“I see,” said the Inspector, exhaling.
I see, thought Eva. He knew the truth at last. So now, no matter what Mother had written, it has finally come home to roost upon me. He saw — and to Eva it seemed that he had a thousand eyes, they were so sharp and merciless again as he studied her from the bedroom doorway.
“So you’ve taken me for a ride on the merry-go-round after all, young woman,” said the Inspector. “But it’s my last ride. And yours.”
“Listen, Inspector,” began Terry desperately. “She got it all wrong—”
“Oh, there’s something wrong, all right — very wrong indeed. Your mother couldn’t have killed Karen Leith, Miss MacClure. Just before the crime the attic door wouldn’t open. So no one could have come in or gone out of this bedroom through that door — Karen Leith couldn’t even have admitted anyone into this room through that door. The windows are barred — no one could have used them. And no one, you said yourself, passed through this sitting-room. Then how could your mother have done it? She couldn’t. Only you could. You murdered your aunt.”
“I have said it so often that it’s useless for me to say it again,” said Eva in a barely audible voice. “But for the last time — no. I did not kill Karen.”
“Yes,” said Inspector Queen. He glanced at Terry. “And now that I come to think of it, Mr. Smart-Aleck Ring, I see where you fit in. You unbolted that door after the crime, before Guilfoyle got here. If two other women couldn’t do it, the chances are Miss MacClure couldn’t have, either — so you did it, to open up a way of escape for a killer you knew didn’t exist.
You knew all along only this girl could have killed Karen Leith!”
Eva said: “Please. Oh, please. You must—”
“Don’t talk, Eva,” said Terry rapidly. “Don’t open your mouth. Let him rave.”
“As for this woman Esther, I see now where I went wrong. Stand still, Ring! Ritter, watch him. She was shielding her daughter — confessing to her daughter’s crime. She couldn’t have been telling the truth, because she couldn’t physically have committed the crime.
In the frozen atmosphere the telephone rang on Karen Leith’s writing-desk in the next room. It rang again. Finally the Inspector said: “Watch, Ritter,” and ducked out of sight.
“Hello?... Oh, Thomas! Where are you?... Well, so you’ve found me! What do you want?” The old man listened; he listened some more. Finally, without another word, he put the telephone down and returned to the sitting-room.
“That was Sergeant Velie of my staff,” he said slowly. “He has just returned from Philadelphia. His news removes the last doubt. From what he tells me it appears I’m wrong about Esther’s motive in confessing to a crime she didn’t commit. That’s just one more detail to be cleared up. She can’t have been shielding her daughter, because to do that she had to know Karen Leith was dead. And she couldn’t have known Karen Leith was dead. That reference to ‘saving my sister’s life’ must have meant something else.”
“What has Velie found out?” asked Ellery harshly.
“That Esther Leith MacClure was dead forty-eight hours before her body was found! She committed suicide last Saturday night. And Karen Leith wasn’t murdered until Monday afternoon. So that makes your mother, Miss MacClure, doubly innocent — and you as guilty as hell!”
Eva with staring eyes and a wild cry jumped from the couch and rushed past Ritter into the hall. They heard her clattering down the stairs; they heard the bang of the front door mingled with her sobbing breaths before they could move a muscle.
“Eva,” groaned Dr. MacClure, and he sank on to the couch.
The Inspector shouted, and Ritter, his mouth open, stirred himself. But somehow before he could get through the doorway there was Terry Ring in his way. And as they collided Ritter fell heavily, roaring with astonishment.
“I’ll get her for you, pop,” said Terry Ring in a hard flat voice: and Inspector Queen stared at the.38 automatic in Terry’s hand and remained where he was; and Ritter, sprawled on the floor, chose immobility, too. “I’ll find her. I always did want to be a cop,” said Terry grimly; and before they knew it, he was gone after Eva, and the door, with its key on the sitting-room side, was closed in their faces.
Then the most surprising thing of all occurred. They had all forgotten little Kinumé. Little Kinumé went quietly to the door — so quietly they could only gape — turned the key in the lock, pattered across the room, and under Inspector Queen’s nose tossed the key through the iron bars of the sitting-room window out into the garden.
“Damn!” screamed Inspector Queen, finding his tongue again. He danced up and down, brandishing his fists over Ritter’s outstretched neck. “I’ll give them what for! I’ll show “em! This is a conspiracy, a... a... Lunkhead! Fool! Shoemaker!” He yanked at Ritter’s collar. “Break down that door!”
Ritter scrambled to his feet and began futilely to lunge at the stout panels.
“Escape, will they? Run, will they? They’ve hanged themselves!” The old man scuttled for the bedroom door.
“What are you going to do?” asked Dr. MacClure, staring.
“Have a warrant made out,” shouted the Inspector, “charging ’em with murder and accessory murder — that’s what!”
21
Mr. Ellery Queen rang the bell of his own apartment. And after some time Djuna opened the door, looking frightened.
“It’s all right,” said Ellery, walking briskly into his living-room; but there was no one there. “Djuna, lock the front door. I say,” he called out irritably, “it’s all right, you maniacs!”
Terry Ring stuck his head out of Ellery’s bedroom. “Well, don’t call out the reserves. Come on, kid.”
Eva crept out of the bedroom and dropped into the over-stuffed chair, to crouch in one corner of it with her arms crossed over her chest, as if she were chilly. Terry looked at the revolver in his hand, flushed, and stowed it away.
“Now,” said Ellery, scaling his hat aside, “what in tunket’s name was the brilliant idea, Eva? Have you gone out of your mind?” Eva looked miserable. “Running away! And you, Terry. I thought you had more sense.” He lit a cigaret in disgust.
“So did I,” said Terry bitterly. “At least, I used to have. Give me a fag, will you? I’ve been handing her hell.”
Ellery offered his case. “You pulled a gun on my father!”
“I did not. It just came out of my pocket and that fool Ritter got in my way. Well, what could I do? She’s absolutely the most helpless female I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t know anything. I couldn’t leave her alone. They’d have picked her up on the first street corner.”
“I’ve made a mess of everything,” said Eva hollowly. “How is daddy? I... I didn’t think of him when I ran.”
“I’ve sent him home. How do you think he is?” Ellery scowled at her. “Broken up, of course. He took Kinumé with him. The old lady’s got more spunk than any of us.”
She looked at him. “What shall I do?”
“If I had any more sense than you two I’d say give yourself up,” snapped Ellery. “But I’ve been afflicted with the same mental disease. Of course you realize this can’t go on. Sooner or later you’ll be found.”
“She’s in the safest place in New York,” drawled Terry, flinging himself on the divan and smoking at the ceiling. “Imagine pop’s face when he finds out where she’s been!”
“You have the most perverted sense of humor. Imagine his face when he finds out I’ve connived at it!”
“Terry’s told me,” said Eva limply. “How you gave him your own key at Fung’s. I don’t know why you two men are so kind—”