“Never mind that,” said a cold, remote voice.
It was the master, himself.
“Yeah?” said Sergeant Velie.
“Velie, weren’t you attacked when you went to the men’s room just before two?”
“Do I look like the attackable type?”
“You did go to lunch?-in person?”
“And a lousy lunch it was.”
“It was you up here among the dolls all afternoon?”
“Nobody else, Maestro. Now, my friends, I want action. Fast patter. What’s this all about? Before,” said Sergeant Velie softly, “I lose my temper.”
While divers headquarters orators delivered impromptu periods before the silent sergeant, Inspector Richard Queen spoke.
“Ellery. Son. How in the name of the second sin did he do it?”
“Pa,” replied the master, “you got me.”
DECK THE HALL with boughs of holly, but not if your name is Queen on the evening of a certain December twenty-fourth. If your name is Queen on that lamentable evening you are seated in the living room of a New York apartment uttering no falalas but staring miserably into a somber fire. And you have company. The guest list is short but select. It numbers two, a Miss Porter and a Sergeant Velie, and they are no comfort.
No, no ancient Yuletide carol is being trolled; only the silence sings.
Wail in your crypt, Cytherea Ypson; all was for nought; your little dauphin’s treasure lies not in the empty coffers of the orphans but in the hot clutch of one who took his evil inspiration from a long-crumbled specialist in vanishments.
Fact: Lieutenant Geronimo Farber of police headquarters had examined the diamond in the genuine dauphin’s crown a matter of seconds before it was conveyed to its sanctuary in the enclosure. Lieutenant Farber had pronounced the diamond a diamond, and not merely a diamond, but a diamond worth in his opinion over one hundred thousand dollars.
Fact: It was this genuine diamond and this genuine Dauphin’s Doll which Ellery with his own hands had carried into the glass-enclosed fortress and deposited between the authenticated Sergeant Velie’s verified feet.
Fact: All day-specifically, between the moment the dauphin had been deposited in his niche until the moment he was discovered to be a fraud; that is, during the total period in which a theft-and-substitution was even theoretically possible-no person whatsoever, male or female, adult or child, had set foot within the enclosure except Sergeant Thomas Velie, alias Santa Claus; and some dozens of persons with police training and specific instructions, not to mention the Queens themselves, Miss Porter, and Attorney Bondling, testified unqualifiedly that Sergeant Velie had not touched the doll, at any time, all day.
Fact: All those deputized to watch the doll swore that they had done so without lapse or hindrance the everlasting day; moreover, that at no time had anything touched the doll-human or mechanical-either from inside or outside the enclosure.
Fact: Despite all the foregoing, at the end of the day they had found the real dauphin gone and a worthless copy in its place.
“It’s brilliantly, unthinkably clever,” said Ellery at last “A master illusion. For, of course, it was an illusion…”
“Witchcraft,” groaned the inspector.
“Mass mesmerism,” suggested Nikki Porter.
“Mass bird gravel,” growled the sergeant.
Two hours later Ellery spoke again.
“So Comus had a worthless copy of the dauphin all ready for the switch,” he muttered. “It’s a world famous dollie, been illustrated countless times, minutely described, photographed… All ready for the switch, but how did he make it? How? How?”
“You said that,” said the sergeant, “once or forty-two times.”
“The bells are tolling,” sighed Nikki, “but for whom? Not for us.” And indeed, while they slumped there, Time, which Seneca named father of truth, had crossed the threshold of Christmas; and Nikki looked alarmed, for as that glorious song of old came upon the midnight clear, a great light spread from Ellery’s eyes and beatified the whole contorted countenance, so that peace sat there, the peace that approximated understanding; and he threw back that noble head and laughed with the merriment of an innocent child.
“Hey,” said Sergeant Velie, staring.
“Son,” began Inspector Queen, half-rising from his armchair; when the telephone rang.
“Beautiful!” roared Ellery. “Oh, exquisite! How did Comus make the switch, eh? Nikki-”
“From somewhere,” said Nikki, handing him the telephone receiver, “a voice is calling, and if you ask me it’s saying ‘Comus.’ Why not ask him?”
“Comus,” whispered the inspector, shrinking.
“Comus,” echoed the sergeant, baffled.
“Comus?” said Ellery heartily. “How nice. Hello there! Congratulations.”
“Why, thank you,” said the familiar deep and hollow voice. “I called to express my appreciation for a wonderful day’s sport and to wish you the merriest kind of Yule tide.”
“You anticipate a rather merry Christmas yourself, I take it.”
“Laeti triumphantes,” said Comus jovially.
“And the orphans?”
“They have my best wishes. But I won’t detain you, Ellery. If you’ll look at the doormat outside your apartment door, you’ll find, on it-in the spirit of the season-a little gift, with the compliments of Comus. Will you remember me to Inspector Queen and to Attorney Bondling?”
Ellery hung up, smiling.
On the doormat he found the true Dauphin’s Doll, intact except for a contemptible detail. The jewel in the little golden crown was missing.
“IT WAS,” said Ellery later, over pastrami sandwiches, “a fundamentally simple problem. All great illusions are. A valuable object is placed in full view in the heart of an impenetrable enclosure, it is watched hawkishly by dozens of thoroughly screened and reliable trained persons, it is never out of their view, it is not once touched by human hand or any other agency, and yet, at the expiration of the danger period, it is gone-exchanged for a worthless copy. Wonderful. Amazing. It defies the imagination. Actually, it’s susceptible-like all magical hocus-pocus-to immediate solution if only one is able-as I was not-to ignore the wonder and stick to the fact. But then, the wonder is there for precisely that purpose: to stand in the way of the fact.
“What is the fact?” continued Ellery, helping himself to a dill pickle. “The fact is that between the time the doll was placed on the exhibit platform and the time the theft was discovered no one and no thing touched it. Therefore between the time the doll was placed on the platform and the time the theft was discovered the dauphin could not have been stolen. It follows, simply and inevitably, that the dauphin must have been stolen outside that period.
“Before the period began? No. I placed the authentic dauphin inside the enclosure with my own hands; at or about the beginning of the period, then, no hand but mine had touched the doll-not even, you’ll recall, Lieutenant Farber’s. Then the dauphin must have been stolen after the period closed.”
Ellery brandished half the pickle. “And who,” he demanded solemnly, “is the only one besides myself who handled that doll after the period closed and before Lieutenant Farber pronounced the diamond to be paste? The only one?”
The inspector and the sergeant exchanged puzzled glances, and Nikki looked blank.
“Why, Mr. Bondling,” said Nikki, “and he doesn’t count.”
“He counts very much, Nikki,” said Ellery, reaching for the mustard, “because the facts say Bondling stole the dauphin at that time.”