“What about — what?”
“This case. The Skelton murders. Linda and Floyd. Remember?”
“We catch him red-handed,” Gavigan thundered, “and you’re not satisfied. What about Watrous?”
“Well, there is that, I’ll admit.” Merlini had settled back now as if preparing for a siege. His hand went toward his pocket and brought out his deck of cards. “But I might ask, what about Rappourt? And how in the name of Hermann, Kellar, and Thurston did Lamb work that lighter? More recently, what about the curious incident of the erratic gunnery score?”
“Well, what about it?”
I hoped that Merlini was going to be able to produce his rabbit because, otherwise, Gavigan was going to lay him out. I could see that with half an eye.
“Lamb,” Merlini said. “The ex-gangster, the man who packs two guns. He shoots from 35 feet and misses Rappourt by a good two feet. He shoots again and misses the window itself by something over 10 feet. He shoots a third time, from considerably more than 35 feet and drills Watrous as neatly as you please. Oh, it could happen — anything’s possible. But in the cellar where he was, how did he know we were questioning Rappourt? Coincidence? Why did he go from cellar to sun deck to knock out Grimm and take his gun? He had Muller’s gun. Was he so accustomed to two guns he couldn’t operate with only one? And how did he get onto the sun deck if Grimm was watching the stairs? And then, why’d he go climb a tree? Why not shoot from the sun deck itself? Also, if he went to all that trouble to obtain a second gun, why did he throw it away when it still contained four bullets? Watrous didn’t say he dropped it; he said ‘threw it.’ Why didn’t he shoot at Watrous when the latter yelled instead of waiting until later? Those were Muller’s and Grimm’s guns, weren’t they?”
“Yes, but—”
“And the one Watrous picked up was Grimm’s?”
“What makes you think that? And what difference—”
“Was it, Grimm?”
Grimm bent over the gun Gavigan had laid on the table. He nodded. “That’s mine.”
“Grimm’s gun, Inspector, not Muller’s. Remember that. It’s important. Ross, how many times did you fire that thing?”
“Once.”
“And we saw Watrous fire it twice. Two and one is three. There were two prior shots. That makes five. How many bullets are there left in that gun?”
Grimm broke it open. “One.”
“Which makes six. That’s how many there were when you had it last?”
Grimm nodded.
“Good. We progress. We know that both the shot through the window and the one that buried itself in the wall outside came from that gun. I’d estimate the interval between those shots at about three seconds. Agree?”
The Inspector nodded.
“And if you stand in Rappourt’s room,” Merlini continued, “with your eye level with the spot where the bullet hit the wall, and look back, out through the hole in the window pane, your line of sight hits that tree a good 15 feet above ground and some distance out from the trunk on one of the limbs. Now, how in the name of Isaac Newton did a fat man like Lamb manage to shinny down that tree and cross 20 feet of lawn in three seconds? Even had he jumped, I doubt if he could have made it. Anyway, Watrous distinctly said, ‘climbed down.’ ”
“Did he have to do that?” Gavigan asked. “What are you getting at?”
“Sure he had to do that. The gun doesn’t fire bullets in a curve! If he fired the second shot while still perched in the tree, then judging from the position of the bullet in the wall close up under the projecting sun deck, it had to go smack through the sun deck, and without leaving the slightest trace of its passage! I know: I’ve looked. There’s a trick or two like that. Conjurer pushes a glass rod through a borrowed handkerchief or shoots a girl through a plate of steel. Solid through solid, it’s called. But .38 caliber bullets through steel and concrete floors is a new one on me. It’s like ectoplasm: I don’t believe it.”
“It ricocheted—” Gavigan stated.
“Well, maybe. You’d know more about that than I would. But isn’t a 45° angle an awful lot of bounce for a bullet? And would it still have enough speed left to bury itself in that wall? Ricocheted bullets usually spin, don’t they? Chances are it would have hit the wall sideways or backward.”
“But look where that leaves you,” Gavigan said. “If Lamb fired at Rappourt from the tree and someone else fired the second shot from below, you haven’t—”
From the door to the hall behind us, a quiet voice said, “Lamb didn’t fire that first shot at Rappourt. He was with me when we heard it.” Muller stood in the doorway, a white bandage around his head. Dr. Gail pushed in past him and went toward Lamb.
“Quinn’s told me what happened,” Muller went on. “But you’ve got it wrong. Lamb was with me in the basement. When we heard that first shot I dashed for the window and looked out. And Lamb conked me with a bottle. He took my gun and climbed out the window.” You could have dropped half a dozen pins slowly, one after the other, onto an Oriental rug and heard every one of them land. Merlini was the only person in the room who smiled.
Inspector Gavigan looked around at Arnold, Brooke, Sigrid Verrill, and Dr. Gail. “So someone else knocked Grimm out and did some shooting, too, did they?” He began with Gail. “Where were you during the gunfire?”
“In the library,” Gail said quickly. “You saw Miss Verrill and I go in before you went upstairs. We were together.”
“All the time?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Verrill?”
“Yes.” Her voice was small but steady.
“Brooke?”
That gentleman grinned for the first time in quite a while. “Ask Hunter,” he said.
Gavigan stepped to the window. “Hunter, come here.” And in a moment: “You hear those first five shots tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Brooke with you all the time?”
“That’s right.”
Gavigan turned slowly from the window. “Arnold?”
Arnold merely walked to the table and pressed a button. Then he waited. There were steps in the hall outside shortly, and Mrs. Henderson appeared in the door.
Arnold repeated the Inspector’s question. “Did you hear the first five shots tonight?”
She nodded.
“Where was I?”
“Why, with me in the kitchen. You ran out toward the front of the house. My husband and I followed you.”
“Mr. Henderson was there, too?” Gavigan asked.
“Yes.”
The Inspector turned back to Merlini. “Perhaps you’d like to carry the questioning on from there?” he suggested with more than a touch of sarcasm in his tone. “It’s impossible again! There’s no one else on the island. Leach’s been stationed on top the other house up there watching for that.”
Merlini shook his head. “No, Inspector. You’re doing very well.”
That was when the Inspector flew off the handle. And the way he did it made Department history. “That’s that,” he said with a thick finality. “This has gone far enough. Ira Brooke, you’re under arrest! Get him, Malloy!”
Ira had made a half movement as if to run for it, but Malloy and the handcuffs got there first. Brooke blinked and said protestingly, “But Detective Hunter—”
“Stow it!” Gavigan cut him off. “You’re in deep water so damned far it’d take a bathysphere to locate you. I’ve got a statement from the man who sold you that vanishing motorboat. I’ve got another from a salesman at the Collector’s Coin and Stamp Co. He sold you six 1779 English guineas a week ago. Both men describe you exactly. Before I’m finished, I’ll have the name and address of the counterfeiter who turned out the queer ones. Want to tell me now?”