The Dragon’s Teeth

XVI. The Empty Mouth

Cadmus Cole’s fountain-pen! What was it doing in De Carlos’s possession?

Ellery raised his eyebrows to Beau. They drifted off to a corner of the office as De Carlos, at the desk, struggled to control his hand.

“You’re sure it’s the same one?” whispered Beau.

“Positive, although we’ve always got a check-up against those microphotographs.”

“Cole’s pen!” mumbled Beau. “The same pen he used to write out that check for fifteen grand when he originally hired us. It might have a simple explanation, El. Maybe De Carlos just appropriated it after Cole cashed in.”

Ellery shrugged. “There’s one way of finding out. De Carlos is just drunk enough to be off guard, and if we asked him he’s apt to tell the truth. Let me handle this.”

He went back to the desk and rested his palms on it, smiling down at the writing man.

“There!” said De Carlos with a bubbly sigh. “Twen’y-fi’ thoushand dollarsh, Mis’er Rummell.” He sat back limply in the swivel-chair, waving the check like a flag to dry the ink. “Shay! How’d I know you’ll keep your wor’, gen’l’men?”

“You don’t,” replied Ellery with a smile.

“You doublecrosh me,” said De Carlos furiously, reeling to his feet, “an’ I’ll... I’ll—”

Ellery took the check gently from the man’s slack fingers. “Is that friendly? We’re a reputable agency, Mr. De Carlos. Word’s our bond. Yes, twenty-five thousand, signed Edmund De Carlos — correct, Mr. De Carlos, and thank you!”

“’S all ri’,” said De Carlos, forgetting his suspicions and trying to bow. He almost fell on his face. Beau caught him and straightened him up none too carefully. “Thanksh, Mis’er Queen. ’S mighty rocky weather we’re having. An’ now I’ll be on my way.”

He put the black fountain-pen back into his pocket. Beau watched it disappear with the expression of a fox watching a rabbit vanish in a hole.

Ellery grasped De Carlos’s other arm and he and Beau began to steer the bearded man to the door.

“By the way, Mr. De Carlos,” said Ellery respectfully, “you’re just the man to help me out.”

De Carlos stopped short, weaving. “Yesh?” he said, blinking at Ellery.

“Mr. De Carlos, I have a hobby — you know, hobby? I collect little personal mementoes of famous people. Not expensive things, you know — the homelier and more personal the better I like them.”

“I like t’collect the ladies, bless ’em,” chuckled De Carlos. “Blon’s, brunettes — any kind, I shay, ’s long’s they’re beau’ful.”

“Every man to his own hobby,” smiled Ellery. “Well, I’ve often thought no collection of the sort I own would be complete without some memento of Mr. Cadmus Cole.”

“Should think sho,” said De Carlos warmly. “Great man, Mis’er Cole. Great man. Gen’l’men, give you Mis’er Cole!”

“I meant to ask him for some little thing when he hired us a few months ago, but he was in such a hurry that I thought I’d wait for a more propitious time. And then,” Ellery sighed, “he passed on, and I’d missed my chance. Do you think you could help me out, Mr. De Carlos? I mean, you were probably the closest friend he had.”

“On’y frien’,” said De Carlos. “Give you my wor’. On’y frien’ he had in the worl’. Lemme think. Le’ shee. Pershonal—”

“What happened to his personal belongings after his death, Mr. De Carlos — his clothing, fob, studs, things like that? Anything of that nature, you see—”

“Oh, they were all packed in a bunsh o’ trunksh, an’ I shipped ’em North from Cuba,” said De Carlos, waving his hand. “They’re in the housh in Tarrytown ri’ now, Mis’er Rummell. I’ll shee what I can fin’—”

“I shouldn’t want to put you to all that trouble. Didn’t he give you anything before he died? Or perhaps you took something from his effects to remember him by — his watch, his ring, his fountain-pen, something like that?”

“Di’n’ take a thing,” said Mr. De Carlos sadly. “Honesht shteward — tha’sh Edmund De Carlos, gen’l’men. Give you my wor’. Di’n’ take so mush as a shteel pin!”

“Oh, come,” protested Mr. Queen. “You must have taken something, Mr. De Carlos. Some little thing. His fountain-pen, for instance. Didn’t you take that?”

“I beg your par’on,” said De Carlos, offended. “Di’n’ take his fou’n’-pen, di’n’ take anything!”

“Such epic honesty,” said Mr. Queen with a gleam in his eye, “deserves a substantial reward.” He snatched off Mr. De Carlos’s spectacles suddenly, leaving the man blinking.

“Mis’er Rummell...” began De Carlos with a gurgle.

Ellery waved the silver spectacles at Beau. “Give the gentleman his reward.”

“Huh?” said Beau.

“Mr. Queen,” said Mr. Queen, “the floor is yours. I suggest you stretch Mr. Edmund De Carlos out on it.”

Beau’s mouth closed. “It would be sort of taking advantage, wouldn’t it? He’d fall apart.”

De Carlos stood gaping and squinting from one to the other.

“That,” said Mr. Queen, “is the idea.”

Beau stared at him and then began to chuckle. “Come and get it,” he said to Mr. De Carlos.

The bearded man shrank against Ellery.

Beau’s paw flashed. It clamped about the nape of Mr. De Carlos’s neck.

Mr. Queen stepped back and watched with a detached and scientific interest.

De Carlos squealed and flailed at Beau like an agitated crab. Beau grinned and began to shake him up and down, and from side to side, as if De Carlos had been a cocktail shaker. De Carlos’s head flopped back and forth, his eyes popping, his glittering teeth rattling with a peculiar, mechanical rattle that awakened another gleam in Mr. Queen’s eye.

And suddenly an astonishing thing happened. Mr. De Carlos’s teeth, that shining ivory army; that perfect and beautiful string of dental pearls, detached themselves in one piece from Mr. De Carlos’s gaping mouth and flew halfway across the room to land at Mr. Queen’s feet.

De Carlos began to mumble curses, his cheeks sunken in magically, his gums nakedly forlorn.

Beau shouted: “So that’s the way it is!” and grasped the man’s beard with his other hand, yanking viciously, already triumphant, as if he did not doubt the beard was as false as the teeth. But De Carlos only howled with pain; the beard refused to part from his cheeks.

Cursing, Beau released it and plunged his fingers into the bush of Mr. De Carlos’s hair. This time he was not foiled. Mr. De Carlos’s black hair came away from Mr. De Carlos’s scalp with a sucking, reluctant sound, in one incredible piece, leaving an almost nude dome behind — almost, for there was a sparse fringe of gray-black hair on his head in the general shape of a horseshoe.

And then Mr. De Carlos ceased howling, ceased struggling, as he felt the top of his head and his hand encountered naked flesh. He grew limp.

“Desist,” said Mr. Queen.

Mr. Rummell desisted, looking rather dazed at the unexpected result of his handiwork. Immediately Mr. De Carlos dropped to all fours and began to grope about the rug. He found his wig by chance and hastily — and askew — clapped it back on his pink gray-fringed skull. Then he began hunting for his teeth.

Mr. Queen stooped and picked them up. “You may rise,” he said gravely, “we have them,” and he inspected them curiously as Mr. De Carlos scrambled to his feet. They were set in their pink shell in perfect alignment — superbly regular teeth disposed with superb regularity... so perfect, so superbly regular, Mr. Queen told himself, that he should feel ashamed for not having suspected their falseness before. And he did feel ashamed.

He returned teeth and spectacles to their owner, and their owner swallowed the one and clapped the other on his nose and at once, with a surprising dignity, went to the desk and reached for the telephone.

Mr. Queen sighed. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but apparently the effects both of my partner’s whisky and his seismic treatment have not yet worn off, Mr. De Carlos. The hour is late, and if I am not mistaken I detect the dawn’s early light. You will not be able to stop the check you wrote out a few moments ago for some few hours yet.”

De Carlos replaced the telephone, made an attempt to brush himself off, thought better of it, set his hat on his tilted wig, and calmly went out into the anteroom.

“Mr. Queen,” said Mr. Queen, “show the gentleman out.”

“But—” began Beau hoarsely.

Mr. Queen shook his head at his partner with violence. Beau shrugged and let Mr. De Carlos escape into the friendlier world.

When Beau came back, he said sharply: “What was the idea of letting him go?”

“Plenty of time, plenty of time,” said Ellery. He was examining the twenty-five thousand dollar check De Carlos had written out — examining it with an intentness that puzzled Beau.

“That’s easy for you to say,” muttered Beau. “How about Kerrie? Hey!” Ellery looked up. “You’re not even listening. What’s so interesting about that check? You may as well tear it up. He’ll stop it as soon as the bank opens in the morning.”

“This check,” remarked Mr. Queen, “has more than a monetary value to us. It’s so valuable, I suspect, that I shan’t entrust it even to the office safe. I’m going to carry it about with me, as I’ve been carrying these microphotographs.”

“You think somebody’d try to crack us open?” demanded Beau, making two fists.

“It’s not improbable.”

“I’d like to see ’em try! Say, why didn’t you take the pen from him, too?”

“No hurry, and we don’t want to flush our rabbit too soon.”

“It’s all mixed up,” growled Beau, flinging himself on the leather sofa. “How the hell did De Carlos get Cole’s pen, if Cole didn’t give it to him? He must have been lying about that. And if he has Cole’s pen...” Beau sat up on the sofa suddenly. “If he has Cole’s pen, why couldn’t he have had Cole’s automatic pencil, too?”

Ellery felt absently in his pocket to see if the pencil were still there. It was. He stowed De Carlos’s check carefully away in his wallet.

“It’s important to check up on De Carlos’s story about Cole’s personal effects. He said they were in some trunks at the Cole house in Tarrytown. You’d better make sure De Carlos told the truth about that.”

