Candlesticks ... candlesticks! There lay the mainspring of the mystery. Murder was a simple thing. People killed each other. And there was nothing to be deduced from actions as broad and general as murder. It was by the odd detail that a crime might be uncovered ... the thing that was a signature to the deed.
Confused and elate, De Medici watched the auctioneer address the old woman in a whisper. The candlestick was wrapped up and handed to its new owner. He heard Mr. Jones explaining: “Yes, there’s another. A mate to this, but it’s not on sale.”
So she had asked for the other one, too. The one which formed part of the mysterious evidence in the hands of the police. His meditations ended as the creature pushed past him. She had apparently lost all further interest in the auction. She had bought the mate to the candlestick that had stood at Victor Ballau’s head the night he was murdered ... and was leaving.
“This is what I was expecting,” De Medici murmured inwardly, “something like this.”
He was following her carefully into the hall and out of the apartment. She paid no attention to him as they entered the elevator together. With her package clutched under her arm, she walked off limpingly down the street, a heavily dressed, bent old woman leaning on a cane, her witch face peering obliviously ahead of her. De Medici, smiling, sauntered in her wake.
“We must forget everything,” he mused, “Florence, Rollo, Maine, midnight visitors and everything, and pay attention. Here’s a clew. It may be a coincidence. A candlestick fanatic. But the Ballau auction would be out of her way. Park Avenue is a foreign settlement to her. She came there for a purpose. She showed interest in nothing until the candlestick was offered. Yes, she came to buy one thing—the pair of candlesticks.”
The slow chase turned out of the main thoroughfares. The old woman seemed in no hurry. She zigzagged from one street into another. Despite her age her bent body seemed tireless. For an hour she continued moving, ignoring street cars and vehicles. A labyrinth of decrepit little streets confronted De Medici. Pawn-shops, dirty-looking stores, restaurants and movie theaters.... “As I thought,” De Medici mused, “Park Avenue is a foreign settlement to her.”
He paused a short distance from the old woman. She had come to a halt in front of a decrepit house. The blousy street was alive with noisy, dirty-faced children, fat women and foreign-looking men.
The old woman peered about her for a moment and then moved toward the evil-looking shack. De Medici watched her body disappear slowly down a flight of basement steps and hurried forward. As he arrived, she entered the lower part of the house through an ugly-looking door. He could hear her lame step thumping in the distance from the foul-smelling hallway.
It was dark. De Medici hesitated as a door opened. The woman had vanished behind it. He walked carefully down the stretch of dark hall and, locating the door, knocked. There was no answer. Turning the knob cautiously, he opened the door and entered. A startling scene greeted him. He found himself in a disordered room dimly lighted by a single window that rose to an alley. The place was heaped with clothes and strange pieces of furniture that crowded each other against the wall. Over a half hidden table the old woman stood bent, eagerly unwrapping her package.