The old man smiled reminiscently and went on. “Field approached Barry some time ago with the papers—secretly, of course. Barry paid what he could, but it was woefully little and naturally did not satisfy the insatiable blackmailer. He kept putting Field off desperately. But Field himself was getting into hot water because of his own gambling and was ‘calling in’ his little business deals one by one. Barry, pushed to the wall, realized that unless Field were silenced everything would be lost. He planned the murder. He saw that even if he did manage to raise the $50,000 Field demanded—a palpable impossibility—and even if he did get the original papers, yet Field might still wreck his hopes by merely circulating the story. There was only one thing to do—kill Field. He did it.”
“Black blood, eh?” murmured Cronin. “Poor devil.”
“You would scarcely guess it from his appearance,” remarked Sampson. “He looks as white as you or I.”
“Barry isn’t anywhere near a full-blooded negro,” protested the Inspector. “He has just a drop in his veins—just a drop, but it would have been more than enough for the Ives-Popes. … To get on. When the papers had been discovered and read—we knew everything. Who—how—why the crime was committed. So we took stock of our evidence to bring about a conviction. You can’t hale a man into court on a murder charge without evidence. … Well, what do you think we had? Nothing!
“Let me discuss the clues which might have been useful as evidence. The lady’s purse—that was out. Valueless, as you know. … The source of the poison—a total failure. Incidentally, Barry did procure it exactly as Dr. Jones suggested—Jones, the toxicologist. Barry bought ordinary gasoline and distilled the tetra ethyl lead from it. There was no trace left. … Another possible clue—Monte Field’s hat. It was gone. … The extra tickets for the six vacant seats—we had never seen them and there seemed little chance that we ever would. … The only other material evidence—the papers—indicated motive but proved nothing. By this token Morgan might have committed the crime, or any member of Field’s criminal organization.
“Our only hope for bringing about a conviction depended upon our scheme to have Barry’s apartment burglarized in the hope that either the hat, or the tickets, or some other clue like the poison or the poison-apparatus, would be found. Velie got me a professional housebreaker and Barry’s apartment was rifled Friday night while he was acting his role in the theatre. Not a trace of any of these clues came to light. The hat, the tickets, the poison—everything had been destroyed. Obviously, Barry would have done that; we could only make sure.
“In desperation, I called a meeting of a number of the Monday night audience, hoping that I would find someone who remembered seeing Barry that night. Sometimes, you know, people recall events later which they forgot completely in the excitement of a previous quizzing. But this too, as it happened, was a failure. The only thing of value that turned up was the orangeade boy’s testimony about seeing Field pick up an evening bag in the alley. This got us nowhere as far as Barry was concerned, however. And remember that when we questioned the cast Thursday night we got no direct evidence from them.
“So there we were with a beautifully hypothetical statement of facts for a jury, but not a shred of genuine evidence. The case we had to present would have offered no difficulties to a shrewd defending attorney. It was all circumstantial evidence, based chiefly on reasoning. You know as well as I do what a chance such a case would have in court. … Then my troubles really began, for Ellery had to leave town.
“I racked my brains—the few I have.” Queen scowled at his empty coffee-cup. “Things looked black enough. How could I convict a man without evidence? It was maddening. And then Ellery did me the final service of wiring me a suggestion.”
“A suggestion?” asked Cronin.
“A suggestion that I do a little blackmailing myself. …”
“Blackmailing yourself?” Sampson stared. “I don’t see the point.”
“Trust Ellery to make a point that on the surface is obscure,” retorted the Inspector. “I saw at once that the only course left open to me was to manufacture evidence!”
Both men frowned in puzzlement.
“It’s simple enough,” said Queen. “Field was killed by an unusual poison. And Field was killed because he was blackmailing Barry. Wasn’t it fair for me to assume that if Barry were suddenly blackmailed on the identical score, he would again use poison—and in all likelihood the same poison? I don’t have to tell you that ‘Once a poisoner always a poisoner.’ In the case of Barry, if I could only get him to try to use that tetra ethyl lead on somebody else, I’d have him! The poison is almost unknown—but I needn’t explain further. You can see that if I caught him with tetra ethyl lead, that would be all the evidence I needed.
“How to accomplish the feat was another matter. … The blackmail opportunity fitted the circumstances perfectly. I actually had the original papers pertaining to Barry’s parentage and tainted blood. Barry thought these destroyed—he had
