down the stairs, popped into the hall, sneaked down past the Kirk rooms to this door, pulled the job, and made a getaway the same way.”
“And Mrs. Shane near the elevators couldn’t see any one in that case, hey? The cross-hall’s out of her line of vision except where the two meet?”
“That’s right. She said anyway she didn’t see anybody in this part of the floor after the dead guy came up, except that nurse, that Miss Temple?” the Sergeant consulted a notebook, “a woman by the name of Irene Llewes?both guests here?and a Mr. Glenn Macgowan, Mr. Kirk’s pal. They all went into the office, chinned with Osborne, and went out again. Macgowan took the elevator down. The Llewes woman went off toward the Kirk apartment; she didn’t go in, though, so she probably took those stairs down?her rooms are on the floor below. Miss Temple went back to the Kirk apartment?she’s a guest of Kirk’s. So did the nurse. Seems this Miss Diversey’d stopped in this anteroom before she went to the office; said it was neat as a pin. Well, that’s all, Inspector. Nobody else. So it looks like whoever pulled this job used those stairs, and never even showed up around the corner so this Shane dame could see him.”
“That is,” said the Inspector nastily,
“That’s the way I figure it, too,” rumbled the Sergeant with a scowl. “And I figure the killer bolted that office-door to keep Osborne or whoever else might be in there from interruptin’ him while he was doin’ his hocus- pocus with the furniture in here.”
“And locked the corridor-door, too, I s’pose, for the same reason,” nodded the Inspector, “although we’ll probably never know. When he was through he went out that way, leaving the door closed but unlocked, the way it was found. Didn’t bother to unbolt that door to the office. Maybe he figured it would give him more time for the getaway. Well!” He sighed. “Anything . else?”
Ellery puffed at his sixth cigaret. He was listening very intently for all his air of abstraction. His eyes he kept riveted on the kneeling figure of Dr. Prouty, the Assistant Medical Examiner, busy with the dead man.
“Yes, sir. Osborne and Mrs. Shane told me about the others comin’ in and out. Mrs. Shane also backed up Osborne when he said that from the time the little guy came until Mr. Kirk and Mr. Queen arrived he?that’s Ozzie, they call him?didn’t leave the office even once. So?”
“Yes, yes,” murmured Ellery. “It’s quite obvious that the murderer had to come in and leave the anteroom through that corridor-door.” There was something impatient in his tone. “Now how about the man’s identity, Velie? Surely there’s something there? I scarcely touched the man’s clothing.”
“Ha,” said Sergeant Velie in his volcanic basso, “there’s something else that’s screwy about this crime, Mr. Queen.”
“Eh?” said Ellery, staring.
“What’s this, Thomas?”
“No identification.”
“WhatI”
“Nothin’ in the pockets, Mr. Queen. Not a scrap of anything. Just some lint, like the stuff that always accumulates in a guy’s pockets. They’re goin’ to analyze but it won’t do ‘em any good. No tobacco spillings?he evidently didn’t smoke. Just nothin’.”
“Rifled, by George,” murmured Ellery. “Odd! I wonder?”
“I’m going to have a look at those duds,” growled the Inspector, lunging forward. “The labels?”
Sergeant Velie’s girder-like arm stopped him. “No use, Inspector,” he said sympathetically. “There ain’t any.” The Inspector glared. “I’m tellin’ you! They’ve all been cut out.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
Ellery said thoughtfully: “Odder still. I’m beginning to feel a vast respect for our friend the basher. Thorough, isn’t he? Velie, do you mean to say that there’s nothing, nothing at all? How about the underwear?”
“Plain two-piece. No lead there. Labels gone.”
“Shoes?”
“All the numbers are scratched out and inked in with some of that indelible ink from the desk there?India ink.”
“Amazing! Collar?”
“Same. Couldn’t possibly tell the laundry-marks. Same on the shirt, too.” Velie’s gargantuan shoulders twitched. “It’s the darbs, like I was telling you, Mr. Queen. Never saw anything like it.”
“Every effort, unquestionably, to keep the victim’s identity untraceable,” muttered Ellery. “And
“If there were any,” grunted the old gentleman.
“Amended. All the clothing is cheap and seems new. Might be a lead there . . . . Ho! What’s this?”
They looked at him, startled. He had snatched off his glasses and was staring incredulously at the dead man. “His necktie?it’s gone!”
“Oh, that,” shrugged Velie. “Sure. We saw that. Didn’t you?”
“No. I hadn’t noticed it before. That should be important, vitally important!”
“Sure looks it,” said the Inspector, frowning. “With the necktie missing, then the fool or genius or maniac or whatever he is that pulled this job took it away with him. Now why the devil did he do that?”
“You can search me,” said the Sergeant blankly. “I think it’s just screwy, the whole thing. Gimme a good clean simple mob kill!”
“No, no,” said Ellery in an irritable tone, “that’s not the tack at all, Velie. It’s not crazy; it’s clever. It has meaning. Why did he take the tie away? There’s a question.” He mumbled furiously to himself. “Obviously, because even with its label torn out?to reduce it to its most advantageous terms?it must still have been identifiable! Traceable.”
“But how could that be?” snorted the Inspector. ‘That doesn’t make sense. How could you trace a cheap tie?”
“Maybe it was made out of a special kind of goods,” suggested the Sergeant hopefully, “that would be easy to trace back.”
“Special kind? That would make it an expensive one.” The Inspector shook his head. “You couldn’t imagine that fat little grampus with his cheap get-up wearing an expensive tie. No, it’s not that.” He threw up his hands. “Well, I don’t know what to make of it. It’s got me sunk . . . . Well, Hesse?”
A detective grunted something and the old gentleman pattered off. Ellery and the Sergeant stood without speaking. When the Inspector returned he was excited.
“Say, he wasn’t smashed near the door at all!” he exclaimed. “We’ve found blood on the floor near that chair.” He thumbed the chair near the table against the wall. “He must have been struck down near the chair.”
“Ah, so you’ve seen that, have you?” drawled Ellery. “Interesting, I must say. Then what the deuce is he doing near the office-door behind that shifted bookcase?”
“The devil!” snarled the old gentleman. “This is getting crazier by the second. Let’s see what Doc Prouty has to say.”
Dr. Prouty was rising and brushing off his knees. His cloth hat was perched at a rakish angle on his bald head, and faint perspiration gleamed on his forehead. The Inspector sprang over to engage him in furious conversation. Sergeant Velie drifted off to talk to a detective stationed at the corridor-door.
Ellery straightened from the sill, his brow puckered like the skin of a gnome. He stood still for a long time. Then he rapped his right temple with a baffled fist and sauntered toward his father and the doctor. Midway he stopped, very suddenly. Something bright had caught his eye. Scattered pieces of brightness on the table . . . . He went to the table. The bowl of fruit, like everything else on the unpolished wood, had been turned upside down. Beside the bowl lay the ragged fragments of the rind of a tangerine, and a few dry pips. Vaguely he recalled seeing them before . . . . He lifted away the overturned bowl and studied the exposed fruits. Pears, apples, grapes . . . .
Without turning he said: “Sergeant.” Velie came lumbering back. “Didn’t you say that the nurse, Miss Diversey, had testified to entering this room a few minutes before the arrival of the?the devil! the dead man?”
“Why, sure.”
“Fetch her like a good chap. No noise about it. I want to ask her something.”
