The fat man had paused in the act of lifting a glass of Scotch to his lips. It was wonderful how the color seeped out of his pouchy cheeks, leaving them gray. Mrs. Reinach whimpered in a corner, and Mrs. Fell stared stupidly. Only Nick Keith showed no great astonishment. He was standing by a window, muffled to the ears; and on his face there was bitterness and admiration and, strangely, a sort of relief.
“Shut the door.” The detectives behind Ellery spread out silently. Alice stumbled to a chair, her eyes wild, studying Dr. Reinach with a fierce intensity... There was a sighing little sound and one of the detectives lunged toward the window at which Keith had been standing. But Keith was no longer there. He was bounding through the snow toward the woods like a huge deer.
“Don’t let him get away!” cried Ellery. Three men dived through the window after the giant, their guns out. Shots began to sputter. The night outside was streaked with orange lightning.
Ellery went to the fire and warmed his hands. Dr. Reinach slowly, very slowly, sat down in the armchair. Thorne sank into a chair, too, putting his hands to his head.
Ellery turned around and said: “I’ve told you, Captain, enough of what’s happened since our arrival to allow you an intelligent understanding of what I’m about to say.” A stocky man in uniform nodded curtly.
“Thorne, last night for the first time in my career,” continued Ellery whimsically, “I acknowledged the assistance of... Well, I tell you, who are implicated in this extraordinary crime, that had it not been for the good God above you would have succeeded in your plot against Alice Mayhew’s inheritance.”
“I’m disappointed in you,” said the fat man from the depths of the chair.
“A loss I keenly feel.” