“Foolish, misguided young man,” said Mary sadly. “Why did he ruin himself by committing this crime? He was in debt, I suppose.”
“The Inspector investigated that matter promptly. Bob was not in debt at all. The date was shortly after the beginning of the month and all his bills — garage and so on — were paid.”
“You mean he didn’t do it?” asked Mary. “Then Arthur must have done it. He’d been stealing from the firm — fiddling the books, you know — and he stole this money to make gool his shortage.”
“A very possible solution,” agreed Miss Phipps. “The Inspector, however, had the firm’s books closely investigated by a chartered accountant. They were in perfect order.”
“So we’re thrown back again to Bob. What about that quarrel between Bob and Catherine? Another girl, perhaps? He had seduced her and needed the money to pay her off?”
“Again a possible solution. Arthur, I may say, hinted at it. By this time he was in a towering rage against Bob and swearing he should never marry his daughter.”
“The Inspector investigated the ‘other girl’ possibility?”
“He did. There was no such girl.”
“What about Grandfather Denison? Could he be involved somehow?”
“Oh, he had an unbreakable alibi. He was being driven home by his elderly chauffeur during the entire period of the robbery. No, he definitely does not come into the mystery.”
“I wonder if Arthur and Bob could have been in it together?” suggested Mary thoughtfully. “Perhaps the Laire Woollen Company’s finances were unsound. Maybe the money wasn’t there at all, and Arthur and Bob faked the theft to conceal its absence.”
“The money was withdrawn from the Laire bank that afternoon,” replied Miss Phipps. “Inspector Tarrant investigated the Laire Woollen Company’s finances and found that the firm, though not a gold mine, was solidly prosperous.”
“Aunt Marian,” said Mary with determination, “will you please tell me at once who committed this robbery, and why? I can’t stand this suspense any longer. I’m on tenterhooks.”
“A very textile metaphor, my dear. So you admit that my recipe for suspense — two characters each of whose integrity appears to vary inversely with that of the other — is a valid one?”
“Yes, yes, I agree.”
“And that it is valid because there are four possible solutions? You have already advanced three of the four — that Arthur is guilty, that Bob is guilty, that Arthur and Bob are both guilty.”
“The fourth possible solution is that neither Arthur nor Bob is guilty,” Mary remembered. “I’d prefer that to be the correct answer, Aunt Marian, if it is at all possible. I’ve grown quite attached to these people, and I certainly want that nice Catherine to be happy. She can’t be happy if either her father or her future husband is guilty.”
“Well, let us see what we can do,” said Miss Phipps, smiling. “Let us assume that both Arthur and Bob are telling the truth.”
“Hurrah,” said Mary.
“Arthur is a slow, precise elderly man; Bob is a vigorous impetuous young one. The sense of time could vary considerably between two such persons. I suggest that Arthur was a good deal longer in finishing his pay envelopes than he thought. On the other hand, Bob had a few sharp words with Catherine; she whisked away in a pet; he hurried across the yard, tried the self-starter of his sports car, leaped out, threw off his scarf, finally started the car manually, and drove off, all in a fury. By that time the mill yard was empty, the thieves arrived, and the scarf, forgotten by Bob, lay on the ground.”
“Oh, quite,” said Mary. “I can accept all that. But it doesn’t give us a clue to the identity of the thieves.”
“I think it does,” said Miss Phipps.
“Really?”
“Yes. Remember that this scarf was very noticeably striped in the colors of Laire University. Nobody in the mill was likely to have a similar scarf. Everybody in the mill would know the scarf as Bob’s.”
“You mean that whoever took the scarf into the office did so to implicate Bob?”
“I do.”
“But who could that be? Surely not Arthur?”
“No, of course not. Arthur was a good man, a little too strict perhaps — a nonsmoker and teetotaler and all that kind of thing — but thoroughly honorable.”
“Then who? I don’t see anybody else in the story.”
“My dear,” said Miss Phipps with something of a smirk, “it is not required of a detective-story writer that she thrust the guilty person into view. The man is there, however. You can find him if you think back to one small incident in the story — an incident which you dismissed too casually after a single question.”
Mary paused. At length she said, “The quarrel between Bob and Catherine.”
“Exactly.”
“What was it about?”
“What indeed?”
“Did the Inspector investigate it?”
“Eventually.”
“Was it about Arthur?”
Miss Phipps shook her head.
“About Bob’s old grandfather? He disapproved of the match?”
“No. The grandfather was a rather fine old man, saddened by having lost his son in the War, a little perplexed by the strange modern world, but anxious only for Bob’s happiness.”
“Then who — oh!” cried Mary suddenly, dropping her knitting. “I’ve got it! Of course! Catherine’s other suitors. The clerk in the outer office. Bob was jealous of his attentions and said so rather too possessively to Catherine, who tossed her head and walked off. It all happened just as you said — about Bob and the scarf and the car — and this clerk, who of course knew all about the pay envelopes in the office — by the way, what was his name? Did you ever mention it?”
“No — but let’s call him Eric.”
“A name I’ve never had a fancy for. Eric picked up the scarf and gave it to his confederate in the office, deliberately intending to implicate Bob. Eric must have planned the theft beforehand.”
“Oh, yes, he had.”
“Gambling debts?”
“Dogs. And then a money-lender.”
“I see. Tight trousers and a mop of hair?”
“No, older than that. Sideburns and a fancy waistcoat.”
“And his partner in crime?”
“A bad companion from Laire’s underworld, I’d say.”
“Would they be caught?”
“Yes — you know that detective stories are the most moral of all stories. The numbers of the notes were known to the Laire bank — quite a customary precaution.”
“So Arthur and Bob and Catherine and Grandfather Denison were able to live happily ever after.”
“Yes. After a good deal of suspense, I hope you agree?”
“Oh, I agree. You win, Aunt Marian. Heavens, there’s Johnny moving already How time flies!”
She ran upstairs to her little son. Miss Phipps, with a sigh, picked up her book again.
“No suspense,” she murmured.
The Man Who Looked Like Napoleon
by Robert Bloch
“A classical example of megalomania,” said Doctor Rand — and one of the finest stories by the author of PSYCHO.
The man who looked like Napoleon got out of the elevator on the fifth floor. He walked down the hall slowly, his head bent so that his forelock bobbed up and down. He might have brushed his hair back, but only if he took his hand from inside the front of his coat.
He couldn’t take his hand out now — later, perhaps, but not now. He was being watched.
All eyes were on the Emperor as he moved along the hall. No one was visible, but he knew they were there — behind the doors, watching. Watching and whispering. Well, let them whisper. He was protected by the Old Guard and the people were behind him, to the last man.