THE LAST DAY:

Saturday, November 8, 1941

EARLY THE next morning Marshall was at the rooming house on West Adams which had been the abode of William Runcible. Runcible, it seemed obvious, was a sideline; but as a corpse inevitably an important one. They knew nothing about this accident victim, Marshall reflected, not even how he made his living. And the Lieutenant’s orderly mind rebelled against such lack of knowledge of the focal individual in a murder case.

The landlady looked paler than a woman of her build had any right to be. She held the morning paper clenched in a hand that shook slightly.

Marshall identified himself, and she gasped, “About Mr. Runcible? I saw it in here,” she added hastily, brandishing the paper.

“A terrible thing,” said Marshall gravely. “I wanted to ask a few questions about him and see his room.”

“I’ll be glad to tell you anything I can, officer.”

“All right. How long had he been here with you?”

“Almost six months.”

“And do you know where he came from?”

“He never said anything about that. He wasn’t much of a one for talking about himself.”

“Know anything of any family?”

“Not a thing, officer.”

“Where did he work?”

“At the Safeway down the street. He was a grocery clerk there.”

“A good tenant?”

“He was a nice-spoken young man and he paid his bills and he never made any trouble.”

“Thank you.” He considered her pale face and still trembling hand. “The news of his death seems to have been quite a shock to you.”

“Yes . . . Yes, I guess it was. But it was coming on top of . . . You see, we had a burglary here last night or early this morning I guess I should say. Mrs. Svoboda, she’s a waitress in an all-night drive-in and when she came home she found this strange man prowling around in the halls and she screamed and woke me and I saw him leaving but when we called the police of course it was too late and we don’t know if he took anything yet, but I was all upset and then this on top of it, why—”

“I can understand,” said Marshall soothingly. “Now if I might have that key . . . ?”

Lieutenant Marshall had never gone over so unprofitable a room, unless perhaps it was the cheap cubicle in the Elite Hotel where Jonathan Tarbell had died. You could learn from the room that its owner cared little for clothes and much for science fiction. And that was about all.

No letters save correspondence with other fans (Marshall automatically abstracted a couple of the least impersonal), no private papers, no note or address books. But infinite numbers of pulp paper science fiction magazines and those curious mimeographed fan bulletins that are known by the portmanteau name of fanzines, a complete set of Fowler Foulkes, almost as reverently bound as Hilary’s, a goodly lot of Shiel and Stapledon . . .

Nothing personal. Nothing at all. One curious item: a picture hook with no picture hanging from it and a blank space on the wall over the Foulkes collection. But this might be a relic from some earlier tenancy. Nothing . . .

Marshall was about to leave the room in disgust when his sharp eye caught a glint of white in one corner. He went over and investigated. There was a crack in the floorboards just beyond the wastepaper basket. This would be a note hurled at the basket, overshooting its target, and later trodden into the crack.

Marshall unfolded the paper and read:

He (or was it H.?) says maybe. Keep hoping keed.

J. T.

J. T. . . . No. That would be too much. Too pretty to be true. But now he suddenly remembered that Matt had mentioned meeting a Tarbell at Carter’s. Runcible frequented Carter’s . . .

Marshall felt in his coat pocket. His luck was in; he still had the morgue photograph of Jonathan Tarbell. He hurried downstairs to the landlady.

“Yes,” she admitted. “He used to come to see Mr. Runcible right often. But he hasn’t been around for a week or so. But what’s this?”

This was the still of Norval Prichard as Dr. Derringer, which had fluttered out of Marshall’s pocket as he took out the Tarbell photo.

“Why goodness me!” she gasped. “That’s our burglar!”

2.

In the quiet and sunny patio of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany, Concha Duncan struck a discordant note. She still wore the gay and flaunting scarlet gown which she had put on for the rocket party, and looked even more sorely out of place here than she had on the bus coming out.

But there was nothing gay and flaunting about her voice. “You’ve got to help us, Sister. You’ve simply got to. If anything happens to Matt . . . We haven’t been married even a year yet, but we’ve been married all my life. All my life that counts is being married to Matt, and if anything happens to him, I . . . I’ll have to die too.”

“Life is God’s gift, Mary,” Sister Ursula said gently. “We can’t toss it away at our own whims.”

“I don’t mean that. I just mean that if I haven’t got Matt, I simply can’t live any more. It’ll stop inside me. So you must save him, Sister. You’re so wise and good. You can do it.”

“Lieutenant Marshall is an admirable man. Since Matt is innocent, and I cannot entertain the slightest doubt that he is, the Lieutenant will surely establish that fact in short order.”

“But it’s not his case, don’t you see? It’s that dreadful Sergeant from Pasadena. The Lieutenant can’t do a thing; he hasn’t any official standing.”

“And you think that I, with even less standing, could succeed if he fails? The previous attempts on Mr. Foulkes’ life are still in Lieutenant Marshall’s domain. If he finds the man who is guilty of those, Sergeant Kello’s case can never be made to stand up so long as he insists that Runcible was killed in error for Mr. Foulkes.”

“Then you won’t do anything?”

“I can’t do anything. There’s no need for me.”

“All right.” Concha rose smoothing her skirt. “I know what’s the trouble. I’ve heard you talk to the Lieutenant like this. You’re worrying about spiritual pride. You’re worrying about the temptation of power over human life. You’re worrying about your soul. All right. Save your soul. And pray for my husband’s.”

She turned to go. Sister Ursula rose and stood terribly still. One hand clutched the crucifix of her rosary, and her lips moved soundlessly. “Mary . . .” she said at last.

Concha was at the arcade leading out of the patio. She turned. “Yes?” she said bitterly.

“Tell me, Mary: How certain is the Lieutenant that Runcible was killed by mistake?”

Concha’s face lit up. “Then you will help?”

“If asking questions will help for a start. Come back here and sit down with me on the bench. Now. Is he positive of that mistake?”

“You’re a . . .” A laugh and a sob were contending in Concha’s throat. “You’re . . . I can’t say it. I can’t say anything.”

“Blow your nose,” Sister Ursula suggested softly. “Here. And don’t try to say it. Just tell me about things.”

“Well,” (a gulp and a loud snuffle) “well, the Lieutenant’s awfully certain on that. You see, the two men did look a lot alike. Hilary’s maybe I’d guess ten years older than Runcible, but they’re both the fleshy type that looks pretty much the same from twenty-five to fifty. And they both had on similar gray suits that night. Of course Hilary’s must have cost about three times as much as Runcible’s, but at night . . . The Lieutenant says it was funny when he saw them together with the Green girl; it looked as though she had the same man on each side of her.”

Sister Ursula’s eyes revealed a slight gleam. “The two of them together? Runcible and Mr. Foulkes? When was this?”

“It was just before the rocket test. The Lieutenant was keeping a close eye on Hilary of course. Hilary’d raised a fuss and said he couldn’t go lugging bodyguards around to parties, so the Lieutenant pretended to agree only you see he was the bodyguard. So when Hilary went outside the Lieutenant followed him, and the cousin was with him, and they met this Runcible and talked for a while.”

“And when the murder occurred, then, the Lieutenant was watching Mr. Foulkes instead of the rocket?”

“No. He admits he slipped up there pretty badly. Because there was a lot of shifting around so as to get a better view of the pit and he lost sight of Hilary just for a minute. But it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway because it wasn’t Hilary that got killed, it was Runcible, and we’ve got to find out who did it and now you will help us, won’t you?”

Sister Ursula rose, smoothing down her robes. “Please ask Lieutenant Marshall to come to see me as soon as he can. And in the meantime . . . Where are you to meet Matt when he is released on bail?”

“At the lawyer’s office. I couldn’t stand going over to Pasadena and seeing where they . . . keep him. I want to see him free and try to think he’s always going to be that way. And besides I wanted to come out here.”

“Why don’t you phone your lawyer’s office and leave word for Matt to come here to meet you? If you wait downtown, you’ll simply worry more; and I’m sure he won’t want you to be all frowning and tear-stained when you meet him. Stay here in the good sun, or make a visit to the chapel. Ask our Lord and His blessed Mother to help you. For if I do succeed in freeing your husband, Mary, it will only be through Her intercession and His grace.”

Concha nodded. “I will. It helps, prayer does. Even when it doesn’t help from outside, it helps inside you.”

“And you’ve helped me, Mary. You’ve shown me that my fear of pride was in itself a very special kind of pride. The soul saved at the expense of a brother’s life can hardly be a cause for great rejoicing in heaven.”

“But look. You said ‘stay here.’ Where are you going?”

Sister Ursula smiled. “The thought just crossed my mind that there was so much attendant confusion, that day when Mr. Foulkes was attacked in my presence, that I never had the opportunity of speaking with him about my real errand, clearing the copyright permission for Sister Patientia’s braille work. I think, if Reverend Mother will allow me, that I shall go see him about that now.”

3.

Lieutenant Marshall read over again the note that he had taken from Runcible’s room. He still didn’t understand it. It involved chiefly the law of entropy, the paradoxes of Space-Time, and the theory of wave-mechanics, all couched in a jargon of technical erudition that made Austin Carter’s conversation seem infantile. But the last paragraph was more personal, and seemed to imply that this Arthur Waring had known Runcible better than most of his correspondents.

