The Greek Coffin Mystery

Chapter 26. Light

The day, as Ellery was to discover, had not yet ended. For, with a telephone call from his father an hour later, the tree which had been planted by Mrs. Sloane’s uneventful visit some days before blossomed and bore fruit with a horticultural fecundity as astonishing as it was unexpected.

“Something’s come up,” said the Inspector briskly over the wire, “which is queer enough, and I thought you’d like to hear about it.”

Ellery was not sanguine. “I’ve been disappointed so many times―”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned this development doesn’t alter the Sloane solution.” The old man grew brusque. “Look here―do you want to hear this, or don’t you?”

“I suppose so. What’s happened?”

Ellery heard his father sneeze, cough, and clear his throat―an unfailing sign of disapproval. “You’d better come down to the office. It’s a long story.”

“Very well.”

It was with no great enthusiasm that Ellery went downtown. He was heartily sick of subways, and he had a slight headache, and the world seemed a poor place. He found his father, furthermore, in conference with a Deputy Inspector, and he was compelled to wait forty-five minutes outside. It was a snappish Ellery who slouched into the old man’s office.

“What’s the world-shaking news now?”

The Inspector kicked a chair toward him. “Get a load off your feet. Here’s the low-down. Got a little social call from your friend―what’s his name?―Suiza this afternoon.”

“My friend? Nacio Suiza. And?”

“And he told me that he had been in the Khalkis Galleries the night of Sloane’s suicide.”

Fatigue fled. Ellery sprang to his feet “No!”

“Keep your shirt on,” growled the Inspector. “Nothing to get excited about. It seems that Suiza had to work on a prospectus of the pieces in the Khalkis art-gallery―said it was a long and tedious job, and he thought he’d get a head start on it by working that night.”

“The night of Sloane’s suicide?”

“Yes. Listen, will you, younker? Now he got there, let himself in with his passkey, and went upstairs into that long main gallery there―”

“Let himself in with his passkey. How could he, when the electric alarm was working?”

“It wasn’t. Showed that someone was still in the place―generally, the last man out saw that the alarm was in place and notified the protective agency. Anyway, he went upstairs and saw a light in Sloane’s office. There was something about the prospectus he wanted to ask Sloane―knew Sloane was probably working there. So he went in and, of course, found Sloane’s dead body, exactly as we discovered it later.”

Ellery was strangely excited. His eyes were fixed hypnotically on the Inspector as he stuck a cigarette between his lips from force of habit. “Exactly?”

“Yes, yes,” said the Inspector. “Head on the desk, gun under the hanging right arm, on the floor―everything kosher. This was a few minutes before we got there, incidentally. Of course, Suiza got panicky―can’t say I blame him―he was in a tough spot. He was careful not to touch anything, realized that if he was found there he’d have some tall explaining to do, and beat it fast.”

“By the non-existent beard of Napoleon,” muttered Ellery with glazed eyes, “if it’s only possible!”

“If what’s possible? Sit down―you’re going off half-cocked again,” snapped the Inspector. “Don’t get any false notions, Ellery. I put Suiza on the grill for an hour, shooting questions at him about how the room looked, and he came through one hundred per cent. When the news of the suicide came out in the papers, he was a little relieved but still nervous. He said he wanted to see if anything further would develop. When nothing did, he saw it couldn’t hurt to talk, and his conscience bothered him anyway, so he came to me with the story. And that’s the kit and boodle of it.”

Ellery was smoking in furious puffs, and his mind was far away.

“Anyway,” the Inspector went on a little uneasily, “it’s beside the main issue. Just an interesting sidelight which doesn’t affect the Sloane-suicide solution in the slightest.”

“Yes, yes. I agree with you there. It’s obvious that since Suiza was not suspected of being implicated, he would not have come forward with the story of his visit to the scene of the―suicide unless he were innocent. That’s not what I’m thinking about . . . Dad!”

“Well?”

“Do you want confirmation of the theory that Sloane committed suicide?”

“How’s that? Confirmation?” The old man snorted. “It’s not a theory, either―it’s a fact. But I guess a little more evidence won’t hurt. What’s on your mind?”

Ellery was taut with a singing excitement. “It is perfectly true,” he cried, ‘that on the basis of what you have just related there is nothing in the Suiza tale that invalidates the Sloane solution. But now we can prove suicide more completely by asking Mr. Nacio Suiza just one little question . . . You see, dad, despite your conviction that Suiza’s having visited that office doesn’t alter the facts, there remains a tiny loophole, an infinitesimal possibility . . . . By the way, when Suiza left the building that night, did he set the alarm to working?”

