Dapne Sanders (Craig Rice)
BY THE TIME DONOVAN stepped off the train at the Long Island station, he had begun to wonder if he was wasting his time. He reminded himself that he was following a trail which had had seven years in which to grow cold. It might be a wild goose chase after all. A hunch, and nothing more, had brought him. That summer when John Casalis had disappeared, he had gone over the same ground again and again. Finally he had come to share the belief of Mollie Casalis, that the missing man was dead.
He spotted the local taxi driver—the village boasted of only one—beside the station platform and walked over to the car. The man recognized him, tipped his hat and grinned broadly. Donovan had been a frequent and lucrative passenger in the past. “Afternoon, Mister. Where can I take you?” Donovan climbed in beside the driver, returning his grin. “Take me out to the Hymers' place.”
“Okay.” The car put on added speed. “Only the family's all in town today. Saw where Mrs. Hymers was buried the other day. I guess you know that. Say ain't that a terrible thing.”
Donovan agreed that it was, and they discussed the murder of Dorothy Hymers for a few minutes.
“Say,” said the taxi man, “it's been quite a spell since that fellow — what was his name — Casalis, disappeared out here. Never did find out what became of him, did you?”
Donovan leaned forward. “No, we never did. Do you remember the night you brought him out alone this road?”
“Say — do I! I'll never forget it. He sure looked like a man that was on the short cut to Hell, that man did. 'Take me out to Renzo Hymers' house,' he says, and I took him out there and left him.”
Meanwhile they had drawn near to the Hymers' estate.
“That gate right there,” said the driver, taking one hand from the wheel to point, “is the one where I left him at. 'Let me out here' he said, and I let him out.”
“Let me out there too,” said Donovan suddenly.
The car slid to a stop squarely in front of the gate.
That had been the last anyone had seen of John Casalis — through that gate and up through the gardens until the darkness swallowed him up, never to give him back again.
As Donovan walked across a patch of lawn in the general direction John Casalis had taken, a little gnome-like figure popped up from behind a hedge.
“'Afternoon, sir. You did give me a turn, comin' up like that. I must say, you're the last person on earth I expected t'see comin' across that garden.”
Donovan paused and smiled at the gardener.
“Hello, Hughie. I'm sorry if I startled you — I didn't know anyone was down behind that hedge.”
The little gardener returned to his task of clipping the hedge. “I suppose you're finding out who did away with poor Mrs. Hymers, though what you'd find out here I wouldn't know.”
“Well,” Donovan said, “I only hope I'm more successful in finding out who killed her than I was finding out what happened to John Casalis.”
The little gardener looked up sharply at the mention of the name “It's an odd thing, sir, but I was thinkin' of him, only this mornin'. Thought of him, I did, when I was clippin' the grass around that flower bed behind you. Y'mind that there was where we found the footprint.”
Donovan looked at the flower bed in question. “It wasn't much help to us,” he said thoughtfully, “that footprint.”
The gardener looked up again. “If I were a superstitious man sir, which I'm not, praise be, I'd say the devil came by and carried him off.”
Donovan laughed. “You might be nearer right than any of us were. Well I'll be on my way, and stop bothering you.” He nodded to the little gardener and went on down among the paths and flower beds.
John Casalis must have come this way, toward the house. Certainly the house must have been his ultimate destination. But he had never reached it. Somewhere right along here he had vanished, between the spot where that footprint had been found, and the house that he had never reached.
For the better part of an hour Donovan wandered about the grounds. The gardens were at their best, and there was a faint odor of the sea in the air.
Hello — there was something new! A little house, set in a tiny garden of its own. That had not been here before. He strolled over to have a closer look at it.
A rather pretty, dark-haired little girl, perhaps even or eight years old, was out in the garden. She smiled at him in friendly fashion, and he stopped to talk to her.
“I'm Tony's little girl,” she said in answer to his first question.
“Tony?” he repeated.
“The chauffeur,” she said gravely.
Donovan nodded. “Oh yes. Is this your little house?”
“Yes sir.” The child's voice became very proud. “Mr. Hymers built it for papa.”
“Indeed,” Donovan said. “Do you go to school?”
“Down in the village. And when the family is in town I'm allowed to go anywhere I want about the place — all except the black cove.”
“The black cove?” Donovan asked. “Where's that?”
“Don't you know? It's a place down by the water, where papa said I mustn't ever go. He said there was a man fell over the rocks there and was drowned, and I might do the same.”
“Well, of course you must always be careful, and do what your papa says.” He smiled at the child and continued his stroll about the grounds.
Now there was an odd thing, Renzo Hymers was never considered especially thoughtful of his employees. But this seemed even more than thoughtful-ness. The little house must have been expensive.
What was this black cove? As much as he'd been around the Hymers estate, he had never heard of it.
He spotted Hughie, the gardener, at the far end of a strip of lawn and strode over to him.
