Chapter VIII: Denouement No. 1

In which Nemesis babbles cheerfully—In which the Dead Flower adopts
new petals—Postmarks and timetables and a false beard that sneers
mischievously—Also a scrawl of vengeance, enigmatic ashes and a half
signature.

The cab rolled through the dark streets. Dr. Lytton’s hand rested on the knee of his companion.

“All right now?” he asked.

De Medici nodded.

“Dizziness,” he answered laconically.

“A rather interesting case,” the doctor looked at him speculatively. “Fear, eh? Morbid and illogical fear. Hm. Nothing simpler. Phobias are easy to trace. You fainted. Fainting is an escape from overwhelming impulses that are repugnant to the conscious mind. You had an impulse....”

De Medici smiled.

“He prowls around like a blind weasel,” he mused as the scientist talked.

“Yes. Obvious. Why not discuss it?” Dr. Lytton was saying. “Such things must be considered impersonally. Your impulse was to murder me, Julien. Darkness, candles, long velvet curtains—these things fascinate you because they are symbols of desires that hide in you.”

De Medici shrugged his shoulders.

“Here we are,” he spoke as the cab stopped before a lighted building.

They entered the police station arm in arm. De Medici’s legs still felt weak. A man in police uniform conducted them to Lieutenant Norton’s office. The lieutenant rose to greet them. De Medici noted the look of triumph which kindled his eyes.

“Well, come right in,” cried the detective exuberantly. “Glad to see you, Mr. De Medici.”

He nodded somewhat less enthusiastically at the stocky figure of Dr. Lytton.

“How d’you do, doctor?” he added.

De Medici sat down beside the lieutenant’s desk.

“So you’ve found the murderer?” he asked quietly. “In which case you must have changed your mind about Mr. Ballau’s suicide.”

“Sit down, sit down, doctor,” Norton beamed, “and I’ll apologize for a lot of things. Have a cigar?”

The visitors declined. Dr. Lytton, regarding the red-faced detective, mused silently.

“He’s stumbled on something. An intelligent man, but clumsy and superficial,” he was thinking.

Norton seemed to expand in his chair. His face glowed with delight as he began to talk.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I owe you my first apology for pretending to you I thought Victor Ballau had killed himself. I was absolutely convinced it was a murder on the night we found the body. I had the impression of suicide for a few minutes. But before ten minutes had passed investigation showed me that there were a number of things not to be explained by the suicide theory. Well, gentlemen, realizing that the murder was an intricate one and that it would take a great deal of care to unravel the mystery, I adopted the suicide theory as a ruse and instructed my force to take a similar attitude. We harped on this theory at the inquest. You see, it was my purpose to throw the criminal off the track and make the capture a bit easier.”

“Marvelous,” murmured De Medici. The lieutenant’s naïveté had suddenly amused him. “A bewildering deception. And you got him.”

Norton grinned at the man’s banter.

“Her,” he corrected. “Miss Florence Ballau.”

Dr. Lytton nodded.

“Where is she?” he inquired.

“Under lock and key,” said Norton. “We arrested her yesterday morning.”

“Where?” whispered De Medici.

“In New York,” Norton answered.

De Medici’s eyes closed happily. In New York yesterday morning ... and the letter from Rollo, Maine, had been mailed yesterday morning.... Two conflicting incidents. He laughed softly.

“And you think Miss Ballau committed the murder?” he repeated. “The theory is as bewildering, if not as charming, as your first, lieutenant.”

Norton nodded in good humor and lighted a cigar. Dr. Lytton sat regarding De Medici.

“Mailed yesterday from Rollo, Maine,” the scientist mused, “and she was arrested yesterday in New York. Then she either left the thing with a friend to mail for her, or....”

His eyes gleamed for an instant and an excited smile curved his heavy lips.

