And on the Eighth Day (17 page)

And on those naked faces sat not knowledge and grief alone. For there was fear as well. Fear for themselves? No … no. It was for the Teacher. They had grown greatly afraid for their Teacher.

And Ellery forced his glance again at that old man, and what he saw shook him more than had he seen its opposite. For on that etching face, the face of the all-but-accused, sat a serenity that could only have come from purest peace within.

And, hating himself, Ellery looked away.

“We now,” he said, and paused to still his crawling flesh, “we now, weigh the second of our three measures of guilt—Means.”

To set the scales, he reconstructed the
res gestae
leading up to the crime—the thefts of the Teacher’s key in the night, the evidence of an attempt to enter the sanquetum with a faulty duplicate key, and so on—and the clues incident to the murder itself. He described the wounds on the dead Storesman’s head, both at the back and in the forehead. He told them of the specks of baked clay in the dead Storicai’s hair; of the bloody hammer beside the body; of the duplicate key in Storicai’s pocket; of the unlocked door to the sanquetum; of the prayer jar that did not quite fit its base; of the disturbed columns of coins in the arque, and of the purple shard he found under the arque, and of the bloodstain on a corner of the arque.

“Let me sum up for you what all this means,” Ellery said. “The Storesman had secretly made a duplicate key to the sanquetum in order to enter the room forbidden to him, as to all others but the Teacher. He could have had only one purpose in doing this—to steal the treasure of Quenan. He came to the door of the holy house, he looked about, he did not see that the Miller and the Waterman were observing him, and he entered without announcement or permission. In the holy house, he hurried to the door of the forbidden room, and unlocked it with the duplicate key he had made, and went in, and began to take the silver coins from the arque.”

They were all leaning toward him now, eagerly, like plants toward the sun.

“At this moment a person—let me call him Witness—a Witness noticed the open sanquetum door and someone within, approached the room, saw the Storesman in the act of stealing the treasure, and in outraged anger plucked one of the scroll-filled prayer jars from its base and raised it high and brought it down on Storicai’s head—the back of the head, since the Witness struck from behind. The jar shattered, shards of it falling all around, and one of the shards fell under the arque. Storicai collapsed under the blow, and in falling struck the back of his head on a corner of the arque.”

Their sigh made a long, low hissing in the meeting room.

“Now this Witness,” said Ellery, “must have then run from the sanquetum, perhaps to call for help. But almost at once the Storesman recovered from the blow by the prayer jar, leaped to his feet, and desperate to prevent the Witness’s outcry against him, ran after the Witness, caught up with him here—near this table—grappled with him and, I have no doubt, in his frenzy of fear at being discovered in the act of sacrilege, tried to kill the Witness. And so they struggled in a terrible silence, and during the struggle the Witness managed to snatch the hammer which the Teacher had left for the Successor on this table, and in defense of his life swung it as Storicai. Storicai flung up his arm, and the first blow smashed my wrist watch on his arm, stopping it at twenty minutes past four. The second blow struck Storicai on the forehead. There was no need for a third.”

A bit of burning wick detached itself and floated down to the pool of liquefied wax from which the flame rose. Here it continued to burn, separately, as if it had separate life.

“This, then, is a picture of the crime,” Ellery continued. “Now for what happened immediately thereafter. Let us proceed step by step. The first thing the Witness must have done after slaying the Storesman was to return to the sanquetum, in order to restore the room to its former undisturbed state. To do this he had to collect the pieces of the broken prayer jar and dispose of them—and in doing so, he overlooked one shard under the arque—and also to replace the broken jar with a whole one and refill it with the scattered scrolls.

“Now, who did this?

“I ask the Potter to come forward.”

The Potter came forward, no longer the Shavian figure he had first appeared. His feet dragged as if they bore a crushing weight. He lowered himself to the stool painfully.

“Someone came to you yesterday for a prayer jar to replace one which had been broken. Who, Potter?”

The Potter’s slip-specked beard trembled, and he opened his mouth. But nothing came out.

“Who, Potter?” Tension made Ellery’s own voice sound brutal.