“Hughie, have you ever heard of a place called the black cove?”
The gardener nodded. “Yes sir, that I have — and a cruel, wicked place it is, too. It's down at the far end of the property, and no one ever goes there.” He pointed down toward the water. “Folks say that it was used by smugglers t'land their boats in the old days.”
“Odd,” Donovan said. “Did you ever hear of anyone falling off the rocks and drowning there?”
The little gardener thought for a minute before he answered. “No sir. That I never did.”
“I think I'll run over and have a look at it.”
The detective continued on toward the shore. A little path came out at the top of a series of bluffs overlooking the water and Donovan walked along them until he reached a place which he immediately recognized as the black cove.
It was easy to see how the black cove got its name. It was a peculiar black rock formation in strange, ragged peaks, with a smooth, sandy beach at the bottom. Donovan discovered a long unusued path that apparently led down to the beach.
On the beach, he rested on the sand and stared up at the rocks. Suddenly a gleam of light caught his gaze as the sun's rays fell on a bit of metal halfway up the path at the very spot where he had torn a vine away. He lay there staring at it for a few minutes, then decided it was worth investigating.
He scrambled up the path, catching the rough tweed of his clothes on rocks and brambles, cursing the impulse that had brought him to this infernal place. Now, where had that vine been? There, just beyond that big rock. He pulled away the rest of the growth, and whistled with sudden amazement.
There, wedged in between two rocks, where it had been securely hidden by the vines, was a small revolver. It looked to Donovan as though it had been there for a long time.
He picked it up, examined it and nodded as though he were greeting an old friend. He recognized that revolver.
SO IT hadn't been entirely a wild goose chase after all, Donovan told himself.
He lay back in his comfortable chair in the office and thought over the work of the day before. The gun had been positively identified as the one John Casalis had carried that night when he had gone to wreak his revenge on Renzo Hymers. It was possible that Casalis had wandered down to the black cove and fallen over the cliff in the dark, losing his gun on the way down. His body might have been carried away by the tide.
But how could Casalis have strayed so far from his destination? He had come so near to the house, too.
Had John Casalis been murdered, carried to the black cove and his body thrown over the cliff?
Donovan sighed, lit his pipe and considered the evidence.
There was the gun, undeniably the one John Casalis had carried that night. Tony, the chauffeur, might have known that the gun had been lost, looked for it and been unable to find it, and ordered his daughter to stay away from the black cove in case she might find it by accident. It was true that the cove would be a dangerous place for a child to play, but no more than any of the other high bluffs along the shore. He had told her that a man had once fallen over the cliffs and been killed there—but Hughie, the little gardener, knew of no such happening. Then there was the pretty little house built for Tony the chauffeur.
There was another question, though. Suppose Tony had murdered John Casalis and thrown his body over the cliffs of the black cove—why had he done it? What was the reason? Granted that Renzo Hymers had been afraid of the clerk—and Donovan well knew how afraid he had been—there were other ways of handling him.
The detective had begun to feel very weary and discouraged, when Billy arrived with a letter and a small package.
Donovan stared at them. Both were addressed in that easily recognized handwriting. He tore open the package first. It contained an envelope and a small box such as jewelers use. With a feeling of mounting excitement he opened the box and saw, inside it, carefully laid between folds of tissue paper, the few inches of bathrobe cord that had been snipped from the one that had strangled Dorothy Hymers.
He examined it closely. Near the tassel was a clot of something faintly sticky. He sniffed at it. Orange marmalade. In that clot of marmalade was a well-defined thumb-print.
He tore open the envelope that had been enclosed in the package. At first it seemed to contain nothing but a sheet of blank paper, over which was laid a sheet of thin tissue. Closer examination showed the same thumb-print, outlined in a faint layer of marmalade.
He opened the accompanying letter.
“My dear Donovan;
“I am sorry that I have not sent these to you before, but circumstances which you doubtless understand have kept me unusually busy,
“It might be claimed that the thumb print on the bathrobe cord was made at the time of the murder of Dorothy Hymers. However, the print on the piece of paper from what had been my room was made at that time —since no one but the murderer went into the room. The two prints are identical.
“Evidently the murderer, otherwise so careful to remove every trace of fingerprints, did not notice that he had pressed his thumb into the marmalade on the bathrobe cord and, not expecting a loose cotton cord to show fingerprints, did not bother to wipe it off. Leaving the impression of his thumb on the piece of paper was, of course, pure carelessness.
“I have made photographs of the prints. You may have the originals.
“I know the man who made them. “Not from fingerprints —nor from evidence left at the scenes of the crimes. I know him from two separate facts, both of which you are familiar with. It may be that thought and deduction are best, after all.
“As you doubtless know, I have almost completed my business in the city. When it is finished, I shall send you the name of the man who made the fingerprints, and the facts that led me to him.
