter up you’ll have to follow that clue, Val. Do you understand? We’ve got to find out who killed Spaeth before we talk!” Val turned her head slowly. “Listen, Val. Only this morning—”

“All right, Jardin,” said Inspector Glücke.

Val jumped up. Rhys sat still.

The three detectives were in the room with Glücke, one of them looking hard at Pink, who was marking time, restlessly and unconsciously, with his feet, as if to inaudible music.

“So soon?” said Rhys with a faint smile.

“I had my fingerprint man waiting downstairs,” said the Inspector. “Interested? Blood-stains on your coat. Your fingerprints, among others, on the rapier. And Bronson, who’s also with me, says that the tip of the rapier is coated with blood and that molasses-and-cyanide goo. Have you anything to say, Jardin?”

“Will you get me my hat and coat, Pink, like a good fellow?” said Rhys, rising.

Pink went blindly into the foyer. Rhys put his arms about Valerie.

“See me tomorrow,” he whispered into her ear. “The old code. Remember? We may not be able to talk. The clue may be important, Goodbye, Val. Talk to the Austin girl tonight.”

“Goodbye,” said Val, her lips feeling rusty and stiff.

“Thanks, Pink,” said Rhys, turning around. “Take care of Val.”

Pink made a strangled sound. Rhys kissed Val’s cold cheek and stepped back. Pink helped him on with his coat, handed him his hat.

“Come on,” said Inspector Glücke.

Two of the detectives grasped Rhys’s elbows and marched him out of the apartment.

“You two,” said the Inspector. “Keep on ice.” He nodded to the third man and they followed the others.

Pink stood still in the middle of the living-room, blinking and blinking as if the sun were in his eyes.

He didn’t do it.

Val stumbled to the door and watched Rhys go down the hall towards the elevator, walking steadily in the midst of his guard.

He didn’t do it! He has an alibi!

She tried to get the words out.

Prison. Some grubby cell. Fingerprints. Arraignment. Rogues’ gallery. Reporters. Sob sisters. Keepers. Trial, Murder...

Please. Please.

It would be Walter marching down the hall. If she spoke it would be Walter. If she didn’t... Oh, wait, wait, please.

Walter or pop. Pop or Walter. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t a choice. He didn’t do it, I tell you. He has an alibi. Stop!

But nothing came out, and the elevator swallowed the marchers, leaving the corridor bleak and empty.