The French Powder Mystery
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Серия: Ellery Queen #2
- Год: 1930
- Язык: английский
- Год: Frederick A. Stokes
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The French Powder Mystery». Краткое содержание книги:
He opened it, whistling a tuneless little air and, removing the much-handled blue hat, offered it to Weaver for inspection.
“Here, Wes, let’s have your masculine opinion,” he said cheerfully. “Is this Bernice Carmody’s hat?”
Weaver regarded his friend with astonishment, taking the hat mechanically. Shrugging, he looked at the hat. “Looks familiar, Ellery, but Į can’t be positive. I rarely notice women’s clothes.”
“Hmm.” Ellery chuckled. “Put the hat back, Wes old boy.” Weaver sighed, grasped the hat gingerly by the crown and dropped it, brim down, into the box. He fumbled with the lid, affixed it, shoved the box back onto the shelf — for the third time in less than five minutes.
Ellery turned briskly to the maid. “Keaton, just how fastidious in her habits is Miss Carmody?” he asked, feeling for his pince-nez.
“I... I don’t get you, sir.”
“Does she bother you much? Does she put her own things away generally? Exactly what are your duties?”
“Oh!” The maid’s eyes sought the housekeeper once more for guidance. Then she looked down at the carpet. “Well, sir, Miss Bernice was — is always careful about her clothes and things. Most always puts her hats and coats away herself when she gets in from being out. My work’s more doing personal things — fixing her hair, laying out her dresses, and such.”
“A very careful girl,” put in Miss Underhill icily. “Rare and unusual, I’ve always called it. And Marion’s the same way.”
“Delighted to hear it,” said Ellery with perfect gravity. “Delighted is hardly the word for it... Heigh-ho, Keaton, the shoon.”
“Huh?” The girl was startled.
“Shoes... shoes, I should say.”
There were at least a dozen pairs of shoes, of assorted styles and colors, protruding from separate pockets in the rack. Without exception each of the shoes lay in its compartment with the tip inside and the heel showing, hooked over the lip of the pocket.
The maid Keaton went to work. She looked over the shoes, lifting out several to examine them closely. Suddenly she snatched at a pair of black leather pumps, lying in adjacent compartments. Each pump sported a large and heavy rhinestone buckle which glittered in a shaft of sunlight as she held them up before Ellery.
“These! These shoes!” she cried. “Miss Bernice wore them yesterday when she went out!”
Ellery took them from her shaking fingers. After a moment he turned to Weaver.
“Mud splashes,” he said laconically. “And here’s a spot of wet. Seems indubitable!” He handed them back to the maid, who tremblingly replaced them in their compartments... Ellery’s eyes narrowed at once. She had put the shoes back with the heels inside, despite the fact that all the other shoes in the rack had the heels showing.
“Miss Underhill!” Ellery withdrew the black pumps from their pockets. The housekeeper rose sulkily.
“Miss Carmody’s?” Ellery demanded, handing her the shoes.
She eyed them briefly. “Yes.”
“Having reached complete agreement,” drawled Ellery with a smiling change of tone, “please be so good as to return these shoes to the rack.”
Without a word she obeyed. And Ellery, watching closely, chuckled to observe that she had duplicated the maid’s action in putting the pumps into the rack heels first, so that the tips and buckles protruded from the pockets.
“Westley!” he said at once. Weaver approached wearily. He had been standing at a window, looking moodily down over Fifth Avenue... And when Weaver replaced the pumps in the rack, he grasped the heels and stuck the shoes in tips first.
“Why do you do that?” asked Ellery as the two women, now convinced of his madness, moved uneasily away from the closet.
“Do what?” demanded Weaver.
Ellery smiled. “Easy, Hamlet... Why do you put the shoes into the bag so that the heels hang over the pocket?”
Weaver stared at him. “Why, they’re all that way,” he said blankly. “Why should I put them in the opposite way?”
“Alors,” said Ellery, “on a raison... Miss Underhill, why did you put the shoes back into the rack with the tips showing, when all the others have the heels showing?”
“Anybody would know that,” snapped the housekeeper. “These black pumps have big buckles. Didn’t you see what happened when Mr. Weaver put them back tips first? The buckles caught on the material of the bag!”
“Wondrous woman!” muttered Ellery. “And the others haven’t any buckles, of course...” He read confirmation in the housekeeper’s eyes.
He left them standing before the closet and paced silently back and forth the length of the bedroom. His lips puckered fiercely as he mused. Suddenly he turned to Miss Underhill.
“I want you to look this closet over very carefully, Miss Underhill, and tell me, if you possibly can, whether anything is not there which you know should be there...” He stepped back and waved his hand.
She stirred into activity, rummaging efficiently through the gowns, the hat-boxes, the shoes once more. Weaver, the maid, Ellery watched her in silence.
She paused in her work, looked undecidedly at the shoe bag, then up at the shelf, hesitated, turned to Ellery.
“I can’t be sure,” she said thoughtfully, her cold eyes searching Ellery’s, “but it seems to me that, while all of Mrs. French’s things are here that should be here, two things of Bernice’s are not here that should be here!”
“No!” breathed Ellery. He did not seem unduly surprised. “A hat and pair of shoes, no doubt?”
She glanced at him quickly. “How did you know?... Yes, that’s what I thought. I remember several months ago when I was bringing down some things of Mrs. French’s, Bernice asked me to take her grey toque down, too. And I did. And then there was her pair of low-heeled grey kid shoes — two tones of grey, they were — I’m fair certain I brought those down with me once...” She turned sharply on Doris Keaton. “Are they in Miss Bernice’s wardrobes at home, Doris?”
The maid shook her head with vigor. “No, Miss Underhill. I haven’t seen them for a long time.”
“Well, there you are. Grey felt toque, close-fitting, no trimming, and a pair of grey kid walking-shoes. They’re missing.”
“And that,” said Ellery with a little bow that made Miss Underhill stare, “is precisely that. Thank you so much... Westley, will you escort Miss Underhill and the timidacious Keaton to the door? Tell the man outside to see that they’re taken down to Sergeant Velie and kept out of the way of Commissioner Welles at least until everybody troops up here... Undoubtedly, Miss Underhill, Marion French will be glad,” and he bowed again to the housekeeper, “of your maternal and warming presence. Good afternoon!”
The instant the outer door had closed upon Weaver and the two women, Ellery ran across the library to the door of the cardroom. He entered with swift steps and stared down at the card-table with its neatly heaped piles of pasteboards and its butt-strewn ashtray. He sat down carefully in one of the chairs and examined the cards. Picking up the heavy stack of closed cards before him, he spread them out without disturbing their sequence. He frowned after a while, referred to eleven piles of cards in the center of the table... Finally he rose, puzzled, defeated. He replaced all the stacks exactly as he had found them.
He was staring gloomily at the cigaret-stubs when he heard the out door click shut and Weaver reenter the library. Ellery turned at once and left the cardroom. The red-leather door swished softly to behind him.