Authors: Ellery Queen

Dutch Shoe Mystery (31 page)

“10:38—Leaves Anteroom through Anæsthesia Room, retraces steps along South and East Corridors, slips into lift, removes male garments, puts on own shoes, hurries out again to deposit male clothes in telephone booth just outside lift door, and returns to Anteroom via lift door as before.

“10:43—Is back in Anteroom in her own personality as Lucille Price.

“The entire process consumed no more than twelve minutes.”

Ellery smiled and put away his notebook. “The shoestring broke as she put on the men’s canvas shoes in the lift before committing the murder. All she had to do was to return to the Anteroom through the lift door, open the supply cabinet next to it, snip off a piece of adhesive tape with her pocket-scissors from a roll in the drawer, and go back to the lift. Any one could do this in twenty seconds if he knew, as she did, just where to look for the adhesive. Incidentally, it was the roll of adhesive from which the shoe piece had been cut, that I looked for after outlining the schedule roughly. It was not absolute certainty that the tape was taken from the Anteroom cabinet, but it was surely the logical place. And so I found, having compared the jagged edge left on the roll with the piece we found in the shoe. They jibed exactly. That’s evidence, Mr. District Attorney?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Price could have put the adhesive-roll in her own pocket after she used it, thereby disposing of it. But she didn’t think of it. Or if she did, she may have decided to risk a few extra seconds in order to avoid having the dangerous roll on her person.

“Remember that the Anteroom had been unused from the time the investigation started—and under guard. However, even if she had taken the roll away, this wouldn’t have affected the solution. Please bear in mind that I solved the crime
before
I thought of looking for the roll. And so I say—to sum up—the shoes and the trousers told me everything but the name of the murderess; the cabinet told me the name. And it was all over.”

He stopped and regarded them with a weary smile.

Puzzled looks were breaking out on the faces of his audience. Harper was quivering with excitement; he sat on the edge of his chair strained and tense.

Sampson said uneasily, “There’s something loose somewhere. It isn’t all. … How about Kneisel?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Ellery at once. “I should have explained that the guilt of Lucille Price didn’t eliminate the possibility of an accomplice. She might have been the instrument, with a male brain directing her from the background. Kneisel might have been the owner of that brain. He had motive—with the deaths of Mrs. Doorn and Dr. Janney, he made certain of plenty of funds to carry on his work and absolutely sole possession of its proceeds. And all his pretty theories might have been so much sand thrown into our eyes. But—”

“Accomplice …” muttered the Police Commissioner. “So that’s why Swanson was nabbed this afternoon. …”

“What!” exclaimed the District Attorney. “Swanson?”

Inspector Queen smiled faintly. “It was rush, Henry, and we didn’t get a chance to notify you. Swanson was arrested this afternoon as the accomplice of Lucille Price. Just a moment, please.”

He telephoned to Sergeant Velie. “Thomas, I want you to get those two together. … Swanson and the Price woman. … Nothing out of her yet? … See if that does it.” He hung up. “Well know very shortly.”

“Why Swanson?” objected Dr. Minchen mildly. “He certainly couldn’t have done either job himself: Janney alibied him for the first murder, and you yourselves alibi him for the second. I don’t see—”

Ellery said: “Swanson was my
bête noire
from the beginning. I simply couldn’t believe that pure coincidence made him claim Dr. Janney’s attention at precisely the time when Janney was being impersonated. Don’t forget that Lucille Price’s plan absolutely depended on getting Janney out of sight while she was posing as him. Then, getting Janney out of sight at the right time wasn’t coincidence, but planned. Swanson was the instrument, therefore. Was he innocently involved—did she get him to call on Janney without knowledge of what the call signified—or was he a guilty accomplice?

“But when Mr. Swanson visited the District Attorney’s office, giving himself a clear alibi from the most unimpeachable source in the city just as Dr. Janney was being murdered, I knew that he was a guilty accomplice. And I remembered that Swanson was the greatest gainer from the deaths of both Janney and Abby! Abby’s legacy to Janney; Janney’s death, leaving the money to Swanson—it fitted perfectly.”

The telephone rang and Inspector Queen snatched it from the desk. He listened with reddening face. Then he banged the receiver on its hook, shouting, “It’s all over! The minute Swanson and Lucille Price were brought together Swanson broke down and confessed! We’ve got ’em, by God!”

Harper leaped from his chair. His eyes pleaded wildly, beseeching Ellery. “Can I beat it now—or better, can I ’phone the office from here?”

“I think so, Pete,” smiled Ellery. “I keep my bargains.” Harper grabbed the telephone. “Shoot!” he cried when he had received his connection. And that was all. He sat back, grinning like an ape.

The Police Commissioner without a word rose and departed.

