by Kip Chase
‘Certainly’, Carmichael agreed. ‘There are all sorts of explanations. But it did strike me as a little odd, and as I say, I just filed it away in the back of my mind. You learn to do that in this business. Anyway, that wasn’t any help in the big mystery – how the killer got in. However, now a few other facts come to light. First, Phipps wasn’t at his desk all the time. He left for a while, to take a walk around the premises. This was something he did every night at ten. A man of habit, Mr. Phipps – a characteristic of age, I’m told, though I can’t personally testify to this.’ The old man gave a dry chuckle. ‘Be that as it may, this means Phipps was not at his desk for a period of time. A very short period of time, to be sure – ten minutes at the outside, according to Phipps. Now that building is U-shaped, Spanish style. That means for a limited period of time Phipps couldn’t see the hallway to the office. Also, it should be noted, in that hallway, behind the desk, is a window. A window that was later found to be locked. But nobody bothered to check right after the murder. So, a possibility comes to mind. The killer waits outside until Phipps leaves on his once-a-night rounds, then enters through the unlocked window, goes down the hall into the office, kills Goodall, drills open the safe, rips the Gauguin painting from the frame, stuffs the painting into his pocket and exits through the window. A day or so later he manages to get the window locked again.’ Carmichael leaned back, smiling, his large-boned hands folded in his lap. Scepticism was etched on the faces of Pat and George Craig.
Carmichael continued, ‘You don’t have to say anything, I can see it in your expressions. It’s ridiculous, of course. It would be a physical impossibility to accomplish all that in the space of a few short minutes. So we still figured Phipps was lying. Then I remembered something – it’s funny how these little bits and pieces, meaningless in themselves, can add up to a complete picture. I seem to recall my grandson once telling me about a painter who made all his pictures with just pinpricks of paint. This painter put these dots of paint very close together. Up very close you could see the individual dots, but a few feet away the whole thing blended into a picture. I can’t recall the gentleman’s name. I think he was a foreigner.’
‘Georges Suerat’, George said. ‘The technique is called pointilism.’
‘Ah, yes. Very clever. Now, back to our mystery. This other point I was about to mention is this. When I was first examining the room where Goodall was murdered I looked into the safe. Actually got part-way in, as much as this damn chair will let me get into anything. There was a light socket inside but no bulb, by the way. Anyway, the main point is, inside the safe, at the base of the door, was a little mound of metal filings, or at least that’s what it looked like. I assumed they were the filings made by the drill when the holes were drilled in the safe to turn the lock. A lab analysis confirmed this. Remember I said, inside the safe. You see the point?’ Carmichael nodded towards the young couple, a look of extreme self-satisfaction on his seamed face.
George and Pat looked blank. George said, ‘So what? I don’t get it.’
‘Why, hell’s bells, man,’ Carmichael exploded, ‘anybody knows that when you’re using a drill to bore a hole the drill doesn’t push the filings out the other side, it screws them back away from the direction in which the hole is being drilled. Those filings should have been on the outside of the safe door, on the floor of the office!’
‘Then that means . . .’ Pat broke in excitedly.
‘Yes, Mrs. Craig. It means the drilling was done from inside the safe. Now, this puts an entirely different light on the timing of the thing. Granted the killer could have got in and out of the window the few minutes the guard was gone, we know it was impossible for him to have the time necessary to do the job. But, what if the killer had hidden himself in the safe before Goodall came in to go to work and before Phipps came on duty? Now we have a different situation. Once in the safe he could have waited until Goodall was immersed in his work, drilled his way out, killed the old man, taken the painting from the frame – all very leisurely – waited until Phipps was in the other wing, then escaped down the hall and out the window. The door to the office, while closed, does have a large keyhole. The guard’s desk can easily be seen through it. The killer could have watched through it and waited until he saw Phipps leave, then made his exit. Now, how does that strike you, eh?’
George Craig stood up slowly and walked towards the picture window overlooking the ocean. When he spoke, his voice was soft and speculative. ‘I’ve seen the inside of that safe. It’s true a man could hide inside, but not for long. He would suffocate without air, unless he left the door open a crack.’