“Sincerely, “'N.'“
Donovan snorted indignantly at the reference to thought and deduction. Then he leaned back in his chair and thought over all the circumstances of the three crimes. Nothing pointed, in his mind, to the identity of the criminal.
He turned his attention to the fingerprints and a wry smile came to his face. Obviously, Garrity had to have these. But how to deliver them without explanation?
At last he wrote a brief note, saying that the enclosures had come to him anonymously in the mail. Then he wrapped up the piece of bathrobe cord and the sheet of paper, and called Billy to take them to Garrity's office.
Billy, coming in to get the package, announced a visitor. A Mr. McGee. And hopping mad, too.
The Mr. McGee who followed Billy into the office was, indeed, hopping mad. He was a big man, with heavy, silver hair over a face that was, at this moment, the color of a glowing, ripe tomato.
He devoted the first two minutes of his visit to dramatic and enthusiastic profanity. Then he calmed down a little and told what had happened.
It was the usual story of a letter received and, in this case, ignored. “Crank letters!” said McGee, adding a two-word opinion of crank letters. He was no helpless guy who had to call up a dick every time he got a threatening letter.
Then the day before, Mrs. McGee's maid had been called away by the serious illness of her sister who lived in Detroit. An agency had been called for a substitute—a thoroughly reliable agency. In due time the substitute arrived with her credentials from the agency and highly satisfactory references.
In the evening the McGees had gone to the theater.
On their return they found the substitute maid gone and, with her, most of Mrs. McGee's jewels.
Furthermore, the real substitute who had been sent by the agency had turned up with a wild story of having been kidnapped, drugged, and left in a room in a cheap hotel.
Finally, Mrs. McGee's regular maid returned from Detroit reporting her sister to be in perfect health. “And this,” exploded McGee, as though it was the last straw, “was on Mrs. McGee's dressing table.”
“This” proved to be a very brief note.
“Paid in full.”
“N"
The scheme was amazing in its simplicity, Donovan thought. But it indicated that John Moon had a woman accomplice. That was a new angle to the affair.
“What did the woman look like?”
She had been medium height, fair-haired, and quite ordinary in appearance.
“Nobody'd give her a second look,” said McGee.
IT WAS purely an accident that Mrs. Gifford and little Mr. Abernathy were witnesses to a murder. There were a large number of other witnesses but, as it turned out, only these two were of great importance.
It came about because Lorinne Gifford had called on Renzo Hymers at his office to discuss some of her personal investments. Since she had planned to take a taxi home, Hymers offered to drive her home in his own car. He had one or two last orders to give to his secretary, and Mrs. Gifford went on downstairs to wait for him in the car.
Going through the lobby she ran into Mr. Abernathy, whose offices were in the same building. The two of them strolled on through the door to the sidewalk, chatting of Mr. Abernathy's recent adventure and the loss of the Starflower necklace.
It was just past five o'clock, and the sidewalk was crowded with homeward bound clerks and typists, but across the walk the two could see the Hymers' car waiting at the curb, with Tony at the wheel.
They were paying little attention and neither of them saw the slight figure that moved quickly through the crowd up to the car. But over the noise of the street they did hear the sound of the shot, and looked just in time to see the blond young man darting away.
Mrs. Gifford screamed and little Mr. Abernathy ran across the sidewalk, shouting, with the result that everyone turned to look at them, and the blond young man disappeared into the crowd.
In another moment the sidewalk was the scene of a near riot, with part of the crowd trying to get away as fast as possible, another part trying to get closer to the car and still a third part milling around in panic-stricken confusion. So it was several minutes before Lorinne Gifford saw that Tony, the chauffeur, was slumped over the wheel, a bright scarlet streak running down the side of his face.
Then she screamed again and fainted dead away, adding considerably to the confusion on the sidewalk.
By the time the police finally had command of the situation and everyone realized what had happened, the killer was safely on a subway train that was rushing him away from the scene of his crime.
The excited crowd was sent on its way, Mrs. Gifford was revived, and a short time later the two witnesses, Renzo Hymers, Inspector Garrity and Donovan were closeted in Garrity's office at headquarters.
Lorinne Gifford was quite recovered by that time.
She pressed a hand delicately to her forehead. “That man. I could never forget that face. Never. Wasn't it the last thing I saw branded, actually branded, on my eyelids, before I lost consciousness? My pearls you know. Naturally you remember. Yes, of course it was the same man. The very same identical man. Do you think I could ever forget him? It was the most frightful experience—”
Donovan tried to be patient. “Mrs. Gifford, how far away from him were you when you saw him?”
“How far? Just across the sidewalk. Almost as close as I am to Renzo there on the other side of the room. Yes of course I was looking in that direction. It was the same man, I saw him with my own eyes. Oh dear, it was such a terrible thing to have happen. And to me. I will never get over it, never. The same face. My pearls, they were so lovely. And I suppose I'll never get them back. And poor Renzo, I really do feel so deeply for you, my dear. It's so ghastly hard to get good chauffeurs.” ' Mrs. Gifford retreated into a stony silence.
