Greek Coffin Mystery (19 page)

“But, look here—” began Sampson.

Ellery grinned. “I know. You want to ask me: If Khalkis killed Grimshaw and then died himself, who buried Grimshaw in Khalkis’ coffin after the Khalkis funeral?

“Obviously, it must have been some one who discovered Grimshaw’s body and utilized Khalkis’ grave as a permanent hiding-place. Very well—why didn’t this unknown gravedigger produce the body instead of burying it secretly, why didn’t he announce his discovery? We may suppose that he suspected where the guilt lay, or perhaps had an erroneous suspicion, and took this means of disposing of the body to close the case forever—either to protect the name of a dead man or the life of a living one. Whatever the true explanation is, there is at least one person in our roster of suspects who fits the theory: the man who drew all his money from his bank and disappeared when he was specifically instructed to keep available; the man who, when the grave was unexpectedly opened and Grimshaw’s corpse found, must have seen that the jig was up, took fright, lost his nerve and fled. I refer, of course, to Khalkis’ nephew, Alan Cheney.

“And I think, gentlemen,” concluded Ellery with a smile of satisfaction that bordered on smugness, “I think that when you find Cheney you will have cleared up the case.”

Knox had the queerest look on his face. The Inspector spoke for the first time since Ellery had begun his recital. He said querulously: “But who stole the new will from Khalkis’ wall-safe? Khalkis was dead by that time—
he
couldn’t have done it. Was it Cheney?”

“Probably not. You see, Gilbert Sloane had the strongest motive for the theft of the will in the first place, since he was the only one of our suspects affected by it. This means that the
theft
of the will by Sloane has nothing to do with the crime itself—it’s merely a fortuitous detail. And naturally we have no evidence with which to pin the theft to Sloane. On the other hand, when you find Cheney you will probably discover that
he
destroyed the will. When he buried Grimshaw, he must have found the new will hidden in the coffin—where Sloane had put it—read it, saw that Grimshaw was the new beneficiary, and took it away, box and all, to destroy it. The destruction of the will would mean that Khalkis died intestate, and Cheney’s mother, Khalkis’ next of kin, would inherit most of the estate through later apportionment by the Surrogate.”

Sampson looked worried. “And how about all those visitors to Grimshaw’s hotel-room the night before the murder? Where do they fit?”

Ellery waved his hand. “Mere froth, Sampson. They aren’t important. You see—”

Some one rapped on the door and the Inspector said, with irritation, “Come!” It opened to admit the small, drab detective named Johnson. “Well, well, Johnson?”

Johnson quickly crossed the room and bent over the Inspector’s chair. “Got the Brett gal outside, Chief,” he whispered. “She insisted on coming down here.”

“To see me?”

Johnson said apologetically, “She did say she wanted to see Mr.
Ellery
Queen, Chief. …”

“Show her in.”

Johnson opened the door for her. The men rose. Joan was looking especially lovely in something gray-and-blue, but her eyes were tragic and she faltered at the door.

“You wanted to see Mr. Queen?” the Inspector asked crisply. “We’re engaged at the moment, Miss Brett.”

“It’s—I think it may be important, Inspector Queen.”

Ellery said swiftly: “You’ve heard from Cheney!” but she shook her head. Ellery frowned. “Stupid of me. Miss Brett, may I present Mr. Knox, Mr. Sampson. …” The District Attorney nodded briefly; Knox said: “Had the pleasure.” There was a little awkward silence. Ellery offered the girl a chair, and they all sat down.

“I—I scarcely know where or how to begin,” Joan said, fumbling with her gloves. “You will think I’m silly. It seems so
ridiculously
petty. And yet …”

Ellery said encouragingly, “Something you’ve discovered, Miss Brett? Or something you forget to tell us?”

“Yes. I mean—something I forgot to tell you.” She spoke in a very small voice, a ghost of her full voice. “Something—something about the tea-cups.”

“The
tea-cups!”
The words shot out of Ellery’s mouth like a missile.

“Why—yes. You see, when I was originally questioned, I really didn’t recall. … It’s only just come back to me. I’ve been—I’ve been thinking things over, you see.”

“Go on, please,” said Ellery sharply.

“It was the—the day when I moved the taboret with the tea-things from the desk to the alcove. I moved it out of the way—”

“You told us that once before, Miss Brett.”

“But I didn’t tell you everything, Mr. Queen. I remember now that there was something
different
about those tea-cups.”

Ellery sat his father’s desk like a Buddha perched on a mountain-top. Grotesquely still. … All his poise had fled. He was staring at Joan idiotically.

