“Floyd’s murder was nearly perfect. All the murderer did was type a few words on a sheet of paper and tack it up at the houseboat. The only really solid deduction we can draw from the whole business is that the murderer knew Ira was a phony. As for the first attempt on Rappourt, the murderer simply substituted cyanide for the contents of the top capsule in the vial. Another small action much easier than the bloody businesses of shooting and head bashing.
“Then Rappourt perversely gave the capsule to Linda. The first crime was brilliant; the second a miserable piece of amateur bungling. And yet, in spite of it—the murderer’s luck held—he was still as safe as houses. Rappourt didn’t know the finger had been put on her, and there was no motive the murderer could possibly be suspected of having for Linda’s murder. But one thing bothered him. When he discovered how his plan had misfired, he didn’t know when Linda had died nor whether he had an alibi. That worried him enough so that he cooked up his first piece of misdirection—the fire. The fire, the evidence of the murderer who knew too much, and the bullet that traveled in a curve. Those three things separately and together solve the case and name the culprit.”
Merlini leaned forward and picked his glass from the floor. “When we found that no one had the slightest opportunity to set the fire, I thought it looked suspiciously like a manufactured alibi, an act for the special benefit of Ross and myself. Now, if that was true, it indicated someone who knew we’d be where we were when we were, someone who knew we were coming to the island last night—”
“Both Miss Verrill and Dr. Gail—” Gavigan began.
“Yes. Also Arnold. But, if you remember, I hadn’t told Sigrid we would land at the haunted house. She and those other two expected me at the séance. That was all they knew. But the murderer—” Merlini stopped exasperatingly and raised his glass to his lips at last, as if to drink. I knew then that he was playing catlike with the murderer, tantalizing, taunting him, pretending to drink and hoping—for what?
Suddenly I pulled myself from my chair and took a long running jump—plunging toward him! The man was mad. He actually was drinking! I swung and smashed at the glass with my fists. It flew from his hand and splintered on the floor. The tension in the room snapped with the tinkling glass—and then was taut again!
“Ross Harte!” Gavigan thundered. “Put your hands up!”
The ugly black hole of his gun was aimed full at me.
But I turned and pointed.
“Burt!” I said, breathing hard, “He knew we were coming to the haunted house! He knew Ira was a phony. He, if anyone, could shinny down a tree in two seconds!”
Gavigan wheeled on him, his jaw loose. “Ross,” he said thickly, “I hope to hell you’re wrong because if there was cyanide in that glass, Merlini hasn’t the ghost of a chance!”
On the davenport, Merlini suddenly doubled up with laughter!
“Inspector,” he said, between spasms. “Please put that gun away. Burt hasn’t killed anyone. And, to prevent any ill-considered shooting, I’d better tell you that Miss Verrill is also innocent. Likewise Dr. Gail. The Hendersons are innocent. And I didn’t do it—honest injun, cross my heart. Rappourt, Brooke, Arnold, Lamb, Svoboda, Malloy, Grimm, Brady, Muller, Leach, Quinn, Carter, Hunter, Mr. Novak, Dr. Hesse—they’re all guiltless. And yourself, Inspector. You didn’t do it. Did I miss anyone?”
Burt said, “I’ll get you for this, Ross Harte.” He quickly poured himself another drink.
“Yes,” I said glumly. “You missed Colonel Watrous.”
“Well,” Merlini replied, suddenly quiet, “I couldn’t very well include him, could I?”
For a moment I simply looked at him. Then I went after another drink, a tall undiluted one.
Gavigan said, “Watrous! So that’s why Grimm saw no one come up on to the sun deck. The Colonel simply leaned out his window, socked Grimm, and then fired at Rappourt from the sun deck! But the second shot—no, wait, you’re making that bullet curve even more!”
