“You had come to the conclusion that only the fifth of your five possibilities with regard to the clothes was true.”
“Oh, yes!” Ellery kept his eyes on the road. “And that was that the criminal took away Marco’s clothes simply because he wanted them as clothes.” The old gentleman’s eyes widened at the simplicity of the conclusion. “But why should the criminal have wanted Marco’s clothes as clothes? To clothe himself. Obviously, then, the criminal had no clothes of his own. Startling, but inevitable. Why did the criminal need clothes after the crime? Obviously again — to effect his escape. They were necessary to his getaway.”
Ellery waved his hand in a rather bitter gesture. “I originally discarded this possibility because I could not see why the murderer should have taken all the garments on Marco and left the cape behind. The cape was, as it were, the most enveloping garment of all. The criminal could hardly have neglected to take this figure-concealing garment — black as the night itself, reaching from throat to ankles — if he had wanted clothes as clothes for the purpose of a getaway. As a matter of fact, with the pressure of haste upon him after a murder, he could easily have dispensed with most, if not all, of the things he actually took — the coat, the shirt, the tie surely, perhaps even the trousers — and taken the cape alone; with the shoes, perhaps, for decent underpinning. Yet he went to the trouble under pressure of taking every stitch of Marco’s clothing and left the cape behind! I could only conclude that my fifth explanation was wrong and that still another existed. I didn’t come back to that line of thought for a long time — more’s the pity; but blundered off into a fog. It was not until Mrs. Marco’s testimony late yesterday afternoon, revealing that the cape had not been on Marco’s body or on the terrace during the crime, that I saw that the fifth explanation — clothes as clothes for a getaway — must be the correct one after all. There had been no cape for the murderer to take. And so I say that the cape has been the most important factor in this case. For lack of the vital bit of information concerning it this case would never have been solved.”
“I see that now,” said the Judge thoughtfully, “although how it gets you to Kummer is still beyond me.”
Ellery pressed his klaxon button savagely and shot around a startled Pierce Arrow. “Wait. I pointed out before that the criminal had no clothes of his own. That required clarification. To what extent, I asked myself, did the criminal have no clothes of his own; that is, in what state of undress was he when he came upon the scene of the intended crime? Now we knew precisely what he had filched from the body after the killing. Consequently I was able to say that he couldn’t have come in anything corresponding to what he had taken from Marco, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken them. That is, when he came he couldn’t have been wearing a shirt, a tie, coat, trousers, shoes, socks, or underwear. True, he had left Marco’s hat and stick behind. But to say that the criminal came with no clothing of the sort I’ve described on his body, and yet did come with a hat or stick or both, is of course preposterous. Apparently he had no need of a stick and hat, and simply left these articles behind. At any rate, he had no hat or stick when he came, either. Well, what possible clothing is left in which he might have come to the beach-terrace to commit the crime?”
“Hmm,” said the Judge. “It seems to me you can’t overlook the possibility that he came in, let us say, a bathing-suit.”
“Quite true. I didn’t overlook it. As a matter of fact, he might have come in a bathing-suit, a bathing-suit and robe, or a robe alone.”
“Well—”
Ellery said wearily: “Now, I’ve already established that he took Marco’s clothing to make his getaway. Could he have made his getaway if he had originally worn a bathing-suit, suit and robe, or robe alone? Certainly.”
“I don’t see that,” protested the old gentleman. “Not if he—”
“I know what you’re going to say. But I’ve analyzed this beyond the possibility of doubt. If he were escaping from the terrace to the house, any one of these classifications — bathing-suit, robe, or both — would have been sufficient for him and he wouldn’t have had to take Marco’s clothes. There would be nothing remarkable, in the observatory sense, in any one’s coming in from a ‘swim’ in the early hours — if he should be noticed. You were going to ask: What if he had escaped, not to the house, but to some remoter place by way of the highway? The answer to that is that bathing-suit or robe, if he had been wearing either or both during an escape by that route, would have been sufficient. Your friend Harry Stebbins said last Sunday morning, you’ll recall, that there’s a local ordinance which permits bathers to use the stretch of highway between the beaches — which takes in the exit from Spanish Cape — clad only in bathing costume. In fact, when we saw him he himself had just come walking back from one of the public beaches in a bathing-suit. But if this is common custom the murderer would have been safe to make his escape in such costume no matter at what hour — he could feel sure of not being stopped. Again, I say, had he worn a bathing-suit and escaped by way of the highway he wouldn’t have needed Marco’s clothes. The only other possible route — besides the house and main highway — is the sea itself. But of course he wouldn’t take clothes to escape by water, and besides there were no footprints in the sand, proving that escape had not been made by way of the Cove.”
“But, if that analysis is correct,” began the Judge in a puzzled way, “I don’t see—”
“Surely the conclusion is inevitable?” cried Ellery. “If the murderer had originally worn a bathing-suit, or suit and robe, or even robe alone, he would not have needed Marco’s clothes to make his getaway. But he did need Marco’s clothes to make his getaway, as I’ve shown. Therefore I had to conclude that the murderer did not originally wear a bathing-suit or robe when he came to the scene of the crime.”
“But that means—” said the old gentleman, shocked.
“Precisely. That means,” said Ellery calmly, “that he originally wore nothing. In other words, when he stole up on Marco and hit him over the head the murderer was as naked as on the day of his birth!’
Both men were silent against the roar of the Duesenberg’s powerful motor.
The Judge murmured after a moment: “I see. John Marco’s nakedness simply became the nakedness of the murderer. Very clever. Very clever indeed! Go on, my boy; this is extraordinary.”
Ellery blinked. He was very tired. Hell of a vacation! he thought. But he went on doggedly: “The question naturally followed, if the murderer came naked: Where did he come from? That was the easiest part of all. He didn’t come naked from the house, obviously. Certainly not from the highway. He could have come naked only from the third of the three possible routes: the sea.”
Judge Macklin uncrossed his long legs deliberately and turned his head to stare at Ellery. “Hmm,” he said dryly. “We seem to have unearthed a human weakness in the paragon. I can’t believe my ears. Here you’ve proved that the murderer must have come from the sea, and yet only Sunday I heard you prove with just as much conviction that the murderer couldn’t have come from the sea!”
Ellery blushed. “Go on; heap coals on my head. You’ll remember I referred only last night to one vital error in my former reasoning. Yes, that’s what I ‘proved,’ and it will stand in my mind as an eternal monument to a moment of thoughtlessness. It just tends to show that few arguments are impervious to fallacy. We merely hope... That was my major slip in this confounded case. You remember my ‘proof was based on two lines of reasoning. The first was that Marco, having begun to write a highly personal letter on the terrace before he was assaulted, dating it at one o’clock and mentioning that he was alone, must therefore have preceded his murderer. But if he preceded his murderer, the murderer came after one o’clock. But at about one o’clock the tide was very low, the beach was uncovered for at least eighteen feet, and there were no footprints in this sand. So I reasoned that the murderer could not have come from the sea, but had come by land, by the path. Don’t you see the fallacy in my reasoning?”