“What’s the idea, Mr. Queen?” he said. “I’m a busy man.”
“A not unique condition,” smiled Ellery. “Ah, Mr. Peters, good day. Introductions, I think, are not entirely called for... Sit down, gentlemen!” he said in a sharper voice, and they sat down.
The door opened and a small, gray, birdlike little man peered in at them. Sergeant Velie looked astounded, and Ellery nodded gaily. “Come in, Dad, come in! You’re just in time for the first act.”
Inspector Richard Queen cocked his little squirrel’s head, looked at the assembled company shrewdly, and closed the door behind him. “What the devil is the idea of the call, son?”
“Nothing very exciting. Not a murder, or anything in your line. But it may interest you. Gentlemen, Inspector Queen.”
The inspector grunted, sat down, took out his old brown snuff-box, and inhaled with the voluptuous gasp of long practice. Ellery stood serenely in the hub of the circle of chairs, looking down at curious faces. “The theft of the one-penny black, as you inveterate stamp-fiends call it,” he began, “presented a not uninteresting problem. I say ‘presented’ advisedly. For the case is solved.”
“Is this that business of the stamp robbery I was hearing about down at headquarters?” asked the inspector.
“Yes.”
“Solved?” asked Beninson. “I don’t think I understand, Mr. Queen. Have you found Planck?”
Ellery waved his arm negligently. “I was never too sanguine of catching Mr. William Planck, as such. You see, he wore tinted spectacles and black mustachios. Now, anyone familiar with the science of crime-detection will tell you that the average person identifies faces by superficial details. A black mustache catches the eye. Tinted glasses impress the memory. In fact, Mr. Hazlitt here, who from Uneker’s description is a man of poor observational powers, recalled even after seeing his assailant in dim streetlight that the man wore a black mustache and tinted glasses. But this is all fundamental and not even particularly smart. It was reasonable to assume that Planck wanted these special facial characteristics to be remembered. I was convinced that he had disguised himself, that the mustache was probably a false one, and that ordinarily he does not wear tinted glasses.”
They all nodded.
“This was the first and simplest of the three psychological sign posts to the culprit.” Ellery smiled and turned suddenly to the inspector. “Dad, you’re an old snuff addict. How many times a day do you stuff that unholy brown dust up your nostrils?”
The inspector blinked. “Oh, every half-hour or so. Sometimes as often as you smoke cigarets.”
“Precisely. Now, Mr. Beninson told me that in the two weeks during which Planck stayed at his house, and despite the fact that Mr. Beninson worked side by side with the man every day, he saw Planck take snuff only once. Please observe that here we have a most enlightening and suggestive fact.”
From the blankness of their faces it was apparent that, far from seeing light, their minds on this point were in total darkness. There was one exception — the inspector; he nodded, shifted in his chair, and coolly began to study the faces about him.
Ellery lit a cigaret. “Very well,” he said, expelling little puffs of smoke, “there you have the second psychological factor. The third was this: Planck, in a fairly public place, bashes Mr. Friederich Ulm over the face with the robust intention of stealing a valuable stamp. Any thief under the circumstances would desire speed above all things. Mr. Ulm was only half-stunned — he might come to and make an outcry; a customer might walk in; Mr. Albert Ulm might return unexpectedly—”
“Just a moment, son,” said the inspector. “I understand there are two of the stamp thingamajigs in existence. I’d like to see the one that’s still here.”
Ellery nodded. “Would one of you gentlemen please get the stamp?”
Friederich Ulm rose, pottered over to the safe, tinkered with the dials, opened the steel door, fussed about the interior a moment, and came back with the leather case containing the second one-penny black. The inspector examined the thick little scrap curiously; a thirty-thousand-dollar bit of old paper was as awesome to him as to Ellery.
He almost dropped it when he heard Ellery say to Sergeant Velie: “Sergeant, may I borrow your revolver?”
Velie’s massive jaw seesawed as he fumbled in his hip pocket and produced a long-barreled police revolver. Ellery took it and hefted it thoughtfully. Then his fingers closed about the butt and he walked over to the rifled cabinet in the middle of the room.
“Please observe, gentlemen — to expand my third point — that in order to open this cabinet Planck used an iron bar; and that in prying up the lid he found it necessary to insert the bar between the lid and the front wall four times, as the four marks under the lid indicate.
“Now, as you can see, the cabinet is covered with thin glass. Moreover, it was locked, and the one-penny black was in this closed leather case inside. Planck stood about here, I should judge, and mark that the iron bar was in his hand. What would you gentlemen expect a thief, working against time, to do under these circumstances?”
They stared. The inspector’s mouth tightened, and a grin began to spread over the expanse of Sergeant Velie’s face.
“But it’s so clear,” said Ellery. “Visualize it. I’m Planck. The revolver in my hand is an iron ‘jimmy.’ I’m standing over the cabinet...” His eyes gleamed behind the pince-nez, and he raised the revolver high over his head. And then, deliberately, he began to bring the steel barrel down on the thin sheeting of glass atop the cabinet. There was a scream from Albert Ulm, and Friederich Ulm half-rose, glaring. Ellery’s hand stopped a half-inch from the glass.
“Don’t break that glass, you fool!” shouted the green-shaded dealer. “You’ll only—”
He leaped forward and stood before the cabinet, trembling arms outspread as if to protect the case and its contents. Ellery grinned and prodded the man’s palpitating belly with the muzzle of the revolver. “I’m glad you stopped me, Mr. Ulm. Put your hands up. Quickly!”
“Why... why, what do you mean?” gasped Albert Ulm, raising his arms with frantic rapidity.
“I mean,” said Ellery gently, “that you’re William Planck, and that brother Friederich is your accomplice!”
The brothers Ulm sat trembling in their chairs, and Sergeant Velie stood over them with a nasty smile. Albert Ulm had gone to pieces; he was quivering like an aspen leaf in high wind.
“A very simple, almost an elementary, series of deductions,” Ellery was saying. “Point three first. Why did the thief, instead of taking the most logical course of smashing the glass with the iron bar, choose to waste precious minutes using a ‘jimmy’ four times to force open the lid? Obviously to protect the other stamps in the cabinet, which lay open to possible injury, as Mr. Albert Ulm has just graphically pointed out. And who had the greatest concern in protecting these other stamps — Hinchman, Peters, Beninson, even the mythical Planck himself? Of course not. Only the Ulm brothers, owners of the stamps.”
Old Uneker began to chuckle; he nudged the inspector. “See? Didn’t I say he vass smardt? Now me — me, I’d neffer t’ink of dot.”
“And why didn’t Planck steal these other stamps in the cabinet? You would expect a thief to do that. Planck did not. But if the Herren Ulm were the thieves, the theft of the other stamps became pointless.”