Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  The two Queens exclaimed under their breaths. “Gasoline!” cried the Inspector, “Why—how on earth could a man trace that?”

  “That’s the point,” answered the toxicologist. “I could go to the corner gas-station, fill up the tank of my car, run it home, extract some of the gasoline from the tank, go into my laboratory and distill the tetra ethyl lead in remarkably little time with remarkably little effort!”

  “Doesn’t that imply, Doctor,” put in Ellery hopefully, “that the murderer of Field had some laboratory experience—knew something about chemical analysis, and all that sort of rot?”

  “No, it doesn’t. Any man with a home-brew ‘still’ in his house could distill that poison without leaving a trace. The beauty of the process is that the tetra ethyl lead in the gasoline has a higher boiling-point than any other of the fluid’s constituents. All you have to do is distill everything out up to a certain temperature, and what’s left is this poison.”

  The Inspector took a pinch of snuff with trembling fingers. “All I can say is—I take my hat off to the murderer,” he muttered. “Tell me—Doctor—wouldn’t a man have to know quite a bit about toxicology to possess such knowledge? How could he ever know this without some special interest—and therefore training—in the subject?”

  Dr. Jones snorted. “Inspector, I’m surprised at you. Your question is already answered.”

  “How? What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t I just told you how to do it? And if you heard about the poison from a toxicologist, couldn’t you make some provided you had the ‘still’? You would require no knowledge except the boiling-point of tetra ethyl lead. Get along with you, Queen! You haven’t a chance in the world of tracing the murderer through the poison. In all probability he overheard a conversation between two toxicologists, or even between two medical men who had heard about the stuff. The rest was easy. I’m not saying this is so. The man might be a chemist, at that. But I’m concerned only in giving you the possibilities.”

  “I suppose it was administered in whisky, eh, Doctor?” asked Queen abstractedly.

  “No doubt about it,” returned the toxicologist. “The stomach showed a large whisky content. Certainly, it would be an easy way for the murderer to slip it over on his victim. With the whisky you get nowadays, most of it smells etherized, anyway. And besides, Field probably had it down before he realized anything was wrong—if he did at all.”

  “Wouldn’t he taste the stuff?” asked Ellery wearily.

  “I’ve never tasted it, young man, so I can’t say definitely,” answered Dr. Jones, a trifle tartly. “But I doubt whether he would—sufficiently to alarm him, at any rate. Once he had it down it wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Queen turned to Prouty, whose cigar had gone out. He had fallen into a hearty doze. “Say, Doc!”

  Prouty opened his eyes sleepily. “Where are my slippers—I can’t ever seem to find my slippers, damn it!”

  Despite the tension of the moment, there was a spontaneous roar of amusement at the expense of the Assistant Medical Examiner. When he had come to with sufficient thoroughness to understand what he had said, he joined the chuckling group and said, “Just goes to prove that I’d better be going home, Queen. What did you want to know?”

  “Tell me,” said Queen, still shaking, “what did you get from your analysis of the whisky?”

  “Oh!” Prouty sobered instantly. “The whisky in the flask was as fine as any I’ve ever tested—and I’ve been doing nothing but testing booze for years now. It was the poison in the liquor on his breath that made me think at first that Field had drunk rotten booze. The Scotch and rye that you sent me in bottles from Field’s apartment were also of the very highest quality. Probably the flask’s contents came from the same place as the bottled stuff. In fact, I should say that both samples were imported goods. I haven’t come across domestic liquor of that calibre ever since the War—that is, except for the pre-War stuff that was stored away. . . . And I suppose Velie communicated my report to you that the ginger ale is okay.”

  Queen nodded. ‘Well, that seems to settle it,” he said heavily. “It looks as if we’re up against a blank wall on this tetra ethyl lead business. But just to make sure, Doc—work along with the professor here and try to locate a possible leak somewhere in the distribution of the poison. You fellows know more about that than anybody I could put on the case. It’s just a stab in the dark and probably nothing will come of it.”