“No.” Merlini shook his head. “It wasn’t the bullet that curved, it was the misdirection. Watrous fired once and immediately threw the gun over the rail. It exploded when it landed. He threw it into the light from the French windows so we’d be sure to see him pick it up. He then moved his window noisily, shouted ‘There he goes!’, ran down, retrieved the gun, and fired into the woods. You yourself wondered why he was so foolhardy about that. And I wondered why he had to stand smack in the light to fire his shots. He did that so we could see what he was doing and where he was shooting—the misdirection. He didn’t think there was anyone out there to fire back at him! His tree story was full of holes because it was imaginary. At the last, his device of committing his crimes among a cast of criminals, literally backfired when Lamb, making his escape, thought he’d been discovered and fired back.”
“Yeah,” Gavigan said disgustedly. “You’ve been laboring the point that this murderer wasn’t the type to bash in people’s heads or shoot them. Long-distance methods-poison and a typewriter! Bah! Who’s guilty of misdirection now?”
“He ran amok, Inspector; and I’m afraid I’ll have to admit driving him to it and underestimating his resourcefulness. That was a grave error. He was listening at his detector, as I knew he would, to our questioning of Rappourt. I’d hoped that he had a dose of cyanide left, and would use it. He—”
Gavigan broke in. His voice was deadly serious. “Merlini, you read too many detective stories. If you ever pull a stunt like that again, so help me, I’ll book you for it. You might be interested to know that Section 2304 of the Penal Law of the State of New York reads: ‘A person who willfully in any manner, advises, encourages, abets, or assists another person in taking the latter’s life, is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree.”
Merlini blinked at him. “Anyway it didn’t come off. Watrous either had no cyanide left or else discovered he could screw himself up to knocking out Grimm and shooting at Rappourt sooner than he could face suicide.”
“Ignorance,” Gavigan said, “is no excuse. And Section 2305 says that an attempt at abetting and advising suicide is a felony. Not only that, dammit, but his shooting at Rappourt and his knocking out Grimm make you an accessory before the fact to attempted homicide and assault!”
“I’m sorry,” Merlini said contritely. “But I did place guards at both window and door, you know.”
“So that’s it!” I exclaimed, ringing the bell with more success this time. “That’s how he knew Ira was a phony and Floyd was going to dive! He heard the plotters with his little eavesdropping machine.”
“Yes. The murderer who knew too much. The fact that those shots came at such a precisely opportune moment should have reminded you that, of all our suspects, only Watrous was close enough and he alone had the means to overhear what was taking place in that closely guarded room. But for that detector there might have been no murders at all! Watrous might not have discovered until too late that he even had a motive for killing Rappourt and Floyd!”
Merlini went to the library door, reached inside and came back, carrying the Colonel’s voice detector. He placed it on the table and lifted the lid.
“I investigated Watrous’s room while you were chasing after Lamb.” He held up several phonograph records. “I found these under the paper linings of his dresser drawers. I didn’t expect so much. It had never occurred to me that he wouldn’t have destroyed the records of the conversations he overheard. Knowing that, I’d not have scheduled the Rappourt inquisition scene at all. All the evidence we need is right here. You’ll hear Floyd himself speaking from beyond the grave—a real spirit message this time—discussing with Rappourt the details I’ve just giver you of the swindle; and you’ll hear Brooke and Rappourt planning to double-cross Floyd.” Merlini placed one of the records on the turntable.
Gavigan asked, “Did you say one of his motives was to smash the con-game?”
“Yes. He was innocently enmeshed in it. They were playing him for a sucker. Rappourt was using him as her fro
nt, and after the pay-off, when no one would ever believe he hadn’t had his cut—he’d be the goat. He didn’t like that at all. That was Rappourt’s big mistake.”
“But why, with this record evidence, if it’s what you say, didn’t Watrous simply out with it to Linda or Lamb? He didn’t need to murder Rappourt and Floyd.”
“It wasn’t as simple as that. Rappourt, on these disks, admits she’s a fraud. And Watrous had, at all costs, to smash the con-game without letting that cat out. The very last thing he wanted was to have Rappourt exposed. He killed her to prevent it. Dead, her reputation as a medium and his as a psychical authority were safe.”
“But he asked you to try and catch her out.”
“I know. That was a false note right from the beginning. You and Harte both commented on it, and wouldn’t believe it at first. You were right. He never intended that I’d get a chance to expose her. He’d intended that she would die at the start of the séance, before Ross and I got into it.”
