French Powder Mystery (22 page)

“Oh, something extraordinary a week ago, eh?” said Ellery. “And I gather that Mrs. French
did
know then?”

The housekeeper permitted an expression of surprise to flick across her hard features. “Yes, I think she did,” she said more quietly than before. She favored Ellery with a suddenly interested glance. “But what it was I don’t know. I think she found out where Bernice was going, and they quarreled about it.”

“Just when was this, Miss Underhill?” asked the Inspector.

“A week ago Monday.”

Ellery whistled softly to himself. He and the Inspector exchanged glances.

The Inspector leaned forward. “Tell me, Miss Underhill—these days on which Miss Carmody generally disappeared—do you recall whether they were all the same, or different days?”

Hortense Underhill looked from father to son, began to speak, thought for an instant, looked up again. “Now that I think of it,” she said slowly, “they weren’t always Mondays. I remember a Tuesday, a Wednesday, and a Thursday. … I do believe she went every week on consecutive days! Now, what could that mean?”

“More, Miss Underhill,” replied Ellery, frowning, “than you can guess—or I, for that matter. … Have the bedrooms of Mrs. French and Miss Carmody been disturbed since this morning?”

“No. When I heard about the murder at the store I locked up both bedrooms. I didn’t know but that—”

“That it might have been important, Miss Underhill?” said Ellery. “That was clever of you. … Will you please lead the way upstairs?”

The housekeeper rose without a word and walked out into the main hall and up the broad central staircase, the three men following. She stopped on the second floor and opened a door with a key from a bunch in her black silk apron-pocket.

“This is Bernice’s room,” she announced, and stepped aside.

They entered a large green-and-ivory bedroom, ornately furnished with period furniture. A huge canopied bed dominated the room. Despite the mirrors and colors and exotic pieces, the room was unaccountably depressing. It looked cold. The sunbeams that streamed in through the three wide windows, far from lending warmth to the ensemble, in some grotesque way only heightened the general effect of cheerlessness.

Ellery’s eyes, as he stepped into the room, were not concerned with its eeriness. They focused immediately on a large, garishly carved table to the side of the bed, on which was an ashtray filled to overflowing with cigaret stubs. He quickly crossed the room and picked up the tray. Then he put it back on the table with a curious gleam in his eye.

“Was this tray with its cigaret stubs here this morning when you locked up, Miss Underhill? he asked sharply.

“Yes. I didn’t touch anything.”

“Then this room hasn’t been tidied since Sunday?”

The housekeeper flushed. “The room was attended to on Monday morning, after Bernice awoke,” she snarled. “I will
not
hear any imputations against my household, Mr. Queen! I—”

“But why not Monday afternoon?” interposed Ellery, smiling.

“Because Bernice chased the maid out of the room after the bed was made, that’s why!” snapped the housekeeper. “The girl didn’t have time to empty the ashtray. I hope that satisfies you!”

“It does,” murmured Ellery. “Dad—Velie—come here a moment.”

Ellery silently pointed down to the cigaret stubs. There were at least thirty on the tray. Without exception the cigarets, of a flat Turkish variety, had been smoked only one-quarter of their length, and crushed out against the tray. The Inspector picked one up, and peered at a word of gilt lettering near the tip.

“Well, what’s surprising about that?” he demanded. “They’re the same brand as the ones on the card-table in the apartment. Girl must be frightfully nervous, though.”

“But the length, dad, the length,” said Ellery softly. “However, no matter. … Miss Underhill, has Miss Carmody always smoked
La Duchesse?”

“Yes,
sir,”
said the housekeeper unpleasantly. “And too many for her health, too. She gets them from some Greek person with an outlandish name—Xanthos, I think it is—who makes them up on special order for young ladies of the better classes. Perfumed, they are!”

“A standing order, I suppose?”

“You suppose correctly. When Bernice’s supply ran out, she merely repeated her order, which was for a box of five hundred always. … That’s one thing about Bernice, although you mustn’t take it as anything against the poor child, because too many young ladies have the same pernicious habit—but she smokes altogether too much for propriety and health, too. Her mother never smoked, nor do Marion and Mr. French.”

“Yes, yes, we are aware of those facts, Miss Underhill, thank you.” Ellery took a glassine envelope from his compact pocket-kit and calmly poured into it the dusty contents of the ashtray. The envelope he handed to Velie.