An infant with pink and downy cheeks answered Marshall’s ring. “I’d like to speak to Arthur Waring,” the Lieutenant announced!

“That’s me,” the lad replied in a clear soprano.

“You—” Marshall checked himself; to ask if it mightn’t be his father could simply antagonize the boy. He could remember his own youth, and how a boy’s desire to seem older than his age is as strong as a woman’s yearning to seem younger. But still, the precocity of that letter . . . “You’re the Arthur Waring who was a friend of William Runcible’s?”

The boy’s face lit up. “Oh jeepers! Are you the police? I read about it in the paper.”

Marshall nodded. “If I could talk to you a few minutes . . . ?”

The boy led the way to a small room. Marshall gasped as he entered. The entire wall was pictures. The same sort of pictures that he had seen in the Nitrosyncretic Lab, originals of illustrations for s-f magazines, but hundreds, seemingly thousands of them.

Waring heard the gasp. “Aren’t they swell? That’s a Rogers cover over there, and I’ve got a half dozen Boks and three Finlays. And look over here; that’s an original Cartier, and did that take some getting! When I’m illustrating for the mags I’m going to do like Rogers and just rent my originals and then I can be nice to the fans.”

“You’re an artist yourself?”

“Sort of. Only when you live on the West Coast you can’t get a chance to do any commercial illustrating, but when I finish college I’m going back to New York and— Only you wanted to ask me questions, didn’t you?”

Marshall, always willing (if sometimes reluctantly so) to spend long minutes buttering up a witness as a good investment, was pleased by this directness. “Yes. It seems hard to get any information at all about Runcible. If you were a friend of his, maybe you can help us.”

“Well, I don’t know if I was so awfully much of a friend of his. Of course we both belonged to the Califuturions (that’s a fan club), and sometimes we’d swap mags or mostly he’d borrow mine because I had more. I’ve got some nice stuff here, officer.”

Marshall looked about the room. No books here. Just an infinite number of pulp magazines, all carefully arranged by title and date; apparently almost complete files of a half dozen different publications, and assorted samples of others.

“I’ve got them all indexed too,” Waring went on. “I made a complete index of all the best magazines from their start and I mimeographed it. Would you like to have a copy? Only you wanted me to tell you about Runcible. But what about him?”

“Well for instance: Did he have any family? We ought to notify them if he had, but I couldn’t find any hint in his room.”

“I don’t think he had. He was a lot older’n most of us. He must’ve been . . . oh, almost thirty. I guess his folks were dead; he never talked about ’em. He never really talked about much of anything excepting science fiction. He was nuts about Fowler Foulkes. He had a big framed autographed picture of him in his room. He used to talk about him like he was God or something.” There was a note of scorn in the high young voice.

“You don’t like Foulkes?”

“Naw. He’s a classic. I’m going to do an article for one of the fan-mags debunking the classics. Who cares about Foulkes or Poe or Verne? They’re old stuff, and I’m going to show them up.”

“Have you read them?” Marshall asked with quiet amusement.

“Well . . . no. Not much anyway. But all these people that rave about the classics, which maybe they were all right when they were young, but have they read what’s being published now? You bet your life they haven’t.”

The point, Marshall was obliged to admit, had turned against him neatly. “So Runcible was all for the classics?”

“Especially Foulkes. He was funny other ways too. He was I guess what you might call a purist. He thought people ought to read books too besides all the mags only how could you have time? And he kept saying what fans ought to support was pro writing instead of fandom.”

Apparently William Runcible, so silent in the presence of the Mañana Literary Society, had been voluble enough among the Califuturions. But his tastes and theories were hardly to the point. “What was he like?” Marshall wanted to know.

“That’s hard to say now. He talked a lot and he used to write pieces for the fanzines—he wrote one for mine once—”

“You’re a publisher?”

“Sure. Here.” Waring crossed to a pile of mimeographed sheets and picked up a stapled magazine with a lithographed cover. It was called Fandemonium. “Take one. Only about Runcible. Somehow nobody ever got to know him very well. He did have a friend he brought around a couple of times; he seemed pretty close. Maybe you’d better try him, only I don’t remember his name.”

Resignedly Marshall brought out the picture of Tarbell.

Waring nodded eagerly. “That’s the joe. Couldn’t he tell you anything?”

“Not a thing,” said Marshall truthfully.

“I think they were working on something together. They seemed thick as thieves. Maybe they were collaborating; Bill (that’s Runcible) always said he wanted to write some time cause it was in the family. Only when he was doing the arm trick, this man said, ‘Maybe that’ll help too,’ and how could it with writing?”

“The arm trick?”

“That was something Bill used to do at parties. It was a good trick only nobody else could ever do it. It looked awful, like something in a horror story illustrated by Cartier. He’d put his arm all around his neck and reach back to the ear on the same side as the arm if you see what I mean. And then he’d put both arms around his neck and clasp them under his chin. Wait a minute—I’ve got a picture I drew of it someplace here.”

Marshall shuddered involuntarily as he looked at the pen-and-ink sketch. Not that it was so bad as that; it was, in fact, a surprisingly good piece of work. But it depicted a horrible apparition. It looked eerily like a severed head being borne by two unattached arms—John the Baptist displayed by a bodiless Salome. It was somehow more grisly, more dead than the crushed pulp of Runcible’s factually dead head had been.

“You can have that too, if you want,” Waring added. “Bill Runcible was funny maybe, but he was kind of a good guy. If I can help any, I want to.”

“Thanks.” Marshall failed to see how the macabre head could help, but it would be an unusually picturesque illustration for a dossier. “Anything else you can think of about Runcible? For instance, did he spend more money than he’d possibly make as a grocery clerk?”

“No. The only thing he spent much on was books. And he used to say he liked his job fine only I don’t see why, but then he was expecting to be drafted pretty soon anyways.”

“You don’t—” Marshall started to say, then stopped and stared at the boy. “Mr. Waring,” he said gravely, “you have helped. Immeasurably. And I, sir, am an idiot.”

4.

“Look at you!” Veronica Foulkes’ throaty voice was scornful. “One thing at least you’ve spared me all these years. You’ve never been a drinking man. If you knew all I’ve gone through with Vance, and how terribly trying it is for a woman of my . . . And now look at you! Drinking even before lunch!”

Hilary poured himself another glass of straight scotch. “My dear!” he protested. “Surely one who talks as much as you do about her sensitivity must realize that others can be sensitive as well. Last night was a terrible shock for me. A terrible shock. That poor innocuous fan . . . And it might so easily have been me lying in the depths of that trench, crushed and mangled and pulped. So easily . . .” He gulped the glassful hastily and stared at his plump white hand. It still quivered slightly.

Veronica turned to the wall mirror and adjusted her hat. “I do hope,” she observed tartly, “that I’ll find you conscious when I get home. To think that I should learn at this late date that I married a drunkard!”

“One swallow,” said Hilary seriously, “doesn’t make a summer. Heavens! That’s a pun, isn’t it?” He seemed amazed.

“You can spare me your drunken wit.”

“I didn’t mean to. It just happened. It simply came up like . . . like . . .” A burp appositely ended his quest for a smile. “Like that. But seriously, Veronica, you can’t call this a habit. After all, it’s not every day that one has just escaped murder.”

“It almost seems to be with you.”

“Those other attempts . . . I can’t explain it, but they didn’t seem quite real. Even when I was stabbed. After all, nothing serious actually happened. It wasn’t possible to realize fully what I had escaped. Not possible. But this time, when I could see that poor devil and have before my eyes what I should have been . . . I can’t explain it, but—”

“Please! You might at least wait till I leave before you go on poisoning yourself.”

Hilary set aside his freshly poured glass. “And what is this luncheon engagement?”

“I told you last night. But then you never hear a word I say anyway.”

“I’m afraid last night I may have been a trifle preoccupied, my dear. Just a trifle.”

“It’s with that Henderson boy. You know, he’s really a darling. I think he understands me. And you could never appreciate what a relief that is after the cold blank wall of indifference that I meet in my own house.”

Hilary sighed and reached out for his glass. “Goodbye, my dear.”

“You . . . you don’t mind?” Veronica asked hopefully.

“Why should I? Why on earth should I?”

She shrugged. “Some husbands might be jealous. A little. A husband that was half a man himself . . . Hilary.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“You don’t like me at all any more, do you?” Her voice was for once simple and direct.

“No, my dear.”

“So,” said Veronica. “That’s that.” Her voice rose cheerfully. “Now I simply must fly. I’m late as it is and—”

“Veronica.”

“Yes . . . ?”

“Have you ever liked me?”

“I . . . I do have to hurry now, Hilary. I—”

“Have you?”

“I’ve tried. Honestly I’ve tried . . .”

