“You examine also foundations under studio part?”
“Yes, we did that, too. No result. It didn’t mean much, though, for there is no entrance to the space beneath the studio from the studio itself, nor is there such an entrance from the other space beneath the bedroom portion. That opening under the bath-tub must mean something, especially in view of the recent installation of the tub. But what does it mean?”
He looked at Katoh long and searchingly and the other, after a pause, replied slowly: “Can only see this Salti man construct this trap, probably for present use. Then he do not use. Must go some other way.”
“But there is no other way.”
“Then Salti man still there.”
“He isn’t there.”
“Harumph,” said Katoh reflectively. It was evident that he felt the same respect for a syllogism that animated Tarrant, and was stopped, for the time being at any rate. He went off on a new tack. “What else specially strange about setting?”
“There are two other things that strike me as peculiar,” Tarrant answered, and his eyes narrowed. “On the floor, about one foot from the northern window, there is a fairly deep indentation in the floor of the studio. It is a small impression and is almost certainly made by a nail partly driven through the planking and then pulled up again.”
I thought of the nail through the picture. “Could he have put the picture down on that part of the floor in order to drive the nail through it? But what if he did?”
“I can see no necessity for it, in any case. The nail would go through the canvas easily enough just as it stood on the easel.”
Katoh said: “With nail in plank, perhaps plank could be pulled up. You say no?”
“I tried it. Even driving the nail in sideways, instead of vertically, as the original indentation was made, the plank can’t be lifted at all.”
“O.K. You say some other thing strange, also.”
“Yes. The position of the easel that holds the painting of the dead girl. When we broke in this morning, it was turned away from the room, toward the bedroom door, so that the picture was scarcely visible even from the studio entrance, let alone the rest of the room. I don’t believe that was the murderer’s intention. He had set the rest of the stage too carefully. The requiem; the candles. It doesn’t fit; I’m sure he meant the first person who entered to be confronted by the whole scene, and especially by that symbolic portrait. It doesn’t accord even with the position of the stool, which agrees with the intended position of the easel. It doesn’t fit at all with the mentality of the murderer. It seems a small thing but I’m sure it’s important. I’m certain the position of the easel is an important clue.”
“To mystery of disappearance?”
“Yes. To the mystery of the murderer’s escape from that sealed room.”
“Not see how,” Katoh declared after some thought. As for me, I couldn’t even appreciate the suggestion of any connection.
“Neither do I,” grated Tarrant. He had risen and began to pace the floor. “Well, there you have it all. A little hole in the floor near the north window, an easel turned out of position and a sealed room without an occupant who certainly ought to be there . . . There’s an answer to this; damn it, there must be an answer.”
Suddenly he glanced at an electric clock on the table he was passing and stopped abruptly. “My word,” he exclaimed, “it’s nearly three o’clock. Didn’t mean to keep you up like this, Jerry. You either, doctor. Well, the conference is over. We’ve got nowhere.”
Katoh was on his feet, in an instant once more the butler. “Sorry could not help. You wish night-cap, Misster Tarrant?”
“No. Bring the Scotch, Katoh. And a siphon. And ice. I’m not turning in.”
I had been puzzling my wits without intermission ever since dinner over the problem above, and the break found me more tired than I realised. I yawned prodigiously. I made a half-hearted attempt to persuade Tarrant to come to bed, but it was plain that he would have none of it.
I said, “Good-night, Katoh. I’m no good for anything until I get a little sleep . . . Night, Tarrant.”
I left him once more pacing the floor; his face, in the last glimpse I had of it, was set in the stern lines of thought.
It seemed no more than ten seconds after I got into bed that I felt my shoulder being shaken and, through the fog of sleep, heard Katoh’s hissing accents.” – Mister Tarrant just come from penthouse. He excited. Maybe you wish wake up.” As I rolled out and shook myself free from slumber, I noticed that my wrist watch pointed to six-thirty.
When I had thrown on some clothes and come into the living-room, I found Tarrant standing with the telephone instrument to his head, his whole posture one of grimness. Although I did not realise it at once, he had been endeavouring for some time to reach Deputy Inspector Peake. He accomplished this finally a moment or so after I reached the room.
“Hallo, Peake? Inspector Peake? . . . This is Tarrant. How many men did you leave to guard that penthouse last night?” . . . “What, only one? But I said two, man. Damn it all, I don’t make suggestions like that for amusement!” . . . “All right, there’s nothing to be accomplished arguing about it. You’d better get here, and get here pronto.” . . . “That’s all I’ll say.” He slammed down the receiver viciously.
I had never before seen Tarrant upset; my surprise was a measure of his own disturbance, which resembled consternation. He paced the floor, muttering below his breath, his long legs carrying him swiftly up and down the apartment.
“Damned fools . . . everything must fit . . . Or else . . .” For once I had sense enough to keep my questions to myself for the time being.
Fortunately I had not long to wait. Hardly had Katoh had opportunity to brew some coffee, with which he appeared somewhat in the manner of a dog wagging its tail deprecatingly, than Peake’s ring sounded at the entrance. He came in hurriedly but his smile, as well as his words, indicated his opinion that he had been roused by a false alarm.
