There Was an Old Woman (15 page)

“I can't understand that girl,” mused Ellery.

“It's the same old madhouse, only worse, now that the Old Woman's not there to crack down. Louella's filling it with useless, expensive apparatus—I swear she'll blow that place up some night!—buying on credit, and of course she's getting all she wants now that the Old Woman's dead and the trades-people know what a lulu of a fortune Louella's coming into.

“Thurlow's lording it over them all—cock of the roost, Thurlow is. Sits at the head of the table and makes with the lofty cracks to Steve and Major Gotch, and is otherwise a complete pain in the—”

“As I was saying,” said Ellery, “Sheila baffles me. Her attitude strikes me as inconsistent with my conception of the whole woman. Charley, there's something wrong somewhere, and it's up to you to find out what.”

“Of course there's something wrong. She won't marry me!”

“Not that, Charley. Something else … Wish I knew … Might make …” Mr. Queen stopped guillotining his sentences in order to think. Then he said crisply: “As for you, my dear Gascon, my advice is to stick to it. Sheila's worth fighting for. Matter of fact,” he sighed, “I'm inclined to be envious.”

Charley looked startled.

Ellery smiled sadly. “It won't come to a duel at dawn, I promise you. You're her man, Charley. But just the same—”

Charley began to laugh. “And I come here to ask your advice. John Alden stuff!” His grin faded. “Say, I'm sorry as hell, Ellery. Although as far as I can see, anybody's got a better chance with Sheila than I have.”

“She loves you. All you have to do is be patient and understanding, now that the case is closed—”

Charley stopped pacing. “Ellery,” he said.

“What?”

“That's another reason I came to see you today.”

“What's another reason you came to see me today?”

Charley lowered his voice. “I don't think the case
is
closed.”

Ellery Queen said “Ah,” and turned around like a dog seeking a place to settle. Instead, he freshened Charley Paxton's drink and mixed one for himself. “Sit down, Brother Paxton, and tell Papa all about it.”

“I've been thinking—”

“That's always salutary.”

“Two things still bother me. So much I can't sleep—”

“Yes?” Ellery did not mention his own insomnia of the past three weeks.

“Remember the Old Woman's confession?”

“I think so,” said Ellery dryly.

“Well, one statement the Old Woman made in it strikes me as pretty peculiar,” said Charley slowly.

“Which statement is that?”

“The one about the guns. She wrote she was the one who swiped the Harrington & Richardson revolver from Thurlow with which she held up the reporters the day of the first murder—the gun she almost killed Sergeant Velie with—”

“Yes, yes.”

“Then she said: ‘Later it was I who stole one of Thurlow's other guns and hid it from the police and went with it into my son Maclyn's bedroom in the middle of the night and shot him with it.”

“Yes?”

“ ‘
One
of Thurlow's other guns'!” exclaimed Charley. “But Ellery,
there were two guns missing.”

“Indeed,” said Ellery, as if he had never thought of that. “What do you make of it, Charley?”

“But don't you see?” cried the young lawyer. “What happened to that second gun, the one that's still missing? Where is it? Who has it? If it's still in the house, isn't Sheila in danger?”

“How's that?”

“Thurlow, Louella, Horatio! Suppose one of those poppy-eaters takes it into his head to continue the Old Woman's massacre on the Brent part of the family? Anything is possible with those three, Ellery. They hate Sheila and Steve as much as the Old Woman—maybe more. What do you think?”

“I've concocted more fantastic theories myself,” murmured Mr. Queen. “Go on talking, Charley. I've been pining to discuss the case for three weeks now, but I haven't dared for fear I'd be disowned.”

“I've been bursting, too! I can't get these thoughts out of my mind. I've had another—theory, suspicion, whatever you choose to call it. This one's driving me wild.”

Ellery looked comforted. “Talk.”

“The Old Woman knew she was going to die, Ellery. She said so in her confession, didn't she?”

“She did.”

“Suppose she thought one of her precious darlings had killed the twins! She knew she was dying,
so what did she have to lose by taking the blame on herself?”

