“What are you doing?” she burst out.
“Nothing startling. I’m looking for fingerprints.” He continued to whistle as he stowed the vial and brush away in the kit, pocketed it, and reached for a jar of library paste on the desk. “Your father won’t mind a liberty or two, I’m sure.” He rummaged in a drawer until he found a sheet of blank yellow paper. Then he calmly proceeded to paste the scraps he had been examining onto the sheet.
“Is that—”
“Suppose,” he said with sudden gravity, “we wait for Inspector Moley, eh?” He left the paper on the desk and rose. “Now, Miss Godfrey, indulge a little whim of mine and allow me to hold your hand.”
“Hold my hand!” She sat up at that, her eyes wide.
“True,” murmured Ellery, seating himself on the divan beside her and taking one of her rigid hands in both of his, “this is a pleasure that doesn’t ordinarily accrue to a detective in the course of his... ah... labors. It’s a very soft and brown and inviting little hand, I note — that’s the Watson in me. Now for the Holmes. Relax, please.” She was too surprised to withdraw her hand. He bent over it, holding it palm up, and scrutinized the soft paps of the finger tips with keen eyes. Then he turned her hand over and examined the fingernails, brushing the paps lightly with his own finger tips as he did so. “Hmm. Not necessarily conclusive, but at least it doesn’t give you the lie.”
She withdrew a little, snatching her hand away; there was a scared look in her eyes. “What on earth are you babbling about, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery sighed and lit a cigaret. “So soon. Just proves once more that the authentic pleasures of life are of tantalizingly short duration... Now, now, don’t mind my little insanities, Miss Godfrey. I was merely trying to satisfy myself as to your veracity.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” gasped Rosa.
“Perish the thought. You see, physical habits leave — very often — visible marks on the impressionable human carcass. Dr. Bell taught that to Doyle, and Doyle passed it obligingly on to Holmes; it was the secret of most of Sherlock’s prestidigitating deductions, as it were. Typing hardens the finger tips; and feminine typists usually trim their nails short. Your finger tips are as soft as the breast of a bird, to quote the convenient poet; and your nails are even longer than your curious feminine toiletterie demands. In fine, it proves nothing, since you wouldn’t be a habitual typist anyway. But it gave me the opportunity to hold your hand.”
“Needn’t bother,” said Inspector Moley, striding into the library. He nodded at Rosa with a very friendly air. “That was an old gag when I was a cub in trainin’, Mr. Queen. The young lady’s okay.”
“‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,’” said Ellery, sheepishly feeling a guilty warmth in his cheeks. “But I never doubted it, Inspector.”
Rosa stood up, her little chin hardening. “Was I under suspicion — after all I went through?”
“My dear young woman,” grinned Moley, “everything and everybody are under suspicion till they’re cleared. Now you, you’re cleared. You never wrote that note.”
Rosa laughed rather desperately. “What are you men talking about? What note?”
Ellery and the Inspector exchanged glances, and then Ellery rose and picked up from the desk the sheet of paper on which he had pasted the scraps of charred note found in Marco’s bathroom. He passed it to the girl without comment and she read it with a puzzled frown. But she gasped over the signature.
“Why, I never wrote this! Who—”
“I just checked up on your statement,” said Moley, losing his grin, “that you can’t type. It’s true, Mr. Queen — she can’t. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have pecked out a message on a machine with one finger, but the typing on this note is too even for that. It was done by somebody who’s used to typing. So, combined with that kidnaping yarn and the fact that you were in Waring’s shack all last night tied up, I guess you’re cleared. This thing’s a plant.”
Rosa sank onto the divan. “No prints,” said Ellery to Moley, “worth a tinker’s dam. Just smudges.”
“I— This is all beyond me. When... where... I don’t even know what it means.”
“This was a note,” explained Ellery patiently, “sent circuitously to John Marco late last night. It purports to come from you, as you see, and — rather freely interpreted — makes an appointment with him for one o’clock in the morning on the terrace.” He went around the desk, uncovered the typewriter, slipped a sheet of the heavy cream-colored Godfrey stationery into the carriage, and began quickly to manipulate the keys.
The girl was deathly pale in the dim light of the library. “Then that note,” she whispered, “sent him to his death? I... I can’t believe it!”
“Well, that’s what happened,” said Moley. “How’s it stack up, Mr. Queen?”
Ellery ripped the sheet out of the machine and laid it on the desk side by side with the sheet on which the original scraps had been pasted. Moley trod heavily to a position behind him and the two men studied the adjacent sheets. Ellery had written precisely what appeared on the paste-up.
“Same type,” murmured Ellery, taking out his glass and examining individual characters. “Hmm. Clear case, Inspector. Have a look at the capital I’s. Notice the slight fading of the right-hand side of the lower serif; worn metal. And the upper right serif of the capital T is gone altogether in both. As a matter of fact, even the consistency of the ribbon seems to be the same; there’s the identical muck in the lower case e’s and o’s.” He passed the lens to Moley, who squinted through it for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, this is the machine, all right. Whoever typed the original of this message sat in this very chair.”
There was silence as Ellery covered the machine and stowed his kit away. Moley paced up and down, a feral glitter in his eyes. Suddenly a thought struck him and he dashed away without explanation. Rosa sat limply on the divan with a stricken expression. When Moley returned he was hoarse with triumph. “Just thought I’d make sure this machine has never left the house. By God, it hasn’t! We’ve got somethin’ at last.”
“What you have,” said Ellery, “is concrete evidence that the murderer is associated with this house, Inspector. Before it might have been any one. Yes, yes, that’s a cosmic discovery. I think it clarifies certain issues, although... Miss Godfrey, perhaps you wouldn’t care to listen to a bit of professional theorizing?”
“Perhaps I would!” Rosa’s blue eyes were blazing. “I want to hear all about it. If it concerns any one in this house— Murder’s despicable under any circumstances. Please talk. I want to help if I can.”
“You may get your fingers burned, you know,” said Ellery gently. But her mouth only hardened. “Very well, then. What have we? An emissary of a potential murderer whom we shall call X is hired to kidnap John Marco, take him out to sea, kill him, and dump his body overside. This emissary, the formidable Captain Kidd, stupidly mistakes David Kummer, your uncle, for Marco. Your part in the plot is purely incidental, Miss Godfrey; X informed Kidd that Marco would be with you, and you were tied up in Waring’s cottage merely to keep you from sounding a premature alarm. Before Kidd took your uncle off in Waring’s cruiser he telephoned X... from all indications, in this very house. He told X that he had ‘Marco.’ So far, X’s plan was successful.”