The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem by C. Daly King

Ellery Queen, or at least the Frederick Dannay half of that writing team, regarded the collection The Curious Mr Tarrant (1935) as containing “the most imaginative detective short stories of our time.” The book, rather oddly, was published first in Britain, and that first edition is regarded as one of the rarest volumes of 20th century detective fiction. It was not until 1977 that it saw its first American edition, and more recently it has been augmented with later stories in The Complete Curious Mr Tarrant (2003). The author, Charles Daly King (1895-1963) was a psychologist who used his understanding of the workings of the mind in creating often quite simple puzzles but which utterly perplex the reader. He completed six novels, all of which were also first published in Britain, featuring police detective Michael Lord and his psychologist assistant Dr Rees Pons. If you like murders on trains, then Obelists en Route (1934) is worth tracking down. The following doesn’t involve a train but it does include one of those puzzles that seems so simple when explained but is otherwise so completely baffling.

The episode of the nail and the requiem was one of the most characteristic of all those in which, over a relatively brief period, I was privileged to watch Trevis Tarrant at work. Characteristic, in that it brought out so well the unusual aptitude of the man to see clearly, to welcome all the facts, no matter how apparently contradictory, and to think his way through to the only possible solution by sheer logic, while everyone else boggled at impossibilities and sought to forget them. From the gruesome beginning that November morning, when he was confronted by the puzzle of the sealed studio, to the equally gruesome denouement that occurred despite his own grave warning twenty-four hours later, his brain clicked successively and infallibly along the rails of reason to the inevitable, true goal.

Tarrant had been good enough to meet us at the boat when Valerie and I had returned from our wedding trip; and a week later I had been delighted with the opportunity of spending the night at his apartment, telling him of the trip and our plans and hearing of his own activities during the interval. After all, he was largely responsible for my having won Valerie when I did; our friendship had grown to intimacy during those few days when the three of us, and Katoh too, had struggled with the thickening horror in Valerie’s modernistic house.

It was that most splendid time of year when the suburban air is tinged with the smoke of leaves, when the country beyond flaunts beauty along the roads, when the high windows of the city look out every evening through violet dusk past myriad twinkling lights at the gorgeous painting of sunset. We had been to a private address at the Metropolitan Museum by a returning Egyptologist; we had come back to the apartment and talked late into the night. Now, at eight-thirty the next morning, we sat at breakfast in Tarrant’s lounge while the steam hissed comfortably in the wall radiators and the brisk, bright sky poured light through the big window beside us.

I remember that we had nearly finished eating and that Tarrant was saying: “Cause and effect rule this world; they may be a mirage but they are a consistent mirage, everywhere, except possibly in subatomic physics, there is a cause for each effect, and that cause can be found,” when the manager came in. He wore a fashionable morning coat and looked quite handsome; he was introduced to me as Mr Gleeb. Apparently he had merely dropped in, as was his custom, to assure himself that all was satisfactory with a valued tenant, but the greetings were scarcely over when the phone rang and Katoh indicated that he was being called His monosyllabic answers gave no indication of the conversation from the other end he finished with “All right; I’ll be up in a minute.”

He turned back to us. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but there is some trouble at the penthouse. Or else my electrician has lost his mind. He says there is a horrible kind of music being played there and that he can get no response to his ringing at the door. I shall have to go up and see what it is all about.”

The statement was a peculiar one and Tarrant’s eyes, I thought, held an immediate gleam of curiosity. He got out of his seat in a leisurely fashion, however and declared: “You know, Gleeb, I’d like a breath of fresh air after breakfast. Mind if we come up with you? There’s a terrace, I believe, where we can take a step or so while you’re untangling the matter.”

“Not at all, Mr Tarrant. Come right along. I hardly imagine it’s of any importance, but I can guarantee plenty of air.”

There was, in fact a considerable wind blowing across the open terrace that, guarded by a three-foot parapet, surrounded the penthouse on all sides except the north, where its wall was flush with that of the building. The penthouse itself was rather small, containing as I later found, besides the studio which comprised its whole northern end, only a sleeping room with a kitchenette and a lavatory off its east and west sides respectively. The entrance was on the west side of the studio and here stood the electrician who had come to the roof to repair the radio antenna of the apartment house and had been arrested by the strange sounds from within. As we strolled about the terrace, we observed the penthouse itself as well as the wide view below. Its southern portion possessed the usual windows but the studio part had only blank brick walls; a skylight was just visible above it and there was, indeed, a very large window, covering most of the northern wall, but this, of course, was invisible and inaccessible from the terrace.