“Yeah, but the pencil! I tell you—”

Ellery frowned. “I have the feeling we oughtn’t to jump at conclusions, Beau. There’s a good deal to weigh and examine and mull over. Meanwhile, I want you to dig into De Carlos’s past. Question old-timers in the Street. Find out as much about him as you can. There must be some people who remember him from the days — 1919, 1920, or whenever it was — when De Carlos was running Cole’s market operations, before Cole retired to his yacht.”

“But why?”

“Never mind why,” said Mr. Queen. “Do it. And... oh, yes. One thing more — perhaps the most important of all.”

“What’s that?”

“Find out if De Carlos has ever been married.”

“Find out if De Carlos has ever been married? Of all the cock-eyed assignments! What’s the point?”

“It may be the point.”

“You’re too much for me. Say! Cole’s will actually stated that De Carlos was a bachelor, so there’s your answer.”

“I’d rather have it from a more objective authority,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Check it.”

“I wish, you’d taken that pen away from him!”

“Yes, the pen.” Mr. Queen’s tone was damp. Something about the pen seemed to trouble him. Then he shrugged. “Let’s forget remote considerations and discuss things nearer home. What happened tonight after I left you at the hotel?”

Beau told him.

Ellery began to walk about. “I don’t like one thing. I don’t like the spot we’ve put dad in with your use of my name. He’s done too much already in the way of suppressing facts. Beau, we’ve got to spill the truth before the newspapers get hold of it by themselves and ride dad out of the Department.”

“Damn the mess!” roared Beau, jumping up. Then he sat down again, looking foolish. “It’s getting too involved for me. You’re right. I’ll have to face the music. Kerrie—”

“You’ve got to tell her, Beau. And about the other thing—”

“No!” Beau glared. “That’s the one thing I won’t tell. And you keep your mouth shut, too. Don’t you realize what it would mean if we told about that? We’d be handing her over to the chair on a platter!”

Ellery gnawed his lower lip. “Dad’s convinced, you say, that her story is a fabrication?”

“Yeah. You’ve got to admit, from his angle, it’s a pretty tall yarn.”

They were silent.

Finally Ellery said: “Well, clean up this business of the name, anyway. I’m going home to catch up on some sleep, and I’d advise you to do the same, because you’re in for a busy day.”

“Yeah,” mumbled Beau. He stared at the floor as if he saw something of unique interest there.

Beau faced the new day with a scowl. Times Square at dawn is not a gay place.

The place matched his mood; and yet, as he watched Ellery’s nighthawk cab drum off uptown, he felt a certain elation, too. Beau had spawned an idea in the office upstairs, and it was growing with abnormal rapidity. It was such an amazing idea that he had decided to keep it to himself. If Ellery could be mysterious, why couldn’t he?

He weighed the idea, turning it over, and the more he weighed it in the cool of early morning, on the deserted sidewalk in Times Square, a cigaret drooping from his lips, the more it staggered him.

If it was so... yes, it could wait. He could always pull it out of his hat. Meanwhile, there was a mess to be cleaned. That name business. Kerrie. How could he tell her?

He walked east towards the Villanoy, his heels raising echoes on the empty pavement.

The first thing to do was dodge the reporters. They had camped in the Villanoy lobby all night. If he knew reporters, they were there still, stretched out on the divans among a litter of cigaret ends and the butts of sandwiches.

He entered the hotel by way of the Service Entrance, roused a night-man, a bill exchanged hands, and the man took him up, surreptitiously, to the seventeenth floor.

One of Inspector Queen’s men, a detective named Piggott, who had known Beau when he used to visit his father at Headquarters in knee-pants and with barked knees showing, was perched on a chair which leaned against the wall next to the door of 1724. Piggott opened one eye and said, without smiling: “Hello, Mr. Queen.”

Beau grinned and jammed a cigar into the detective’s mouth. He entered 1724 without knocking.

Sergeant Velie was napping in the armchair by the window. He came awake instantly, like a cat.

“Oh, it’s you.” The Sergeant settled back and closed his eyes again.

Beau opened the bedroom door. The shades were drawn and Kerrie was curled up in a ball on one of the twin beds, under blankets. He could hear her deep, regular breathing. Vi, fully dressed as she lay on the other bed, raised her head with a start. When she saw Beau she slipped off the bed and tiptoed out to join Beau in the sitting room. She closed the door softly behind her.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her white skin looked pasty, flabby. She said to him: “Calling on your wife for a change?”

“How is she?”

“All right, no thanks to you. The doc gave her a shot of something and after a while she fell asleep.”

“That’s good. That’s good.” Beau was nervous; he began walking about.

Vi looked at him. “If you want to go in there, I can’t stop you. You’re her husband.”

“No, no, let her sleep. Good for her. You’re aces, Vi. We’ve got a lot to thank you for.”

“Never mind the baloney,” said Vi. “You’re a first-class rat, do you know that?”

“Hey.” Beau turned round slowly. “What is this?”

“You know damn’ well.” Vi sat down on the edge of a chair and looked him over with a. deliberate insolence. “You let that poor kid take the rap for you, and you didn’t have the gumption to stay with her while she was taking it!”

“What goes on here?” Beau flushed deeply.

Vi glanced at the huge figure of Sergeant Velie lying still in the armchair.

“Never mind him! What was that last crack supposed to mean?”

“I don’t think you’d want the big boy hearing what I had in mind.”

“Don’t worry — he’s listening! Come on, Velie, can the act.” The Sergeant opened his eyes. “Now out with it! What’s on your virgin mind now?”

“You asked for it,” said Vi calmly, but she went pale. “I say you were in that room across the court. I say you fired those shots through the window at the Cole woman. I say you threw Kerrie’s .22 into this room. That’s what I say!”

She sat very still suddenly. Beau was glaring down at her with such ferocity that her lower lip began to tremble. She glanced swiftly towards the Sergeant, in a panic.

The Sergeant rose. “Listen, boy—”

“Keep out of this, Velie. You think I bumped off Margo and then framed Kerrie for the job, do you?” Beau spoke very quietly, standing over Vi with his arms dangling.

“Yes!” The cry burst from Vi’s lips, defiant through her fear.

“And I suppose you planted that idea in Kerrie’s head, too? You did, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to. The idea was already there.”

“You — doublecrossing — liar!”

“Ask her,” said Vi with a glance of hate; but she shrank. “It was all so pat, your leaving her the way you did. Kerrie had to realize that. She does! She fights against it, but she does. She loves you — God only knows why. She ought to curse the day she ever set eyes on you!”

“Go on,” said Beau hoarsely.

“You were in with this Margo. That’s the way I figure it... Sergeant!” Vi slipped out of the chair and ran from Beau to grab the Sergeant’s beefy arm. From behind him she continued defiantly: “You were Margo’s sidekick. You’d get Kerrie out of the way, the two of you. You and Margo. When your clever attacks didn’t work, you schemed to marry Kerrie and do her out of the money. Then you’d split—”

“I don’t want to hear your poisonous version of it,” growled Beau. “I want to know what Kerrie thinks!”

“And then Margo lost her head and came here last night and was going to squawk that you and she were partners. You were afraid of that, so you followed her and, just before she could blab, you shot her.”

“I said I want to know what Kerrie thinks.”

“She thinks what I think! Only she won’t admit it to me or to herself. There’s one part of her that still believes you’re a right guy. And all the time she’s taking your rap! Don’t you feel proud of yourself?”

Beau drew a deep breath. “Get out of here.”

Vi glared back at him.

Beau began to stalk towards her, and she screeched and retreated completely behind the rampart of the Sergeant’s body.

“Take it easy, son,” rumbled Velie.

“I said scram.”

“You can’t make me!”

“I said scrambo, you forked-tongued copperhead!”

“Kerrie needs me!”

“The way she needs a hole in the head. Are you going to get out of here, or do I have to throw you out?”

He was addressing her over the Sergeant’s shoulder now, in a low and clear voice, completely blind to the mountain of flesh between them.

“Leave you with her?” shrilled Vi hysterically. “So that you can murder her, too?”

“If you were a man,” grunted Beau, “I’d just about break your neck for that.”

“Lay off, I said,” said Velie, and he grabbed Beau’s arm.

They all turned at a clicking sound.

Kerrie was in the bedroom doorway — in her thin nightgown, her hair tumbled about her face, her face as white as the wall.

Beau’s neck turned red. He started to say something. But Kerrie stepped back and slammed the bedroom door. Vi cried out and ran after her. The door slammed again.

Beau started after them.

Sergeant Velie was quicker. He set his broad shoulders against the door. “You’d better take a powder yourself, Beau,” he said mildly.

“I’ve got to talk to Kerrie! I can’t let her think—”

“Isn’t she in a tough enough spot without you making it tougher? Go on home and get some shut-eye. You’ll feel better in the afternoon.”

“But I have to tell her — who I am, Velie! I’ve got to come clean about this name business — I’ve got to clear that crazy idea of hers up — that I’m trying to frame her for a murder she thinks I pulled off—”

“It’s certainly going to convince her,” said Sergeant Velie dryly, “when she hears you’ve been hidin’ under an alias ever since she knows you. That under a phony handle you upped and married her—”

At the word “married” Beau swallowed and stepped back, as if the Sergeant had tried to take a poke at him.

He turned and shambled out without another word.

XVII. Mr. Rummell Becomes Himself Again

When Beau plodded into his apartment he pulled off all his clothes, set the alarm of his ninety-eight cent clock, and threw himself onto the bed.

The alarm went off before noon. He opened his eyes with a groan.

“Sure feels like a hangover,” he muttered. “Only worse.”

He crawled out of bed, danced under a cold shower, shaved, dressed, and went out.

On the corner he stopped in at a cigar store for two packs of cigarets and a nutted chocolate bar. Munching he chocolate, he headed for the subway.

