“This is like coming down the stretch in a three-horse race,” complained Inspector Queen. “Millicent Hall is leading on motive — though I’d like to point out that you, Preston, or you, James, could have knocked the old boy over to teach him a lesson for not leaving his money to you. Preston’s leading on means; I have only your uncorroborated word that you gave the letter knife to Herbert Hall; what I do know is that it’s yours. Though, again, even if you did give Hall the knife, you, Millie, or you, James, could have used it in that hotel room. And James, you’re leading on opportunity — though your brother or sister could have easily sneaked up to your uncle’s room without being seen. Ellery, what are you sitting there like a dummy for?”
“I’m thinking,” said Ellery, looking thoughtful.
“And have you thought out,” asked his father acidly, “which one of the Halls their uncle meant when he said ‘Hall’ killed him? Do you see a glimmer?”
“Oh, more than a glimmer, dad,” Ellery said. “I see it all.”
“Old ’erbert was right, dad,” Ellery said. “Millie, drooling over the prospect of all those Australian goodies, couldn’t wait for her uncle to die naturally. But she hadn’t the nerve to murder him by herself — did you, Miss Hall? So you held out the bait of a three-way split to your brothers, and they willingly joined you in the plot. Safety in numbers, and all that. Right?”
The three Halls had grown very still indeed.
“It’s always disastrous,” Ellery said sadly, “trying to be clever in a murder. The plan was to confuse the issue and baffle the police — one of you being tied to motive, another to the weapon, the third to opportunity. It was all calculated to water down suspicion — spread it around.”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the drinking Hall, quite soberly; and his brother and sister nodded at once.
The Inspector was troubled. “But how do you know, Ellery?”
“Because Herbert Hall was a Cockney. He dropped his aitches; in certain key words beginning with a vowel, he also added the cockney aitch. Well, what did he say when I asked him which one of the three had stabbed him? He said, ‘Hall.’ I didn’t realize till just now that he wasn’t saying ‘Hall’ — he was adding an aitch. What he really said was ‘all’ — all three of them murdered him!”
Edward D. Hoch
Captain Leopold Gets Angry
The children had lingered at the playground through most of the morning, enjoying the sudden July sunshine after three days of rain. The young man who paused to watch their playing might have been basking in the sun himself, enjoying a solitary stroll across the park.
After a moment he called out to one of the nearby children. “Liz? You’re Liz Lambeth, aren’t you? I know your daddy.”
The little blonde girl left the others and came cautiously closer. She was nine years old, with a child’s curiosity, and the man had a pleasant, friendly face. “You know my daddy?”
“Sure. Come along. I’ll take you to him.”
She screwed up her face uncertainly. “He’s at work!”
“No, he isn’t. He’s parked right down the road in his truck. You want to see him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, come with me, then. It’s just a little way.”
He held out his hand, and after a moment the little girl took it.
The armored car had just pulled up in front of Independent Electronics Corporation when the young man left his parked auto and walked quickly toward the entrance. He paced himself well, so that his route intercepted that of the uniformed man who was carrying a heavy white sack in one hand and a drawn revolver in the other.
“George Lambeth,” he said, making it a statement and not a question. The guard turned and slowed his pace. In the armored car the driver suddenly became alert. The young man extended his hand, revealing a child’s crumpled red T-shirt. “We have your daughter. She’ll be dead in ten seconds unless you give me that money.”
“What?” The color drained from the guard’s face and he glanced toward his partner in the truck.
The driver had his gun out now and was opening the door. “What is it, George?”
“Five seconds, Mr. Lambeth.”
“They’ve got my daughter,” Lambeth told the driver. “They’ve got Liz.”
The uncertain driver raised his gun, but the young man stood his ground. “Shoot me and she dies. My partner is watching from that car across the street, and he has a gun at her head.”
“Give him the money, George,” the driver said.
George Lambeth handed over the heavy white sack. The young man accepted it with a nod and tossed the red T-shirt on the pavement. Then he turned and walked back the way he had come.
In another minute his car disappeared from view around a corner.
Lieutenant Fletcher brought the report to Captain Leopold’s desk shortly after one o’clock. “This looks like another one, Captain. He snatched the nine-year-old daughter of an armored-car guard and threatened to kill her if the guard didn’t hand over the Independent Electronics payroll.”
“How long ago?”
“Just before noon. The girl was released unharmed a few blocks away. They’re questioning her now, but it sounds like our loner again. He lured her into his car near the playground, then bound and gagged her and left her on the floor in the back seat.”
Leopold nodded. “How much money?”
“Eighty-seven thousand, mostly in small bills. It seems the company maintains a check-cashing service for employees.”
“Description fit last week’s bandit?”
“Close enough, and the modus operandi is identical.” A week earlier the son of a supermarket manager had been kidnaped and held for ransom — all the cash in the supermarket safe. Then, too, a lone young man — apparently unarmed — had made the demand for money, and calmly carried it away in a supermarket shopping bag.
“Get those guards down to look at pictures. The little girl, too, if she’s able to.” Leopold felt a surge of anger at the crimes. There was something about the endangerment of children that hit at his gut the way not even a murder could. Perhaps it was because he had no children of his own. Perhaps this made all of them his children.
Lieutenant Fletcher scratched his head. “I’ll do that, Captain. But there’s another angle we might check out. Connie Trent was at my desk when the first report came in. She has an idea about it.”
“Connie? Send her in.”
Connie Trent was easily the best-looking member of the Police Department. Tall and dark-haired, with a constant twinkle in her large brown eyes, she’d managed to charm the entire Detective Division after only six months on the job. But it wasn’t only her face and figure that Connie had going for her. A college graduate with a degree in sociology, she had joined the force as an undercover narcotics agent. Her cover had been blown after four months when she helped set up the biggest drug raid in the city’s history, but she had continued working among addicts as a known member of the police force. Oddly enough, the people she encountered seemed to show little resentment against her former undercover role. It was almost as if they welcomed the relief that arrest sometimes brought.
Connie still carried a snub-nosed Colt Detective Special in her handbag, but she was unarmed when she entered Leopold’s office. The tight green dress she wore was hardly immodest, but Leopold observed that it wasn’t designed to hide everything either.