“Yes. Said he did it mechanically.”

“I see.” Ellery rose quickly. “Let’s visit Suiza at once. I shan’t be able to sleep unless I satisfy myself on that one point.”

The Inspector nursed his lower lip. “By ginger,” he muttered, “you’re right as usual, you bloodhound. Stupid of me not to have thought of asking that question myself.” He jumped up and reached for his overcoat. “He said he was going back to the Galleries. Let’s go!”

They found an oddly disturbed Nacio Suiza in the deserted Khalkis Galleries on Madison Avenue. Suiza was less immaculate than usual, and there was a crinkle in his smooth hair that should not have been there. He met them opposite the closed and barred door to Gilbert Sloane’s office, explaining with flat nervousness that the room had not been used since Sloane’s death. This was all talk, verbal camouflage to conceal a very genuine perturbation. He seated them in his own curio-spattered office and blurted: “Is anything wrong, Inspector? Something hasn’t . . . “

“Don’t get your wind up,” said the Inspector mildly. “Mr. Queen here has a couple of questions.”

“Yes?”

“I understand,” said Ellery, ‘that you walked into Sloane’s office next door on the night of his death because you saw a light in there. Is that correct?”

“Not exactly.” Suiza folded his hands tightly. “My intention was merely to speak to Sloane about something. As I walked into the gallery I knew that Sloane was in his office because the light was shining through the transom The Queens jerked as if they had been sitting on electric-chairs. “Ah, the transom,” said Ellery with a queer inflection. “Then the door to Sloane’s office was closed before you walked in?”

Suiza looked puzzled. “Why, certainly. Is that important? I thought I mentioned that, Inspector.”

“You did not!” snarled the Inspector. His old nose had fallen appreciably nearer his mouth. “And in running out you left the door open?”

Suiza faltered: “Yes. I was panic-stricken, didn’t think . . . But what was your question, Mr. Queen?”

“You’ve already answered it,” said Ellery dryly.

* * *

The shoe was on the other foot. A half-hour later the Queens were in the living-room of their apartment, the Inspector in a vile temper, muttering to himself; Ellery in the gayest of moods, humming and prancing up and down before the fire which a bewildered Djuna had hastily lighted. Neither man said a word after the Inspector made two telephone calls. Ellery calmed, but his eyes were glowing as he flung himself into his favourite chair, feet propped on a firedog, and studied the weaving of the flames.

Djuna answered a wild bell-ringing and admitted two red-faced gentlemen―District Attorney Sampson and Assistant District Attorney Pepper. He took their coats in growing wonderment; both men were nervous, both barked a greeting, both took chairs and joined in the glaring petulance which all at once pervaded the room.

“Here’s a pretty state,” said Sampson at last, “here’s a pretty state of affairs! You seemed damned sure over the wire, Q. Are you―?”

The old man jerked his head toward Ellery. “Ask him. It was his idea in the first place, drat him.”

“Well, Ellery, well?”

They all looked at him in silence. Ellery flipped a cigarette into the fire and, without turning around, drawled: “Hereafter, gentlemen, have faith in the warning-note of my subconscious. My premonition of screwiness, as friend P. jper might say, is justified by events.

“But all this is beside the point. The point is simply this: The bullet which killed Sloane penetrated his head and emerged, taking a trajectory line which led through the door of the office. We found the bullet imbedded in a rug hanging on the gallery wall opposite the office-door, and outside the office. Obviously, then, the door was open when the bullet was discharged. When we burst in on the Galleries the night of Sloane’s death, we found Sloane’s office-door open, which was in perfect tune with the locus of the bullet. Now, however, Nacio Suiza comes forward with the story that we were not the first to enter the Galleries after Sloane’s death; but that he, Suiza, had been a previous visitor. In other words, any condition relating to the door of Sloane’s office when we arrived must be re-adjusted and examined in the light of this previous visit. The question then arose: Was the condition of the door the same when Suiza got there? If he had found it open, we would be no further advanced than before.”