Kerrie awoke from an exhausted sleep just before nine. Vi was tossing and snoring on the other bed.

Kerrie crept out of bed and peeped into the sitting room. Sergeant Velie was gone, but another detective was reading the morning paper in the armchair. When he saw her he quickly hid the headlines. She shivered and closed the door.

When Vi awoke it was noon and Kerrie was fully dressed, seated at one of the bedroom windows staring out into the court, her hands in her lap.

Vi said something, but Kerrie did not reply. The blonde girl yawned, and then made a face, and then joined Kerrie at the window.

“Kerrie!”

Kerrie looked up, surprised. “Oh, you’re up. What?”

“Don’t you see those rubbernecks?”

“What?”

The windows facing their side of the court were densely peopled. Women, men, at least two staring children; and in one window an enterprising reporter was shouting questions across the court as he leaned perilously out.

“I didn’t see them,” said Kerrie indifferently.

Vi yanked down the shade; and after a moment, as if she were just conscious of the reporter’s shouts, Kerrie closed the window, too.

It was a curiously peaceful day. Occasionally the door from the sitting room to the corridor opened and slammed as a detective came in. Men were coming in and out all day. There was some activity in 1726, too; Vi peeped from the window and could see men bustling about in there.

But no one entered the bedroom except a detective; and he came in only because Vi, after trying vainly to rouse the telephone operator, complained that they were starving.

“Okay,” said the detective. “Why didn’t you ask before?”

“Ask!”

“No tickee, no washee.” He went out.

“They’ve cut the line,” said Vi in a scared voice.

Kerrie said nothing.

Fifteen minutes later the detective wheeled a table in which was laden with food. He went out immediately.

“Come on, hon. We may as well stoke up.”

“Yes,” said Kerrie.

She sat down at the table and toyed with a slice of toast. She looked calm enough; only a certain air of abstraction, a deepening of the two lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth, pointed to anything unusual inside her.

Vi saw it and said in a small voice: “Kerrie dear, you’ve simply got to eat. You haven’t eaten—”

“I’m not hungry, Vi.”

Kerrie went back to the window.

Vi sighed. She finished her breakfast and, after hesitating, Kerrie’s, too. She took a bath, borrowed fresh underwear and stockings from Kerrie, dressed, and then the two of them sat still, without conversation, all the long afternoon.

By nine o’clock in the evening Vi was ready to scream. Any noise — a cough, a cry, sobbing — would have been relief. But Kerrie just sat with her hands folded in her lap like some female Buddha carved from stone.

And then there was a commotion outside, the noise of many voices, at least one scuffle. Vi jumped up. Even Kerrie turned her head.

The bedroom door opened and Sergeant Velie, accompanied by several strange men, stood there. The Sergeant was carrying a folded paper.

Kerrie rose, pale.

“I’ve got a warrant here,” said the Sergeant in a flat voice, “for the arrest of Kerrie Shawn. Miss Shawn, will you get ready?”

After that, things became confused, like a motion picture run wild. A cameraman managed to pierce the cordon outside, and bulbs began to flash, and detectives shouted, and reporters wormed through, and there was almost a free-for-all. In the tumult Vi got Kerrie into her hat and a light camel’s-hair coat, and Sergeant Velie said Vi couldn’t go along, and Vi clung to Kerrie, weeping, until Kerrie said sharply: “Don’t act like a baby, Vi!” and kissed her goodbye; and after a while Vi found herself almost alone in 1724, in the midst of bulbs and newspapers and articles of Kerrie’s wardrobe, and she sat down on the floor and cried for the benefit of the two female reporters who had remained behind for sinister purposes of their own.

They even helped Vi, when she gathered strength enough to stand up, to get Kerrie’s things together in the suitcases, asking questions all the way like two jabbering jays until Vi swore at them and threatened weepily to bang their sleek heads together.

Finally she managed to escape with Kerrie’s bag and the aid of a policeman. One of the two newspaper-women said: “Nuts,” with disgust, and they followed the course of empire southward, to Centre Street.

Vi reached her hotel with her hat over one ear. When she walked through the lobby she thought two men looked at her in a hard, suspicious way. She locked herself in her room.

Then the telephone began ringing. After a half-hour she told the operator not to ring her at all. So people began knocking at her door. She rang the hotel operator again and threatened to call the police if the pests didn’t stop knocking.

The operator said: “Yes, Madam — hold on a minute,” and then said: “Sorry, Madam — it is the police,” and Vi opened the door, and one of the two men who had looked at her hard and suspiciously said not to try any funny stuff but just stay put, sister, see?

“Stay put?” screamed Vi. “You think you’re hanging that rap around my neck, too, you wall-eyed flatties?”

“We’re not sayin’ nothin’,” said the other man. “Just take a little friendly advice, see, blondie?”

Vi slammed the door, locked it.

After that, her telephone did not ring and her door was not knocked upon. And she stayed put.

Beau burst into Inspector Queen’s office at Police Headquarters, roaring mad.

“What the hell’s the idea, pop! What was I picked up for?” Then he saw Kerrie. He said slowly: “What’s this?”

Kerrie looked at him with eyes of liquid pain.

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Inspector Queen. He seemed a little shrunken through his spare, wiry body. “As for Miss Shawn, we’ve decided to hold her for — well, technically as a material witness. But we all know what for.”

There were three other men present. Beau recognized them all. One was a stenographer. The other two were assistants of District Attorney Sampson’s.

“She’s innocent,” said Beau. “She told you how it really happened. The real killer was in 1726. He shot Margo through the window across the angle of the court, then tossed in the roscoe. Kerrie picked it up; she was dazed.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” asked the Inspector in a queer tone.

“Isn’t the truth enough for you?” snarled Beau.

“One moment.” Kerrie’s voice was calm, low-pitched. “Inspector Queen, you’ve accused me of murdering my cousin, and I admit the circumstances—”

“Don’t admit anything!” yelled Beau. “Let me handle—”

“Please.” She looked at him, and he turned away. “I admit the circumstances are against me. But if I shot Margo, I must have had a motive. What was my motive?”

“We know your motive,” said the Inspector.

“I couldn’t possibly have any! You mean I hated her, I was — jealous of her on account of... my husband? But if I were, wouldn’t I have shot her before I was married? I had nothing to be jealous about, Inspector. We were married. Would I have waited until after my marriage to kill her?”

The Inspector did not reply. The stenographer was quietly recording the conversation, and the two men from the District Attorney’s office were listening in a strained silence.

“Or you might say,” Kerrie went on, “that I wanted to put Margo out of the way in order to gain financially. But that can’t be so, either, you see, because my marriage cut me out of Uncle Cadmus’s will. I couldn’t possibly inherit Margo’s share; in fact, I’d even forfeited my own. So don’t you see how silly this charge is? There isn’t a reason in the world why I should have wanted to kill Margo!”

“But there is,” said the Inspector in a flat tone.

“What could it possibly be?”

“Something like twenty-five hundred dollars a week for life.”

“But I just told you,” said Kerrie, bewildered. “Mr. Goossens — Mr. De Carlos will confirm — the will—”

“Yeah,” mumbled Beau. “What’s the matter with you, pop?”

“It’s true,” said the Inspector in a tired voice, “that this girl has no gain-motive if she were married at the time of the murder.” He paused, then repeated: “If she were married.”

Kerrie sprang to her feet. “What do you mean?”

“It won’t do you the least good to put on an act,” replied the old man gruffly.

“Ellery!” Kerrie ran to Beau, shook him. “What is your father talking about? Tell me!”

Beau said nothing. But Kerrie saw his eyes, and let go of him with a sudden gesture of revulsion. She stood still where she was, the last drop of color draining from her face.

“I received a wire this afternoon,” said the Inspector, “which amounted to an anonymous tip. We weren’t able to trace the tipster, because the message had been telephoned into the telegraph office from a midtown pay-station. But the tipster wasn’t nearly as important as the tip. We followed that up right away, and it was right. Miss Shawn—”

“Miss Shawn?” whispered Kerrie.

“Miss Shawn, you weren’t married last night. The marriage was a fake. It was an attempt to lay a clever smoke-screen down so that it would look as if you had no motive to kill your cousin Margo. You still share in your uncle’s estate; you still take over Margo’s share. What do you say now?”

“Not married last night... Why, that’s simply — that’s simply not true! We were. In Connecticut. Near Greenwich. By a Justice of the Peace named — named Johnston. Weren’t we? Ellery, weren’t we?”

A frenzy took possession of her. She seized Beau’s arm, shaking him, her eyes wild and wide with horror.

“And that isn’t all!” shouted the Inspector suddenly, growing crimson. “This man isn’t my son — his name’s not Ellery! It isn’t even Queen! His name is Beau Rummell, and he’s my son’s partner in a confounded private detective agency!”

“Beau — Rummell?” whispered Kerrie. She stumbled back to her chair and sat down, fumbling in her bag for a handkerchief. She remained that way, her eyes on her bag, her fingers fumbling inside aimlessly.

“For God’s sake, pop,” said Beau in a small voice.

“It’s no use, Beau! There’s no record of a marriage license. There’s no record or trace of the Justice of the Peace who’s supposed to have married you. If there is — let’s have it. Produce him! And let’s see your license and your marriage certificate! Why, even the address is a phony — it’s a house that was just rented for one night! Otherwise it hasn’t been occupied for years!”

Scenes flashed across Kerrie’s brain... the ramshackle building, the weeds, the dust, the odd Mr. Johnston...

Beau said miserably: “All right, it’s true! We weren’t married. It was an absolute phony. But Kerrie didn’t know anything about that, pop! She thought it was on the level. I rigged the whole thing up myself, I tell you!”