“Well, well, Mr Tarrant, what is this trouble over?”
Tarrant snapped, “Your man’s gone. Disappeared. How do you like that?”
“The patrolman on guard?” The policeman’s expression was incredulous.
“The single patrolman you left on guard.”
Peake stepped over to the telephone, called Headquarters. After a few briet words he turned back to us, his incredulity at Tarrant’s statement apparently confirmed.
“You must be mistaken, sir,” he asserted. “There have been no reports from Officer Weber. He would never leave the premises without reporting such an occasion.”
Tarrant’s answer was purely practical. “Come and see.”
And when we reached the terrace on the building’s roof, there was, in fact, no sign of the patrolman who should have been at his station. We entered the penthouse and, the lights having been turned on, Peake himself made a complete search of the premises. While Tarrant watched the proceedings in a grim silence, I walked over to the north window of the studio, grey in the early morning light, and sought for the nail hole he had mentioned as being in the floor. There it was, a small, clean indentation, about an inch or an inch and a half deep, in one of the hardwood planks. This, and everything else about the place, appeared just as Tarrant had described it to us some hours before, previous to my turning in. I was just in time to see Peake emerge from the enlarged opening in the lavatory floor, dusty and sorely puzzled.
“Our man is certainly not here,” the inspector acknowledged. “I cannot understand it. This is a serious breach of discipline.”
“Hell,” said Tarrant sharply, speaking for the first time since we had come to the roof. “This is a serious breach of intelligence, not discipline.”
“I shall broadcast an immediate order for the detention of Patrolman Weber.” Peake stepped into the bedroom and approached the phone to carry out his intention.
“You needn’t broadcast it. I have already spoken to the night operator in the lobby on the grou
nd floor. He told me a policeman left the building in great haste about 3:30 this morning. If you will have the local precinct check up on the all-night lunch-rooms along Lexington Avenue in this vicinity, you will soon pick up the first step of the trail that man left . . . You will probably take my advice, now that it is too late.”
Peake did so, putting the call through at once; but his bewilderment was no whit lessened. Nor was mine. As he put down the instrument, he said: “All right. But it doesn’t make sense. Why should he leave his post without notifying us? And why should he go to a lunch-room?”
“Because he was hungry.”
“But there has been a crazy murderer here already. And now Weber, an ordinary cop, if I ever saw one. Does this place make everybody mad?”
“Not as mad as you’re going to be in a minute. But perhaps you weren’t using the word in that sense?”
Peake let it pass. “Everything,” he commented slowly, “is just as we left it yesterday evening. Except for Weber’s disappearance.”
“Is that so?” Tarrant led us to the entrance from the roof to the studio and pointed downwards. The light was now bright enough to disclose an unmistakable spattering of blood on one of the steps before the door. “That blood wasn’t there when we left last night. I came up here about five-thirty, the moment I got on to this thing,” he continued bitterly. “Of course I was too late . . . Damnation, let us make an end to this farce. I’ll show you some more things that have altered during the night.”
We followed him into the studio again as he strode over to the easel with its lewd picture, opposite the entrance. He pointed to the nail still protruding through the canvas. “I don’t know how closely you observed the hole made in this painting by the nail yesterday. But it’s a little larger now and the edges are more frayed. In other words the nail has been removed and once more inserted.”
I turned about to find that Gleeb, somehow apprised of the excitement, had entered the penthouse and now stood a little behind us. Tarrant acknowledged his presence with a curt nod; and in the air of tension that his tenant was building up the manager ventured no questions.
“Now,” Tarrant continued, pointing out the locations as he spoke, “possibly they have dried, but when I first got here this morning there was a trail of moist spots still leading from the entrance door way to the vicinity of the north window. You will find that they were places where a trail of blood had been wiped away with a wet cloth.”
He turned to the picture beside him and withdrew the nail, pulling himself up as if for a repugnant job. He walked over to the north window and motioned us to take our places on either side of him. Then he bent down and inserted the nail, point first, into the indentation in the plank, as firmly as he could. He braced himself and apparently strove to pull the nail toward the south, away from the window.
I was struggling with an obvious doubt. I said, “But you told us the planks could not be lifted.”
“Can’t,” Tarrant grunted. “But they can be slid.”
Under his efforts the plank was, in fact, sliding. Its end appeared from under the footboard at the base of the north wall below the window and continued to move over a space of several feet. When this had been accomplished, he grasped the edges of the planks on both sides of the one already moved and slid them back also. An opening quite large enough to squeeze through was revealed.
But that was not all. The huddled body of a man lay just beneath; the man was clad only in underwear and was obviously dead from the beating in of his head.
As we bent over, gasping at the unexpectedly gory sight, Gleeb suddenly cried, “But that is not Michael Salti! What is this, a murder farm? I don’t know this man.”