  “There’s no question about it,” murmured Ellery. “A novelist should stick to his last.”75

  “I think,” remarked Ellery eagerly, after the two doctors had gone, “that I’ll amble down to my bookseller for that Falconer.” He rose and began a hasty search for his coat.

  “Here!” bellowed the Inspector, pulling him down into a chair. “Nothing doing. That blasted book of yours won’t run away. I want you to sit here and keep my headache company.”

  Ellery nestled into the leather cushions with a sigh. “Just when I get to feeling that all investigations into the foibles of the human mind are useless and a waste of time, my worthy sire puts the onus of thought upon me again. Heigh-ho! What’s on the menu?”

  “I’m not putting any onus on you at all,” growled Queen. “And stop using such big words. I’m dizzy enough. What I want you to do is help me go over this confounded mess of a case and see—well, what we can see.”

  “I might have suspected it,” said Ellery. “Where do I start?”

  “You don’t,” grunted his father. “I’m doing the talking to-night and you’re going to listen. And you might make a few notes, too.

  “Let’s begin with Field. I think, in the first place, that we can take it for granted our friend went to the Roman Theatre Monday night not for pleasure but for business. Right?”

  “No doubt about it in my mind,” said Ellery. “What did Velie report about Field’s movements Monday?”

  “Field got to his office at 9:30—his usual morning arrival-hour. He worked until noon. He had no personal visitors all day. At twelve o’clock he lunched at the Webster Club alone, and at 1:30 returned to his office. He worked steadily until 4:00—and seems to have gone straight home, as the doorman and elevator-man both testify he arrived at the apartment about 4:30. Velie could get no further data except that Michaels arrived at 5:00 and left at 6:00. Field left at 7:30, dressed as we found him. I have a list of the clients whom he saw during the day, but it doesn’t tell much.”

  “How about the reason for his small bank account?” asked Ellery.

  “Just what I figured,” returned Queen. “Field has been losing steadily on the stock market—and not chicken feed, either. Velie’s just run a little tip to earth which makes Field out as a frequent visitor to the racetrack, where he’s also dropped plenty. For a shrewd man, he certainly was an easy-mark for the wiseacres. Anyway, that explains his having so little cash in his personal account. And more than that—it probably also explains more conclusively the item of ‘50,000’ on the program we found. That meant money, and the money it referred to was in some way connected, I’m sure, with the person he was to meet at the theatre.

  “Now, I think that we can pretty well conclude that Field knew his murderer rather intimately. For one thing, he accepted a drink obviously without suspicion, or at least question; for another, the meeting seems to have been definitely arranged for purposes of concealment—why, else, if that is not so, was the theatre chosen for the meeting at all?”

  “All right. Let me ask you the same question,” interposed Ellery, puckering his lips. “Why should a theatre be chosen as a meeting-place to transact a secret and undoubtedly nefarious business? Wouldn’t a park be more secret? Wouldn’t a hotel lobby have its advantages? Answer that.”

  “Unfortunately, my son,” said the Inspector mildly, “Mr. Field could have had no definite knowledge that he was going to be murdered. As far as he was concerned, all he was going to do was to take care of his part of the transaction. As a matter of fact, Fi
eld himself might have chosen the theatre as the place of meeting. Perhaps he wanted to establish an alibi for something. There’s no way of telling yet just what he wanted to do. As for the hotel lobby—certainly he would run a grave risk of being seen. He might have been unwilling, further, to risk himself in such a lonely place as a park. And, lastly, he may have had some particular reason for not wanting to be seen in the company of the second party. Remember—the ticket-stubs we found showed that the other person did not come into the theatre at the same time as Field. But this is all fruitless conjecture—”

  Ellery smiled in a thoughtful manner, but said nothing. He was thinking to himself that the old man had not completely satisfied the objection, and that this was a strange thing in a man of Inspector Queen’s direct habits of thought. . . .