Carmichael nodded agreement. ‘That’s right, and Phipps said the safe was locked when he came on duty at five. So no one could have been inside, unless . . .’
‘Unless he had a diver’s tank of compressed air and a regulator? Is that what you’re going to say?’ George cut in.
‘It’s a possibility’, Carmichael said. ‘How long does one of those tanks last, anyway?’
Still looking out the window, George answered, ‘I don’t know why I bother to tell you. I’m sure you’ve checked. But for the record – you can figure on half to three-quarters of an hour for a single standard tank – that’s seventy cubic feet at about two thousand p.s.i. Of course, it depends on water depth and degree of exertion by the user. Under the conditions you’re suggesting, maybe you could get an hour out of it. A double tank, twice as long, a triple tank, three times. But I’m not sure anyone could crowd into that safe wearing a triple tank; it would be damn awkward.’
‘Yes, it would be’, Carmichael agreed. ‘That tank I saw in your backyard looked about three feet long and maybe eight inches around. That about right?’
George nodded.
The old man went on. ‘Okay. The way the time-table is working out, a person would need three of them to be on the safe side. Like you say, damned awkward. But there’s another way. Does the term “Pirelli” mean anything to you, George?’
‘Sure, it’s a brand of rebreather.’
‘That’s right. I had a look at one this afternoon at the South Bay Lifeguard Station.’ Carmichael coughed apologetically. ‘That’s where I suddenly became an expert on skin-diving equipment. Anyway, I understand the Italians perfected rebreathers during World War II for underwater work. Sneak attacks on enemy shipping, demolition and the like. It’s very ingenious. The idea, as I got it, is that this rebreather uses a canister that absorbs carbon dioxide. The oxygen that remains can then be “rebreathed” by the diver. Then theres’s a cylinder of pressurized oxygen that’s attached to the unit. The diver regulates this by hand to pump in new oxygen when it’s needed. Have I got it right, George?’
George answered carefully, ‘You’ve got it right.’
‘Then you’re familiar with their operation?’
‘I’ve never used one, they’re too dangerous. But I know how they work.’
Carmichael pulled at his nose reflectively. ‘And why are they dangerous?’
‘Well, a couple of reasons. Pure oxygen is toxic. Nobody seems to know why. At sea level you can breath it for seven or eight hours before it gets to you, but under pressure it gets dangerous in a hurry. Thirty-six feet down is the limit under water. Also, you can have problems with the absorbant. Baralyme is okay, but it’s not very efficient. They usually use soda lime. Except soda lime reacts with water to form caustic soda. Inhaling caustic soda can be fatal. That’s why you have to be careful not to let water get into your mouthpiece.’
‘Now, let’s see,’ Carmichael mused, ‘as I understand it, a device like this is dangerous because of the effect of water pressure on the oxygen and because the absorbant might get wet. Now used on dry land, neither of these dangers would exist. And it would have advantages. It’s not very large or heavy, and it’s efficient enough for a couple of hours of air at least. And a diver practiced in the art of breath control could probably make it last longer, if necessary. I would say it would be ideal for use as an air
supply in a confined area, wouldn’t you, George?’
George gave a tired sigh, ‘I guess so.’
‘But just a minute,’ Pat Craig interrupted, her eyes bright with interest, ‘you’re forgetting something very important, Carmichael. You’re trying to say someone hid in the safe with a rebreather, then drilled his way out to get at Goodall. But that’s crazy, you know. Now let’s say you’re sitting in this room working, and somebody starts to drill out through that safe. You’d hear it, wouldn’t you? And you’d turn around to see what the hell was going on, and then you’d see that drill poke out through the door and you’d raise a rumpus, wouldn’t you? Well, wouldn’t you?’ she concluded triumphantly.
Carmichael ran a bony finger speculatively across his upper lip. ‘Of course I would. And that’s what Goodall would have done. If he’d been able.’
‘If he’d been able?’ Pat’s voice scaled up in bewilderment.