“She's very overwrought,” little Mr. Abernathy said, mopping his brow for the fourth time in fifteen minutes.
He took up the story at that point. There wasn't any doubt of the man's identity. Hadn't he seen that face in the rear-view mirror of his car?
Renzo Hymers stated, in a very calm and unemotional voice, that he was deeply shocked and grieved at the murder of his loyal and trusted servant. Did he have any suggestions as to why the chauffeur had been killed? Yes, he did. He had the very best of reasons to offer.
“Tony had succeeded in locating the hideout of this man who signs himself 'N.' ”
Renzo Hymers paused, with a fine sense of the dramatic, long enough for his announcement to have the fullest effect.
It was very unfortunate, but he believed that his daughter had in some way become involved with the criminal. He hoped that the matter could be kept strictly confidential, of course. However, Poppy was a wild young fool. And the young man she had been seen with on the night of her disappearance had certainly answered every description of the man. Furthermore, the girl had been behaving very mysteriously of late.
Therefore, much as he had hated to do so, he had put Tony on her trail. Tony was almost unequalled at following people—indeed, vastly more efficient than the police department seemed to be. Several times Tony had seen her go to a certain street corner and wait there until a car came along and picked her up.
This afternoon Tony had managed to follow the car to its destination. He knew that, because Tony had telephoned the information to him immediately.
Had Tony given him the address over the phone?
Unfortunately, no.
It was at that point that Donovan stopped listening. He strolled over to the window and stood looking out, deep in his own thoughts.
He could see no answer to the evidence he had just heard.
It had to be true, then. The man who signed himself “N” was a murderer, a clever and cold-blooded murderer.
When at last everyone prepared to go, ,he rose to leave at the same time. It would be the last straw now, to have to listen to Inspector Garrity's gloating.
Renzo Hymers stopped him for a moment in the hall.
“Donovan, I want you to come out to the country place with me. There's going to be a conference there. Gifford, Forristor, Hume, Abernathy, Ginter, McGee and myself—the seven of us. We've got to decide on some course of action and decide it fast. Any one of us may be the next victim.” .
Donovan nodded silently. Hymers was right. It was a time to act.
At the same time, in the old house across the city, John Moon was reading the newspaper account of the murder of Tony, the chauffeur. He knew that there would be another murder. He knew who the next victim would be unless he could intervene. But what could he do? He could not go to the police. Certainly he could not go to the victim himself.
Donovan. That was the only hope.
But before he could make any plans, a visitor arrived. Poppy Hymers, breathless, a little disheveled and very white of face, was pounding at the door.
“HOW DID you get here?” he asked. “How did you find the way?”
Poppy Hymers made an impatient gesture. “I've known it all along, of course, you silly idiot. You don't think I'd let you keep your address secret, do you? The second time Joe took me home, after he let me out I hopped into a cab and had the driver follow him.”
“You clever girl,” he began.
She grabbed at his arm. “This isn't any time to stand here talking. You've got to get away, right now, right this minute.”
By way of answer he took her arm gently, ushered her into his study and pushed her into a big chair.
“Sit there and catch your breath.”
She jumped to her feet the minute he released her. “I'm not out of breath, and I'm not hysterical. Listen, you fool. I overheard Renzo talking when he came home tonight, to Donovan. He had Tony follow me here this afternoon. Tony found out where this place is, but he didn't have a chance to tell Renzo before he was— killed. But Renzo is sure that if Tony could find it— he can.”
“Let him try,” John Moon said grimly. “What else?”
“They're all meeting out at the house tonight — the seven of them — and Donovan. They're planning to do something, I don't know what. But that isn't all of it.”
“Go on. Let's have the whole works.”
“Tony—this afternoon—Mrs. Gifford and Mr. Abernathy saw it happen. They were right by the car. And both of them swear up and down that they recognized the man who killed him—and it was you.”
John Moon caught his breath, counted to ten and said, “I must have a double.”
“Damn you,” she gasped.
“Nothing to get excited about,” he said lightly.
“But Donovan believes it too!”
“Oh. I see.” There was a little silence while he looked at her. “Do you think that I murdered Tony?”
“I don't know.” She shook her head in pure exasperation. “I don't know and I don't care. That hasn't anything to do with it. You've got to get away.”
“Doesn't it make any difference at all to you?”
“Of course not.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Thanks, Poppy. I didn't kill him.” He paused. “But I know who did.”
She caught at his arm. “Please. Don't waste time talking about it.”
“Yes, I've got to hurry,” he said very quietly. “Poppy, I'm going out to your father's place.”
She bit her lip to hold back a cry. “You'd be walking right into their hands.”