“The case turned out much simpler than we actually expected,” continued Norton. “We got our first clew within a few hours after the murder. We found out Miss Ballau had received a telephone call at the theater at 9:30 on the night of the crime. The stage manager had called her to the phone. He stood within hearing distance while she talked. He heard her say something like, ‘Yes ... yes. Oh, God!’ And he noticed she was upset when she hung up. She told him she felt sick. He tried to argue with her but she dashed out of the theater without changing her costume or taking the paint off her face.”

“A revelation,” murmured De Medici. His spirits seemed to have risen as the detective talked. Dr. Lytton sat with his lips pursed, dividing his attention between the two men.

“I knew you knew about the telephone call,” Norton went on good-naturedly, “and I don’t blame you for trying to shield the girl.”

“Gallant,” sighed De Medici. “Thanks. Go on.”

“Well,” resumed Norton, “we finally located the cabby who had driven her home. This took a few hours, but when we got him he remembered her well, owing to the fact she had her make-up and costume on and acted queer and excited. She got into his cab outside the theater and drove to the Ballau apartment, giving him a dollar tip in advance and telling him to go as fast as he could. Her contention at the inquest was that she reached the apartment about half-past ten. From the stage manager’s evidence and the cabby’s statement it is obvious that she got home about a quarter to ten the latest. If she’d stopped at all between the telephone call and entering the cab she’d have removed her make-up and taken her hat or a wrap of some kind. We know she didn’t. Our investigations in the Ballau home resulted in finding a towel in the linen basket off Miss Ballau’s room. The towel was smeared with rouge and lampblack. We found out that the basket had been emptied that afternoon by the laundryman. Therefore the towel with the rouge and lampblack on it was placed there during that day.”

“Your deductions are invulnerable,” De Medici smiled.

“We’ll discuss them more fully later,” Norton countered, his good humor remaining under the derision of his visitor. “You don’t seem convinced that Miss Ballau is guilty?” He smiled in turn.

De Medici shook his head.

“Despite his good humor,” he thought, “he’s uncertain of something. The theory has a hole in it.... Or he wouldn’t be telling me. Or perhaps it’s another one of his brilliant ruses....”

“We’ll discuss them more fully later,” Norton continued. “I’m going to the trouble of outlining the case to you because I think you can help me on several points. For instance, this.”

The detective opened a cupboard at the side of his desk and removed a bundle. Unwrapping it, a woman’s gown was revealed.

“Have you ever seen this before?” Norton asked.

De Medici regarded the gown without moving.... A costume, nineteenth century ... Italian, flashed through his mind. Her costume in “The Dead Flower”! No....

“I see you recognize it,” Norton said. “Miss Ballau’s dress in your show, eh?”

De Medici picked up the thing and spread it out. No, not hers. He smiled inwardly. The certainty had come to him that the detective had bungled.

“Never mind,” Norton continued. “I don’t want to trap any evidence from you. We found this dress on the fire escape outside the window of the Ballau library. This dress and”—he stopped, opened a drawer in his desk—“and this crucifix. Do you recognize it?”

“Yes,” murmured De Medici involuntarily. It was the gift he had made Florence to wear with the “Dead Flower” costume—an oddly designed cross of ebony backed with silver.

“Thanks,” Norton smiled. “The dress and the cross were together. But to go on. There are a number of vital points. For instance, Miss Ballau testified that Jane, the housekeeper, let her in that night. We’ve questioned the housekeeper secretly. She’s a simple-minded woman. After some grilling we discovered that she did not let Miss Ballau into the apartment and that the first she knew of that young lady’s presence in the house was the sound of her screaming. And this screaming, you will bear in mind, came fully thirty to thirty-five minutes after Miss Ballau arrived home. On pressing Jane further, we discovered that Miss Ballau had pleaded with her as a vital personal favor on which her life depended, to say that she had let her in at the time and in the manner they both swore to at the coroner’s inquest.”

Dr. Lytton cleared his throat.

“You have police witnesses to the housekeeper’s confession?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, and several witnesses not of the police,” Norton answered. “Meyerson was present, and a man named Carvello. But let me go on. We found the key to the apartment in Miss Ballau’s purse the night of the murder. I looked for it myself and, on finding it, left it there. Miss Ballau, you will remember, testified she had lost the key some weeks before. Which explained why she had to ring the bell to get in.”

