Mrs. Carreau sighed. The Carreau boys were staring at Ellery with naked worship in their eyes.
Ellery rose and began to stride about restlessly. “Who was the murderer — this framer-murderer?” he demanded in a strident, unnatural voice. “Was there any sign, any evidence, any clue that might point to the criminal’s identity? Well, there was; and I’ve just figured it out — when,” he added lightly, “it’s too late to do anything about it but pat myself on the back.”
“Then you know!” cried Miss Forrest
“Certainly I know, my dear girl.”
“Who?” croaked Bones. “Who was the damned—” He glared about, his bony fists quivering. His gaze lingered longest on Smith.
“The murderer, aside from the general insipidity of trying to create fantastic clues which in the normal course of events no one would have been able to interpret,” continued Ellery hastily, “made one extremely bad mistake.”
“Mistake?” The Inspector blinked.
“Ah, but what a mistake! Forced upon the murderer by outraged Nature — a most inevitable mistake, a mistake which resulted from an abnormality. In killing Mark and chloroforming the Inspector, this person” — he paused — “stole the Inspector’s ring.”
They stared at the old gentleman stupidly. Dr. Holmes said in a thick voice: “What — another?”
“It was a most inoffensive little ring,” said Ellery dreamily, “a plain gold wedding band worth not more than a few dollars. Yes, Doctor, another of those piquant thefts of valueless rings the story of which both you and Miss Forrest related rather reluctantly on the night of our arrival. Queer, isn’t it, that such a peculiar and seemingly irrelevant fact should have tripped the murderer up?”
“But how?” The Inspector coughed through a begrimed handkerchief which he was holding to his mouth and nose. The others were all wrinkling their noses and stirring with a new uneasiness; the air was foul.
“Well, why was the ring stolen?” cried Ellery. “Why was Miss Forrest’s, and Dr. Holmes’s? Any suggestions?”
No one replied.
“Come, come,” jeered Ellery, “lighten the last hour with a game of wits. I’m sure you can see some of the possible motives.”
His cutting voice brought their heads about again. “Well,” said Dr. Holmes in a mutter, “it couldn’t be that they were stolen for their value, Queen. You’ve pointed that out yourself.”
“Quite right.” And blessings on your quick head, Ellery thought, for keeping the ball rolling. “Nevertheless, thank you. Anyone else? Miss Forrest?”
“Why...” She licked her dry lips; her eyes were extraordinarily bright. “It couldn’t have been for — well, sentimental reasons, Mr. Queen. None of the rings had any but the most personal value, I’m sure. I mean — to the owner. Certainly none to the thief.”
“A neat way of putting it,” applauded Ellery. “You’re quite right, Miss Forrest Come, come, don’t relax! Make this interesting.”
“Could it be,” ventured Francis Carreau timidly, “that one of the rings in the house had a... well, a hidden cavity or something that contained a secret or a poison of some kind?”
“I was just thinking that,” said Julian, coughing.
“Ingenious.” Ellery grinned with difficulty. “Possible in the case of the thefts of the other rings, I suppose, but even that possibility is banished when you consider that the same person — obviously the same person — stole the Inspector’s ring, Francis. By no stretch of the imagination could you say that the thief was looking for a hidden cavity in the Inspector’s ring, Francis. Any more?”
“By God,” growled the Inspector suddenly. He rose and looked about him, a slender little Gandhi, with suspicious eyes.
“The old sleuth at last! I wondered when you’d get it, dad. You see, the theft of the Inspector’s ring shows clearly that all the thefts had no other purpose than... mere possession.”
Dr. Holmes started and began to say something. Then he shrank within himself, strangling the words and riveting his gaze on the stone floor.
“Smoke!” shrieked Mrs. Xavier, rising and glaring at the stairs.
They jumped at the word, ghastly under the yellow light. Smoke was eddying from the stuffing Ellery had inserted beneath the cellar door.
He snatched up one of the tin pails and scrambled up the steps. He dashed the contents of the pail on the smoldering material, and with a hiss the smoke vanished.
“Dad! Get that big tub of water up here. Here, I’ll help you.” Between them they got the butter tub upstairs. “Keep the door wet We’ll want to stave off the inevitable for as long...” His eyes were glittering as he bounded downstairs again. “Just a little more, friends, just a little more,” he said like a barker striving to keep the attention of a restless crowd. His last words were drowned in the splash of water as the Inspector feverishly wet down the door. “I said mere possession. Do you know what that means?”
“Oh, please,” panted someone. They were staring, horrified, at the door, all standing now.
“You’ll listen,” said Ellery savagely, “if I have to shake every one of you. Sit down.” Dazed, they obeyed. “That’s better. Now listen. The indiscriminate thefts of such concrete articles as valueless rings can mean only one thing — kleptomania. A kleptomania devoted exclusively to the stealing of rings, any kind of rings, but rings. I say that because nothing else has apparently been stolen.” They were listening again, forcing themselves to listen, forcing themselves to do anything but think of the inferno blazing over their heads. The thuds of falling debris came incessantly now, like the clump of clods on a lowered coffin. “In other words, find a kleptomaniac in this group and you’ll have the murderer of Dr. Xavier and Mark Xavier, and the framer of the boys.”
The Inspector hurried down, panting, for more water.
“So,” said Ellery with a ferocious scowl, “I propose as the last ace of my worthless life to do that very thing.” He raised his hand suddenly and began to tug at the very odd and beautiful ring on his little finger. They watched him, entranced.
He got it off after a struggle and placed it on one of the old boxes. The box he pushed gently into the center of the group.
Then he straightened up and took a few backward steps, and said no more.
Their eyes were fastened upon that small gleaming trinket as if it were salvation, instead of the symbol of a desperate trick. Even the coughing had ceased. The Inspector came down and added his eyes to the fixed battery. And no one spoke at all.
Poor fools, thought Ellery with an inward groan. “Don’t you realize what’s happening, what I’m doing?” And he kept his expression as savage as he could make it, glaring coldly about him. He wished with fierce yearning that at this moment, when their attention was wholly caught, when for the fluttering instant they turned their faces away from death, that death would come crashing and smoking upon them through a collapsed ceiling, so that their lives might be snuffed out with no warning and no pain. And he continued to glare.