Ellery chuckled. “But Suiza found the door closed! How does this alter the situation? Well, certainly when the bullet was fired the door must have been open, otherwise the bullet would have struck the door, not the rug opposite the door outside the room. Then the door must have been closed after the bullet was fired. What does this mean―that Sloane fired the bullet into his own head and then for some ungodly reason went to the door, closed it, returned to the desk and sat down in precisely the same position as when he had pulled the trigger? Ridiculous; not only ridiculous but impossible: for Sloane died instantly, as Dr. Prouty’s autopsy report pointed out. This also banishes the possibility that he shot himself in the gallery and dragged himself back into his office, closing the door as he returned. No! When the revolver was discharged, Sloane died at once, and moreover the door was open. But Suiza found it closed . . .

“In other words, since the door was found closed by Suiza after Sloan’s instantaneous death, and since the bullet couldn’t have penetrated the door, which we noted in our preliminary investigation is made of steel―the only conclusion we can logically make is that someone closed the door after Sloane’s death and before Suiza got to it.”

“But, Mr. Queen,” objected Pepper, “isn’t it possible that Suiza wasn’t the only visitor―that somebody was there and went away before he came?”

“Excellent suggestion, Pepper, and that is precisely what I am pointing out: that there was a visitor before Suiza―and that visitor was Sloane’s murderer!”

Sampson massaged his lean cheeks with irritation. “I’ll be hanged! Look here, Ellery, it’s still possible, you know, that Sloane did commit suicide, but that the visitor Pepper postulates might have been an innocent man, like Suiza, who’s too scared to admit he was there.”

Ellery waved his hand airly. “Possible, but deucedly farfetched to evoke two innocent visitors in a limited time. No, Sampson, I don’t believe any of you can deny that we now have sufficient grounds to cast grave doubt upon the theory of suicide and support the theory of murder.”

“It’s true,” said the Inspector in despair. “It’s true.”

But Sampson was tenacious. “All right, let’s say Sloane was murdered, and his murderer closed the door on going out. It seems to me a damned stupid thing for him to do. Didn’t he notice that the bullet had punched a hole clean through Sloane’s head and gone out through the open door?”

“Sampson, Sampson,” said Ellery wearily, ‘think about it for a moment. Can the human eye follow the course of even a retarded bullet? Naturally, if the murderer had noticed that the bullet had completely penetrated Sloane’s skull he would not have closed the door. The fact that he did close the door, then, proves that he hadn’t noticed it. Please remember that Sloane’s head fell forward on his desk in such a way that its left side, the side from which the bullet emerged, was resting on the blotter. This position would have concealed the bullet-outlet entirely and the blood to a great degree. Besides, the murderer was probably in one devil of a hurry; why should he raise the dead man’s head and investigate? After all, he had no reason to expect that the bullet would penetrate and emerge. It’s not the usual thing for a bullet to do, you know.”

They were silent for a space, and then the old man grinned wryly at his two visitors. “He’s got us by the short hair, boys. It looks open and shut to me. Sloane was murdered.”

They nodded gloomily.

Ellery spoke again, briskly and without the note of personal triumph which had marked his explanation of the fallacious Khalkis solution. “Very well. Let’s re-analyse. If Sloane was murdered, as we now have excellent reason to believe, Sloane did not kill Grimshaw. It means that the real murderer of Grimshaw killed Sloane and made it appear a suicide, as if Sloane by shooting himself was thereby making tacit confession that he had been in truth Grimshaw’s murderer.

“To return to some original theses. We know from former deductions that the murderer of Grimshaw, in order to have been able to plant the false clues against Khalkis, must have had knowledge of Knox’s possession of the stolen painting; I proved that long ago when I showed that the entire Khalkis solution depended upon the murderer’s assurance that Knox would not come forward. Alors. The only outsider who had this knowledge, also as proved in that dreary past, was Grimshaw’s partner. Q.E.D.: Grimshaw’s partner is the murderer; and since Sloane himself was murdered, Sloane could not have been Grimshaw’s partner. Therefore the murderer is still at large and actively engaged in his pretty occupation of plotting. Still at large, I might point out, and in possession of Knox’s story.

“Now,” continued Ellery, ‘to reinterpret the clues against Sloane―clues which, since Sloane was murdered and was therefore innocent, can only have been additional plants manufactured and left by the real murderer.

