THE LATE AFTERNOON EDITIONS of the newspapers shrieked the news that Lucille Price, trained nurse and secretarial assistant to the late Dr. Francis Janney, had been apprehended for the murders of her employer and the mighty Abigail Doorn.
Nothing else.
For there was nothing else to write.
The managing editor of every sheet in New York City had asked his crime-reporters the same question: “Is this on the level, or is it another gag like that Swanson-arrest thing?”
The reply in each case but one was: “Don’t know.”
The exception was the reply of Pete Harper, who hurled himself into his editor’s office and was closeted there for half an hour, talking, talking, talking.
And when he had gone, his managing editor with trembling hands picked up from his desk a thick bundle of typewritten sheets and began to read. His eyes popped. He shouted orders into his battery of telephones.
As for Harper, his precious scoop assured by the knowledge that he, and he only, had the whole story ready to roll off the cylinder-presses the instant he received Ellery Queen’s permission—Harper jumped into a taxicab and was borne rapidly away in the direction of Police Headquarters.
His thirty-six hour quest for Ellery Queen had blossomed into golden fruit.
The District Attorney’s Office was in an uproar.
After a hurried conference with Timothy Cronin, his assistant, District Attorney Sampson slipped out of his office, eluded a yelling pack of reporters, and clawed his way down the street toward Police Headquarters.
At City Hall hell had broken loose. The Mayor, locked in his office with a squad of secretaries, was pacing the floor like a rampant tiger—dictating, commanding, answering telephone calls from City officials. Beads of sweat dripped from his crimson face.
“Long distance. Governor calling.”
“Give me that!” The Mayor ripped the instrument from his desk. “Hello! Hello, Governor.;” And presto! his voice calmed, his face assumed its well-publicized Washingtonian air, and he bounced a little on the tips of his toes in that jaunty manner known to millions of movie-going citizens. “Well, it’s all over. … True enough. The Price woman did it. … I know, Governor, I know. She hasn’t appeared in the case much. Slickest thing in my experience. … Five days—not so bad, eh?—five days to wipe up two of the most sensational murders in the City’s history! … I’ll ’phone the details later. … Thank you, Governor!”
Respectful silence as he hung up. And again the beads of sweat dripped, and again the snarled orders came as his feet stopped bouncing and his face lost its dignity. “Damn it! Where’s the Commissioner? Try his office again! What’s behind all this? My God, am I the only man in New York City who doesn’t know what it’s all about?”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor. … Sorry I couldn’t get to the ’phone sooner. Grilling our catch. Busy—very busy. Ha, ha! … No, I can’t give you any details now. Everything’s all right, though. Nothing to worry about. … Price woman hasn’t confessed yet. She just won’t talk. … No, that’s just a temporary stubbornness. She’s playing safe. Doesn’t know how much we know. … Oh, yes! Inspector Queen’s promised me that she’ll talk before the day is out. It’s in the bag. … What? … Certainly! Most interesting case. Has some very nice points of interest. … Yes. Ha, ha! Good-by.”
And the Police Commissioner of New York City replaced the receiver on its hook and subsided like a sack of meal in his chair.
“Hell,” he said weakly to an aide, “Queen might have given me some idea of what it’s all about.”
Two minutes later he was in the corridor, mopping his brow with a glare in his eyes and walking furtively toward Inspector Queen’s office.
Inspector Queen’s office was the calmest official spot in New York that day. The old man sat his chair like a bareback rider, droning quiet orders into his inter-office communicator and in odd moments dictating to a stenographer.
Ellery lounged in a chair by the window, eating an apple. He seemed at peace with the world.
Djuna squatted on the floor at Ellery’s feet, engaged in annihilating a bar of chocolate.
A steady stream of detectives passed through the office.
A plainclothesman lurched in. “Hulda Doorn wants to see you, Chief. Shall I let ’er in?”
The Inspector leaned back. “Hulda Doorn, hey? All right. Stick around, Bill. It’ll only take a minute.”
The detective reëntered almost at once with Hulda Doorn. The girl was dressed in black—an attractive supple figure pink-cheeked with excitement. Her fingers trembled as she grasped the Inspector’s coat-sleeve.
“Inspector Queen!”
Djuna dutifully rose and Ellery uncoiled his length from his chair, still munching his apple.
“Sit down, Miss Doorn,” said the Inspector kindly. “I’m glad to see you looking so well. … What can I do for you?”
Her lips quivered. “I wanted to—I mean I—” She stopped in confusion.
The Inspector smiled. “I suppose you’ve heard the news?”
“Oh, yes! I think it—it’s all so ghastly,” she said in her clear girlish voice, “and so wonderful that you’ve caught that—that awful, terrible woman.” She shuddered. “I can hardly believe it yet. Why, she used to come to our house with Dr. Janney sometimes, to help him treat mother. …”
“She’s guilty, Miss Doorn. Now what …”
“Why—I hardly know where to begin.” She fumbled with the gloves in her lap. “It’s about Philip. Philip Morehouse, my fiancé.”
“And what about Philip Morehouse, your fiancé?” asked the Inspector gently.