“You had better keep this with whatever mementoes of the case will be filed at Headquarters,” he said in a sprightly tone. “I think it will prove of interest in the final summation. … Now, Miss Underhill, if you will please spare us just another slice of your precious time. …”

E
LLERY LOOKED QUICKLY ABOUT
the garish room and strode over to a large door on the side wall. He opened it and uttered a low exclamation of satisfaction. It was a clothes-closet, packed with feminine garments—gowns, coats, shoes, hats in profusion.

He turned once more to Hortense Underhill, who was regarding him with peculiar disquiet. Her lips compressed as she saw his hand absently ruffle through the mass of gowns hanging from the racks.

“Miss Underhill, I believe you said that Miss Carmody was at the apartment some months ago, and hasn’t been there since?”

She nodded stiffly.

“Do you recall what she wore when she was there last?”

“Really, Mr. Queen,” she said in frigid tones, “I haven’t such a memory as you evidently give me credit for. How
could
I remember that?”

Ellery grinned. “Very well. Where is Miss Carmody’s apartment key?”

“Oh!” The housekeeper was genuinely startled. “That’s a funny thing, now, Mr. Queen—I mean your asking that. Because only yesterday morning Bernice told me that she thought she’d lost her key and asked me to get one of the others’ keys and duplicate it for her.”

“Lost, eh?” Ellery seemed disappointed. “Are you certain, Miss Underhill?”

“I’ve just told you.”

“Well, there’s no harm in looking,” said Ellery cheerfully. “Here, Velie, lend a hand with these duds. You don’t mind, dad?” And in a moment he and the sergeant had attacked the closet with a furious determination, to the accompaniment of the Inspector’s chuckle and Hortense Underhill’s outraged gasp.

“You see …” said Ellery from clenched teeth, as he swiftly passed his hands through coats and gowns, “people don’t generally lose things. They merely think they do. … In this case, Miss Carmody perhaps searched for it in a few obvious places and gave it up as hopeless. … She probably didn’t look in the right garments. … Ah, there, Velie! Splendid!”

The tall sergeant held up a heavy fur coat. In his left hand gleamed a gold-disked key.

“In an inside pocket, Mr. Queen. The fur coat would make it heavy weather when Miss Carmody last used the key.”

“Fair and subtle enough,” said Ellery, taking the key. It was an exact duplicate of Weaver’s key, which he now took from his pocket and compared with the latest discovery—a twin except for the initials
B. C.
engraved on the disk.

“Why do you want all the keys, El?” demanded the Inspector. “I can’t see any good reason for it.”

“You have enormous powers of perspicacity,” said Ellery gravely. “Now how did you know I wanted
all
the keys? But you’re perfectly right—I do, and I shall take up a collection very shortly. The reason is surely as plain as the nose on your face, as Crouther would say. … Don’t want anybody getting into that apartment for a while, very simply.”

He deposited both keys in his pocket and turned to the unpleasant housekeeper.

“Did you carry out Miss Carmody’s orders about duplicating this ‘lost’ key?” he asked curtly.

The housekeeper sniffed. “I did not,” she said. “Because now that I think of it, I don’t really know whether or not Bernice was jesting with me when she said she had lost the key. And something happened yesterday afternoon that made me undecided about it, and I thought I’d wait until I saw Bernice again to ask her.”

“And what was that, Miss Underhill?” inquired the Inspector, with a slow gentleness.

“Something queer, to tell the truth,” she replied thoughtfully. Her eyes flashed suddenly, and her expression became remarkably more human. “I
do
want to help,” she said softly. “And I am beginning to think more and more that what happened
will
help. …”

“You have us simply petrified with excitement, Miss Underhill,” murmured Ellery, without changing expression. “Please proceed.”

“Yesterday afternoon, at about four o’clock—no, I think it must have been closer to half-past three—I received a telephone call from Bernice. That was after she had left the house so mysteriously—you know.”

The three men stiffened into strained attention. Velie muttered an indistinguishable curse beneath his breath, but quieted under a flashing glance from the Inspector. Ellery leaned forward.

“Yes, Miss Underhill?” he urged.

