The Case of the Crumpled Knave

by Anthony Boucher

  “Go on, Fergus,” Jackson said wearily. “This is your party.”

  Again Fergus took the floor—and quite literally. “You’ve got it all wrong, Mr. Farrington. There’s no John Dickson Carr touch to this—no locked-room problem at all. In a way I’m sorry. I’ve always wondered if those things happened in real life—But I’d better start at the beginning.

  “It had to be, by elimination. Warriner had come to this house and left my car out in front. Now if, as was likely enough, he wanted to get rid of the car because it could be identified, he would at least have used it long enough to take him to safety; he wouldn’t have dumped himself on foot right in the center of things. So it followed that he wanted something in this house. It also followed that he was still here.

  “Now what did he want in this house? Answer: the plans. Where would he look for those plans? Answer: the laboratory. Remember he’d tried the study already with no luck. And then I thought of two things: We hadn’t searched the laboratory; we’d just taken Harding’s word that no one else was in there but some merrily mating molecules. And if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Harding, you were hardly a reliable witness at the time. The other item was the vague references which Humphrey Garnett used to make to the protection of his secrets.

  “We know now what that protection was. The plans were hidden in a trick cubbyhole in a closet off the laboratory. The hiding place was constructed like a Japanese puzzle box, but with a difference: If you knew the right maneuvers, it opened readily; but if you just fumbled around, you released a little needle—a little needle dipped in curare—a poison, as you may know, which retains its strength admirably when dried and old.

  “The rest is easy enough to reconstruct. Warriner slipped around to the back of the house and got into the lab, probably through the window. He’d undoubtedly been on similar errands before, and knew enough to spot a likely place for a cache. He’d have the closet door shut, in case anyone happened to glance in. Then the trap caught him, and he died alone there. A little later Harding came in and, of course, noticed nothing. Then we came along, and sealed up dead the very man we were frantically hunting for alive. Satisfied, Mr. Farrington? Andy?”

  Jackson nodded. “‘Death by misadventure,’” he quoted in anticipation of the coroner’s verdict. “I guess that settles it.” He sounded resentfully frustrated; it wasn’t normal to solve a case and then have nobody to arrest. “Garnett’s really the murderer again this time, but there’s nothing I can do in my line about it.”

  Fergus surveyed his audience. “Any more questions?”

  Rand tossed away his cigar. “Yes, Mr. O’Breen. One.”

  “Go ahead, Colonel.”

  “Why, with all your ingenuity, did you name the wrong man?”

  XXV

  Colonel Rand Does His Duty

  Fergus stared at the Colonel. For once he was motionless and speechless. This wasn’t in the script. No decent self-respecting Watson had ever asked a detective a question like that.

  Jackson took over with sharp official interest. “Explain yourself, Colonel,” he commanded. Involuntarily his eyes returned, with a glimmer of hope, to the invalid on the chaise longue.

  Rand paused and went “harrumph.” He was painfully embarrassed at taking the spotlight like this. It wasn’t his proper role; but it must be done. He addressed himself first to Fergus. “You know, young man, you are basically a first-rate detective. You unearthed a great many valuable facts, and you drew some amazingly shrewd deductions. But you see, that was just what the murderer wanted you to do.”

  Fergus was touchily on the defensive. “OK,” he said briefly. “Find me the flaws.”

  This sudden turn of events had brought confusion on the assembly. All eyes were tensely fixed on Rand. He fumbled for a fresh cigar and tried to make himself clear. “There are no flaws, Mr. O’Breen, up to a point. Your description of the murderer is exact—his motives, his desires, the very quirks o£ his mind. I was following your every step with rapt admiration. And I have rarely been so amazed as when you told us his name. Because, sir, as you will see, there is one other person to whom all that applies equally well.”

  “Who?” Fergus demanded.