She should have known; if she hadn’t been such a blind, trusting fool... The marriage license. She hadn’t signed. “Pull,” he had said. He hadn’t shown it to her. In that house, the “Justice” was going to marry... marry! — them without a second witness. The whole thing, the whole sickening...

Kerrie’s stomach began to churn. There was a wry twist to her mouth.

“Yes?” said the Inspector flatly.

“You’ve got to believe me, pop! This thing is all a mess now. Margo Cole tried three times to kill Kerrie. She hated Kerrie because she — well, she’d taken a shine to me herself. And she was spending more dough than was coming in, and she wanted Kerrie’s share of the income. She told me so herself! I’ll swear to that on the witness-stand! I played along, figuring that was the best way to protect Kerrie; we didn’t have anything on Margo in the way of evidence, so there was no use pulling the law into it. Ellery knows all about this. He’ll back me up.”

“Don’t bring Ellery into it!” thundered the Inspector.

“I’ve got to, pop. Even if I didn’t, he’d come to bat—”

“Does he know these things of his own knowledge?” demanded the old man quickly.

“No. I told him. But it’s true, I tell you! I planned the fake marriage because, with Kerrie apparently married, Margo would temporarily get Kerrie’s share, or expect to get it soon, so half her motive against Kerrie would be satisfied. The other half — well,” and Beau threw back his shoulders defiantly, “I made a deal with her. I pretended to be her accomplice, saying I was marrying Kerrie to give Margo the extra income, so she and I could split. I told her I loved her, not Kerrie — that the marriage wouldn’t mean a thing. She fell for it. Last night, like the she-devil she was, she couldn’t resist coming down to crow over Kerrie after the damage, as she thought, was done.”

“You expect me to believe this girl here didn’t know that marriage was a phony?”

“Do you think she’s the kind—” began Beau; then he made a gesture of futility. “I didn’t marry her on the level because I didn’t want to see her lose that legacy. I didn’t tell her the marriage was a fake because, if I had, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. You don’t know her, I tell you!”

The two Assistant District Attorneys whispered together. Then one of them beckoned the Inspector, and the three of them whispered some more. Finally the Inspector, very pale, said to Beau: “Just where did you go last night, Beau, when you left this girl in that hotel room after you’d checked in?”

Kerrie raised her head at that; her eyes looked hurt, misty, dull.

“For one thing I’m not a skunk!” snarled Beau. “I was in a tough spot. She thought we were married, I knew we weren’t... I made some rotten excuse, said I was coming back, and blew. When I got outside I thought of something. There were two people who had to be notified that the marriage wasn’t on the up and up — they were the trustees of the Cole estate.

“I went back to my Times Square office and wrote out two letters — one to Goossens, one to De Carlos. They were identical. They said the marriage was a phony, and I was notifying them because the legal question of the passing of Kerrie’s share to Margo was a factor; I didn’t want Kerrie to lose even a week’s income. I said Margo was after Kerrie’s scalp, and I wanted them to play ball with me, stall along for a while, until I could pin those murder attempts on Margo. Then I sealed the letters, put special-delivery stamps on them, and mailed them in the lobby slot. The night man in my building let me in and let me out. Then I went back to the Villanoy.”

“The check-up will be made, of course.” The Inspector turned away, stonily.

Beau ran over to Kerrie. “Kerrie, I want you to believe me! I want you to know I love you, and that everything I’ve done so far was because — damn it, Kerrie, I’d cut off my right arm before I’d pull a dirty trick like that!”

The Inspector and the two lawyers were conferring in whispers again. The attorneys were demanding something, and the Inspector was arguing fiercely against them.

“I think I know who killed Margo,” whispered Beau in Kerrie’s ear. “It’s just come to me — just since last night. I mean since early this morning. All I need is a little time, darling. Kerrie, say something. At least tell me you don’t think I’m a murdering heel!”

She turned slowly at that, raising her eyes and fixing them on his. In their hurt, misty way, they were troubled searchlights, probing the darkness.

And suddenly she put her arms about him and pulled him down to her. He closed his eyes gratefully. He felt the straining of her arms, the beating of her heart.

A man tapped her on the shoulder, shoving Beau aside. Beau did not protest.

He watched them lead her away — to the Tombs, as he knew, to go through the whole ghastly and scarifying process of being booked, fingerprinted, locked in a cell... She walked in a dream, seeing nothing.

Beau glanced at the Inspector, who waved his hand.

“Don’t leave the city.” Inspector Queen’s voice was dry; he did not look up from his desk, where he was fussing with some papers.

“Sure, pop,” said Beau gently. “And — thanks.”

The Inspector started, then went back to his papers.

Beau left quickly. He knew that he would be followed. He thought it very possible, from the Inspector’s peculiar expression and the glances of the two men from the District Attorney’s office, that before twenty-four hours had passed he might be lodged, with Kerrie, in the Tombs on an accomplice charge.

In fact, he was sure that only the Inspector’s insistence had kept the two attorneys from having him taken into custody on the spot.

Beau walked the streets of downtown New York half the night. He analyzed his case over and over, mercilessly, picking, probing, digging for flaws. And finally, with a grunt of satisfaction, he said to himself: “It’s in the groove,” and sent Ellery a telegram to meet him at the office at nine o’clock in the morning.

Then Beau went home and to sleep.

At nine they met, and Mr. Queen’s haggard appearance said that he knew of Kerrie’s arrest, and moreover that he had had no sleep since learning of it.

Beau told him exactly what had happened while Ellery listened in a gloomy silence. “Well,” he said at last, “we have some time — these things go slowly, and we need a complete case. Did you check up on De Carlos yesterday?”

“I found some old-timers in the Street who remembered him. They all think De Carlos was a weak sister. Big ideas, but no follow-through. With Cole dominating him from the background, planning the campaigns, De Carlos pulled the big deals in actual practise. By himself, as a planner, De Carlos was useless. As a matter of fact, he’s been in the market since Cole’s death — did you know that? And he’s lost his shirt.”

Ellery was thoughtful “And then, too, he’s been spending that million Cole left him like a gob on shore-leave. He must be pretty nearly flat, if they cleaned him in Wall Street.”

“He is,” said Beau.

“Any trace of his ever having been married?”

“What do you think I am, a Houdini? Far as I could check, no.”

“Well, I’ve been doing some checking myself. For some time. There’s always the possibility, but it seems fairly certain, and from the reports I’ve been receiving, we may assume De Carlos never married. Now, how about Cole’s personal belongings?”

“Checked. Lots of duds, odds and ends of jewelry — some pretty valuable stuff, I’d say, watches, rings, studs — and a bunch of personal papers. Nothing to interest us, though.”

“Did you find a fountain-pen?”

“No, nor an automatic pencil.”

“False teeth?”

“No.”

“Eyeglasses, toupee, wig?”

“No.”

Miss Penny came in with a telegram. Beau tore it open and began to jig, waving the yellow slip. “I don’t know what you’ve got,” he yelled, “but I’ve got plenty!”

“You can be very annoying at times,” said Mr. Queen. “What is that?”

“A wire from our man on the Coast. He’s located Captain Angus!”

“What?”

“Absolutely. And he’ll be in with him tonight. That clinches it, you sockeroo! That’s all I needed to clean up this case!”

“Oh,” said Mr. Queen slowly. “You have a theory?”

“Theory? Nuts! I’ve got the answer!” And Beau began to explain, chattering like a machine-gun. Mr. Queen listened in silence, nodding glumly every once in a while. “What’s the matter? You don’t look very happy about it!”

“It all points that way, I confess,” said Mr. Queen. “I can’t disprove your theory — in fact, I can add to it and strengthen it considerably. There’s only one point that bothers me, Beau.”

“What’s that?”

Mr. Queen waved his hand. “It’s a small discrepancy — too small at the moment to worry about.”

“Then the hell with it! What do you say — do we go to town?”

Mr. Queen sighed. “I suppose we may as well.”

They put their heads together, going over Beau’s case, checking it, re-examining, working out the details of a plan. Beau’s eyes gleamed at certain contributions of Mr. Queen’s; his spirits steadily rose, and he looked happy for the first time in months.

And then the telephone rang and Miss Penny said. “It’s your father, Mr. Queen.”

Beau sat down, losing his grin.

“Well, dad?” said Ellery.

He listened; and as he listened he stiffened. When finally he set down the instrument he laughed aloud. “What do you know about that?”

“Know about what? Talk, you brass monkey!”

“It’s the beginning of the end now, Beau.” Mr. Queen rose and shook himself a little, like an athlete before running out to meet his opponent. “Dad just tipped me off. Margo Cole — hold your chair, now! — was NOT the daughter of Huntley and Nadine Cole. She was NOT Cadmus Cole’s niece, or Kerrie’s cousin. In fact, she was NOT Margo Cole.”

Beau’s jaw sagged. “She wasn’t — Then who the devil was she?”

“One of the coolest impostors on record!”

And Mr. Queen hustled his speechless partner out of the office and downstairs, bound for a taxicab and Police Headquarters.

XVIII. Enter Miss Bloomer

They took a cab down town.

“How’d pop ever dig that one up?” demanded Beau, when he had recovered from the shock.

“I didn’t like her.”

“Talk sense!”

“I am. I got to thinking about the woman who presented herself as Mar go Cole, and there was something about her and her story that made me think in terms of flies and honey, if you know what I mean. She seemed too much the woman of the world.”

“That’s reasoning, all right,” grunted Beau. “Lucky guess!”

“Certainly.” Ellery laughed. “Except for the little detail of the ‘partner’ she mentioned to Kerrie just before she was murdered. A partner suggested a plot, and a plot—” He shrugged. “At any rate, I merely suggested to dad that he have the dead woman’s fingerprints taken. He did, and sent photos of them by radio to Scotland Yard and the Sûreté. Scotland Yard came through.”

“Who was she? I’m still winded!”

