French Powder Mystery (17 page)

After a moment, as if to satisfy a mounting curiosity, he straightened up and became entirely absorbed in the titles of the books. His long arm swooped down on one of them, carried it back for closer observation.

“By the wisdom of Bibliophilus!” he murmured at last, looking up at Weaver. “What a queer collection of volumes! Does your employer make a habit of reading such heavy stuff as
An Outline of Paleontology,
Wes? Or is this a text-book hang-over from your undergraduate days? I can’t recall your having a particular flair for science. It’s by old John Morrison, too.”

“Oh, that!” Weaver was momentarily embarrassed. “No, that’s the—the Old Man’s, I suppose, Ellery. His books entirely. Don’t think I’ve ever observed the titles, as a matter of fact. What did you say—paleontology? Didn’t know he went in for it.”

Ellery regarded him keenly for a brief moment, then replaced the book. “And what’s more—do you know,” he said softly, “this
is
fetching!”

“What?” asked Weaver nervously.

“Well, bend an ear to these titles:
Fourteenth Century Trade and Commerce,
by Stani Wedjowski. There’s a rare one for you, although it is fitting that a department store magnet be interested in the history of merchanting. … And this one—
A Child’s History of Music,
by Ramon Freyberg. A
child’s
history, mind you. And
New Developments in Philately,
by Hugo Salisbury. A passion for stamps! Queer, queer, I tell you. … And—good heavens!—
Nonsense Anthology,
by that surpassing idiot, A. I. Throckmorton!” Ellery lifted his eyes to Weaver’s troubled ones. “Dear young Dane,” he said slowly, “I can understand a chronic bibliophile having this bizarre collection on his desk, for some dark purpose of his own, but I’ll be immortally damned if I can make it jibe with my conception of Cyrus French, head of the Anti-Vice League and merchant prince. … Your employer does not impress me as having the intellectual potentialities of a paleontological field worker, who is a stamp-collecting addict, who has a passion for medieval commerce, who knows so little of music that he must read a child’s history of it, and finally who indulges in the sickening horseplay of the year’s best—or worst—vaudeville jokes! … Wes, old boy, there is more here than meets the vacillating eye.”

“I’m quite at sea,” said Weaver, shifting in his chair.

“And you should be, you should be, my child,” said Ellery as he rose and walked over to the bookcase on the wall to his left. He lightly hummed the thematic air of
Marche Slav
as he scanned the titles of the volumes behind the glass partitions. After a moment’s scrutiny he returned to the desk, where he sat down and again fingered the books between the book-ends in an absent way. Weaver’s eyes followed him uneasily.

“From the books in the case,” resumed Ellery, “my suspicions seem to be borne out. Nothing but works on social welfare and sets of Bret Harte, O. Henry, and Richard Harding Davis,
et al.
All of which compress nicely into the obvious intellectual stratum of your nice Old Man. Yet on the desk …” He mused. “And they show no signs of use,” he complained, as if disturbed further by this heinous crime against literature. “In two cases, where the volumes are bound that way, the leaves are still uncut. … Westley, tell me truthfully, is French interested in these subjects?” He flipped his finger at the books before him.

Weaver answered immediately. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Marion? Bernice? Mrs. French? The directors?”

“I can answer positively in the case of the French family, Ellery,” replied Weaver, jumping from his chair and pacing up and down before the desk. “None of them reads such stuff. As for the directors—well, you’ve seen them.”

“Gray might be interested in this preposterous mélange,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “He’s the type. But that child’s history of music. … Well!”

He bestirred himself. On the fly-leaf of the little volume in his coat pocket he made a careful memorandum of the titles and authors of the desk volumes. With a sigh he dropped the pencil back into his vest-pocket and once more began to stare blankly at the books. His hand played idly with one of the book-ends.

“Mustn’t forget to ask French about these books,” he murmured, more to himself than to Weaver, who still paced furiously up and down the room. “—Sit down, Wes! You disturb my train of thought. …” Weaver shrugged, sat down quiescently. “Nice things, these,” Ellery said in a casual voice, indicating the book-ends. “That’s a very curious bit of carving on the onyx.”

“Must have cost Gray a pile of dollars,” mumbled Weaver.

“Oh, they were a gift to French?”

“Gray gave them to him on his last birthday—in March. They were imported, I know—I remember Lavery commenting on their rarity and beauty a few weeks ago.”