“How typical of you, my dear.” Hilary’s voice was flat. “You always try. You tried music once, remember, and painting. Self-expression. You tried religion. You’ve tried lovers. Oh yes, I know. But whatever you try turns out to be too hard and you stop trying. You stop. You always try and you never do. You . . .” Hilary’s voice stopped. For a moment he stared in silence at his wife.

“Goodbye . . .” she said hesitantly.

“Always trying and never succeeding,” he repeated slowly. “And I am still alive . . .”

Without another word Veronica Foulkes snatched up her bag and left. Hilary laughed once, harshly. Then the room was still.

For five minutes he sat there motionless. Sometimes his eyes fixed speculatively on the study within which he had been so mysteriously wounded. Sometimes they gazed as though focused on a distant and invisible object, such as a rocket trench in Pasadena.

Finally he bestirred himself sufficiently to pour another whisky, and as he did so the doorbell rang. In a moment the maid ushered in two nuns. Hilary set the glass aside and reluctantly rose to his feet.

“Yes?” he asked, wavering almost imperceptibly.

The younger of the two (as best one can judge ages beneath the agelessness of religious habits) said, “We met briefly, Mr. Foulkes, on the day you were so mysteriously attacked. Just a murmured introduction in passing, and I can hardly blame you if later events drove it from your mind. I am Sister Mary Ursula and this is Sister Mary Felicitas, of the Order of Martha of Bethany.”

Hilary made a polite acknowledgment and indicated chairs. The small old eyes of Sister Felicitas seemed to close the instant she was seated.

“Indeed I do recall you now, Sister. Indeed. The police lieutenant mentioned you as one of the witnesses who proved the apparent impossibility of . . . of what happened in there.”

“May I congratulate you on your escape? You seem to have a singularly efficient guardian angel. And you are further fortunate in having Lieutenant Marshall on the case.”

“Indeed I am. A most able officer. Most able.”

“I did not refer simply to his ability. I can imagine how many of the police would be sarcastically scornful of such an ‘impossible’ situation; but since the Lieutenant had such an experience once before, he must be far more receptive.”

Hilary smiled. “I had hardly thought that a woman of your order would have such an acquaintance with murder, or with police ways of thinking.”

“My father was a policeman, and a good one. And I was planning to be a policewoman myself when my health broke down and I was forced to change my plans.”

Hilary was politely sympathetic, but fidgety. He expressed due pleasure at the news that Sister Ursula’s health for the past dozen years had been enviable and due appreciation of the fact that she had nonetheless never regretted the change of vocation. He accepted her further congratulations on his happy escape of the night before; but at last he said, with a trace of impatience, “But Sister, I am sure that you did not come here to discuss my fortunate avoidance of the Black Angel.”

“No indeed. When I met you before, I had come on business; and I fear I am persistent.”

“Business? Business? But go on.”

“You have possibly heard a little from your wife concerning the purposes and activities of our order—”

Hilary’s manner visibly froze. “If you are soliciting donations, Sister, I think I should explain that the state of the book market in these uncertain times is far too parlous to leave me in a position where I should feel free to contemplate. . . . Far too parlous,” he concluded, leaving the overcomplicated sentence hanging in air.

Sister Ursula smiled. “In a way, I suppose, it is a donation that I am soliciting, but it will cost you nothing, Mr. Foulkes. I merely wish to ask you to reconsider your refusal of copyright to Sister Patientia, who wished to transcribe some of your father’s work into Braille.”

Hilary looked hurt. “But my dear Sister, I did not refuse her the copyright. By all means I wish the blind to enjoy my father’s work. By all means. She may transcribe those stories whenever she wishes. I simply asked for a conventional reprint fee.”

“But this is voluntary, non-commercial work. The book will be read first by a few of the blind whom we look after. Then it will go to the State Library and from there circulate to all the blind of California. And no one will pay a cent for it.”

“Books circulate freely from public libraries, my dear Sister, but the libraries pay the publishers and thereby indirectly the authors for the books. It is a necessary tribute to the literary profession. I owe it to my father’s memory to collect what fees I can. And moreover, a man must live.”

Sister Ursula glanced about the chastely expensive room. “Do you find bread alone a satisfactory diet, Mr. Foulkes?”

“I don’t understand what you mean by that remark, Sister. I don’t understand it. But I must make clear to you” (Hilary leaned forward, tugging impressively at the lobe of his ear) “that under no circumstances, for no matter how worthy a cause, will I countenance the wanton pirating of my father’s works.”

“I don’t suppose it would affect your attitude to point out that every author or publisher that Sister Patientia has previously been in touch with has always given Braille rights free as a matter of course?”

“What an author chooses to do with his own work in a moment of caprice is no concern of mine. But this is not my own work. I hold it in sacred trust for my father, and I must be a good steward.”

“There is another parable about a steward,” Sister Ursula observed. “Perhaps its motivation is more— But please forgive me. That was an uncharitable thought. Even, perhaps, an inaccurate one. Please do not misunderstand me.”

Hilary rose. His legs were perfectly steady now. “Not at all, Sister. Not at all. And I’m sure you’ll find some generous patron who will enable you to meet my trifling fee. I would so gladly waive it myself, were it not for my duty to my father.”

The hall door had opened and closed as he spoke. Now a thin pale face thrust itself into the room. “Hiya, Hilary! Oh, sorry. Company? Has Ron corrupted you? Are you going in for Spiritual Consolation too?”

Hilary beckoned his brother-in-law into the room. Jenny Green (a very smiling, happy and devoted Jenny Green) followed him. “Sister Ursula, may I present my brother-in-law, Vance Wimpole? And my cousin, Miss Green? Or did you meet her when I . . . ?”

“I did, but am happy to meet her again. And Mr. Wimpole.”

“Glad to meet a nun, Sister. Variety. Which by the way,” Wimpole jerked a thumb at the other nun, “who’s the Seventh Sleeper?”

“My colleague, Sister Felicitas.”

“Give me her address. I’ll borrow her some time when a Good Girl wants a chaperone.”

“Vance!” Jenny Green protested.

Sister Ursula smiled. “You seem very blithe for a household over which Death has been hovering for weeks.”

“Why not?” Wimpole demanded. “They’ve got the guy that did it all, at the insignificant cost of the life of one fan. Of course no writer likes to lose even one fan, but I’m willing to get along without Runcible for Hilary’s sake.”

“Vance! That’s no way to talk.”

“You see, Sister? I’m henpecked already. I need a drink. Hilary! It can’t have been you hitting that bottle before noon? Or did the good sisters need their schnapps?”

“Don’t mind him,” Jenny reassured the nun. “He’s a boor and he loves it. But would you . . . do you . . . I mean, are you allowed . . . ?”

“I might take a small glass of port if you have it,” said Sister Ursula.

The presence of the nuns had apparently restrained Hilary from his unwonted tippling. This avowal of tolerance sent him promptly back to the bottle. Vance Wimpole stared at him amazed.

“What, my dear brother-in-law, is the use of your being snatched from the hand of the assassin if you’re going to plunge yourself into a drunkard’s grave? Filthy stuff,” he added, tucking it away.

“I think I can understand,” Sister Ursula ventured. “The terrible relief of knowing that it’s over, that you can breathe without wondering if it’s your last breath. For I suppose you are sure that this young man who was arrested is the cause of it all?”

“Not a doubt in the world,” said Wimpole broadly. “Hell—I beg your pardon, Sister—we’ve got witnesses saw him do it. He even admits it himself. Somebody pushed him, indeed! What jury’s going to believe that?”

“If that is true, I should imagine he would hate you more than ever now, Mr. Foulkes. Now that you’ve had him arrested and disgraced. If he were let out on bail, if he were free again now . . .”

Hilary’s glass dropped from a shaking hand. “Hang it, Sister! You mean that devil would try it again?”

“It seems plausible, doesn’t it? When a murderer has killed the wrong man, I should imagine that his passion to kill the right man would increase all the more. It would certainly seem strange if the death of this poor fan, may he rest in peace, should put an end to the attacks upon you.”

Hilary picked up the glass and refilled it. He muttered “Thanks,” apparently to no one in particular.

“Did you know this man who was killed, Mr. Foulkes? That would make it all the more painful for you.”

“No. Never saw him before that night. Never.”

“And did you become acquainted with him at all then? One is naturally curious as to what the poor victim was like, even though he is really unrelated to the case.”

“What bloody tastes you’ve got, Sister!” Wimpole remarked.

Hilary answered the question. “No. Didn’t see anything of him.”

Vance Wimpole’s eyes narrowed. “But you and Jenny were alone with him for a while, remember? Which by the way, that’s been puzzling me. What went on?”

“Oh that,” Hilary shrugged. “I went out for air. People can be most trying when one is something of a celebrity. Most trying. This fan followed us and pestered me with all sorts of questions about my father and his works. That was all, wasn’t it, Jenny?”

“Yes,” Jenny agreed after the slightest pause.

“I hardly had the opportunity to judge the man’s character from— Excuse me. The telephone.”

But Miss Green had already answered it. “It’s for you, Cousin Hilary.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it in the study.” He walked into the other room and shut the door behind him.

Jenny Green put a hand to her mouth. “Oh . . .” she gasped. “Not in there. Not in that room. That’s where . . .”