Carmichael nodded. ‘Up to now we’ve been theorizing with at least a factual basis – the filings on the inside of the door. Now we have to reach for it a bit. But we still have that empty coffee jar and clean cup. Let’s assume so far we’ve been on the right track. If so, it’s obvious this thing would have to have been planned carefully in advance. The killer naturally would have anticipated what you just did, Pat, that Goodall would hear the drill. Obviously, the man in the safe knew Goodall wouldn’t hear the drill, or anything else. Goodall would be dead. You see, this was the whole purpose of the crime – to kill Goodall and make it look like suicide. The taking of the picture was an afterthought. An improvisation made necessary when things didn’t go according to plan. Goodall was supposed to be killed by a couple of capsules of sodium amytal dumped into the jar of instant coffee.’ The old man gave a tired sigh, ‘I want to emphasize all this is hypothesis, but if we are right, the picture of the killer is getting pretty clear – a person who is familiar with the layout and routine of the Gallery, a person who could enter the Gallery to get into the safe before five o’clock without drawing attention to himself, a person who would have been able to dope Goodall’s coffee jar, and most particularly, a person who knew about rebreathers and how to operate them. Are you following me, Mr. Craig?’
‘Yes’, said George.
Carmichael’s voice continued in almost musical cadence, ‘And, oh yes, another little point. When I examined Goodall’s body in the morgue – an unpleasant but sometimes rewarding task – I noted the knife wounds, if it were a knife, were made by clean punctures into the stomach and groin, then ripping wounds extending upward from the puncture. I have seen this type of wound many times. It’s the kind inflicted by a person familiar with the proper use of a knife. A real knife fighter never holds the knife over his head, striking down with it movie-style. Instead he holds the knife at waist level, gripping the handle as if he were shaking hands with it, thrusting forward into the gut of his adversary, then ripping upward. This sometimes results in the entrails of the victim spilling out over the hand of the knifer, but it’s very effective. Oh, sorry, Mrs. Craig, I hope the beer doesn’t stain the carpet. Anyway, this was the kind of wound Goodall had, except for one slight difference. The edge of skin which was slashed as a result of the upward movement was ragged. It was not a clean cut. If the knife blade had been facing upward, as is normal, the cut would have been clean. If it had been facing downward, the dull upward side of the knife would not have cut at all. When I finally got the gist of the over-all pattern, I hit on an explanation for that, too. Now, suppose this knife was of the type used by fishermen; you know, sharp on one edge for gutting the fish, and on the other side a serrated blade, used to take off the fish’s scales. If this kind of knife were used, with the blade held down, the initial puncture would have been clean, as it was, and the upward stroke, made with the serrated edge, would have produced a ragged cut. Sort of like cutting fancy slices of cheese for a party with one of those jagged-edged knives. But hook-and-line fishermen aren’t the only ones who use that type of knife. Spear-fishermen use them too. As a matter of fact, Mr. Craig, that’s exactly the kind of knife I saw out in the patio the other day in with your skin-diving equipment.’
There was a full thirty seconds of silence. The sea beating against the beach was a low rumbling in their ears. Then Carmichael said quietly, ‘George, how long have you known Tony Ortega was the killer?’
George Craig turned away from the window and the sea. He sat down heavily on the couch, like an old man. His answer was barely audible. ‘I suspected it from the first, when I heard it was a knife. But I didn’t let myself think about it.’
Carmichael nodded sympathetically. ‘And that incident in Riverside. Tony was with you and he was the one who used the knife, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. How did you find that out?’
‘I didn’t, but it seemed a logical conclusion. We could have done some checking.’
‘It happened outside the bar’, George explained. ‘The guy Tony went after was pretty drunk; he was about passed out by the time the police got there. He really didn’t know what was going on. I took the knife away from Tony – he was half-gone too – and told the police I did it.’
‘Why?’
George shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter to me if I had my name in a police book, but Tony was representing an old-line manufacturing company at the time. Being who he was it might have made a splash in the papers and cost him his job. As it turned out, our names didn’t mean anything to the local reporter, I guess, and there was no publicity. Anyway, it was a small thing for me to do. I owe him a lot, you know.’
‘Owe him so much that you’d protect a murderer?’ Carmichael asked sharply.