This time a strangled noise emerged. But it was a noise without meaning.

“
Who, Potter?
” shouted Ellery.

And so at last the anguished words were torn from the Potter’s throat: “The Teacher! The Teacher …!”

And now a soft keening rose, like a mournful wind, and Ellery, who could have keened with them, waited until it died away. And no eye turned to the Teacher, not even Ellery’s.

“And what was the time when the Teacher came to your shed and asked for a new prayer jar for the sanquetum, Potter?”

“At half past the hour of four.”

“Ten minutes after Storicai was struck dead,” Ellery said, and slowly waved, and the Potter stumbled back to his place.

“Thus we have connected the Teacher,” Ellery resumed after a moment, “with the first weapon used, the weapon that merely stunned—the sanquetum jar. Now let us consider the second weapon used, the weapon that took Storicai’s life—the hammer.” And he reached down and took from the floor, where he had laid it, the wrapped hammer; and he began to unwrap it, and the cloth stuck in the now dry blood, and he had to tear it away as they shuddered. And the bloodstains on the hammer’s head were still to be seen.

“Listen to me,” Ellery said. “Yesterday in this room I took the imprint of the fingertips of all present—the dead Storesman, the Teacher, the Successor, the Superintendent, and the eleven members of the Crownsil of Twelve still living. Do you remember?”

Oh, yes, they remembered; they could not forget that mystery within a mystery; so much was clear. But did they have any idea of the significance of fingerprints?

“Do you know why I made each of you press your fingertips on the ink pad and then on the white paper?”

They were blanks.

“Then I will tell you,” Ellery said. “Each man here, and each of the women, too, lift up your hands and look at the tips of your fingers.” The time they glanced at one another doubtfully; but the Chronicler raised his hands and looked at them, and one by one the others did likewise. “Look closely. Do you see the little lines and loops and whorls in your skin, making up a certain pattern?” There was a concert of nods. “This pattern can be transferred from your fingertips to another surface, especially a smooth dry one. Surely you have all seen the imprint of your fingers, or of the children’s, on a wall or a window?”

“This we know, Elroï,” the Chronicler spoke up suddenly. “But what is the meaning of it?”

“The meaning of it, Chronicler, is that the fingertips of no two people in the world leave the same picture—no, not even those of twins born of the same egg. In the outside world the fingerprints of millions and millions of people of all nations and races and colors have been collected, and not once have those of one person been found to match exactly those of another. Thus it may be said that each human being carries about with him—from his birth to his death and beyond, until the body all but crumbles into dust—a set of marks or signs on his fingers by which he, and he alone, can be told from all others in the world. Now do you grasp my meaning?”

It seemed that they did not; at least, on no face turned up to his did he see anything but a brow-knotted struggle to understand. Or was it a struggle to believe? For this might well come down to a matter, not of comprehension, but of faith.

“You must believe me when I say that it is true,” said Ellery. “I, Elroï Quenan, whose coming in a time of great trouble was foretold.” And may God forgive me, he thought, for
that
. “So now we come to the weighing of the Means, and to weigh that we must first throw into the balance the fingerprints.”

He held up the bloodied hammer, grasping it by the edges of the head and the bottom of the grip.

“You will see that I have dusted the gripping surface of the hammer with a white powder; and that this white powder, when blown gently away, has left a residue on the fingerprints made by the hand that grasped it in slaying the Storesman, thus revealing a picture of them.”

He laid the hammer carefully down on the table and reached for his fingerprinting kit. The prints on the hammer showing white against the darkened wood of the grip, he took out a piece of black paper. “Teacher, will you allow me to take the fingerprints of your right hand?”

And now the silence could be scratched, it was so hard. But the Teacher wore the same expression of serenity.

“It shall be as you say, Elroï,” he said.

Ellery took the old hand; it was warm and quiet in his.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem
… He rolled the patriarch’s fingers, then brought out the prints with white powder. He laid the black paper beside the hammer, and produced his pocket lens.