“Yes,” he said, “I'll be walking right into their hands. And I've got to, to prevent another murder. I'll trust to luck that I get away again. It's the chance I've got to take.”
“No!” She caught her breath, looked at him for a moment, and then said calmly “You're the boss. I'll go with you.”
“Thank you, Poppy.” He walked to the door and called for Joe, then turned back to her. “You have some explanations coming to you, and you're going to get them. I'll explain it all, while we're on our way.”
Meanwhile, seven men met at the Hymers' house on Long Island. The eighth man, Donovan, could hardly have been counted as a member of the group.
He sat by himself, deep in thought, occasionally emerging from his meditation long enough to answer one question in a perfunctory manner.
Seven men, each totally different from the others, with no possible sympathy or friendship for any of the others. Originally banded together for a piece of financial trickery, now they were banded together by a mutual fear of one of the men they had robbed. All, that is, save one.
They were meeting in the great library of the Renzo Hymers country house, a big ornate room that opened directly into the gardens. Renzo Hymers was speaking to the group.
“I have suffered more than any of you from the crimes of this man. All of you have lost something. But I have lost my wife. It might be possible to re-cover what you have lost. But nothing can bring her back from her grave again.”
Donovan stirred uneasily in his chair.
“The financial losses,” Hymers went on in that perfectly even, unemotional tone, “count up to an enormous sum. For me—the twin bracelets. Abernathy —the Starflower necklace. Forristor—the painting. Ginter—a small fortune in securities. Gifford—the pearls, McGee—a valuable collection of jewels. Hume—the Fordyce coronet.”
Wilfred Hume smiled ever so little and avoided Donovan's eyes.
“It's incredible,” Hymers said, “the sum this man must have realized. But for him, even that is not enough.” He paused and then said “The man must be mad.”
Madness, thought Donovan to himself. That must be the answer.
“Evidently,” Renzo Hymers said coldly, “this maniac has some idea of a personal revenge on all of us. That is why I have asked you here tonight, to discuss what steps we must take—to save our lives!”
“Good God, Hymers,” McGee burst out. “You don't think he intends to murder us, one by one!”
“The man is insane,” Renzo Hymers said. “A homicidal maniac. Else why murder my wife—who had done him no harm. Wholesale murder means nothing to him. It was my chauffeur today.” He was silent for a moment. “It will be one of us, tomorrow.”
Suddenly the men around the table became terribly still. They were staring at Wilfred Hume.
The faint smile had disappeared from Wilfred Hume's face. In its place was a look of amazement and incredible horror. And he was looking over Renzo Hymers' shoulder to something on the other side of the room.
Everyone turned to look in the same direction.
Standing in one of the long windows was a blond young man, white-faced and flaming-eyed, holding a revolver in his hand. As they turned to look at him he began to laugh—horribly.
Then the men in the room were treated to a spectacle they had never expected to see. The collapse of Renzo Hymers.
The big man had suddenly gone all to pieces. He rose to his feet and stood there wavering, his face chalk white, his eyes staring. He pointed a shaking hand at the man in the window, and when he spoke his voice was strained and hoarse.
“You're not there,” Renzo Hymers cried. “You can't be there! Because you're dead! You've been dead for seven years! I know it! I saw you! I killed you!”
LATER DONOVAN declared that he believed the man in the window could have stood there and shot them down one by one without anyone making a move. All of them save Renzo Hymers seemed to be turned to stone. Even Donovan himself was completely helpless, stunned by surprise.
He had believed the man standing there in the window to be dead.
Then something happened, almost too quick for anyone to see. In the midst of that horrible laughter, there was the sound of one swift blow. The madman crumpled in a heap on the floor.
In his place stood another man, slender, of medium height with a pale, ascetic face beneath an unruly mass of curly, blond hair.
No one moved, no one spoke. The second visitor stepped down into the room. Then suddenly Donovan realized this was John Moon, this was the man who signed himself “N.”
He knew, too, who the man had once been. He recognized that face. He had seen it before, Then suddenly Mr. Abernathy recovered from his shock, and sprang to his feet, pointing a trembling finger.
'“There! That's the man who robbed me! That's the face I saw!”
There was a moment's silence. Then John Moon spoke, quietly, calmly, but sternly.
“Yes. But not the face of the man who murdered Renzo Hymers' chauffeur.”
“No, no it wasn't you. It was—the other one!” He pointed to the man who lay unconscious on Renzo Hymers's Chinese rug.
“Not the killer of Tony the chauffeur,” John Moon said, “nor the murderer of Dorothy Hymers—any more than that poor madman was.” He turned to Donovan with a friendly smile. “I made you a promise. I promised to deliver to you the man who did murder Dorothy Hymers and Florence Starr and Leon Martelli.”
Then suddenly his pale face became stern. “Renzo Hymers!”
The great financier buried his face in his hands, bowing over the table, almost groveling.
