The Siamese Twin Mystery (26 page)

“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.

E
LLERY 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 cigaret, 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?”

“Well … It’s true that he did take the damned card away—we didn’t find it, so he must have. Why?”

“The only logical reason must be that even taking it out of his brother’s dead hand and tossing it among the scattered cards on the desk, or slipping it into the deck,” replied Ellery calmly,
“would not conceal the fact that it had been used as a clue.”

“Now you’re talking in riddles again. That doesn’t make sense. How on earth could that be?”

Ellery puffed thoughtfully. “We’ve a perfect explanation. In his own case he left a jack of diamonds—
torn in half.
” The Inspector started. “But doesn’t that fit? He himself found only
half
a jack, I say, in his brother’s hand! If he’d found a torn jack, obviously he couldn’t leave it on the scene of the crime; its torn condition would immediately have called attention to it, especially since he was leaving a torn six in its place. I maintain that logically he
must
have found a torn jack in his brother’s hand as the only plausible explanation under the circumstances for his having taken it away. He took it away, I suppose, and destroyed it, feeling fairly certain that no one would think of counting the cards … as no one,” he added, frowning, “would have had not the murderer tried to steal the deck from the cabinet in this room.”

“Well, that’s all very good,” snapped the Inspector, “but let’s get on.
I’m
not questioning the ways of Providence. That was a break, my son. … The point is that—the six of spades having been a frame-up on Mark Xavier’s part on his own confession—the only important thing we have left is this: in both crimes we know that the victim left a half-jack of diamonds as a clue to the murderer. The same clue, of course, means the same murderer. There’s only one queer thing in this business. By taking away the half-jack from the scene of his brother’s murder he was covering up that murderer—shifting the blame from the real murderer to Mrs. Xavier. Then in his own murder he ups and accuses the very one he’d saved from suspicion in the first case! It looks a little screwy somewhere.”

“Not at all. Mark Xavier,” said Ellery dryly, “was scarcely the self-sacrificing or Robin Hood type of scoundrel. He framed Mrs. Xavier purely out of the trite but universal gain-motive. Obviously he couldn’t leave the jack clue around. He wanted that frame-up to take. In other words, he ‘saved’ our knave of diamonds not out of loyalty or affection, but purely for financial reasons. On his own deathbed it was a different story. … There’s something else, too. When you accused him of being his brother’s killer, he lost his nerve and was only too willing to blurt out the name of the real murderer—indicating two things: that essentially he had no overweening desire to protect that individual, especially when his own neck was in danger; and secondly that he himself had probably solved the problem of who was meant to be indicated by the jack! And there, incidentally, is the answer to your question about how Xavier knew who his brother’s murderer was. The half-jack of diamonds in his brother’s hand had told him.”

“That all washes,” muttered the Inspector. “And to keep him from spilling the bad news, the murderer bumped him off.” He rose and took a turn about the room. “Yes, it all gets down to that jack of diamonds. If we knew whom John and Mark had in mind when they left the half-jack, we’d have our man.
If
we knew. …”

“We do know.”

“Hey?”

“I’ve been working the old brain cells overtime since last night and they’ve clicked on all twelve.” Ellery sighed. “Yes, if that’s all there is to it the case is solved. Sit down, dad, and let’s go into executive conference. I warn you—it’s the craziest thing you ever heard of. More fantastic than the six of spades. And it’s a solution that still needs considerable scrubbing up. Sit down, sit down!”

The Inspector sat down with celerity.

An hour later, with the black-red night glaring outside, a demoralized company were assembled in the gameroom. The Inspector stood at the foyer door and ushered them in, one by one, in a very forbidding silence. They came in wearily and yet cautiously, eying his grim face with the most helpless kind of apprehensive resignation. Finding no consolation there, they sought Ellery’s face; but he was standing by the window looking out at the darkness beyond the terrace.

“Now that we’re all here,” began the Inspector in a tone as grim as his expression, “sit down and take a load off your feet. This is going to be our last get-together about the murders. We’ve been led one hell of a merry chase, I’ll tell you that, and we’re just about fed up on it. The case is solved.”

“Solved!” they gasped.

“Solved?” muttered Dr. Holmes. “You mean you know who—”

“Inspector,” said Mrs. Xavier in a low voice. “You haven’t found—the right one?”

Mrs. Carreau sat very still, and the twins glanced in some excitement at each other. The others drew in their breaths.

“Can’t you understand English?” snapped the Inspector. “I said solved. Go on El. This is your party.”

Their eyes shifted to Ellery’s back. He swung about slowly. “Mrs. Carreau,” he said with abruptness, “you’re French in origin, I believe?”

“I? French?” she repeated, bewildered.

“Yes.”

“Why—of course, Mr. Queen.”

“You know the French language thoroughly?”

She was trembling, but she made a weak attempt to laugh. “But—certainly. I was brought up on irregular verbs and Parisian slang.”

“Hmm.” Ellery came forward and stopped before one of the bridge tables. “Let me point out at once,” he said without inflection, “that what I am about to say constitutes probably the most fantastic reconstruction of a clue in the history of the so-called ‘clever’ crime. It is incredibly subtle. It’s so far removed from the ordinary realm of observation and simple deduction as to partake of something out of
Alice in Wonderland.
And yet—the facts are here, and we cannot ignore them. Please try to follow me closely.”

This remarkable preamble was received in the deepest silence. There was blank confusion, or so it seemed, on every face.

“You all know,” continued Ellery calmly, “that when we found Mark Xavier’s dead body we also found clutched in his hand—the correct hand, incidentally—a torn playing card. The exhibit was half a knave of diamonds; unquestionably intended to convey to our intelligences the identity of Xavier’s murderer. What you don’t know—or at least what most of you don’t know—is that when Mark Xavier entered his brother’s study the other night, discovered the body, and decided to leave a six of spades in the dead man’s fingers as a false clue to Mrs. Xavier, there was already in the dead man’s fingers an other card.”

“Another card?” gasped Miss Forrest.

“Another card. It’s unnecessary to tell you how we know this, but the fact remains that beyond a doubt Mark Xavier was compelled to wrench out of Dr. Xavier’s stiff hand … half a knave of diamonds!”