“That’s the ticket, Inspector. Listen―we have to go by logic, don’t we? The will didn’t disappear into thin air, did it?”
“How do you know,” objected Sampson, ‘that the will wasn’t taken out during that five-minute interval, as Woodruff said, and then burned, or was torn up or something?”
“But Sampson,” said Ellery mildly, “you can’t very well burn or tear up a steel box, can you?”
“That’s right, too,” muttered the District Attorney. “Where on earth is that box?”
“That’s why I say,” said Pepper triumphantly, ‘that Woodruff’s lying. That will, and the steel box, too, never was in the safe when he said he saw it there!”
“But, heavens,” exclaimed the Inspector, “why? Why should he lie?”
Pepper shrugged. Ellery said with amusement “Gentlemen, none of you is tackling this problem in the proper manner. This is just such a problem as must be analysed, and every possibility taken into consideration.”
You’ve analysed it, I suppose?” said Sampson sourly.
“Ah―yes. Yes indeed. And my analysis leads to an interesting―I might say a very interesting―possibility.” Ellery sat up now, smiling. The Inspector took a pinch of snuff; he said nothing. Pepper leaned forward, all ears, regarding Ellery with a dawning personality, as if he had just noticed Ellery’s existence. “Let me go over the facts to date,” continued Ellery briskly. “You will agree that there are two supplementary possibilities: one, that the new will does not exist at this moment; two, that the new will does exist at this moment.
“Consider the first. If the will does not now exist, it means that Woodruff lied when he said he saw it in the safe five minutes before the funeral, that the will wasn’t there at that time, that the will had been previously destroyed by person or persons unknown. Or Woodruff told the truth, the will was stolen after he saw it, in that five-minute interval, and then destroyed. In this last event, it would have been possible for the thief to have burnt or torn up the will, disposing of the remains by slipping them down a bathroom drain, perhaps; but, as I pointed out an instant ago, the fact that the steel box has not turned up at all points to the improbability of this destruction theory. No remains of the steel box were found; then where is the steel box? Presumably taken away. If the steel box were taken away, then plausibly the will also was taken away, not destroyed. But, you say, under the circumstances, if Woodruff was telling the truth, the box couldn’t have been taken away. We have reached an impasse, therefore, in our first major possibility. In any event, if it is true that the will was destroyed, there is nothing further to be done.”
“And that,” said Sampson, turning to the Inspector, ‘that’s a help, that is. My God, man,” he said irascibly, swinging on Ellery, “we know all that. What are you getting at?”
“Inspector dear,” said Ellery mournfully to his father, ‘do you allow this man to insult your son? Look here, Sampson. You’re anticipating me, and that’s fatal to logic. Having thrown aside the first theory as so much tenuous vapour, we attack the alternative theory―that the will does exist at this moment. But what have we?―ah, a most fascinating state of affairs. Lend ear, gentlemen! Everyone who left the house to attend the funeral returned to the house. The two people in the house remained in the house―one of them, Weekes, actually in the study, where the safe is, all the time. No one entered the house during the funeral. And at no time was there contact between the people of the house and the cortege with outsiders; for everyone in the graveyard to whom the will might have been passed also returned to the house.
“Yet,” he continued rapidly, ‘the will was not found in the house, on the persons of anyone in the house, along the courtyard route, or in the graveyard! I therefore entreat, sue, beg, implore you,” concluded Ellery, his eyes mischievous, ‘to ask me the enlighting question: What is the only thing which left the house during the funeral, didn’t come back and has never been searched since the will was found to have disappeared?”
Sampson said, “Tommyrot. Everything was searched, and damned thoroughly as you’ve been told. You know that, young man.”
“Why, of course, son,” said the Inspector gently. “Nothing was overlooked―or didn’t you understand that when the facts were related?”
“Oh, my living, breathing soul!” groaned Ellery. “
“None so blind as those that will not see . . . “
“ He said softly, “Nothing, my honourable ancestor, nothing but the coffin itself, with Khalkis’s corpse in it!”
The Inspector blinked at that, Pepper muttered disgustedly in his throat, Cronin guffawed and Sampson smote his forehead a mighty blow. Ellery grinned shamelessly.
Pepper recovered first, and grinned back at him. “That’s smart, Mr. Queen,” he said. “That’s smart.”
Sampson coughed into his handkerchief. “I―well, Q., I take it all back. Go on, young man.”
The Inspector said nothing.
“Well gentlemen,” drawled Ellery, “it’s gratifying to speak to such an appreciative audience. The argument is arresting. In the excitement of the last-minute preparations for the funeral, it would have been a simple enough matter for the thief to have opened the safe, extracted the small steel box with the will in it and, watching his opportunity in the drawing-room, to have slipped box and will into the coffin beneath the folds of the coffin’s lining, or whatever they call Mr. Khalkis’s cerements.”
“It’s a cinch,” muttered Inspector Queen, ‘that burying the will with the body would be as effective as destroying it.”
“Precisely, dad. Why destroy the will if by secreting it in the coffin due for immediate burial the thief would achieve the same end? Certainly he had no reason to believe, since Khalkis died a natural death, that the coffin would ever be looked into again this side of the Judgement Day. Ergo―the will is removed from mortal ken as completely as if it had been burnt and its ashes consigned to our sewage system.
“Then there’s a psychological justification for this theory. Woodruff had on his person the only key to the steel box. The thief therefore probably could not open the box in the short five-minute interval before the funeral party left the house. He couldn’t―or wouldn’t―carry the box with the will in it around with him; too bulky, too dangerous. Alors, messieurs, box and will are possibly in Khalkis’s coffin. If this be information, make the most of it.”
Inspector Queen hopped to his tiny feet. “An immediate disinterment seems in order.”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” Sampson coughed again and stared at the Inspector. “As Ellery―ahem!―Ellery has pointed out, it is not at all certain that the will is there. Maybe Woodruff was lying. But we’ve got to open that coffin and make sure. What do you think, Pepper?”
T think,” Pepper smiled, ‘that Mr. Queen’s brilliant analysis hit the nail right square on the head.”
“All right. Arrange the disinterment for to-morrow morning. No particular reason for doing it to-day any more.”
Pepper looked doubtful. “There may be a hitch, Chief, in getting it. After all this isn’t a disinterment based on suspicion of homicide. How are we going to justify to the judge―?”
“See Bradley. He’s liberal about these things, and I’ll call him later myself. Won’t be any trouble, Pepper. Hop to it.” Sampson reached for his telephone and called the number of the Khalkis residence. “Cohalan . . . Cohalan, this is Sampson speaking. Instruct everyone in the house to be present for a confab to-morrow morning . . . . Yes, you can tell “em that we’re disinterring the body of Khalkis . . . . Disinterring, you idiot! . . . Who? All right, let me speak to him.” He burrowed the instrument to his chest and said to the Inspector, “Knox is there―the Knox . . . . Hello! Mr. Knox? This is District Attorney Sampson . . . . Yes, too bad. Very sad . . . . Well, something’s come up and it will be necessary for us to disinter the body . . . . Oh, it must be done, sir . . . . What? . . . Naturally I’m sorry about that, Mr. Knox . . . . Well, don’t fret yourself about it. We’ll take care of everything.”