  “You credited Humphrey Garnett with three serious slips,” Rand went on hesitantly. “That was where you went wrong. Those three items were not slips; they were essential parts of the plan. The wiping of that glass and the stacking of those cards were necessary, and the murderer had clearly foreseen that Arthur Willowe would have no chance to take his nap that morning. As a matter of fact, the only slips which he did make were connected with the glass and the deck; but you failed to notice them. It is a pity when you were right on so many counts.”

  “Damn it, you’re as melodramatic as I am!” Fergus protested. “Come to the point!”

  But the Colonel was prolonging his inevitable denunciation, not because it was more theatrical so, but because he could not make up his mind to go through with it. He loved Kay very dearly; it was hard to look at her and go on with this story. Duty, however, is a concept clearly defined in the military caste; with a puff and a “harrumph” he finally resumed his explanation.

  “You see,” he said, “I too had figured out this suicide-murder-frame-up idea. We were supposed to. But what convinced me that it was false was the card. That knave of diamonds was not—as you, young man, supposed—from an ordinary deck, although it did look modern in design. You must remember that the design of playing cards has altered almost not at all in the past hundred years, since the introduction of the double-headed court cards. And remember too, Mr. O’Breen, that when I looked at the deck I observed, ‘The Stars and Bars.’ For that was its design—the flag of the Confederate States of America. In other words, it was one of the decks manufactured, in England I believe, for that short-lived nation. They are not common, these Confederate decks; this was definitely a collector’s item.”

  “One moment, sir,” Farrington put in. “May I ask the source of your technical knowledge on such a specialized subject as playing cards?”

  “My source, Mr. Farrington, is that lamented gentleman Maurice Warriner. As Mr. O’Breen has pointed out, even though Warriner was a fraud, his scholarly learning must be reliable if it enabled him to pass himself off as genuine with Humphrey Garnett. It is a pity that he is not here now to corroborate my statements; as it is, you must accept them until they can be authoritatively checked.” Rand stopped. He was still seeing that pain-strangled corpse sprawled in the narrow closet. A bullet wound or even a bayonet thrust he was trained to understand and to accept; but poison—Though in war now, he reflected bitterly, even that …

  With a marked effort, he controlled his thoughts and resumed his exposition. He was pleasantly surprised by his own volubility; he had been out of practice for so long. “Now even though my knowledge of playing cards is secondhand, I do know the collector’s mind. I am something of a collector myself; firearms is my line. And I know that the items of your collection are sacred to you. Remember that Humphrey Garnett wore gloves whenever he touched his precious cards, and that he had willed his collection to a museum. No matter what villainous scheme he had evolved, it could not conceivably have entailed the mutilation of any part of his collection. If he had wanted to leave a false clue by crumpling a knave of diamonds, he must inevitably have chosen one from an ordinary deck, of which there were several in the room. To deface this particular knave of diamonds was rank vandalism and morally impossible to him, no matter what other crime he might have been contemplating. Someone else must have chosen that card.”

  “But how?” Fergus insisted.

  “If I may indulge, Mr. O’Breen, in your method of novelistic reconstruction, what probably happened was this: Garnett was planning to look over his collection that evening; he was wearing the black gloves. He had taken out this Confederate deck, possibly to check some minute detail of design. The murderer entered. Garnett, unnoticed by his executioner, set the deck aside. Later, when the murderer, in accordance
with his plan, was looking for a card for the false clue, he saw this well-worn deck, thought it an ordinary one, and used it. Both he and you, sir, should have realized that a worn common deck is not usually arranged in suits and order.”

  “But all this is psychological,” Jackson objected. “I don’t quite see what you’re getting at, and you could never feed it to a jury.”

  “I know that, Lieutenant, though the point was enough to convince me. But the murderer’s other slip was far more serious. There is your tangible proof. Fingerprints, it is true, can be forged; but not the equally telltale pores of the skin.”

  Jackson swore comprehensively. “I’m a cockeyed idiot,” he concluded. “I ought to hand in my badge for this. I’d got my mind so firmly fixed in another direction that I let that slip right past me. Then the murderer must be—”

  “Exactly. Mr. O’Breen’s detailed description of the criminal fitted Humphrey Garnett very neatly; but it tallies even more closely with Richard Vinton.”

