“No, no. One, or even two, of these five indications — except the last — would have meant little. But with this last and the other four to bolster it, a theory of suicide is erected which simply cannot be disregarded.”
They were silent.
At last the Inspector exclaimed: “But there’s no confirmation, there’s no evidence, there’s no proof. It’s only a theory. I can’t let Miss MacClure out on an unsupported theory. Be reasonable!”
“I’m being the soul of reason,” sighed Ellery.
“And then where’s the missing half of the scissors with which you say she killed herself?” The old man rose, shaking his head. “It’s no go, Ellery. You’ve got a pretty theory with a hole in it, and I’ve got a theory with evidence to back it up.”
“Look,” said Ellery. “Had you found that missing half-scissors with its identifying broken point near Karen’s body, with all the other conditions remaining the same, wouldn’t you have accepted a theory of suicide? Would the mere presence of Eva MacClure in the next room have convinced you it was murder?”
“But we didn’t find the weapon by the body, you see. I mean the real weapon — not the other half with Miss MacClure’s fingerprints on it.”
“You want proof.”
“That’s what the jury will want,” said the Inspector apologetically. “Even before that, that’s what the District Attorney will want. You’ll have to satisfy Henry Sampson, not me.”
It sounded final. Eva relaxed against Terry hopelessly.
“In other words,” continued Ellery in a murmur, “I’ve got to do two things: explain why the weapon wasn’t found on the scene of the crime; and then locate it. If I can do both, you’ll be satisfied?”
“You do ’em.”
“Just where did you search? Tell me again.”
“The whole place.”
“No, no, be specific”
“The whole interior of the house. We didn’t miss a thing. We even searched the cellar. That goes for the attic, too. And the grounds around the house, thinking maybe it had been thrown out of a window. But it wasn’t.” His sharp eyes rested on Eva. “Despite what you say, it would have been a cinch for either Miss MacClure or this Terry spalpeen to have sneaked it off Monday, when I let ’em go.”
“Or passed it to an accomplice outside the house?”
“Yes!”
Ellery chuckled suddenly. “Have you given any real thought to that rock?” he asked.
“The rock?” repeated Inspector Queen slowly.
“Yes, yes, that very common garden-variety of rock from the border of the path behind the house. The rock that shattered Karen Leith’s window shortly after the crime.”
“Some kid threw that.”
“I said that long ago,” said Terry. Then they both glared at Ellery.
“Well, did you ever find a trace of such a child?”
“What’s the difference?” grumbled the Inspector. “And if you’ve got anything up your sleeve,” he added testily, “I wish you’d come out with it!”
“The other day,” said Ellery, “Terry and I tried an experiment. Ask Ritter. He saw us and probably thought we were insane. We stood in the garden and threw rocks of the approximate size and shape of the one that broke the window. We threw “em at those very oriel windows.”
“What for?”
“Well, Terry’s an ex-baseball player, you know. Professional pitcher. He can throw. I saw him throw. Wonderful control — almost perfect marksmanship.”
“Stop it,” growled Terry. “You’ll have me making a speech in a minute. Come on!”
“Terry,” continued Ellery equably, “at my direction tried a half-dozen times to send a rock past those iron bars into Karen Leith’s bedroom. He failed each time — the rocks struck the bars and fell into the garden. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even want to try — anyone, he said, with any sense, would know you couldn’t throw a rock five inches long by three inches wide between two iron bars only six inches apart — moreover, throwing upward, from an awkward position, from the ground to a second-story window.”
“It was done, wasn’t it?” demanded the Inspector; “That proves it can be done, Terry or no Terry.”
“But not that it was intended to be done! Terry was right. No one with sense would even have tried, seeing those iron bars so close together. And even if they had, why? Why should anyone have tried to throw a rock into that room from the garden? Not to attract attention, because that would imply a distraction in order to draw attention away from something; but nothing happened. Not to hit anyone, because that would be even more futile than to try to get the rock past the bars in the first place. Not to send a message, because no message was tied to the rock.”
“No, dad, you can’t escape it. The rock that broke Karen Leith’s window wasn’t meant to break Karen Leith’s window. It got past the bars and into the room only by accident. That rock wasn’t thrown at Karen Leith’s window at all!”
They all looked so puzzled Ellery smiled. “If the rock wasn’t thrown at the window, what was it thrown at? Surely at something near the window, in that approximate area? What could that something have been? Well, we know that just before she died Karen Leith released her Loo-choo jay through that window. Then the Loo-choo jay was on the outside, probably somewhere in the vicinity; it had lived too long in that house to leave it. Suppose the bird had flown to a gable just above the oriel windows — that is, to the edge of the roof — and perched there? Just suppose? Can’t you conceive of someone hurling a stone at the bird from the garden and of the cast falling short and of the stone entering the room by merest accident?”
“But what could that have to do—” began Dr. MacClure in frank amazement.
“We’re supposing,” said Ellery whimsically. “Now we know that a few weeks ago the jay escaped through the carelessness of Miss O’Mara. We also know that Miss Leith bawled the hell out of Miss O’Mara for that carelessness. Now let’s suppose again. Let’s suppose Miss O’Mara was in the garden late Monday afternoon and suddenly saw that very bird perched on the gable or on the top of the oriel window outside. Mightn’t Miss O’Mara instantly think that Karen Leith would hold her responsible for what she pardonably thought was a second escape of the bird? Wouldn’t it be natural for Miss O’Mara to try to catch the bird and return it to its cage in the sunroom before the ogrish Miss Leith found out? But the pesky creature was high up, quite beyond her reach; and so isn’t it easy to suppose that Miss O’Mara picked up a rock from the border of the path and threw it up at the bird to scare it into flying down?”
The Irish girl looked so frightened as their eyes turned on her that they knew Ellery had supposed with remarkable point.
She retorted with a defiant toss of her head: “All right. What about it? There’s nothing wrong in that, is there? What are you all looking at me that way for?”
“And then when the window crashed you grew frightened and ducked out of sight around the house, eh?” asked Ellery softly.
“Yeah!”
“And when you thought the coast was clear you came out again and found the bird peaceably pecking about the garden and caught and restored it to its cage in the sunroom?”