The bizarre murders, p.21
The Bizarre Murders, page 21
“I see,” said Ellery slowly. “You mean that when he popped into the study that night and found Dr. Xavier shot to death, he found a jack of diamonds in the doctor’s hand?”
“Right.”
“Hmm. It does check, circumstantially. At the same time, the fact that he himself left a jack of diamonds in his own encounter with the murderer might merely mean that he saw the murderer’s face and thought of the same card significance as a clue to identity as his brother had.” He shook his head. “No, that’s impossibly coincidental, especially with such an obscurity. … You’re right. He left the jack of diamonds because his brother had. It was the same murderer in both cases, of course, and with his knowledge of what his brother had done he merely duplicated the clue. Yes, I think we may say that when he found John Xavier dead he also found a jack of diamonds in John Xavier’s hand. Then he switched the clue, took away the jack—substituted the six of spades from the solitaire game on the desk as a deliberate frame-up of Mrs. Xavier.”
“Now that you’re through making a speech,” grinned the Inspector, in sudden high spirits, “I’ll go on. Why’d he take the jack out of his brother’s hand and put the spade-six there? Well, we know his motive for wanting to get his sister-in-law out of the way—”
“Hold on,” murmured Ellery. “Not so fast. We’ve forgotten something. Two things. One is a confirmation—explaining why he selected a six of spades at all in the frame-up; obviously, if John’s hand already held a card, a card-clue was immediately suggested to his mind. The other is this: in switching the clue from the diamond-knave to the spade-six, why didn’t Xavier simply put the jack back where it had come from—the deck on the desk?”
“Well … It’s true that he did take the damned card away—we didn’t find it, so he must have. Why?”
“The only logical reason must be that even taking it out of his brother’s dead hand and tossing it among the scattered cards on the desk, or slipping it into the deck,” replied Ellery calmly, “would not conceal the fact that it had been used as a clue.”
“Now you’re talking in riddles again. That doesn’t make sense. How on earth could that be?”
Ellery puffed thoughtfully. “We’ve a perfect explanation. In his own case he left a jack of diamonds—torn in half.” The Inspector started. “But doesn’t that fit? He himself found only half a jack, I say, in his brother’s hand! If he’d found a torn jack, obviously he couldn’t leave it on the scene of the crime; its torn condition would immediately have called attention to it, especially since he was leaving a torn six in its place. I maintain that logically he must have found a torn jack in his brother’s hand as the only plausible explanation under the circumstances for his having taken it away. He took it away, I suppose, and destroyed it, feeling fairly certain that no one would think of counting the cards … as no one,” he added, frowning, “would have had not the murderer tried to steal the deck from the cabinet in this room.”
“Well, that’s all very good,” snapped the Inspector, “but let’s get on. I’m not questioning the ways of Providence. That was a break, my son. … The point is that—the six of spades having been a frame-up on Mark Xavier’s part on his own confession—the only important thing we have left is this: in both crimes we know that the victim left a half-jack of diamonds as a clue to the murderer. The same clue, of course, means the same murderer. There’s only one queer thing in this business. By taking away the half-jack from the scene of his brother’s murder he was covering up that murderer—shifting the blame from the real murderer to Mrs. Xavier. Then in his own murder he ups and accuses the very one he’d saved from suspicion in the first case! It looks a little screwy somewhere.”
“Not at all. Mark Xavier,” said Ellery dryly, “was scarcely the self-sacrificing or Robin Hood type of scoundrel. He framed Mrs. Xavier purely out of the trite but universal gain-motive. Obviously he couldn’t leave the jack clue around. He wanted that frame-up to take. In other words, he ‘saved’ our knave of diamonds not out of loyalty or affection, but purely for financial reasons. On his own deathbed it was a different story. … There’s something else, too. When you accused him of being his brother’s killer, he lost his nerve and was only too willing to blurt out the name of the real murderer—indicating two things: that essentially he had no overweening desire to protect that individual, especially when his own neck was in danger; and secondly that he himself had probably solved the problem of who was meant to be indicated by the jack! And there, incidentally, is the answer to your question about how Xavier knew who his brother’s murderer was. The half-jack of diamonds in his brother’s hand had told him.”