“You mean—”

“I mean,” said Charley tensely, “that maybe the Old Woman's confession was a phony, Ellery. I mean that maybe she was covering up for one of her crazy gang—
that there's still an active killer in that house.”

Ellery swigged deeply. When he set his glass down, he said: “My dear fraternal sleuth, that was the first thought I had when we opened the envelope and read the Old Woman's confession.”

“Then you agree it's possible?”

“Of course it's possible,” said Ellery slowly. “It's even probable. I just can't see Cornelia Potts killing those two boys. But—” He shrugged. “My doubts and yours, Charley, won't stand up against that confession bearing Cornelia Potts's signature … By George!” he said.

“What's the matter?”

Ellery jumped up. “Listen to this, Charley! The Old Woman was dead an hour or so at the time we found her body. Suppose someone had gone into her bedroom during that hour she lay there dead? The door wasn't locked. And anyone could have typed out that confession right there—on the portable which was standing conveniently by the bed!”

“You think someone, the real killer,
forged
that confession, Ellery?” gasped Charley. “I hadn't thought of that!” But then he shook his head.

“I didn't say I think so. I said it's possible,” said Ellery irritably. “Possible, possible! That's all I do in this blasted case—call things ‘possible'! What are you shaking your head for?”

“The Old Woman's signature, Ellery,” said Charley in a depressed tone. “You compared it yourself with the other signatures—the one at the end of the will, the one on the large envelope. And you pronounced the signature genuine.”

“There's the rub, I admit,” muttered Ellery. “On the other hand, it was only a quick examination. It might be an extremely clever forgery that only the most minute study will disclose. The traps one's sense of infallibility sets! Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Mr. Queen, and start punching!”

“We've got to go over the signatures again?”

“What else?” Ellery clapped Charley on the shoulder. Then he fell into a study. “Charley. Remember when we visited the Old Woman early in the case to question her about the terms of her will? At that time, I recall, she handed you a slough of memorandums. I saw her sign them myself with the same soft pencil she apparently used always. What happened to those memos?”

“They're at the house, in that kneehole desk in the downstairs study.”

“Well, those memos bear her authentic signature; that I'll swear to. Come on.”

“To the house?”

“Yes. But first we'll stop at Headquarters and pick up the original of the confession, Charley. Maybe
one
theory in this puzzle will come out right side up!”

22 . . . Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

They found no one about but the servants, as usual. So they made directly for the library, and Ellery shut the door, rubbing his palms together, and said: “To work. Those signed memos, please.”

Charley began rummaging through the drawers of the kneehole desk. “Got the shakes,” he muttered. “If it's only … Here they are. What do we do now?”

Ellery did not reply at once. He riffled the sheaf of memorandums with an air of satisfaction. “Employ the services of a rather large ally,” he said. “Nice sunny day, isn't it?”

“What?”

“Silence, brother, and reap ‘the harvest of a quiet eye,' as Wordsworth recommends.”

“Seems to me you're in an awfully good humor,” grumbled Charley Paxton.

“Forgive me. This is like a breath of forest air to a man who's been shut up in a dungeon for three weeks. It's hope, Charley, that's what it is.”

“Hope of what? More danger for Sheila?”

“Hope of the truth,” cried Ellery. He went to the nearest window. The sun, that “large ally,” made the window brilliant; by contrast, the study was in gloom.

“Perfect.” Ellery took the topmost memorandum of the sheaf and held it flat against the pane with his left hand. The sunshine made the white paper translucent.

“The confession, Charley. Wasn't Dad curious!”

Ellery placed the confession over the memorandum on the windowpane, shifting it about until its signature lay superimposed upon the signature of the memorandum, visible through it. Then he studied the result. “No.”

The signatures were obviously written by the same hand, but minor variations in the formation and length of certain letters caused a slight blurry effect when the two signatures were compared, one upon the other.

Ellery handed the memorandum to the lawyer. “Another memo, Charley.”

Charley was puzzled. “I don't understand what you're doing.”

“No,” said Ellery again. “Not this one, either.
And
the next, Mr. Paxton.”

When he had exhausted the pile of memorandums, he said to Charley in an assured voice: “Would you mind handing me again that memo which instructed you to sell all the Potts Shoe Company stock and buy back at 72?”