‘That’s not fair. I didn’t know it was Tony. I just suspected it. I wasn’t as clever as you to figure out how it was done. And there’s another thing, Mr. Carmichael’ – George paused – ‘this probably sounds a little crazy to you, but with a man like Tony it just seems like there’s something awfully unfair about it. He goes in the service, he’s taught to kill people, he does kill them, he gets a medal for it, he’s a big hero, everybody loves him – then he takes one more life on top of the couple of dozen soldiers he has killed – and the same society that gave him the medal sends him to the gas chamber. I don’t know, I don’t know . . .’
Carmichael spoke patiently, ‘George, you know that most people can distinguish between doing a dirty, necessary job in defending yourself and your country from an enemy, and cold-blooded killing for personal gain. When you’re in the service you’re exposed to killing, just like a disease. Most men survive the inoculation. Some don’t, like Tony. They get a taste of it, and once they start again there’s no stopping them. Killing becomes, for them, just another tool to get what they want. In Tony’s case he killed once to get what he wanted; then he killed again to protect himself.’
‘Killed again?’ It was Pat’s voice.
‘Well, I’m getting ahead of my story.’ Carmichael broke off into a short fit of coughing. ‘Say, Pat, would you please get an old man a glass of water?’
Pat got up quickly and went into the kitchen, emerging shortly with the water. Carmichael took a long swallow, while Horowitz gave him a surprised look. ‘I do drink it, Carl’, Carmichael grinned at him. ‘Now, where was I? Let’s talk about motive. As I said, it wasn’t the painting. Tony was playing for bigger stakes – control of the Goodall estate. And . . . I think there was even a little more to it than that. You see, Jennifer was in love with Tony. She wanted to marry him, and he was all for it, of course. But she had to get her grandfather’s permission, because she isn’t eighteen yet. Tony talked her out of asking Goodall because he knew what the answer would be. He also figured if Goodall knew what was in the wind he, Tony, would be sent packing. Jennifer swore that as soon as she was of age she’d marry him, but this wasn’t good enough for Tony. He was afraid if they got married without Goodall’s permission the old man would cut Jennifer off without a cent, and that wouldn’t do. Also, Jennifer wanted to marry him
now, but with a seventeen-year-old girl you never can be sure they’ll feel the same way six months later. With Goodall dead, several things would be accomplished for Tony. First, there would be no obstacle to his marrying Jennifer – he didn’t think Mrs. Goodall would be any problem. Also, once married to the girl, and with Goodall dead, he would be the man of the family and could pretty well run the show, so to speak.’
‘And just for that, he’d kill a man?’ Pat asked.
Carmichael pressed his finger-tips against each other meditatively. ‘That’s not quite all there is to it. Here I have to play the part of the psychologist, which I’m not. I have had considerable experience in watching abnormal minds at work, though, which gives me an advantage. The way it looks to me is this – a few years ago Tony Ortega had the world by the tail. He had public adoration, and along with that, a good fat job with a good fat salary and practically no work to do. He probably could have had his choice of marrying any number of good-looking girls who had rich fathers; but he was having too much fun to get tied down. Then his name faded from the public mind, and the jobs faded with it. He found he had to work for a living, and ex-war heroes weren’t much in demand in the country-club set. Then, through you, George, he gets tied in with the Goodalls and Jennifer falls for him. I don’t think he’s in love with her; I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone. But here is a chance to marry the kind of girl he had developed a taste for. Maybe his last chance. So, the money is only a part of it; it goes deeper than that.’
‘But the second murder?’ Pat interrupted.