  Kay was numb now; she seemed almost oblivious to what was happening. Camilla Sallice stared at Vinton in dark horror. Max Farrington shifted uneasily in his chair. Will Harding’s pale face showed no malicious triumph—only a profound satisfaction that the truth had been reached.

  Jackson rose and crossed to the actor. “And what have you got to say to that?”

  “Nothing, Lieutenant. Why should I? It’s absurd. Does the old boy mean I actually went out of my way to frame myself?”

  “I mean just that, Vinton. You knew that if Garnett were murdered, as he had to be if you were to marry Kay and acquire his fortune before he could make sure of your identity, you would be the obvious suspect—particularly since I was certain to come out here for the funeral and expose your past record. So you took good care that you should be instantly suspected, and then released when it became obvious that the evidence was framed. You weren’t sure if the police would detect that frame-up, so you had Kay engage a private investigator. If that too had failed you and you were brought to trial, you could have had a sudden brainstorm and convinced your attorney of the supposed plot against you. It would have made an excellent defense. That, in fact, would have been your best bet; for if you had once been acquitted, no evidence discovered later could have been brought against you.

  “There were other advantages, too, to this arrest and exoneration. It meant excellent publicity and the renewal of your contract. Moreover, you were quite possibly a trifle worried about the unspoken rivalry of Will Harding; standing in peril of your life would, you knew, rivet Kay’s affection and loyalty to you.”

  Rand’s speech was interrupted by a strange sound. It was neither weeping nor laughter; it was more like some wail which The O’Breens of old might have heard in a banshee-haunted castle. He realized that it came from Kay, and he almost regretted his sense of duty.

  Camilla rose. “You’ll excuse us,” she said gently. With her arm around Kay’s throbbing shoulders, she helped the shattered girl into the house.

  For a moment Rand thought that Will Harding would follow Kay; but the nurse restrained him with weary tolerance. Vinton, however, scarcely heeded his fiancee’s collapse. He faced Jackson with that bravado so characteristic of him. “I suppose you realize, Lieutenant, that a second murder was committed while I was in jail?”

  “That’s no go, Vinton. O’Breen has explained to us how that was done, and the Colonel’s made us see why. It strengthened your ‘Garnett’ plot, and it was timed to happen while you were safely in custody. But that won’t help you now.”

  “And you’ll remember that there was a mysterious intruder rummaging around in the laboratory last night. I suppose I did all that, too—possibly with ectoplasm?”

  “That’s been accounted for. It’s no use trying to cloud the issue.”

  “But my dear Lieutenant, there’s a great deal of use in pointing out the inconsistencies of this case. I may keep you from making a very serious blunder—to say nothing of preserving my well-trained lungs from the State’s little reception chamber. How about that telegram? I suppose that Humphrey Garnett saw through my dire plans, dispatched that warning, and then, for all his colossal ingenuity, calmly sat back and let me murder him?”

  “That’s too easy, Vinton. You sent that telegram yourself. It was the first step in the whole frame. It went in by phone, and I know we can never prove definitely who sent it; but you won’t get off on that.”

  “And I assume that Mr. Harding here attempted suicide for no other reason than to confuse you and add yet another element to the plot design? He could not, for instance, have had any serious crime resting on his precise conscience?”

  Jackson looked questioningly at the invalid. Harding spoke softly, trying to check his emotion. “I think you know why I was such a fool, Vinton. I’ve thought all along you were the man, and I couldn’t help thinking—though God knows it was a rotten thought—that with you out of the way … Then you came back. It looked as though you were cleared. I saw you and Kay together again. … I don’t know—it was just too much for me. I started in drinking; and when you aren’t used to it you get strange ideas. Things happen inside you, and you want to do things. …” His voice had grown deep and tense; it was now that voice which Rand had taken for a stranger’s on the porch. Abruptly he broke off and turned to the nurse. “I think maybe you’d better take me inside,” he said quietly.