She went on with a little rush. “You see, when
you
found the tea-cups in the study there were
three
dirty cups—” Ellery’s lips moved soundlessly. “And now I recall that when I moved the taboret out of the way, the afternoon of the funeral, there was only
one
dirty cup. …”

Ellery rose abruptly. All the humor had fled his face, and its lines were harsh, almost unpleasant. “Be very careful, Miss Brett.” His voice cracked. “This is extremely important. You say now that last Tuesday, when you shifted the taboret from the desk to the alcove, there were
two clean cups
on the tray—that only one showed signs of having been used?”

“Exactly. I’m frightfully sure. In fact, I remember now that one cup was nearly full of stale cold tea; there was a piece of dried lemon in the saucer, and a dirty spoon. Everything else on the tray was perfectly clean—unused.”

“How many pieces of lemon were there in the lemon-plate?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Queen, I can’t recall that. We Britishers don’t use lemon, you know. That’s a filthy Russian habit. And teaballs!” She shuddered. “But I’m positive about the cups.”

Ellery asked doggedly: “This was
after
Khalkis’ death?”

“Yes, indeed,” sighed Joan. “Not only after his death, but after his funeral. Tuesday, as I said.”

Ellery’s teeth dug into his lower lip; his eyes were like stone. “Thank you a thousand times, Miss Brett.” His voice was low. “You have saved us from a most embarrassing situation. … Please go now.”

She smiled timidly, looked about as if for warm commendation, a word of praise. Nobody paid the slightest attention to her; they were all looking quizzically at Ellery. She rose without another word and left the room; Johnson followed her and closed the door softly behind him.

Sampson was the first to speak. “Well, my boy, that
was
a fiasco.” He said kindly, “Come now, Ellery, don’t take it so hard. We all make mistakes. And yours was a brilliant one.”

Ellery waved one limp hand; his head was on his chest and his voice was muffled. “Mistake, Sampson? This is utterly inexcusable. I should be whipped and sent home with my tail between my legs. …”

James Knox rose suddenly. He examined Ellery shrewdly, with a glint of humor. “Mr. Queen. Your solution depended upon two major elements—”

“I know, sir, I know,” groaned Ellery. “Please don’t rub it in.”

“You’ll learn, young man,” said the great one, “that there can be no success without failure. … Two elements. One was the tea-cups. Ingenious, very ingenious explanation, Mr. Queen, but Miss Brett has exploded it. You now have no reason to claim that only two people were present. You said from the tea-cups that only two were involved from first to last, Khalkis and Grimshaw; that a deliberate attempt had been made to make it appear that three were involved; that there never was a third man, but that Khalkis himself was the second.”

“That’s right,” said Ellery sadly, “but now—”

“That’s wrong,” said Knox in his soft voice, “because there
was
a third man. And I can prove it by direction, not inference.”

“What’s that?” Ellery’s head snapped up as if it were set on springs. “What’s that, sir? There was? You can prove it? How do you know?”

Knox chuckled. “I know,” he said, “because I was the third man!”

Y
EARS LATER ELLERY QUEEN
was to go back in memory to this moment with the sad remark: “I date my maturity from Knox’s revelation. It changed my entire conception of myself and my faculties.”

The whole delicate structure of his reasoning, so glibly outlined, toppled and shivered into fragments at his feet. This in itself would not have been so disastrous to his ego had it not been coupled with a strong element of personal mortification. He had been “smart” about it. He had been so clever and subtle. … The very phenomenon—of Knox’s august presence—that originally inspired him to make a show of himself now faced about to leer at him and burn his cheeks with shame.

His mind was working furiously, trying to put down the rebellion of the facts, trying to forget what a sophomoric young fool he had been. Little waves of panic slapped against his brain, filming the clarity of his thoughts. But one thing he knew—he must work on Knox. Knox’s extraordinary statement. Knox the third man. Khalkis—the case against Khalkis based on the tea-cups, the third man—in ruins. … The blindness! Was that too composed of the same thin air? Must come back to that, find another explanation. …

Mercifully, they ignored him as he crouched in his chair. The Inspector, with feverish questions, held the great man’s attention. What happened that night? How had Knox come to be in Grimshaw’s company? What did it all mean? …

Knox explained, his hard grey eyes appraising the Inspector and Sampson. Three years before, it seemed, Khalkis had approached Knox, one of his best clients, with a strange proposition. Khalkis had claimed to have in his possession an almost priceless painting which he was willing to sell to Knox provided Knox promised never to exhibit it. Peculiar request! Knox had been cautious. “What was it? And why this secrecy? Khalkis had been apparently honest. The painting, he had said, had been in the possession of the Victoria Museum in London. It was valued by the Museum at a million dollars. …

“A million dollars, Mr. Knox?” asked the District Attorney. “I don’t know much about art-objects, but I’d say that was a whale of a lot of money even for a masterpiece.”