“And he asked you out to witness his murder? I won’t believe it. Why would he want you smack on the scene when she kicked in?”
“He didn’t. That’s why he came after me. He couldn’t help himself. Sigrid and Arnold had decided to call me in. Remember where that conversation of theirs took place? In Rappourt’s room when they searched it. Watrous overheard and realized at once that I’d jump at the invitation. The man who knew too much again. That set him back on his heels, hard. He had just put the poison in Rappourt’s capsules—during the night while she slept. And then he discovers that I’ll be at the séance. He can’t call off the murder, even if he could get the capsule back, because then I might expose Rappourt. Watrous, who has never been able to catch her out before himself, now that, he knows she’s a fraud, is afraid of exposure at every turn. He can’t dissuade Sigrid and Arnold, since they naturally think he’s in league with Rappourt. Rappourt must die before I arrive. Can he, at the last moment when Sigrid has no time to warn me, get Rappourt to move the séance ahead? No. It’s already scheduled for just after dark, and she can’t stage her footprints on the ceiling in daylight. Persuading her to skip the séance entirely, is no good either—it would only delay the bitter ending and solve nothing.
“Since my presence is unavoidable, all he can do is try to sidetrack me, reach me before Sigrid does, and get me to agree to meet him at the haunted house so he can control my movements, holding me there until the séance has started and Rappourt is a goner. Sigrid wanted to force my presence on Rappourt. So, to insure my accepting his invitation in preference to hers, he simply offered a better plan—one that might be more productive of results, Rappourt being unaware of my presence. He was clever. His plan not only kept me from the séance until the danger point was passed, but it even put Watrous himself in my company at the time Rappourt was to die. And a damned likely case could be made out for suicide or an overdose because, though she actually took only sugar, she had gone on record as admitting that she dosed herself with poisons before her trances—a fact that Watrous knew better than anyone else, since it was in his own book we found the information! He’d have tucked in the one remaining loose end by using scopolamine rather than cyanide if he hadn’t been rushed. By some strange omission, scopolamine appears to be a poison photographers haven’t yet found a use for!”
I was remembering right there that the infra-red photographic directions Watrous had passed on to me through Merlini. convicted him of knowing enough about photography to have expected to find poisons in Arnold’s darkroom.
“And even though cyanide would be found at Rappourt’s autopsy,” Merlini continued, “just as long as no one could prove, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, that Rappourt was a fraudulent medium, Watrous wouldn’t appear to have a motive for poisoning the woman he hailed as spiritualism’s A-No. 1 exhibit. Look at his position. He hears his prize psychic exhibit admit fraud, admit she’s engineering a con-game—one in which he’s the catspaw. If he says nothing, Rappourt’s disappearance with the swag eventually spills the psychic beans. Watrous’s cherished reputation, the income from his psychic writings, the projected plans for his psychic laboratories all go up in smoke. He’s a laughingstock, the last thing that dandified, pompous little man could have stood. And if the con-game fails, if he does tell Linda or Lamb, or even if he tips off Floyd about the double-cross—expose again! He was between the devil and the deep blue sea, both of them closing in on him fast. Listen to this.” Merlini started the turntable and lowered the sound arm into position near the end of the record.
I heard again the rumbling and, above it, Rappourt’s voice: “I know a man who can duplicate those Hussar relics and supply us with some fake guineas dated 1779 that will get by Lamb. You’ve dived. You can—”
Then a new voice broke in, a smooth oily high-pitched voice—Floyd’s: “Ira wouldn’t fall for it. That’s right up his alley.”
Rappourt: “But he’s so damned anxious to get that salvage apparatus constructed and tested out that I doubt if he’ll stick at a little, justifiable hocus-pocus. Especially since he’s convinced the Hussar is there.”
Floyd: “All right. Put it up to him. Only your suggestion that I merely fake the dive, going down a short way and then bringing the stuff up, won’t do. Lamb’s insisting that he send his own diver.”