“Renzo Hymers,” John Moon repeated, in a milder tone. “Donovan, I'm surprised that you didn't guess.” With a visible and terrible effort, the man pulled himself together enough to speak.
“This is—absurd!” It was almost a gasp. “I was at my club—all that afternoon. Hume—you saw me there. So did you, McGee—”
Wilfred Hume nodded coldly.
“Sure, I saw you,” said ex-lumberman McGee.
John Moon smiled with one side of his mouth. “Donovan, if you spent an afternoon at your club and saw someone there half a dozen times, and if the doorman at that club stated that person had come in at a certain hour and left at a certain hour, wouldn't you be willing to swear he had been there all that time?”
“I certainly would,” Donovan said promptly.
“That's exactly what Renzo Hymers counted on.” John Moon turned to the stricken man. “You knew that your wife had been meeting Leon Martelli at that house. You knew it because Florence Starr told you. The afternoon of her death, you knew she was going there to meet Martelli.
“You made it a point to speak to the doorman of your club, so that he would be sure to remember your arrival. You hunted up several friends at the club, and called yourself to their attention. Then you went out by a side entrance that opens into the driveway. Tony met you there with the car and drove you to the house where your wife had gone to meet her lover.
“Perhaps you intended only to get the evidence that would force her to give you a quiet divorce, with the minimum of scandal in the newspapers. Perhaps you went there to kill her — though you went unprepared. But you found her unconscious. You took the cord from a bathrobe hanging in the room, and strangled her.
“Then you searched the house. You had learned enough about it to know that it would be empty at that time of day, and that an ordinary pass-key would open all its doors. You were looking for Martelli, to kill him too. But you didn't find anyone. So you went back to the club. Probably you weren't gone from it more than three-quarters of an hour. As soon as you got back, you called your presence to the attention of the friends you had spoken to before. Then they were ready to swear you had been there all the time.”
He paused. No one moved. There was absolute silence in the room.
“But you knew Florence Starr would give you away. When she disappeared, you set Tony to watching her friends. One of them, Laura Kane, led the way to her unknowingly. You went there to that cheap little rooming house, went to her door, and when she opened it you struck down that frightened girl with the silver-headed cane you carry, and strangled her. “You knew that Leon Martelli had been to see the girl and you knew that she had mailed a letter to him. You waited until he had received that letter and then you killed him, too.” Still no one spoke.
At last Donovan said, “You wrote — you had two facts —”
John Moon turned to him. “So did you, but you didn't know what they meant. First, the behavior of Florence Starr on the night of the first murder. She fled. Why — instead of telling her story, and placing herself in the protection of the police? Because the man she feared, the man she guessed had murdered Dorothy Hymers, was there in that room. There were three men in that room that night. The one from whom Florence Starr fled — of those three — could only have been Renzo Hymers.”
Something like a little sigh went through the room.
“The second fact,” John Moon said, “was what had happened to Leon Martelli's feet. You must have realized that meant something.”
“Yes, I did,” said the detective slowly. “But I couldn't find out what the meaning was.” John Moon said quietly “If Leon Martelli had been a bookkeeper, or a clerk, or a musician, or anything else in the world than what he was, those broken feet wouldn't have meant a thing. But Leon Martelli was a man who earned his living by dancing with lonely women. He was a dancing man.”
He turned to Renzo Hymers. “It was a strange twist in your brain that made you drive your car over Leon Martelli's feet after you killed him. But he was a dancing man, and he had danced with your wife. He had taken her away from you with his dancing feet and you couldn't bear to have anything taken away from you. Her punishment had been death. But for him, death was not enough. After you had killed him you had to drive your car back and forth across his feet, crushing them, the feet of the dancing man who had danced with your wife.”
In the silence that followed, Renzo Hymers looked up at his accuser, his face pale.
“A very pretty story — but it can't be proved.”
Everyone there looked at John Moon.
“Oh yes it can,” he said very quietly. “I have the proof. Donovan has the proof. And I imagine that by this time Inspector Garrity has the proof.”
Donovan looked up, a sudden flash of understanding lighting his face.
“You don't know it,” John Moon said, “but when you killed your wife you left your mark behind. You were very careful to remove any fingerprint that you might have made — but you didn't notice that little smear of orange marmalade near the end of the bathrobe cord, and you put your thumb very neatly in the center of it. And as though that were not enough, you left the mark of that sticky thumb on a piece of paper in—”
It was Wilfred Hume who moved first and cried out in alarm. But he was not quick enough.
The madman had recovered consciousness. While John Moon had been speaking his fingers had inched toward the revolver that had dropped from them when he fell. Now he had risen to his feet, the revolver in his hand, facing Renzo Hymers. “I've been waiting so long!” he cried as he fired the shot. “Waiting, waiting!” Renzo Hymers fell with the first bullet that reached him. The others, all that the gun held, were pumped into his unconscious body.