“A woman named Ann Bloomer. A London slum product — drunken father, sluttish mother — lived by her wits from adolescence. When she was 19 she was caught by the British police in some blackmailing scheme and sent to clink for a year. When she was released in 1925 she disappeared from England. 1925, remember, was the year the real Margo Cole’s mother died in France.”

“But the French police checked this woman!”

“We’ve all been neatly taken in. Don’t you see what happened? When the Bloomer woman appeared in this country, claiming to be Margo Cole, she told a certain story. Well, that story was a consolidation of two stories. That is, she told the history of the real Margo Cole up to the year 7925; from 7925 on, the story she told was her own history. That means the real Margo disappeared in 1925 — or, at least, there’s no record of her existence after that year.”

“You mean this business goes back that far?” Beau whistled. “Murder as far back as 1925?”

“Don’t know.” Mr. Queen gazed somberly out of the taxi window. “Dad’s news opens up a new field of speculation and inquiry, however. Anyway, we know Ann Bloomer, who said she had changed her name from Margo Cole to Ann Strange, was actually an English adventuress with no possible relation to the Cole family. Dad checked that, too. And it’s that woman who tried to murder Kerrie and was murdered herself for her pains!”

“Say, how’d she get hold of Margo Cole’s proofs of identity? Do you suppose—”

“Dad’s called Goossens to bring down all those proofs.”

Beau told the driver to stop at the Tombs.

When Kerrie saw him she gave a little cry and ran into his arms. After a while Mr. Queen coughed.

“You might introduce me to the lady, Beau.”

Beau did the honors and, from the safety of his arms, Kerrie eyed Ellery in a puzzled way. “I’m terribly happy to meet the man I thought I’d married. So you’re Ellery Queen!”

“And you’re Kerrie Shawn.”

“A little the worse for wear, I’m afraid,” sighed Kerrie. “Mr. Queen, haven’t we met somewhere?”

“It’s one of those annoying probabilities,” replied Mr. Queen quickly, “that it’s so much better not to bother oneself about. Now that we meet in fact, Miss Shawn, and I’ve an opportunity of seeing for myself, I don’t wonder you’ve upset Beau’s whole self-centered life!”

“I’m not very much to look at these days,” said Kerrie with a sad smile. “A little slap-happy from all these flattering attentions from life... Darling.” She pressed Beau’s hand.

“Look, kid.” Beau was embarrassed. “I had to stop in and sort of put my arms around you again. You know. See that you weren’t sore at me. But we’ve got to beat it.”

“So soon?” Kerrie cried.

“Some day we’ll knock off for a thousand years and go away together and just hold hands the whole damn’ time. But right now Ellery and I have work to do.”

“All right, Beau.” She kissed him. “That’s really a nice name. Beau Rummell. Why, do you know—”

“No cracks,” said Beau hastily. “Kerrie, you all right? They’re treating you okay?”

“Yes, Beau.”

“Anything I can get you before I leave?”

“Vi’s been here. She brought me a few things she knew I’d need. Beau... the police are watching Vi, too.”

“Aw, that’s just a matter of form,” muttered Beau. “They wouldn’t earn their pay if they didn’t look smart.”

“Have you — have you hired a lawyer for me yet?”

“What’s the matter with me? I’m a lawyer!”

“Oh, darling, I know, but—”

Beau kissed her. “We won’t need one. Ellery and I’ll have this case cracked in one more day.”

Kerrie’s eyes grew round. “You mean you’ve found out—”

“Just a little more patience, funny-face. We’d try to spring you, only with that murder rap hanging over your head it’s no use trying. They’ve got to work fast, anyway. Either release you or change the charge—” Beau’s face darkened, then he grinned at her. “You’ll just have to stay here a little while longer.”

“Make it a very little while,” Kerrie whispered.

“Miss Shawn, did you know that Margo Cole really wasn’t Margo Cole?” asked Mr. Queen suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?” gasped Kerrie.

“Never mind.” Mr. Queen smiled in a satisfied way.

“Beau, what does he mean?”

Beau told her. She was bewildered. “But I don’t—”

Mr. Queen took her hand. “Don’t try. While you’re here don’t answer too many questions and have a nice rest. Jails are really awfully good places to rest in.”

She smiled back faintly. “I’ll remember that — the next one I’m in.”

“I promise you you won’t be in this one long!”

“Thanks, Mr. Queen.”

“The name is Ellery, Miss Shawn.”

“Kerrie, Ellery.”

“Charmed! By the way, Beau and I have a lot of explaining to do. Do you think you can wait?”

“Whatever Beau says.”

Beau kissed her again, and they left quickly.

“Such faith,” observed Mr. Queen, “should be deserved.”

Beau did not reply in words. But his eyes and jaw said something that silenced Mr. Queen.

They found Inspector Queen with Lloyd. Goossens, elbow-deep in records. Both men seemed worried.

“Well, they’re in order,” said the Inspector disgustedly. “Every last one of ’em genuine. I don’t understand it at all!”

“Nor do I,” said Goossens, sucking nervously on his empty pipe. He stared from Beau to Ellery. “Which is which, Inspector?”

“There’s the real Ellery Queen,” snapped the Inspector, “and this varmint who passed himself off as Queen is Beau Rummell, my son’s partner. I wouldn’t blame you if you took a poke at both of ’em, Mr. Goossens.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that now,” said Goossens sadly, shaking hands with Ellery. “Some day you gentle men must tell me why you deceived me. At the moment this business about Margo Cole, or rather Ann Bloomer, has me rather floored.”

“You’re sure the identification papers are in order?”

“Positive. See for yourself. I’ve brought Miss Shawn’s along, too, for comparison.”

“How do we know she isn’t an impostor, too?” demanded Inspector Queen suddenly.

Beau bridled. “In her case the record’s clear! Besides, there’s a photo of her when she was a kid of ten or so—”

“I don’t like it,” growled the old man. “It upsets the whole cart.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” said Beau with a grin.

The Inspector eyed him peculiarly. “Oh, I don’t mean about the case against her. Finding out that the woman who claimed to be Margo Cole was an impostor doesn’t really change Kerrie Shawn’s motive, if Kerrie Shawn thought the woman was Margo Cole. Or even if she knew, the motive still holds. In that case she’d rely on the woman’s imposture never coming out. It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

The Inspector failed to reply.

“What bothers me,” said Goossens, “is my position as executor and trustee in this matter. And being paired with this man De Carlos doesn’t... ah... improve matters.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “All that money handed over to this Bloomer woman out of Cole’s estate—”

“You can’t be held responsible for that,” said Mr. Queen. “We all made the same mistake. Because the proofs of identity were genuine, we assumed the person presenting them was their owner.”

“Oh, I’m safe enough legally,” said the lawyer. “It isn’t that, Mr. Queen. There will be lots of newspaper talk, a scandal — it won’t do my firm’s reputation any good, you know; may very well scare away future clients. Well, that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Talking about legal considerations,” remarked Beau, “there’s the estate itself, Goossens. The real Margo Cole must be searched for. Kerrie’s back in the picture as an heiress — with a charge of murder hanging over her. The Surrogate won’t like these little developments—”

Goossens looked unhappy. “Yes, yes, I’m aware of that.” He frowned. “By the way, Mr. Queen, you know that technically you disobeyed the testator’s instructions in having Mr. Rummell impersonate you. You had no right to give Mr. Rummell a job to do which you were personally hired to accomplish.”

“If you mean,” said Beau, “that we’ll give back the fifteen grand, my friend — take another whiff!”

“No, no,” said the lawyer with a nervous smile. “I shan’t press the point. But under the circumstances, I think the firm of Ellery Queen, Inc. will have to bow out of the case.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Queen.

“The Surrogate won’t like that little business, Mr. Queen. I imagine he’ll insist on my engaging a new firm, or doing the job myself.”

“You mean of beginning a search for Margo Cole all over again, now that the Bloomer woman has been exposed?”

“Yes.”

“We stand,” said Mr. Queen firmly, “upon our rights.”

Goossens laughed. “I don’t believe you have any. However, it’s probably a dead issue. Dead issue — very good!”

Mr. Queen politely laughed, too. “What’s that?”

“I mean — Margo Cole is probably dead. She must be. So it’s a tempest in a teapot.”

“Very possible,” admitted Mr. Queen.

“Well... I suppose, Inspector, you want to hang on to these records for a while?”

“Yes, leave them here.”

The lawyer nodded glumly and left.

“Bad case of cold feet,” remarked the Inspector. “Well, I suppose he is in a jam.” He sat down at his desk and began to finger his little figurine of Bertillon. “As I am. Beau, you and Kerrie are lucky this happened now. It smudges up our case, and the D.A.’s frankly sorry he advised such a quick arrest. And yesterday be wanted to arrest you, too!”

“On what charge?”

“Accessory to the murder.” The old man paused, then said quietly: “I talked him out of it. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it — not because the facts aren’t against it, but because of a lot of things the law won’t recognize as evidence.”

“But Beau couldn’t possibly have committed that murder,” protested Mr. Queen with an outraged chuckle.

“I’m not talking about the murder,” said his father shortly. “I said accessory.”

“Thanks, pop,” said Beau dryly.

“Just the same, my own hands aren’t too clean. The Commissioner is thinking of taking me off the case. Now, with this new development...” He shook his head.

“It seems to me,” observed Mr. Queen, “that we’re moving in concentric circles. Let’s tackle this thing logically.”

The Inspector brightened visibly. “You see daylight?’”

“Brilliantly.”

“Then you don’t believe Kerrie Shawn shot the Bloomer woman?”

“I do not.”

The Inspector sank back. “You’re prejudiced!”

“Not a bit of it. I have reasons for thinking her innocent.”