Her lids flew wide, and the large liquid eyes pleaded with the Inspector. “I’m worried about—well, about the way you threatened Philip the other day, Inspector Queen. You know—about those papers he destroyed. You don’t really intend, now that you’ve got the real criminal …”
“Hmm! I see.” The old man patted the girl’s hand. “If that’s what’s worrying your pretty head, my dear, forget all about it. Mr. Morehouse acted—let’s say injudiciously, and I was very angry. I’m not any more. We’ll let it go at that.”
“Oh, thank you!” Her face brightened.
The door burst open and the detective called Bill was propelled into the room by a violent shove from without. Philip Morehouse ran in, his eyes searching. On seeing Hulda Doorn, he stepped to her side, put his hand on her shoulder, and glowered fiercely at the Inspector. “What are you doing with Miss Doorn?” Morehouse growled. “Hulda—they told me you’d come here—what are they doing to you?”
“Why, Philip!” She twisted out of the chair and his arms tightened about her waist. They looked into each other’s eyes, and suddenly both smiled. The Inspector frowned, Ellery sighed and Djuna’s mouth flew open.
“Excuse me if I—” There was no immediate response. The Inspector barked, “Bill, get out of here! Can’t you see the young lady’s well taken care of?” The detective tramped out, rubbing his shoulder. “And now, Miss Doorn—Mr. Morehouse—as much as we thoroughly enjoy seeing you two young people happy, and all that, please remember that this is a police-office. …”
Fifteen minutes later the Inspector’s office presented a different picture.
Chairs had been set around the desk, and in them were seated District Attorney Sampson, the Police Commissioner and Pete Harper. Djuna perched on the edge of a chair directly behind the Police Commissioner; surreptitiously he was touching the Commissioner’s coat as if it were a talisman.
Ellery and Dr. Minchen stood by the window talking in low tones. “I suppose the Hospital’s a good deal of a bedlam, John?”
“It’s awful.” Minchen seemed dazed. “Nobody knows what to do, or what to say. The place is thoroughly disorganized. … Lucille Price, of all people! It’s—why, it’s incredible.”
“Ah, but that’s the unhabitual murderer’s greatest psychological defense,” murmured Ellery. “Rochefoucauld’s epigram: ‘Innocence finds not near so much protection as guilt—’ was based on a universal truth. … By the way, how did our metallurgical friend Kneisel take the news?”
The physician grimaced. “As you might expect. The man’s not human. Far from showing elation at the thought that now he’s got more than enough to finish his damned experiments, or feeling badly about his co-worker’s death, he simply goes about his business, locked up in that laboratory, as if neither murder nor sympathy existed. He’s as cold-blooded as a—as a snake.”
“Not in the grass, I hope?” chuckled Ellery. “Nevertheless,” he continued, half to himself, “I’m willing to wager that he’s relieved that a certain theory of his was proved erroneous. I wonder if his alloy theory isn’t just as fantastic. … Incidentally, I hadn’t realized before that the ophidians are cold-blooded. Thanks for the information!”
“I want to go on record,” said Ellery a short time later, when Minchen was seated and the Inspector had waived his right to take the floor, “with the blanket-statement that, in all the years in which I’ve taken a more or less active interest in my father’s cases, I’ve never encountered a more thoroughly planned crime than the murder of Abigail Doorn.
“It’s a little difficult to know where to begin. … I suppose the same unbelieving thought has crossed all your minds—how it was possible for Lucille Price, whose presence in the Anteroom was attested by a number of reliable witnesses—Dr. Byers, Grace Obermann the nurse, and the doubtful gentleman known as ‘Big Mike’—witnesses who at the same time vouched for the presence of Dr. Janney’s impersonator—I say, how it was possible for Lucille Price to have been two distinct personalities at apparently the identical moment.”
There was a vigorous nodding of heads.
“That she was, you now know,” continued Ellery; “how she accomplished this spiritistic feat I’ll tell you by analysis.
“Consider the amazing situation. Lucille Price was Lucille Price, the trained nurse, dutifully watching over Abby Doorn’s unconscious body in the Anteroom. Yet she was also the seemingly masculine figure of Dr. Janney’s impersonator in the same period. Unimpeachable witnesses swore that two people occupied the Anteroom (I mean omitting Mrs. Doorn)—a nurse and a doctor. The nurse was heard talking. The doctor was seen going in and coming out. How could any one dream that both nurse and doctor were one, that Lucille Price’s original story concerning herself as the nurse, and the impostor as the doctor, was anything but the absolute truth? Now that it’s all over, and we know what actually happened, we can put our finger on the significant feature which makes a seemingly impossible series of circumstances not only possible but plausible—that is, that while the nurse was heard she was not seen; and that while the impostor was seen, he was not heard.”
Ellery sipped at a glass of water. “But this is beginning the wrong way. Before telling you how Lucille Price accomplished this apparent miracle of duality, let me go back to the inception of the case and describe the deductive steps by which we finally arrived at that blissful state in which vincit omnia veritas.
“When the clothing of the impostor was found on the floor of the telephone booth the face-gag, gown and surgical cap proved unproductive of clews. They were ordinary samples of such wear, without interesting characteristics.
“But three items—the trousers and the two shoes—were rather startlingly illuminating.
“Let’s dissect—if I may use a laboratory word—the shoes. On one of them a scrap of adhesive had been wrapped about a torn shoelace. What did this mean? We went to work.
“In the first place, it was patent after a little thought that the lace must have broken during the crime-period. Why?
