“How so?”
“What’s the outstanding fact about the Richardson girl in relation to Cazalis?”
“She was his wife’s niece.”
“So Cazalis deliberately skipped over any number of available victims to murder his own niece, knowing that this would draw him into the case naturally. Knowing he’d be bound to meet me on the scene. Knowing that under the circumstances it would be a simple matter to get himself drawn into the investigation as one of the investigators. Why did Mrs. Cazalis insist on her husband’s offering his services? Because he’d often ‘discussed’ his ‘theories’ about the Cat with her! Cazalis had prepared the way carefully by playing on his wife’s attachment to Lenore even before Lenore’s murder. If Mrs. Cazalis hadn’t brought the subject up, he would have volunteered. But she did, as he knew she would.”
“And there he was,” grunted the Inspector, “on the inside, in a position to know just what we were doing—”
“In a position to revel in his own power.” Ellery shrugged. “I told you I was rusty. I was aware all along of the possibility of such a move on the Cat’s part. Didn’t I suspect Celeste and Jimmy of exactly that motive? Couldn’t get it out of my mind. And all the while there was Cazalis—”
“No cords.”
They jumped.
But it was only Sergeant Velie in the closet doorway.
“They ought to be here, Velie,” snapped the Inspector. “How about those steel files in his office?”
“We’d have to get Bill Devander down to open them. I can’t. Not without leaving traces.”
“How much time do we have?” The Inspector pulled on his watch chain.
But Ellery was pinching his lip. “To do the job properly would take more time than we have today, Dad. I doubt that he keeps the cords here, anyway. Too much danger that his wife or the maid might find them.”
“That’s what I said,” said Sergeant Velie heatedly. “I said to the Inspector — remember? — I said, Inspector, he’s got ’em stashed in a public locker some...”
“I know what you said, Velie, but they might also be right here in the apartment. We’ve got to have those cords, Ellery. The D.A. told me the other day that if we could connect a find of the same type of blue and pink cords with some individual, he’d be willing to go into court pretty nearly on that alone.”
“We can give the D.A.,” said Ellery suddenly, “a much better case.”
“How?”
Ellery put his hand on one of the walnut filing cabinets.
“All we have to do is put ourselves in Cazalis’s place. He’s certainly not finished — the cards on Petrucchi and Katz took him only as far as March 10, 1927, and his obstetrical records extend over three years beyond that.”
“I don’t quite get it,” complained the Sergeant.
But the Inspector was already at work on the drawer labeled 1927-30.
The birth card following Donald Katz’s was pink and it recorded the name “Rhutas, Roselle.” There was no Rhutas listed in the directory. The next card was blue. “Finkleston, Zalmon.” There was no such name in the directory.
Pink. “Heggerwitt, Adelaide.”
“Keep going, Dad.”
The Inspector took out another card. “Collins, Barclay M.”
“Plenty of Collinses... But no Barclay M.”
“The mother’s card gives her Christian name as—”
“It doesn’t matter. All his victims have had personal listings in the phone book. I checked a few parents’ names before, where the victim wasn’t listed, and I found two in the book; there must be lots of others. But he passed those up, I imagine because it would have increased the amount of investigating he’d have to do and by that much increased the risk. So far at least he’s taken only directly traceable cases. What’s the next card?”
“Frawlins, Constance.”
“No.”
Fifty-nine cards later the Inspector read, “Soames, Marilyn.”
“How do you spell that?”
“S-o-a-m-e-s.”
“S-o-a... Soames. Here it is! Soames, Marilyn!”
“Let me see that!”
It was the only Soames listed. The address was 486 East 29th Street.
“Off First Avenue,” muttered the Inspector. “Within spitting distance of Bellevue Hospital.”
“What are the mother’s and father’s names? On the white card?”
“Edna L. and Frank P. Father’s occupation given as ‘postal employee.’”
“Could we get a quick check on Marilyn Soames and her family? While we’re waiting here?”
“It’s getting late... I’ll ring the Mayor first, make sure he hangs on to Cazalis. Velie, where’s the phone?”
“There’s a couple in his office.”
“No household phone?”
“In a phone closet off the foyer.”
The Inspector went away.
When he returned, Ellery said, “They’re not calling back here, are they?”
“What do you think I am, Ellery?” The Inspector was peevish. “We’d be in a fine mess if we answered a personal call! I’m calling them back in half an hour. Velie, if the phone rings out there don’t answer it.”
“What do you think I am!”
They waited.
Sergeant Velie kept tramping about the foyer.
The Inspector kept pulling out his watch.
Ellery picked up the pink card.
Soames, Marilyn, f., b. Jan. 2, 1928, 7:13 A.M.
Add to population of Manhattan one female. Vital statistics of a birth. Recorded by the hand of death.
Onset of labor Natural
Position at delivery L.O.T.
Duration of labor 10 hrs.
Normal Normal
Anaesthesia Morphine-scopalamine
Operative Forceps
Crede — prophylaxis Crede
Period gestation 40 wks.
Respiration Spontaneous
Method of resuscitation None
Injuries at birth None
Congenital anomalies None
Medication p-n. None
Weight 6 lbs. 9 oz.
Length 49 cm.
And so on, unto the tenth day. Behavior of Baby... Type of supplemental or complemental feeding... Disturbances noted: Digestive, Respiratory, Circulatory, Genito-urinary, Nervous system, Skin, Umbilicus...
A conscientious physician. Death was always conscientious. Digestive. Circulatory. Umbilicus. Especially umbilicus. The place where the extraembryonic structures are continuous with those of the body proper of the embryo, anatomical and zoological definition. To which is attached the umbilical cord connecting the fetus of the mammal with the placenta... Jelly of Wharton... Epiblastic epithelium... No mention of tussah silk.
But that was to come twenty-one years later.
Meanwhile, pink cards for females, blue cards for males.
Systematized. The scientific mumbo jumbo of parturition.
It was all down here on a card in faded pen-marks. God’s introductory remarks on another self-contained unit of moist, red, squirming life.
And even as the Lord giveth, He taketh away.
When the Inspector set the telephone down he was a little pale. “Mother’s name Edna, nee Lafferty. Father’s name Frank Pellman Soames, occupation post office clerk. Daughter Marilyn is public stenographer. Aged 21.”
Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, Marilyn Soames, aged 21, occupation public stenographer, of 486 East 29th Street, Manhattan, would be plucked from the files of Dr. Edward Cazalis by the hand that had pulled her into the world and he would begin measuring her for a salmon-pink cord of tussah silk.