Mr. Queen wondered ungraciously if Mr. Ruhig meant, now that Solly Spaeth had gone to join the choir invisible, to assume responsibility for Miss Moon’s nebulous career.
Miss Moon began to weep afresh.
“All right, all right,” said Inspector Glücke hastily. “This won’t take long, and then you can cry your eyes out. Who killed Solly Spaeth?”
“I know who’d wike to!” cried Winni, lowering her handkerchief just long enough to glare at Rhys Jardin.
“You mean Mr. Jardin?”
At this new peril Val felt her skin tighten. That insufferable clothes-horse! But she was too steeped in more pointed miseries to do more than try to electrocute the sobbing beauty with her glance.
“Yes, I do,” said Miss Moon, turning off the tears at once. “He did nothing but quawwel and quawwel with poor, darling Solly. Nothing! Last week—”
“Winni,” said Walter in a choked voice, “shut that trap of yours—”
Now, thought Val, now he was talking!
“Your own father, too!” said Winni viciously. “I will not, Walter Spaeth. You know it’s twue. Last Monday morning he and Solly had a tewwible battle about the floods and the factowies and ev’wything! And only this morning he came over again and thweatened him—”
“Threatened him,” repeated Glücke with satisfaction.
“He said he ought to be hanged, he said! He said he ought to be cut up in little pieces, he said! He said he was a cwook! Then I didn’t hear any more—”
“The woman was obviously listening at the door,” said Rhys, his brown cheeks slowly turning crimson. “It’s true, Inspector, that we had a quarrel. But—”
“It’s also true,” said the Inspector dryly, “that you quarrelled because Spaeth caused the collapse of Ohippi.”
“Yes,” said Rhys, “and ruined me, but—”
“You lost everything, eh, Mr. Jardin?”
“Yes!”
“Solly made you a poor man, while he cleaned up a fortune.”
“But he ruined thousands of others, too!”
“What’s this ape trying to do, Rhys,” yelled a familiar voice, “hang this killing on you?” And Pink bounced into the room, his red hair bristling.
“Oh, Pink,” cried Val, and she fell into his arms.
“It’s all right,” said Rhys wearily to a panting detective. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“Listen, you,” snarled Pink to Glücke, “I don’t give a damn if you eat bombs for breakfast. If you say Rhys Jardin pulled this job you’re just a dumb, one-cylinder, cock-eyed heel of a liar!” He patted Val’s hair clumsily. “I would have come sooner, only I didn’t know till I got here. Mibs told me where you went.”
“All right, Pink,” said Rhys in a low voice, and Pink stopped talking. Inspector Glücke regarded him speculatively for a moment. Then he shrugged.
“You’re a sportsman, aren’t you, Mr. Jardin?”
“If you’ll make your point—”
“You’ve won golf championships, you’re a crack pistol shot, you beat this man Pink in the California Archery Tournament last spring, you’ve raced your yacht against the best. You see, I know all about you.”
“Please come to the point,” said Rhys coldly.
“You fence, too, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Glücke nodded. “It isn’t generally known, but you’re also one of the best amateur swordsmen in the United States.”
“I see,” said Rhys slowly.
“He even twied to teach Solly!” shrilled Miss Moon. “He was always twying to make him exercise!”
The Inspector beamed. “Is that so?” he said. And he turned and pointedly looked up at the puce-colored wall above the fireplace.
A collection of old weapons hung there, decorative pieces — two silver-butted dueling pistols, a long-barreled eighteenth-century rifle, an arquebus, a group of poinards and dirks and stilettos, a dozen or more time-blackened swords: rapiers, sabers, scimitars, jeweled court-swords.
High above the rest lay a heavy channeled blade such as were carried by mounted men-at-arms in the thirteenth century. It lay on the wall obliquely. A thin light streak in the puce paint crossed the medieval piece in the opposite direction, as if at one time another sword had hung there.
“It’s gone!” squealed Winni, pointing at the streak.
“Uh-huh,” said Glücke.
“But it was there at only four o’cwock!”
“Was that when you saw Spaeth last, Miss Moon?”
“Yes, when I came back fwom shopping...”
“Is it polite to inquire,” murmured Mr. Queen, “what the beauteous Miss Moon was doing between four o’clock and the time Mr. Spaeth was murdered?”
“I was in my boudoir twying on new gowns!” cried Miss Moon indignantly. “How dare you!”
“And you didn’t hear anything, Miss Moon?”
Ruhig glared. “If you’ll tell me what right—”
“Listen, Queen,” snarled Glücke. “You’ll do me a big favor if you keep your nose out of this!”
“Sorry,” said Ellery.
Glücke blew a little, shaking himself. “Now,” he said in a calmer tone. “Let’s see what that sticker was.” He went to the fireplace with the air of a stage magician about to demonstrate his most baffling trick, and set a chair before it. He stepped up on the chair, craning, and loudly read the legend on a small bronze plaque set into the wall below the streak in the paint. “‘Cup-hilted Italian rapier, seventeenth century,’” he announced. And he stepped down with an air of triumph.
No one said anything. Rhys sat quietly, his muscular hands resting without movement on his knees.
“The fact is, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Inspector, facing them, “that Solly Spaeth was stabbed to death and an Italian rapier is missing. We’ve pretty well established that it’s gone. It isn’t in this house and so far my men haven’t found it on the grounds. Stab-wound — sword missing. It looks as if Solly’s killer took the rapier down from the wall, backed Solly into that corner there, gave him the works, and beat it with the sword.”
In the stillness Mr. Queen’s voice could clearly be heard. “That,” he complained, “is precisely the trouble.”
Inspector Glücke slowly passed his hand over his face. “Listen, you—” Then he turned on Jardin and snapped: “You weren’t by any chance trying to teach Solly a few tricks with that sword this afternoon, were you?”
Rhys smiled his brief, charming smile; and Val was so proud of him she could have wept. And Walter, the beast, just sat there!
“Figure it out for yourself,” said the Inspector amiably. “Frank says you were the only outsider to enter Sans Souci late this afternoon. We have the missing piece from your coat in substantiation, and we’ll have the coat very shortly, I promise you.”
“I’d like to see it myself,” said Rhys lightly.
“You’ve admitted to at least two quarrels with the dead man, one only this morning.”
“You left something out,” said Jardin with another smile. “After our tiff in this room this morning, I saw Spaeth again. He walked over to my house — I mean the one I vacated today.” Val started; she had not known that. “We had another little chat in my gymnasium, as a result of which I walked out on him.”
“Thanks for the tip,” said Glücke. “You’d better begin to think about keeping such facts to yourself. Got that, Phil? Well, you had a nice strong motive, too, Jardin — he ruined you and, from what I hear, he wouldn’t do what you asked, which was to put his profits back in Ohippi and salvage the business. And last, you’re a swordsman, and a sword was used to polish him off. You may even have got him off guard by pretending to show him some kind of fencing maneuver.”