“That all washes,” muttered the Inspector. “And to keep him from spilling the bad news, the murderer bumped him off.” He rose and took a turn about the room. “Yes, it all gets down to that jack of diamonds. If we knew whom John and Mark had in mind when they left the half-jack, we’d have our man. If we knew. …”
“We do know.”
“Hey?”
“I’ve been working the old brain cells overtime since last night and they’ve clicked on all twelve.” Ellery sighed. “Yes, if that’s all there is to it the case is solved. Sit down, dad, and let’s go into executive conference. I warn you—it’s the craziest thing you ever heard of. More fantastic than the six of spades. And it’s a solution that still needs considerable scrubbing up. Sit down, sit down!”
The Inspector sat down with celerity.
An hour later, with the black-red night glaring outside, a demoralized company were assembled in the gameroom. The Inspector stood at the foyer door and ushered them in, one by one, in a very forbidding silence. They came in wearily and yet cautiously, eying his grim face with the most helpless kind of apprehensive resignation. Finding no consolation there, they sought Ellery’s face; but he was standing by the window looking out at the darkness beyond the terrace.
“Now that we’re all here,” began the Inspector in a tone as grim as his expression, “sit down and take a load off your feet. This is going to be our last get-together about the murders. We’ve been led one hell of a merry chase, I’ll tell you that, and we’re just about fed up on it. The case is solved.”
“Solved!” they gasped.
“Solved?” muttered Dr. Holmes. “You mean you know who—”
“Inspector,” said Mrs. Xavier in a low voice. “You haven’t found—the right one?”
Mrs. Carreau sat very still, and the twins glanced in some excitement at each other. The others drew in their breaths.
“Can’t you understand English?” snapped the Inspector. “I said solved. Go on El. This is your party.”
Their eyes shifted to Ellery’s back. He swung about slowly. “Mrs. Carreau,” he said with abruptness, “you’re French in origin, I believe?”
“I? French?” she repeated, bewildered.
“Yes.”
“Why—of course, Mr. Queen.”
“You know the French language thoroughly?”
She was trembling, but she made a weak attempt to laugh. “But—certainly. I was brought up on irregular verbs and Parisian slang.”
“Hmm.” Ellery came forward and stopped before one of the bridge tables. “Let me point out at once,” he said without inflection, “that what I am about to say constitutes probably the most fantastic reconstruction of a clue in the history of the so-called ‘clever’ crime. It is incredibly subtle. It’s so far removed from the ordinary realm of observation and simple deduction as to partake of something out of Alice in Wonderland. And yet—the facts are here, and we cannot ignore them. Please try to follow me closely.”
This remarkable preamble was received in the deepest silence. There was blank confusion, or so it seemed, on every face.
“You all know,” continued Ellery calmly, “that when we found Mark Xavier’s dead body we also found clutched in his hand—the correct hand, incidentally—a torn playing card. The exhibit was half a knave of diamonds; unquestionably intended to convey to our intelligences the identity of Xavier’s murderer. What you don’t know—or at least what most of you don’t know—is that when Mark Xavier entered his brother’s study the other night, discovered the body, and decided to leave a six of spades in the dead man’s fingers as a false clue to Mrs. Xavier, there was already in the dead man’s fingers an other card.”
“Another card?” gasped Miss Forrest.
“Another card. It’s unnecessary to tell you how we know this, but the fact remains that beyond a doubt Mark Xavier was compelled to wrench out of Dr. Xavier’s stiff hand … half a knave of diamonds!”
“Another one,” whispered Mrs. Carreau.
“Precisely. In other words, both dying men left half a knave of diamonds as a clue to the identity of their murderer—their common murderer, obviously, since the same clue was used. What did they mean by half a knave of diamonds?”
He searched their faces deliberately. The Inspector leaned against the wall, watching with bright eyes.