Presently the manager beckoned us over to the entrance door and, motioning us to be silent, asked: “What do you make of that, Mr Tarrant?”

In the silence the sound of doleful music was more than audible. It appeared to emanate from within the studio; slow, sad and mournful, it was obviously a dirge and its full-throated quality suggested that it was being rendered by a large orchestra. After a few moments’ listening Tarrant said: “That is the rendition of a requiem mass and very competently done, too. Unless I’m mistaken, it is the requiem of Palestrina… There; there’s the end of it… Now it’s beginning again.”

“Sure, it goes on like that all the time,” contributed Wicks, the electrician. “There must be someone in there, but I can’t get no answer.” He banged on the door with his fist, but obviously without hope of response.

“Have you looked in at the windows?”

“Sure.”

We, too, stepped to the available windows and peered in, but beyond a bedroom that had not been used, nothing was visible. The door from the bedroom to the studio was closed. The windows were all locked.

“I suggest,” said Tarrant, “that we break in.”

The manager hesitated. “I don’t know. After all, he has a right to play any music he likes, and if he doesn’t want to answer the door-”

“Who has the penthouse, anyhow?”

“A man named Michael Salti. An eccentric fellow, like many of these artists. I don’t know much about him, to tell the truth; we can’t insist on as many references as we used to, nowadays. He paid a year’s rent in advance and he hasn’t bothered anyone in the building, that’s about all I can tell you.”

“Well,” Tarrant considered, “this performance is a little peculiar. How does he know we may not be trying to deliver an important message? How about his phone?”

“Tried it,” Wicks answered. “The operator says there isn’t any answer.”

“I’m in favour of taking a peek. Look here, Gleeb, if you don’t want to take the responsibility of breaking in, let us procure a ladder and have a look through the skylight. Ten to one that will pass unobserved; and if everything seems all right we can simply sneak away.”

To this proposal the manager consented, although it seemed to me that he did so most reluctantly. Possibly the eerie sounds that continued to issue through the closed door finally swayed him, for their quality, though difficult to convey, was certainly upsetting. In any event the ladder was brought and Tarrant himself mounted it, once it had been set in place. I saw him looking through the skylight, then leaning closer, peering intently through hands cupped about his eyes. Presently he straightened and came down the ladder in some haste.

His face, when he stood beside us, was strained.

“I think you should call the police,” he grated. “At once. And wait till they get here before you go in.”

“The police? But – what is it?”

“It’s not pleasant,” Tarrant said slowly. “I think it’s murder.”

Nor would he say anything further until the police, in the person of a traffic patrolman from Park Avenue, arrived. Then we all went in together, Gleeb’s passkey having failed and the door being broken open.

The studio was a large, square room, and high, and the light, sweeping in through the north wall and the skylight, illuminated it almost garishly. It was sparsely furnished; a couch, a chair, a stool, an easel and a cabinet for paints and supplies stood on a hardwood floor which two rugs scarcely covered. The question of the music was soon settled; in one corner was an electric victrola with an automatic arrangement for turning the record and starting it off again when it had reached its end. The record was of Palestrina’s Requiem Mass, played by a well-known orchestra. Someone, I think it was Tarrant, crossed the room and turned it off, while we stood huddled near the door, gazing stupidly at the twisted, bloody figure on the couch.

It was that of a girl, altogether naked; although she was young – not older than twenty-two certainly – her body was precociously voluptuous. One of her legs was contorted into a bent position, her mouth was awry, her right hand held a portion of the couch covering in an agonised clutch. Just beneath her left breast the hilt of a knife protruded shockingly. The bleeding had been copious.

It was Tarrant again who extinguished the four tall candles, set on the floor and burning at the corners of the couch. As he did so he murmured:

“You will remember that the candles were burning at eight forty-seven, officer. I dislike mockery.”

Then I was out on the terrace again, leaning heavily against the western parapet. In the far distance the Orange mountains stood against the bright horizon; somewhat nearer, across the river, huddled the building masses that marked Newark; overhead a plane droned south-westward. I gagged and forced my thoughts determinedly toward that plane. It was a transport plane, it was going to Newark Airport; probably it was an early plane from Boston. On it were people; prosaic people, thank God. One of them was perhaps a button salesman; presently he would enter the offices of Messrs. Simon and Morgetz and display his buttons on a card for the benefit of Mr Simon… Now my insides were behaving less drastically, I could gasp; and I did gasp, deep intakes of clear, cold air.