“Nuts,” said D. Vance Wimpole. “Duncan is in his cell. Nothing can touch Hilary further.”

“But we still don’t know how anything could ever have touched him. Maybe you could do it even from jail. We ought to seal up that room, lock it and never let anybody . . .”

Wimpole puts his arm around her. “Tush, toots. There’s no boogyman in there. Nothing can happen.”

But his eyes, like Jenny’s and Sister Ursula’s, remained fixed on the door.

It opened, and Hilary came out intact. But it was a Hilary even more nervous and shaken than before. “You know who that call was from?” he demanded. “It was from him. Duncan. He’s out on bail. He wants to come and see me. Says he wants to persuade me to drop charges, he’s innocent. Innocent, he says. But he wants to come here . . . He’ll kill me, I tell you. He’ll kill me. He can go through locked walls and stab you with your own dagger and . . .”

His trembling hands could hardly hold the bottle.

5.

Lieutenant Marshall had his troubles with the draft board. “But Lieutenant,” the bald and elderly clerk kept insisting, “we simply cannot allow you to look at an enrollee’s statement. These statements are strictly confidential. If we allowed them to be used for police purpose, we might as well install a Gestapo and be done with it.”

“Look,” Marshall pleaded. “The man’s dead. I’m trying to catch his murderer. The American Civil Liberties Union isn’t going to jump on your neck for helping me do that.”

“I’m sorry, but rules are rules. You can see for yourself, Lieutenant—”

“I can see. But I cannot see that you’re contributing much to defense or civil rights or the welfare of society or whathaveyou by holding up a man who’s trying to prevent more murders.”

The clerk relented a little. “If you told me what specific information you wanted, I might be able to help you. If it’s a matter of indentification, say . . . ?”

“That’s it chiefly. But it’s hell to ask specific questions. What I want is just a gander at the whole thing to get a picture. There’s something nebulously nibbling about in my mind that won’t take shape. But what I mostly want to know is did he have any family? If he did, they can help me.”

The clerk returned with the filled-in form and kept it carefully out of range of Marshall’s eyes. “No. No family. Father and mother dead, and no claim for dependents. What else do you need to know?”

“Could you . . .” Marshall groped “. . . could you tell me when and where he was born?”

“August 5, 1915. Here in Los Angeles.”

“Handy. That can be checked . . . And what’ll it prove when I’ve checked it? All right. One important thing—if this isn’t too much on the confidential anti-Gestapo side: What does it say under that question about Have you ever been known by any other name?” He smiled as he wondered what Austin Carter’s draft board had made of his collection of names. Probably called in the F. B. I.

The clerk frowned. “I’m not sure if that is information I could rightly give out. But as it happens, there isn’t anything. Funny . . . Looks as though he’d started to write something and changed his mind. Probably was filling in an answer on the wrong line. They will do that.”

“So?” Marshall leaned forward. “Could I see that?”

“This . . . this squiggle? Just that?”

“Just that. All by itself.”

The clerk sighed. “Very well.” He placed blotters over the sheet so that nothing was visible but the one line, then laid it in front of the Lieutenant. “It looks like a capital J.”

Marshall stared at it:

“Thanks,” he said at last. “You’ve been a help. I’ll try to return the favor some day.”

“I wish you were a traffic officer then. I’m not expecting to commit a murder.”

“Cheer up,” said Marshall. “You never can tell.”

The nebulous nibbling was stronger now. It was a crazy idea, too wild to mention yet to anyone on the force, too wild probably even for Leona’s taste. Sister Ursula was the only person he could think of who wouldn’t hoot impolitely at the notion.

He took out the delayed telegram from Chicago, which had so perplexed him when he received it an hour ago, and reread it. It began to make sense now. It fitted in with this other. And if he could only get any direct proof . . .

His first stop was the public library. He flipped through the card catalog, read the entries under Foulkes, Fowler Harvey (1871-1930), jotted down two call numbers, and went on into the history and biography department.

First he asked for a Who’s What for 1928-1929. He read the entry there and nodded. Confirmation was nowise complete, but the idea was at least not disproved. He then settled down to a hasty leafing through two large books. The crazy notion looked better than ever.

His next stop was at the Bureau of Vital Statistics. When he emerged a half hour later he was beaming as brightly as he had after the birth of his son.

6.

Lieutenant Marshall was smoking his pipe in the patio when Sister Ursula returned to the convent. He sprang to his feet at her entrance and advanced eagerly toward her. “Sister,” he cried, “I think I’m on to something! And if it works, we’ll have Matt free and exonerated before that Pasadena halfwit can say ‘Lieutenant Kello.’ ”

Sister Ursula smiled happily. “Tell me this great discovery,” she urged. “But tell me other things first. Quickly, if you can, but do not skip too much. The patience of a saint and the ingenuity of a fiend could not have coaxed a coherent story out of Mary, poor child. Please give me all the background you can so that I can justly estimate your new find.”

“Gladly. It helps get things straight in my own mind, Sister, to tell them to you. You ask the right questions, and you’ve got a sense of proportion. So here goes. Let’s see; up through the locked room you know about. After that . . .”

Rapidly but fully he sketched over the later developments of this exasperating case, up through Matt’s arrest. And as he spoke he kept marveling at the adroitly apposite quality of the nun’s questions and the deft speed with which she took in all facts.

When he had concluded, she meditated in silence for a moment and then said, “It’s all obvious enough, isn’t it? All but one thing.”

“That being the mere trifle of who’s the murderer?”

“No. That locked room. The identity of the murderer is clear enough. But proving the case against him and freeing Matt will be exceedingly difficult with that ‘impossibility’ as an obstacle to overcome.”

“And everything else is obvious? That’s nice. Then listen to what I’ve been up to today: I’m on a trail that if it’s right (and I’m praying it is) will prove that the death of William Runcible was no accident, but an essential detail of a well-conceived plot.” He paused for sensation.

“But of course. That’s been perfectly clear from the first. Tell me, though, how you intend to prove it.”

Marshall gawped. “I’d sooner have you tell me why it’s so all-fired obvious.”

“But of course it is. There’s a perfect chain of probabilities pointing directly to it. If you don’t mind, however, I’d like to hold that back. It involves a serious accusation which I don’t think it is quite time to make yet. Tell me your researches.”

Marshall relit his pipe. “All right. It goes like this: How did this whole case start? With Jonathan Tarbell and a rosary. We had nothing at all on Tarbell—no connections, no previous police record, nothing.”

“Had nothing, Lieutenant?”

“All right. I’ll confess we have a little now, and it helps. But if you can hold out, so can I; that’ll fit in better later. Let’s go back to the beginning. We know nothing about Tarbell save that he had the phone number of the Foulkes’ apartment house and a rosary which proved to be the property of the first Mrs. Foulkes Senior. Now if his death was an irrelevant subplot totally unconnected with the attacks on Hilary, then the caprices of fate are becoming uncommonly outrageous. It’s where we start from, and it has to fit in.”

“I agree, Lieutenant. I’ll go further and say that if you had not investigated the death of Tarbell there never would have been a locked room.”

“For the moment I’m not sure I follow that one. But to go on: Tarbell ties in at another point too. Matt Duncan once met him at Carter’s, probably with Runcible. A further checkup with Runcible’s landlady and a fan friend of his shows that Tarbell was his most frequent and intimate companion. This pulls Runcible right into the middle of the case, as a protagonist and no innocent bystander. If Tarbell is connected with Hilary, and Runcible is closely connected with Tarbell, then no matter what all the Foulkeses swear there is a tie-up someplace.”

“I agree.”

“All right. So next I try to find out something about Runcible: who he is, where he comes from, what he does. The last is easy: he’s a grocery clerk. The others are practically impossible. Nobody knows a thing about him except that he pays his bills regularly and is a purist in his tastes in fantasy. He lists no close relative for the draft board. But he does start to fill in the space about having gone under other names, and then changes his mind.

“Now getting confidential information out of a draft board is hell. Ask me, I’m an authority. But a draftee mightn’t realize that. If it were at the moment exceedingly important to conceal his other name (true or false), if he were engaged on some enterprise that meant keeping that name secret, he might risk charges of falsifying his statement rather than make the information available.”

“True, Lieutenant. And could you make anything out of what he started to write?”

Marshall drew out his notebook, found a blank page, and sketched the squiggle of William Runcible.

“It looks a little like a J,” Sister Ursula mused. “Or it could be . . . yes, I think it is the start of a capital F.”

“It is. I’m sure of that. And doubly sure because for once our murderer slipped. He went too far. Somebody had been in Runcible’s room before I got there. It was unbelievably cleared of all personal papers, save for an overlooked note signed J. T. I’ll come back to its contents later; at the moment it indicates just one more tie-in with Tarbell. No man could have lived in such an impersonal atmosphere. And last night the landlady saw a ‘burglar,’ who was wearing the good old familiar Dr. Derringer get-up.”

“Curious,” said Sister Ursula, “how that costume runs through this case. Is it simply macabre humor, or is there some psychological compulsion driving the murderer to use it?”