  Vinton smiled at his departure. “A touching scene. But I scarcely see that it affects our problem. I take it I may go too? You’re surely not going to arrest me on this fantastic notion?”

  But Jackson was resolute. “Fantastic or not, Vinton, I am. I’ll admit I haven’t been too bright on this case. The Warriner business, Fergus’ brilliant theory, poor Harding’s crackpot suicide attempt—and you’re responsible for that too, if we come right down to cases—they got me all balled up. But this is the real McCoy, and I’m acting on it.”

  “Come now, Lieutenant—”

  “Come now hell.” Jackson was in no mood to be humored. “If you’d had the common horse sense to admit that you’d seen Garnett again later that night, so that he could have got you to handle the glass, you might have got away with it; but you tried to make us believe the prints were forged, and the pores blow that idea higher than seven kites. You’re under arrest; you’d better make up your mind to that.”

  Vinton laughed. “Seven kites? My dear Lieutenant, seven kites is nothing to how high we’ll blow your theory in court. What do you say, Max?”

  The lawyer had risen and was holding his hat tentatively. “I don’t know, Vinton. You see, this is a little out of my line. Hanly Warren’s a very good man for this sort of thing. You’d better see him.”

  “Thanks,” Vinton said harshly. “I will.” For the first time that day his voice held a note of fear.

  XXVI

  The Case Is Closed

  And that,” Fergus said, “is what did it.” The two men sat alone on the sun porch. Vinton had been taken away. “Hanly Warren’s never defended an innocent man in his life; that line just meant that Farrington knew his client was guiltier than all burning hell. And I doubt if even Warren can get him off this.”

  “Of course,” Rand mused, “they’ll try him only for Garnett’s death. The evidence concerning Willowe is too weak. And I would not be surprised if he were guilty of a third murder, though the truth of that we shall never know.”

  “A third murder?”

  “I am not too sure of Warriner and Garnett’s trap. If he were coming to this house only for the plans, wouldn’t he have waited until night, as he did before? I suspect that his motive was to see a person, and that that person was Richard Vinton.”

  “But why?”

  “Warriner, with his technical knowledge, could very easily have figured out that point concerning the Confederate card. And with a man of his character, what would be more natural than to attempt a little blackmail? It is not improbable that Vinton knew of the puzzle cache—far more probable, in fact,
than that Warriner happened on it so readily. It is the sort of ingenious device that Garnett might well have displayed proudly when the actor was still in his good graces. He liked an audience at times to applaud his ingenuity. Vinton could have explained to his blackmailer that he was short of cash, but that he could show him the hiding place of some valuable documents which would provide a worthy price for silence-knowing all the time how surely that curare needle would guarantee silence. … Yes, it is possible. …”

  “And that reconstruction of Warriner’s death was another of my bright ideas, wasn’t it? So of course it’s probably wrong.” The cheerful self-confidence had died out of Fergus’ voice. The Gaelic trumpets were silent. He wasn’t even pacing now; he was slumped hopelessly in a chair.

  “Lord, I made an unholy fool of myself,” he groaned. “It was all so Goddamned clever and all just what I was intended to see. I’m an idiot. And I’m another idiot all over again to sit around being sorry for myself. This, I suppose, is what Maureen would diagnose as the depressive phase. But there’s Kay to think about. This rotten mess has broken her up completely.”

  “I don’t know. She can help to nurse Harding; that will take her mind off this burden for a while. And in time …” Rand smiled softly. “Of course, Vinton was far more glamorous. An actor and all that. But you will have noticed how, even in the midst of all this, she has always showed concern for Will Harding? And it would be so much simpler if he were to carry on his researches here—there’s the laboratory and everything ready to hand. A perfect setting for a scientist and his wife.”

  Fergus perked up a little. “You know, that might work. He’s kind of a nice guy underneath his dryness—if only he’d learn how to drink like a human being. I wonder if the Sallice would stay on here. Interesting wench, that.”

  “Gad, you Irish are mercurial—or is it only your youth? From dejection at professional failure you leap blithely to wondering about wenches.”