“Nothing strange about that,” said Dr. Holmes hurriedly, with a forced laugh. “Probably tinkered about in the lab half the night. He’s engrossed in an experiment—”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Xavier. “He did say something last night about staying in the laboratory; didn’t he, Mr. Queen?” and she turned her remarkable eyes suddenly upon the Inspector.
The Inspector was grim. He barely concealed his distaste. “He did, Madam.”
“Well, I’ll go fetch him,” said Dr. Holmes eagerly, and plunged through one of the open French windows of the gameroom.
No one spoke. Mrs. Xavier returned her brooding attention to the sky. Mark Xavier sat quietly down upon the rail of the terrace, a cigaret sending curls of smoke into his half-closed eyes. Ann Forrest twisted and untwisted a handkerchief in her lap. There was a step from the foyer and the stout figure of Mrs. Wheary appeared.
“Breakfast is waiting, Mrs. Xavier,” she said nervously. “These gentlemen—” she indicated the Queens — “are they...?”
Mrs. Xavier turned around. “Of course,” she said in a furious voice.
Mrs. Wheary flushed and retreated.
Then suddenly they were staring at the French window through which Dr. Holmes had plunged a few moments before. The tall young Englishman was standing in the window, his white-blotched right hand clenched, his brown hair curiously disheveled and sticking up into the air, his mouth working and his face as gray as his tweed knickerbockers.
He said nothing at all for an eternity, his lips opening and closing and no sounds coming from them.
Then he said in the hoarsest, most blurred voice Ellery had ever heard: “He’s been murdered.”
Part II
“Psychology never errs. The chief difficulty is knowing your subject. Psychology is an exact science with infinite ramifications.”
— Minds Human and Inhuman
by S. STANLEY WHYTE, D.Sc.
Chapter V
The Six of Spades
A ripple starting from the neckline of Mrs. Xavier’s low-cut gown flowed downward and disappeared in a flutter of crimson skirt. She was leaning against the terrace rail, her hands gripping the rail on each side of her strong body. The olive knuckles grayed, looking like lumps of cartilage. Her black eyes were washed cherries about to pop out. But she made no sound at all, and the expression on her face did not change. Even the horrible smile remained.
Miss Forrest’s eyes rolled until only a shadow arc of pupil showed against the elliptical whites. She made a sick noise and started from her chair, only to fall back with a thud.
Mark Xavier crushed the red tip of his cigarette between his forefinger and thumb and lunged off the rail. He lurched by the motionless figure of Dr. Holmes into the house.
“Murdered?” said the Inspector slowly.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Miss Forrest, biting the back of her right hand and staring at Mrs. Xavier.
Then Ellery sprang after Xavier and they all stumbled after Ellery, across the game-room through a door into a book-lined library, through another door into...
Dr. Xavier’s study was a small square room with two windows which overlooked the narrow fringe of rocky ground and the margin of trees at the right of the house. There were four doors: the one from the library; a door sharply to the left, as they faced into the room, which led to the cross-hall; a third on the same wall, but giving upon the surgeon’s laboratory; and a fourth directly across the room also leading into the laboratory. This last door was wide open, disclosing a segment of the white-walled, full-shelved laboratory beyond.
The study was modestly, even monastically, furnished. Three towering mahogany bookcases with glass windows, an old armchair, a lamp, a hard black-leather couch, a small cabinet, a silver cup in a glass case, a long poor group picture jammed with dinner-jacketed men — framed, on the wall; and in the center of the room a wide mahogany desk facing the library door.
Behind the desk was a swivel chair, and in the swivel chair was Dr. Xavier.
Except for the fact that his rough tweed coat and red woolen necktie lay carelessly in a heap on the armchair, he was dressed as they had last seen him on the previous night. His head and breast lay limply on the desktop before him, left arm from the elbow down resting beside his head, long fingers rigidly outstretched, palm flat against the mahogany. His right arm below the shoulder was out of sight, hanging below the desk-level. His collar was unfastened and lay away from his gray-blue neck.
His head rested on the left cheek, mouth pursed and contorted, eyes glaring wide open. The upper part of his torso was half twisted away from the surface of the desk; a splatter of thick dark red was visible on the shirt-front at the right breast. In the coagulated welter of crimson were two blackish holes.
The top of the desk was bare of the usual desktop accessories. Instead of a blotting pad and an inkwell and pen tray and paper there were only scattered playing cards, arranged in rather curious order. Most of them, in small piles, were concealed by the surgeon’s body.
At the margin of the green rug which covered the floor, in the corner near the closed door which led into the cross-hall, lay a long black revolver.
Mark Xavier was leaning against the jamb of the library door, glaring into the study at the quiet figure of his brother.
Mrs. Xavier, over Ellery’s shoulder, said “John,” thickly.
Then Ellery said: “I think you had all better go away. Except Dr. Holmes. We’ll need him. Please, now.”
“We’ll need him?” echoed Mark Xavier harshly. Lids blinked over his bloodshot eyes. He swayed away from the jamb. “What d’ye, mean — we? Who the devil do you think you are, anyway?”
“No, Mark,” said Mrs. Xavier mechanically; she tore her eyes away from her husband’s corpse and smothered her lips in a red cambric handkerchief.
“Don’t Mark me, damn you!” snarled Xavier. “Well, you... you... Queen—”
“Tut, tut,” said Ellery mildly. “I think your nerves are a little shot, Mr. Xavier. This is no time for argument. Be a good chap and take the ladies away. There’s work to be done.”
The big man clenched his fist and stepped forward to glower in Ellery’s face. “I’ve a good mind to smash you one! Haven’t you two butted in enough? Best thing for both of you to do is beat it. Get out!” Then a thought seemed to strike him; it lit up his blood-streaked eyes like a fork of lightning. “There’s something damned queer about you two,” he said slowly. “How do we know that you—?”
“Oh, you talk to the idiot, dad,” said Ellery impatiently, and stepped into the study. He seemed fascinated by the cards on which the torso of Dr. Xavier rested.
The big man’s face was reddening and darkening and his mouth worked soundlessly. Mrs. Xavier leaned against the door suddenly and covered her face with her hands. Neither Dr. Holmes nor Miss Forrest had so much as stirred a muscle; both looked and looked and looked at the dead man’s motionless head.
The old gentleman felt about in one of his inner pockets and produced a worn black case. He snapped the lid open and held up the case. Inside lay a round embossed-gold shield.
The red drained slowly out of Mark Xavier’s face. He stared at the shield as if he had been blind from birth and was seeing a thing of color and three dimensions for the first time.
“Police,” he said with difficulty, moistening his lips.
At the word Mrs. Xavier’s hands fell away. Her skin was almost green and her ebony eyes a blazing black pain, the pain of naked agony. “Police?” she whispered.