Chapter 21 Chapter 20 Calculations

The Khalkis Collection Collection is located on Madison Avenue.The area was dark and silent late that night when a contingent of detectives led by Sergeant Quinn, Ellery Quinn, and Inspector Willey outflanked and attacked from every direction.These people move without making noise.Looking in from the wide window, I saw that the interior of the warehouse was completely dark, and the door of the warehouse was closed, guarded by the usual electric fence.There was, however, another entrance to the side of the Kumen, which caught their attention; and the Inspector and Willie huddled together to whisper a few words.The inspector stretched out his huge thumb to press the button. On the button there was this word: NIGHT BELL.Everyone waited quietly.When there was no movement, Willy went to ring the bell again.Five minutes passed, and there was neither sound nor light inside. Willie snorted, waved to several subordinates, and everyone pushed the door together.There was a creaking sound of wood and the creaking sound of iron hinges, and everyone fell in a pile and fell into the hall where they couldn't see their fingers.

They swarmed through a section of stairs and came to another door. Under the illumination of the flashlight, it could be seen that this door had another anti-theft alarm device. An alarm signal was sent to the central hub of the Defense Bureau, and the door was smashed open. Beyond the door was a long, dark showroom, the length of the entire house.The flickering beams of the torches in their hands reflected the countless immobile painted faces hanging on the walls, as well as the rare curios and many pale sculptures placed in the floor cabinets.Everything was so orderly, and the arrival of their group of detectives did not seem to have disturbed anyone.

Near the end of the showroom, to the left, there was a ray of light from an open doorway."Sloane! Mr. Sloane!" the officer called, but there was no answer.They rushed in toward the light, and at the entrance they saw a sign on the open iron door: Mr. Gilbert Sloane Only.However, these people's eyes did not stay long on this trivial detail.Because, at the same time, everyone took a deep breath and huddled together at the door in silence... The fact is that the lit desk lamp mercilessly illuminates Gilbert Sloane's frozen corpse lying on the table. There is nothing real to study.The group stood about the room—someone had already flipped the light switch—gazing down at Gilbert Sloan's blossoming, bloody head.

The desk is in the center of this dedicated office.He sat at the table with his head tilted to the left on a green desk blotter.One side of the table is facing the door, so from the showroom outside the door, only the silhouette of Sloane can be seen inside.He sat in the leather chair, leaning forward, resting his left arm on top of the blotter, his right arm hanging along the edge of the chair to the floor.Just below the right hand, on the floor, fell a revolver, within inches of the dead man's fingertips, as if it had slipped from his hand to the ground.The police officer bent down, without touching the body, and carefully observed the dead man's right temple, which happened to be illuminated by the light from the office.There was a deep hole in the temple, shattered, red with blood, and speckled with black powder-spatters—it was here, no doubt, where the bullet had entered.The old man was prostrate on the ground and carefully dismantled the revolver.The bullets were fully loaded, but one was missing.He sniffed the sniffing gun and nodded.

"If this is not suicide," he declared, rising, "then I am the monkey's uncle." Ellery surveyed the room.This office is small and tidy, and everything seems to be in order, without any sign of chaos. By this time the officer had wrapped the revolver in gauze and sent a detective to look up whose it belonged. After the detective left, he turned to Ellery: "How about it, are you still not satisfied? Do you still think it's a trap?" Ellery's eyes were lost in thought.He murmured: "No, it looks realistic enough. But it's hard to see why he had to kill himself. In any case, nothing in our conversation with Sloane tonight made him feel You're going to sue him. There was no mention of the will, the keys hadn't been found, and Mrs. Freeland hadn't reported to us. I'm beginning to suspect..."

The father and son looked at each other. "Mrs. Sloane!" they both called out in unison, and Ellery grabbed the phone on Sloane's desk.He hastily inquired a few words to the operator, and then transferred to the central office of the telephone... The police officer was distracted.The faint sound of a police siren came to his ears from Madison Avenue; then there was the squeal of brakes, and then he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs.The officer looked up into the showroom.But it turned out that it was the result of Inspector Willie's letting go of his hands and feet and destroying the alarm bell just now.

A group of men rushed in, serious looking, automatic weapons leveled.The police officer spent several minutes convincing them that he was the well-known Officer Quinn in the Detective Bureau, and that these people scattered around were all detectives, not thieves, and there was obviously no such thing in the main collection of Khalkis. Stolen something.When he had explained to them and dismissed the party, he returned to his office to find Ellery sitting in a chair, smoking, more restless than he had ever been before. "What did you find?" "It's unbelievable . . . it took me a while, but I figured it out. This phone answered a call from outside this evening," said Ellery in a bad mood, "in an hour. Inside. I traced the incoming call again, and it turned out to be from the Khalkis family."