  But Queen was continuing. “Very well. We must always bear in mind the further possibility that the person with whom Field transacted his business was not his murderer. Of course, this is merely a possibility. The crime seems to have been too well planned for that. But if this is so, then we must look for two people in the audience Monday night who were directly connected with Field’s death.”

  “Morgan?” asked Ellery idly.

  The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. Why didn’t he tell us about it when we spoke to him yesterday afternoon? He confessed everything else. Well, maybe because he felt that a confession of having paid blackmail to the murdered man, together with the fact that he was found in the theatre, would be too damning a bit of circumstantial evidence.”

  “Look at it this way,” said Ellery. “Here we find a man dead who has written on his program the number ‘50,000,’ obviously referring to dollars. We know from what both Sampson and Cronin have told us about Field that he was a man of unscrupulous and probably criminal character. Further, we know from Morgan that he was also a blackmailer. I think, therefore, we can deduce safely that he went to the Roman Theatre on Monday night to collect or arrange for the payment of $50,000 in blackmail from some person unknown. Right so far?”

  “Go ahead,” grunted the Inspector noncommittally.

  “Very well,” continued Ellery. “If we conclude that the person blackmailed that night and the murderer were one and the same, we need look no further for a motive. There’s the motive ready made—to choke off the blackmailing Field. If, however, we proceed on the assumption that the murderer and the person blackmailed were not the same, but two entirely different individuals, then we must still scrabble about looking for a motive for the crime. My personal opinion is that this is unnecessary—that the murderer and the blackmailed person are one. What do you think?”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you, Ellery,” said the Inspector. “I merely mentioned the other possibility—did not state my own conviction. Let us proceed, for the time being, then, on the assumption that Field’s blackmail victim and his murderer were the same. . . .

  “Now—I want to clear up the matter of the missing tickets.”

  “Ah—the missing tickets,” murmured Ellery. “I was wondering what you made of that.”

  “Don’t be funny, now, you rascal,” growled Queen. “Here’s what I make of it. All in all, we are dealing with eight seats—one in which Field sat, for which we have the stub found on Field’s person; one in which the murderer sat, for which we have the stub found by Flint; and finally the six empty seats for which tickets were bought, as established by the box-office report, and for which stubs were not found, torn or whole, anywhere in the theatre or box-office. First of all, it is barely possible that all of those six whole tickets were in the theatre Monday night, and went out of the theatre on somebody’s person. Remember, the search of individuals was necessarily not so exhaustive as to include an examination for small things like tickets. This, however, is highly improbable. The best explanation is that either Field or his murderer bought all eight tickets at one time, intending to use two and reserving the other six to insure absolute privacy during the short time that the business was to be transacted. In this case, the most sensible thing to have done was to destroy the tickets as soon as they were bought; which was probably done by either Field or the murderer, according to who made the arrangements. We must, therefore, forget those six tickets—they’re gone and we’ll never get our hands on them.

  “To proceed,” continued the Inspector. “We know that Field and his victim entered the theatre separately. This may positively be deduced from the fact that when I put the two stubs back to front, the torn edges did not match. When two people enter together, the tickets are presented together and are invariably torn together. Now—this does not say that they did not come in at practically the same time, because for purposes of safety they may have come in one after the other, as if they did not know each other. However, Madge O’Connell claims no one sat in LL30 during Act I, and the orangeade-boy, Jess Lynch, testified that ten minutes after Act II had started, there was still no one in LL30. This means that the murderer either had not yet entered the theatre, or he had come in before but was sitting in some other part of the orchestra, having a ticket necessarily for another seat.”

  Ellery shook his head. “I realize that as well as you, son,” said the old man testily. ‘I’m just following the thought through. I was going to say that it doesn’t seem likely the murderer had come into the theatre at the regular time. It’s probable that he entered at least ten minutes after the second act started.”

  “I can give you a proof of that,” said Ellery lazily.

