“Spaeth came,” said Glücke, ignoring him “—we know he was in this house through Miss Austin’s statement — his father showed him the new will, tried to make friends. But the skunk bumped his father off to get that dough.”
“No!” shrieked Val, holding on to Walter.
“Inspector,” pleaded Rhys, “for heaven’s sake don’t go off half-cocked. This boy wouldn’t kill his own father. Walter, tell him what happened. He’ll believe you. He’s got to believe you!”
“He can talk all he wants when I get through,” Glücke said coldly. “We’ve got his prints on the rapier, his own confession that he wore your coat, Jardin — which has human blood on it — and he had opportunity to plant the coat and sword in your closet at the La Salle.”
Winni opened one eye, saw that nobody was paying any attention to her, and tried to creep out unobserved. But a detective forced her into a chair and she sat there whimpering.
Walter made a helpless gesture; the flesh around his lips was oyster-white. “I suppose it won’t do any good to deny I murdered my father. But I warn you, Inspector — and you, Van Every — you’re heading for trouble. You don’t know a quarter of what really happened in this room last Monday afternoon. You don’t even know the truth about—”
“No, you don’t,” said a peevish voice; and they all looked around to find Ellery glaring at them. “After all the trouble you’ve put me to, my dear Galahad, and all the blankets of silence you’ve wrapped yourself up in, you’re not going to rob me of the little glory I’ve earned.”
“King, are you crazy? Keep out of this!” barked Glücke.
“And that,” said Mr. King in the same peevish tone, “goes for you two as well.” And he glared at Rhys and Valerie.
“King—” spluttered the Inspector threateningly.
“Relax. Walter, do you know who killed your father?” Walter shrugged. “Do you know who killed Spaeth, Jardin? You, Val?”
“I’m not speaking to you — turncoat!”
Ellery looked whimsically at the long, brown-papered object in his hands. Then he turned and went to the glass door, opened it, stepped out on the terrace.
“Come out here,” he said.
XXI
The Sport of King
There was such a majestic confidence in his voice that District Attorney Van Every whispered in Glücke’s ear, and Glücke nodded glumly and motioned everybody out.
Ellery stood off to one side, the package tucked under one arm, waited patiently. They took positions about the terrace, some perched on the low terrace railing, others standing against the wall. Curiosity was reflected from each face — the anxious, hopeful ones of Val and Rhys; the gaping ones of the detectives, Winni, Pink; the watchful ones of Glücke and Van Every; the bitter ones of Ruhig and Walter.
The sky was blue, the garden sizzled with bees, a red hydroplane droned past high overhead. There was a strange otherworld overtone to everything, as if time had stopped still and something splendid and dreadful was about to happen.
And Ellery took a tubular object from his breast pocket and unwrapped it and said in a dreamy, mood-preserving voice: “I have here a fragment of canvas which I cut out of this awning only today.” He nodded towards the rectangle of light in the awning overhead.
“In this fragment you will find a slit, or tear, or rip, or whatever you choose to call it. It is a clean sharp incision and it runs — as you can see — parallel with the green and yellow stripes. The upper edges of the rip — that is to say the edges on the side which lay exposed to the sun — are slightly stained molasses-brown.”
Glücke and Van Every ran toward him.
“No,” said Ellery dryly, “don’t touch it. This thing is a little like Medusa’s head — one careless exposure and it turns you to clay. I had Bronson — charming fellow — analyze the stain only a couple of hours ago, and he says it is composed of thoroughly mixed molasses and potassium cyanide.”
“Let’s see that,” said Glücke excitedly, bending over the square of canvas. “That slit — it looks—”
“About a half-inch long.”
“So was the incision the sword made in Spaeth’s chest!”
“And the same poison—” muttered the District Attorney.
“Then this cut in the awning was made by the same rapier that killed Spaeth,” exclaimed the Inspector. He looked up. He dragged a chair over and stood on it and put his nose as close to the hole in the canvas as he could get it. Then he stepped down, looking frustrated. “But how the dickens could a sword have got up there? If the stain’s on top of the canvas, that means the sword came in through the canvas from above. That’s screwy.”
“It’s not only screwy,” said Ellery. “It didn’t happen.”
“Wait.” Glücke jumped down the terrace steps and stared up at the house. “It could have been dropped out of one of the upper windows!”
Ellery sighed. “Come here, Inspector.” Glücke came back. Ellery stood on the chair and fitted the fragment into the empty space. “See where this places the rip on the awning? Now look at the wall here. Do you notice this fresh nick in the stone? Curious place for a nick, isn’t it — away over the tallest man’s head? Could hardly have got there by accident, could it?”
“Well? Well?” Glücke craned with the others.
“Now observe the relative positions of the nick in the wall and the tear in the awning. About four inches apart. And the tear is slightly — not much — higher from the floor than the nick. Line up nick and tear and what have you? A sharp object with a blade width of about a half-inch which went through the awning from above and struck the wall four inches inside the awning, causing the nick.
“If the sword had been dropped from a window, it would have naturally come down in a vertical position. But since the line between the rip and nick is almost parallel with the terrace floor, it’s obvious that the sharp object pierced the awning almost horizontally in relation to the floor.”
He jumped down, wrapped the fragment of cloth carefully, and handed it to the Inspector, who did not seem to know what to do with it.
“I don’t get this at all, King,” he complained.
“Use your head, brother. Did some one stand or lie on top of the awning and stick a sword through the awning almost where it meets the wall, just for the purpose of making a nick in the stone there?”
“That’s nonsense,” said Van Every slowly.
“Agreed; sheer nonsense. So let’s wander on. The stripes of the awning run from top to bottom; the rip is parallel with the stripes; the nick is a little lower but directly behind the rip. Therefore from what direction did the weapon come?”
“Through the air,” muttered Van Every, “from a point directly facing this terrace.”
“A rapier?” asked Ellery, raising his brows. “Through the air?”
“No,” mumbled Glücke. “That can’t be. Say — a knife! Somebody threw a knife!”
“At least,” smiled Ellery, “not the rapier. We’re in agreement that it’s absurd to suppose somebody stood on the ground out there and hurled a sword at the awning? Very well. Then it wasn’t a sword that pierced the awning. But whatever it was, it had all the characteristics of the wound in Spaeth’s chest — a sharp cutting edge about a half-inch wide and coated with the same poisonous concoction that killed him.”
“You mean,” cried Glücke, “that Spaeth wasn’t killed with that rapier at all?”
“How eloquently you put it, Inspector.”
The Inspector opened his mouth wide. The others watched with a sort of horrible fascination.
“Now,” said Ellery briskly, “we know one more important fact — that whatever the weapon was, it came from a point, as the District Attorney says, directly facing this terrace. What directly faces this terrace?”