“So much for that.” Ellery paused and looked about him, eyes glittering strangely. There was not the slightest sound from his audience. They seemed mesmerized, intent only on watching the slowly rising structure of damning evidence.
“To make an all-important point... Now that I knew that the apartment was the scene of the crime, the question inevitably arose: Why was the body removed to the window downstairs? What purpose did it serve? For it must have served some purpose — we saw too many signs of cunning, coordinated scheming to believe that the murderer was an arrant lunatic, doing things for no reason at all.
“The first alternative was that the body was removed to make it appear that the apartment was not the scene of the murder. But this did not follow from the facts, for if the murderer wished to remove all traces of the crime from the apartment, why did he not also remove the banque game, the cigaret stubs, the shoes and the hat? True, if the body were not discovered or the murder not suspected, the finding of these articles would indicate no crime. But the murderer could not hope to conceal the body forever. Some day, somehow, it would be found, the apartment gone over, and the cards, cigarets and other things would point to the apartment as the place where the murder was committed.
“So, it was evident that the body was removed for another reason entirely. What could that be? The answer came after thought — to delay the discovery of the body. How was this arrived at? Simple mental arithmetic. The exhibition was held every single day at noon sharp. This was an unvarying rule. The window was not entered until noon. These facts were common knowledge. If the body were hidden in that wall-bed the murderer had absolute assurance that it would not be discovered before twelve-fifteen. There was the good sharp reason ready made for us — the only gleam of light in the whole muddle, which was complicated by such questions as why the window was used at all when it had so many obvious disadvantages, and so on. So we had no doubt that the murderer took the trouble of carrying the body down six flights of stairs and into the exhibition-room because he knew that the body would not be found all the next morning.
“Logically, then, the question followed: Why did the murderer desire to delay the discovery of the body? Think it over and you will see that there can be only one convincing reason — because he had to do something on Tuesday morning which the discovery of the body would have rendered dangerous or even impossible!”
They were hanging on his words now breathlessly.
“How could this be?” asked Ellery, his eyes sparkling. “Let’s shift to a new tack for the moment... No matter how the murderer entered the store, he must have stayed all night. He had three ways to enter, but no way to get out unobserved. He could have hidden in the store during the day; he could have come in after hours by the Employees’ Entrance; or he could have slipped into the building by the freight-door at eleven o’clock at night while the commissary truck was unloading the food supplies for the next day. The chances were that this last was the method used, for O’Flaherty had seen no one enter by his door, and coming in at eleven at night was better for the murderer’s purpose than having to stay in the store from five-thirty until midnight.
“But how to get out? O’Flaherty reports no one left by his door; all other exits were locked and bolted; and the freight-door on 39th Street was closed at eleven-thirty, fifteen minutes before Mrs. French even arrived at the store and a half-hour before she was murdered. So the criminal had no recourse but to stay in the store all night. Then he could not escape until nine the next morning, when the doors were opened to the public. At that time he could walk out of the store as if he were an early customer.
“But here another factor entered. If he could walk out of the store at nine, a free man, why couldn’t he also attend to whatever business he had without the rigmarole of taking the body to the window in order to secure a delay? The point is that he did transfer the body. Then he couldn’t walk out of the store at nine, a free man. He needed that delay. He had to stay in the store even after nine!”
Simultaneously there came a short gasp from different quarters of the room. Ellery looked around quickly, as if anxious to determine exactly who had been shocked into astonishment and perhaps fear.
“I see that several of you catch the inference on the wing,” he said, smiling. “There could be only one reason to explain why our murderer had to stay in the store even after nine — and that is that he was connected with the store!”
This time incredulity, suspicion, dread were written on all those plastic faces. Every one drew unconsciously away from his neighbor, as if suddenly aware of the many persons which this last indictment might implicate.
“Yes, that is where we arrived finally,” continued Ellery in an unemotional voice. “If our mysterious criminal were an employee of the store or connected with the store in some official or even unofficial capacity, his absence on the discovery of a murder would certainly be noted. He could not afford to have his absence, which was evidently of paramount importance, noted. He was in a difficult position. The memorandum note” — he exhibited the blue slip on the desk before him — “left on this desk by Mr. Weaver overnight told the murderer that both Mr. Weaver and Mr. French would be in the apartment at nine o’clock the next morning. If he left the body in the apartment, the murder would be discovered at nine, the hue and cry raised, and he would never get his chance to slip out of the store and attend to his secret business. And even telephone calls might be watched. So he had to make sure the body was not discovered until he had time to slip away, or even telephone (for this would be untraceable if there was no reason to check calls). The only method which he knew would surely delay the discovery of the body was to hide it in the window-room. Which he did, and quite successfully.
“By this time we were able to clear up finally that minor point of how the murderer entered the building. We had the Monday time-chart. Our murderer must be, we said, an employee of the store or in some way connected with it. Yet the time-chart showed that every one had checked out regularly before or at five-thirty. Then the murderer must have entered the building by the freight-door, as the only means left.
“One other point, while we are on the subject of the murderer’s desire to delay the discovery of the body... It occurred to me, as no doubt it has occurred to you, that our mysterious criminal ran uncommon risks and embarked on numerous voyages of complication when he began to clean up the mess after his crime. For example — that he carried the body downstairs. But that is explained by the fact that he had to have time in the morning to attend to this vague business, an item, incidentally, which we have not as yet explained. Also — why did he go to the trouble of securing a new felt, carefully mopping up the blood, and so on? Again this is answered by the need for time in the morning, and the fact that if a bloody book-end were found by Mr. Weaver, let us say, at nine o’clock a crime would be suspected at once and undoubtedly the criminal’s chance of getting his business done would be seriously jeopardized. Evidently then, what he had to do was of the most pressing importance — so pressing that he could not run the risk of the crime’s even being suspected before that business was attended to...”