“Y’know,” said Harper thoughtfully, “I’ve wondered all along how it was possible for the murderer to have arranged such a complicated scheme of action in less than two hours after an accident which could not have been foreseen. And even aside from that, it seemed to me that the whole murder was sort of unnecessary. After all, Mrs. Doorn might have died as a result of the operation, and it sure would have saved a load of trouble for the murderer.”

“Excellent, Pete.” Ellery looked pleased. “Two very excellent doubt-stimuli. But there’s an even more excellent answer to each of them.

“Mrs. Doorn was scheduled to be operated on for appendicitis about a month from now; it was common Hospital gossip. Undoubtedly the crime was planned for this time, with perhaps some variations in method. For example, an anæsthetist would have been present in the Anteroom, since the old lady would not then be in a coma; and the presence of the anæsthetist would have made it difficult for Lucille Price to commit the murder
before
the operation. I suppose she planned to kill Mrs. Doorn after the operation, in the old lady’s private room in the Hospital, when she could enter as Dr. Janney just as she entered the Anteroom in the actual crime-period. I’m positive that she would again have been the nurse in charge of Mrs. Doorn, due to her affiliation with Janney; so that substantially every detail of the crime was prepared even before the accident occurred—that is, clothes secreted somewhere on the premises, arrangements for Swanson to get Janney out of the way, and so forth. So that when the accident occurred, it merely required a slight readjustment under even more favorable conditions than she had hoped for—no anæsthetist chiefly—to set in motion the murder plan. A hasty telephone call to Swanson informing him of the new development, and the thing was done.”

Ellery felt his throat tenderly. “Dry as dust. … As for your point that a murder might not have been necessary at all, it’s not tenable for this reason: Both Minchen and Janney were perfectly confident that Janney would pull the old lady through. Now certainly Lucille Price, so close to the surgeon, would be bound to accept his confident attitude. And consider that if Mrs. Doorn recovered, and the appendix operation were delayed indefinitely, Lucille Price would have had to
wait
indefinitely, and all her plans would have been up in the air. No, Pete, the accident merely hastened the commission of the crime; it certainly did not inspire the commission of the crime.”

Sampson sat still as stone, thinking. Ellery was watching him with amusement; Harper was chuckling to himself. Sampson said: “But Lucille Price’s
motive?
I don’t get it. What connection can there be between her and Swanson? There’s never been a hint—Why should she do the dirty work for him, if he’s the gainer by the double murder?”

Inspector Queen took his hat and coat from a clothes-tree, mumbling an apology. There was work to do. Before he left, he said in a mild voice, “Let Ellery tell you, Henry. It’s his story, no matter what he says … Djuna, be a good boy.”

As the door closed, Ellery relaxed in his father’s chair and crossed his feet on his father’s desk. “Very good question, Sampson,” he drawled. “I asked myself that one whole afternoon. What connection
could
there be between two apparently unrelated people? Swanson, nursing his hate of the old woman for having smashed his career by evicting him from the Hospital; a warped mentality, criminally scheming the death of his step-father for sanctioning the smash-up of his career, and also for financial reasons, since he was his stepfather’s heir despite everything. … And Lucille Price, a quiet trained nurse—Yes, what connection was there?”

In the silence that followed Ellery extracted from his pocket the mysterious document which he had commissioned Harper to find on Thursday afternoon. He waved it in the air.

“This was the laconic answer. It explains why Lucille Price did the dirty work for Swanson, since it makes her heir with him to Janney’s estate.

“It conceals the story of several years of planning, criminal deliberation and hellish skill.

“It shows how and where Lucille Price was able to secure men’s surgical clothing without leaving a trail—from Swanson, the ex-surgeon, accounting by the way, for her use of trousers too long for her. The shoes are probably his, too; he is about five feet nine, but he’s small-boned.

“It points to their close and secret cooperation; such things as dangerously discussing, perhaps by telephone—for they must have been too canny to meet or live together—the premature killing of Janney. For Swanson was forced by the newspaper ruse the other day to visit your office, inadvertently and fortunately giving him a perfect alibi while Janney was being murdered.

“It explains why the same method was used to kill both people: for if Swanson were suspected and even arrested for Mrs. Doorn’s murder—a possibility in their minds—and Janney was then murdered in such a way as to make it seem the work of the same criminal, Swanson’s alibi for the second murder would automatically clear him of suspicion for the first.

“It implies that not even Janney knew that his step-son, Thomas Janney, alias Swanson, and Lucille Price were inextricably linked. …

“Yes, what
could
be that link, I asked myself?”

Ellery tossed the document across the Inspector’s desk, so that District Attorney Sampson, Dr. Minchen and Djuna could lean over and inspect it. Harper merely grinned.

It was a photostatic copy of a marriage certificate.

FINIS

FLOOR PLAN OF THE DUTCH MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

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