“These things are hardly sufficient for the arrest of Miss Ballau,” De Medici said quietly as the detective paused.

“I quite agree,” said Norton. “All this was evidence we had within two days of the murder. We didn’t act on it but continued our hunt for more. More was necessary and we waited till we got it.”

De Medici nodded.

“The motive, for instance,” smiled Norton. “Well, three days after the inquest, or two days, I think, Miss Ballau disappeared. We had been watching her closely but she managed to elude us. I put two of my best men in pursuit of her and I devoted my own time to finding out her history. I was able to discover through documents and inquiry that Florence Ballau was not Victor Ballau’s daughter but his stepdaughter. She was a year old when Ballau married her mother in London. As you see, this supplies the beginnings of a motive.”

Through De Medici’s mind passed a suddenly illuminated memory of Victor Ballau—the Ballau whose fingers had trembled as he poured the liqueur that night, whose eyes had turned away as he toasted the happiness of his prospective son-in-law. His heart grew heavy as the innuendo of the lieutenant unfolded its logical terminations before him.

“We would like to have your theory of the motive,” Dr. Lytton prompted the smiling detective. “Motives, of course, are always more interesting and more important than clews.”

“You were to be married,” Norton resumed, turning to De Medici. “And Ballau was jealous.”

“I see,” murmured De Medici. He sat staring at the man. Words suddenly danced excitedly in his head. “The thing is mad,” he cried. “You’ve let a preposterous notion run away with you....”

Dr. Lytton’s arm reached toward his friend.

“We’ve come here to listen, not to argue,” he cautioned.

“Pardon me,” De Medici sighed. His face resumed its mask of calm and interest.

“Certainly,” Norton answered. “I’m sorry to go into this. But there’s nothing to be gained now by not facing the facts.”

“Quite right,” Dr. Lytton smiled. “The facts are what we want.”

“The facts are that Mr. Ballau more than anyone else desired the match,” De Medici spoke.

“Or seemed to,” Norton interrupted. “But on the night that the engagement was to have been announced he quite changed his mind about the desirability of the match. And he played his trump card with the girl. It was Ballau who telephoned her at the theater at half-past nine. This was a very easy fact to establish. The telephone girl of the Hudson Apartments remembered distinctly, and we have no reason to doubt her word, that Mr. Ballau asked her to get his daughter on the phone at the Galt Theater. Her memorandum pad of outgoing calls contains the notation, ‘Ballau—Columbus 2600. 9:28.’”

“Are you certain,” Dr. Lytton interrupted, “that the notation refers to an outgoing call? It may have been Miss Ballau who telephoned her father.”

“No,” Norton shook his head. “There are three items of evidence bearing on the point. One is the testimony of the telephone girl. Another is the fact that Cort, the stage manager, summoned Miss Ballau to the phone, and the third is the memorandum pad itself. The call appears listed in the column marked ‘Outgoing.’”

Norton leaned back in his chair, his face grown serious and aloof.

“We come now to the hour of the murder,” he resumed. “Ballau telephoned his stepdaughter. It was his last known act before his death. And the answer to our mystery lies in the answer to the question, ‘What did Victor Ballau say to his stepdaughter at half-past nine on the night of April 10th?’”

The detective’s dramatic utterance irritated De Medici. He sat frowning and following in silence the man’s theory.

“Well,” Norton was saying, “you’ll remember that a week or so before his death Ballau had made a new will leaving all his money to the girl. Why? Because he loved her. He had loved her for a long time. The will was made in her presence. It was a plea for her. But it failed. There’s no question but that he fought with her continually on this subject—his love for her. Yes, and her past love for him. He pleaded and threatened in turn. He was an old man and old men are sometimes given to strange passions.

