He paused. “Now let me read you the sentence as it is emended in pencil.” He read slowly:
“Old Mr. Saburo sat on his haunches and laughed to himself at nothing; but from time to time a thought flickered behind the empty windows of his head.”
“Yes,” muttered the publisher. “I remember that.” Ellery flipped a few pages.
“Unperceived from the terrace Ono Jones perceived her standing in the garden below.”
He looked up. “This, observe, has been changed to read as follows.” He looked down.
“Unperceived from the terrace Ono Jones perceived her black shape standing across the moon.”
“I don’t quite understand—” began Buescher.
Ellery turned more pages. “Here’s a place in which a Japanese summer sky is described as ‘cloisonné’. The word has been crossed out, and ‘enamel’ substituted. In the same paragraph the panoramic outdoor scene over the characters’ heads is ‘an inverted, delicate bowl.’ The writer changes her mind and the sentence becomes ‘They stood beneath a painted teacup turned upside down.’ ” Ellery closed the manuscript. “Mr. Buescher, what kind of corrections would you call these?”
The man was plainly puzzled. “Why, creative ones, of course. Question of feeling for the look of certain words — one figure of speech as against another. Every writer makes them.”
“They’re highly personalized? No one would dare take such liberties with someone else’s work?”
“Well, you’re a writer yourself, Mr. Queen,” said Buescher.
“In other words, you would say Karen Leith penciled in those corrections — and all other such corrections in all her novels?”
“Certainly!”
Ellery went to the man with two things. “Please compare the handwriting of the manuscript corrections,” he said quietly, “with the attested handwriting of Karen Leith.”
Buescher stared for an instant; and then he grabbed the papers and began feverishly scrambling through them. “My God,” he mumbled. “someone else’s handwriting!”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” said Ellery. “From this and certain other indications the truth is very clear. Karen Leith did not write Eight-Cloud Rising. Karen Leith did not write The Sun, which preceded it, nor Water Children, nor any of the other gifted novels ascribed to her pen and which she took credit for. Karen Leith had no more to do with the works on which she built her international reputation than Mr. Buescher’s lowliest proof-reader.”
“But there must be some mistake,” cried Eva. “Who could have written them? Who’d permit someone else to get credit for his own writing?”
“Not his, Miss MacClure — her. And I didn’t say it was by permission, which is the most deceptive of words. There are many ways of executing a vile and treacherous plan.” Ellery pursed his lips. “All these novels were written by Karen Leith’s sister, Esther.”
Dr. MacClure sat down suddenly on the edge of the window.
“There’s really not the slightest question about it,” said Ellery. “I’ve checked it every possible way and the answer’s always the same. The handwriting of the revisions is definitely Esther Leith’s — I have plenty of samples of her handwriting in that bunch of old letters — dating as far back as 1913. There are a few time differences, but I had them expertized this morning and the verdict was unanimous. And it couldn’t be that Esther has been acting merely as her sister’s secretary, because as Mr. Buescher had told you the corrections are creative.”
Dr. Scott cleared his throat. “Aren’t you perhaps making more of it than really exists? Possibly the corrections were Miss Leith’s, with her sister acting as a mere stenographer.”
“Then how do you explain,” said Ellery, picking up a fat notebook, “that in this notebook, in Esther Leith’s handwriting, is the complete working plan of Eight-Cloud Rising — copious notes, all creative, all personal, with little side-comments which clearly indicate the ideas were hers?”
“But she’s dead,” said Eva. “Daddy says so. Karen — Karen told me so.”
“Your father was deliberately misled by Miss Leith, as you were. Esther is alive. According to the story of her “suicide”, it took place in 1924. But all of these books have been written since, you see.”
“But they could have been old books, old notes, dating “way back, and just dug up—”
“No, Miss MacClure. Most of them show internal evidence — references to contemporary events — which far post-date 1924. She’s alive all right, and she wrote Karen Leith’s books, and she wrote them in this very room.”
“Good lord,” said Buescher. He was on his feet now, restlessly pacing. “The scandal! It will turn the literary world upside down.”
“Not if we don’t want it to,” said Dr. MacClure hoarsely. His eyes were red again. “She’s dead. Why resurrect—”
“And then there’s the prize,” groaned the publisher. “If there’s been fraud here, or plagiarism—”
“Mr. Buescher,” said Ellery abruptly, “could Eight-Cloud Rising have been written by a madwoman?”
“Good God, no!” shouted Buescher. He rumpled his hair. “I can’t figure it out. Perhaps this Esther Leith did it willingly — for some reason of her own. Perhaps—”
“I don’t suppose,” drawled Ellery, “Karen Leith stood over her sister with a revolver and forced her into a living death.”
“The... the calmness of her! At the party in May—”
“There are other ways,” finished Ellery. He sat down behind the teakwood desk, thinking.
“Nobody’d believe it,” moaned Buescher. “I’d be the laughing stock—”
“And where is the poor soul?” cried Eva. “After all, it isn’t fair to her.” She ran over to the doctor. “I know how you feel, daddy, about raking up this... this— If Karen did this horrible thing to her it’s up to us to find Esther and make it up to her!”
“Yes,” muttered the doctor. “We’ve got to find her.”
“Why not wait until you do?” said Terry Ring coolly. “You can keep quiet about it and then decide when you talk to her.”
“Terry’s right,” said Ellery. “Yes, that’s what we’ll do. I’ve already discussed it with my father. He’s redoubling his efforts to locate her.”
“Oh, I know he will!” cried Eva. “Daddy, aren’t you happy that she’s alive and—” She stopped. There was something rather awful in the big man’s face. Eva remembered his shy, grim confession that once, in his youth, he had loved the woman his brother had married.
But he sighed and said: “Well, we’ll see. We’ll see.”
Then Ritter bellowed from downstairs: “Mr. Queen! The Inspector’s on the wire!”
16
When Ellery came up from Karen Leith’s bedroom his face was grave.
“They’ve found her!” said Eva.
“No.” Ellery turned to the publisher. “Thank you, Mr. Buescher. That’s all, I think. You won’t forget your promises?”
“I’m not likely to.” Buescher wiped his face. “Doctor — I can’t tell you how sorry—”
“Good-bye, Mr. Buescher,” said Dr. MacClure steadily.
The publisher shook his hand and went away with compressed lips. When the sound of Ritter closing the sitting-room door after him came up the attic stairs Ellery said: “My father wants you folks to come down to Centre Street at once.”
“Headquarters again,” said Eva damply.
“I think we’d better go now, please. Dr. Scott, you needn’t come if you prefer not to. He didn’t mention you.”