“In the first place, since Sloane was innocent, we can no longer question the validity of his statement as to what happened on the night he visited Grimshaw at the Benedict. For while as a suspect his testimony was open to suspicion, as an innocent man he must perforce be believed. Therefore Sloane’s statement that he was the second visitor that night is probably true; the unknown actually did precede him, Sloane said; the unknown must therefore have been Grimshaw’s companion, the man who walked into the lobby by Grimshaw’s side, the man who accompanied Grimshaw into Room 314, as the elevator-boy testified. The sequence of visitors then is: the unknown―the bundled man; after whom came Sloane, then Mrs. Sloane, then Jeremiah Odell, then Dr. Wardes.”

Ellery brandished a lean forefinger. “Let me show you how logic and the exercise of the brain provide an interesting deduction. You will recall that Sloane said he was the only person in the world who knew that he, as Gilbert Sloane, was Grimshaw’s brother; not even Grimshaw knowing his brother’s changed name. Yet whoever wrote the anonymous letter did know this fact―the fact that Sloane, as Sloane, was Grimshaw’s brother. Who wrote the letter? Grimshaw, not having known the name of his brother, couldn’t have told anyone; Sloane by his own now reputable testimony never told anyone; therefore the only person who could have discovered the fact is someone who saw them together, heard that they were brothers, and already knew or later discovered by meeting Sloane and remembering his voice and face, that Grimshaw’s brother was Gilbert Sloane. But here’s an amazing thing! Sloane himself said that the night he went to Grimshaw’s room at the Benedict was the only occasion since he had changed his name―a matter of many years―on which the two brothers were face to face!

“In other words, whoever discovered the fact that Gilbert Sloane was Albert Grimshaw’s brother, must have been present, in the flesh, that night of Sloane’s visit to Grimshaw’s room. But Sloane himself told us that Grimshaw was alone when they were talking. How, then, could someone have been present? Very simply. If Sloane did not see this person, and this person still was present, it means that he was merely not visible to Sloane. In other words, hiding somewhere in the room; either in a clothes-closet or in the bathroom. Remember that Sloane did not see anyone emerge from Room 314, despite the fact that Grimshaw’s companion had entered with Grimshaw only a few moments before. Remember too that Sloane said he knocked on the door, and his brother opened it after a few moments―Sloane’s own words. We may presume then that when Sloane knocked Grimshaw’s companion was still in 314, but that, wishing to avoid being seen, he slipped either into the closet or the bathroom with Grimshaw’s permission.

“Now,” continued Ellery, “visualize the situation. Sloane and Grimshaw talk, and our unknown mysterioso is listening, all ears, from his place of concealment. He hears, during the conversation, Grimshaw say maliciously that he’d nearly forgotten he had a brother. The concealed gentleman, therefore, knew that Grimshaw and his visitor were brothers. Did he recognize Sloane’s voice and know that he was hearing Gilbert Sloane? Perhaps he could even see―did he recognize Sloane’s face? Or did he later meet Sloane and recognize his voice, putting two and two together and inducing what Sloane thought only he himself in all the world knew? We have no way of telling, but one thing is certain: the unknown must have been in Grimshaw’s room that night, must have overheard the conversation, must have learned by induction that Gilbert Sloane and Albert Grimshaw were flesh-and-blood relations. For this is the only line of reasoning which explains how someone discovered the apparently unknowable fact.”

“Well, at least this is getting somewhere,” said Sampson. “Go on, Ellery. What else do you see with that necromantic brain of yours?”

“Logic, not necromancy, Sampson, although it is true I am anticipating future events by a sort of consultation with the dead . . . . I see this, clearly: the unknown, hidden in the room, being the one who accompanied Grimshaw directly before Sloane came in, was Grimshaw’s partner―the “partner” Grimshaw himself specifically referred to the next night in Khalkis’s library. And this unknown, Grimshaw’s partner and murderer―as proved before―was the only one who could have written the anonymous letter to the police revealing the Sloane-Grimshaw brothership.”

“Sounds right,” muttered the Inspector.

“So it would seem.” Ellery folded his hands behind his neck. “Where are we? The letter was, therefore, one of the planted clues against Sloane to frame him as the murderer, with this distinction from those that had gone before―that is, it was not manufactured, but the truth. Nothing directly incriminating, of course, but a choice titbit for the police when combined with other and more direct evidence. Now, this brothership clue having been planted, it is reasonable to assume that the basement key we found in Sloane’s humidor was also a plant; and Grimshaw’s watch in Sloane’s safe, too. Only Grimshaw’s murderer could have had that watch; Sloane having been innocent, Grimshaw’s murderer placed the watch where it would be immediately found after Sloane’s apparent suicide. The remains of the burnt Khalkis will must also have been a plant to implicate Sloane, for while it is probable that Sloane stole the will and put it into the coffin in the first place, thinking to be rid of it forever, it was indubitably the murderer who found it in the coffin while burying Grimshaw, and took it out and away with him on the excellent assumption that he might be able to make use of it later―as he did, observe, in the plot against Sloane after the Khalkis solution failed.”