“Did you say—March?” asked Ellery suddenly, bringing the black shining book-end closer to his eyes. “That’s only two months ago, and this—” He quickly picked up the companion piece to the book-end in his hand. He placed them side by side on the glass top of the desk, all at once handling them with meticulous delicacy. He beckoned to Weaver. “Do you see any difference between these?” he asked in some excitement.

Weaver leaned over, put out his hand to lift one of them. …

“Don’t touch it!” said Ellery sharply. “Well?”

Weaver stood up straight. “No call to shout, Ellery,” he said reproachfully. “As far as I can see, the felt under this one seems faded a little.”

“Don’t mind my rude manners, old son,” Ellery said. “I thought that difference in shade wasn’t wholly my imagination.”

“I can’t understand why the green felts should vary in color,” remarked Weaver in a puzzled way, returning to his chair. “Those book-ends are nearly new. They must have been all right when the Old Man got them—they were, in fact. I’d have noticed the discoloration had there been one.”

Ellery did not answer at once. He stared down at the two pieces of carved onyx. They were both cylindrical in shape, with the carving on the outer sides. On the under sides, where the book-ends were to be placed against the desk, were pieces of fine green felt. In the strong clear afternoon sun, steaming through the big window, one exhibited a marked difference in the shade of green.

“Here’s a pretty mystery,” muttered Ellery. “And what it means, if it means anything at all, I can’t see at the moment. …” He looked up at Weaver with a glint in his eye. “Have these book-ends ever been out of this room since Gray presented them to French?”

“No,” replied Weaver. “Never. I’m here every day, and I would know if they’d been moved.”

“Have they ever been broken, or repaired, even here?”

“Why, of course not!” said Weaver, puzzled. “That seems sort of silly, El.”

“And yet essential.” Ellery sat down and began to twirl his pince-nez, his eyes riveted on the book-ends before him. “Gray’s an ultimate of French, I take it?” he asked suddenly.

“His best friend. They’ve known each other for over thirty years. They have good-natured quarrels periodically about the Old Man’s obsessions in the matter of white slavery, prostitution and the like, but they’ve always been unusually close.”

“Which is as it should be, I suppose.” Ellery sank into deep and concentrated thought. He did not take his eyes from the book-ends. “I wonder, now. …” His hand dipped into his coat pocket and emerged with a small magnifying-glass. Weaver regarded his friend in astonishment, then burst into laughter.

“Ellery! Upon my word! Just like Sherlock Holmes!” His mirth was unadulterated, inoffensive, like the man himself.

Ellery grinned sheepishly. “It
does
seem theatrical,” he confessed. “But I’ve found it a handy little tool at times.” He bent lower, applied the glass to the book-end with the darker green felt.

“Looking for fingerprints?” chuckled Weaver.

“You can never tell,” said Ellery sententiously. “Although a glass isn’t infallible. You need fingerprint powder to make absolutely sure. …” He discarded the book-end and bent the glass on its mate. As he scanned the lighter green of its felt, his hand shook convulsively. Disregarding Weaver’s cry of “What is it?” he fixed his attention rigidly on a portion of the material where the felt met the onyx, at an edge. A thin line, so thin that to the naked eye it was like a hair, broadened slightly under the magnification of the lens. This line, which extended all around the bottom of the book-end, was actually composed of glue—the glue with which the felt was pasted to the onyx. The second book-end also had the glue-line.

“Here, take the glass, Wes, and focus it at the juncture of felt and onyx,” commanded Ellery, pointing to the under side of the book-end. “Tell me what you see—be careful you don’t touch the surface of the onyx!”

Weaver bent over and eagerly looked through the glass. “Why, there’s a sort of dust stuck in the glue—it’s dust, isn’t it?”

“Unorthodox-looking dust,” said Ellery grimly, seizing the lens and again examining the felt at that portion of the glue-line. In another moment he had swept the eye of the glass over the other surfaces of the book-end. He employed the same tactics with the second book-end.

Weaver uttered a short exclamation. “I say, El, mightn’t it be the same stuff you found in Bernice’s lipstick? Heroin, I think you called it!”

“Smart guess, Westley,” smiled Ellery, his eye fast to the lens. “But I seriously doubt it. … This will require analysis, and immediately. Something twitters a warning message in my subconscious.”