“This was a carefully schemed murder. We had ample evidence of that. Now, if the lace had snapped during the preparatory period—that is to say, some time before the crime-period, when the clothes were being assembled by the criminal at some place other than the Hospital—would a piece of adhesive have been used to patch up the tear? Hardly. For it would have been more in keeping with the general method of the murderer to procure a new, unbroken lace and insert it in the shoe, in order to prevent another breaking during the crime-period to come, when seconds were precious and any delay would be fatal.
“Of course, the natural question arose: Why didn’t the criminal knot the broken ends instead of using the peculiar method of pasting them together? Examination of the lace revealed the reason: If the lace had been knotted, so much of its length would have been consumed that it would have been literally impossible to tie up the ends.
“There was another indication that tended to show that the lace had broken and had been repaired some time during the crime-period: the adhesive was still slightly moist when I removed it from the lace. Obviously it had been applied not long before.
“From the very use of the adhesive, then, and its moist condition, it was virtually a certainty that the lace had broken during the crime-period. Now—when during the crime-period had it broken? Before the murder, or after? Reply: Before the murder. And why? Because if the lace had snapped as the impostor was taking the shoe off, he wouldn’t have been put to the necessity of repairing it at all! Time was precious; what harm in leaving a broken lace when the shoe had already served its purpose? That’s clear, I hope?”
Heads bobbed in unison. Ellery lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the Inspector’s desk.
“I knew, then, that the lace had torn while the criminal was dressing in his impostor’s clothing, just before the murder.
“But where did this lead?” Ellery smiled reminiscently. “Not very far at the time. So I tucked it away in a corner of my brain and tackled the most curious problem of the adhesive tape itself.
“I asked myself this question: What two complementary groups of the most general nature could be said to have committed the murder? Any number of arbitrary genera might have been set up.” Ellery chuckled. “As for instance—smokers and non-smokers, Wets and Drys, Caucasians and Negroes. Any irrelevant and ludicrous divisions like these.
“Seriously, however. Since we were considering a murder in a hospital, the answer naturally fell into the following elementary, relevant classification: that is, the murder was committed either by an unprofessionally minded person or by a professionally minded person. Surely a pertinent generalization.
“Let me define my terms. By ‘professionally minded persons’ I meant persons with trained or acquired knowledge of hospitals and medical routine—knowledge in its least detailed sense.
“Very well! I considered the possibilities in the light of the fact that adhesive tape was used to repair the shoelace. I reached a conclusion—that the impostor-murderer was a professionally minded person.
“How did I attain this mental resolution? Well, the shoelace break was an accident—an accident that, as I’ve shown, couldn’t have been foreseen. In other words, the impostor had no inkling, in the period before he donned the prepared surgical clothing prior to the murder, that one of his shoelaces was going to snap as he put on the shoes. Therefore he could not have provided against such a contingency. Therefore whatever he did to repair such a break in an emergency was unplanned and quite instinctive under the pressure of haste. But the impostor in this emergency used adhesive to mend his broken lace! I ask you: Would an unprofessionally minded person—in the sense I postulated a moment ago—carry adhesive tape about with him? No. Would an unprofessionally minded person even think of carrying such a professional article about with him? No. Not carrying it about with him, would an unprofessionally minded person think of looking for adhesive if he needed something to repair a break? No.
“So THAT,” and Ellery tapped the desk with his forefinger, “the fact that adhesive was thought of, the fact that adhesive was used in the emergency, indicated clearly some one on terms of familiarity with such an article. In other words, a professionally minded person.
“To digress for the merest moment. This classification must be held to include not only nurses, doctors and internes, but also non-medical persons so accustomed to hospital routine that for all logical purposes they fall into the professionally minded class.
“But if a piece of adhesive tape could have presented itself—thereby suggesting its use—to the impostor at the very instant he discovered his need of an article of repair, all my reasoning would be invalidated. For such accessibility would have permitted any one, professionally minded or not, to have taken advantage of the lucky availability of the tape. In other words, if the impostor saw a piece of adhesive lying before his eyes at the moment his lace snapped, his use of the tape to mend the lace would have indicated, not instinct or a professional cast of mind, but merely a taking advantage of a circumstance which forced itself on his attention.
“Fortunately for the strict progression of my argument, however,” continued Ellery as he puffed at his cigarette steadily, “I had learned from a talk and little inspection tour with Dr. Minchen even before the murder that the Dutch Memorial Hospital has most rigid rules about medical supplies—of which adhesive is necessarily an adjunct. Supplies are kept in special cabinets. They are not scattered about on tables or in easily penetrated supply rooms. They’re quite out of sight—and ken—of the uninitiate. Only a Hospital employee or some one accepted in the same sense would know where to lay hands on the adhesive on the split-minute notice necessitated by the murderer’s time-schedule. The adhesive wasn’t under the impostor’s eye; he had to know where to get it before he could use it.
“To put it more directly—not only was my conclusion about a professionally minded criminal substantiated, but I was now able to limit my first generalization even further: that is, my criminal was a professionally minded person connected with the Dutch Memorial Hospital!
“I had hurdled a high obstacle, therefore. I knew quite a bit from my deductive attack upon the facts about the impostor-murderer. Let me sum up once more, so that my reasoning may be utterly crystal in your minds: The murderer, to have thought of and used the adhesive, must have been professionally minded. The murderer, to have known where to procure the adhesive on a moment’s notice, must have been connected in some way with, not just any hospital, but the Dutch Memorial Hospital itself.”