“No suggestions? It’s quite outré, as I’ve said. Well, examine it point by point. The ‘knave’ element first. A curious coincidence, but scarcely more than that. Certainly a murderer may be termed a knave, but that scarcely helps any one but the panting collector of classic understatements. The fact that ‘knave’ is commonly called ‘jack’? There is no Jack in our little company; the only one to whom it might have applied, John Xavier, having himself been the first victim. Well, then, how about the suit-symbol—the diamond? There’s no question of gems involved; the only possible connection here would be—” he paused, “the rings that seem to have been stolen. But none of these was a diamond ring. On the surface, then, no indication of what the meaning might be.” And then he whirled so unexpectedly upon Mrs. Carreau that she shrank back in her chair. “Mrs. Carreau, what does the word carreau mean in English?”
“Carreau?” Her eyes became enormous brown pools. “Why”—her eyes flickered—“it means so many things, Mr. Queen. A hassock, and a tailor’s goose, and a lozenge, and a pane of glass …”
“And a ground floor, and a certain kind of tile. Quite so.” Ellery smiled coldly. “There’s also a very significant idiom: rester sur le carreau, which may be translated to: to be killed on the spot, a singularly felicitous French version of our Chicagoese expression … all of which however we may discount as irrelevant.” He continued to eye her steadily. “But what else does carreau mean?”
Her eyes fell. “I’m afraid—I don’t know, Mr. Queen.”
“And the French so sportively inclined! Have you forgotten that in French the word ‘diamond’ as applied to playing cards is carreau?”
She was silent. Each face mirrored amazement and horror.
“But, good lord,” breathed Dr. Holmes. “That’s insane, Mr. Queen!”
Ellery shrugged without removing his fixed glance from the shrinking woman. “I’m recounting facts, not fancies, Doctor. Doesn’t it strike you as enormously significant that the fatal card is a diamond, that ‘diamond’ is carreau in French, and that we have several Carreaus in this house?”
Miss Forrest jumped from her chair and advanced with white lips upon Ellery. “I have never heard such unmitigated and cruel nonsense in my whole life, Mr. Queen! Do you realize what you’re insinuating on the basis of such—such flimsy evidence?”
“Sit down, please,” said Ellery wearily. “I realize a good deal more, I think, my loyal lady, than you do. Well, Mrs. Carreau?”
Her hands were twisting like snakes. “What do you expect me to say? All I can say is that—you’re making a terrible mistake, Mr. Queen.”
The twins leaped from the sofa. “You take that back!” cried Francis, doubling his fists. “You can’t s-say things like that about our mother!”
Julian shouted: “You’re crazy, that’s what you are!”
“Sit down, boys,” said the Inspector quietly from the wall.
They glared at Ellery, but obeyed.
“Let me continue, please,” said Ellery again in a tired voice. “I don’t relish this any more than the rest of you. The word ‘diamond’ in the card sense is, as I’ve pointed out, carreau. Is there anything in our facts which bolsters this admittedly fantastic theory that a Carreau, so to speak, was designated by John and Mark Xavier when they left the jack of diamonds as clues to their murderer? Unfortunately there is.” He waved his hand and repeated: “Unfortunately—there is.”
From the wall came the Inspector’s voice, calm and impersonal. “Which one of you boys,” he said clearly to the Siamese twins, “killed those two men?”
Mrs. Carreau sprang to her feet and bounded across the intervening space like a tigress. She stood before the speechless boys, her arms outspread, her whole body vibrating with passion. “This has gone far enough!” she cried. “I think even you stupid men must see the absurdity of accusing these—these children of murder. My sons murderers! You’re mad, both of you!”
“Absurdity?” Ellery sighed. “Please, Mrs. Carreau. You’ve evidently failed to grasp the significance of the clue. That card was not only a diamond, but a jack of diamonds. What is the appearance of the knave card? It represents two joined young men.” Her mouth came open. “Ah, I see you’re not quite so certain of its absurdity. Two joined young men—not old men, mind you, for a king would have sufficed for that—but young men. Joined! Incredible? I told you it was. But we have two joined young men in this house, and they are named Carreau, you see. What is one to think?”