“I don’t know. With Carter it could be a gag. But he’s out now. With Veronica Foulkes it could be psychological; but could a woman get away with it? Which by the way, as Wimpole would say, that was smart work of yours at the Elite, Sister.”

“I thought that a disguise used once might prove to be a habit. And now this burglar . . . you think the murderer searched Runcible’s room?”

“He got there fustest,” said Marshall sadly. “He did his best to destroy all evidence of who Runcible was. But in a way, he helped me. As I said, he went too far. He removed a picture from the wall.

“Now I learned later from the fan Waring that there was no secret about that picture. It was an autographed photo of Fowler Foulkes, a naturally treasured possession for any fantasy fan. If the picture had been left in place, I wouldn’t have given it another look. But it was missing; and it could only be missing because the murderer thought it was, not part of a fan’s collection, but an element in the evidence which he was destroying. Therefore that evidence concerned Fowler Foulkes.”

“Excellent!” said Sister Ursula admiringly. “Lieutenant, why should you waste your time submitting such notable work to me for criticism?”

“Largely,” Marshall admitted, “because it’s coming out better now. It wasn’t nearly this clear and logical in my mind when I started. So. Now how did that evidence concern Fowler Foulkes? I had an inkling, and I looked up the Foulkes biography in Who’s What. And there it’s been, staring us in the face all along.

“Hilary has built himself up in the public eye as The Son of Fowler Foulkes. We know that he’s the son of a second marriage, but we automatically think of the first marriage as childless. I imagine it’s because Hilary creates such a touching picture of the relationship between him and his father that you can imagine Fowler Foulkes leaning out from Abraham’s bosom and proclaiming, ‘This is my only-begotten son, in whom I am well pleased.’ If you’ll pardon the sacrilege.”

“The sacrilege, I think, is Hilary’s. He turns his father into God, after which it is only natural to think of himself as the Son of God. But the flaw, you mean to imply, lies in the ‘only-begotten?’ ”

“Exactly. There was a child by the first marriage. Roger O’Donnell Foulkes, deceased. I checked it up further in Fowler Foulkes’ autobiography. Roger was born in 1894. There are plenty of close and affectionate references to him, even after the second marriage and the birth of Hilary, up until 1914. Then there’s not another word about him save for one allusion to World War I as ‘this great struggle for humanity, to which I gladly surrendered my time, my self, and even the life of my son.’ The Wimpole memoir isn’t much help. It plays up Hilary, of course, because of his marriage to the Boswell’s daughter, but it hardly mentions Roger. There is one cryptic mention of ‘that deep sorrow of Fowler’s life, which death did not heal.’ What does all this add up to?”

“A serious quarrel which estranged father and son, and drove the son off to die in battle.”

“And what would be apt to provoke such a quarrel at twenty? Can you think of anything more likely than an ill-considered marriage, with the Honorable Patricia St. John as stepmother doubtless having her say as to the girl’s unsuitability? Standard formula. Cut off with a shilling, beyond doubt, and all the rest of it. And so off to volunteer in the Allied forces, to win death or glory on the battlefield, dashing off on his metaphorical white charger without waiting to discover that his poor wife was pregnant.”

Sister Ursula nodded. “Then you think that your Runcible is the son of this ill-considered marriage of Roger Foulkes’?”

“I’m certain. I figured it this way: He may lie to the draft board about his name. But only a professionally adept deceiver makes up a false birthplace and birth date. Nine chances out of ten that much is correct. So I checked August 5, 1915, in our records here. No Runcible. But William Fowler Foulkes, eight pounds ten ounces, father Roger O’Donnell Foulkes, mother Eleanor Runcible Foulkes. It’s easy to see what must have happened. Pressure brought to bear by the family to relinquish her claims and resume her maiden name in return for a lump sum.

“Now you know Hilary’s family pride. Look how he has taken care of that distant English cousin. And a Foulkes working in a grocery store . . . This is guesswork, but I think there can’t be much doubt that Runcible was gently putting the screws on Hilary. It can’t have been a strong pressure, because he’d have no claim on the estate from a disinherited father. Just a sort of moral suasion and appeal to pride. And that’s where Tarbell comes in.”

“But how?”

Marshall took out the telegram from Chicago and handed it over. Sister Ursula read:

REGRET DELAY FILES MISLAID PRINTS MARKED TARBELL CORRESPOND HERMAN JARRETT HELD SUSPICION EXTORTION WEYRINGHAUSEN CASE RELEASED INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE JUNE 1939.

“Do you remember the Weyringhausen case?” he asked.

“One of those missing-heir affairs, wasn’t it? A meatpacking fortune and a son that was supposed to have been drowned at sea years ago and a claimant who was said to be that son. The Tichborne case repeating itself.”

“Right. And this Jarrett was a backer of the claimant’s. Which would seem to indicate that he specialized in finding heirs. They weren’t able to prove fraud on him in the other case, and I doubt if there’s fraud here. The pickings wouldn’t be rewarding enough to justify it. But Tarbell-Jarrett hasn’t been doing so well, to judge from where he was living, and he doubtless wanted to keep his hand in.

“The note signed J. T. that I found in Runcible’s room corroborates this. It read He says maybe. Keep hoping, keed. Or possibly that He might be H period. That indicates Hilary was nibbling, and indicates too that they must have been able to present something of a case.

“What sort of evidence they had, we can’t fully know. Most of it has probably been destroyed by now. But we do know that Runcible had his grandmother’s rosary, which Tarbell was using as evidence, he had his marked physical resemblance to Hilary and to old Fowler himself, and he had the arm trick.”

“What on earth is that?”

Marshall explained and showed Waring’s sketch. “Wimpole mentions it in the memoir, it was apparently the one good light parlor trick in Fowler Foulkes’ dogmatic and dominant personality. Which is what Tarbell meant by saying it might be useful.”

“These are amazing facts that you’ve uncovered, Lieutenant. But what sort of a pattern do you make out of them?”

Marshall paused before replying. “I’ve been looking at the works of that Charles Fort that Austin Carter and Matt loved to quote. It seems that a few years after the famous disappearance of Ambrose Bierce there was another disappearance—that of one Ambrose Small. Mr. Fort suggests, and I honestly think only half in jest, that somebody was collecting Ambroses. Well, in this case, somebody’s been collecting Foulkeses.”

“Then why Tarbell?”

“Because only he knew that Runcible was a Foulkes. Don’t you see: If Runcible’s death seems a mistake, then the whole plot appears aimed at Hilary. Your whole question of motivation is in another light. Anyone whom Hilary has antagonized becomes a candidate; and that’s a wide field. But if Runcible’s death is deliberate, then the murderer must be a man who profits by the three deaths of Tarbell, Runcible, and Hilary. His motive can be only one thing. And there’s only one man who has that motive.”

“And one woman,” Sister Ursula reminded him. “Perhaps even two.”

“Can you see a woman visiting the Elite Hotel as Dr. Derringer? It’s the man all right.”

“But he has a series of most impressive alibis.”

“Which topple over at the touch of a finger.”

“And the locked room?”

“There is still that. God knows there is still that. Other things clear up. The bomb, for instance. I didn’t see how anybody in this kind of circle would know about Louie Schalk; but it’s evident now that Tarbell must have known, and might easily have mentioned the picturesque profession of his neighbor to a visitor—a visitor with whom he was dealing professionally and who later killed him. But that—” Marshall broke off, and his eyes lit up.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“That means the screws weren’t on Hilary. Tarbell’s visitor, according to the clerk, was Dr. Derringer—that is, the murderer. A shady dealer like Tarbell wouldn’t object to a person of some fame and position disguising himself for visits to the Elite. And that phone number links Tarbell, not with Hilary personally, but with the Foulkes apartment. Say Tarbell was double-crossing Runcible, selling out to the two people who had the greatest interest in seeing Hilary maintained in status quo—”

“But you said that this was not blackmail proper. Just a gentle pressure appealing to Hilary’s family pride.”

“All right. Skip it. It’s a sideline. It’ll come straight, everything will come straight, when we break down that devilish locked room. And that’s what I most need your help on, Sister. You unlocked a room once. Can’t you do it again? If I can clear that up, I can make an arrest today on attempted murder, force Kello to withdraw his charges against Matt, and turn the murderer over to him on the capital charge. But how, in the name of all the words that should never shatter the peace of this patio, how was that locked room contrived?”

Sister Ursula pressed her hands together tightly over the cross of her rosary. “I hinted to you before what I thought was the nature of the solution.”

“The Invisible Man? And a lot that helped, aside from Leona’s brilliant theory that it might mean Sister Felicitas.” The nun laughed. But the laughter was nervous, strained, far from her usual free and full peal. “Sister Felicitas would be delighted by the joke, if I could make her hear it. But I can go further than a hint now. In this visit you have told me exactly how that room may be unlocked.”

“I have?”

“And remember Dr. Derringer’s dictum. Eliminate the impossible, and when nothing remains . . .”