Then there was that strange, impotent, clicking sound as a trigger was pulled in an empty gun. The man who had held the gun let it slip out of his fingers, and looked around the room, amazement in his eyes.
“My wife,” he said. “I must get home to her. My wife and my baby.”
“Good God,” Wilfred Hume said in the silence that followed. “He's forgotten everything that happened to him. But now — catch him!”
But the man who had at last killed Renzo Hymers fell face forward to the floor before anyone could make a move.
“It was better that way,” John Moon said.
After a moment he spoke again, nodding toward the man on the floor.
“It would be best to make sure he is in a safe place when he comes to. He's still dangerous, poor devil.” He shook his head sadly. “But he carried out the revenge he had in his heart when he escaped from the French asylum.”
“No,” Donovan said suddenly. “It can't be. The man in that asylum was John Porter.”
The man who signed himself “N” shook his head slowly. “No, Donovan. That was what confused you all this time. The man in the asylum—was John Casalis.”
FOR A FEW MINUTES no one spoke, no one moved. Then Donovan realized it was time for him to take charge. He laid a hand on John Moon's shoulder. The two men, the great detective and the great thief, walked out of the room side by side. When the door had closed behind them, Donovan turned to the other man.
“Porter, when you came in through that window tonight — I knew, immediately, that it had been you all along. And more than once in the past days it seemed to me that you must be — 'N!' But I couldn't understand how you could be. I believed all along that you were the patient in that sanitarium. Now I know some of the truth. For the love of Heaven, tell me the rest of it.”
“I'll tell you the whole thing,” John Porter — John Moon — said. “Let's sit down and talk it over.” He frowned. “That poor devil in there —”
“I thought he was dead,” Donovan said, “that was what confused me. I thought Casalis was dead and you were insane.”
“Hymers thought he was dead, too.” He paused. “We'll have to go back seven years — to the night when John Casalis came out here to get even with Renzo Hymers, and disappeared.”
“He seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.” Donovan said. “What happened to him? Do you know?”
“I know most of it, from bits he told from time to time and what I was able to learn by myself. He came out here—but before he got to Renzo Hymers, Hymers saw him. You heard what Hymers said tonight. 'You're dead. I know you are. I killed you.' Until that moment, I'd never been sure if it were Hymers or Tony who struck the blow that knocked him unconscious. Hymers believed him dead.”
“But,” Donovan said, scowling, “why didn't he call the police? He had a perfect case of self-defense.”
The blond young man shook his head. “Too much scandal. After all, Hymers didn't want all the details of that stock market shenanigan spread all over the papers — as it would have been if Casalis' reasons for trying to kill him had come out. There seemed to be only one thing to do, to dispose of the body.”
“The black cove,” Donovan said suddenly.
“That's right. He was carried down into the black cove and left him there. They believed that the tide would carry him away, and that if his body did turn up later, it would be thought that he had fallen over the cliff. “But they didn't know that Casalis was still alive, or that he would return to consciousness just when a rum-running vessel landed in the cove. The captain of the rum-runner was a very decent sort. I managed to find him later and get his story. He didn't want to leave the man there to die and the only alternative was to take him along. Casalis had recovered from his injury by the time they reached the other side, and the captain dropped him off over there. It was the only thing he could do.
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was hard.
“I still don't like to think what John Casalis must have suffered after that. Half crazed with no memory, no money, and alone in a strange land where he couldn't speak the language. I've never been able to find out all that happened to him. But finally some Americans found him, ragged and nearly dead from starvation and exposure, and I heard about it. When I saw him, of course I recognized him.”
“But what about you?” the detective asked suddenly.
John Moon frowned. “When I found him — it was just after the death of both my parents — after the crash had wiped out everything. I'd been studying in Paris when it happened, and afterwards I went back there, to sell what books and pictures and furniture I had acquired, and try to find some kind of work, to support myself. I was pretty bitter about the whole business, and then learning what had happened to John Casalis decided me. I would become — the man who signed himself 'N'.”
Donovan looked at him curiously, started to speak, changed his mind and said nothing.
“Well — to get on with it. I placed him in that private sanitarium under the name of John Porter, in order to wipe the identity of the real John Porter out of existence. Then I set about making myself the perfect criminal.”
“You did a damned good job of it,” Donovan said quietly.
John Moon grinned. “You haven't forgotten that I was studying criminology. Those years in Europe I'd been studying and investigating and doing research. I was going to become a great criminologist.”
He smiled wryly.
“Instead, I became a great criminal. That's the story.”
“Except for one thing,” Donovan said, “where the loot has been going. I know that already. It was Mollie Casalis who told me.”
