“You see, Chief,” explained Pepper, ‘the Inspector has an idea that the empty Knox house might have been the place where Grimshaw’s body was hidden until it could be buried in the Khalkis coffin after the funeral.”
“Good hunch, Q.”
“Anyway,” continued Pepper, “Knox’s secretary refused to disclose the mogul’s whereabouts, and we’ve got to have the warrant.”
“It may not be important,” remarked the Inspector, “but blast my soul if I let anything go.”
“An excellent principio operandi” chuckled Ellery.
His father turned on him a very cold and disapproving scowl. “You―you think you’re smart,” he said weakly. “Well . . . . Look here, gentlemen. As far as that empty house is concerned, we’ve got a problem. We still don’t know exactly when Grimshaw was bumped off―how long he’s been dead. All right, the autopsy ought to show that pretty conclusively. In the meanwhile, we’ve got a basis of figuring. Because if Khalkis died before Grimshaw was murdered, it certainly means―considering where we found the body―that burial of Grimshaw in Khalkis’s coffin was pre-planned. Get me? In that case, the empty house would be a fine place for the murderer to keep Grim-shaw’s body until after the Khalkis funeral, when the buried coffin would become available for use.”
“Yes, but look at it the other way, Q.,” objected Sampson. “It’s just as tenable a theory, in the absence of the autopsy-findings, that Khalkis died after Grimshaw was murdered. This would mean that the killer couldn’t figure on Khalkis’s unexpected death and the opportunity to bury the victim in Khalkis’s coffin, so that the body must have been hidden wherever the murder took place―and we’ve no reason to expect that the murder took place in that empty house next door. In any event, I don’t see that the line of attack does us any good until we discover how long Grimshaw has been a stiff.”
“You mean,” said Pepper thoughtfully, ‘that if Grimshaw was strangled before Khalkis died, his body was probably kept wherever he was killed? Then when Khalkis died, the opportunity to bury the body in Khalkis’s coffin flashed on the murderer’s mind, and he lugged the body into the graveyard, probably through the Fifty-fourth Street fence-gate?”
“Exactly,” snapped Sampson. “The chances are ten to one that the house next to Khalkis’s had nothing to do with the crime. I think all this is irrelevant conjecture.”
“Perhaps not so irrelevant,” said Ellery gently. “On the other hand, it seems to my feeble intellect that you gentlemen are cooking a stew before buying your ingredients. Why not wait patiently for the autopsy report?”
“Wait―wait,” grumbled the Inspector. “I’ve grown old waiting.”
Ellery chuckled. “If we are to believe Chaucer, your age is a distinct advantage, padre. Remember The Parlement of Fowles? “For oute of olde feldys, as men sey, Comyth al this newe corn from yere to yere.”
“
“Anything else, Pepper?” growled Sampson. He ignored Ellery completely.
“The routine stuff. Velie questioned the doorman of the department store across the street from the Khalkis house and graveyard. The man stands all day at the Fifty-fourth Street entrance to the store. Quizzed the cop on the beat, too. But neither of them has seen suspicious activity in the daytime since the funeral. The cop on night-duty didn’t see anything either, but he admits the body could have been hauled into the graveyard without his knowledge. And there’s no one on duty at the department store at night who was in a position to observe the graveyard; the nightwatchmen stay inside at all hours. And there you are.”
“I’ll go daffy with this damnable sitting around, sitting around,” muttered the Inspector, plumping his straight little body before the fire in the grate.
“La patience est amere, mais son fruit est doux,” murmured Ellery. “I feel in a quotational mood.”
“That’s what I get,” groaned the Inspector, “for having sent my boy to college. He talks down at me. What’s that mean?”
“
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet,”” grinned Ellery, “and a frog said it.”
“A―what? A frog?”
“Oh, he’s just trying to be funny,” said Sampson wearily. “I suppose he means a Frenchman. It sounds like Rousseau.”
“Do you know, Sampson,” said Ellery enthusiastically, ‘sometimes you exhibit positively startling signs of intelligence?”
Chapter 13. Inquiries
The next morning, Saturday―a day of brilliant October sunshine―found Inspector Queen’s sagging spirits considerably bolstered. The immediate cause of his spiritual elevation was the delivery in person by Dr. Samuel Prouty of the autopsy-findings on both Khalkis and the murdered man.
District Attorney Sampson, chained to his office by a case which demanded his personal attention, had sent his lieutenant Pepper to the Inspector’s office at Police Headquarters. When Dr. Prouty slouched in, chewing his first cigar of the day, he found the Inspector, Pepper, Sergeant Velie, and a curiously expectant Ellery awaiting him.
“Well, Doc? Well, well?” cried the Inspector. “What’s the news?”
Dr. Prouty jack-knifed his lank length into the most comfortable chair in the room, with sardonic deliberation. “S”pose you want to be sure about the Khalkis stiff? Everything’s jake in that direction. Dr. Frost’s certificate told the exact truth. No indications of foul play. He was a rotten cardiac and his pumper gave out on him.”
“Not a sign of poison, eh?”
“Nary a pinpoint. All okay. Now, as to the second stiff.” Dr. Prouty champed his teeth vigorously. “All the signs point to death prior to Khalkis’s. It’s a long story.” He grinned. “There are a raft of conditions which make a definite finding risky. Loss of body heat in this case doesn’t get us very far. But we got something from cadaveric muscular changes and that business of complete lividity. Green spot on surface and in middle of abdomen, due to chemical-bacterial action, well developed; number and position of livid putrefactive patches internally as well as externally check for about a seven-day period up to last night. Gas pressure, forced mucous discharge from mouth and nostrils, internal decay of the windpipe, certain signs in the stomach, intestines, and spleen―all check for the period I’ve mentioned. Skin tense, but beginning to loosen in area of most distention―abdomen; odorous gases, specific gravity down―yep, I’d say that Mr. Albert Grimshaw was killed six and a half days before the disinterment yesterday morning.”
“In other words,” said the Inspector, “Grimshaw was strangled somewhere in the wee hours―late last Friday night or early last Saturday morning.”
“That’s right. I’d say, everything considered, that there was a slight retardation of the natural process of putrefaction. Shouldn’t be surprised if you find that the body was kept in a dry, fairly airless place before burial in Khalkis’s coffin.”
Ellery looked uncomfortable. “Not a very pleasant business. Our immortal souls seem to be housed in very treacherous bodies.”
“Why, because decay sets in so rapidly?” Dr. Prouty looked amused. “Well, I’ll offer a word of consolation. The uterus of a woman sometimes remains intact for seven months after death.”
“If that’s your idea of consolation―”
The Inspector said hurriedly, There’s no question, Doc, but that Grimshaw died of strangulation?”