“Sister!” Marshall’s voice was harsh. “Are we playing games? Don’t you realize that there may be a third murder while we—”

“No. There will not, there cannot be a third murder. Because, you see, you have neglected to mention yet another person who would profit by the death of a Foulkes.”

Marshall emptied his pipe and filled it slowly. His expression changed from anger to doubt to amazement. “Sister,” he said at last, “are you implying that . . . ?”

Another nun entered the patio. “Lieutenant Marshall?” she asked. “There’s a telephone call for you.”

Marshall’s face was black when he returned. “So?” he grated. “That was Ragland. He’s been phoning all over town for me. So there couldn’t be another murder?”

“Lieutenant . . .” Sister Ursula’s voice trembled a little.

“That was a bright suggestion of yours, that last. But I think this clears him. And,” he added, heedless of the peace of the patio, “it’s the same goddamned locked room.”

7.

Veronica Foulkes stared at her brother curiously. “So it happened at last.” She shut behind her the door to the study.

Vance Wimpole nodded his pale face. “It happened at last. They got Hilary.”

“And it’s the same as before?”

“The same as before. The night latch is on the hall door. Jenny here and I have been in this room ever since Hilary entered the study. No one has come or gone.”

“You’re very clever, Vance,” Veronica said levelly.

“From one of your demonstrated ability, my dear, that is an impressive compliment”

“But possibly not quite so clever this time. Before, you had impartial witnesses. The two nuns. No one could suspect them. But who will pay attention to the evidence of your fiancée. And she is the only one who can prove that you did not enter that room.”

“So that’s how it’s to be, Ron? I’m slated for the role of scapegoat this time? Come, that’s hardly fair. Or necessary. You know that you’ve nothing to fear from my administration of the estate. You’ll do better to keep me around.”

“I don’t know how you did it before. That was perfect. But this is too brazen, Vance. It’s not that I want to turn you over to them. But they’ll never believe this story.”

“Marshall will. He’s conditioned to locked rooms. That’s probably what gave you the idea, isn’t it?”

There was a tight circle drawn around these two as they stood there cold-bloodedly discussing the likelihood of their respective guilt. Vance’s gay flamboyance had disappeared, and with it Veronica’s rootless strivings for effect. They were naked now. The others with them, the brother’s Jenny Green and the sister’s newly acquired Joe Henderson, were silent and helpless and a thousand miles away.

“I wouldn’t persist in that notion, Vance. I wouldn’t mention it to Marshall. Or I might be moved to make some reference to airplane travel.”

D. Vance Wimpole shrugged and reached for the bottle. When he had finished pouring two drinks, he was smiling. “Does it matter, Ron? Isn’t it the main thing that Hilary is dead now? You are a free woman and I am the administrator of the Foulkes estate. If you care to pretend that you think me guilty of his death, well and good. It harms no one. They can never pin this crime on either of us. Come on, drink with me.”

Veronica nodded silently and accepted a glass. They drank together.

Jenny Green shuddered. “I’ve never seen them like this before . . .” she murmured. “It’s . . . they aren’t human.”

Joe Henderson blinked. “I know. It’s . . .” He groped for words and found them in the only language in which he was truly articulate. “It’s like watching something extraterrestrial, extragalactic even, across cold reaches of interstellar space . . .”

“And now,” said Vance Wimpole, “now that that’s settled, for the police.” He looked up a number and dialed. “Police headquarters? I wish to report a murder. The murder of Hilary Foulkes.”

The astonished voice of the desk sergeant crackled into the room. “What!” it exploded. “Again?”

“A total murder this time, officer. Please send your men at once.” He added the address and hung up.

“Oh . . . !” Jenny Green gasped. “How can you be like this? Hilary’s dead!”

Veronica paused in lighting a cigarette. “We know.”

“But he was . . . He was so good to us all. He was so kind to me. And he was your husband, Veronica.”

Wimpole leaned back against the table. “Don’t be childish, Jenny. Hilary was good to you, yes, out of an odd sort of family pride. You may possibly regret his death. But surely you have enough sense to see that no one else can.”

“But you might at least have the decency to—”

“To play the crocodile? There’ll be time for that later, with the police and the press. Now there are only you, so much a part of the family, and Joe, who probably sees all, possibly knows all, but certainly tells nothing prior to 2500 A.D. We cannot afford to waste these moments in tears, idle tears. We need to think, to map our campaign.”

Veronica leaned forward eagerly. “How about suicide?”

Jenny gave a little stifled gasp.

Wimpole laughed. “No, no, my dear. Ron is not proposing a romantic suicide pact to obliterate our guilt. Hardly. You mean we might suggest that Hilary . . . How should it go? Say that he killed Runcible and then committed suicide out of remorse?”

“Yes,” said Veronica tensely.

“Inadvisable of course from the point of view of insurance. And otherwise impossible. Marshall’s no fool, even if Kello is. He’s seen enough of Hilary to know that no crimes on earth, nor any other conceivable cause, could drive him to take his precious life. Physical impossibilities may be overcome, but not psychological. Hilary could never commit suicide. Besides, I have no doubt that the medical examiner will find that the angle of the blow is inconsistent. Or were you more careful this time?”

Jenny rose. “I’m going to my room. I can’t stand this. You talk about Hilary as though he were a . . . a thing . . . a . . .”

“. . . a prime bastard, which he was, and whose passing can have none but good effects.”

“It’s too cruel. I’m going.”

Joe Henderson rose indecisively as though to follow her. Then the doorbell rang.

“Alice still out shopping?” Wimpole asked. “I’ll take it. Mustn’t keep the police waiting when they’re so prompt.”

Veronica Foulkes sprang to her feet as the visitors entered. They were not the police. They were Matt and Concha Duncan. Veronica extended a graceful arm, index finger pointing straight at Matt. “You dare to come back,” she declaimed, “after the evil that you have wrought here!”

Vance Wimpole nodded approvingly. “Yes, Ron, I think that’ll do as well as any. And we’ll have Kello on our side. Duncan, my friend, you’re elected.”

8.

Sister Ursula stood staring at the spot where Hilary’s finally dead body had rested. “May God forgive me . . .” she murmured. “I never dreamed . . .”

Marshall paced about the room, glaring bitterly and abusing his pipe with hot and furious puffs. “There couldn’t possibly be another murder. So you go off and leave Hilary here with his murderer.”

“Yes,” she confessed. “I did. I left him with his murderer . . . I wish that I could be a fatalist. I wish that I could shrug it off with a casual, ‘It was written thus.’ But I know that man operates through his free will, and that whatever end he may serve, he must bear the responsibility of his acts.”

“The same damned business. Every detail repeated, down to the shirt sleeves. Pity the proud Hilary should die without his beautiful dressing gown . . . All the same but the knife.”

“The knife?” Sister Ursula sounded distracted.

“Of course. The token of esteem from the Zemindar of Kota Guti is in our hands now. This time the murderer swiped a knife from the kitchen. Good idea, too; longer blade, more efficient. Everything the same—but at least this time we don’t have to believe it. The locked room’s out, thank God. We can discount the Green girl’s testimony at once.”

The nun’s attention revived. “But no. You can’t do that, Lieutenant. Then what becomes of the previous episode here in this same locked room?”

“Does that matter? If we’ve got him for murder, we’re willing to waive a charge of attempted murder. I’ll admit I would like to have all the threads tidily bunched up, but—”

“I waited too long to speak. And was it because it was necessary, as I convinced myself, or was it my devilish pride . . . ? At least save me from another mistake, and let me save you from yours. You must believe the Green girl’s testimony, and you must let me show you how wrong you are.”

Marshall hesitated. “I’ll admit I’ve forced this case on you. I can’t pull out without hearing what you’ve got to say . . . What do you want me to do?”

Sister Ursula frowned. “Simply this. Please, without any questions, call the surgeon who examined Mr. Foulkes’ body and ask him to come out here again. Tell him . . . tell him you need fresh details that would be too hard to explain over the phone.”

“Doc won’t like that.”

“It was the same dogmatic young man with the crouch whom we met before?”

“Yes.”

“Please, Lieutenant. Bring him out here. Or do you wish to make a Kello of yourself?”

“All right.” Marshall shrugged. “I’ll take the chance.” He used the study phone. Just as he was finishing, Sergeant Ragland came in.

“Hey, Lieutenant! There’s a plain-clothes boy from Pasadena and he’s got a warrant for one of the guys we’re holding out there.”

Marshall jammed down the mouthpiece noisily. “Kello!” he snorted, and made a peculiarly vicious swearword of the name.

It was indeed Sergeant Kello, and looking particularly pleased with himself. “Hiya, Marshall. This time I’m in your bailiwick, but it happens I’ve got authority with me. Look at this: bench warrant charging Matthew Duncan with murder. No more diddling around with manslaughter. We try to keep ’em safe in Pasadena, and your L.A. lawyers get ’em out to finish the job right under your nose. Soon’s I got word of this, I talked the magistrate into changing the charge on the Runcible case. You can have him when we’re through with him—us and the guy that runs the lethal gas chamber.”

“I don’t want him,” said Marshall quietly. “He didn’t kill Foulkes. He didn’t kill Runcible either; but if you’re set on making a fool of yourself, it’s no skin off my nose.”