The young man frowned. “Donovan, don't you agree with me that it is best for her not to know the truth? John Casalis is hopelessly incurable. For years now, she has believed him dead. She has gone ahead and planned her life and Rosalie's life without him. It wouldn't add any happiness to that life for her to know that John Casalis is alive and a madman. He can be put quietly in some private sanitarium where he will be made comfortable and she need never know.”
“I agree with you,” the detective said soberly, “and you can leave that problem to me.”
“That leaves only one question,” John Moon said at last. “What to do with me.”
The detective looked up at him, his face very grave.
“I have accomplished all that I originally set out to do,” the man who signed himself “N” said slowly. “All of the seven have paid in full. All of the investors who lost in the crash have been repaid. I have finished. Donovan, I expect you to hand me over to the law.”
The detective stared at him for a moment before answering. Then he rose and shook hands with the thief. “Thanks, for the job you did in discovering the murderer of Dorothy Hymers and the other two.”
Then Donovan did a surprising thing. He turned suddenly, walked across the room, deliberately turned his back on the other man and stood staring at a painting that hung on the wall opposite the French windows, “I will have to make all kinds of explanations to the. he next room,” he said slowly, “but for the next five minutes or so I expect to be so utterly absorbed in this picture that I will be unable to see what goes on in this room. At the end of that time it will be my duty to start hunting you down.”
John Moon smiled. Then he bowed silently to the broad back of the detective, and stepped to the long windows opening onto the terrace.
“Wait one minute,” Donovan said suddenly, his back turned. “There is one more question to be answered.” He paused, and said “Why 'N'? Why did you sign yourself 'N'?”
“I thought you'd guessed that,” John Moon told him, from outside the window. As he disappeared into the darkness, he said, “'N' — stands for Nemesis!”
THE MAN who signed himself “N” hurried down through the darkened gardens of the Hymers' estate toward the road where Joe was waiting with the car.
As he crossed the lawn and passed a little clump of bushes, a figure stepped into the path. He stopped short, stared at the intruder, then held out his hand. “I'd hoped you would find a chance to say goodbye.” Wilfred Hume stepped up beside him. “Come on — you'd better keep on moving. I'll walk with you to the edge of the grounds, then I'll have to go back.” They fell into step and continued across the gardens together.
John Moon cleared his throat. “You helped me more than I can tell you. The way that Martelli's feet had been mutilated gave me a hint. But it was your story of Renzo Hymers' insane jealousy of his wife that gave me the real lead.”
“Glad I could help,” Hume said almost roughly. “But after all, we'd been friends for a long time before this happened.” He was silent for a moment. “Even before that night, I'd suspected you were—- the man who signed himself 'N.' Because I knew you. I knew your interest in crime, as a study. It wasn't surprising to me that you might take to it as a means of paying other men's debts for them.”
John Moon smiled in the darkness. “I wanted you to know I waited in your garden that night, in the hope that you might come out.”
They had come to the edge of the gardens. Just a few steps beyond, a long black car waited on the highway. They paused there.
“And now?” Wilfred Hum! asked.
“Now?” John Moon shook his head. “I'm still a fugitive. But I'm still on earth, and free. We'll meet again.”
They shook hands silently. Then John Moon turned away, opened the gate and walked out to the car.
“Good luck!” It was almost a whisper that Hume sent after him.
But John Moon had not said his last goodbye. He had opened the car door and climbed in, and the car had started leaping down the road before he realized that he was not alone in the back seat. A small, cold hand stole into his. He turned quickly, and saw the white face of Poppy Hymers through the darkness.
“Good lord, girl! What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you once more,” she whispered.
He held her hand, tight. “You know what happened — back there in the house.”
She nodded. “I was out on the terrace all the time. I saw everything—and heard everything.” She laughed, very softly. “But I didn't need to hear what you told Donovan. I knew it all along.”
“You knew that I was John Porter — before I was John Moon?”
“Of course,” Poppy Hymers said. “You've forgotten that your mother and my mother were friends. You didn't know that I had your mother's picture, and that I would have known you, even in your disguise, from that picture. And you might have known that your name, John Moon, would give you away to anyone who remembered that your mother's name was Luna.” She caught her breath. “I wish I didn't have to go back I wish that I might go on with you.”
“But you must go back.” He took both her hands, “Poppy, you have a job to do, and it won't be an easy one — as head of the Hymers estate. You know now what a responsibility that is.”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice. I know. But you —”
“I will always be outside the law. I deliberately chose to become a criminal. I must go on — along my own way.”
The great black car seemed to streak forward. A few turns — and there were the lights of the village. Near the station John Moon leaned forward and told Joe to stop the car.
“Goodbye!” They whispered it.
A moment later, and the car leaped ahead again. A little figure with a very white face stood staring after it for a long time. And to the silent man in the car, it seemed that he could see that figure long after it had actually disappeared from sight.
Back in the stricken house of Hymers, Donovan sat musing. Someday, somewhere, he knew, his path would again cross that of the man who signed himself “N.”
THE END