Inspector Peake’s voice was ominous with anger. “I do. That is the body of Officer Weber. But how could he—”
Tarrant had straightened up and was regarding us with a look that said plainly he was anxious to get an unpleasant piece of work finished. “It was simple enough,” he ground out. “Salti cut out the planks beneath the bath-tub in the lavatory so that these planks in the studio could be slid back over the beam along the foundation under the south wall; their farther ends in this position will now be covering the hole in the lavatory floor. The floor here is well fitted and the planks are grooved, thus making the sliding possible. They can be moved back into their original position by someone in the space below here; doubtless we shall find a small block nailed to the under portion of all three planks for that purpose.
“He murdered his model, set the scene and started his phonograph, which will run interminably on the electric current. Then he crawled into his hiding-place. The discovery of the crime could not be put off any later than the chambermaid’s visit in the morning, and I have no doubt he took a sadistic pleasure in anticipating her hysterics when she entered. By chance your radio man, Gleeb, caused us to enter first.
“When the place was searched and the murderer not discovered, his pursuit passed elsewhere, while he himself lay concealed here all day. It was even better than doubling back upon his tracks, for he had never left the starting post. Eventually, of course, he had to get out, but by that time the vicinity of this building would be the last place in which he was being searched for.
“Early this morning he pushed back the planks from underneath and came forth. I don’t know whether he had expected anyone to be left on guard, but that helped rather than hindered him. Creeping up upon the unsuspecting guard, he knocked him out – doubtless with that mallet I can just see beside the body – and beat him to death. Then he put his second victim in the hiding-place, returning the instrument that closes it from above, the nail, to its position in the painting. He had already stripped off his own clothes, which you will find down in that hole, and in the officer’s uniform and coat he found no difficulty in leaving the building. His first action was to hurry to a lunch-room, naturally, since after a day and a night without food under the floor here, he must have been famished. I have no doubt that your men will get a report of him along Lexington Avenue, Peake; but, even so, he now has some hours’ start on you.”
“We’ll get him,” Peake assured us. “But if you knew all this, why in heaven’s name didn’t you have this place opened up last night, before he had any chance to commit a second murder? We should have taken him red-handed.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know it last night,” Tarrant reminded him. “It was not until late yesterday afternoon that I had any proper opportunity to examine the penthouse. What I found was a sealed room and a sealed house. There was no exit that had not been blocked nor, after our search, could I understand how the man could still be in the penthouse. On the other hand, I could not understand how it was possible that he had left. As a precaution, in case he were still here in some manner I had not fathomed, I urged you to leave at least two men on guard, and it was my understanding that you agreed. I think it is obvious, although I was unable then to justify myself, that the precaution was called for.”
Peake said, “It was.”
“I have been up all night working this out. What puzzled me completely was the absence of any trap doors. Certainly we looked for them thoroughly. But it was there right in front of us all the time; we even investigated a portion of it, the aperture in the lavatory floor, which we supposed to be a trap-door itself, although actually it was only a part of the real arrangement. As usual the trick was based upon taking advantage of habits of thought, of our habitised notion of a trap-door as something that is lifted or swung back. I have never heard before of a trap-door that slides back. Nevertheless, that was the simple answer, and it took me until five-thirty to reach it.”
Katoh, whom for the moment I had forgotten completely, stirred uneasily and spoke up. “I not see, Misster Tarrant, how you reach answer then.”
“Four things,” was the reply. “First of all, the logical assumption that, since there was no way out, the man was still here. As to the mechanism by which he managed to remain undiscovered, three things. We mentioned them
last night. First, the nail hole in the plank; second, the position of the easel; third, the hole in the lavatory floor. I tried many ways to make them fit together, for I felt sure they must all fit.
“It was the position of the easel that finally gave me the truth. You remember we agreed that it was wrong, that the murderer had never intended to leave it facing away from the room. But if the murderer had left it as he intended, if no one had entered until we did, and still its position was wrong, what could have moved it in the meantime? Except for the phonograph, which could scarcely be responsible, the room held nothing but motionless objects. But if the floor under one of its legs had moved, the easel would have been slid around. That fitted with the other two items, the nail hole in the plank, the opening under the bath-tub.
“The moment it clicked, I got an automatic and ran up here. I was too late. As I said, I’ve been up all night. I’m tired; and I’m going to bed.”
He walked off without another word, scarcely with a parting nod. Tarrant, as know now, did not often fail. He was a man who offered few excuses for himself and he was humiliated.
It was a week or so later when I had an opportunity to ask him if Salti had been captured. I had seen nothing of it in the newspapers, and the case had now passed to the back pages with the usual celerity of sensations.
Tarrant said, “I don’t know.”
“But haven’t you followed it up with that man, Peake?”
“I’m not interested. It’s nothing but a straight police chase now. This part of it might make a good film for a Hollywood audience, but there isn’t the slightest intellectual interest left.”
He stopped and added after an appreciable pause, “Damn it, Jerry, I don’t like to think of it even now. I’ve blamed the stupidity of the police all I can; their throwing me out when I might have made a real investigation in the morning, that delay; their the negligence in overlooking my suggestion for a pair of guards, which I made as emphatic as I could. But it’s no use. I should have solved it in time, even so. There could only be that one answer and I took too long to find it.
The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries Page 48