“Thanks, Terence.” Matt’s voice was reasonably level. “I’d hate to see you fighting over me.”

Vance Wimpole laughed. “Marshall’s just jealous of your astuteness, Sergeant Kello. Carry off your prize and good luck to you. I’ll be glad to see my brother-in-law avenged so promptly.”

Marshall turned on him. “He’ll be avenged. Don’t worry about that. But not by Kello. You’ve got a few questions to answer first.”

“I have? But Lieutenant! I admit that I have been present at a couple of the high points in this orgy of assassination, but the rest of the time I have been merely an offstage character.”

“So? You didn’t think you could keep Phyn’s mouth shut forever, did you? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to dispose of him too?”

“Vance!” Veronica cried out “I told you that nasty little man couldn’t be trusted. I warned you—”

“You idiot!” Wimpole snarled at his sister. “Can’t you see this police dolt was groping in the dark? And now you—”

“Which by the way,” said Marshall mockingly, “your sister’s exclamation was no more of a give-away than your turning on her like that. So Phyn has been blackmailing you. And I’ll lay odds on the subject matter. He saw you in Los Angeles while you were supposed to be at the ends of the earth. Very pretty, that train-stub alibi, but very futile. After the first locked room, you had more than time enough to fly to San Francisco and take that train back. And Mr. Phyn is going to stop and think when he weighs the profits of blackmail against the power of the police and a possible perjury charge.”

D. Vance Wimpole poured himself a drink. His self-possession was beginning to return. “Lieutenant, I have just realized the motive behind these attacks upon me. You are still vexed because I found your delightful wife so attractive that evening at Chantrelle’s.”

“Huh?” Kello did a slow take and finally guffawed. “So that’s it, Marshall? Out for a little private revenge? Well, pin this one on him if you can. All I want’s the Runcible murderer, and I’ve got him right here. So long, boys.”

“You won’t need those handcuffs, Sergeant,” said Matt firmly.

“So I suppose you’d warn me in advance if I did? No, brother, you’re going to wear the pretty bracelet and like it. We take good care of our murderers in Pasadena.”

The sight of the Hashing steel was too much for Concha. She had been standing beside Sister Ursula, sobbing dryly and quietly. Now she ran forward and threw her arms around her husband. “You can’t!” she cried. “You can’t take him away, Sergeant. I won’t let you take him and kill him and be a Lieutenant. I’ll—”

“Mary,” said Matt warningly.

“He’ll kill you, Matt. He’s bad. He doesn’t care about truth or anything but his old promotion. And he’ll take you and—”

“Break it up, sister,” said Sergeant Kello. “You can see him tomorrow—through the bars.”

“Wait, Sergeant,” Sister Ursula stepped forward. “Please let me speak.”

“And who the sweet h— I beg your pardon, Sister. But who might you be?”

“Who I am is not important. The Lieutenant will tell you later if you care. But I must not let you take this man back to prison. He did not kill William Runcible.”

“Yeah? And I suppose you know who did?”

“Of course. It was Hilary Foulkes.”

The reactions in the room were predominantly of scornful disbelief. Only Veronica Foulkes sounded receptive. “You mean then that Hilary killed himself after . . . ?”

There were loud protests. “But the medical evidence . . .”

“But the psychology of the man . . .”

“But the other attacks . . .”

Sister Ursula held up a hand. There was something so quietly imposing about her small erect figure in its archaic robes that even Sergeant Kello fell silent

“No,” she said. “No; Hilary Foulkes did not commit suicide. But please listen to what I know must be the truth.”

9.

“The ‘attacks’ upon Hilary Foulkes,” Sister Ursula began, “were suspicious from the first. They were too completely unsuccessful. The first two, the brick and the car, rest purely upon Mr. Foulkes’ unsupported accounts. With the third, the chocolates, he ‘happened’ to notice a needle-prick in the coating and ‘happened’ to have been reading a novel which made him wary.

“The fourth, the bomb, was carefully timed for delivery at a certain hour; and Mr. Foulkes had made an appeal to the police for protection and expected an officer to be present at that hour. To be sure, coincidence helped here. The police were slow about answering what they took to be a routine crank complaint, but Lieutenant Marshall called at the right time on a then apparently unrelated matter. Even if he had not, the bomb was contrived to tick loudly; Mr. Foulkes himself could have noticed that ticking and called the Emergency Squad if no officer had been present.

“The fifth ‘attack,’ the locked room, I shall pass by for the moment, observing only that it was obviously impossible for anyone but Mr. Foulkes to have engineered it.”

“Hold on there,” Sergeant Kello protested. “The medical evidence . . .”

“Please be patient, Sergeant. I shall set your mind at rest on that in a moment. But if all these ‘attacks’ were framed, what could be the purpose behind them? Two possible motives occurred to me: a chain of preparations to make a suicide seem like murder and defraud an insurance company, or a schizophrenic condition in which one part of the mind tries to produce physical evidence to justify the delusion of persecution which obsesses the other part.

“I did not know enough of Mr. Foulkes then to realize that neither of these hypotheses could conceivably fit him. He was sane, if a criminal can ever be called sane, and he was if anything abnormally tenacious of life. Neither mania nor suicide could possibly have motivated the feigned attacks.

“Not until it was too late did I see the third possibility: that the murderous attempts on Hilary Foulkes were preparation for the successful murder of another, apparently by mistake for Hilary Foulkes. There was only one person whose death could be contrived in that manner, and that was William Runcible.”

“But why?” Matt Duncan protested. “God knows I want to believe this, Sister. I’ve got my reasons.” He jangled his steel bracelet. “But why? Runcible was just a nebulous and negative fan. What should Hilary have against him?”

“Lieutenant Marshall, with an admirable persistence and refusal to accept the over-obvious, has established that Runcible was William Runcible Foulkes, son of Roger and grandson of Fowler Foulkes.”

Veronica gasped. Her brother said slowly, “A lot of things are beginning to come clear now.”

“But,” Marshall protested, “the heir of a disinherited son couldn’t have been any serious menace.”

“Then manifestly, Lieutenant, Roger had not been disinherited. It will not do to say casually, ‘Oh, Mr. Foulkes had no motive.’ Only Mr. Foulkes could have planned the murder; only Runcible could have been the planned victim. Therefore Mr. Foulkes had a motive. Tell me, Mrs. Foulkes, did your father-in-law leave a will?”

“No.” Veronica sounded puzzled and afraid. “No, he didn’t”

“You know how old men feel about wills and death,” Wimpole added. “And Hilary was all the family there was—we thought.”

“Then William Runcible Foulkes had a claim, not only to the money in the estate, but to a share in its administration. The blow to Hilary Foulkes was more than merely financial, though that might have wounded him deeply enough. It was a blow to his prestige, to his position as his father’s sole heir, custodian, and steward. No longer would his faintest whim be firmest law. From an autocratic despot he would become a mere shareholder in power. The threat was intolerable; it had to be removed.

“It is possible that Runcible himself did not realize the full extent of his claim on Hilary Foulkes. It is quite likely that Jonathan Tarbell had concealed Fowler Foulkes’ intestacy from him, and was promising Runcible merely some aid as a member of the family, such as Miss Green has received, while he threatened Mr. Foulkes with the loss of half the estate. This notion is rendered more plausible by the fact that Runcible was not scared off by Tarbell’s death. He did not see that the threat applied to him. If he knew anything of Tarbell’s past, or even from what he knew of where the man lived, he might assume that he had been killed for quite other reasons.

“Mr. Foulkes had strung Tarbell along with hopes, as the note found by the Lieutenant indicates, and killed him when his demands became too pressing, but the mistaken-identity murder of Runcible had to wait until Mr. Wimpole’s arrival. Mr. Foulkes knew that Runcible, as a fan, moved in the circles of what Austin Carter calls the Mañana Literary Society. Once Vance Wimpole had arrived, it would be simple to contrive some occasion of being accidentally in such a situation that the mistake might seem possible. Chantrelle’s rocket party was the ideal opportunity, and Mr. Foulkes took full improvisatory advantage of it. Almost every individual present was a likely candidate for the role of intended murderer of Hilary Foulkes; it was probably only chance, Matthew, that made him pick on you. But tell me, Miss Green, was Hilary Foulkes’ account of the meeting by the shed correct?”

Jenny Green swallowed hard. “I don’t know . . . They did talk about Cousin Hilary’s father. But Runcible didn’t sound quite like a fan. It did seem more . . . somehow more intimate. As though he were trying to show Hilary how much he knew. And once he said, ‘I’ve lost the rosary, but I still have enough.’ So you must be right about that; but I still can’t believe that Hilary . . .”

“About that rosary, Miss Green: did you know anything about it?”

“Why . . . It was odd. When Veronica was being interested in religion, she read a memoir of the first Mrs. Foulkes that praised her as a lay saint, and she told me about that queer rosary devotion and the famous specially carved one. When the Lieutenant asked us about seven-decade rosaries, I started to mention it, but Hilary signaled me to be quiet. Later I spoke to him about it, and he said that he didn’t intend to have the name of his father’s wife bandied about in a criminous conversation.”

