The French Powder Mystery

“Precisely.” Ellery’s voice sharpened with a certain zest. “If he were free to walk out at nine and stay out, he would have no reason for delaying the discovery of the body.”

“But, Ellery,” objected the Inspector, “he did delay the discovery of the body! Unless—” A light dawned on his face.

“That’s it exactly,” Ellery said soberly. “If our murderer was in some way connected with the store, his absence would be noted or at least would be in danger of notice after a murder was discovered. By secreting the body in a place where he knew it would not be found until noon, he had all morning to watch for an opportunity to slip away and do what he had to do...

“Of course, there’s something else. It’s an open question whether the murderer planned in advance to secrete the body in the window after killing Mrs. French in the apartment. I rather think the switch of locale was not planned on much before the crime. For this reason. Ordinarily the apartment is not entered until about ten o’clock in the morning. Weaver has his own office, and French doesn’t get down until that hour. So that the murderer must have figured, in his original plan, on committing the crime in the apartment and leaving the body there. He would have ample time to get out of the building after nine and return before ten, let us say. So long as the body was found after he attended to his nefarious morning business, he was safe.

“But when he entered that apartment, or perhaps after he committed the crime, he saw something which made it absolutely essential for him to remove the body to the window.” Ellery paused. “On the desk was a blue official memorandum. It was there all afternoon on Monday, and Weaver swears he left it there on the desk when he quit Monday evening. And it was in exactly the same position on Tuesday morning. So it was there for the murderer to see. And it said that Weaver would be there at nine o’clock! It was an innocent little memo calling a board meeting, but it must have put the murderer into something of a panic. If somebody was coming to the apartment at nine, he wouldn’t have a chance to do what evidently was of desperate necessity, although we still don’t know what it is. Therefore the removal of the body to the window and the rest of it. Follow?”

“Seems holeproof,” grunted the Inspector, but there was a light of absorbing interest in his eye.

“There’s one vital thing to be done almost immediately,” added Ellery thoughtfully. “Unquestionably whoever committed the crime did not hide in the store yesterday afternoon and wait for closing hour. I’ll tell you why. The complete time-sheet is a check-up on everybody connected with this investigation. The time-sheet gives the checking-out time of everybody. All the people we’re interested in are reported as having left the building at five-thirty or before, with the exception of Weaver and this man Springer, the head of the book department. And since they were definitely seen leaving, they couldn’t obviously have stayed for the crime. You remember the names? Although people like Zorn, Marchbanks, Lavery and the rest do not check out, their name and time are noted when they leave the building, as was the case yesterday. Since everybody did leave, then the murderer must have got into the building by the only way left — the freight-door on 39th Street. It would be the more logical thing for the murderer to do anyway, because he could establish an alibi for the evening, and still have time to get into the store through that freight-entrance between eleven and eleven-thirty.”

“Well have to double-check everybody’s movements last night,” said the Inspector dolefully. “More work.”

“And probably unproductive. But I agree that it’s necessary. We should do that as soon as possible.”

“Now.” Ellery’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. “There are so many ramifications to this case,” he said apologetically, interrupting his line of thought. “For example — why did Winifred come to the store at all? There’s a question for you! And was she lying when she told O’Flaherty that she was going to the apartment upstairs? Of course, the watchman did see her take the elevator, and it is a fair assumption that she went to the sixth floor rooms, especially since we have definite evidence of her presence there. Besides, where else could she go? The window? Preposterous! No, I think we may assume that she went directly to the private apartment.”

“Perhaps Marion French’s scarf was already in the window and for some obscure reason Mrs. French wished to retrieve it,” suggested the Inspector, grinning wryly.

“Yes, you don’t think,” retorted Ellery. “That business of Marion’s scarf has a perfectly simple explanation, I’m positive, whatever else may be mysterious about the girl... But here’s a point. Did Winifred French have an appointment with a particular person, in the store, in the apartment? Granted the whole affair is cloaked in mystery — a clandestine meeting in a deserted department store and all that — yet the hypothesis that the murdered woman came for a definite purpose to meet a definite person seems too inevitable to discard. In that case, then, did she know about the strange manner in which her fellow-conspirator, and as it turned out her murderer, entered the store? Or did she expect him to walk in as she did, through the regular night-entrance? Evidently not, because she made no mention of another person to O’Flaherty, which she might have done had she nothing to conceal, but gave him the distinct impression that she had dropped in for something. Then she was involved in some shady business, did know that her companion would take mysterious precautions against discovery — openly and submissively.