When I came back into the studio, a merciful blanket covered the girl’s body. And for the first time I noticed the easel. It stood in the south-east corner of the room, diagonally opposite the couch and across the studio from the entrance doorway. It should have faced north-west, to receive the light from the big north window, and in fact the stool to its right indicated that position. But the easel had been partly turned, so that it faced south-west, toward the bedroom door; and one must walk almost to that door to observe its canvas.

This, stretched tightly on its frame, bore a painting in oil of the murdered girl. She was portrayed in a nude, half-crouching pose, her arms extended, and her features held a revoltingly lascivious leer. The portrait was entitled “La Seduction”. In the identical place where the knife had pierced her actual body, a large nail had been driven through the web of the canvas. It was half-way through, the head protruding two inches on the obverse side of the picture; and a red gush of blood had been painted down the torso from the point where the nail entered.

Tarrant stood with his hands in his pockets, surveying this work of art. His gaze seemed focused upon the nail, incongruous in its strange position and destined to play so large a part in the tragedy. He was murmuring to himself and his voice was so low that I scarcely caught his words.

“Madman’s work… But why is the easel turned away from the room… Why is that…?”

It was late afternoon in Tarrant’s apartment and much activity had gone forward. The Homicide Squad in charge of Lieutenant Mullins had arrived and unceremoniously ejected everyone else from the penthouse, Tarrant included. Thereupon he had called a friend at Headquarters and been assured of a visit from Deputy Inspector Peake, who would be in command of the case, a visit which had not yet eventuated.

I had gone about my business in the city somewhat dazedly. But I had met Valerie for luncheon downtown and her presence was like a fragrant, reviving draft of pure ozone. She had left again for Norrisville, after insisting that I stay with Tarrant another night when she saw how excited I had become over the occurrence of the morning. Back in the apartment Katoh, who, for all that he was a man of our own class in Japan, was certainly an excellent butler in New York, had immediately provided me with a fine bottle of Irish whisky (Bushmills, bottled in 1919). I was sipping my second highball and Tarrant was quietly reading across the room, when Inspector Peake rang the bell.

He advanced into the room with hand outstretched. “Mr Tarrant, I believe?… Ah. Glad to know you, Mr Phelan.” He was a tall, thin man in multi, with a voice unexpectedly soft. I don’t know why, but I was also surprised that a policeman should wear so well-cut a suit of tweeds. As he sank into a chair, he continued, “I understand you were among the first to enter the penthouse, Mr Tarrant. But I’m afraid there isn’t much to add now. The case is cut and dried.”

“You have the murderer?”

“Not yet. But the drag-net is out. We shall have him, if not today, then tomorrow or the next day.”

“The artist, I suppose?”

“Michael Salti, yes. An eccentric man, quite mad… By the way, I must thank you for that point about the candles. In conjunction with the medical examiner’s evidence it checked the murder definitely at between one and two a.m.”

“There is no doubt, then, I take it, about the identity of the criminal.”

“No,” Peake asserted, “none at all. He was seen alone with his model at 10.50 p.m. by one of the apartment house staff and the elevator operators are certain no one was taken to the penthouse during the evening or night. His fingerprints were all over the knife, the candlesticks, the victrola record. There was a lot more corroboration, too.”

“And was he seen to leave the building after the crime?

“No, he wasn’t. That’s the one missing link. But since he isn’t here, he must have left. Perhaps by the fire-stairs; we’ve checked it and it’s possible… The girl is Barbara Brebant – a wealthy family.” The inspector shook his head. “A wild one, though; typical Prohibition product. She has played around with dubious artistics from the Village and elsewhere for some years; gave most of ’em more than they could take, by all accounts. Young, too; made her debut only about a year ago. Apparently she has made something of a name for herself in the matter of viciousness; three of our men brought in the very same description – a vicious beauty.”

“The old Roman type,” Tarrant surmised. “Not so anachronistic in this town, at that… Living with Salti?”

“No. She lived at home. When she bothered to go home. No one doubts, though, that she was Salti’s mistress. And from what I’ve learned, when she was any man’s mistress he was pretty certain to be dragged through the mire. Salti, being mad, finally killed her.”

“Yes, that clicks,” Tarrant agreed. “The lascivious picture and the nail driven through it. Mad men, of course, act perfectly logically. He was probably a loose liver himself, but she showed him depths he had not suspected. Then remorse. His insanity taking the form of an absence of the usual values, he made her into a symbol of his own vice, through the painting, and then killed her, just as he mutilated the painting with the nail… Yes, Salti is your man all right.”

Peake ground out a cigarette. “A nasty affair. But not especially mysterious. I wish all our cases were as simple.” He was preparing to take his leave.