“And that didn’t seem peculiar to you?”

“No,” said Jenny Green stoutly. “It . . . it still doesn’t. I can’t believe any of this. And anyway, Cousin Hilary couldn’t have stabbed himself. The doctor said so.”

Sergeant Ragland had answered the door. Now he said, “Here’s the doc, Lieutenant.”

The police surgeon strode in with his habitual swooping stoop. “Well?” he demanded. “What’s all the fuss, my boy?”

Sister Ursula spoke. “Is it possible, doctor, that on either this or the former occasion, Mr. Foulkes could have stabbed himself?”

“Bosh!” he snorted dogmatically. “Rank physical impossibility.”

There were puzzled murmurs, half of relief, half of fear. “If Hilary did kill him,” Veronica Foulkes began haltingly. “Mind you, I’m not admitting it, but if he did kill that fan . . .”

“Your nephew, darling,” said Vance Wimpole.

She said no more, but the unasked question was loud in the room.

“One other point,” Sister Ursula went on. “May I have that sketch of Runcible, Lieutenant? Thank you. Now doctor, would you say, from the characteristics you can see here, that this man could be a close blood-relative of Hilary Foulkes’?”

The doctor contemplated the picture and looked annoyed. “Hard to say,” he snapped. “Out of my line. Very little known anyway about exact genetic details of physiognomy. Now if this showed coloration . . . But in pen-and-ink, no. Could be, certainly. Marked resemblance.”

“Thank you.”

But he went on staring at the picture. “Ridiculous drawing,” he observed testily. “Position of those arms. Both back around the neck clasping the chin. Rank physical impossibility.” He swept out of the room in a fast crouch more than ever reminiscent of Groucho Marx.

10.

“So you see?” said Sister Ursula quietly.

Marshall swore. He looked like a man whose solid earth has turned into quicksand.

“Remember the dictum of Dr. Derringer, Lieutenant. ‘If nothing remains, some part of the “impossible” was possible.’ Such dogmatic statements of physical impossibility apply to the normal man. But Hilary’s father and his half-nephew were both double-jointed. Both were noted for this trick.” She showed Kello and the others the grotesque sketch. “Your father, Mr. Wimpole, mentions in his memoir how those who had not seen the trick damned it as an impossibility. For Fowler Foulkes or for Runcible such a self-inflicted wound was perfectly possible. So we have no right to state flatly that it was impossible for Hilary Foulkes.”

“Phooey!” Sergeant Kello snorted. “If a doctor says a wound can’t be self-inflicted—”

The quiet Joe Henderson spoke up. “It’s not just Foulkeses,” he said. “Tony Boucher can do that too. I remember once he made an offer: Anybody could bring him a mystery novel where it was proved that death couldn’t be suicide because of the direction of the wound, and if he couldn’t get a knife or a gun into that position he’d pay out ten bucks. Nobody ever collected.”

“We were all too ready,” Sister Ursula went on, “to accept a verdict of ‘impossible’ as correct, when it really meant no more than ‘unlikely.’ In ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, such a self-inflicted wound would have been impossible. Perhaps the percentage is even higher than that. But here the evidence of the locked room clearly rendered any other solution even more unlikely—in fact this time quite truly impossible. That is what I meant by directing your attention, Lieutenant, to the Invisible Man, the man who is present but unnoticed: the victim.”

“And I bit,” said Vance Wimpole. “A good Fortean like me, and swallowing Science as gospel.”

“The dressing gown,” Marshall muttered. “That’s why he was in shirt-sleeves both times. He had to take it off to get freedom of movement for his arm.”

Sergeant Kello laughed heartily. “Nuts to L. A., Marshall. We may not be smart in Pasadena, but we don’t swallow locked rooms like that. We’d’ve known right off that the only guy could’ve done it was the victim.”

“You are wise after the fact, Sergeant,” Sister Ursula smiled. “But at that, what you say might be true of the average policeman who had never met with an apparently impossible situation. Remember, however, that this crime was designed to meet the inspection of Lieutenant Marshall, who was confronted only last year with a murder committed, at first glance, in quite as impossibly locked a room. He was, as one might say, conditioned to such a situation. I can imagine that one of the Harlem detectives who investigated the Fink case might have reacted similarly here. I am certain that Superintendent Hadley or Inspector Masters would have done so.”

“I suppose that excuses me?” said Marshall sourly.

“And this brings us to the reasons for the ‘impossible’ situation, and none of them seemed to apply here. But the reason in this case, we can see now, was to gain time. You will notice that none of the ‘attacks’ was designed to implicate a specific attacker, although one did by chance lead the Lieutenant onto a false trail. Mr. Foulkes had to avoid an arrest while keeping the police interested. Any possible suspect must be still at large when the opportunity for the actual murder presented itself. So the locked room was deliberately contrived as a tough nut for the Lieutenant to try to crack, with the certainty that he would still be chipping his teeth on it when Runcible was finally murdered.

“The method had probably been evolving in his mind ever since he learned that the Lieutenant was the man who worked on the locked room Harrigan case. That morning, when he heard on the telephone that Lieutenant Marshall had located an accidentally perfect suspect and was almost ready for an arrest on suspicion, he realized that he had to act at once. He groaned and dropped the phone. Then in the time it took the Lieutenant to arrive and investigate, he had ample opportunity to stage his locked room attack, knowing that none of the household ever dared interrupt him when he was shut up in his study.”

“O.K.,” Kello grunted. “O.K. You make a good story out of it—up to today. But who the hell killed Hilary Foulkes?”

“Kello,” said Marshall, “for once I’m with you. We’re agreed, Sister, that Hilary could never have committed suicide. All right, so even granting that he made the phony attacks on himself and killed Tarbell and Runcible—who killed Hilary?”

Sister Ursula clasped tightly the crucifix of her rosary. For a moment her lips barely moved in silent prayer. “I’m afraid,” she said at last, “that I did.”

11.

Even Sergeant Kello was dumb. Concha stared from the nun to the study and back again incredulously. Lieutenant Marshall’s pipe fell from his teeth, spilling coals ‘ on the rug, and not even Veronica Foulkes noticed it.

“I knew,” Sister Ursula went on, “even before Lieutenant Marshall had established the motive, even before I had seen the sketch of William Runcible’s arm trick, that Hilary Foulkes alone was responsible for all these crimes and seeming attempts at crime. But I knew also that legal proof would be a difficult matter. This morning I visited Mr. Foulkes about another matter, and I contrived to plant in his mind the idea that it would seem markedly queer to the authorities if the attempts on his life should cease after attaining a mistaken objective.

“It was apparent by the increasing complexity and audacity of the ‘attempts’ that the man’s vanity was running away with him. No, vanity is not the right word. It was his overweening trust in fate, his confidence that nothing could fail him, since he was acting to uphold his sacred stewardship. It was, in fact, this almost religious assurance of his that gave me the first essential clew to his character and potentialities. I might almost say that I began to solve his crimes by reading a psalm in the office of Compline.

“I hoped that now, in the nervous reaction from his success, this self-assurance would carry him too far, that he would perpetrate an ‘attempt’ so patently fraudulent as to convince the police that the whole series was a hoax. But I over-reached myself. And so did Hilary Foulkes.

“He had not been drinking in my presence. I did not realize how much he had taken, nor how unaccustomed he was to liquor. His fuddled imagination failed him; he tried the locked room trick over again. But this time he was confused and shocked (successful murder had proved more of a strain than he had anticipated) and very drunk. His Persian dagger was in the hands of the police, and he was forced to use a hastily chosen kitchen knife, with a longer blade. The carefully planned wound, convincingly dangerous but actually safe, turned with the slip of a drunken hand into self-destruction.

“Suicide was impossible to Hilary Foulkes. But he killed himself, and the fault is mine.”

There was silence in the room. Jenny Green sniffled quietly. Veronica Foulkes finally glared triumphantly at her brother and said, “See?” Vance Wimpole made a resigned grimace. Concha extended a hesitant hand toward her husband.

“Well, Kello?” Marshall demanded.

Sergeant Kello fingered his warrant. “A lot of talk . . .”

“All right. You bring Duncan to trial. So. The defense proves A: Hilary Foulkes had framed a series of faked attempts on his own life. B: Hilary Foulkes had the strongest of motives for killing Runcible. C: Hilary Foulkes died by his own hand. If we need to, we’ll get Henderson’s friend Boucher on the stand to demonstrate how it was done. We pile up all those items, and where are you? Hell, you won’t even get an indictment.”

Slowly Sergeant Kello’s fingers shredded the warrant. “O.K., Lieutenant. Lieutenant . . .” He repeated, savoring the lost title wistfully.

Matt Duncan extended his hand (the steel links jerking Kello’s up with it) and gripped Marshall’s. “Thanks for the ‘we,’ Terence. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a policeman presenting the case for the defense.”

“It’s a day for novelties,” Vance Wimpole observed. “It’s the first time that an action of Hilary’s has ever saved anyone trouble.”