“What’s the matter?” demanded Inspector Queen.
Ellery took off his pince-nez, polished them, and put them back on the bridge of his nose. Then he went back to the closet. He lifted a print dress by its hanger, looked at it. He put it back and took out another, a black silk trimmed with écru lace. He put that one back, too, pulled his lower lip, stooped, regarded the two shoes on the floor. Then something caught his eye and he fished it out of the back of the closet, where it had been half-hidden by the hanging garments. It was an old violin-case.
A peculiar suspicion began to form in Eva’s mind. She wondered if he had noticed. The others didn’t seem—
Ellery opened the case. Inside lay a chocolate-colored violin, its four strings dangling from the peg-box, having snapped apparently from the heat of some past summer. He regarded it, a broken Muse, for a long time.
Then, carrying the case, he crossed to the bed and deposited it on the chintz. They were all staring at him now — even Dr. MacClure, who had been impelled to turn from the window by the palpable silence.
“Well,” sighed Ellery. “Well!”
“Well what? What’s the matter with you?” demanded the Inspector crossly.
Terry Ring said in a deep voice: “The eminent Mr. Queen is going into his dance. Made a find, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery lit a cigaret and stared at it thoughtfully. “Yes, I have. A rather remarkable one... Karen Leith did not live in this room!”
“Karen... didn’t—” began Dr. MacClure, goggling. Eva could have screamed. So Mr. Queen had seen it! Her brain was boiling with thoughts. If only — that one thing — maybe—
“No, Doctor,” said Ellery. “For years, I should say, and until very recently, this room has been occupied as permanent living-quarters by another woman altogether.”
Inspector Queen’s little mouth fell open, and the hairs of his gray mustache bristled with surprise and indignation.
“Oh, come now!” he cried. “What do you mean Karen Leith didn’t occupy this room? The boys have been over—”
“Let’s say,” shrugged Ellery, “that the boys weren’t functioning at par. There’s really no question about it.”
“But it’s not possible!” spluttered Dr. MacClure.
“My dear Doctor! Am I justified in believing that Miss Leith was right-handed?”
“Of course she was!”
“Yes, I seemed to recall that she mixed her Japanese tea on the evening of the garden-party with her right hand. So that fits. Isn’t it also true that your fiancée was at most five feet one or two inches tall and weighed no more than a hundred and five pounds?”
“That’s right, Mr. Queen,” said Eva breathlessly. “She was five-one-and-a-half and weighed a hundred and three!”
“And she was a pronounced brunette, of course — quite the blackest hair I’ve ever seen. With a dark, sallow complexion.”
“Well, well?” said the Inspector impatiently.
“Well! She was right-handed — yet I saw at a glance that this violin was used by a left-handed person. Most unusual.” He picked up the violin, fingered the dangling strings. “Look at these strings. The usual order, from left to right as you face the instrument, is G, D, A, E. These run, as you can tell by the thickness of each string, E, A, D, G. Reversed. Left-handed.”
Ellery put the violin back in its case and went to the closet. He lifted out the print dress again.
“How about it, Miss MacClure? Would you say this dress could be properly worn by a woman as short and light as Miss Leith?”
“Oh, goodness no,” said Eva. “I saw that the moment you took it out of the closet. Karen wore a size twelve — awfully small. That’s at least a thirty-eight. And so is the black silk you looked at!”
He hung the print back, went to the dressing-table. “And would you say,” he asked, taking up the hairbrush, “that these strands of hair came from Karen Leith’s head?”
They were crowded about him now. They saw several ash-blonde wisps of hair caught in the tufts of the brush.
“Or,” Ellery went on, picking up the powder box of the toilet set, “that this very light shade of powder would have been used by a woman as dark-complexioned as Karen Leith?”
Dr. MacClure dropped on to the bed. Eva pulled his huge, shaggy head to her breast. Now there was someone! Someone for that terrible little Inspector to think about! A woman had lived up here, a strange woman... Inspector Queen would think this woman had killed Karen. He would have to. She was glad, glad! She refused to think at all about the fact that the woman couldn’t have killed Karen — not with that bolted door. Not with that bolted door. Bolted door. Bolted door...
“I’ll have someone’s hide for this,” said the Inspector angrily.
Ellery restored the powder box and hairbrush to their places on the dressing-table. He said rather abruptly: “The picture is quite clear. The woman who occupied this room can be reconstructed. Did your men find any fingerprints here?”
“Nary one,” snapped the old man. “The room must have had a thorough cleaning recently. The Jap woman won’t talk.”
“Let’s see,” mused Ellery. “From the dresses — I should say she’s about five feet seven or eight inches tall. She must weigh between a hundred and thirty and a hundred and forty. She has naturally light blonde hair and a fair complexion. From the type of garment in the closet — not a young woman. Do you agree with me, Miss MacClure?”
“Yes, they’re the sort of things a woman in her forties might wear. Quite old-fashioned, too.”
“And she plays, or used to play, the violin. And there’s a secret — some important secret — bound up with her. Otherwise why Miss Leith’s deception? Why didn’t she ever reveal the existence of this woman? Why did she go to such pains to conceal any hints of her? — the ironclad rule that no one was to come up here, for example; the frequent changing of white servants; the soundproof walls — if you’ll just examine them... A secret!” He whirled on Dr. MacClure. “Doctor, doesn’t my description fit any one you know?”
Dr. MacClure rubbed his face slowly. “I don’t recall—”
“Think. It’s probably no one from the American chapter in her life. This thing has the earmark of age. Japan, Japan!” He leaned forward eagerly. “Come, Doctor, think! You knew her in Tokyo — her family...” He unbent very slowly. “Her family. Yes, that sounds... Wait!”
He ran to the closet and returned with the two shoes. “Here’s something else; I almost forgot. Two shoes. Two right shoes. And that’s all. No left. Don’t you see?”
“Good for you, Sherlock,” muttered Terry Ring.
“They’re brand-new. They’ve never been worn.” Ellery smacked them together in his impatience. ‘It suggests one of two things — either a woman with her right leg gone, or something so wrong with it she wears a specially built shoe — either possibility making the normal right shoe of no utility. Well, Doctor?”
Dr. MacClure looked as if he were striking an attitude. But his voice came queerly strained. “No. It’s impossible.”
“Daddy!” cried Eva. She shook him. “What? Tell us!”
Terry Ring drawled: “Of course, it would be easy enough to find out. Just a matter of time, Doc.”
“I say it’s impossible!” roared the big man. Then his shoulders sagged and he went to the window again. This time his voice came hard and flat, without the least intonation. They could see his hands, however, crushing the chintz drapes.