Carmichael continued unperturbedly, ‘So, for these reasons, Goodall must die. Ortega is a clever man; he works out what he considers a foolproof scheme to kill Goodall and make it appear to be suicide. The plan is elaborate and risky, but Tony thrives on risks. The plan is this: first get a suicide note – Goodall’s crippled right hand suggests an easy way here; type the note on the office typewriter which would raise no suspicion as everyone knew Goodall typed everything he wrote because of his hand, then get Goodall’s signature on the note. This required a little deftness, but probably wasn’t too much of a problem. Goodall must have signed dozens of things a week; correspondence, receipts, shipping requests and the like. I don’t know just how Tony did it, but I could guess. The note had Goodall’s thumbprint on the bottom of the paper, indicating he was holding the note down. If the paper were lying on, say, a table, the print would normally be at the top. Therefore, its position would indicate it were held against something other than a solid horizontal surface. A clipboard, for example. Tony could have had the note on the clipboard in with a stack of unimportant papers Goodall had to sign. Tony held the board turning the bottoms of the papers, exposing only the space for the old man’s signature. Anyway, he gets the note signed. Next step is to get a poison. And here’s where he made his biggest mistake. He picked sodium amytal. He picked it for what he thought was a good reason: it is practically odourless and tasteless. He also knew enough of it was lethal, but he underestimated how much. The plan was to wait for a night when it was apparent Goodall would be working late, then sprinkle the stuff into the jar of instant coffee. As it happened, on the night he picked, Goodall had just got a new jar from Jennifer, but that didn’t seem significant. Tony opened the jar and emptied several capsules into it. Not wanting to have the off-coloured powder lying directly on the surface where it might be noticed by Goodall, Tony shook up the jar so the drug would become intermingled with the coffee. And he didn’t use enough. As a result, when Goodall drank the coffee, because of the drug having been dispersed throughout the entire jar, and maybe because the caffein had a counteracting effect – but I’m not enough of a chemist to know about that – anyway, when he drank it there wasn’t enough to put him away. Now, the plan was to put the fatal dosage in the coffee, then hide in the safe with a rebreather to keep from suffocating and with an electric drill for getting out. Oh, about the drill, here’s another little point. When we checked the safe the night of the murder there was no light bulb in the socket inside. Tony got one for us out of the desk drawer. He had taken the light bulb out to screw in the receptacle necessary to plug in his electric drill. Anyway, the primary reason for all this rigmarole was so that he could plant the note.’ Carmichael snorted. ‘These brainy criminals! It would have been so much simpler to leave the note in the house where it would be found later. But Tony wanted to offer clear evidence that Goodall had written the note and had taken the drug himself. The most natural thing for Goodall to do, Tony figured, would be to write the note at his desk, then take the capsules. So that’s the way Tony wanted it to look. Also, he thought it would be a good idea to get rid of the coffee jar. If a man was going to take poison, he would take it directly. There would be no point bothering to carefully mix it in instant coffee. The plan proceeded on schedule, except there wasn’t a strong enough dose of sodium amytal. It put Goodall out, all right, but the noise of the drilling brought him to. The guard wouldn’t have heard the noise because of those adobe walls and that thick oak door, as Tony figured. By the time Tony got out of the safe, Goodall was semi-conscious. And Tony found himself in a spot. It was obvious that the original plan was down the drain; even if he had additional capsules with him – which he probably didn’t – it would be impossible to force them down the throat of a semi-conscious man. And now that Tony was exposed it was more important than ever that Goodall be killed. Tony had strapped the rebreather to his regular diving harness. His diving knife was attached to the harness. He pulled the knife and jammed it into Goodall’s stomach, in and up. Three times. He replaced the knife and did some quick thinking. The suicide angle was now out. It was murder and there had to be a motive. Quickly he decided that by stealing the painting he could give the police a solid reason for the crime and divert possible investigations of other motives. So he went back into the safe, cut out the painting, rolled it up and stuffed it into his pocket. The rest of his scheme he carried out as intended, except, of course, he didn’t leave the note. He washed out the coffee cup, emptied the jar of coffee down the drain, waited until Phipps left the desk, then made his exit through the window in the hall. The job was completely botched now, but it must have given him some satisfaction to know that he had created quite a puzzle for the police. Now he was rattled, though. He got rid of the rebreather and the knife, dumped them in the ocean probably. He did something with the painting – we don’t know what – but he forgot about the note he had left in his pocket. After he got home that night, Tony had a visitor – his girl friend. And I don’t mean Jennifer. Oh, Jennifer was the girl he was going to marry, all right, but Tony never had liked sleeping alone. For the past few years he had to content himself with a little lower-class type, waitresses, car-hops, barmaids and the like. Currently his sleeping partner was a girl who worked at the “Swinging Times”.’