"I expected it. That's how he knew it was all over! Someone overheard us talking about the case in the study, and telephoned here from home to tip Sloan." "On the other hand," said Ellery listlessly, "there's no way of finding out who called the office, or what was said in the phone. At best, the above bits and pieces of facts can be grasped." .” "In my opinion, that fact is more than enough. Thomas!" Willie appeared at the door. "Run back to the Khalkis's and have everybody brought to court. Make it clear: when we search Sloane's place tonight, when we're questioning Sloane and Mrs. Freeland in the downstairs study, And who was in the whole house while we were talking about the Sloane situation. You also find out, if possible, who used any of the telephones in the house this evening—most importantly, Don't miss Mrs. Sloane. Do you understand?"

"Send the news here to the Khalkis family?" Willy asked muttering. "Of course. You take the boys with you. No one is allowed to leave the house without my order." Willie is gone.The phone rang; the police officer answered it.The call was from the detective who had been sent to investigate the revolver.He traced the origin of the murder weapon; according to the registration, the pistol had been purchased by Gilbert Sloan.The old man laughed and called Dr. Samuel Brody, assistant medical examiner, to headquarters. He hung up the phone and turned to find Ellery inspecting a safe against the wall behind Sloane's desk, the round iron door wide open.

"I don't know yet... Wow!" Ellery stabilized his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose and bowed his head.There were several documents on the floor of the small box, and there was something metal under them.The police officer took it out of his hand. It turned out to be a heavy old-fashioned gold watch, which was old and had lost its ticking sound. The old man turned the watch over: "That's it, that's right—!" He waved the watch, dancing with joy, "Ellery," he cried, "it's clear! There is no doubt that the whole trouble It's finally over!"