Tarrant also got up. He said: “Just a moment. There were one or two things-”

“Yes?”

“I wonder if I could impose upon you a little more, Inspector. Just to check some things I noticed this morning. Can I be admitted to the penthouse now?”

Peake shrugged, as if the request were a useless one, but took it with a certain good grace. “Yes, I’ll take you up. All our men have left now, except a patrolman who will guard the premises until we make the arrest. I still have an hour to spare.”

It was two hours, however, before they returned. The inspector didn’t come in but I caught Tarrant’s parting words at the entrance. “You will surely assign another man to the duty tonight, won’t you?” The policeman’s reply sounded like a grunt of acquiescence.

I looked at my friend in amazement when he came into the lounge. His clothes, even his face, were covered with dirt; his nose was a long, black smudge. By the time he had bathed and changed and we sat down to one of Katoh’s dinners, it was near to half-past nine.

During dinner Tarrant was unaccustomedly silent. Even after we had finished and Katoh had brought our coffee and liqueurs, he sat at a modernistic tabour, stirring the black liquid reflectively, and in the light of the standing lamp behind him I thought his face wore a slight frown.

Presently he gave that peculiar whistle that summoned his man and the butler’s valet appeared almost immediately from the passage to the kitchen. “Sit down, doctor,” he spoke without looking up.

Doubtless a small shift in my posture expressed my surprise, for he continued, for my benefit, “I’ve told you that Katoh is a doctor in his own country, a well-educated man who is over here really on account of this absurd spy custom. Because of that nonsense I am privileged to hire him as a servant, but when I wish his advice as a friend, I call him doctor – a title to which he is fully entitled – and institute a social truce. Usually I do it when I’m worried… I’m worried now.”

Katoh, meantime, had hoisted himself on to the divan, where he sat smiling and helping himself to one of Tarrant’s Dimitrinoes. “Sozhial custom matter of convenience,” he acknowledged. “Conference about what?”

“About this penthouse murder,” said Tarrant without further ado. “You know the facts related by Inspector Peake. You heard them?

“I listen. Part my job.”

“Yes, well that portion is all right. Salti’s the man. There’s no mystery about that, not even interesting, in fact. But there’s something else, something that isn’t right. It stares you in the face, but the police don’t care. Their business is to arrest the murderer; they know who he is and they’re out looking for him. That’s enough for them. But there is a mystery up above, a real one. I’m not concerned with chasing crooks, but their own case won’t hold unless this curious fact fits in. It is as strange as anything I’ve ever met.”

Katoh’s grin had faded; his face was entirely serious. “What this mystery?”

“It’s the most perfect sealed room, or rather sealed house, problem ever reported. There was no way out and yet the man isn’t there. No possibility of suicide; the fingerprints on the knife are only one element that rules that out. No, he was present all right. But where did he go, and how?

“Listen carefully. I’ve checked this from my own observation, from the police investigations, and from my later search with Peake.

“When we entered the penthouse this morning, Gleeb’s passkey didn’t suffice; we had to break the entrance door in because it was bolted on the inside by a strong bar. The walls of the studio are of brick and they have no windows except on the northern side where there is a sheer drop to the ground. The window there was fastened on the inside and the skylight was similarly fastened. The only other exit from the studio is the door to the bedroom. This was closed and the key turned in the lock; the key was on the studio side of the door.

“Yes, I know,” Tarrant went on, apparently forestalling an interruption; “it is sometimes possible to turn a key in a lock from the wrong side, by means of pincers or some similar contrivance. That makes the bedroom, the lavatory and the kitchenette adjoining it, possibilities. There is no exit from any of them except by the windows. They were all secured from the inside and I am satisfied that they cannot be so secured by anyone already out of the penthouse.”

He paused and looked over at Katoh, whose head nodded up and down as he made the successive points. “Two persons in penthouse when murder committed. One is victim, other is Salti man. After murder only victim is visible. One door, windows and skylight are only exists and they are all secured on inside. Cannot be secured from outside. Therefore, Salti man still in penthouse when you enter.”

“But he wasn’t there when we entered. The place was thoroughly searched. I was there then myself.”

“Maybe trap-door. Maybe space under floor or entrance to floor below.”

“Yes,” said Tarrant, “well, now get this. There are no trapdoors in the flooring of the penthouse, there are none in the walls and there are not even any in the roof. I have satisfied myself of that with Peake. Gleeb, the manager, who was on the spot when the penthouse was built, further assures me of it.”