“Finally, when there was nothing else left, when the time had come to surrender her publicly to you, he lost his head. He called her up. Get this man Ballau, now, gentlemen, upset by his infatuation for the girl, preparing for the hour when he must surrender all hope of her, mixed up, crazy. And he telephones her. He can’t stand it any longer. He tells her over the phone that he must see her. She answers evasively, ‘Yes ... yes.’ And he goes on pleading. And finally he plays his trump card. He tells her unless she renounces De Medici he’ll expose the relations that have existed between them—between Ballau and his supposed daughter. Relations, let us say, before you entered her life, Mr. De Medici.

“Well, he was going to do this thing publicly. It was a cowardly act. But, mind you, the sort of threat a man of his age driven to despair by his infatuation would make. And she rushed home. There were yet two hours to ward off the thing he threatened. She rushed home, beside herself, to appeal to his better side, to plead with him and weep and entreat him. The disgrace he had threatened her with on the eve of her engagement party was enough to make any young woman go wild. You can imagine what followed as easily as I can,” he concluded, “her pleading, his excitement, her tears, his offers, and, disgrace staring her in the face, her hysteria and the murder.”

Dr. Lytton regarded De Medici.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

De Medici’s head was lowered. His narrow eyes, half closed, were contemplating the floor.

“Nothing,” he answered softly. “A persuasive cock and bull story.”

Norton grew irritable.

“I called you here to see if you would assist me,” he said. “I want to know how she acted the morning you proposed to her. Did she say anything about Ballau?”

“Nothing,” answered De Medici, “except that she knew he would be overjoyed.”

Norton nodded and looked grim. De Medici, studying the floor, was thinking. “She was nervous. Yes, I remember something ... about Ballau. Her manner changed. She asked what he had said ... two or three times. And she wept when I left her.... White-faced and weeping in front of the theater.... Preposterous! Not Florence. There’s something else. This creature paws clumsily with surfaces....”

The voice of Dr. Lytton interrupted his musings.

“You haven’t finished, I hope,” the doctor smiled.

“No. A few more things,” Norton answered testily. “They may interest you. The scene of the crime, eh? The disorder and the mysterious props? Well, the murder suddenly committed—committed during a moment of despair and passion—the young woman stood beside the body of the man she had killed and some sort of a notion of planting evidence to throw the police off the track came into her head. A notion typical of the woman who has spent her life in the theater. You’ll remember she was beside herself at this moment, that whatever she did in the half hour following the slaying of Ballau would naturally be the things an innocent and imaginative woman, and not a hardened criminal, would do in an effort to cover up the crime. She began to tear things and overthrow things. She went about it bewilderedly. Her idea was to make it seem as if a terrific struggle had taken place so that suspicion would not fall on a woman but on some powerful assailant. But you saw yourself how she bungled it in her distraction. The books, curtains, pictures: the crucifix and the candle—all unconvincing. The table idiotically set as for a supper for two. All things that a distracted, imaginative and hysterical young woman with a theatrical training would do.”

“Excellent,” breathed Dr. Lytton. “Your psychology stands on firm ground. We might even go a step further. We might even say that a very clever murderer or murderess would have arranged that scene not to give the police false clews for a crime, but to make it seem as if Ballau had killed himself—and arranged the entire scene to convince the police a crime had not been committed. She might have figured out something of that nature, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I thought of that,” Norton said slowly, “but I doubt it. She hadn’t time.”

“Unless,” Dr. Lytton objected, “unless the murder was committed as soon as she entered the room. Or, let us say, before....”

Norton looked indignantly at the scientist.

“The theory doesn’t impress you despite the evidence?” he asked.

“I would be more impressed and certainly more interested,” Dr. Lytton answered, “if your theories included the presence of the false beard that was found in Ballau’s hand.”

Lieutenant Norton nodded and opened the drawer of his desk again. He removed a large manila envelope. The humorous-looking false Vandyke, reminiscent of the slapstick methods of stage comedians, lay exposed on his desk. Dr. Lytton stepped forward.

“May I look at this?” he asked. The lieutenant nodded.

“Hm, I thought so,” the doctor murmured. Taking a note-book from his pocket, he wrote down a few words. Norton raised his brows.

