“And what,” cried Ellery, “is the tone of Esther’s letter? Is it the letter of a woman who has just been told by her sister the truth about that sister’s real crime against her? What did Esther mean by ‘our lightning destiny,’ ‘our insensate fate’? Isn’t there even a note of sympathy in the way she wrote about Karen? And, even if she had been an angel, could Esther have written sympathetically about Karen if she had just learned that Karen had lied to her about that seventeen-year-old murder, that Karen had wilfully and criminally used her, with a lie and a threat as weapons? No, Doctor, Karen committed suicide not out of remorse for what she had done to Esther; Karen committed suicide without having told Esther the truth about what she had done to Esther. Karen committed suicide for another reason altogether — a reason having nothing to do with Esther, a reason she could confide to Esther, a reason that could make Esther write sympathetically about her and pray God’s mercy on both their souls!”
“You confuse me,” said the doctor, passing his hand over his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“Then perhaps I can make you understand.” Ellery picked up the transcript again. “‘If only,’” he read, “‘you had not gone away’ — referring to you, Doctor. ‘If only you had taken her with you. For you are the only one in the world who might have saved my sister’s life.’ Does that make it clearer?”
“Esther meant,” sighed the doctor, ‘that if I hadn’t left for that European vacation, or if I had taken Karen with me, Karen probably wouldn’t have committed suicide.”
“But why,” asked Ellery in a soft voice, “did she write that you’re the only one in the world who might have saved Karen?”
“Well,” frowned the doctor, “a fiancé’s influence — I was the only one Karen really cared for—”
“Why did she write that with your leaving went Karen’s last protection, her last hope?”
The doctor stared at him with his light blue eyes, painfully focussed.
“I’ll tell you, Doctor,” said Ellery slowly. “This room is a tomb, and I can tell you. I can say it aloud in this room — I can voice this fancy of mine, this little thing, this monstrous and persistent thing, this conviction that has tortured me all evening.”
“What do you mean?” asked Dr. MacClure, gripping the arms of his chair.
“I mean, Doctor, that you murdered Karen Leith.”
24
Dr. MacClure got out of the chair after a moment and went to the window, to clasp his hairy hands behind him in the loose and powerful way to which Ellery had become accustomed. The big man turned around then, and to Ellery’s astonishment there was an expression of quiet amusement on his face.
“Of course, Queen,” said the doctor, chuckling, “you’re joking.”
“I assure you I’m not,” said Ellery a little stiffly.
“But, man — you’re so inconsistent! First you say Karen committed suicide — and what’s more, prove it! — and now out of a clear sky you accuse me of murdering her. You’ll understand my natural bewilderment.”
Ellery scraped his lean jaw for an instant. “I can’t decide whether you’re amusing yourself at my expense or being very forbearing. Doctor, I’ve just accused you of the worst crime on the human calendar. Would you like me to defend my accusation?”
“By all means,” said the doctor instantly. “I’m curious to learn how you go about logically proving that a man can kill a fellow-creature in a house in New York while he’s lying in a deckchair on a ship in mid-ocean, a day and a half from port.”
Ellery flushed. “You’re insulting my intelligence. In the first place, I didn’t say I could prove it by strict logic. In the second place, I didn’t say you committed the murder of Karen Leith with your hands.”
“You interest me even more. How did I do it — with my astral body? Come, come, Queen, confess you’re having a little joke with me, and let’s stop this discussion. Come on over to the Medical Club and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I haven’t the slightest objection to drinking with you, Doctor, but I think we had better clear the air first.”
“Then you are serious.” The doctor surveyed Ellery thoughtfully, and Ellery felt a little uncomfortable under the direct scrutiny of those penetrating eyes. “Well, go ahead,” said the doctor at last. “I’m listening, Queen.”
“Smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
Ellery lit another cigaret. “I must repeat, in quoting again from Esther’s letter — why were you the only one in the world who might have saved Karen? Why were you her last hope?”
“And I must repeat — although I can’t pretend to know beyond question what was in poor Esther’s mind — that it seems to me a simple matter. My physical presence, Karen’s attachment to me, would have prevented her from taking her own life.”
“Yet Esther didn’t seem too sure, did she?” murmured Ellery. “She didn’t say you could have saved Karen’s life; she only said you might have.”
“You’re quibbling about pretty distinctions,” said Dr. MacClure. “Certainly I might have; even had I been here Karen might still have committed suicide.”
“On the other hand,” said Ellery mildly, ‘the suspicion struck me that if there was any uncertainty in Esther’s mind about your inability to prevent Karen from committing suicide, the reason may have had nothing at all to do with you as Karen’s lover, you see.”
“I’m dense tonight,” smiled the doctor. “I confess I don’t grasp what you’re driving at.”
“Doctor,” said Ellery abruptly, “what is it that you can do better than anyone else in the world?”
“I’ve never been conscious of any overwhelming superiority. But I’m flattered, naturally.”
“You’re too modest. You are famous for — you have just received international recognition for — you have devoted your life, your renowned skill, your fortune to — the study and treatment of human cancer.”
“Oh, that!” said the doctor, waving his hand.
“Everyone knows that you are top cancer man in your profession. Even Esther must have known that — she was shut in physically, but her books show how closely through reading she kept in touch with the world. Now isn’t it strange that Esther, knowing you to be the greatest authority on cancer, should write that you are the only one in the world who might have saved Karen’s life?”
Dr. MacClure came back to his chair and sprawled in it, folding his hands on his chest and half-closing his eyes.
“This is fantastic,” he said.
“Not really,” drawled Ellery. “For we still must find a reason why a woman who has everything to live for should suddenly take it upon herself to commit suicide. We have no motive, you see. Unless we say: She felt the hand of death upon her. She was suffering from an incurable disease. Unless we say: She knew death to be a matter of only a short time.
“Then her suicide in the face of her impending personal happiness, her fresh and supreme literary honors, her comfortable circumstances, her inheritance of a large fortune only a month away — then, I say, her suicide in the face of these things becomes comprehensible. And only then.”
The doctor shrugged in a queer way. “You’re suggesting, I believe, that Karen had cancer?”
“I believe that that was what Esther had in mind when she wrote that you were the only one in the world who might have saved her sister’s life.”