“Morning.” Dr. Hesse bustled in, took his cigar from his mouth and added, “Where’s the body?”
“Across the hall,” Gavigan said. “Malloy will show you. She was alive as late at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, rigor was complete at 10 last night, and the body’s been moved, probably twice. From here up to the other end of the island and back.”
“I get it,” Hesse said, wrinkling his nose. “Body moved all over the place; you don’t call me for nine or ten hours after death, and you want to know the time of death. Why bother me? Merlini’s the staff magician.”
“Save it, Doc. You wouldn’t be happy without something to growl about. If it’ll help any, there was an M.D. on deck when the body was found. Hunter, you send Gail up.”
“William Gail?” Hesse asked.
“You know him?”
“No. But I’ve read some of his papers in the psychology journals. Knows his subject.”
Hesse and Malloy left, going across the hall. Hunter went downstairs. Gavigan handed the letter to Brady. “You check with Arnold on that signature. Find out if he’s sure it’s Floyd’s. Then go over the letter and envelope for prints. Grimm, you go up to the other house and get tracings of those footprints. As soon as all these people are out of their rooms, go through them and see if you can turn up any shoes that fit. You might begin with this wardrobe here.”
Merlini, seated on the bed, shuffled his cards and began dealing them out on the counterpane into five neat piles. As Grimm left, he murmured softly, “Somebody killed our Linda, and then went away out the winda. Easy as pie for a human fly, contortionist, bird, or a Hindu.”
“Well, which was it?” The Inspector said threateningly,
“You’ve got an idea. Spill it.”
“I’ve just remembered,” Merlini said slowly, “that Houdini—”
The door opened, and Dr. Gail came in. Merlini grinned, and continued silently dealing his cards. Gavigan, in a harassed voice, growled, “Sit down!”
Gail, surprised, sat.
“Your movements for yesterday afternoon, please,” Gavigan barked.
Gail replied promptly, giving the information in a crisp, clinical tone as if it were a prescription. “Polyclinic Hospital all morning. Check with the psychiatry department. Office in the afternoon. Phone my secretary: Park 8-8765. She can also give you a list of patients I saw there during the afternoon. At 5:30 Miss Verrill met me at my office, and we had dinner at the Plaza. I put her in a taxi shortly before 8:30 and returned to my office, where I worked until 10. Then I came out here.”
“Your secretary work all evening, too?”
“No. You have me there. But the driver of the water taxi that docks at 44th Street will tell you I got aboard at 10 and that he landed me here 10 minutes later.”
“What time did you go in yesterday morning?”
“I didn’t. I only come out here week-ends. Friday nights until Monday morning, usually.”
“It’s your opinion Linda Skelton was carried up to that house after death because she couldn’t have gone there alive?”
Dr. Gail nodded, and at Gavigan’s insistence repeated his testimony Concerning agoraphobes and their habits, which Merlini and I had already heard.
“And with all that,” the Inspector said when he had finished, “you wouldn’t certify her as insane?”
“No,” replied Gail quickly. “She was abnormal, yes, but — but not dangerous. Besides, removal to a sanatorium or asylum wouldn’t have been feasible. You’d have had to bring it to her.”
Gavigan thought a moment. “All right,” he said. “That’s all. The medical examiner is looking at the body. Will you go in there? He’d like to see you.”
Gail started out; and Merlini, who had finished dealing poker hands to himself and four imaginary opponents, said, “Wait.” He turned the hands face up to reveal a dreamlike assortment of straights, flushes, and full houses. His own hand turned out to be a nice, neat, ace-high royal flush in spades.
“Are you Arnold’s doctor too?” he asked, gathering up the cards with practiced movements.
I wasn’t sure if the startled expression on Gail’s face concerned the poker hands or Merlini’s question.
“No,” he said shortly. “I am not.”
“Do you know who is?”
“No.”
The cards in Merlini’s right hand sprang out through space in a long flutter and were gathered as they came in his left.
“But perhaps you can tell me what is wrong with his face?”
Gail shook his head at once. “No. I can’t.”
Merlini gave him a quick look and said very casually, “Can’t or won’t?”
Gail made no reply for a moment. Then he smiled humorlessly and said slowly and distinctly, “ ‘I think I said, ‘can’t.’ ”
The cards fluttered again. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Gail turned on his heel and went out quickly.
Gavigan addressed Brady, who had returned a moment before. “Floyd’s writing?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Start on the letter. Quinn, you get Brooke.” Gavigan eyed Merlini. “What do you think is wrong with his face?”
“I don’t know, Inspector. That’s why I asked. He’s wearing make-up — even on his hands. It conceals something. We’ll give Hesse a look at him. Might not be important, but I’m curious. Have you seen this one?”
He exhibited the ace of spades on the face of the deck and passed his hand briefly across it. It changed, with all the ease of a trick motion-picture, into the eight of spades, and then, as if not satisfied, into a card I’d love to draw in a poker game, the fifteen of spades! Another pass wiped the spots away completely. He turned it over, made the blue back red, and dealt it face down on the bed.
Gavigan said, “I’d like to try that.” He held out his hands for the cards.
Merlini and I looked at him, astonished. Merlini said, “Of course,” and passed him the deck. “Better take this, too,” he added picking up the card on the bed and turning it over. The blank face now bore a drawing of a top hat complete with rabbit, Merlini’s signature, address, and phone number!
Gavigan quite flatly and without the faintest hint of expression merely said, “Thanks,” added the card to the deck and dropped it into his pocket. He turned and faced the door.
Ira Brooke came through it, smiling expansively, for no reason that I could see, like a Y. M. C. A. secretary with a new swimming pool. He had a cheerful, almost too-straightforward air about him that the darting movements of his eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles seemed to contradict.
He took the chair before the Inspector and waited brightly, almost eagerly. The change from last night was as astonishing as Merlini’s card transformations. I didn’t believe either of them.
“You say you saw Miss Skelton last at breakfast yesterday morning?” Gavigan began.
“That’s right,” Brooke answered promptly.
“And you worked out at the houseboat all day until dinner time, without coming in for lunch?”
“Yes. I took a bite with me. And Rappourt was there with me all afternoon.” He leaned back comfortably in his chair, crossing his legs. But he straightened a bit at the Inspector’s next question.
“Working on plans for an underwater salvaging device?”
Brooke raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say so last night?”
“I had no way of knowing that that gentleman,” he indicated Merlini, “was a bona-fide investigator, for one thing. For another, I don’t talk about my inventions before they’re patented.”
“Sure it wasn’t because you intended to go after a sunken treasure in the neighborhood without asking permission?”
“Oh. The cat’s out of the bag, I see.” He relaxed again and grinned. “That might have had something to do with it, yes. Treasure hunters don’t talk for publication before the fact. Obviously bad tactics.”