“Only place is floor,” Katoh insisted. “Salti man could make this himself.”

“He couldn’t make a trap-door without leaving at least a minute crack,” was Tarrant’s counter. “At least I don’t see how he could. The flooring of the studio is hardwood, the planks closely fitted together, and I have been over every inch of it. Naturally there are cracks between the planks, lengthwise; but there are no transverse cracks anywhere. Gleeb has shown me the specifications of that floor. The planks are grooved together and it is impossible to raise any plank without splintering the grooving. From my own examination I am sure none of the planks has been, or can be, lifted.

“All this was necessary because there is a space of something like two and a half feet between the floor of the penthouse and the roof of the apartment building proper. One has to mount a couple of steps at the entrance of the penthouse. Furthermore, I have been in part of this space. Let me make it perfectly clear how I got there.

“The bedroom adjoins the studio on the south, and the lavatory occupies the north-west corner of the bedroom. It is walled off, of course. Along the northern wall of the lavatory (which is part of the southern wall of the studio) is the bath-tub; and the part of the flooring under the bath-tub has been cut away, leaving an aperture to the space beneath.”

I made my first contribution. “But how can that be? Wouldn’t the bath-tub fall through?”

“No. The bath-tub is an old-fashioned one, installed by Saltri himself only a few weeks ago. It is not flush with the floor, as they make them now, but stands on four legs. The flooring has only been cut away in the middle of the tub, say two or three planks, and the opening extended only to the outer edge of the tub. Not quite that far, in fact.”

“There is Salti man’s trap-door,” grinned Katoh. “Not even door; just trap.”

“So I thought,” Tarrant agreed grimly. “But it isn’t. Or if it is he didn’t use it. As no one could get through the opening without moving the tub – which hadn’t been done, by the way – Peake and I pulled up some more of the cut plank by main force and I squeezed myself into the space beneath the lavatory and bedroom. There was nothing there but dirt; I got plenty of that.”

“How about space below studio?”

“Nothing doing. The penthouse is built on a foundation, as I said, about two and a half feet high, of concrete building blocks. A line of these blocks runs underneath the penthouse, directly below the wall between the studio and bedroom. As the aperture in the floor is on the southern side of that wall, it is likewise to the south of the transverse line of building blocks in the foundation. The space beneath the studio is to the north of these blcoks, and they form a solid wall that is impassable. I spent a good twenty minutes scrummaging along the entire length of it.”

“Most likely place,” Katoh confided, “just where hole in lavatory floor.”

“Yes, I should think so too. I examined it carefully. I could see the ends of the planks that form the studio floor partway over the beam above the building blocks. But there isn’t a trace of a loose block at that point, any more than there is anywhere else… To make everything certain, we also examined the other three sides of the foundation of the bedroom portion of the penthouse. They are solid and haven’t been touched since it was constructed. So the whole thing is just a cul-de-sac there is no possibility of exit from the penthouse even through the aperture beneath the bath-tub.”

“You examine also foundations under studio part?”

“Yes, we did that, too. No result. It didn’t mean much, though, for there is no entrance to the space beneath the studio from the studio itself, nor is there such an entrance from the other space beneath the bedroom portion. That opening under the bath-tub must mean something, especially in view of the recent installation of the tub. But what does it mean?”

He looked at Katoh long and searchingly and the other, after a pause, replied slowly: “Can only see this Salti man construct this trap, probably for present use. Then he do not use. Must go some other way.”

“But there is no other way.”

“Then Salti man still there.”

“He isn’t there.”

“Harumph,” said Katoh reflectively. It was evident that he felt the same respect for a syllogism that animated Tarrant, and was stopped, for the time being at any rate. He went off on a new tack. “What else specially strange about setting?”

“There are two other things that strike me as peculiar,” Tarrant answered, and his eyes narrowed. “On the floor, about one foot from the northern window, there is a fairly deep indentation in the floor of the studio. It is a small impression and is almost certainly made by a nail partly driven through the planking and then pulled up again.”

I thought of the nail through the picture. “Could he have put the picture down on that part of the floor in order to drive the nail through it? But what if he did?”

“I can see no necessity for it, in any case. The nail would go through the canvas easily enough just as it stood on the easel.”

Katoh said: “With nail in plank, perhaps plank could be pulled up. You say no?”

“I tried it. Even driving the nail in sideways, instead of vertically, as the original indentation was made, the plank can’t be lifted at all.”

“O.K. You say some other thing strange, also.”

