“There could be typewriters in Buffalo, couldn’t there?”
“But if Floyd was headed for Chicago, did he take a stopover just so he could type instead of write?”
Quinn returned and reported. “There are two trains arriving in Buffalo from New York shortly before 10:30. If he got there on the 8:10 he had time to type lots of letters. That train doesn’t go any farther. There’s a 9:57 that stops there, too, with a Michigan Central train out for Chicago a few minutes later. Only that circles clear around the topside of Lake Erie through Canada, takes three hours longer than any other train, and you might as well wait over and take the 20th Century, which arrives in Chicago almost as soon. If he really was on his way to Chicago, that’s a damn funny time for that letter to have been mailed in Buffalo.”
“What time does that 9:57 leave New York, Quinn?” Merlini asked.
“1:20 p. m.”
“Floyd could have had other reasons for a stopover in Buffalo,” Gavigan said, weakening.
“You’re hard to convince, Inspector,” said Merlini. “All right, here’s the pay-off. Answer me this. If Floyd typed that letter in Buffalo last night, how in blue blazes did the typewriter manage to fly back here?”
“Back here?” Gavigan expelled the words convulsively, like a punctured balloon. He marched over to the desk and glared at the typewriter there. “Give me the typing Harte did on this machine!”
Merlini drew the sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Gavigan. The latter compared it with Floyd’s letter. His scrutiny was brief. “Why couldn’t you just say so without all this long-winded build-up? Dramatic climaxes may be all right in your conjuring hocus-pocus, but they do slow up a murder investigation.”
“Sorry, Inspector,” Merlini grinned. “An old dog, you know, and new tricks.”
“What’s so obvious?” Gail asked, trying to get a good look over the Inspector’s shoulder.
“The typing,” Gavigan explained. “Both from the same machine. I can spot a dozen points of similarity without even squinting; and, at that rate, the boys at the lab will turn up thirty. The alignment is bad, the ‘e’ and ‘t’ are way out, a serif on the ‘i’ is missing, the ‘a’ is nicked—”
“It’s even better than that, Inspector,” Merlini put in. “If you ever use this letter as exhibit B before a jury, you won’t need to call in the typing experts with their enlarged photos and their ruled charts. Look again.”
Gavigan, glum at having been caught out, scowled at Merlini and turned a fierce glare on the two sheets of paper.
“Don’t get your nose so close. You’ll miss it. It’s as obvious as a parade of elephants. The code, Inspector, the code. I’ve solved it; and there isn’t any international spy ring, you’ll be glad to know. That capital ‘L’ that Gail thought might be the beginning of a word… It is. But the word is coming instead of going. Try spelling it from right to left. Ingenious code, very. I don’t think.”
Gavigan not only spelled; he began reading. “Dear Linda: The eight mil — million—”
“The whole letter,” Merlini continued, “is on that ribbon. Only, as the typewriter carriage moved the paper across from right to left, the ribbon happened to be moving in the opposite direction, and each succeeding letter was placed on it to the left of the one before. When I dictated a while ago, not being Chinese, I naturally read it off in my accustomed West to East manner. Only the first few words are readable because, later, the ribbon reversed its direction and backed up the last part of the letter on what went immediately before.”
“And if he wrote the letter here and mailed it in Buffalo—” Gavigan mused.
“Then we wonder,” Merlini added, “why he wrote it at all, why he didn’t merely tell Linda, or at least leave the note for her instead of taking it along. We wonder why he left here at 8 p. m. Thursday and then waited until 1:20 Friday to take the day’s most inconvenient train; and why, in the letter, he said he had already left. Objections by the gross, you see. Whereas, if the letter was written solely to make it appear that he had left town, the objections all fade away as nicely as you please. And another thing. He never expected anyone would investigate those trains. He — he—” Merlini’s voice came to a bumpy stop. As Gavigan started to talk, I heard something the Inspector didn’t. Under his breath Merlini murmured, “Oh, my hat!”
“I give in,” Gavigan was saying. “Floyd was up to funny business. There’s not much doubt about that. But the rest of this ribbon message. What he wrote before the letter. Unscrambled, it still looks like code to me. Let’s see the whole thing the right way round, Ross.”
I sat down and typed it off rapidly. The spaces between were obvious now; so I inserted them, though where the spaces went among the numerals, as some undoubtedly, should, I had no way of knowing: ppages at different depths in minutes 20 ft 10 ft Total time for ascent in minutes 108-12018-2048-53½ Up to 15 mins 15 to 3030 to 4848 to 60 1 to 1½ hrs 1½ to 2 hrs 2 to 2½ 2½ to 3 over 3257281231015413195152252027102032103042 Dear Linda: The eight milli
“At different depths,” Gavigan read. “Ascent in minutes. Something to do with diving evidently. We’ll ask Mr. Novak. Yes, Grimm?”
Grimm had come in while I was typing and stood waiting to report. “Those footprints on the ceiling,” he said, looking somewhat pained at having to put any such sequence of words together, “were made by seven-and-a-half shoes, Goodyear heels, and they’ve been resoled. There aren’t any shoes in this house anything like that. Brooke wears a nine, the others all larger still. A woman could have worn ’em, but I didn’t find no men’s shoes in their rooms.”
“Floyd’s size?” Gavigan said.
“Ten.”
“All right. Stick around.”
“And Lamb’s size?” Merlini asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied Grimm. “But he don’t wear no 7½. More like an 11— double E width at that.”
“Yes. And you didn’t get his exact size, because—?”
“There weren’t any extra shoes in his room. As far as I can see the only clothes he’s got are the, one’s he’s wearing.”
“Oh. Slim outfit for a retired broker. And he’s been out here two weeks. Hm!” Merlini sneaked a sideways glance at the Inspector. “Would you run up, Grimm, and take a look at his shaving things, razor and so forth, his toothbrush, comb — all his toilet articles. He may not change his underwear, but he must shave. I didn’t notice a beard.”
“What should I look for?”
“Anything odd. I think you’ll know if you see it.”
Grimm looked at the Inspector for permission, got it, and said, “Okay.” He started to go.
Gavigan had been watching Merlini thoughtfully. Suddenly he added, “And take a look at his luggage too, Grimm.”
The door opened just before Grimm reached it, and he stepped aside to let Madame Rappourt come in, followed closely by Malloy.
Madame Rappourt had an obstinate, angry look, and she threw Merlini the same glance she would have used on a hoptoad with scarlet fever. The woman really had an eight-cylinder personality, her own special two-faced brand. Her maiden name was the exotic one of Svoboda and she came, or pretended to, from Hungary, the land where vampires and big bad werewolves are still said to populate the night. She could radiate mystery like a sphinx, and she affected the habit of smoking small black cigars. Then, when she was trying to convince you that her spooks were all wool and a yard wide, she was as sincere, naive, and straightforwardly direct as St. Francis of Assisi. But she wasted none of that on Merlini and Gavigan. She took the attitude, not without cause, that conjurers and cops had all turned in a verdict of Guilty and wouldn’t change it.