“Weems?” Dr. Barlowe said quickly. “Oh, no! I mean...”
“Weems,” said Nikki. “Ellery, didn’t you notice that name on The Campus Book Shop as we drove by?”
Ellery said nothing.
Young Bacon muttered: “Revolting idea. But then... Weems and old Chipp were always at each other’s throats.”
“Weems is the only other one I’ve discussed Chipp’s nonappearance with,” said the college president wildly. “He seemed so concerned!”
“A common interest in Poe,” said Professor Bacon fiercely.
“Indeed,” smiled Ellery. “We begin to discern a certain unity of plot elements, don’t we? If you’ll excuse us for a little while, gentlemen, Miss Porter and I will have a chat with Mr. Weems.”
But Mr. Weems turned out to be a bustly, bald little Missouri countryman, with shrewdly-humored eyes and the prevailing jocular manner, the most unmurderous-looking character imaginable. And he presided over a shop so satisfyingly full of books, so aromatic with the odors of printery and bindery, and he did so with such a naked bibliophilic tenderness, that Nikki—for one—instantly dismissed him as a suspect.
Yep, Mr. Queen’d been given to understand correctly that he, Claude Weems, had visited old Chipp’s rooms at Ma Blinker’s on the night of June thirty last; and, yep, he’d left the old chucklehead in the best of health; and, no, he hadn’t laid eyes on him since that evenin’. He’d shut up shop for the summer and left Barlowe on July fifteenth for his annual walking tour cross-country; didn’t get back till a couple of days ago to open up for fall.
“Doc Barlowe’s fussin’ too much about old Chipp’s not turnin’ up,” said little Mr. Weems, beaming. “Now I grant you he’s never done it before, and all that, but he’s gettin’ old, Chipp is. Never can tell what a man’ll do when he passes a certain age.”
Nikki looked relieved, but Ellery did not.
“May I ask what you dropped in to see Chipp about on the evening of June thirtieth, Mr. Weems?”
“To say goodbye. And then I’d heard tell the old varmint’d just made a great book find—”
“Book find! Chipp had ‘found’ a book?”
Mr. Weems looked around and lowered his voice. “I heard he’d picked up a first edition of Poe’s Tamerlane for a few dollars from some fool who didn’t know its worth. You a collector, Mr. Queen?”
“A Tamerlane first!” exclaimed Ellery.
“Is that good, Ellery?” asked Nikki with the candor of ignorance.
“Good! A Tamerlane first, Nikki, is worth at least $25,000!”
Weems chuckled. “Know the market, I see. Yes, sir, bein’ the biggest booster old Edgar Allan ever had west of the Mississip’, I wanted to see that copy bad, awful bad. Chipp showed it to me, crowin’ like a cock in a roostful. Lucky dog,” he said without audible rancor. “’Twas the real article, all right.”
Nikki could see Ellery tucking this fact into one of the innumerable cubbyholes of his mind—the one marked For Future Consideration. So she was not surprised when he changed the subject abruptly.
“Did Professor Chipp ever mention to you, Weems, that he was engaged in writing a novel?”
“Sure did. I told ye he was gettin’ old.”
“I suppose he also told you the kind of novel it was?”
“Dunno as he did.” Mr. Weems looked about as if for some goal for his spittle, but then, with his indignation, he swallowed it.
“Seems likely, seems likely,” mumbled Ellery, staring at the rental-library section where murder frolicked.
“What seems likely, Ellery?” demanded Nikki.
“Considering that Chipp was a mystery fan, and the fact that he wrote Dr. Barlowe his novel would be a ‘huge surprise,’ it’s my conclusion, Nikki, the old fellow was writing a whodunit.”
“No! A Professor of Literature?”
“Say,” exclaimed Mr. Weems. “I think you’re right.”
“Oh?”
“Prof Chipp asked me—in April, it was—to find out if a certain title’s ever been used on a detective story!”
“Ah. And what was the title he mentioned, Weems?”
“The Mystery of the Three R’s.”
“Three R’s... Three R’s?” cried Ellery. “But that’s incredible! Nikki—back to the Administration Building!”
“Suppose he was,” said Professor Bacon violently. “Readin’! ’Ritin’! ’Rithmetic! Abracadabra and Rubadubdub. What of it?”
“Perhaps nothing, Bacon,” scowled Ellery, hugging his pipe. “And yet... see here. We found a clue pointing to the strong probability that Chipp never left his rooms at Ma Blinker’s alive last June thirtieth. What was that clue? The fact that Chipp failed to return his rented copy of my novel to Weems’s lending library. Novel... book... reading, gentlemen! The first of the traditional Three R’s.”
“Rot!” bellowed the professor, and he began to bite his fingernails.
“I don’t blame you,” shrugged Ellery. “But has it occurred to you that there is also a writing clue?”
At this Nikki went over to the enemy.
“Ellery, are you sure the sun...?”
“Those postcards Chipp wrote, Nikki.”
Three glances crossed stealthily.
“But I fail to see the connection, Mr. Queen,” said Dr. Barlowe soothingly. “How are those ordinary postcards a clue?”
“And besides,” snorted Bacon, “how could Chipp have been bumped off on June thirtieth and have mailed the cards a full month later, on July thirty-first?”
“If you’ll examine the date Chipp wrote on the cards,” said Ellery evenly, “you’ll find that the 3 of July 31 is crowded between the y of July and the 1 of 31. If that isn’t a clue, I never saw one.”
And Ellery, who was as thin-skinned as the next artist, went on rather tartly to reconstruct the events of the fateful evening of June the thirtieth.
“Chipp wrote those cards in his rooms that night, dating them a day ahead—July first—probably intending to mail them from Slater, Arkansas, the next day on his way to the log cabin—”
“It’s true Chipp loathed correspondence,” muttered Dr. Barlowe.
“Got his duty cards out of the way before his vacation even began—the old sinner!” mumbled young Bacon.
“Someone then murdered him in his rooms, appropriated the cards, stuffed the body into Chipp’s trunk—”
“Which was picked up by the expressman next morning and shipped to the cabin?” cried Nikki.
And again the little chill wind cut through the office.
“But the postmarks, Mr. Queen,” said Barlowe stiffly. “The postmarks also say July thirty-first.”
“The murderer merely waited a month before mailing them at the Slater, Arkansas, post-office.”
“But why?” growled Bacon. “You weave beautiful rugs, man—but what do they mean?”
“Obviously it was all done, Professor Bacon,” said Ellery, “to leave the impression that on July thirty-first Professor Chipp was still alive... to keep the world from learning that he was really murdered on the night of June thirtieth. And that, of course, is significant.” He sprang to his feet. “We must examine the Professor’s cabin—most particularly, his trunk!”
It was a little trunk—but then, as Dr. Barlowe pointed out in a very queer voice, Professor Chipp had been a little man.
Outdoors, the Ozarks were shutting up shop for the summer, stripping the faint-hearted trees and busily daubing hillsides; but in the cabin there was no beauty—only dust, and an odor of dampness... and something else.