He dropped the magnifying glass on the table, thoughtfully regarded the two book-ends once more, then reached for the telephone.

“Get Sergeant Velie—yes, detective-sergeant—on the wire for me immediately.” He spoke rapidly to Weaver while he waited, receiver to ear. “If this stuff is what I am beginning to think it is, old boy, the plot thickens like a purée. However, we’ll see. Get me a good wad of absorbent cotton from the bathroom-closet, will you, Wes? Hello, hello—Velie?” he said into the telephone, as Weaver disappeared through the brass studded door, “this is Ellery Queen speaking. Yes, from the apartment upstairs. … Velie, send me one of your best men at once. … Who? … Yes, Piggott or Hesse will do. At once! And mum’s the word in the hearing of Welles. … No, you can’t help—yet. Hold in, you bloodhound!” He chuckled as he hung up.

Weaver returned with a large carton filled with absorbent cotton. Ellery took it from him.

“Watch me, Wes,” he announced with a laugh. “Watch carefully, because it may be necessary for you in the not remote future to testify on the witness stand as to precisely what I did here to-day. … Are you ready?”

“I’m all eyes,” grinned Weaver.

“Allay-oop!”
With a prestidigitator’s flourish Ellery whipped out of the large pocket of his sack-coat a curious metal packet. He pressed a tiny button and the lid flew open, disclosing black leather pads of thin tough texture, pierced for small bits of waded thread, each of which held a shining little instrument.

“This,” said Ellery, showing his even white teeth, “is one of my most prized possessions. Given to me with the benediction of
Herr Burgomeister
of Berlin last year for the little aid I gave him in snaring Don Dickey, the American gem-thief. … Cunnin’, isn’t it?”

Weaver fell back weakly. “What on earth is it?”

“One of the handiest contraptions ever conceived by the mind of man for the use of the criminal investigator,” replied Ellery, his fingers busy with the thin leather mats. “This was created especially for your humble servant through the gratitude of the Berlin mayor and the cooperation of the German central detective bureau. At my own specifications, incidentally—I knew what I wanted. … You’ll observe that an almost incredible number of articles are packed in this amazingly small aluminum container—aluminum for its lightness, by the way. Every thing in it that a first-class detective might conceivably need during a scientific investigation—on a lilliputian scale, but strong, compact, and extraordinarily utilitarian.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Weaver. “I didn’t know you went in for this sort of thing so seriously, Ellery.”

“Let the contents of my work-chest convince you,” smiled Ellery. “Here we have two accessory lenses—Zeiss, by the way—for my pocket magnifier; stronger than usual, you see. Here’s a tiny steel tape measure with the automatic recoil, 96-inch length, reverse side in centimeters. Red, blue, and black crayons. Undersize drawing-compass and special pencil. One vial each of black and white fingerprint powder, with camel’s-hair brushes and stamping pad. Packet of glassine envelopes. Small calipers and smaller tweezers. Collapsible probe, adjustable to various lengths. Tempered steel pins and needles. Litmus paper and two tiny test-tubes. Combination knife containing two blades, corkscrew, screwdriver, awl, file, scraper. Specially designed field-compass—and don’t laugh. Not all investigations are conducted in the heart of New York. … And that’s not the last by any means. Red, white and green twine of threadlike thinness, but very strong. Sealing-wax. Small ‘lighter’—made specially for me. Scissors. And, naturally, a stop watch made by one of the world’s best watch-makers—a Swiss in the employ of the German government. … How do you like my traveling workcase, Wes?”

Weaver looked incredulous. “Do you mean to tell me all those things are in that ridiculously small aluminum container?”

“Exactly. The entire contraption is some four inches wide by six inches long, and weighs slightly less than two pounds. Thickness of a fair-sized book. Oh, yes! I forgot to mention a crystal mirror embedded in the wall of one of the aluminum sides. … But I’d better be getting down to work. Keep your eyes open!”

From one of the leather mats Ellery extracted the tweezers. Adjusting one of the more powerful lenses in his pocket-glass, he carefully placed the first book-end in a fixed position on the desk, held the magnifier to his eye with his left hand, and with his right painstakingly maneuvered the tweezers into the hardened glue which contained the suspicious-looking particles. He instructed Weaver to hold in readiness one of the glassine envelopes and, uprooting the almost invisible grains, placed them carefully in the envelope.