“You see,” said Ellery, as soon as the door closed, “my dilemma is an unusual one: Shall I tell my father what I know and he doesn’t, or shan’t I? And since there’s a delicate point involved that isn’t amenable to the usual methods, I’m forced to ask for your help.”
“But how can I help you, Queen? Do you mean that it has something to do with Eva, after all?”
Ellery sat down and slowly lit a cigaret. “Suppose I begin at the beginning. In the final analysis, it’s not an ordinary decision; it’s not even my decision. You’ll have to make it. And I’ll be guided by your advice — whether to leave the case officially closed, as it is to-night, or open it to-morrow with a bang that will rock New York.”
Dr. MacClure was pale. But he said in a steady voice: “I’ve stood almost every shock possible to human flesh, so I suppose I can stand another. Go on, Queen.”
Ellery took a folded sheet of paper out of the pocket of his dressing-gown. The doctor waited quietly as Ellery unfolded it.
“I have here,” began Ellery, ‘my father’s copy of the suicide note left by your sister-in-law Esther in Philadelphia.”
“Yes?” said the doctor blankly.
“The original, of course, is in dad’s hands. Let me assure you at once — there’s nothing wrong with the authorship of that letter. The handwriting has been checked and established as Esther’s beyond any question.
“Now, of course,” continued Ellery in a faraway voice, “we’ve got to make certain readjustments of interpretation regarding this letter, in the light of Karen Leith’s suicide. We assumed that Esther’s reference to herself as a murderess applied to Karen Leith — that is, that she was confessing to Karen Leith’s murder. Well, obviously, if Karen committed suicide Esther couldn’t have murdered her. She couldn’t have murdered her even if Karen hadn’t committed suicide, since Karen was alive when Esther was dead. Nor could Esther have been deliberately taking the blame for Karen’s death, since Karen wasn’t dead when Esther wrote the note.”
“Of course she was referring to my brother’s death, not Karen’s,” nodded the doctor. “Apparently until she took her own life Esther considered herself Floyd’s murderess.”
“Yes. That’s undoubtedly so. Her old phobia. Now that’s significant, because it fully implies the answer to one of the most puzzling phases of the entire case — exactly what hold it was that Karen had on Esther which made Esther submit to a life of fantastic exploitation by her own sister... to the extent of even agreeing to seem dead.”
The doctor knit his brow. “I don’t see—”
“It’s all a matter of the most cunning and morbid and vicious psychology,” said Ellery. “You said yourself you were astounded at the depths of Esther’s obsession seventeen years ago — how she insisted on thinking that she had murdered your brother against all the plain facts. But can you understand her obsession if I visualize for you a clever, unscrupulous woman who undid every step in Esther’s cure — who kept whispering to Esther that she had killed your brother intentionally, who so worked on the poor, harassed, tortured soul that eventually Esther was sure she had murdered her husband?”
The doctor was gaping at him.
“It explains everything,” said Ellery gloomily. “It explains Esther’s eagerness to send her child away — for how could her gentle nature stand the thought that some day her daughter would learn she was the daughter of a murderess? You told me yourself how Esther pressed the point that you adopt Eva and take her to the States, to bring her up in ignorance of her parentage.”
“That’s true,” muttered the doctor. “And Karen backed her up.”
“Of course; the idea was probably planted by Karen! Now Karen was a twisted being. There’s no doubt about that. To have done what she did, to have planned the foul thing she planned, she must have been off-center morally, a conscienceless, scheming woman. She knew Esther’s talent, a talent she herself did not possess. And Karen was a woman of tremendous ambition. So she fostered Esther’s belief that she had murdered your brother Floyd; and in Esther’s unbalanced emotional state she easily became a prey to Karen’s ambition and lay down under Karen’s thumb... Why did she do it? It wasn’t only ambition. It must have been thwarted passion, too. I think Karen Leith loved your brother Floyd. I think she wanted to make Esther suffer for having won the man she herself wanted.”
The doctor shook his head in a dazed way.
Ellery glanced at the sheet. “‘Your mother,’ she wrote to Eva — this is Esther speaking in her suicide note — ‘is a monster; thank God the monster kept her secret from you.’”
“What can that mean except that everything Esther submitted to was for Eva’s sake? Eva, then, was Karen’s strongest weapon — she convinced Esther that if Eva should ever learn that her mother had murdered her father, Eva’s whole life, her outlook on life, would be ruined. And Esther agreed. She saw that. She saw that Eva must never know.
“Is it so hard to visualize Karen coldly and fantastically planning Esther’s ‘death’ by ‘suicide’ in Japan, with Esther’s consent and cooperation, just because she — Karen — felt her ambition would be consummated by removing to the States and reaping the full harvest in her native country of Esther’s genius? Is it so hard to see that Karen would take delight in this notion of getting close to Eva, so that Esther would suffer agonies in proximity with her daughter, knowing that she could never reveal herself? For that would be part of Karen’s revenge, too... And always Karen had one weapon to insure Esther’s silence. To threaten Esther that she would tell Eva who her mother was and what she had done!”
Dr. MacClure clenched his hairy hands. “The devil,” he said in a dry, remote rumble.
“Or at least,” nodded Ellery, ‘the devil’s mate. But I haven’t got to the most interesting part of all. Listen.” He read again from the copy of Esther’s suicide note. “‘For you are the only one in the world who might have saved my sister’s life.’” Ellery cried: “‘Who might have saved my sister’s life!’ How did Esther know that Karen was doomed to die? How could Esther have known that Karen would be dead, when Esther herself died forty-eight hours before Karen!”
He got out of the chair and began to pace restlessly.
“Esther could only have known if she knew Karen meant to commit suicide. But how could Esther have known in advance that Karen planned suicide? Only if Karen had told her. ‘I have seen it coming,’ she writes, ‘and I have been powerless against it.’ Then Esther took a desperate step. She didn’t want Karen to die and herself to be found alive in that house — she didn’t want herself found even dead in that house, for in either event Eva would have found out after Karen’s death that her ‘monster’ of a mother was alive. So, in panic, Esther fled, to commit suicide herself in another city under a false name. That’s what she was referring to when she wrote: ‘And so I have done what in my monstrous helplessness I must do.’”
“It’s very clear,” said the doctor tiredly.
“Is it, Doctor? Why did Karen commit suicide?” Ellery leaned across the little table. “Why? She had everything to live for — fame, wealth, approaching marriage. Why did she commit suicide?”
The doctor looked startled. “You said yourself it must have been remorse, conscience.”
“Do you think so? Does a woman like Karen Leith really experience remorse? Then why didn’t she confess to the world before she committed suicide? Remorse means an awakening, a rebirth of human conscience — and it brings with it an effort to repay, to atone, to give back. Did Karen Leith die telling the world she had been a fraud for years? Did she change her will to restore to Esther what was rightfully hers? Did she do any of the things a conscience-stricken woman would have done under the peculiar circumstances? No. She died as she had lived — hiding a secret. No, Doctor, not remorse!