“It was most puzzling,” continued the housekeeper. “Bernice had spoken to me casually about losing the key just before lunch. Yet when she called in the afternoon, the first thing she said was that she wanted her key to the apartment, and would send around for it by messenger at once!”

“Is it possible,” muttered the Inspector, “that she thought you had already had a duplicate key made for her?”

“No, Inspector,” said the housekeeper incisively. “It didn’t sound as if she thought that at all. In fact, it seemed as if she’d utterly forgotten about having lost the key. So much so that I immediately reminded her that she’d told me about losing the key, in the morning, and having another made for her. She seemed quite distressed and said, ‘Oh, yes, Hortense! Isn’t it stupid of me to forget that way,’ and began to say something else, when she stopped suddenly and then said, ‘Don’t bother, Hortense, after all, it isn’t particularly important. I thought I might want to drop in at the apartment this evening.’ I reminded her that she could get the use of the master-key at the nightwatchman’s desk if she wanted to go to the apartment so badly. But she didn’t seem interested and hung up immediately.”

There was a little silence. Then Ellery looked up with a great light of interest in his eyes.

“Can you remember, Miss Underhill,” he asked, “just what it was that Miss Carmody began to say in the middle of the conversation, and then appeared to reconsider?”

“It’s hard to be exact about it, Mr. Queen,” replied the housekeeper. “But somehow I got the impression that Bernice was going to ask me to get one of the other keys to the apartment for her. Perhaps I’m wrong.”

“Perhaps you are,” said Ellery whimsically, “but I’d not give even the most preposterous of odds that you aren’t. …”

“You know,” added Hortense Underhill, as an afterthought, “I also got the impression, when she began to say that and stopped, that—”

“That somebody was talking to her, Miss Underhill?”
asked Ellery.

“Exactly, Mr. Queen.”

The Inspector turned a startled face toward his son. Velie moved his huge bulk lightly forward and whispered in the Inspector’s ear. The old man grinned.

“Keen, keen, Thomas,” he chuckled. “That’s just what I was thinking, too. …”

Ellery flicked his finger warningly.

“Miss Underhill, I can’t expect you to exhibit miracles of acuteness,” he said in a serious, admiring tone. “But I should like to ask—if you’re entirely certain that it was Miss Carmody talking to you over the wire?”

“That’s it!” cried the Inspector. Velie smiled grimly.

The housekeeper regarded the three men with strangely limpid eyes. Something electric shot through all four.

“I don’t—believe—it—was,” she whispered. …

After a while they left the missing girl’s bedroom and entered an adjoining room. It was severer in tone and immaculately clean.

“This is Mrs. French’s room,” said the housekeeper in a low voice. Her acid nature seemed sweetened by a sudden realization of complex tragedy. Her eyes followed Ellery with a grave respect.

“Is everything in perfect order, Miss Underhill?” asked the Inspector.

“Yes, sir.”

Ellery walked over to a wardrobe and scanned its neat racks thoughtfully.

“Miss Underhill, will you please look through this rack and tell us if any of Miss Marion French’s clothes are here?”

The housekeeper went through the racks while the three men looked on. She proceeded carefully, then shook her head in an unhesitating negative.

“Then Mrs. French was not in the habit of wearing Miss French’s things?”

“Oh, no, sir!”

Ellery smiled with satisfaction and at once wrote a line of hieroglyphics in his makeshift notebook.

T
HE THREE MEN STOOD
uncomfortably in old Cyrus French’s bedroom. The nurse fluttered about in the hall, a solid door separating her from her charge. Marion and Weaver had been ordered downstairs to the drawing-room. French’s physician, Dr. Stuart, a large impressive man, with a professional irascibility glared at the Queens from his post at French’s bedside.

“Five minutes—no longer,” he snapped. “Mr. French is hardly in a conversational condition!”

The Inspector clucked placatingly, and stared at the sick man. French lay lumpily in his great bed, nervous eyes darting from one to another of his inquisitors. One flabby white hand plucked at the silk coverlet. His face was entirely drained of color, pasty, shockingly unwholesome in appearance. His grey hair straggled over a furrowed forehead.

The Inspector stepped nearer to the bed. He bent forward and said in a low voice, “This is Inspector Queen of the police, Mr. French. Can you hear me? Do you think you are strong enough to answer a few perfunctory questions about Mrs. French’s—accident?”