Pepper and Sampson nodded.

“Now as to motive,” Ellery went on. “Why was Sloane selected to be framed as Grimshaw’s murderer? This has interesting facets. Of course, Sloane having been Grimshaw’s brother, having changed his name because of the family disgrace brought on by Grimshaw’s criminal career, having stolen the will and hidden it in the Khalkis coffin, being a member of the household and a physical possibility on all counts for the planting of the Khalkis clues―all these circumstances would give the murderer admirable reason for selecting Sloane as an “acceptable” criminal to the police.

“Yet, if Mrs. Vreeland’s story is true that Sloane was in the graveyard on that Wednesday night when Grimshaw’s body must have been buried in Khalkis’s coffin, Sloane must have been there for some reason not connected with the burial of the body, since he hadn’t killed the man in the first place.―Don’t forget that Mrs. Vreeland didn’t see him carrying anything . . . . Very well. Why was Sloane skulking about the court and graveyard that Wednesday night?” Ellery stared reflectively into the fire. “I have had an arresting thought. For if Sloane that night had observed some suspicious activity, had followed the murderer unseen into the graveyard, had actually witnessed the burial and seen the murderer appropriate the steel will-box . . . . Do you see where we tend? On the basis of these not fanciful assumptions, we can infer what Sloane would do later. He knew the murderer, had seen him burying Grimshaw. Why didn’t he reveal this information to the police? Excellent reason!―the murderer had in his possession the will which cut off Sloane as a legatee. Is it far-fetched to reason that Sloane later approached the murderer with a proposition: that he would keep silent about the murderer’s identity, provided the murderer returned to Sloane, or destroyed on the spot, the pestiferous new testament? This would provide the murderer with an additional motive: for now he would have all the more reason to choose Sloane as the “acceptable” criminal, killing him and making him appear a suicide, and thereby obliterating the only person alive who knew the murderer’s identity.”

“But it seems to me,” objected Sampson, ‘that the murderer in this event, when Sloane approached him, would be forced to give Sloane the will. And that doesn’t jibe with the facts, because we found the will burnt in the next-door basement furnace, and you claim the murderer left it there for us to find.”

Ellery yawned. “Sampson, Sampson, when will you ever learn to use the grey matter in your noodle? Do you think that our gentle homicidal maniac is a fool? All he had to do was to threaten Sloane. He would say: “If you tell the police I killed Grimshaw, I’ll give the police this will. No, Mr. Sloane, I’ll keep the will to make sure you keep your mouth shut.” And Sloane would have no recourse but to accept the compromise. As it is, the moment he went to friend murderer he sealed his own fate. Poor Sloane! I’m afraid he wasn’t very smart.”

* * *

What followed was swift, painful, and annoying. The Inspector, much against his will, was forced to communicate Suiza’s story and its implications to the newspaper reporters. The Sunday papers touched on the matter, the Monday papers blazed with the news―Monday being an extraordinarily weak day for news in the journalistic profession―and the whole of New York City knew directly thereafter that the much-maligned Gilbert Sloane had been not a murderer-suicide after all but, the police now felt, an innocent victim of a clever murderer―diabolical was the word the tabloids used. The police, they went on to inform the public, were therefore still searching for the real murderer, who now had two killings on his bloody conscience, where before he had had only one.

Mrs. Sloane, it should be noted, shone in a belated glory. Her precious family honour was repolished, and it now glittered brightly in the tardy but welcome sunlight of public apologia made by the press, the police, and the District Attorney. Mrs. Sloane was not an ungrateful lady; she sensed that behind Nacio Suiza’s story there had been the fine intellectual hand of Ellery Queen, and embarrassed that young man by gushing effusions to the delighted gentlemen of the press.

As for Sampson, Pepper, Inspector Queen . . . the less said about them the better. Sampson attributes several of his silvery hairs to this period in his official career, and the Inspector has always maintained that Ellery, by his “logic” and persistence, drove him nearly to the grave.