“That’s all, then. Go back to your dusting.”
“Yes, sir.” Rather reluctantly she went away, closing the door of the dining room behind her.
“Now let’s see,” growled the old gentleman, whipping out his key wallet. He found the key to the cabinet and opened the door.
Ellery started. “I see you’ve still got that key.”
“Sure I’ve still got the key.” The Inspector stared at him.
“And that’s another very curious item. By the way, I suppose this is the only key to the cabinet?”
“Don’t worry, I checked up on that the other day.”
“I’m not worrying. Well, let’s see what’s inside.”
The Inspector pulled the door wide and they peered in. Except for the deck of cards the repository was empty, as before. And the cards lay quite where the Inspector had placed them. It was evident that the cabinet had not been opened since the old man had last turned the key in its lock.
He took out the deck and together they examined it. It was the same deck, beyond a doubt.
“Odd,” muttered Ellery. “I really can’t see why... Lord, is it possible we missed something in looking over the cards originally?”
“There’s one thing sure,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “We were all together upstairs when I asked about a hiding-place for the cards and Mrs. Wheary told me about this cabinet and the key. She even said it was empty, I think; and it was. So they all knew I was going to put the deck here. Since there’s nothing else in the cabinet—”
“Of course. These cards are evidence. Evidence concerning Dr. Xavier’s murder. It stands to reason that only the murderer would have motive to come after them. There are two things we can derive from this incident, dad, now that I analyze it: it was the murderer who sneaked in here and tried to break into the cabinet, and the reason he did it was that there’s something about this deck which we’ve missed, apparently, and which he wanted to destroy because in some way it’s damaging. Let’s see those blasted things!”
He snatched the deck from his father’s hand and hurried to one of the small round tables. Spreading the cards out, face up, he examined each one with minute care. But there were no clear fingerprints on any of them; what marks there were were unrecognizable smudges. Then he turned them over and scrutinized the backs with as little result.
“Appalling,” he muttered. “There must be something... If it’s not a question of a positive clue, logically it must be a negative—”
“What are you talking about?”
Ellery scowled. “I’m fishing. A clue isn’t always the presence of something. Very often it’s the absence of something. Let’s see.” He shoved the cards together, patted them neatly into a pile, and then to his father’s astonishment began to count them.
“Why, that’s — that’s asinine!” snorted the Inspector.
“No doubt,” murmured Ellery, busy counting. “Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight—” he stopped and his eyes blazed. “Do you see what I see?” he shouted. “Forty-nine, fifty — and that’s all!”
“That’s all?” echoed the Inspector blankly. “There ought to be fifty-two in a full deck. No, this ought to have fifty-one; the six of spades you took away, the torn one...”
“Yes, yes, there’s one card missing,” said Ellery impatiently. “Well, we’ll soon find out which one it is.” Rapidly he began to separate the cards into suits. When he had four piles, each devoted to a single suit, he took up the pile of clubs. They were complete from deuce to ace, he found at once; and, throwing them aside, examined the hearts. Complete. Spades — complete except for the six, and the two halves of the six reposed in the pocket of one of his suits upstairs. Diamonds...
“Well, well, well,” he said softly, staring down at the cards. “We might have known. Under our eyes all the time and we never thought of the elementary precaution of counting the cards. Provocative, eh?”
The missing card was the knave of diamonds.
Chapter XVII
The Knave’s Tale
Ellery dropped the cards, strode to the French windows, drew all the drapes, hurried across the room, closed the corridor door, went to the dining-room door and made sure it was secure, switched on several lamps, and then dropped into a chair near the table.
“Squat and let’s talk this over. I begin to see many things I was blind to.” He stretched his legs and lit a cigarette, peering through the smoke at his father.
The Inspector sat down, crossed his knees, and snapped: “So do I. Thank God there’s a little daylight! Look here. Mark Xavier left the torn half of a jack of diamonds as a clue to his murderer when he himself was attacked and forcibly poisoned. And now we find that a jack of diamonds has been missing since the murder of John Xavier — missing from the deck he was handling at the time he was shot. What’s that tend to show?”
“Precisely the right tack,” said Ellery approvingly. “I should say the inevitable question arises: Is it possible that the jack of diamonds in Dr. Xavier’s deck was also a clue to Dr. Xavier’s murderer?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” retorted the Inspector. “Possible? Why, it’s the only logical answer to the whole business!”
“It would seem so; although,” sighed Ellery, “I’m wary of everything in this grotesque mélange of wickedness. I confess that it accounts perfectly for the murderer’s attempt to steal the deck from the cabinet and keep us from discovering that the knave is missing. If Murderer equals Diamond-Jack in our equation, there’s no question about it.”
“And maybe I’ve got an idea about that,” growled the old gentleman. “It’s just struck me. But let’s mull this jack business through thoroughly first. The whole thing’s shaping up beautifully. Mark Xavier left a jack of diamonds as a clue to his murderer. A jack of diamonds figures — somehow — in the previous murder of his brother because the deck coming from that previous murder has its jack of diamonds missing. Is it possible — I’ll be as Sister-Maryish as you — that the clue of a jack of diamonds was suggested to Mark as he lay dying by something he’d seen when he found his brother’s body?”
“I see,” said Ellery slowly. “You mean that when he popped into the study that night and found Dr. Xavier shot to death, he found a jack of diamonds in the doctor’s hand?”
“Right.”
“Hmm. It does check, circumstantially. At the same time, the fact that he himself left a jack of diamonds in his own encounter with the murderer might merely mean that he saw the murderer’s face and thought of the same card significance as a clue to identity as his brother had.” He shook his head. “No, that’s impossibly coincidental, especially with such an obscurity... You’re right. He left the jack of diamonds because his brother had. It was the same murderer in both cases, of course, and with his knowledge of what his brother had done he merely duplicated the clue. Yes, I think we may say that when he found John Xavier dead he also found a jack of diamonds in John Xavier’s hand. Then he switched the clue, took away the jack — substituted the six of spades from the solitaire game on the desk as a deliberate frame-up of Mrs. Xavier.”
“Now that you’re through making a speech,” grinned the Inspector, in sudden high spirits, “I’ll go on. Why’d he take the jack out of his brother’s hand and put the spade-six there? Well, we know his motive for wanting to get his sister-in-law out of the way—”
“Hold on,” murmured Ellery. “Not so fast. We’ve forgotten something. Two things. One is a confirmation — explaining why he selected a six of spades at all in the frame-up; obviously, if John’s hand already held a card, a card-clue was immediately suggested to his mind. The other is this: in switching the clue from the diamond-knave to the spade-six, why didn’t Xavier simply put the jack back where it had come from — the deck on the desk?”