“With your permission, lieutenant,” Dr. Lytton looked at him. “I’m merely recording the fact, which I don’t think has been recorded, for it doesn’t quite fit in with your ingenious theorizings, that this beard is the product of a man named Lenvier—a well-known London wig-maker. You can read his name on the label here.”

The detective scowled. His amiability seemed to have finally abandoned him.

“And now,” went on Dr. Lytton, “I am, for reasons entirely apart from the crime or its possible perpetrator, interested to know how you explain the presence of this beard in the dead man’s hand. Also the gum mucilage which you yourself so ably discovered on his face.”

“Nothing difficult about that,” Norton answered. “It’s a minor point. Ballau put the thing on himself before his stepdaughter arrived. He was seen wearing it by the housekeeper. But he didn’t show himself for purposes of disguise. He was evidently caught with it on by her unawares. She testified, you remember, that she got only a glimpse of him. You’ll recall that Ballau summoned the girl to tell her that unless of her own accord she renounced her intention of marrying De Medici, he’d expose her that night ... to disgrace. You can easily imagine that his purpose in calling her to come to him was not merely a desire to tell her what he was going to do. He also had the hope of being able to induce her to return to him ... of winning her back, in other words. This man’s brain is not at its clearest and his sense of the fitness of things isn’t at its best at that moment. And he does something which may appeal to you gentleman as ridiculous.”

“As long as it explains the beard,” murmured the doctor.

“Yes,” snapped Norton, “as long as it explains the beard.”

He stared with indignation at the offensive-looking bit of false hair on his desk.

“Ballau put it on that night,” he announced savagely, “because he imagined it made him look handsomer and younger. He’d been an actor in his youth.”

De Medici stared with incredulous eyes at the man.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed. “Are you mad, lieutenant?”

As Norton’s reddish face glittered wrathfully at him, De Medici suddenly laughed.... So this was the police theory! Quite a respectable theory of its sort, but bristling incongruously with false Vandykes. Yes, a Vandyke, a humorously homeless Vandyke knocked in vain for admittance.

“As I said,” Norton added sourly, “the point is of minor importance. If you don’t like that theory there’s another. The false beard was placed in the dead man’s hand by Miss Ballau and the mucilage added. A part of her camouflage to put us on a wrong scent.”

“Very nice,” Dr. Lytton smiled, “except that, if I recall, the dead man was clutching the thing. His fingers had to be unfastened. However, we may pass over this point, as you say.” The doctor chuckled.

“Just one moment, if you please,” Norton cried, “before you laugh too heartily. I expect Miss Ballau’s confession by morning. In the meantime you may be interested in the circumstances of her arrest.”

He had grown heavily sarcastic.

“I told you that Miss Ballau eluded us,” he said, “a few days after the inquest. But my men picked up her trail again two days ago. She had hidden herself in a cheap rooming-house district. We watched her closely. She remained secluded for a day without emerging once. But yesterday morning she left her rooming house. She went straight to the Ballau apartment. She was heavily veiled and escaped the doorman’s attention. She went up in the elevator and let herself in with the key. Michaelson of my staff was on guard in the apartment. He’d been there since the night of the murder—waiting. He heard Miss Ballau enter and, unseen by her, watched her. He followed her down the hall and saw her enter her bedroom. But she was almost too quick for him. Before he was able to get to her, she had lighted a candle and set fire to a letter taken from her bureau drawer.”

The detective paused and, with a return of his former composure, extracted a small envelope from the manila wrapper on his desk. From the envelope he carefully removed the fragments of a piece of charred letter paper.

“Michaelson managed to save this,” he added.

De Medici and the doctor arose and stared at the burned fragment. All that was visible was the last line of what evidently had been a short letter. The line read:

“So I warn you I am desperate....”

Beneath the line was part of the signature. The flame had burned away all but the letters F-l-o-r....

“Floria,” murmured De Medici.

“Florence,” announced the detective, “Florence Ballau.”

Raising his voice, he added to an aide in the doorway:

“Bring Miss Ballau in here....”