“I got just that first one — the one like this, Mr. Queen. I burned it.”
Ellery brooded. “Dane, let’s go over the ground again, in the light of this new information. You left Sheila before ten o’clock that night. You left her alive. You didn’t show up at your parents’ apartment until after midnight. All right. What did you do in those two hours?”
“I took a little walk first, to cool off. I was horrified at myself, at what I’d almost done. I knew I must have hurt her badly, then I’d run as if I’d murdered her. Finally I decided to go back—”
“You went back?” cried Ellery. Dane’s father and Judy were open-mouthed.
“I’m on one hell of a spot, hey?” Dane said with a wry smile. “That’s what I did, all right. I figured I owed her an explanation, the story of these rages, to ask her forgiveness if nothing else. So I went back to the building—”
“Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t believe so, but I can’t be sure.”
“Go on.”
“I took the elevator up to the penthouse and stood before her door. I raised my hand — I actually raised it — to ring her bell. And... I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to. To ring it, or knock, or use my key, or anything. I chickened out. I couldn’t face her.”
Oddly, he addressed this last to Judy in a pleading way, as if soliciting her understanding. Her face softened.
“Dane, pay attention. This could be important. You say you took a short walk, then returned to the penthouse — at least to her vestibule. Think now. How long were you gone? Can you tell me?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“No idea at all?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say I was gone about fifteen minutes.”
“Then it’s possible you were outside Sheila’s door at 10:23, the time she was shot.”
“I suppose so.”
“Level with me, Dane. If I’m to help you, I need straight answers. Did you hear a shot from inside the apartment?”
“No. I’d remember if I did.”
“I doubt if a shot could be heard, Mr. Queen,” the elder McKell said. “The apartments are solidly soundproofed.”
Ellery murmured, “Dane stood outside that penthouse apartment just about the time Sheila was shot. Do you see what that means? In all likelihood, you were standing in that vestibule while the killer was inside. Didn’t you see or hear anything? How long did you stand there?”
Dane shook his head. “A very short time. I couldn’t ring or knock, so I went away. I didn’t hear or see anything at all.”
“You went away. Where?”
“Walked some more.”
“Did anyone see you leave? Did you meet anyone you knew, Dane? Say, in the building?”
“I can’t remember anybody. I was in a fog. I do recall being in a movie theater—”
“That’s something,” his father exclaimed. “Which movie theater, son?”
“I don’t know. Some neighborhood house. Probably around Lexington or somewhere.”
“What was the title of the picture?”
“How should I know? I tell you I was half off my rocker!” Dane was growing angry. “I sat there watching a Western, I remember that, in color, all the fixings, but when the shooting started and the bodies began flying around I got up, sick to my stomach, and walked out. And back to the house and apartment. That’s all I can tell you, Dad.”
“Do you have the ticket stub, son?”
“I’ve looked for it in all my suits. I can’t find it. Must have thrown it away. Who holds on to movie theater ticket stubs?”
“None of this matters in the least,” Ellery said, frowning. “The essential fact is that Dane was at the door of the penthouse just about the time the murder was committed. What difference does it make where he went afterward?”
There was silence. Ellery began to pull at an invisible beard; his eyes went perceptibly far, far away. Dane, his father, Judy, sat uncomfortably still while he reflected. A truck backfired somewhere, startling them. A dressing cart clashed by in the corridor. Someone laughed. In the distance a police siren went off.
After a long time Ellery returned from wherever he had been. “All right, that’s past,” he said slowly. “What’s the present situation? First, the blackmailer. His identity? Well, there have been two blackmailing letters of which we know, each demanding $2,000 down and $1,000 a month thereafter. Each has specified that the payments were to be in $20 bills. Each has been written in block capitals — yours was in pencil, too, Mr. McKell? — and each used the alias ‘Mr. I. M. Ecks,’ care of General Delivery, main post office. And so on. The similarities are too striking to be coincidence. I agree with you, Mr. McKell, both blackmail notes were written by the same person. So — we’re dealing with a single blackmailer.”
A touch of color had invaded Ellery’s face, paled by several months of exile from the sun.
“The obvious question is: Having a killer at large on the one hand, and a blackmailer at large on the other, what connection — if any — exists between the two?”
“Why, that’s so, isn’t it?” said Judy thoughtfully. “I didn’t think of that.”
“A connection very probably exists. The blackmailer’s hold on Dane is based on his possession of the original of the letter Sheila Grey wrote just before she was killed. How did the blackmailer get hold of the letter? Well, let’s see if we can reconstruct what must have happened on the night of the shooting.”
They were sitting forward in their chairs now. Ellery went on deliberately.
“Dane and Sheila had a bitter quarrel. He began to choke her, caught himself in time, ran out of the apartment. He left her alive. A very few minutes later you, Mr. McKell, arrived. You were there just about long enough for Miss Grey to ask you to leave, which you did. That was a few minutes past ten o’clock. It has not been challenged by anyone, through two trials, and we can accept it as a fact, that the shot the precinct officer heard over the phone was the shot that killed Sheila Grey; and the time of the shot, the officer noted officially, was 10:23 P.M. According to the medical examiner’s finding, she died instantly. The conclusion has to be that she wrote the letter about Dane, intended for the police, between a few minutes past ten — your departure, Mr. McKell — and 10:23.”
“We’ve been all through that,” said Dane impatiently.
“We may have to go through it a great many more times before you’re out of the woods, Dane,” Ellery said dryly. “Now, then. The first officers on the scene, the radio car men, arrived at the penthouse within minutes of the fatal shot. From their arrival forward, the police were in charge of the premises. Yet, in spite of the police search, which we have a right to assume was thorough, especially in view of the sensational nature of Sheila’s letter, the letter was not found. Conclusion: the letter was no longer there. Further conclusion: it had been taken from the premises before the arrival of the police. Still further conclusion: since we know it came into possession of the blackmailer, the weight of the evidence is on the side of the blackmailer’s having found it. He found it, he photographed it, he still has it.
“How did the blackmailer come to find it?”
Ellery shrugged. “Who was the one person we know was in the penthouse between the time Sheila finished writing the letter and the time the police got there? Her murderer. Unless we are willing to credit the theory that between the departure of the murderer — which could not have been before 10:23 — and the arrival of the police a mere handful of minutes later, still another person — the blackmailer — came on the scene, searched it, found the Grey letter, and left without being detected by anyone, including the police... unless, as I say, we are willing to credit a theory so far-fetched, only one conclusion is permissible: the murderer of Sheila and the finder of the letter — that is, the blackmailer — are one and the same.