“The rock garden,” said Ping eagerly.
“The pool,” said the Inspector.
“And beyond the pool?”
“The old Jardin house.”
“Or, to be precise, the terrace of the old Jardin house, which is exactly opposite this one.”
Fitzgerald came puffing around the Spaeth house. “Hey! Wait for baby! What’s happened? Did Ruhig—”
“Ah, Fitz. Glad you made it. You’re just in time for a little demonstration. Inspector, would you mind clearing the terrace?”
“Clear it?”
“C-l-e-a-r,” said Ellery sympathetically. “A five-letter word meaning get the hell out of the way. Pink, I need you.”
Pink stumbled forward with that expression of bewilderment which seemed chronic with him whenever Ellery spoke. Ellery took a leather-covered pillow from a chair and propped it up against the rear wall, resting on an iron table. Then, holding the oddly shaped package in one hand, he grasped Pink’s elbow with the other and led him off the terrace, speaking earnestly. Pink ambled along, nodding. They skirted the pool and made their way toward the Jardin terrace.
“Hey!” shouted Ellery across the garden. “Didn’t you hear me? Get off that terrace!”
They moved, then, leaving the terrace hurriedly. And finally they were on the ground, at the side of the house, staring out across the pool toward the two men on the opposite terrace.
Ellery unwrapped the package, still talking to Pink, who was scratching his head. Ellery turned and waved them still farther to one side.
They saw Pink pick up the thing from the package with his right hand and fit something into it and draw back his left arm. There was a queer cwang! and something slender flashed through the air over the Jardin rock garden, over the pool, over the nearer garden, and plunked into the leather pillow on the Spaeth terrace, striking the stone wall beyond with a vicious ping.
“Creepers,” said the Inspector hoarsely.
Pink grinned as Ellery clapped him on the shoulder, and then the two of them came trotting back, Pink lugging the bow and a sheaf of arrows proudly.
Ellery ran up on the terrace and tore the arrow from the pillow. “Good shot, Pink! Damn sight better than the one that hit the awning Monday afternoon.”
They scurried back to the terrace again. “An arrow?” said Van Every incredulously.
“It was the only possible answer. Because it was the only answer which explained why the murderer of Spaeth should have smeared the point of his weapon with poison.”
Ellery lit a cigaret.
“If the weapon were the rapier in veritate, using poison on the tip was absurd. The only purpose in poisoning the tip could have been to make sure Spaeth died. With the weapon an arrow, and the archer fifty yards away, the situation clarifies: while an expert archer could be pretty sure of hitting his victim at fifty yards, he couldn’t be positive of striking a vital spot. But with poison on the tip of the arrow even a superficial scratch would have caused death.
“No, Spaeth wasn’t killed by that rapier at all. Nor was he killed in the study. He was standing out here on the terrace and his murderer shot two poisoned arrows from the Jardin terrace across the way. The first went too high and struck the top of the awning. The second hit Spaeth squarely in the heart.”
“But how can you be sure it was an arrow?” asked Van Every stubbornly. “There’s something in what Glücke said about a knife. The killer could have been standing in the garden and thrown two knives. Such a theory would fill the bill just as satisfactorily as yours.”
“Not by a long shot. Spaeth was killed by an archer, not a knife-thrower, and I can prove it. Pink, let me have that glove.
Pink stripped something leathery off his left hand. “I had quite a job hunting up a bow and arrows this afternoon,” chuckled Ellery, “but when I located ’em — lo! the salesman brought out this glove. Look at it.”
He tossed it to Glücke. It was a queer-looking glove. It had only three leather fingers — the middle three, providing no protection for the thumb and little finger. There was a strap which fastened about the wrist to hold the glove tight.
“Remember those two prints on the iron table of the Jardin terrace? A thumb and little finger. A person doesn’t usually lean on just his thumb and little finger. Miss Jardin thought the two prints indicated a two-fingered man. But when you postulate an archer, the prints can only mean that they were made by some one wearing an archer’s shooting glove, as it’s called, the leather preventing the middle fingers from leaving an impression.
“Somebody wearing an archer’s shooting glove was on the Jardin terrace. So the weapon must have been an arrow.”
“That’s absolutely uncanny,” muttered Walter.
“Uncanny?” roared Fitzgerald. “It’s colossal! Keep talking, King!”
“I’m afraid that from now on,” replied Ellery with a certain grimness, “my conversation may take on a deadly tone, Fitz.” There was an answering silence then of no superficial extent. “Walter.”
Walter looked intensely at him, and Val felt a great shame.
“When you entered the study Monday afternoon dressed in Jardin’s coat, you didn’t find your father stabbed to death in that room; you found him with an arrow in his chest on this terrace. There was another arrow hanging from the tear in the awning up there.
“You removed the arrow from your father’s body, you removed the arrow hanging from the awning. Then you dragged the body into the study and sat it down in the corner near the fireplace, where it was later found. The wristwatch had probably smashed on this stone floor when your father fell dead; you swept up the fragments and deposited them near him in the study. Is that a reasonable reconstruction?”
Walter nodded wordlessly.
“You wanted it to look as if your father had been murdered with a sword. So you needed a sword with a blade-point approximately the same size and shape as the arrowhead. The only one that matched, judging by the eye, was the Italian rapier. So you ignored all the other swords and took down the rapier from the collection hanging over the fireplace.
“You took the arrows away with you, and the sword too — you knew it would be missed, and that the police would assume it had been the murder weapon; you couldn’t leave it behind because you were afraid an expert comparison of the width of its blade with the width of the wound might show a discrepancy.
“And all the time you were doing this, the archer across the way was watching through the binoculars. He could even see what you were doing in the study, because of the glass wall.”
Walter could not tear his gaze away.
“Why did you want it to look as if your father had been murdered with a sword? For the simplest reason imaginable: because you didn’t want it known that he had been killed with an arrow! But what was so damning about an arrow?
“There can be only one answer. The arrows implicated some one you wanted to protect. And whom have you been trying to protect since Monday? Your future father-in-law.” Jardin’s brown face twitched. “Then those two arrows must have been identifiable as Jardin’s, and you knew it. I remembered the auction catalogue, the collection of medieval arrowheads which had been withdrawn from the sale and presented to the Museum. They were museum pieces, then; as such, undoubtedly known to collectors and therefore traceable directly to their owner, Jardin.
“So you took the arrows away and tried to make it look like a sword crime because you thought Jardin had killed your father. They were his arrows and he is an expert archer. Didn’t he win an archery tournament in California last spring?”