“I wish you all to rise and, one at a time, to look through the glass at the fingerprints of the Teacher you have just seen me take, and then at the fingerprints of the slayer on the hammer. And you will see that the fingerprints on the one are identical with the fingerprints on the other.”

But—would they? Primitive people who had never laid eyes on a photograph were often unable to recognize the most familiar people or objects snapped by a camera. There might be a similar blindness here. And indeed, while the Crownsil and the others filed by and examined the two exhibits in turn through the lens, while a few nodded, most shook their heads. Nevertheless, he waited until they were all seated again, and said, “Thus, from the prints of the Teacher’s fingertips on the hammer, we know that the Teacher, and only the Teacher, could have used the hammer to slay the Storesman. It is proved.”

But was it? To them?

The whole suffocating mantle of fatigue dropped over him again, so that he had to fight his way free of it. And Ellery turned to the serene old man, to prove his guilt by evidence they would have no choice but to accept.

“Teacher,” he said abruptly, “was it you who gathered together the pieces of the broken prayer jar, you who went directly from this holy house after the slaying to the Potter’s for a new jar?”

And the old man answered, “It is so, Elroï.”

“And was it your right hand that held this hammer?”

This time there was the least pause before the Teacher, still serenely, answered, “It is so, Elroï.”

A gush of brash leaped into Ellery’s mouth, and he had to swallow the burning stuff before he could say: “So we have established that the Teacher had opportunity to kill the Storesman—that is, that he was here; and that he had the means—that is, that his hand grasped the hammer.

“Now we must weigh the third and last measure of guilt—Motive.”

And Ellery said:

“In stealing the Teacher’s key to the sanquetum door and from it making a duplicate key, Storicai sinned in intent. But, having made the key, he proceeded to sin in fact. He committed three acts of offense against Quenan and the Teacher who had taught him.

“Storicai entered the holy house without ringing the bell and without being admitted by the Teacher—this was the first offense. He entered the forbidden room, which the Teacher alone among you has the right to enter—this was the second offense. And he laid greedy hands on the treasure—and this was his third offense.

“So, in the space of five shameful minutes, Storicai the Storesman offended against you, his brothers in Quenan, in general, and against his and your Teacher, in particular. Surely you can understand that the Teacher, venerable and wise and revered though he is, is still a man of flesh and blood, subject to the same weaknesses that beset us all? That, catching Storicai in the act of committing three sins against the laws and customs of Quenan, your Teacher was seized with a great wrath and rose up against the transgressor with whatever instrument lay at hand—a prayer jar, a hammer—and struck down him who had wrought blasphemy upon the Wor’d?”

He looked up and down the two lines of faces, sure that now, at last, he would see agreement written there, even relief. But he saw only the same confused and fearful people.

What was the matter?

Ellery said in muttered, cracking tones, “And now I really cannot hold off any longer asking the question—the question of questions.”

And the Teacher said, “Seek the truth and we shall be—”

There was a word after “be,” but Ellery was not sure he had heard it correctly. Had the old man said “safe”? Or was it “saved”?

Well. No matter. Now for it. Ellery braced himself.

“Teacher. Did you slay Storicai the Storesman?”

The patriarch replied instantly, and his reply staggered Ellery … made him reach for the table, and support himself.

The rich voice of the Teacher said, “It is you who say it.”

They had been gathered at the foot of the long table in a group, deliberating, praying, debating in low voices, for a long time. A final disagreement, apparently irreconcilable, sent the Chronicler as spokesmen to the Superintendent, to whisper in his ear.

That dry man immediately nodded and approached Ellery.

“I am asked to tell you, Elroï, that some of the Crownsil are confused by the pictures on the hammer, what you call the fingerprints. These persons say: Elroï says that the fingerprints on the hammer are the very same as the Teacher’s fingerprints on the paper, but we could not be sure that all those little lines and loops are the same in both, so how can he? In a matter as grave as this, there must be no doubt. This is what they have asked the Chronicler to ask me to ask you, and this is what I ask you now.”

Ellery turned wearily to the Successor, who had sat like a piece of petrified wood throughout most of the proceedings.