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:
“Was that companion Bernice or Marion? We have reason to believe, from the mere look of things, that it might have been Bernice. The banque game, Bernice’s cigarets, Bernice’s hat and shoes — very significant and alarming, those last two items. On the other hand, let us examine some sidelights on the question of Bernice.
“We are fairly agreed that the murderer of Mrs. French took away Mrs. French’s apartment key. This might point to Bernice on first thought, because we know she did not have her own key that afternoon — in fact, she couldn’t have had her own key, since we actually found it in her closet at home today. Yes, it appears that if Bernice had been in that store last night, she would have taken her mother’s key away. But was she in the store?
“The time has come, I do believe,” said Ellery quizzically, “to lay that particular ghost. Bernice was not in the French department store last night. Perhaps I had better say at this point that Bernice is not a matricide. In the first place, despite the presence of the game of banque, which is known by many people to be a passion of both women, the presence of the cigarets betrays the frame-up. Bernice, who is a drug addict, has been indicated beyond a doubt as always smoking only one-quarter of the length of her La Duchesse cigarets, and crushing out the long stub. Yet the stubs we found were without exception smoked carefully down almost to the tip. This is so unnatural as to be conclusive. One or two cigarets might conceivably be found so consumed; but to find a dozen! It’s no go, dad. Some one else prepared them with the obvious intention of throwing suspicion on the missing girl. Then there’s the matter of the ’phone call to Hortense Underhill, presumably from Bernice. Fishy, dad — exceedingly piscine! No, Bernice didn’t forget about her key so foolishly. Somebody wanted her key badly enough to risk a call and a messenger.”
“The shoes — the hat,” murmured the Inspector suddenly, looking up at Ellery in a startled way.
“Exactly,” said Ellery somberly, “very significant and alarming, as I said before. If Bernice was framed, and we find on the scene of the crime the shoes and hat she wore the day of the murder — then it simply means that Bernice has met with violence herself! She must be a victim, dad. Whether she is already dead or not I don’t know. It depends on the masked story behind the crime. But certainly this deduction links the disappearance of Bernice and the murder of her mother very closely. Now why should the girl be done away with also? Perhaps, dad, if she were left at large, she might be a dangerous source of information — dangerous as far as the criminal is concerned.”
“Ellery!” exclaimed the Inspector. He was trembling with excitement. “Mrs. French’s murder — Bernice’s kidnapping — and she was a drug fiend...”
“I’m not particularly surprised, dad,” said Ellery warmly. “You have always been quick on the scent... Yes, it looks that way to me, too. Remember that Bernice walked out of her stepfather’s house not only willingly, but eagerly. Is it too much to suppose that she was going — to replenish a waning supply of drugs?
“If that is so, and it seems a good sound possibility, then this whole case is shrouded and complicated by the manipulations — of drug distributors. I’m very much afraid we’ve fallen into just such a prosaic business as that.”
“Prosaic your left eyebrow!” cried Inspector Queen. “Ellery, it gets clearer and clearer. And with all this rumpus about the increase in drug distribution — if we should uncover the ring that’s been operating so hugely — if we should actually nab the ringleaders — Ellery, it will be a remarkable achievement! How I’d like to see Fiorelli’s face when I tell him what’s behind this!”
“Well, don’t be oversanguine, dad,” said Ellery pessimistically. “It may be a tour de force. At any rate it’s sheer conjecture at this stage of the game, and we shouldn’t be too uplifted by hope.
“We have another angle that helps us localize the geography of the crime even more precisely.”
“The book-ends?” Inspector Queen’s voice was uncertain.
“Of course. This too is based on pure reasoning, but I’ll wager any one anything that in the end we find it’s true. Conclusions that fit a series of circumstances so snugly have an overwhelmingly high percentage of probability in their favor...
“Westley Weaver avers positively that the onyx book-ends have neither been repaired nor removed from the apartment library since they were presented to French by John Gray. In examining the book-ends we find a noticeable difference in the color of the green felt, or baize, pasted on the bases, the under surfaces. Weaver offers the suggestion that something is wrong. Why? Because this is the first time he has noticed the differing shades of green. He has seen those book-ends for months. He is certain that when the book-ends were new the felts were alike in color, that they must have been alike all along.
“As a matter of fact, while there is no evidential method whereby we may tell when exactly that lighter felt appeared, there is one corroboration.” Ellery stared thoughtfully at the pavement. “The book-end with the lighter felt was newly glued. That I would take my oath on. The glue, while powerful in action and already quite hard, retained a viscidity and suspicious stickiness that told the story at once. And the powder grains stuck in the glue-line — no, the evidence is there. The book-ends were handled last night by the criminal. We might suspect Mrs. French, perhaps, if not for the fact that the fingerprint powder was used. That’s the work of your ‘supercriminal,’ dad, not of an elderly society lady.” He smiled.
“Let’s try to link book-ends and crime more closely.” He squinted ahead in a little tempest of silence. The old man trudged by his side, eyes on the changing street vista. “We enter the scene of the crime. We find many things of a peculiar nature there. The cards, the lipsticks, the cigarets, the shoes, the hat, the book-ends — all out of tune with normality. We have linked every element except the book-ends directly with the crime. Why, in the face of the possibilities — why not the book-ends too? I can furnish excellent hypotheses commensurate with known facts. The fingerprint powder grains, for one thing. Accessories of crime. And a crime was committed. We find the grains stuck in a newly glued felt, which is also suspiciously different in shade from its fellow. Certainly it is against all reason to say that the felts might have been differently colored from the beginning. Not with such an expensive and unique pair of book-ends. And the difference was never noticed before... No, the human probabilities all point to the conclusion that last night some one removed the original felt from the first book-end, pasted on a new piece of felt, sprinkled fingerprint powder to bring out any prints that might be on the book-end, removed the fingerprints, and inadvertently left some minute grains in the fresh glue-line of the piece.”