“You’re asking an academic question,” said Ellery without turning. “You know as well as I do. You’ve observed, of course, that there’s no paper or writing implements on the desk.”
“How about in the top drawer there?”
“I looked. The cards came from there — the usual clutter of games inside. Paper, but no pen or pencil.”
“None in his clothes?”
“No. It’s a sports suit.”
“And the other drawers?”
“They’re locked. He hasn’t a key on his person. I suppose it’s in another suit, or if it’s somewhere about he didn’t have the strength to get up and look for it.”
“Well, then,” snapped the Inspector, “it’s plain enough. He didn’t have the means of writing the name of his murderer. So he left the card — the uncrumpled half of the card — instead.”
“Exactly,” murmured Ellery.
Dr. Holmes’s head came up; his eyelids were angry red. “Eh? He left—?”
“That’s it, Doc. By the way, I take it Dr. Xavier was right-handed?”
Dr. Holmes stared stupidly. Ellery sighed. “Oh, yes. I checked on that the very first thing.”
“You checked—?” began the old gentleman, astonished. “But how—”
“There are more ways,” said Ellery wearily, “of killing a cat than one, as any exterminator will tell you. I looked through the pockets of his discarded coat there on the armchair. His pipe and tobacco pouch are in the right-hand pocket. I patted his trouser pockets, too; there’s change in the right pocket, and the left one is empty.”
“Oh, he was right-handed, right enough,” muttered Dr. Holmes.
“Well, that’s good, that’s good. Checks with the card found in his right hand and the direction of the smudge on the corner. Swell! So we’re as well advanced as we were before — not a jot more. What in the name of all that’s holy did he mean by that piece of card? Doc, do you know whom he might have had in mind, leaving a six of spades that way?”
Dr. Holmes, still staring, started. “I? No, no. I couldn’t say, really I couldn’t.”
The Inspector strode to the library door and flung it open. Mrs. Wheary, Mrs. Xavier, the dead man’s brother — they were exactly as he had left them. But Miss Forrest had disappeared.
“Where’s the young woman?” said the Inspector harshly.
Mrs. Wheary shuddered and Mrs. Xavier apparently did not hear; she was rocking to and fro with a staccato motion.
But Mark Xavier said: “She went out.”
“To warn Mrs. Carreau, I suppose,” snapped the Inspector. “Well, let her. None of you can get away, glory be! Xavier, come on in here, will you?”
The man got slowly out of position, straightened, squared his shoulders, and followed the Inspector into the study. There he avoided looking at his dead brother, swallowing hard and shifting his gaze from side to side.
“We’ve an ugly job here, Xavier,” said the old gentleman crisply. “You’ll have to help. Dr. Holmes!”
The Englishman blinked.
“You ought to be able to answer this. You know that we’re all stuck up here until the sheriff of Osquewa can get through to us, and there’s no telling when that will be. In the meantime, in the case of a capital crime although I’ve been deputized by the sheriff to conduct an investigation I’ve no authority to bury the body of the victim. That must be held for the usual inquest and legal release. Do you understand?”
“You mean,” said Mark Xavier hoarsely, “he... he’s got to be kept this way? Good God, man—”
Dr. Holmes rose. “Fortunately,” he said in a stiff tone, “we — there’s a refrigerator in the laboratory. Used for experimental broths requiring frigid temperatures. I think,” he said with an effort, “we — can make it.”
“Good.” The Inspector clapped the young man on the back. “You’re doing fine, Doc. Once the body’s out of sight I know you’ll all feel better... Now lend a hand, Xavier; and you, Ellery. This is going to be a job.”
When they returned to the study from the laboratory, a vast irregularly shaped room crammed with electrical apparatus and a fantastic growth of weirdly shaped glass vessels, they were all pale and perspiring. The sun was very high now and the room was insufferably hot and stuffy. Ellery threw the windows up as far as they would go.
The Inspector opened the door to the library again. “And now,” he said grimly, “we’ve got time to do a little real sleuthing. This, I’m afraid, is going to be good. I want every one of you to come upstairs with me and—”
He stopped. From somewhere at the rear of the house came the sounds of clashing metal and strident shouting. One of the voices, shrill with rage, belonged to the man-of-all-work, Bones. The other was a deep desperate bellow of vaguely familiar tone.
“What the devil,” began the Inspector, whirling about. “I thought nobody could get—”
He tugged at his service revolver, dashed through the study, and plunged down the cross-hall in the direction of the furious sounds. Ellery was at his heels, and the rest followed with stumbling, bewildered eagerness.
The Inspector turned right where the cross-hall met the main corridor and darted to the far door at the rear which he and Ellery had glimpsed on their entrance to the house the previous night. He flung open the door, revolver raised.
They were in a spotless tiled kitchen.
In the center of the kitchen, amid a clutter of dented pans and broken dishes, two men were struggling, locked in a desperate embrace.
One was the emaciated old man in overalls, eyes starting from his head, screaming curses and tugging at his adversary with maniacal strength.
Over Bones’s shoulder, gross and monstrous, glared the fat face and froggy eyes of the man the Queens had encountered on the dark Arrow Mountain road the night before.
Chapter VI
Smith
“Oh, so it’s you,” muttered the Inspector. “Stop it!” he said sharply. “I’ve got you covered and I mean business.”
The fat man’s arms dropped and he stared stupidly.
“Ah, our friend the motorist,” chuckled Ellery, stepping into the kitchen. He slapped the fat man’s hips and breast. “Not heeled. Tsk! Monstrous oversight. Well, what have you to say for yourself, friend Falstaff?”
A purple tongue slithered over the man’s lips. He was stocky and enormous — a wide, wide bulwark of a man with a small round paunch. He took a step forward and his body wobbled like jelly. He looked for all the world like a dangerous, middle-aged gorilla.
Bones was glaring at him with a convulsive hatred that shook his whole angular frame.
“What have I—?” began the stranger in his unpleasant bass voice. Then cunning crept into his little eyes. “What’s the meaning of this?” he boomed with heavy dignity. “This creature attacked me—”
“In his own kitchen?” murmured Ellery.
“He’s lying!” shrieked Bones, trembling with rage. “I caught him sneaking into the house through the open front door and he snooped around till he found the kitchen! Then he—”
“Ah, the grosser appetite,” sighed Ellery. “Hungry, eh? I thought you’d be back.” He whirled suddenly and searched the faces of the group behind him. They were staring at the fat man with baffled eyes.
“Is he the one?” said Mrs. Xavier huskily.
“Yes, indeed. Ever see him before?”
“No, no!”
“Mr. Xavier? Mrs. Wheary? Dr. Holmes... Strange,” murmured Ellery. He stepped closer to the fat man. “We’ll overlook the little raid just now; certain allowances must be made for starving men if only out of sheer humanitarianism. And with that bulk to feed... I daresay you were ravenous to have risked coming back today, after the frantic efforts you must have made all night to get through the fire. Eh?”