“Yes. The position of the easel that holds the painting of the dead girl. When we broke in this morning, it was turned away from the room, toward the bedroom door, so that the picture was scarcely visible even from the studio entrance, let alone the rest of the room. I don’t believe that was the murderer’s intention. He had set the rest of the stage too carefully. The requiem; the candles. It doesn’t fit; I’m sure he meant the first person who entered to be confronted by the whole scene, and especially by that symbolic portrait. It doesn’t accord even with the position of the stool, which agrees with the intended position of the easel. It doesn’t fit at all with the mentality of the murderer. It seems a small thing but I’m sure it’s important. I’m certain the position of the easel is an important clue.”

“To mystery of disappearance?”

“Yes. To the mystery of the murderer’s escape from that sealed room.”

“Not see how,” Katoh declared after some thought. As for me, I couldn’t even appreciate the suggestion of any connection.

“Neither do I,” grated Tarrant. He had risen and began to pace the floor. “Well, there you have it all. A little hole in the floor near the north window, an easel turned out of position and a sealed room without an occupant who certainly ought to be there… There’s an answer to this; damn it, there must be an answer.”

Suddenly he glanced at an electric clock on the table he was passing and stopped abruptly. “My word,” he exclaimed, “it’s nearly three o’clock. Didn’t mean to keep you up like this, Jerry. You either, doctor. Well, the conference is over. We’ve got nowhere.”

Katoh was on his feet, in an instant once more the butler. “Sorry could not help. You wish night-cap, Misster Tarrant?”

“No. Bring the Scotch, Katoh. And a siphon. And ice. I’m not turning in.”

I had been puzzling my wits without intermission ever since dinner over the problem above, and the break found me more tired than I realised. I yawned prodigiously. I made a half-hearted attempt to persuade Tarrant to come to bed, but it was plain that he would have none of it.

I said, “Good-night, Katoh. I’m no good for anything until I get a little sleep… Night, Tarrant.”

I left him once more pacing the floor; his face, in the last glimpse I had of it, was set in the stern lines of thought.

It seemed no more than ten seconds after I got into bed that I felt my shoulder being shaken and, through the fog of sleep, heard Katoh’s hissing accents.” – Mister Tarrant just come from penthouse. He excited. Maybe you wish wake up.” As I rolled out and shook myself free from slumber, I noticed that my wrist watch pointed to six-thirty.

When I had thrown on some clothes and come into the living-room, I found Tarrant standing with the telephone instrument to his head, his whole posture one of grimness. Although I did not realise it at once, he had been endeavouring for some time to reach Deputy Inspector Peake. He accomplished this finally a moment or so after I reached the room.

“Hallo, Peake? Inspector Peake?… This is Tarrant. How many men did you leave to guard that penthouse last night?”… “What, only one? But I said two, man. Damn it all, I don’t make suggestions like that for amusement!”… “All right, there’s nothing to be accomplished arguing about it. You’d better get here, and get here pronto.”… “That’s all I’ll say.” He slammed down the receiver viciously.

I had never before seen Tarrant upset; my surprise was a measure of his own disturbance, which resembled consternation. He paced the floor, muttering below his breath, his long legs carrying him swiftly up and down the apartment.

“Damned fools… everything must fit… Or else…” For once I had sense enough to keep my questions to myself for the time being.

Fortunately I had not long to wait. Hardly had Katoh had opportunity to brew some coffee, with which he appeared somewhat in the manner of a dog wagging its tail deprecatingly, than Peake’s ring sounded at the entrance. He came in hurriedly but his smile, as well as his words, indicated his opinion that he had been roused by a false alarm.

“Well, well, Mr Tarrant, what is this trouble over?”

Tarrant snapped, “Your man’s gone. Disappeared. How do you like that?”

“The patrolman on guard?” The policeman’s expression was incredulous.

“The single patrolman you left on guard.”

Peake stepped over to the telephone, called Headquarters. After a few briet words he turned back to us, his incredulity at Tarrant’s statement apparently confirmed.

“You must be mistaken, sir,” he asserted. “There have been no reports from Officer Weber. He would never leave the premises without reporting such an occasion.”

Tarrant’s answer was purely practical. “Come and see.”

And when we reached the terrace on the building’s roof, there was, in fact, no sign of the patrolman who should have been at his station. We entered the penthouse and, the lights having been turned on, Peake himself made a complete search of the premises. While Tarrant watched the proceedings in a grim silence, I walked over to the north window of the studio, grey in the early morning light, and sought for the nail hole he had mentioned as being in the floor. There it was, a small, clean indentation, about an inch or an inch and a half deep, in one of the hardwood planks. This, and everything else about the place, appeared just as Tarrant had described it to us some hours before, previous to my turning in. I was just in time to see Peake emerge from the enlarged opening in the lavatory floor, dusty and sorely puzzled.