Rappourt: “That’s even better. If his own diver brings up positive proof—”
Floyd: “That should cinch it. Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll have to. We’ve got to convince them properly. These séances are getting too risky, anyway. I even think Colonel Fuss-budget is beginning to smell mice. You know, if he ever tumbles to the fact that you’re not on the level.…”
Rappourt (laughing): “If I can’t fool Watrous, I’ll quit. Besides, we can’t ditch him now. He’s my front. But don’t worry. After that last book of his, he wouldn’t dare expose me—he’d be the laughingstock of two continents. Anyway, if he ever did, I’ve got the perfect stopper. I’d simply top his story with a better. I’d sell my confessions to Hearst, admit all, and accuse him of aiding me.”
Floyd: “You don’t miss much, do you? If I ever find you murdered, I think I’ll know who did it. If he ever tumbled to that—”
Merlini lifted the sound arm. “Which explains why Floyd had to die, too. Or partly. The rest consists in the fact that Watrous held Floyd responsible for Rappourt’s fall from grace. I think, even at the last, he still thought her previous phenomena genuine. He couldn’t believe he had been fooled so thoroughly. Watrous’s motives were revenge and self-defense. It’s a toss-up which was the stronger; together they were irresistible.”
I said, “No wonder he was so anxious for us not to tip Rappourt off that he was suspicious of her. It’s a wonder that didn’t gray his hair.”
“Yes,” Gavigan admitted. “It fits. Watrous was the second ‘vampire’ Svoboda heard come into the room where the body was. The Colonel went to his room at 9:10 and he didn’t meet you until 9:40. He left his room when he saw a light in the haunted house, just as he said, only it was Arnold’s light when he was putting the body there, not Svoboda’s light just before you arrived. He discovered the body, fixed his lighter and thread, and then, when he heard you coming, he retreated back up the path toward the house so you would see him apparently coming from it.”
“And Watrous was the only person within pulling distance of that thread—except possibly Mr. X. The fire was misdirection on the same principle as the business with Grimm’s gun. He was trying to make it appear that someone was busily setting fires and shooting people when he himself was in plain sight, and obviously doing no such thing. Mr. X was eliminated as the string puller because, as an intentional alibi on his part, the fire was nearly worthless; whereas, for Watrous, it was perfect. But he was moving on thin ice when he accused Floyd of having hooked his lighter. We nearly had him then. He’d overheard Brooke report back to Rappourt the clever steps he’d taken to prevent Floyd’s identification, and he thought that diverting suspicion from him
self to Floyd was a safe bet. Later when Floyd was found dead, I realized that Watrous had known it before we did!”
“But how did he pull the thread right before your noses without your seeing him? That was a bit of conjuring you didn’t spot at the time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know I was watching a trick, not until later when I’d proved that no one but Watrous could have pulled the thread. He had used another common conjuring principle—disguised the action that works the trick as an unsuspicious natural one having some other and quite innocent purpose. Remember the ladder-back chair standing just before the living-room window, the one directly above the cellar window? I didn’t say that the person who had pulled the string was outside the house, only that the string led outside. The string must have led to someone near enough to pull it. Watrous, Harte, myself, and possibly Mr. X, whom I later eliminated, were the only candidates. Remembering that the Colonel, as soon as he entered, had pulled the chair out into the room away from the window, I knew at once that the thread must have been tied to it.”
Merlini got up, walked over to the liquor cabinet, and finally had his glass of vermouth. “The footprints on the ceiling,” he said as he finished it, “had no actual connection with the murders themselves, and yet they were very appropriate symbols of the misdirection Watrous used. Misdirection is nothing more than psychology turned upside down and inside out. The Principles of Deception—whether used by murderer, magician, or mystery-story writer—are only the orthodox, textbook psychological Laws of Attention, Observation, and Thought working in reverse. Gentlemen, the prosecution rests.”
And on the end of that sentence, the front door flew open and slammed against the wall with a crash that shook the house. All hell broke loose, blew into the living-room and headed straight for me. The man was a boiling, sputtering maniac with sudden death in his eye.
Footprints on the Ceiling Page 25