Ellery studied the watch carefully.On the back of the gold case at the bottom of the watch, etched in tiny, small letters, so worn that they are almost invisible, is the name: Albert Grimshaw.The era of etching is indeed quite old. Ellery looked even more dissatisfied than before.What aggravated his mind was the fact that the inspector, slipping the watch into his vest pocket, said: "There is no doubt about it. The evidence is clear. Sloan apparently took the watch from Greenshaw at the same time as the bill. Coupled with the fact that Sloane committed suicide, then Sloane's crimes are absolutely confirmed." "On that," said Ellery sadly, "I quite agree with you." Not long after, Miles Woodruff and Deputy Pepper also arrived at the scene of the suicide.Both were stern-faced, looking down at the body of Gilbert Sloane. "Sloane is that kind of guy," Woodruff said.Veins bulged on his usually red face, "I knew a long time ago that he was the first one to steal the will... Now it's all right, police officer, is everything all right?" "Yes, thank God." "This guy is terrible, he wants to die," Pepper said. "What a coward. I did hear, though, that Sloane was a sissy... Woodruff and I were going back to Going to Khalkis' house, I happened to meet Inspector Willie on the way. He told us what happened here, and we came here in a hurry. Woodruff, you talk to them about the will situation." Woodroff flopped down on the stylish couch in the corner, wiping his face: "There's nothing more to say, that fragment is genuine. I think Pepper can prove it; it's the same as The copy in my file is an exact match—exactly the same. And the writing—the handwritten name of Greenshaw—is exactly that of Khalkis, exactly, exactly.” "Very well. But we must be sure. Have you brought the fragment and the copy?" "Of course I brought it." Woodroff handed a large Luzon paper bag to the police officer, "I also took a few copies of Khalkis' handwriting in it, you might as well take a look." The old man looked into the paper bag, nodded, and waved to a detective standing nearby. "Rett, you can find the handwriting expert Sina Lanbo. You can go to the headquarters to check her address. You can ask her to check all the handwriting in this paper bag. Then put it on the burnt fragments Check your handwriting too. I want the results of the test right away." Just as Rhett was walking out, the lanky Dr. Brody wobbled into the room with a cigar in his mouth. "Here comes, Doctor!" said the Inspector pleasantly. "Another dead man has come to your business. Looks like this may be the last." "The last of the case," said Dr. Brody lightly.He put down the black bag and looked at the dead man's broken head, "Hmph! So it's you, huh? I never expected to meet you again on such an occasion, Mr. Sloane." With that said, he took off his hat and coat, and got busy. He knelt on the ground for five minutes, then stood up: "It's clearly a suicide, and that's my conclusion, unless anyone here has a different opinion," he said loudly, "Where's the revolver?" "I sent someone to take it," said the police officer, "to check it." "Probably. 38 caliber?" "The reason I say this," continued the medical assistant, smoking a cigar, "is that the bullet was not found." "What did you say?" Ellery asked quickly. "Don't worry, Quinn. Come here." Ellery and the rest gathered around the table as Dr. Brody leaned over the dead man, grabbed his loose, loose hair, and shook his head. raised it.On the left side of the head that was leaning on the green ink blotter just now, there was a puddle of blood and an obvious wound; the part where the head touched on the ink blotter was soaked in blood, "The bullet passed through his frontal bone. The bullet must still be here somewhere." He put the body on a chair and dragged it into a sitting position, as unhurriedly as if holding a wet bag of something.He held his damp hair, straightened his head, and squinted to calculate: If Sloan shot himself while sitting on a chair, the direction the bullet must travel. "Just passed through the open door," said the sergeant. "It's not difficult to judge the direction of the bullet from the position of the body sitting. When we found him, the door was open, so the bullet must have passed through the door." In the showroom." The officer stepped through the door and entered the now brightly lit showroom.He estimated the possible trajectory of the bullet with his naked eyes, nodded his head, and then walked straight to the wall opposite the door.There hung a thick old Persian rug.The old man looked at it carefully for a while, and fiddled with the point of his knife for a while, then triumphantly picked up a slightly splintered and squashed bullet. Dr. Brody grunted approvingly and returned the dead man to its original position.The police officer held the deadly bullet and turned it over and over again: "That's right. He shot himself. The bullet pierced his head, passed through the left skull, flew past the door, weakened, and embedded itself in the tapestry on the wall opposite the door. It's not embedded very deeply. It's all cleared up." Ellery took the bullet over and examined it carefully, and handed it back to his father with a strange, bewildered look on his shoulders.While the sergeant and Dr. Brody directed--the matter was so important, the old man insisted on directing--carried the body for the autopsy, Ellery went into the corner and sat next to Woodroff and Pepper. When the body was carried through the long display room, Inspector Willie was striding up the steps, passed the stretcher without looking, and rushed into the office like an infantry drill.The big felt hat on his head looked like a high leather military cap for military parades, and he didn't bother to take it off after he entered, so he said loudly to the police officer: "It's unlucky." "It doesn't matter if you're lucky or not. What did you find?" "No one called this evening - at least, that's what they said." "That's a matter of course. No matter who makes the call, they won't admit it. This point may never be found out," the police officer sniffed his snuff while expressing his opinion, "Obviously, it's Sloane A letter from Mrs. Sloan to inform Sloane. She may have overheard us talking and discussing in the study, and she hurried to call Sloane just when she could get rid of Mrs. Freeland. She made a phone call. She may be Sloane's accomplice, or she may not know it, but after overhearing what we said, she knew something was wrong, so she hurriedly asked her husband the truth... Anyway, it's difficult Very well said. What Sloane said, or what she said, is a question, but at least this phone call let Sloan understand that the matter has been exposed. So, he had no choice but to commit suicide." "I see," grunted Willie, "she's innocent. When she heard the news, she fainted--please believe me, sir, she's not pretending, she's really fainting." Ellery stood up restlessly, and, not listening much, paced back and forth again.He rummaged through the safe again—nothing seemed to interest him, so he wandered over to the writing desk, which was littered with paper documents, his eyes deliberately avoiding the puddle of paper on the blotter. Blood oozed from Sloan's head, staining it with a purple maroon smudge.He checked the pile of paper documents.A book-like thing caught his attention. It was a leather-bound diary with stamped letters on the cover: 192_ Diary.The book was half hidden under the pile of papers, and he pulled it out from the table.The police officer walked up to his son and looked over his shoulder, wondering what was going on.Ellery turned over the pages of the diary—every page was neatly written and densely packed.He picked up a few documents with Sloan's handwriting from the table, compared them with the handwriting in the diary, and found that they were exactly the same.He read a few excerpts from the diary, shook his head in exasperation, and closed the book—into the side pocket of his jacket. "What's in it?" the officer asked. "If anything," said Ellery, "it wouldn't interest you, Papa. Didn't you say the case was closed?" The old man sneered and walked away.Outside, in the main showroom, there was an uproar of voices. Among the noisy crowd of reporters stood Inspector Willie.Somehow, a few photojournalists slipped in, and it didn't take long before the room was filled with lights and smoke.The police officer began with a long and short speech; the reporters were busy taking shorthand; Inspector Willie, who had personally participated in the matter, was also considered a rare commodity; Deputy Prosecutor Pepper was surrounded by the group of people who played with words in the center; Miles Woodroff, on the other hand, puffed out his chest and bulged out his chest, and he talked in a lively manner. The main point of his speech was: He, lawyer Woodroff, had already seen who the criminal was, but—hey, my brother, in your heart You know, the bureaucracy of this investigation is inevitable; Police Headquarters and Detective Bureau . . . In the midst of this extraordinary bustle, Ellery Queen slipped out of the office unnoticed.He walked among the sculptures in the showroom, under the famous paintings hanging on the wall; In the cold and dark, relieved. Fifteen minutes later, the police officer came to him, and he was leaning against the window in the shadows; in his swollen head, all kinds of hazy thoughts rose and fell, and his thoughts fluctuated.