“Our man is certainly not here,” the inspector acknowledged. “I cannot understand it. This is a serious breach of discipline.”

“Hell,” said Tarrant sharply, speaking for the first time since we had come to the roof. “This is a serious breach of intelligence, not discipline.”

“I shall broadcast an immediate order for the detention of Patrolman Weber.” Peake stepped into the bedroom and approached the phone to carry out his intention.

“You needn’t broadcast it. I have already spoken to the night operator in the lobby on the ground floor. He told me a policeman left the building in great haste about 3:30 this morning. If you will have the local precinct check up on the all-night lunch-rooms along Lexington Avenue in this vicinity, you will soon pick up the first step of the trail that man left… You will probably take my advice, now that it is too late.”

Peake did so, putting the call through at once; but his bewilderment was no whit lessened. Nor was mine. As he put down the instrument, he said: “All right. But it doesn’t make sense. Why should he leave his post without notifying us? And why should he go to a lunch-room?”

“Because he was hungry.”

“But there has been a crazy murderer here already. And now Weber, an ordinary cop, if I ever saw one. Does this place make everybody mad?”

“Not as mad as you’re going to be in a minute. But perhaps you weren’t using the word in that sense?”

Peake let it pass. “Everything,” he commented slowly, “is just as we left it yesterday evening. Except for Weber’s disappearance.”

“Is that so?” Tarrant led us to the entrance from the roof to the studio and pointed downwards. The light was now bright enough to disclose an unmistakable spattering of blood on one of the steps before the door. “That blood wasn’t there when we left last night. I came up here about five-thirty, the moment I got on to this thing,” he continued bitterly. “Of course I was too late… Damnation, let us make an end to this farce. I’ll show you some more things that have altered during the night.”

We followed him into the studio again as he strode over to the easel with its lewd picture, opposite the entrance. He pointed to the nail still protruding through the canvas. “I don’t know how closely you observed the hole made in this painting by the nail yesterday. But it’s a little larger now and the edges are more frayed. In other words the nail has been removed and once more inserted.”

I turned about to find that Gleeb, somehow apprised of the excitement, had entered the penthouse and now stood a little behind us. Tarrant acknowledged his presence with a curt nod; and in the air of tension that his tenant was building up the manager ventured no questions.

“Now,” Tarrant continued, pointing out the locations as he spoke, “possibly they have dried, but when I first got here this morning there was a trail of moist spots still leading from the entrance door way to the vicinity of the north window. You will find that they were places where a trail of blood had been wiped away with a wet cloth.”

He turned to the picture beside him and withdrew the nail, pulling himself up as if for a repugnant job. He walked over to the north window and motioned us to take our places on either side of him. Then he bent down and inserted the nail, point first, into the indentation in the plank, as firmly as he could. He braced himself and apparently strove to pull the nail toward the south, away from the window.

I was struggling with an obvious doubt. I said, “But you told us the planks could not be lifted.”

“Can’t,” Tarrant grunted. “But they can be slid.”

Under his efforts the plank was, in fact, sliding. Its end appeared from under the footboard at the base of the north wall below the window and continued to move over a space of several feet. When this had been accomplished, he grasped the edges of the planks on both sides of the one already moved and slid them back also. An opening quite large enough to squeeze through was revealed.

But that was not all. The huddled body of a man lay just beneath; the man was clad only in underwear and was obviously dead from the beating in of his head.

As we bent over, gasping at the unexpectedly gory sight, Gleeb suddenly cried, “But that is not Michael Salti! What is this, a murder farm? I don’t know this man.”

Inspector Peake’s voice was ominous with anger. “I do. That is the body of Officer Weber. But how could he-”

Tarrant had straightened up and was regarding us with a look that said plainly he was anxious to get an unpleasant piece of work finished. “It was simple enough,” he ground out. “Salti cut out the planks beneath the bath-tub in the lavatory so that these planks in the studio could be slid back over the beam along the foundation under the south wall; their farther ends in this position will now be covering the hole in the lavatory floor. The floor here is well fitted and the planks are grooved, thus making the sliding possible. They can be moved back into their original position by someone in the space below here; doubtless we shall find a small block nailed to the under portion of all three planks for that purpose.

