Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12 Read Online Free

wasn't for me, was it, Manette?" When she didn't
     answer, he knew that he'd guessed right. "It was you that he wanted to meet
     upstairs, not me. You must have known what was going to happen to him, and you
     wanted me to find the body."
    Now all stared at him—and at her. Two fat tears slid down her cheeks.
     "It's not like that," she said. "I'm sorry. Ravi wrote that note to me six weeks
     ago. Tonight I used it to send Mr. Henley to find him." She looked at the
     policemen. "I didn't know Ravi was going to be assaulted. I just wanted to
     embarrass him. He had to stop."
    "Stop what?" asked Henley.
    She gestured at the display cases in the room. "Ravi would open the exhibits.
     Handle the books, touch the miniatures. He said it helped him stay in character.
     But of course it was entirely inappropriate."
    "You had the keys to the display cabinets," Henley prompted her. "And you'd open
     them up for him."
    She nodded. "But after today, I couldn't. Not after Mr. Jarvis was sacked and we
     had a letter missing."
    Henley nodded. "In the process of opening up the display cases to connect
     directly with Dickens, Vikram must have discovered that some original items had
     been replaced with replicas. Tonight he came face-to-face with the thief, who
     killed him and tied my briefcase to his hands after stashing these stolen items
     inside. It was a literal means of tying me to the murder."
    "But how could the thief get into these locked exhibits?" asked Manette. "Ravi
     had no keys."
    "And there's no broken glass," said Finn. The room fell silent. Finn stared at
     Manette. "You and I are the only ones with keys to these cases."
    Manette stared back. "What did you do with the keys turned in this morning by
     Jarvis Dedlock? Someone could have used those."
    Finn pulled two sets of keys from his pocket. "I've carried both Jarvis's and my
     own all day."
    A long silence, and then Manette spoke. "I know I didn't kill him, Thatch."
    "I know I didn't," said Finn.
    "Neither one of you killed him," said Henley. He recalled the scene from this
     afternoon. The young woman—the wife of the professor
     downstairs—had known the boorish young man sitting next to her. Surely
     they had collaborated on an elaborate scheme to steal from the collection. In
     the confusion after the young man pretended to faint, somebody could snatch the
     Dickens letter and stash it in the reading room, perhaps inside the card
     catalogue. In case of a search, the thief would not be holding incriminating
     evidence and could return to fetch the letter later. The young man had spent the
     entire evening downstairs. But couldn't the young woman be here too, somewhere
     out of sight? Her husband had loudly proclaimed that she wasn't attending the
     performance. That could have been a classic act of misdirection. Could the woman
     have been hiding in the house all day, waiting for an opportunity to retrieve
     her stolen goods? Was that possible? For a visitor to lurk unbeknownst to the
     staff for so many hours after closing time?
    Only a couple of minutes had passed between Ravi Vikram's exit at the end of Act
     One and Henley's discovery of the body. No one could have killed the man and
     then had time to slip down the stairs undetected. There was no fire escape or
     elevator or laundry chute. Whoever had killed Ravi Vikram must still be on this
     floor of the house.
    "What's that?" asked Henley, pointing to a door in the corner.
    "A cupboard," said Thatcher Finn.
    What Americans call a closet. "It's locked, I suppose."
    A policeman tried it. The door was unlocked, but the closet was empty.
    "That's odd," said Thatcher Finn. "That door is supposed to be locked
     always."
    "That's where the killer was hiding until Ravi Vikram arrived."
    "But where is this mysterious figure now, Mr. Henley?" asked the inspector.
     "There are no more cupboards to check. Who is this person, and where?"
    The answer came too easily. "The killer is in the room next-door."
    "The other