Ellery lit another cigarette. “It narrowed the field, but not to the limit of satisfaction. For from these conclusions I could not exclude such people as Edith Dunning, Hulda Doorn, Moritz Kneisel, Sarah Fuller, Gatekeeper Isaac Cobb, Superintendent James Paradise, elevator-men, mop-women—all of whom were regularly on the Hospital premises and knew its layout and regulations, either as employees or as constant visitors with special privileges. So they had to be classed for my purpose with the Dutch Memorial’s medical personnel as professionally minded persons.
“But that wasn’t all. The shoes were bearers of still another tale. In examining them, we encountered a most unusual phenomenon—the tongues in both were found pressed against the upper insides of the toe-box, quite flatly. What could be the explanation of this?
“The shoes had been used by the impostor—the adhesive showed that. The murderer’s feet had been inside. And yet the tongues were—as they were!
“Have you ever put on your shoes when the tongue was pushed back by your toes as you slipped your feet in? It happens to every one occasionally. You knew the difference at once, didn’t you? You couldn’t help but feel that the tongues were out of position. … Well, certainly the impostor didn’t put on those shoes, no matter how much of a sweat he was in, and deliberately leave the tongues to crush his toes. Then the impostor was unaware of what happened to the tongues, or was not made uncomfortable as he put the shoes on. …
“But how in God’s name was this possible? Only by one explanation: the impostor’s feet were considerably smaller than the shoes he was putting on—the shoes we later found in the booth. But the shoes we found were ridiculously small themselves—they were size 6! Do you realize what this means? Size 6 is quite the smallest ordinary man’s size in shoes. What sort of masculine monstrosity in the adult stage could have worn those shoes? A Chinese whose honored sire had mistaken him for a girl-child and stunted his infant feet? After all, the man whose feet could have slipped into those shoes, pushing the tongues back, without feeling the difference, must have been the user of much smaller shoes! Size 4 or 5? There’s no such size in men’s shoes!
“So the analysis resolved itself into this: the only kind of feet which would have been so much smaller as to permit the tongues to be pressed back without discomfort or inconvenience would be—one, the feet of a child (palpably ridiculous from the testified height of the impostor); two, the feet of an unnaturally small man (untenable for the same reason); and three, the feet of a medium-sized woman!”
Ellery pounded the desk. “I said, gentlemen, several times during the past week’s investigation that those shoes told me an important—an all-important—story. They did. From the adhesive on the lace I conjured a professionally minded person connected with the Dutch Memorial Hospital; from the tongues I conjured a woman.
“It was the first indication that the impersonator was not only posing as another individual but also as an individual of the opposite sex. Id est, a woman made up as a man!”
Some one sighed. Sampson muttered, “Evidence …” and the Police Commissioner’s eyes gleamed with appreciation. Dr. Minchen stared at his friend as if he were viewing him for the first time. The Inspector said nothing, sunk in reflection.
Ellery shrugged his shoulders. “Before I leave the shoes to tackle another angle of the problem, it might be interesting to point out the lack of discrepancy between the heights of the two heels. Both were worn down to approximately the same degree. If they had been Dr. Janney’s shoes one heel would have been worn away considerably more than another—Janney limped heavily on one foot, as you know.
“The shoes, then, weren’t Janney’s; and while this did not prove that Janney wasn’t the murderer, since he could have left some one else’s shoes in the telephone booth for us to find, or worn the equal-heeled shoes, still not his own, these equal-heeled shoes made a good corroborative assumption that Dr. Janney was innocent; that is, that he was actually impersonated. For of course the thought crossed more than one mind that Janney might have impersonated himself—pretended that some one else was using his identity, while in reality it was he himself all the time.
“I didn’t believe this from the first. Look: If Janney himself was the person we have nominated as the ‘impostor,’ he could have done the whole bloody job in his own surgical clothes, the ones he wore that morning. That would mean that the clothing we found in the booth was a ‘plant’—not used while he committed the crime, merely left to give a false impression. But how about the adhesive and tongues in the shoes? Those shoes were certainly used, as I’ve proved. And how about the basted trousers—the second essential point about the clothes? I’ll take them up in a moment. … But as for impersonating himself—why didn’t he produce Swanson to substantiate his alibi that he was in his office during the crime-period? That would be the inevitable thing for him to do. But he stubbornly refused to produce Swanson, thereby with his full realization of the results putting his head into the noose of police suspicion. No, his actions as well as the clothes cleared him in my mind of the possibility that he impersonated himself.
“As for the basted trousers—why were they basted?
“If Janney had planted them, he wouldn’t have had to wear them—as I said, the clothes he was wearing would have served. Then the basting was another plant? For what purpose? To mislead us as to the murderer’s height—to make us think the impostor was two inches shorter than he actually was? But this is sheer nonsense, for the murderer knew he couldn’t mislead as to his height; it had to be part of his plan to be seen during the impersonation period, thereby establishing his height in the eyes of witnesses. No, the basting was for the legitimate purpose of shortening the trousers that were too long for the murderer. Beyond a doubt, these trousers were literally on the legs of the murderer during the impersonation.”
