“What did I do with the gun?” Amhurst asked in the same controlled voice. “I was searched, remember, and so was the workroom.”
“During the thirty seconds or so while I was getting up nerve enough to push open the door, you put it in the empty case of the Huntsafe transmitter you had in your hand.”
“It wasn’t empty. I showed it to the inspector later.”
“That stumped me for a long time,” I admitted. “But I think I’ve figured out how you did it. You had the works of the transmitter concealed in the bathroom. When you tore in there, supposedly to be sick, you simply took the gun out of the transmitter case and put the works back in. The murder gun was hidden in the bathroom all the time, but no one thought to search it.”
“When you said this was a Rube Goldberg plot, you hit it,” Amhurst said derisively. “But the plot’s all in your head.”
Even Warren Day was looking a little dubious about my theory. I brought forth some more arguments to clinch it.
“There isn’t a single factor that doesn’t point straight at Amhurst, Inspector. For instance, when I made my first progress report over the phone to Miss Strong, Amhurst was at her apartment. As a matter of fact, he answered the phone. No one else knew I was making any progress, but that evening I found young Thomaso waiting at my apartment when I got home. Amhurst was also present when I reported to Madeline that I had learned it wasn’t Walter Ford who had that gun initialed T.H. That threw him into a blind panic, for that same evening he had Thomaso kidnap Fausta. Even the fact that Thomas Henry’s phone was used to make those checkup calls points to Amhurst. We know the killer must have had a skeleton key to get into Henry’s flat in order to plant the gun, and all Amhurst had to do was walk across two intervening lawns. I’ll admit it’s an incredible murder plot, but Amhurst here is a rather incredible guy. All through this thing he’s shown a mixture of brilliant planning and impracticality. Both fit his character exactly. Especially the impracticality. He committed three murders to get his hands on an invention, then bargained away all but thirty-per-cent interest in it because he hasn’t an ounce of business sense. What more do you want?”
“Maybe he wants some proof,” Amhurst said.
Despite his controlled voice, now not only Amhurst’s upper lip, but his forehead and even his cheeks were covered with sweat. He began mopping at his face with a handkerchief.
Hannegan picked that moment to arrive with Mrs. Jennifer Ford. Mrs. Ford apparently had been at the gin again, for she was noticeably uncertain in her movements.
The moment she walked in, Eddie Johnson took one look at her and announced in a positive voice, “That’s the lady who hired me to run those errands, Inspector.”
Mrs. Ford turned pale. She stared at Eddie as though he were the ghost of her dead husband. Then she said in a rapid but alcoholically thick voice, “All I did was steal two of Walter’s guns, have one of them initialed and give them both to Barney. I didn’t have anything to do with Walter’s death.”
“Why’d you steal the guns for him?” Warren Day barked at her.
“Barney said... Well, Walter wasn’t paying me my alimony, and Barney said...”
When her voice trailed off to nothing, I finished for her. “Barney said you could inherit a ten-per-cent interest in the Huntsafe if you helped him, didn’t he?”
She looked at me wide-eyed, and Barney Amhurst said in a low voice, “You stupid alcoholic! If you’d kept your mouth shut, they couldn’t have proved a thing. Now you’ve talked us both into the gas chamber!”
His face was now drenched with sweat, but he made no attempt to mop it dry.
The woman began to whimper.