“I have it! The solution to the second glass. The glass was,” he said, “a different type from the one beside your husband’s plate, because it came from no set of glassware in your house.”
“Merely an odd one, Monsignor,” Elise Hoffmann said indifferently. “A leftover from a former set.”
Monsignor Lavigny wrapped himself in the full dignity of his high office. His voice might remotely be said to have thundered.
“Madame, we are through with lies! You had determined to make Raul Fuentes the scapegoat. You could not place him physically upon the scene, so you placed an object he had handled upon the scene.
“I am convinced that you stopped at Raul’s house as you started off for Pompano to pick up such an object. You had the excuse of mediating the quarrel that had shortly occurred. But you did not need the excuse. You found him gone. You were able unobserved to find and take a glass, probably from his bathroom shelf.
“You were wearing driving gloves of chamois, the ones you wore when you waved to me, the ones you have since destroyed. You carried that glass with you to Pompano, guarding and preserving Raul’s fingerprints with some protective covering such as a scarf.
“After you had killed your husband and struck Candice down, you concealed the jack bar, got the glass, poured orange juice into it and set it on the table — after, I am convinced, you had pressed your dead husband’s fingerprints upon it to indicate that he had filled and handed the glass to Raul.”
“You are convinced,” Elise Hoffmann said. “But will a jury be?”
“They will be because you made one fatal error. When you pressed your husband’s fingerprints upon the glass, two of those prints were superimposed upon those of Raul. Proving that Raul’s were there first — and that your husband’s were put on it after his death. You look ill, Madame — and well you may!”
She broke completely.
Raul had been intercepted, and released, in the hospital grounds on his way to Candice. He was with her now in the room to which she had been transferred when the sheriff’s Miss Brown had taken her place.
Scotch and soda rested on the patio table.
“Father, was it Saint Jude?”
Monsignor Lavigny’s voice mellowed with a modest note. “I am gratefully certain that it was. My own poor wits could never have accomplished it of themselves.”
“And I suppose,” said Chuck drily, “that it was Saint Jude who cracked Elise Hoffmann’s nerve? That it was not you, Father, who made the flat statement that two of Hoffmann’s prints were superimposed on those of Fuentes?”
Monsignor Lavigny’s eyes were the essence of pious innocence as he said, “Well, weren’t they?”
“No, Father — as you very well know.”
Phyllis Bentley
Miss Phipps Goes to School
Carious little incidents were happening at Star Isle College, a boys’ boarding school in England — as if a noisy and obstreperous ghost were mischievously or maliciously at work. Was it a supernatural manifestation? Or were they merely boyish pranks? Or was there really a more sinister force at large? Seesaw of suspense, criminological crossruff, ’tec teeter-totter...
“Miss Phipps Goes to School” is a fascinating novelet by Phyllis Bentley, the noted regional novelist who, we are proud to say, never lets a year pass without sending a new Miss Phipps story to “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine” — Miss Phipps, the spinster-sleuth and detective-story-writer-detective who seldom loses her aplomb and never loses her charm...
“Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John,” sang Mary Tarrant happily, “went to bed with one shoe on.”
Young Master John Tarrant, agreeably clad in his own charming birthday suit and held firmly round the waist by his mother’s loving hands, laughed and crowed and stamped gleefully about her knee. Miss Phipps watched smiling from a nearby chair.
“My darling,” whispered Mary fondly, kissing him. “Well, I guess I’d better go and make that coffee. Mrs. Brooke did say she’d call for you at eleven, didn’t she, Miss Phipps?” She laid her son down on her lap and began what appeared to the detective novelist the impossible task of inserting his waving arms and legs into various small garments.
“Yes, at eleven,” agreed Miss Phipps, looking at her watch. “Let’s hope she’ll be late. I don’t want to tear myself away from your offspring’s antics.”
“Yes, isn’t he precious? Such a piece of luck, your being invited to lecture at Star Isle College, Miss Phipps,” said Mary. “I was so anxious for you to see the baby as he is now. He changes almost every week, you know.”
“My dear, I only accepted the engagement because it gave me the chance of visiting you in Brittlesea en route,” said Miss Phipps truthfully. “Boys’ boarding schools, however well-known and reputable, are not really in my line.”
“But Star Isle is really a very fine school,” said Mary, clasping a safety pin. “John says so. The buildings have all been modernized, and they have a beautiful beach. The new Headmaster, Dr. Brooke, is very progressive and energetic, and his wife is young and intelligent, and she coaches the boys in drama. And the Brookes have a baby about the same age as Johnny,” concluded Mary triumphantly, offering this last fact as a supreme token of the Brookes’s desirability.
It occurred to Miss Phipps to wonder whether Detective-Inspector Tarrant had ever been over to Star Isle College in his professional capacity, and if so, why; but knowing his discretion on all matters connected with his work, she fore-bore to put the question, and just then the doorbell rang. Mary placed the baby on the settee, wedging him in with cushions, then went to answer it. Miss Phipps, shy but determined, crossed over to the settee and did a little baby worship on her own, and was rewarded by having one finger tightly clasped in a delicious miniature fist. She was thus in a good position to observe the look which young Mrs. Brooke turned on the baby when she entered the room. This look startled, even shocked Miss Phipps, for it was of fear and anguish.
Introductions were performed. Mrs. Brooke’s hand trembled in Miss Phipps’s clasp.
“I’ll just slip out and fetch the coffee,” said Mary.
“No! No, thank you,” said Mrs. Brooke hastily. “It’s most kind of you, Mrs. Tarrant, but I’m afraid I really can’t stay. The ferry across to the island, you know, has only limited service on Saturday mornings. We shall just have time to catch the 11:50 boat if we leave now.”
“But couldn’t you stay and catch the next boat?” urged Mary.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Mrs. Brooke.
She spoke with so much authority and decision that there was nothing to do but obey, although Mary was upset by the rejection of her hospitality and Miss Phipps was grieved on Mary’s account. Miss Phipps’s overnight bag was hastily thrown into the back of Mrs. Brooke’s car, Miss Phipps herself was hustled into the front seat, farewells were curtailed, Mrs. Brooke took the wheel, and they were off for Star Isle.
During the next twenty minutes Miss Phipps, observing her companion with the shrewd eye of a novelist and listening with a novelist’s ear, discovered that Mrs. Brooke was tall, slender, dark, neat, dressed in good tweeds, intelligent, a University graduate, and a skillful driver. But she wore an angry frown down the center of her forehead, and snatched every advantage on the road which offered itself. Her story about the ferry was clearly not a mere snobbish excuse to refuse Mary’s hospitality; she was obviously motivated by some painful urgency.
The ferryboat — no doubt a landing-craft from wartime days, reflected Miss Phipps — was at the pier with its blunt bows open and lowered when they arrived. Mrs. Brooke jumped the queue of waiting cars and drove up to the boat, at which the attendant seaman and policeman gaped in astonishment. She made no comment on her action to the sailor who collected her ticket, although he gazed at her reproachfully. As the ferry waddled slowly along the winding course marked out by numerous posts and buoys, she tapped her foot impatiently.