Ellery smiled. “I subdivided my possibilities, as before, into complementary classifications; this time into four all-inclusive ones. The impostor could have been: one, a man connected with the Hospital; two, a man not connected with the Hospital; three, a woman not connected with the Hospital; four, a woman connected with the Hospital.
“See how three of these were quickly weeded.
“The impostor couldn’t have been a man connected with the Hospital. Every man so connected by rigid rule had to wear, and did wear at all times on the premises, a white uniform of which white trousers were a necessary part. If a man connected with the Hospital was the impersonator, therefore, he was already wearing white trousers before the crime. Why then should he divest himself of these whites (which fit him), put on the telephone-booth whites (which didn’t fit him), and then proceed to commit the crime? It’s inane. If such a man wanted to impersonate Janney, he would commit the crime wearing his own white trousers, leaving no other trousers to be found. But trousers were found, and we’ve shown that they weren’t a plant; that is to say, that they were actually worn by the impersonator. However, if the trousers were actually worn by the impersonator it was only because he was not already wearing regulation pants.
“If he were not already wearing regulation pants, the impostor could not have been a man connected with the Hospital. Quod erat demonstrandum.
“Secundus. It could not have been a man not connected with the Hospital. For by our reasoning from the use of the adhesive we had already eliminated all people not connected with the Hospital.
“In this connection, you might say: Well, how about men like Philip Morehouse and Hendrik Doorn, and Cudahy’s thugs? They didn’t wear the hospital uniform.
“The reply to this is: While Morehouse, Doorn and the thugs would have to wear a uniform to impersonate Janney, none of them was well enough acquainted with the Hospital to know exactly where to get the tape. Doorn might have known, to stretch a point; but then his physical make-up was against the possibility—too gross and huge. The impostor seen going into the Anteroom was very near to Janney’s physique—and Janney was a small, slender man. As for Morehouse, there was nothing to indicate that he knew where supplies were kept; and this applies also to Cudahy’s little army. Cudahy himself wasn’t the remotest possibility; he was being anæsthetized while Mrs. Doorn was being strangled. And all the other men in the case with a professional background were eliminated because, as I have shown, it would not have been necessary for them to change trousers—Dunning, Janney, Dr. Minchen, the internes, Cobb, the elevator-men—the whole kit and boodle of ’em wore the regulation white uniform.
“Then it wasn’t a man, either connected or unconnected with the Hospital. Corroboration!
“Women? Let’s see. It couldn’t have been a woman not connected with the Hospital because while she would have to wear trousers for the impersonation, since she normally wears skirts, the adhesive reasoning again removes such a person, for by definition such a person is unconnected with the Hospital.
“The only other possibility, then, from this complex system of cross-checks, was that the impostor-murderer was a woman connected with the Hospital. Under this head came Hulda Doorn and Sarah Fuller, who were naturally as familiar with the Hospital as Mrs. Doorn herself; Edith Dunning, who worked there; Dr. Pennini, the woman-obstetrician; and all other females, like nurses and mopwomen, on the premises.
“Can we re-check?
“Yes! A woman connected with the Hospital of the impostor’s approximate size would have needed white trousers for the impersonation and would have been forced to leave them somewhere in order to return to her identity as a female. Being a medium-sized woman she would have had to shorten the long trousers by basting. The small physical size would also account for the tongues being caught in the shoes, since most women’s feet are much smaller and slimmer than men’s, and it was men’s shoes she had to wear. And, finally, a woman connected with the Hospital would instinctively think of adhesive and know where to get it without a moment’s delay.
“Gentlemen, it checked in every particular!”
They looked at each other, each mind probing, analyzing, weighing what it had heard.
The Police Commissioner crossed his legs suddenly. “Go on,” he said. “This is the—the …” He stopped and scratched his blue-stubbled jaw. “I’ll be damned if I can give a name to it. Go on, Mr. Queen.”
Ellery plunged ahead. “The second crime,” he said, staring thoughtfully at the smoldering tip of his cigarette, “was quite a different matter. In attempting to apply the same methods I had used in the first crime, I discovered that success had fled. Whatever I was able to conclude—and it was little enough—led to no specific end.
“In another generalization, it was evident that the two crimes might have been committed by the same criminal or by different ones.
“The first thing I became puzzled about was the unanswerability of the question: if this professionally minded woman I postulated as the murderess of Abigail Doorn had killed Janney also, why did she deliberately duplicate her weapon? That is, why did she kill both by strangling them with the same kind of wire? The murderess was not dull; it would seem to be more to her advantage to use a different weapon in the second crime so that the police would be seeking two murderers. In this way, obscuring the trail. Yet, if she killed both, she purposely made no effort to hide the linking of the crimes. Why? I could find no reason.
“On the other hand, if Janney were killed by a different murderer, the duplication of method would indicate that Janney’s murderer was cleverly attempting to make it appear as if Abby’s murderer were also Janney’s murderer. This was a very pointed possibility.
“I kept an open mind on the problem. Either speculation could be true.
“Besides the seemingly deliberate duplication of method, there were other disturbing factors about the second crime, to not one of which was there a plausible explanation.
“Until the time Dr. Minchen told me about his removal of the filing-cabinet from behind Dr. Janney’s desk—before I reached the Hospital that morning—I was absolutely at sea about the second murder.