She sank onto the sofa beside the boys, unable to speak. Their young mouths were working soundlessly.
“Moreover, we ask the question: why was the card torn in half in both instances, leaving—so to speak—only one of the two joined men as a clue?” Ellery continued with weary inexorability. “Obviously because the dead men intended to show that one, not both, of the Carreau twins was the murderer. How could this be? Well, if one was dominated by the other, was compelled to be present against his will because of sheer physical inability to hang back, was a mere bystander while the other committed the actual crimes … Which of you shot Dr. Xavier and poisoned Mark Xavier, boys?”
Their lips quivered; the fight had quite gone out of them. Francis whispered in a voice close to tears: “But—but we didn’t, Mr. Queen. We didn’t. Why, we—we couldn’t do … that. We just couldn’t. And why should we? Why? It’s so … Oh, don’t you see?”
Julian shuddered. His eyes were fixed on Ellery’s face with a sort of fascinated horror.
“I’ll tell you why,” said the Inspector slowly. “Dr. Xavier was experimenting with Siamese-twin animals in his laboratory. You people had some notion when you came up here that the doctor could perform a miracle, could separate the boys surgically—”
“That’s nonsense,” muttered Dr. Holmes. “I’ve never believed—”
“Exactly. You’ve never believed it could be done, Holmes. It’s never been done successfully, has it, with twins of this type? So I say that it was you who threw the monkey-wrench into the works; you went on record as not ‘believing,’ you made these people doubt the ability of Dr. Xavier. You talked to the twins, to Mrs. Carreau, about it, didn’t you?”
“Well …” The Englishman was writhing. “Perhaps I did advise them that it was a very dangerous experiment—”
“I thought so. And then something happened.” The Inspector’s eyes were bright marbles. “I don’t know what, exactly. Maybe Dr. Xavier was stubborn, or insisted on going ahead. The boys, Mrs. Carreau, got frightened. It was a murder in self-defense, in a way—”
“Oh, don’t you see how ridiculous that is?” cried Miss Forrest. “How childish? There was nothing Machiavellian about Dr. Xavier. He wasn’t the ‘mad scientist’ of the thrillers and movies. He wouldn’t have gone ahead with such an operation without the full consent of all parties concerned. Besides, what was to prevent us from just leaving? Don’t you see? It simply won’t stand examination, Inspector!” Her voice rang with triumph.
“Besides,” snapped Dr. Holmes, “there was no certainty at all about the surgery. Mrs. Carreau brought the boys up here for observation only. Even had everything been otherwise settled, an operation here would have been impossible. But then Xavier’s experiments on animals were a matter of pure research, antedating Mrs. Carreau’s arrival. I assure you that Dr. Xavier never had anything in mind concerning these lads, Inspector, other than mere theory. This is all very shockerish, Inspector.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Miss Forrest again, her eyes flashing, “and now that I come to think of it, Mr. Queen, there’s something fallacious in your reasoning. You claim that tearing the double-jack in half to achieve just one jack means the—the dead men were indicating one of two joined men. Suppose I say to you that the reason they tore the cards in half was to prevent anyone from believing that Francis and Julian did it? I mean that if they’d left just the jack, which shows two joined figures, somebody might think of the twins. By tearing the two figures apart they might have been saying: ‘Don’t think the twins did it. It’s just one unjoined person. That’s why I’m not leaving a whole card!’ ”
“Brava,” murmured Ellery. “That’s genius, Miss Forrest. But unfortunately you’re forgetting that the cards were diamonds, and that the only male Carreaus here are the twins.”
She subsided, biting her lip.
Mrs. Carreau said steadily: “The more I think of it the more convinced I am that somehow this is all a hideous mistake. Surely you don’t mean to—to arrest …” She stopped.
The Inspector, who was feeling uneasy, scratched his chin. Ellery did not reply; he had turned back to the window again. “Well,” the old man said, hesitating, “can you suggest another meaning for the card?”