“But you've examined it!”

“Nevertheless.”

Charley located it in the heap and handed it to him. Ellery once more placed it over the confession against the window.

“Look here, Charley. What do you see?”

“You mean the signatures?”

“Yes.”

Charley looked. And then he said in an astonished voice:
“No blurriness
!
”

“Exactly.” Ellery took the papers down. “In other words, the Cornelia Potts signature on this stock-selling memorandum and the Cornelia Potts signature on the confession
match perfectly.
There are no slightest variations in the formation and size of characters. Line for line, curve for curve, the two signatures are exact duplicates. Twins, like Bob and Mac. Even the dot over the
i
is in the identical spot.”

“And the signature on the stock-selling memo is the
only
memo signature that does match exactly?” asked Charley hoarsely.

“That's why I went through the entire batch—to make sure. Yes, it's the only one.”

“I think I see where all this leads …”

“But it's so clear! No one ever writes his name in precisely the same way twice—that's a scientific fact. There are invariably minor differences in the same person's signature, and there would be if you had a million samples to compare. Charley, we've established a new fact in the Potts case!”

“One of these two signatures is a forgery,”

“Yes.”

“But which one?”

“Come, Charley. The Old Woman signed this stock-selling memo in our presence. Therefore the memo signature must be genuine. Therefore the signature on the confession is the forgery.”

“Somebody got hold of this memo, typed out that phony confession, and then traced the signature of the memo off on the bottom of the confession?”

“Only way it could have produced an identical signature; yes, Charley. The stock memo's been in the desk in this study since the day the Old Woman typed out all these instructions—”

“Yes,” mumbled Charley. “After I made the various phone calls necessary that day, I put the memos in this desk, as usual. …”

“So anyone in the house could have found them and used this one to trace off its signature. It was probably done just the way I've illustrated—by slapping the stock memo against the sunny windowpane, placing the typed confession over the memo, and then tracing the memo signature onto the confession by utilizing the sunlight-created translucence of both sheets.”

“And the house is full of those soft pencils the Old Woman used—”

“And it would have been child's play to slip into the Old Woman's bedroom and use her portable typewriter for the typing of the ‘confession' and that note at the bottom of the will. The whole operation was undoubtedly done between the time the Old Woman died alone in her bed and the time we all came back to the house—you, Sheila, Dad, and I—and found her body with the large sealed envelope in her hand. There was about an hour for the criminal to work in—and a few minutes would have been ample.”

Ellery went to the telephone.

“What are you going to do?”

“Bring joy to my father's heart.” He dialed Police Headquarters.

“What?” repeated the Inspector feebly.

Ellery said it again.

“You mean,” said the old gentleman after another pause, “you mean … it's open again?”

“What else can it mean, Dad? The confession signature is now patently a tracing job, so Cornelia Potts never wrote the confession. Therefore she didn't confess to the murders at all. Therefore we still don't know who killed the Potts twins. Yes, I'm afraid the case
is
open again.”

“I might have known,” muttered the Inspector. “All right, Velie and I will be up there right away.”

When Ellery turned from the telephone, there was Sheila, her back against the door. Charley was licking his lips.

“I heard you tell your father,” said Sheila.

“Sheila—!”

“Just a minute, Charley.” Ellery advanced across the study with outstretched hands. Hers were cold, but steady. “I think you know, Sheila, that I'll—”

“I'm all right, thanks.” She was tightly controlled. She slipped her hands from his, and clenched them. “I'm past being shocked or surprised or sent into hysterics by anything, Ellery.”

“You sensed this all along.”

“Yes. Instinct, I guess.” Sheila even laughed. She turned to Charley Paxton, her face softening. “That's why I refused to leave the house, darling. Don't you see now?”

“No, I don't see,” muttered Charley. “I don't see anything any more!”

“Poooor Charley.”

Ellery was quite suffused in admiration.

Sheila kissed her troubled swain. “You don't understand so many things, lambie-pie. I've been a coward long enough. Nobody can make me afraid any more.” Her chin tilted. “Somebody's out for my blood, is he? Well, I won't run away. I'll see this through to the bitter end.”