“But my knowledge of the filing-cabinet’s very existence, and its original location in Janney’s office, altered everything. It was as significant to the explanation of Janney’s death as the shoes and trousers had been to the explanation of Mrs. Doorn’s death.
“Consider the facts. Janney’s dead face was surprisingly placid, showing a natural expression, unmarked by astonishment, fear, horror—any of the unusual signs of violent death. Yet the position of the blow which first stunned him showed that the murderer must have stood behind him in order to hit him over the cerebellar region of the head! How did the murderer get behind Janney without arousing his suspicions, or at least his apprehension? There was no window behind Janney’s desk to permit the murderer to hit Janney from the outside while leaning over the window-sill; the absence of a window behind Janney’s desk also removed the possibility of a person standing behind Janney with the excuse of looking outside. There is a window on the north wall, looking out over the inner court, but a person standing here could not possibly have delivered the blow.
“As it was, the desk and chair formed the hypotenuse of a triangle, the converging north and east walls being the other two sides. There was hardly room to squeeze behind the desk, let alone get there without the knowledge of the desk’s occupant. And Janney was sitting at his desk when he was killed—no question about that. He had been writing at his manuscript when he was stunned. The ink had trailed off in the middle of a word. Then his murderer not only got behind Janney but got behind Janney with Janney’s knowledge and consent!”
Ellery grinned. “An appalling situation. I was quite put out. There was nothing behind the desk to account for a person’s being there, and being accepted as being there. Yet that the murderer had been there without arousing the slightest responsive emotion on Janney’s part was evident.
“There were two conclusions, however: one, Janney knew the murderer well; two, Janney was aware of the murderer’s presence behind him, and accepted this circumstance without either suspicion or fear.
“Now, until I learned that a filing-cabinet had stood behind the desk, I was so stumped that it made me intellectually ill. But when John Minchen told me … For what reason would explain Janney’s acceptance of the murderer and the murderer’s position? The only object in the corner, I now knew, was the filing-cabinet. It followed incontrovertibly that the filing-cabinet accounted for the murderer’s position behind Janney. Logical?”
“Oh, quite!” burst out Dr. Minchen. Sampson glared at him and he subsided a little sheepishly.
“Thanks, John,” said Ellery dryly, “The next step was inevitable. Fortunately for me, the filing-cabinet was not an ordinary one filled with the usual Hospital data. It was a special, privately owned cabinet which housed perhaps Janney’s most precious and personal documentary possession. The records were case-histories pertinent to the book which Janney was writing with Dr. Minchen. It was only too well-known how passionately Janney guarded these case-histories from those whom he considered outsiders. They were kept under lock and key; no one was allowed to see them. No one, that is to say,” interjected Ellery in a stronger voice, and his eyes burned, “but three people.
“The first was Janney himself. Out for obvious reasons.
“The second was Dr. Minchen, Janney’s co-worker. But Minchen couldn’t have killed Janney because he was not in the Hospital at the time of the murder. He had been with me for part of that morning, and just a few moments before the murder—far too short a time to get to the Hospital and kill his collaborator—he had been with me on Broadway, near 86th Street, talking.
“But was that all?” Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to scrub its lenses. “Not by a long shot, it wasn’t. Even before the murder of Mrs. Doorn I knew that there was some one besides Janney and Minchen who could visit that cabinet with impunity. That some one was not only Dr. Janney’s secretarial assistant and clerical helper on Hospital matters and in his literary activities, she was also a rightful occupant of Janney’s office, having a desk there. Helping Janney continuously on the manuscript, she inevitably had access to that precious file behind Janney. Her, presence in that corner, where she undoubtedly came many times during the day, even while Janney was at work, was normal and taken for granted by Janney! … I am referring, of course, to my third possibility, Lucille Price.”
“Good work,” said Sampson in a surprised voice. The Inspector was regarding Ellery with affection.
“It fitted beautifully!” cried Ellery. “No other person in the Hospital, or outside the Hospital for that matter, could have got behind Dr. Janney under those peculiar circumstances without arousing some expression of suspicion, fear or anger. Janney was unusually jealous of those records, had refused on many occasions to let any one touch them. Dr. Minchen and Lucille Price were the exceptions. Minchen was eliminated. Then Lucille Price was left!”
Ellery agitated his pince-nez. “Conclusion: She was the only possible murderer of Dr. Janney.
“Lucille Price. … I chewed that name in my mind with a sudden inspiration. Why, what are Lucille Price’s characteristics? She is a woman, she is professionally connected with the Dutch Memorial Hospital!
“BUT THIS IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF PERSON WHOM I WAS SEEKING AS THE MURDERESS OF ABIGAIL DOORN! Was it conceivable that this innocent-looking and efficient nurse was also the murderess of Mrs. Doorn?”
Ellery gulped down a mouthful of water. The room was still as death.
“From that moment the entire story was spread before my eyes. I asked for a map of the main floor, and sought to retrace the route by which she might possibly have engineered that daring crime in such a way that she was apparently her own self as a nurse, and the impostor of Dr. Janney at the same time.
“By study and careful piecing together of old elements I was able to work out a time-schedule such as Lucille Price must have used to accomplish this seeming miracle. Let me read it to you.”