Knox smiled briefly. “Not for this masterpiece, Sampson. It was a Leonardo.”

“Leonardo Da Vinci?”

“Yes.”

“But I thought all his great paintings are—”

“This one was a discovery of the Victoria Museum’s some years ago. A detail in oils from Leonardo’s uncompleted fresco project for the Hall of the
Palazzo Vecchio
at Florence in the early part of the sixteenth century. It’s a long story I won’t go into now. A precious find the Victoria called, ‘Detail from the Battle of the Standard.’ A new Leonardo, take my word for it, is cheap at a million.”

“Go on, sir.”

“Naturally I wanted to know how Khalkis had got his hooks on it. Hadn’t heard anything about its being on the market. Khalkis was vague—led me to believe he was acting as American agent for the Museum. Museum wanted no publicity, he said—might be a storm of British protest if it was found the painting had left England. Beautiful thing, it was. He hauled it out. Couldn’t resist it. I bought at Khalkis’ price—seven hundred and fifty thousand, a bargain.”

The Inspector nodded. “I think I see what’s coming.”

“Yes. Week ago Friday a man calling himself Albert Grimshaw called on me—ordinarily wouldn’t be allowed in—but he sent in a scribbled note with the words, ‘Battle of the Standard,’ and I had to see him. Small dark man, eyes of a rat. Shrewd—hard bargainer. Told me an amazing story. Gist of it was that the Leonardo I’d purchased from Khalkis in good faith wasn’t offered for sale by the Museum at all—it was stolen goods. Stolen from the Museum five years ago. He, Grimshaw, had been the thief, and he made no bones about it.”

District Attorney Sampson was completely absorbed now; the Inspector and Pepper leaned forward. Ellery did not move; but his eyes were on Knox unblinkingly.

Knox went on, unhurried, coldly precise. Grimshaw, working under the alias of Graham as an attendant in the Victoria Museum, had contrived five years before to steal the Leonardo and make his escape with it to the United States. Daring theft, undiscovered until Grimshaw had left the country. He had come to Khalkis in New York to sell it under cover. Khalkis was honest, but he was a passionate art-lover and he could not resist the temptation to own one of the world’s great masterpieces. He wanted it for himself: Grimshaw turned it over to him for a half-million dollars. Before the money could be paid, Grimshaw was arrested in New York on an old forgery charge and sent to Sing Sing for five years. In the meantime, two years after Grimshaw was imprisoned, it seemed that Khalkis through disastrous investments had lost most of his negotiable fortune; he was desperately in need of cash and had sold the painting to Knox, as already related, for three quarters of a million dollars, Knox purchasing it on the basis of Khalkis’ fictitious story, ignorant of the fact that it had been stolen.

“When Grimshaw was released from Sing Sing a week ago Tuesday,” continued Knox, “his first thought was to collect the half-million Khalkis owed him. Thursday night, he told me, he had called on Khalkis demanding payment. Khalkis, it seemed, had continued to make bad investments; claimed to have no money. Grimshaw demanded the painting. Khalkis ultimately had to confess that he’d resold it to me. Grimshaw threatened Khalkis—said he’d kill him if payment wasn’t made. He left and the next day came to me, as I’ve said.

“Now Grimshaw’s purpose was evident. He wanted
me
to pay him the half-million Khalkis owed him. Naturally refused. Grimshaw was ugly, threatened to make public my illegal possession of the stolen Leonardo unless I paid. I became angry, thoroughly aroused.” Knox’s jaws snapped like the jaws of a trap; his eyes shot grey fire. “Angry at Khalkis for having duped me, put me into this horrible position. Telephoned Khalkis, arranged an appointment with him for me and Grimshaw. For that very night—last Friday night. Deal was shady; I demanded protection. Khalkis, broken up, promised over the ’phone that he would have everybody away, that his own secretary, Miss Brett, who knew nothing about the affair and could be depended upon to be discreet, would admit me and Grimshaw. Wasn’t taking any chances. Nasty business. That night Grimshaw and I went to Khalkis’ house. Admitted by Miss Brett. Found Khalkis alone in his study. Talked turkey.”