“Reasons? What reasons? The Lord knows I’m a reasonable man. But if you can explain away the circumstances of this crime — except by some cock-and-bull story like the one Kerrie Shawn tells — I’ll eat your hat in Madison Square Garden with catsup and mayonnaise!”

“I may take you up on that,” said Mr. Queen; and he rose and began to walk up and down, frowning at the floor. “We must begin from the new fact: that the woman who represented herself as Margo Cole, bearing genuine proofs of Margo-Cole identity, as it were, is a proved impostor named Ann Bloomer.

“Now, with this woman an impostor, the question arises: Where is the real niece of Cadmus Cole, the real daughter of Huntley Cole and Nadine Malloy Cole — the Margo Cole Ann Bloomer pretended to be?

“You’ll admit there are two inclusive possibilities: that either the real Margo Cole is alive, today, or she is dead.

“Let’s examine the case if she’s alive. If she is, why hasn’t she come forward to claim her share of her uncle’s estate? We’d have to rule out the possibility that she doesn’t know anything about her uncle’s death and the will he left. This has been the most widely publicized will-case in modern legal history. Cole’s death, the odd conditions of his will, have been announced by newspapers, periodical literature, and radio all over the world, not once but many times — in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, even Africa and the South Seas. And this publicity has been going on for several months — first the death, then the publication of the will, then the news of the discovery of the two heiresses, and since then a continuous drumfire of their activities.

“Don’t you agree that if the real Margo were alive it’s reasonable to assume she’d have heard of Cole’s death and her own eligibility as an heiress by this time?”

“Do you mean by that,” asked the Inspector, “that because Margo Cole hasn’t come forward you think she’s dead?”

“Not yet,” said Ellery quickly. “I’m merely brushing in the background. I do say that the unusual publicity must have got to her eyes or ears if she’s alive. Now, proceeding on this reasonable assumption — that if she’s alive she knows — why hasn’t she come forward?

“One possible, even probable, answer is that she knows she doesn’t qualify under the terms of the will... that she is or has been married, for example — a state of affairs which would automatically cut her out of an inheritance.”

“I should think,” objected Beau, “that, even if she were or had been married, she’d show up and make a fight for that dough. That’s only human.”

“But she hasn’t; that’s a fact. Let’s not get involved in counter-theories; let’s proceed along the straight line. If she’s married, and since she’s failed to show up, what then? She would fight, you say. Yes, I agree; she would. But how? By contesting the will? She hasn’t done that. Could she fight in another way? Certainly — if she got hold of a woman like Ann Bloomer and made a deal with her.”

Both men looked blank.

“A deal like this, for instance: a fifty-fifty split of the income after Ann Bloomer, armed with the proofs of identity furnished her by the real Margo, showed up, was accepted as the legitimate heiress, and began to collect her share. Ann Bloomer’s qualifications, from Margo’s standpoint, would merely have to be: that she was not and is not married, and that her history could be mortised into Margo’s history somewhere along the line — as actually happened, in fact.”

“But that means,” said the Inspector excitedly, “that this partner Kerrie says the woman mentioned was — the real Margo! Why, if Ann doublecrossed Margo after Ann was accepted as the heiress, if Ann didn’t fork over the split, that would be a motive for murder...”

“So it would,” chuckled Ellery. “By the way, I thought you didn’t believe Kerrie’s story!”

“I don’t,” said the old man, flushing. “I’m just — arguing. For the sake of argument.”

Both Beau and Ellery laughed. “At any rate,” said Ellery, “I’m not arguing to reach that sort of conclusion, even though it might be true. The only conclusion I wish to reach you’ve already accepted, dad — that, if the real Margo still lives, she probably hired Ann Bloomer to present herself, furnished Ann with the proofs of identity, and was Ann Bloomer’s silent partner in a scheme to get hold of half of Cole’s estate, to which she was not entitled. In other words, Ann Bloomer had — had to have — a partner.

“Now, take the other possibility — that the real Margo is dead. Then how did Ann Bloomer get possession of those proofs of identity? From the reports, the Bloomer woman had not the slightest connection with the Cole family, certainly not by a blood tie. Yet the proofs of identity must have been in the possession of some one close to the dead Margo — we’re assuming now, remember, that the real Margo is dead. In whose possession? A blood relation? The real Margo’s only living relatives by blood were Kerrie Shawn, her cousin, and Cadmus Cole, her paternal uncle. Neither has had the least contact, or could have had from the facts, with the real Margo Cole.

“Then who is left as a possible possessor of those proofs? Such a person as the real Margo Cole’s surviving husband, let us say. A good possibility, although it may have been one of a number of differently related persons. In any event, for the Bloomer woman to have got her hands on those proofs of Margo Cole’s identity, she must have got them from some one who had been close to Margo Cole; and for this person to have turned the proofs over to Ann Bloomer means again a deal, a partnership. So again the vital conclusion arises: Ann Bloomer had a partner.”

The Inspector stirred. “Couldn’t it have been like this? Margo Cole and Ann Bloomer were friends. Ann Bloomer murdered Margo, stole her proofs of identity, and showed up here to pose as Margo Cole. So there’s no partner at all!”

“Two things against that theory,” replied Ellery, “which, of course, has occurred to me. One is that if Margo and Ann had been friends, why didn’t the French police, who checked over every last detail of Margo Cole’s movements from her birth until 1925, and of Ann Bloomer’s movements from 1925 to date, run across any evidence of such a friendship? They did a careful job, as you know. The answer is: there was no such evidence to run across; there was no such friendship.

“Besides, that theory would indicate that Ann Bloomer was a lone... er... wolverene. Yet she told Kerrie a moment before she was murdered that she had a partner.”

“We’ve only Kerrie Shawn’s word for that,” said the Inspector stubbornly.

“And all sorts of confirmation in what El’s just told us,” growled Beau. “Don’t be pig-headed, pop!”

The Inspector waved Ellery on.

“Deductively, then,” said Ellery, “we’ve established the existence of a person hitherto unsuspected — Ann Bloomer’s partner-in-crime, the person she referred to when she boasted that she and some one else had planned the attacks on Kerrie.

“Now Beau told Ann he was marrying Kerrie, that he was taking Kerrie to the Villanoy; he even promised Ann he would leave Kerrie alone for the night, as he did — although for reasons of his own.

“Ann Bloomer must have informed her partner; how else could this partner have known? So the partner went to the Villanoy soon after Beau and Kerrie checked in, found out what room they had engaged, and then sent the hotel a wire reserving Room 1726. I’ve investigated that wire, incidentally, and it was telephoned to Western Union from a pay-station — no doubt from a booth in or near the Villanoy. Of course, this covered the trail.

“Room 1726 being reserved, this mysterious partner then let himself in with a passkey of some sort, and awaited developments. The partner heard Ann’s arrival, heard the entire conversation through the open windows, heard Ann’s injudicious boast about the partnership of the attacks on Kerrie, and shot Ann before she could reveal the identity of her partner — himself. Then he tossed Kerrie’s own revolver through the windows into 1724. Ann herself had said she and her partner had planned the attacks on Kerrie, so it’s not strange that this partner had possession of Kerrie’s stolen .22.”

The old man was silent.

“I imagine,” continued Ellery gravely, “that this partner had three motives for killing Ann Bloomer.

“Remember Ann’s character, her unscrupulousness, her known record for loose living on the Continent, her self-incriminating confession of attempts to murder Kerrie. And think of the situation existing between her and her partner. With the proofs of identity presented by her and accepted by the executor-trustees of the estate and by the Surrogate, she found herself in the driver’s seat.

“She no longer needed a partner — any partner; he had served his purpose by giving her the Margo-Cole proofs of identity. She could back down on her bargain with this partner without danger to herself — that is, she could refuse to share the profits with the partner who supplied her with the means of making those profits. And what could this partner do about it? — nothing. To expose the woman as an impostor meant exposing and incriminating himself.

“So the partner lost his share of the loot without a comeback. Natural motive on his part? Revenge.

“Second motive: Fear. Ann Bloomer, a woman with a police record, might be unmasked as an impostor at any time, through the merest mischance. If caught, she would certainly involve her silent and invisible partner. As a matter of fact, when Ann boasted to Kerrie in the hotel room that she and somebody else had planned the murderous attacks, and actually stated: ‘I and somebody else. I and—’... the partner shot her dead instantly. He couldn’t afford to have her reveal his identity. Dead men don’t bite. Nor, for that matter, do dead women.”

Ellery paused, and Beau said: “You said there were three motives. What’s the third?”

“That,” replied Mr. Queen, “can wait. Aren’t two sufficient?”

“Why couldn’t Kerrie have been the Bloomer woman’s partner?” demanded the Inspector. “Forgetting all this business of Room 1726 and Kerrie’s story.”

“Come, come, dad, you’re confused. Kerrie’s the last person on earth who could have been Ann’s partner-in-crime. If Kerrie originally possessed the proofs of Margo Cole’s identity — a vast improbability by itself — whether the real Margo Cole were alive or dead, would Kerrie have engineered the imposture and thereby set up a competing heiress? For if the real Margo didn’t come forward, Kerrie would have had the income from the entire estate, not half. No, dad, Kerrie didn’t need a partner.”

Inspector Queen nibbled the end of his mustache. “Where’s the proof of all this?”

“We’re not ready to submit proof.”

“The circumstantial case against the girl is too strong, Ellery. Even if I were convinced, there’s Sampson. The D.A. simply can’t drop these charges without proof.”

Beau winked at Ellery and took him aside. They conferred sotto voce for some time.

Ellery looked worried. But he finally nodded and said to his father: “All right. You’ll have your proof. I’m going to let Beau run this show, because it’s fundamentally his inspiration.”

“Let me handle this,” said Beau eagerly, “and you’ll have your killer in twenty-four hours — yes, and a whole lot more besides!”