Ellery dug into his breast-pocket and took out a tattered notebook. Harper became unusually busy with a pencil and a scrap of paper. Ellery read rapidly:
“10:29—The real Dr. Janney called away.
“10:30—Lucille Price opens door from Anteroom, slips into Anteroom lift, closes door, fastens East Corridor door to prevent interruptions, dons shoes, white duck trousers, gown, cap and gag previously planted there or somewhere in the Anteroom, leaves her own shoes in elevator, her own clothes being covered by the new. Slips into East Corridor via lift door, turns corner into South Corridor, goes along South Corridor until she reaches Anæsthesia Room. Limping all the time, in imitation of Janney, with gag concealing her features and cap her hair, she passes rapidly through the Anæsthesia Room, being seen by Dr. Byers, Miss Obermann and Cudahy, and enters Anteroom, closing door behind her.
“10:34—Approaches comatose Mrs. Doorn, strangles her with wire concealed under her clothes; calls out in her own voice at appropriate time, ‘I’ll be out in a moment, Dr. Janney!’ or words to that effect. (Of course, she did not go into the Sterilizing Room as she claimed in her testimony.) When Dr. Gold stuck his head into the Anteroom he saw Miss Price in surgical robes bending over the body, her back to him. Naturally Gold did not see a nurse; there was none, as such, there.
“10:38—Leaves Anteroom through Anæsthesia Room, retraces steps along South and East Corridors, slips into lift, removes male garments, puts on own shoes, hurries out again to deposit male clothes in telephone booth just outside lift door, and returns to Anteroom via lift door as before.
“10:43—Is back in Anteroom in her own personality as Lucille Price.
“The entire process consumed no more than twelve minutes.”
Ellery smiled and put away his notebook. “The shoestring broke as she put on the men’s canvas shoes in the lift before committing the murder. All she had to do was to return to the Anteroom through the lift door, open the supply cabinet next to it, snip off a piece of adhesive tape with her pocket-scissors from a roll in the drawer, and go back to the lift. Any one could do this in twenty seconds if he knew, as she did, just where to look for the adhesive. Incidentally, it was the roll of adhesive from which the shoe piece had been cut, that I looked for after outlining the schedule roughly. It was not absolute certainty that the tape was taken from the Anteroom cabinet, but it was surely the logical place. And so I found, having compared the jagged edge left on the roll with the piece we found in the shoe. They jibed exactly. That’s evidence, Mr. District Attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Price could have put the adhesive-roll in her own pocket after she used it, thereby disposing of it. But she didn’t think of it. Or if she did, she may have decided to risk a few extra seconds in order to avoid having the dangerous roll on her person.
“Remember that the Anteroom had been unused from the time the investigation started—and under guard. However, even if she had taken the roll away, this wouldn’t have affected the solution. Please bear in mind that I solved the crime before I thought of looking for the roll. And so I say—to sum up—the shoes and the trousers told me everything but the name of the murderess; the cabinet told me the name. And it was all over.”
He stopped and regarded them with a weary smile.
Puzzled looks were breaking out on the faces of his audience. Harper was quivering with excitement; he sat on the edge of his chair strained and tense.
Sampson said uneasily, “There’s something loose somewhere. It isn’t all. … How about Kneisel?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Ellery at once. “I should have explained that the guilt of Lucille Price didn’t eliminate the possibility of an accomplice. She might have been the instrument, with a male brain directing her from the background. Kneisel might have been the owner of that brain. He had motive—with the deaths of Mrs. Doorn and Dr. Janney, he made certain of plenty of funds to carry on his work and absolutely sole possession of its proceeds. And all his pretty theories might have been so much sand thrown into our eyes. But—”
“Accomplice …” muttered the Police Commissioner. “So that’s why Swanson was nabbed this afternoon. …”
“What!” exclaimed the District Attorney. “Swanson?”
Inspector Queen smiled faintly. “It was rush, Henry, and we didn’t get a chance to notify you. Swanson was arrested this afternoon as the accomplice of Lucille Price. Just a moment, please.”
He telephoned to Sergeant Velie. “Thomas, I want you to get those two together. … Swanson and the Price woman. … Nothing out of her yet? … See if that does it.” He hung up. “Well know very shortly.”
“Why Swanson?” objected Dr. Minchen mildly. “He certainly couldn’t have done either job himself: Janney alibied him for the first murder, and you yourselves alibi him for the second. I don’t see—”
Ellery said: “Swanson was my bête noire from the beginning. I simply couldn’t believe that pure coincidence made him claim Dr. Janney’s attention at precisely the time when Janney was being impersonated. Don’t forget that Lucille Price’s plan absolutely depended on getting Janney out of sight while she was posing as him. Then, getting Janney out of sight at the right time wasn’t coincidence, but planned. Swanson was the instrument, therefore. Was he innocently involved—did she get him to call on Janney without knowledge of what the call signified—or was he a guilty accomplice?
“But when Mr. Swanson visited the District Attorney’s office, giving himself a clear alibi from the most unimpeachable source in the city just as Dr. Janney was being murdered, I knew that he was a guilty accomplice. And I remembered that Swanson was the greatest gainer from the deaths of both Janney and Abby! Abby’s legacy to Janney; Janney’s death, leaving the money to Swanson—it fitted perfectly.”
