“Will you be home for dinner tonight?” she asked as I was leaving.
“I hope so. Earlier than last night, at least. I’ll call you later.”
I had arranged to meet Simon at police headquarters, where Lieutenant Fisk planned to bring Susan Yantz after she’d viewed the body. Simon said very little while we waited, but as soon as we saw Susan I knew the results. She was red-eyed from crying and Fisk had his arm around her shoulders.
“It’s him,” she said, replying to our unspoken question.
“Come into my office,” Fisk told us.
“What about the fingerprints?” I asked him.
“They match. There’s no doubt.”
Simon had another question. “I saw you take samples of the ash on the elevator floor yesterday. What was it?”
“No bones or anything spectacular, Mr. Ark. Just card-board. Probably the container for the fireball.”
Simon leaned forward in his chair toward Susan Yantz; so close that I think he frightened her. “I have just one further question. This one is for you, Miss Yantz. What vest was Rager wearing when he disappeared?”
She blinked, looking surprised. Whatever question she’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. “Why, his silver one. I remember being surprised when he was dressing for the reception because he’d worn the same outfit on stage the night before.”
“He had many different costumes?”
“Certainly. He usually wore the tight black pants, but the vests were always different. He traveled with a dozen or more.”
“I suspected as much,” Simon said with a gentle nod.
“What has his jacket got to do with any of this?” Fisk demanded.
“Oh, the jacket has everything to do with it. Now I know how Rager vanished from that elevator. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell me who killed him.”
In typical fashion, Simon refused to give us an explanation, saying only that he could not reveal anything until we had the murderer in hand. Susan Yantz sat through it all with wide eyes, finally bursting out with, “Point him out to me and give me a gun, and I’ll save you the trouble of a trial. Anyone who could burn Rager like that—”
“He was killed before he was burned,” Fisk told her. “The autopsy shows he was strangled.”
“Has the Devil ever been known to strangle people?” I asked Simon.
“Once I solved the elevator mystery, it was clear Satan was no longer involved. However that doesn’t get us any closer to the actual murderer.”
“There’s a lot of pressure on us to wrap this one up quick,” Fisk admitted. “I’ll take any help I can get.”
“Then let us have a reenactment of the crime,” Simon decided. “Perhaps we’ll see something we didn’t notice the first time.”
Lieutenant Fisk reluctantly agreed to the scheme and the principal actors from the previous day were again assembled. There were only four — Susan Yantz, Les Fenton, Thomas Robock and Clare Goddard — and when we were assembled on the ground floor of the hotel, near the bank of elevators, Simon explained his reasoning for this.
“I am about to demonstrate, with Lieutenant Fisk’s kind permission, how it was possible for Rager to vanish from a glass elevator between here and the Skytop Restaurant when the elevator makes no stops on the way. It could only have been done with his cooperation, whether the original idea was his or someone else’s. That is my first point. My second point is that the killer had to know of the plan in advance so he would know where to find Rager and murder him. As was pointed out earlier, you four are the only people in this city he is likely to have told. His girlfriend and traveling companion, his business manager, his publicity director, and the record magnate who was sponsoring the reception he was supposed to attend. He would not have carried out his intended stunt without telling at least one of you.”
“He never said a word to me,” Les Fenton said, and the others joined in agreement.
“I want each of you to take up the position you were in at the time Rager entered the elevator,” Simon instructed.
“I was upstairs waiting for the elevator,” Robock said.
“Then go up there — but take a different elevator, not the express one.”
Lieutenant Fisk was watching it all from the sidelines with two of his officers. He seemed willing to give Simon as much leeway as he needed. “Go up there with Robock,” he told one of the officers. “I want you there when the elevator arrives. Call me on the house phone and tell me what’s happening.”
“I was with him at the elevator,” Fenton said. “Where do I stand? Who’s playing the part of Rager?”
Simon Ark stepped forward. “I am.”
The idea of Simon’s standing in for a twenty-two-year-old rock singer seemed ludicrous to me, but no one laughed. Fenton went to his side, ready to accompany him to the elevator. Susan Yantz announced that she had taken a separate cab to the hotel because of Rager’s quirk of riding alone, and hadn’t quite arrived when Rager boarded his elevator. “Remember?” she reminded Simon and me. “I rode up on the elevator with you.”
“That’s right,” I confirmed.
“I was with Les and Rager,” Clare Goddard said. “We’d come down after lunch to meet him. After Rager went up alone, Les and I followed.”
“Together?” Simon asked.
“No. I believe Les went up first, right after Rager. He had to use a local, of course. They held the elevator up there when Rager wasn’t on it.”
“All right.” Simon pressed the express button. “I will board the elevator. Each of you should behave exactly as you did yesterday, but I want someone to accompany you.” I got the job of riding up with Fenton, while the other officer went up with Clare. Fisk would remain with Susan Yantz.
The express elevator arrived and Simon stepped into its interior alone, giving a little bow like a stage magician entering a magic cabinet. He pressed a button and the doors slid shut, the lighted arrow pointing up.
The house phone rang almost at once and Fisk took the receiver from its wall compartment. “Yes, Mr. Robock. He’s just started up. He should be there soon. I’ll hang on.” He glanced over at me and smiled indulgently. No one really expected Simon Ark to vanish as Rager had done.
The time seemed to drag by. A minute, two minutes. How long did it take an elevator to travel up sixty stories?
“Yes,” Fisk said into the phone. “It’s arrived? What? What are you saying? Where’s Simon Ark?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised but somehow I was. Damned if he hadn’t pulled it off, just like Rager.
Fisk and the others stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to do next. Then from behind us came a familiar voice. “Are you satisfied now?” It was Simon Ark.
“All right,” Fisk said. “How’d you do it? The elevator makes no stops between here and the Skytop Restaurant, not even in the lobby. You got on here — we all saw you — but the elevator was empty when it arrived. How?”
“Rager’s method can be explained in three simple words. All the rest is mere window-dressing.”
“Three words? Where did he go if he didn’t go up?”
“He went down,” Simon Ark said simply. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Fenton?”
Les Fenton would have made a terrible poker player. I knew Simon was bluffing, and he should have known it, too. But I’m not one to judge the pressures of a murderer’s conscience. Simon’s words broke him down completely, and Fisk was reading him his rights as he got out the handcuffs. Then it was time for Simon’s explanation.
“It’s true that the express elevator only goes to one place, the Skytop Restaurant, when it’s going up. But it also goes to the parking garage on the floor below this. How do I know? Because we took it with Lieutenant Fisk when he was notified of the fire. Remember him saying, ‘The express is faster,’ as he jabbed the button?”