Flint blinked. “And Mrs. Wolff was firing at—”
“Nothing. That was the cover-up. It was misdirection to distract our attention from the study.”
Flint didn’t like it. “No,” he said. “Smith would have made sure his line of retreat was clear before he ever appeared for the picture. He’d have called it off. And I don’t like that whispering. According to your first story you and Merlini went up those stairs so fast—”
“There was time enough for that. And besides, where was Smith the next time we see him?”
“According to you he was in the study. But unless you can explain how he got out again—”
“I can. Smith waits there until things have quieted down enough so that he can ease out. Merlini and I are outside waiting for the same thing so we can come back in. But Dudley Wolff, obstinate as usual, refuses to turn out his light and go to bed. Merlini and I decide to take a chance before Smith does. We come in and pick the lock. Phillips starts prowling around, and Merlini gets caught on the front stairs. I back into the study, right into Smith’s arms. He flattens me, tosses me out the window, and then, as soon as Phillips clears out, makes tracks. He left by the study door before Wolff was shot and just before Merlini came back up the stairs.
“Mrs. Wolff is lying when she says there was a third person in the study. At that point she was trying to talk her way out of a jam, and the ghost who seemed to be so expert at walking through brick walls was the logical candidate to take the rap.”
“The murder gun didn’t leave before Wolff was shot.”
“No. I’m coming to that. The next event on the program is Mrs. Wolff’s trip to the study. She lied about that too. She didn’t go there by accident. She thought Smith was there. She went to see him, possibly to help him get clear. But she was late. He’s just gone. And, a moment later, Dudley walks in and finds her there. He had missed his study key. He realized the that perhaps the ghost wasn’t as ghostly as he’d thought, that someone could have made use of the study after all. When he finds her there he knows who stole the key. And I think he tumbled to the fact that the shooting she’d done earlier was an act. He accused her. He probably threatened to cut her out of his will. That was a little habit he had. She saw all her plans going up in smoke, and she saw just one and only one way in which she could get out from under.
“She had the vest-pocket gun which she had taken from the gun room as protection against Smith whom she couldn’t trust. She took the smallest she could find because it was the sort of thing a woman could carry on her person unnoticeably. She shot him with it. That single direct action solved everything. It silenced him; it prevented any change in the will; it allowed her to collect the inheritance at once; and she was free of him.”
Flint objected, “You’re doing a hell of a lot of guessing as to what Wolff thought and what she thought. And you still haven’t got the gun—”
“Maybe so,” I admitted, “but it holds water. And whether or not that’s exactly what happened, she did shoot him. She’s the only person who could possibly have done it, the only other person in the room with him, the only person in the whole cast of suspects who could have smuggled that gun out of the room in spite of a down-to-the-skin search by experts! Merlini, tell him about Jeanne Veiller. Tell him why Mrs. Wolff, the ex-medium, used the smallest gun in the collection.”
Merlini shook his head. “I was afraid you were building up to this. Tell him yourself. I don’t think he’s going to like it much.”
He was right. Flint didn’t like it at all. When I told him that Jeanne Veiller was a regurgitating medium who concealed her cheesecloth ectoplasm by swallowing it, when I reminded him of the circus sword swallowers who also gulp down gold watches, lemons, and even live white mice, when I insisted that Mrs. Wolff had hidden the gun in the same way, he hit the ceiling.
“First it was an invisible spook who walks through solid walls! Now; he wasn’t in the room at the time of the shooting at all — and Mrs. Wolff swallows a gun! First it’s a human hedgehog and now it’s an ostrich! I won’t—”
“Okay, then you tell me how the gun got from the study to the car. Mrs. Wolff planted it in the glove compartment when she put the dry ice in the heater. She fixed it so he’d die in a traffic smash and take the rap for the murder. The door to the garage is within a few yards of the trellis outside her window. Who else had as good an opportunity? You give me an explanation that fits half as many facts.”
Flint thought about it a moment. Then he turned suddenly toward the sergeant. “Get Mrs. Wolff in here. We’ll see—”
Then the thing that had begun to worry me happened. Merlini, who had been sitting there, far too quietly, letting Flint make all the objections, suddenly came to life.
“Just a minute, Lieutenant,” he broke in. “Ross, are you quite finished? Is that the works?”
I nodded, scowling. “That’s it. There may be a rough edge here and there, but—”
“Rough edges and some holes. Do you mind if I put a few questions?”
“Yes,” I growled, “Knowing you, I do. But go ahead.”
He leaned lazily back in his chair. “There are four questions. Number one: Why oh why, if your masterpiece of synthesis, guesswork, and uncanny deductive reasoning is correct, did Smith tie that andiron to your feet and throw you overboard? You slid past that point in one awful hurry. Why wouldn’t he be content with just knocking you out? Why must he toss off a completely unnecessary murder for no good reason? Or can you give a reason?”
I couldn’t. I should have known he would have spotted that. The point had occurred to me, but so many other things had dovetailed so neatly that I’d let it pass. Besides, I hadn’t had time to give it much thought and Merlini gave me none now.
“Two,” he said. “The mystery of the strangely missing shot. You’ve not mentioned that trap gun at all. I suppose, according to your theory, Smith took it with him when he left the study. But at some time after its theft that gun was fired. It was not fitted with a silencer and yet no one has ever mentioned hearing an unexplained shot. I want to know why not. Answer that one and you really have solved the case.”
He paused briefly and then went on. “Three: If Smith vanished from the study as you say, if he ducked out the door just before I came back up the stairs, where did he go from there? And four: What about—”
“Wait, dammit! You might give me a chance to answer. Smith went across the hall into Mrs. Wolff’s bedroom, out the window, and down the trellis. There was no place else he could go. He certainly didn’t barge into Wolff’s room. He didn’t go into the guest room where Mrs. Wolff was. If he had, she wouldn’t have had to go across to the study later. Phillips was belowstairs at the other end of the hall, so he couldn’t have—”
Merlini nodded. “I’ll admit that. In fact, I insist upon it. He didn’t go past the head of the main stairs toward Kay’s room, Dunning’s room, or the back stairs, because I came up again as soon as Phillips retreated. I’ll admit that Mrs. Wolff’s bedroom appears to be the only place he could have gone. But suppose he did. When he opened the window and aimed his flashlight at the electric eye what happened?”
Flint answered that. “Nothing! He’d put his light on the blink when he cracked Harte over the head!” He turned to me. You’ve got him out of the study and left him high and dry in the bedroom. Two hours later he makes a break from the garage three stories below. Go on, Harte. We’re listening.”