The telephone rang and Inspector Queen snatched it from the desk. He listened with reddening face. Then he banged the receiver on its hook, shouting, “It’s all over! The minute Swanson and Lucille Price were brought together Swanson broke down and confessed! We’ve got ’em, by God!”
Harper leaped from his chair. His eyes pleaded wildly, beseeching Ellery. “Can I beat it now—or better, can I ’phone the office from here?”
“I think so, Pete,” smiled Ellery. “I keep my bargains.” Harper grabbed the telephone. “Shoot!” he cried when he had received his connection. And that was all. He sat back, grinning like an ape.
The Police Commissioner without a word rose and departed.
“Y’know,” said Harper thoughtfully, “I’ve wondered all along how it was possible for the murderer to have arranged such a complicated scheme of action in less than two hours after an accident which could not have been foreseen. And even aside from that, it seemed to me that the whole murder was sort of unnecessary. After all, Mrs. Doorn might have died as a result of the operation, and it sure would have saved a load of trouble for the murderer.”
“Excellent, Pete.” Ellery looked pleased. “Two very excellent doubt-stimuli. But there’s an even more excellent answer to each of them.
“Mrs. Doorn was scheduled to be operated on for appendicitis about a month from now; it was common Hospital gossip. Undoubtedly the crime was planned for this time, with perhaps some variations in method. For example, an anæsthetist would have been present in the Anteroom, since the old lady would not then be in a coma; and the presence of the anæsthetist would have made it difficult for Lucille Price to commit the murder before the operation. I suppose she planned to kill Mrs. Doorn after the operation, in the old lady’s private room in the Hospital, when she could enter as Dr. Janney just as she entered the Anteroom in the actual crime-period. I’m positive that she would again have been the nurse in charge of Mrs. Doorn, due to her affiliation with Janney; so that substantially every detail of the crime was prepared even before the accident occurred—that is, clothes secreted somewhere on the premises, arrangements for Swanson to get Janney out of the way, and so forth. So that when the accident occurred, it merely required a slight readjustment under even more favorable conditions than she had hoped for—no anæsthetist chiefly—to set in motion the murder plan. A hasty telephone call to Swanson informing him of the new development, and the thing was done.”
Ellery felt his throat tenderly. “Dry as dust. … As for your point that a murder might not have been necessary at all, it’s not tenable for this reason: Both Minchen and Janney were perfectly confident that Janney would pull the old lady through. Now certainly Lucille Price, so close to the surgeon, would be bound to accept his confident attitude. And consider that if Mrs. Doorn recovered, and the appendix operation were delayed indefinitely, Lucille Price would have had to wait indefinitely, and all her plans would have been up in the air. No, Pete, the accident merely hastened the commission of the crime; it certainly did not inspire the commission of the crime.”
Sampson sat still as stone, thinking. Ellery was watching him with amusement; Harper was chuckling to himself. Sampson said: “But Lucille Price’s motive? I don’t get it. What connection can there be between her and Swanson? There’s never been a hint—Why should she do the dirty work for him, if he’s the gainer by the double murder?”
Inspector Queen took his hat and coat from a clothes-tree, mumbling an apology. There was work to do. Before he left, he said in a mild voice, “Let Ellery tell you, Henry. It’s his story, no matter what he says … Djuna, be a good boy.”
As the door closed, Ellery relaxed in his father’s chair and crossed his feet on his father’s desk. “Very good question, Sampson,” he drawled. “I asked myself that one whole afternoon. What connection could there be between two apparently unrelated people? Swanson, nursing his hate of the old woman for having smashed his career by evicting him from the Hospital; a warped mentality, criminally scheming the death of his step-father for sanctioning the smash-up of his career, and also for financial reasons, since he was his stepfather’s heir despite everything. … And Lucille Price, a quiet trained nurse—Yes, what connection was there?”
In the silence that followed Ellery extracted from his pocket the mysterious document which he had commissioned Harper to find on Thursday afternoon. He waved it in the air.
“This was the laconic answer. It explains why Lucille Price did the dirty work for Swanson, since it makes her heir with him to Janney’s estate.
“It conceals the story of several years of planning, criminal deliberation and hellish skill.
“It shows how and where Lucille Price was able to secure men’s surgical clothing without leaving a trail—from Swanson, the ex-surgeon, accounting by the way, for her use of trousers too long for her. The shoes are probably his, too; he is about five feet nine, but he’s small-boned.
“It points to their close and secret cooperation; such things as dangerously discussing, perhaps by telephone—for they must have been too canny to meet or live together—the premature killing of Janney. For Swanson was forced by the newspaper ruse the other day to visit your office, inadvertently and fortunately giving him a perfect alibi while Janney was being murdered.
“It explains why the same method was used to kill both people: for if Swanson were suspected and even arrested for Mrs. Doorn’s murder—a possibility in their minds—and Janney was then murdered in such a way as to make it seem the work of the same criminal, Swanson’s alibi for the second murder would automatically clear him of suspicion for the first.
“It implies that not even Janney knew that his step-son, Thomas Janney, alias Swanson, and Lucille Price were inextricably linked. …
“Yes, what could be that link, I asked myself?”
Ellery tossed the document across the Inspector’s desk, so that District Attorney Sampson, Dr. Minchen and Djuna could lean over and inspect it. Harper merely grinned.
It was a photostatic copy of a marriage certificate.
FINIS