  The Inspector took a pinch of snuff. “I know—those cabalistic figures on the program. How did they read?

  930

  815

  50,000

  “We know what the fifty-thousand represented. The other two figures must have referred not to dollars, but to time. Look at the ‘815.’ The play started at 8:25. In all likelihood Field arrived about 8:15, or if he arrived sooner, he had some cause to refer to his watch at that time. Now, if he had an appointment with some one who, we assume, arrived much later, what more likely than that Field should have idly jotted down on his program—first, the ‘50,000,’ which indicates that he was thinking about the impending transaction, which involved $50,000 in blackmail; then 8:15, the time he was thinking about it; and finally 9:30—the time the blackmail victim was due to arrive! It’s the most natural thing in the world for Field to have done this, as it would be for any one who is in the habit of scribbling in idle moments. It’s very fortunate for us, because it points to two things: first, to the exact time of the appointment with the murderer—9:30; and, second, it corroborates our conjecture as regards the actual time the murder was committed. At 9:25 Lynch saw Field alive and alone; at 9:30, by Field’s written evidence, the murderer was due to arrive, and we take it for granted he did; according to Dr. Jones’ statement it would take the poison from fifteen to twenty minutes to kill Field—and in view of Pusak’s discovery at 9:55 of the dead body, we may say that the poison was administered about 9:35. If the tetra ethyl lead took at the most twenty minutes—that gives us 9:55. Much before then, of course, the murderer left the scene of the crime. Remember—he could not have known that our friend Mr. Pusak would suddenly desire to rise and leave his seat. The murderer was probably figuring that Field’s body would not be discovered until the intermission, at 10:05, which would have been ample time for Field to have died without being able to murmur any message at all. Luckily for our mysterious murderer Field was discovered too late to gasp more than the information that he’d been murdered. If Pusak had walked out five minutes earlier we’d have our elusive friend behind the bars right now.”

  “Bravo!” murmured Ellery, smiling affectionately. “A perfect recitation. My congratulations.”

  “Oh, go jump in the bath-tub,” growled his father. “At this point I just want to repeat what you brought out Monday night in Panzer’s office—the fact that although the murderer quitted the scene of the crime between 9:30 and 9:55, he was present in the theatre all the rest of the
evening until we allowed everybody to go home. Your examination of the guards and the O’Connell girl, together with the doorman’s evidence, Jess Lynch’s presence in the alley, the usher’s corroboration of this fact and all the rest of it, takes care of that. . . . He was there, all right.

  “This leaves us momentarily up a tree. All we can do now is consider some of the personalities we’ve bumped into in the course of the investigation,” went on the Inspector with a sigh. “First—did Madge O’Connell tell the truth when she said she had seen no one pass up or down the aisle during the second act? And that she had not seen, at any time during the evening at all, the person who we know sat in LL30 from half-past nine until ten or fifteen minutes before the body was discovered?”

  “It’s a tricky question, dad,” remarked Ellery seriously, “because if she was lying about these things, we are losing a mine of information. If she was lying—good Lord!—she might be in a position at this moment either to describe, or identify, or possibly name the murderer! However, her nervousness and peculiar attitude might be ascribed to her knowledge that Parson Johnny was in the theatre, with a pack of policemen just aching to get their fingers on him.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” grumbled Queen. “Well, what about Parson Johnny? How does he fit into this—or does he fit into it at all? We must always remember that, according to Morgan’s statement, Cazzanelli was actively associated with Field. Field had been his lawyer, and perhaps had even bought the Parson’s services for this shady business Cronin is nosing around about. If the Parson was not there by accident, was he there through Field or through Madge O’Connell, as she and he both say? I think, my son,” he added with a fierce tug at his mustache, “that I’m going to give Parson Johnny a taste of the lash—it won’t hurt his thick hide! And that snippy little O’Connell chit—won’t do any harm to scare the wits out of her either. . . .”