Charlie Chan in the Pawns of Death
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“Indirectly. I removed the zip gun from Ray’s room around four this morning, using the duplicate key, and Sprague happened to be awake, unable to sleep. He must have heard me - his room was right across the hall from ours, as you recall - and he saw me leaving. He followed me when I went down for the paper after breakfast, which was when I thought of how to hide the zip gun in a vacant room.”
“And walked in on you while you were in the vacant chamber on the fifth floor.”
“Yes. The maid was working on the room when I came by and I could tell as I passed that it was a vacant one. So after she’d moved on, I let myself in. I was fastening the zip gun to the chandelier when Sprague walked in. He took one look at the weapon and knew I’d killed Ray, knew it for certain. He said he was going to turn me in and take credit for solving the murder.”
“Will you explain about Mr. Kettridge’s gun, please?”
“I had it with me, thinking to hide it in the room as well - inside the toilet tank, someplace like that where no guests or maids ever look. Sprague jumped me and took the Webley away without knowing it was faulty. I saw the knife by the bowl of fruit and in desperation I… I picked it up and stabbed him. I didn’t know what to do next.
“I couldn’t leave the zip gun in the chandelier in that room for the same reason I couldn’t leave it in Ray’s room: you might eventually discover it with a more careful search. So I took it down again, but left the pistol in Sprague’s hand; I thought it would confuse things further. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but Sprague was still alive and moaning on the floor, and I… I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Then you went to the sixth floor and found a similar vacancy - this room - in which to hide the zip gun.”
Laura Powell nodded.
DeBevre said, “There is but one detail which bothers me,” he said to Chan. “I understand how Madame Powell killed two men, and why, and how you deduced the significance of the vacant rooms. But I cannot fathom M’sieur Sprague’s dying declaration.”
“The ways of a dying man’s mind are impossible to understand,” Chan said, “but it seems certain that he was attempting in a roundabout fashion to name his murderer. Checkmate is a single word when used in the game of chess, but it is also a combination of two separate words: check and mate.
“Mr. Sprague, then, wanted us to ‘check mate’, and the only married couple in this case is the Powells. When a man refers to a mate, it is usually to the female partner, and so I suspected that the guilty party was indeed Mrs. Powell. Unfortunately, I could not prove it without this ruse.”
“You are truly amazing,” DeBevre said with admiration. “And now at last the game is over, the queen has fallen, and checkmate has been achieved; the analogy to chess is a strong one indeed. But without you, there would have been a different end to this match of wits.”
“Perhaps,” Chan said self-effacingly. “But in the contest of murder, the criminal seldom makes all the proper moves and eventually is defeated by trapping himself.”
Laura Powell put her face in her hands again and began once more to weep as DeBevre went to the room’s telephone to call the Prefecture.
XVI
CHARLIE CHAN stood beside the expansive lobby desk, watching one of the porters bring his worn brown leather suitcase from the elevator. DeBevre stood next to the Honolulu detective, once again polishing his glasses, and sadly reflected, “Ah, my good friend, these past three weeks of your vacation in Paris have flown by too swiftly. Must you return?”
“Alas, the choice is not mine,” Chan said with a warm smile. “But I shall return to your city soon I promise it.”
Grant Powell, accompanied by Clive and Jennifer Kettridge, entered the lobby from the arcade and hurried across to say good-bye to Charlie Chan. After amenities, Chan said to the American chess expert, “I enjoyed greatly the playing of your fifth game yesterday. A most challenging new gambit.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chan.”
“It was quite a game,” Kettridge agreed. “Powell’s now a point ahead of Roger - a close tournament.”
“And a fair one,” Jennifer said, “as it was from the start.”
Kettridge said ruefully and with uncustomary self-deprecation, “Yes, quite so. We were all extremely bullheaded at the beginning of the Transcon tournament, and it took a tragedy such as we all experienced to make us realize it. That is the only genuinely happy thing to come out of the horror of three weeks ago.”
A shadow fell across Grant Powell’s handsome features. “The shock of learning that my wife was a murderess was immense at first. I had suspected for some time that she was having an affair with someone, but I had no idea it was Ray Balfour. I knew, too, that our marriage was about over - there was no love left between us. But it was still a terrible shock, and one which brought home to me what a child I’ve been about so many things, what a naive and arrogant fool I’ve been.”
Powell sighed. “Still, with all those reporters and their endless questions, and the way the case was played up in the news media… well, I wanted nothing except to leave Paris and go into hiding somewhere, with my shame. I wanted nothing more to do with the chess tournament. But then Mr. Chan pointed out to me that running away would solve nothing, that if I fled this crisis I would never be able to face myself again; and that if I was truly a changed man, I would continue with the tournament.
“He was right, as I’ve found Mr. Chan usually is. I now still have my self-respect, and Transcon chess has managed to survive all the adverse publicity - particularly since Roger Mountbatten and Kettridge here and I have patched up our differences and begun to act like gentlemen.”
DeBevre’s and Chan’s eyes contained a new-found respect for the young American chess expert. And in Jennifer Kettridge’s eyes, there was open admiration. To Chan at least, it was quite obvious that if she had her way, Grant Powell would find a lasting love with her, a love that would be strong rather than destructive.
“I believe we all owe Mr. Chan a great debt,” Kettridge said. “He has done us a vast good service.”
“I am pleased to have been of some small assistance,” Charlie Chan said slowly. “But I cannot take credit for individual perceptions. Wisdom is purchased by one’s own experience and understanding, and this is what makes a man fit company for himself and for others.”
DeBevre said, “Charlie, you are not only a great detective but a great philosopher as well!”
Chan bowed as his taxi was announced. “Detection and philosophy are one and the same,” he said. “Both are the sad consideration of human folly.”
THE END