But they all knew the answer before Weems spoke.
“It ain’t,” he said feebly. “It’s a facsim’le copy. Worth about $5.”
“The Tamerlane — stolen,” whispered Dr. Barlowe.
“So once again,” murmured Ellery, “we find duplication. I think that’s all. Or should I say, it’s too much?”
And he lit a cigaret and seated himself in one of Professor Chipp’s chairs, puffing contentedly.
“All!” exclaimed Dr. Barlowe. “I confess, Mr. Queen, you’ve—you’ve baffled me no end in this investigation. All? It’s barely begun! Who has done all this?”
“Wait,” said Bacon slowly. “It may be, Doctor, we don’t need Queen’s eminent services at that. If the rest has followed Chipp’s plot so faithfully, why not the most important plot element of all?”
“That’s true, Ellery,” said Nikki with shining eyes. “Who is the murderer in Professor Chipp’s detective story?”
Ellery glanced at the cowering little figure of Claude Weems.
“The character,” he replied cheerfully, “whom Chipp had named Claudius Deems.”
The muscular young professor snarled and he sprang.
“In your enthusiasm, Bacon,” murmured Ellery, without stirring from his chair, “don’t throttle him. After all, he’s such a little fellow, and you’re so large—and powerful.”
“Kill old Chipp, would you!” growled Professor Bacon; but his grip relaxed a little.
“Mr. Weems,” said Nikki, looking displeased. “Of course! The murderer forged the dates on the postcards so he wouldn’t know the crime had been committed on June thirtieth. And who’d have reason to falsify the true date of the crime? The one man who’d visited Professor Chipp that night!”
“The damned beast could easily have got quicklime,” said Bacon, shaking Weems like a rabbit, “by stealing it from the Chemistry Department after everyone’d left the college for the summer.”
“Yes!” said Nikki. “Remember Weems himself told us he didn’t leave Barlowe until July fifteenth?”
“I do, indeed. And Weems’s motive, Nikki?”
“Why, to steal Chipp’s Tamerlane.”
“I’m afraid that’s so,” groaned Barlowe. “Weems as a bookseller could easily have got hold of a cheap facsimile to substitute for the authentic first edition.”
“And he said he’d gone on a walking tour, didn’t he?” Nikki added, warming to her own logic. “Well, I’ll bet he ‘walked’ into that Arkansas post-office, Ellery, on July thirty-first, to mail those postcards!”
Weems found his voice.
“Why, now, listen here, little lady, I didn’t kill old Chipp—” he began in the most unconvincing tones imaginable.
They all eyed him with savage scorn—all, that is, but Ellery.
“Very true, Weems,” said Ellery, nodding. “You most certainly did not.”
“He didn’t...” began Dr. Barlowe, blinking.
“I... didn’t?” gasped Weems, which seemed to Nikki a remarkable thing for him to have said.
“No, although I’m afraid I’ve been led very cleverly to believe that you did, Weems.”
“See here, Mr. Queen,” said Barlowe’s president in a terrible voice. “Precisely what do you mean?”
“And how do you know he didn’t?” shouted Bacon. “I told you, Doctor—this fellow’s grossly overrated. The next thing you’ll tell us is that Chipp hasn’t been murdered at all!”
“Exactly,” said Ellery. “Therefore Weems couldn’t have murdered him.”
“Ellery—” moaned Nikki.
“Your syllogism seems a bit perverted, Mr. Queen,” said Dr. Barlowe severely.
“Yes!” snarled Bacon. “What about the evidence—?”
“Very well,” said Ellery briskly, “let’s consider the evidence. Let’s consider the evidence of the skeleton we found near Chipp’s cabin.”
“Those dry bones? What about ’em?”
“Just that, Professor—they’re so very dry. Bacon, you’re a biologist as well as a chemist. Under normal conditions, how long does it take for the soft parts of a body to decompose completely?”
“How long...?” The young man moistened his lips. “Muscles, stomach, liver—from three to four years. But—”
“And for decomposition of the fibrous tissues, the ligaments?”
“Oh, five years or so more. But—”
“And yet,” sighed Ellery, “that desiccated skeleton was supposed to be the remains of a man who’d been alive a mere eleven weeks before. And not merely that—I now appeal to your chemical knowledge, Professor. Just what is the effect of quicklime on human flesh and bones?”
“Well... it’s pulverulent. Would dry out a body—”
“Would quicklime destroy the tissues?”
“Er... no.”
“It would tend to preserve them?”
“Er... yes.”
“Therefore the skeleton we found couldn’t possibly have been the mortal remains of Professor Chipp.”
“But the right hand, Ellery,” cried Nikki. “The missing fingers—just like Professor Chipp’s—”
“I shouldn’t think,” said Ellery dryly, “snapping a couple of dry bones off a man dead eight or ten years would present much of a problem.”
“Eight or ten years...”
“Surely, Nikki, it suggests the tenant of some outraged grave... or, considering the facts at our disposal, the far likelier theory that it came from a laboratory closet in the Biology Department of Barlowe College.” And Professor Bacon cringed before Ellery’s accusing glance, which softened suddenly in laughter. “Now, really, gentlemen. Hasn’t this hoax gone far enough?”
“Hoax, Mr. Queen?” choked the president of Barlowe with feeble indignation.
“Come, come, Doctor,” chuckled Ellery, “the game’s up. Let me review the fantastic facts. What is this case? A detective story come to life. Bizarre—fascinating—to be sure. But really, Doctor, so utterly unconvincing!
“How conveniently all the clues in Chipp’s manuscript found reflections in reality! The lending-library book, so long overdue—in the story, in the crime. The postcards written in advance—in the story, in the crime. The Tamerlane facsimile right here on Chipp’s shelf—exactly as the manuscript has it. It would seem as if Chipp collaborated in his own murder.”
“Collab—I can’t make hide nor hair of this, Mr. Queen,” began little Mr. Weems in a crafty wail.
“Now, now, Weems, as the bookseller-Poe-crony you were the key figure in the plot! Although I must confess, Dr. Barlowe, you played your role magnificently, too—and, Professor Bacon, you missed a career in the theater; you really did. The only innocent, I daresay, is Ma Blinker—and to you, gentlemen, I gladly leave the trial of facing that doughty lady when she finds out how her honest grief has been exploited in the interest of commerce.”
“Commerce?” whimpered Nikki, who by now was holding her pretty head to keep it from flying off.
“Of course, Nikki. I was invited to Barlowe to follow an elaborate trail of carefully-placed ‘clues’ in order to reach the conclusion that Claude Weems had ‘murdered’ Professor Chipp. When I announced Weems’s ‘guilt,’ the hoax was supposed to blow up in my face. Old Prof Chipp would pop out of his hiding place grinning from ear to silly ear.”
“Pop out... You mean,” gasped Nikki, “you mean Professor Chipp is alive?”
“Only conclusion that makes sense, Nikki. And then,” Ellery went on, glaring at the three cowering men, “imagine the headlines. ‘Famous Sleuth Tricked By Hoax—Pins Whodunit On Harmless Prof.’ Commerce? I’ll say! Chipp’s Mystery of the Three R’s, launched by such splendid publicity, would be swallowed by a publisher as the whale swallowed Jonah—and there we’d have... presumably... a sensational bestseller.