“It shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours,” agreed Mr. Queen. “Yes, I think we can promise that.”

The Inspector hesitated. Then he threw up his hands. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

XIX. The Cadmean Illusion

At nine o’clock that night the main office of Ellery Queen, Inc. was crowded. The shades had been drawn and all the lights were on. On the desk stood some apparatus. A Headquarters expert sat near the apparatus, looking puzzled.

Kerrie was there in charge of a detective and a matron. She and Violet Day sat in a corner. Vi was nervous. Every few moments Kerrie had to lean over and reassure her. At other times Kerrie kept her eyes on Beau with a faith patient, secret, and maternal.

Inspector Queen was there, looking worried; District Attorney Sampson, looking skeptical; Edmund De Carlos, looking the worse for drink; Goossens, representing the estate and looking unhappy. A stranger with a kit waited in Beau’s laboratory-darkroom.

Beau was jumpy. Mr. Queen took him aside. “You’re skittering. Look confident, you big ape. You’re acting more like an expectant father than anything else of a human nature.”

“It’s the look in Kerrie’s eye,” groaned Beau: “You suppose it’s going to turn out okay? You’re sure you got that message straight?”

“Captain Angus and the Coast operative landed at Newark Airport all right, I tell you,” said Ellery impatiently. “They’re coming here under police escort and all the trimmings. Get going, will you?”

“I’m all atwitter,” said Beau with a feeble grin.

“And you show it! The whole secret of this business is to act Jovian. You’re Messiah. You know it all. A temblor couldn’t shake your confidence. Go ahead!”

Beau breathed hard. He stepped forward, and Mr. Queen retired to lean against the door to the reception room.

Beau described in rapid detail the circumstances of Cadmus Cole’s visit to that very office three months before, of how the multimillionaire had engaged Ellery’s services in an investigation which “turned out to be the search for Cole’s heirs after he should die.” He described Cole — his baldness, his clean-shaven, sunburnt cheeks, his toothless mouth, the way he had bumped into the door-jamb, the way he had squinted: “He seemed, both to Mr. Queen and myself, very nearsighted.”

Beau went on to relate how Cole had left his fountain-pen behind — the pen with which he had sat at that very desk and written out a check for fifteen thousand dollars.

“We sent the pen back to his yacht, Argonaut,” said Beau, “but before doing so, we took microphotographs of some very unusual markings towards the end of the cap.” He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the Headquarters expert seated by the apparatus at the desk. “Dr. Jolliffe, here are those microphotographs. Will you examine them?”

The expert accepted the envelope. “Of course, I’ve only your word for it — whatever your purpose is, Mr. Rummell — that these photographs are of that pen.”

“We can do better than that,” put in Mr. Queen suddenly.

“We certainly can,” drawled Beau. “We can produce the pen itself!”

And he stepped before Edmund De Carlos, whipped back the man’s coat, plucked a fountain-pen from his vest-pocket — the pen which De Carlos had employed to write out the check for twenty-five thousand dollars and tendered Ellery Queen, Inc. as a bribe — and handed the fat black gold-trimmed pen to the expert with an air of triumph.

De Carlos was startled. “I don’t see—”

“Dr. Jolliffe,” said Beau, “will you please examine this pen under the ’scope and compare its markings with those on the microphotographs?”

The expert went to work. When he looked up he said: “The markings on this pen and the markings on these photographs are identical.”

“Then you’d say the microphotographs,” demanded Beau, “are of this pen?”

“Unquestionably.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Rummell,” remarked the District Attorney, “that I don’t get the point.”

“You will, Oscar,” said Beau grimly. “Just bear in mind that this man De Carlos had in his possession, when he entered this office tonight, a fountain-pen which was in the possession of Cadmus Cole three months ago.”

District Attorney Sampson looked bewildered. “I still—”

Beau stood squarely before De Carlos. “What did you say your name was?”

De Carlos stared at him. “Why — Edmund De Carlos, of course. Of all the ridiculous questions—”

“You’re a cock-eyed liar,” said Beau. “Your name is Cadmus Cole!”

The bearded man leaped to his feet. “You’re insane!”

He snorted, half-turned away. Beau caught his arm, and the man cried out.

“You’re Cadmus Cole,” said Beau softly, “—nose for nose, eyes for eyes, mouth for mouth, chin for chin; in fact, feature for feature. And we can prove it!”

“Prove it?” The man licked his lips.

“If you’ll be kind enough to remove your beard, your wig, your glasses, and your false teeth, Queen and I will make a formal identification of you as Cadmus Cole.”

“Ridiculous! Never heard such nonsense. Inspector, you can’t — Mr. District Attorney, I stand on my rights as—”

“One moment,” snapped the Inspector. He conferred with District Attorney Sampson inaudibly. Then he came forward and said abruptly to Beau: “You claim this man is really Cole, and that you and Ellery can identify him as such?”

“That’s our story,” said Beau, “and he’s stuck with it.”

The Inspector glanced at Ellery, who nodded slowly.

“Then I’m sorry, Mr. De Carlos, or Mr. Cole, or whoever you are,” said Inspector Queen in a grim voice, “but you’ll have to submit to an identification test.”

He reached up himself and pulled at the man’s hair, and was obviously flabbergasted when the hair came off the man’s head in one piece. Goossens sat open-mouthed, completely and genuinely astonished. Kerrie and Vi were gaping, too.

“Take out your teeth!”

Sullenly, the man complied.

“Now your glasses.”

The man did so, and remained blinking and squinting in the harsh glare of the office lights.

“How about this beard?” demanded the Inspector of Beau. “Is that a phony, too?”

“No, it’s on the level,” replied Beau with a grin. “He must have grown it between the time he visited us and the time he showed up in New York again after that dramatic little business of his own ‘death at sea.’”

“Got a razor?” snapped Inspector Queen.

“Better. A barber.” And Beau went into the laboratory. He emerged with the stranger who was carrying the kit. “Okay, Dominick,” said Beau, smiling broadly. “Once over — but good! Kapeesh?”

The detective who accompanied Kerrie came forward on a sign from the Inspector; but the bearded man sat down voluntarily in his chair and folded his arms, blinking and squinting furiously.

The barber shaved him, and his audience watched the operation with a fascinated expectancy, Beau tense behind the chair, as if he expected the bearded man to leap from the chair and try to escape. But the man sat quietly.

During the shaving of the beard, Mr. Queen went into the reception room, shutting the communicating door carefully. After a moment he returned and took Beau aside.

“They’re here,” he whispered.

“Who?”

“Captain Angus and the Coast man.”

“Oh, baby! Keep ’em out there, El, till I find the psychological moment. Then — socko!”

When the beard was gone and the barber dismissed, Beau and Ellery surveyed that denuded, working face in silence. The sunken cheeks, the squinty eyes, the bald head...

“Well?” said Inspector Queen. “Is this the same man who called on you here three months ago?”

“That’s Cadmus Cole,” said Beau.

“Ellery?”

“The same man,” nodded Mr. Queen.

“Frame-up!” mumbled the shaven man, drooling. “It’s a frame-up! I’m De Carlos! I’m De Carlos!”

“Why, the bug even talks the same way,” grinned Beau. “Now that his plate’s missing. Doesn’t he, Ellery?”

“Identically.”

“Of course,” said District Attorney Sampson, “again we have only the word of you gentlemen.”

“Not at all,” retorted Beau. “The day Cole called on us in this office I listened in on the conversation from my office next door. We’ve developed a system in this agency, Your Worship. We like to keep complete records of our wackier clients. That’s why we photographed the pen. That’s why,” he said, taking a large photograph from his pocket, “I took a candid-camera shot of our friend here through a little convenient arrangement in the wall, and later enlarged it. How’s this?”

They crowded around the enlargement, staring from the photograph to the man in the chair.

“No doubt about it,” snapped the Inspector. “Except for that fringe of gray on his skull now, it’s the same man. I guess your game’s up, Cole!”

“I’m not Cole!” screamed the man. “I’m Edmund De Carlos! I can furnish a hundred proofs I’m Edmund De Carlos!”

“Yeah?” drawled Beau. He waved at Ellery. “I now retire in favor of my eminent colleague, that noted orator, Mr. Ellery Queen.”

Mr. Queen stepped forward. “We’ve proved you’re Cole in three ways,” he said to the bald man. “By your possession of Cole’s identified fountain-pen, by our personal identification of you as the man who called on us three months ago, and — for legal evidence — by this candid-camera photograph.

“We’re in a position to present a fourth proof so damning, Mr. Cole, you may pass judgment on it yourself.”

“The name,” spat the bald man, “is De Carlos!”

Mr. Queen shrugged and took a photostat from the desk. “This photostat shows the cancelled voucher of a check for fifteen thousand dollars written out by Cadmus Cole in this office the afternoon he engaged our services. It’s gone through the Clearing House, as you see.

“Now how can we be sure the signature on this check,” he continued, “is genuinely that of Cadmus Cole? There are three ways to authenticate it. First, he wrote it out himself under the eyes of Mr. Rummell and me. Second, and much more conclusive, Cole’s bank authenticated on demand, and later honored, the check exhibiting this signature. Third, we may compare the signature on this check with the signature on Cadmus Cole’s will — the will-signature, incidentally, which was subjected to the most searching scrutiny by the Surrogate, who ultimately probated the will. Mr. Goossens, have you brought the photostat of the Cole will-signature, as I requested?”

The attorney hastily removed a photostat from his brief-case and handed it to Ellery.

“Yes,” said Mr. Queen with satisfaction, “the similarity even to a layman’s eye is unmistakable. Will you satisfy yourselves?”

The District Attorney and Inspector Queen compared the check-signature with the will-signature.

The Inspector nodded, and Sampson said: “We’d have to have expert opinion, of course, but I admit they look identical.”