“He murdered his model, set the scene and started his phonograph, which will run interminably on the electric current. Then he crawled into his hiding-place. The discovery of the crime could not be put off any later than the chambermaid’s visit in the morning, and I have no doubt he took a sadistic pleasure in anticipating her hysterics when she entered. By chance your radio man, Gleeb, caused us to enter first.

“When the place was searched and the murderer not discovered, his pursuit passed elsewhere, while he himself lay concealed here all day. It was even better than doubling back upon his tracks, for he had never left the starting post. Eventually, of course, he had to get out, but by that time the vicinity of this building would be the last place in which he was being searched for.

“Early this morning he pushed back the planks from underneath and came forth. I don’t know whether he had expected anyone to be left on guard, but that helped rather than hindered him. Creeping up upon the unsuspecting guard, he knocked him out – doubtless with that mallet I can just see beside the body – and beat him to death. Then he put his second victim in the hiding-place, returning the instrument that closes it from above, the nail, to its position in the painting. He had already stripped off his own clothes, which you will find down in that hole, and in the officer’s uniform and coat he found no difficulty in leaving the building. His first action was to hurry to a lunch-room, naturally, since after a day and a night without food under the floor here, he must have been famished. I have no doubt that your men will get a report of him along Lexington Avenue, Peake; but, even so, he now has some hours’ start on you.”

“We’ll get him,” Peake assured us. “But if you knew all this, why in heaven’s name didn’t you have this place opened up last night, before he had any chance to commit a second murder? We should have taken him red-handed.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it last night,” Tarrant reminded him. “It was not until late yesterday afternoon that I had any proper opportunity to examine the penthouse. What I found was a sealed room and a sealed house. There was no exit that had not been blocked nor, after our search, could I understand how the man could still be in the penthouse. On the other hand, I could not understand how it was possible that he had left. As a precaution, in case he were still here in some manner I had not fathomed, I urged you to leave at least two men on guard, and it was my understanding that you agreed. I think it is obvious, although I was unable then to justify myself, that the precaution was called for.”

Peake said, “It was.”

“I have been up all night working this out. What puzzled me completely was the absence of any trap doors. Certainly we looked for them thoroughly. But it was there right in front of us all the time; we even investigated a portion of it, the aperture in the lavatory floor, which we supposed to be a trap-door itself, although actually it was only a part of the real arrangement. As usual the trick was based upon taking advantage of habits of thought, of our habitised notion of a trap-door as something that is lifted or swung back. I have never heard before of a trap-door that slides back. Nevertheless, that was the simple answer, and it took me until five-thirty to reach it.”

Katoh, whom for the moment I had forgotten completely, stirred uneasily and spoke up. “I not see, Misster Tarrant, how you reach answer then.”

“Four things,” was the reply. “First of all, the logical assumption that, since there was no way out, the man was still here. As to the mechanism by which he managed to remain undiscovered, three things. We mentioned them last night. First, the nail hole in the plank; second, the position of the easel; third, the hole in the lavatory floor. I tried many ways to make them fit together, for I felt sure they must all fit.

“It was the position of the easel that finally gave me the truth. You remember we agreed that it was wrong, that the murderer had never intended to leave it facing away from the room. But if the murderer had left it as he intended, if no one had entered until we did, and still its position was wrong, what could have moved it in the meantime? Except for the phonograph, which could scarcely be responsible, the room held nothing but motionless objects. But if the floor under one of its legs had moved, the easel would have been slid around. That fitted with the other two items, the nail hole in the plank, the opening under the bath-tub.

“The moment it clicked, I got an automatic and ran up here. I was too late. As I said, I’ve been up all night. I’m tired; and I’m going to bed.”

He walked off without another word, scarcely with a parting nod. Tarrant, as know now, did not often fail. He was a man who offered few excuses for himself and he was humiliated.

It was a week or so later when I had an opportunity to ask him if Salti had been captured. I had seen nothing of it in the newspapers, and the case had now passed to the back pages with the usual celerity of sensations.

Tarrant said, “I don’t know.”

“But haven’t you followed it up with that man, Peake?”

“I’m not interested. It’s nothing but a straight police chase now. This part of it might make a good film for a Hollywood audience, but there isn’t the slightest intellectual interest left.”

He stopped and added after an appreciable pause, “Damn it, Jerry, I don’t like to think of it even now. I’ve blamed the stupidity of the police all I can; their throwing me out when I might have made a real investigation in the morning, that delay; their the negligence in overlooking my suggestion for a pair of guards, which I made as emphatic as I could. But it’s no use. I should have solved it in time, even so. There could only be that one answer and I took too long to find it.

“The human brain works too slowly, Jerry, even when it works straight… it works too slowly.”