“Why should he cover up his old man’s murderer?” asked Glücke plaintively. “That doesn’t wash, King.”
“It does,” said Ellery, “if you remember that his old man ruined thousands of people, including Jardin, and that his old man’s murderer is the father of the girl he wants to marry.”
“You mean,” frowned Van Every, “that Jardin actually—”
“I’m only telling you what Walter was thinking,” said Ellery, as if that were a simple matter, “since he didn’t want to tell you himself. Well, Walter, am I right?”
“Yes,” muttered Walter; he looked dazed. “I recognized them as two arrowheads from Rhys’s collection. Of course whoever stole them had fitted them into modern shafts; but the arrowheads couldn’t be mistaken.”
“They were two identical arrowheads of polished steel,” said Rhys steadily. “Japanese, dating from the fourteenth century. Like many medieval Japanese arrowheads these had decorative designs in the steel which would have identified them as mine beyond question. Walter’s told me about it since. Whoever the maniac was, he stole them because he wanted to frame me for Spaeth’s murder.” He paused, and then said lightly: “I’d like to get my hands on his throat.”
“I couldn’t talk,” said Walter wearily, “because my story would have implicated Rhys. I didn’t know about his alibi.”
“And we didn’t talk,” cried Val, “because we knew Walter had been in this house at the time of the murder and we thought that— Oh, Walter, Mr. King knows you didn’t do it!”
“Not so fast,” growled Glücke. “How do I know this man didn’t shoot those arrows himself? Couldn’t he have been on the Jardin terrace and then dashed over to be in here when that five-thirty-five ’phone call came in?”
“He couldn’t have been,” said Ellery politely, “and he wasn’t. Let me go on. Walter left the house with the arrows and sword, followed by the archer, who attacked him just outside the grounds after Walter climbed the fence, using the Indian club as a weapon. The club, remember, came from the Jardin house, where the archer had been. It was the archer, of course, who dropped the club down the sewer.”
“Why’d he slug Walter at all?” demanded Fitz.
“Because he wanted those arrows back. Walter had spoiled his plan — his plan to murder Spaeth and frame Jardin for the crime. He wanted to retrieve the arrows, undo what Walter had done, and leave the scene of the crime as it had been before Walter changed it. But after he struck Walter, he must have found himself unable to go through with the revised scheme. Because we did find the scene as Walter left it. Obviously, then, the arrows were gone by the time he reached Walter near the sewer.”
“I’d already dropped the arrows down the sewer,” said Walter, “when he hit me.”
“So that was it! It puzzled me. But you hadn’t had time to drop the sword through, as you intended, nor Jardin’s coat. So friend archer took sword and coat, smeared both with the blood streaming out of your own head, went off, coated the sword with poison, and planted both objects in Jardin’s closet. If he couldn’t frame Jardin with arrows — you’d spoiled that — he was going to use your own little refinements and frame Jardin with the coat and sword. He knew Jardin would find the sword and handle it; and he was the one who wired headquarters with the tip to search Jardin’s apartment, so timing his tip that discovery of the sword and coat and search by the police would be almost simultaneous. Very pretty, the whole thing.”
The Inspector made a helpless gesture, like a man trying to stop an avalanche.
“His frame-up of Jardin was now complete — in a different form but still effective, even more effective. He couldn’t have counted on Frank’s identification of Walter as Jardin, it is true; but the rest he was almost positive of.”
Ellery took the cigaret from his mouth and said calmly: “You asked before, Inspector, how I could be sure Walter hadn’t killed his father. There was one conclusive reason: Walter is right-handed, as he demonstrates unconsciously all the time. But the archer wasn’t. The archer was left-handed.”
“How do you figure that?” demanded Glücke.
“I don’t figure it; it’s a fact. In archery, as in any other sport, the favored arm is called upon to do the most work. A right-handed archer will draw back the string of the bow with his right hand. Obviously a left-handed archer will draw it back with his left. Now the shooting glove is always worn on the hand which draws back the bow. On which hand did the murderer wear his shooting glove?”
“The left!” cried Val. “I remember we talked about those prints—”
“Yes, the thumb and little-finger smudges on the table from their relative shape and position came from a left hand, as you accurately observed. Then a left hand wore the shooting glove. Then the murderer was left-handed. That lets Walter out.”
Walter shook his head, grinning a little, and Val ran over to him and seized him, her face shining.
“Now let me show you a little trick,” murmured Ellery out of a spurt of smoke. “What do we know about the murderer?
“One — he’s an expert archer. Fifty yards to hit a man in the heart is no mean feat, even after one bad shot.
“Two — he’s left-handed.
“Three — and this is important — he knew Jardin’s coat had a rip in it.”
“I don’t follow, I don’t follow,” said the Inspector in a fit of irritable excitement.
“He took the coat from Walter and planted it on Jardin, didn’t he? To do that, he had to know it was Jardin’s coat. But how could he have known it was Jardin’s coat? Walter was wearing it — a fact ordinarily sufficient to establish an assumption that it was his. Both men owned identical camel’s-hairs. There were no distinguishing marks. No, the only means of identifying the coat as Jardin’s was by the rip under the pocket, which had been made that very afternoon. The archer, then, recognized the coat by the rip. So he must have known in advance of the crime that the coat was ripped in that specific place.
“Four — and this is also a delicate point,” said Ellery with a slight smile, “the murderer, in order to have been able to use the Indian club on Walter’s head, had to know where to find it.”
“Say that again?” implored Glücke, who was having a hard time all around.
Ellery sighed. “Visualize our homicidal friend. He has just seen Walter leaving with the sword and arrows. He wants to get those arrows back. What to do? He hasn’t anything against Walter personally; he’s not out for Walter’s blood. A tap on the head will be sufficient. What should he use for a bludgeon?
“We know he used one of the Indian clubs. That means he ran along the terrace, forced the door of the ex-gymnasium, went to the wall-closet where the two clubs hung, opened the closet, and took out the undamaged club.
“What made him force the door of the gymnasium? There were lots of other rooms to investigate if he wanted to find a bludgeon. Even if he went to the gymnasium first by mere chance, and forced the door, there was nothing to be seen but a small pile of débris. For Miss Jardin told me Wednesday afternoon that the closet door had been left closed when they moved out of the house.
“No, when he forced that door and went to the closed closet and opened it, he knew what he was going to find. He knew there were two Indian clubs in that closet.”
Ellery threw away his cigaret.
“I think we have enough now to paint a picture of our ‘compleat criminal.’ To our knowledge, who fits all four qualifications I’ve laid down?