“And in the face of the other evidence, we may take the assumption to be a fact. In other words, the man who wrote out this check in our office three months ago must have been Cadmus Cole. Do you agree?”

They nodded.

Mr. Queen laid down the Cole check-photostat and picked up two other photostats. “These are of a twenty-five thousand dollar check written out the other night, also in this office, also before our eyes, by this gentleman who has been calling himself Edmund De Carlos. I have the original in my possession; it has not been deposited for, at the moment, immaterial reasons.” Mr. Queen handed one of the De Carlos-check photostats to the sunburnt man. “Do you deny the signature on this check to be yours?”

“I’m neither denying nor affirming,” mumbled the man.

“No matter; Rummell and I will swear to it, and there must be hundreds of specimens of your handwriting extant since you took up residence in the Tarrytown estate of Cadmus Cole.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” continued Mr. Queen, taking back the photostat, “there exists a strange and exhilarating kinship between the names Cadmus Cole and Edmund De Carlos. Purely a coincidence, of course, but it makes for an attractive little demonstration.

“Note that in the name ‘Edmund De Carlos’ we have every letter of the alphabet which occurs in the name ‘Cadmus Cole’ and which would be required in a reconstruction of the name ‘Cadmus Cole’! Even, observe, to the capital or initial — C. This makes it possible for us to perform an educational experiment.

“I’m going to take these two photostats of the check written out by Mr. De Carlos, which contains his full signature in his own handwriting, and cut up the De Carlos signature into its components.

“Then I shall rearrange these and paste them down on another sheet of paper, in such an order that they will spell out the name ‘Cadmus Cole.’ In this way we’ll have the name ‘Cadmus Cole’ written in Edmund De Carlos’s handwriting.”

With scissors and pastepot Mr. Queen went to work.

When he was finished he observed: “We are now in a position to cap our little climax. Here is Cadmus Cole’s authentic signature, taken from the cancelled check-voucher:

Here is Edmund De Carlos’s authentic signature, taken from the original check he wrote out to the order of Ellery Queen, Inc.:

And here is a manufactured ‘Cadmus Cole’ signature — synthesized from two photostats of Edmund De Carlos’s signature:

Compare all three, please.”

And while they were examining his three exhibits, Mr. Queen added: “As a matter of fact, while this little demonstration piques, in a sense it was unnecessary. You had merely to compare De Carlos’s signature on the Cole will — as witness — with Cole’s signature — as testator — to see that they were written by the same hand. I’ve never seen the will before tonight, but I’m surprised you didn’t notice the similarity, Mr. Goossens.”

“I’m surprised myself,” muttered Goossens, staring at the exhibits. “And I imagine the Surrogate will be, too!”

The Inspector straightened up. “That’s enough for me. You’re Cole, Mister, and there’s no question about that.”

District Attorney Sampson looked uneasy. “It certainly appears that way.”

“Why did you pretend to be dead?” demanded the Inspector of the silent man in the chair. “What happened to the real De Carlos? What’s behind this masquerade, Cole? With the murder of Margo Cole’s impostor hanging over your head, you’ve got some mighty tall explaining to do!”

The man in the chair looked about wildly. “But I’m not Cole!” he cried in his mumbly voice. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

He thrust his false teeth back into his mouth and clapped his glasses on his eyes; and this seemed to give him new strength, for he bounded from the chair and began to dance up and down. “I’m Edmund De Carlos! Why, there’s one man that’s known me for years and years — he could prove in a second who I am, because he knew Cole well, too!”

“And who might that be?” asked Beau with friendliness.

“Angus, Captain of Cole’s yacht Argonaut! Just give me a little time, Inspector, a little time to locate Captain Angus! He’ll tell you who I am! He’ll—”

“What would you say,” asked Beau jovially, “if I told you that your Captain Angus is in the next room, waiting to identify you as Cole?”

The sunburnt man’s mouth fell open.

“We’ve been looking for him,” continued Beau crisply, “ever since you had yourself reported dead, Cole. One of our operatives finally located him. He’d retired from active service after you docked at Santiago de Cuba and, having no dependents, he decided to take a busman’s holiday. He’s been on a round-the-world cruise as a passenger. His ship docked in Frisco yesterday, my operative flew him here and—” said Beau as Ellery opened the reception-room door and beckoned — “here he is!”

A tall lean man, wearing a gray suit and carrying a topcoat and a fedora hat, marched in between the San Francisco detective and Sergeant Velie.

Captain Angus was blackened from years of exposure to the ocean sun. His eyes under heavy black brows were a frosty blue-green, the color of icebergs just below the water-line; and he carried himself with an imperious assurance, as if he were accustomed to command and receive obedience.

He paused just inside the office and looked about.

“Captain Angus?” said Beau cheerfully, stepping forward. “I’m Rummell; this is Ellery Queen, my partner; and those two worried-looking gentlemen over there are Inspector Queen of the Homicide Squad and District Attorney Sampson of New York County.”

The tall man nodded. “Quite a party,” he observed dryly, in a resonant bass voice. “Is this all for me, Mr. Rummell?”

“Captain Angus, I want to ask you just one question.” Beau stepped aside and pointed at the medium-sized, sunburnt, bald-headed man in the center of the room. “Who is that man?”

Captain Angus looked puzzled. He glanced from the bald man to the others and then back to the bald man. “I don’t understand. Who should he be?”

“That’s what we’re asking you, Captain.”

The Captain grinned and said: “Why, that’s Mr. De Carlos. Mr. Edmund De Carlos.”

Beau choked, swallowed, spluttered. Then he cried: “De Carlos? Look again! Isn’t he Cadmus Cole?”

“Mr. Cole?” Captain Angus threw back his head and guffawed. “I should say not! Mr. Cole is dead.”

“Mr. Cole — is — dead?” repeated Mr. Ellery Queen, seeming to find difficulty with the English language.

“Of course! He died aboard the Argonaut three months ago. I fixed the shroud around his body with my own hands, sir — old-fashioned canvas, all shipshape, the way we used to do it in sail.”

Beau roared: “It’s a plant, a frame-up! He’s been bribed to say that! You’d better tie the can on him, too, pop!”

“Just a moment.” The tall man lost his geniality, and his tone of voice brought about a sudden silence. “Do I understand you to say I’m mixed up in something crooked, Mister?”

“You heard me,” snarled Beau.

“Well, you’re a loud-sounding pup,” said the Captain softly, “and I’d like nothing better than to thrash you for that, but the fact is I can prove my statement, because I know where at least five members of the crew are, and they’ll bear me out to a man. There wasn’t anything funny about Mr. Cole’s death — he died just as I reported it by radio to White Lady.”

“Give it to him properly, Captain,” said De Carlos in a vicious tone.

“Besides, this gentleman couldn’t be Mr. Cole. Mr. Cole was a little taller than Mr. De Carlos, thinner, and his eyes were of a different color. Mr. De Carlos is nearsighted, has to wear glasses all the time; Mr. Cole had the best eyesight I ever knew a man of his age to have — right down to the end; never wore glasses in his life. He was completely bald; Mr. De Carlos has a fringe. He didn’t have teeth, that’s true, just as Mr. De Carlos hasn’t; but then Mr. Cole never wore a plate — the inside of his mouth was sensitive, he used to say; couldn’t stand the feeling of a plate at all. He was a vegetarian, anyway, and didn’t need false teeth.”

In the corner, forgotten, sat Kerrie; and over her face came an expression of hopelessness.

“And that isn’t all,” continued the Captain, with a quiet satisfaction at the sight of Beau’s consternation. “Mr. Cole had severe arthritis in both hands — arthritis deformans, I think it’s called. Had it long as I knew him. He once told me he’d got it all of a sudden ’way back in ’19 or ’20, I don’t remember which. Why, his hands were so badly crippled they hardly looked human! All knotted up and discolored. You’d spot ’em in a second. But look at Mr. De Carlos’s hands; they’re normal in shape and color. Mr. Cole couldn’t so much as hold up a pair o’ telescopic glasses with either hand. He couldn’t even eat by himself, because he couldn’t hold a knife or fork. The steward’s assistant had to feed him, like a baby.”

Beau began to say something in a strangled voice, but the Inspector put up his hand.

“Have you any proof, Captain, that what you say is true?”

Captain Angus smiled. He drew an envelope bulging with snapshots from his breast pocket and threw it on the desk. “I thought these might come in handy,” he said. “I’m sort of a camera bug.”

The District Attorney seized the envelope and began to look through the photographs. There were dozens of them, large snapshots taken with a sharp, excellent lens.

In many De Carlos appeared beside another man, taller, thinner than De Carlos, completely bald, with twisted and crippled hands. All the photographs had been taken on shipboard, as the backgrounds indicated.

“That,” said Captain Angus with a sly look at Beau, “was Cadmus Cole.”

Ellery grabbed the photographs. Beau took one look and then, the back of his neck furnace-red, stalked off to a corner... the corner opposite the one where Kerrie sat.

“That’s enough for me,” snapped the Inspector. He made a sign to the detective and matron. Beau looked frightened — the first time Mr. Queen had ever seen such a look on his partner’s face. His shoulders sagging, he averted his eyes.

With Vi clinging to her, Kerrie was marched away, and soon only Captain Angus, the San Francisco man De Carlos, Beau, and Ellery were left.

“You’ll excuse me, too,” said Edmund De Carlos, slapping his wig on his skull. “Captain, you’re my guest while in New York — don’t forget.” He stamped to the door. Then he turned and with a malevolent grin said: “And thank you, gentlemen, for the shave.”

But Beau sprang like a cat, forestalling him. “No, you don’t,” he snarled. “You stay!”

He turned, surprised. Mr. Queen had suddenly begun to laugh. He laughed so hard that he doubled up, clutching his abdomen as he sank into the swivel-chair behind his desk.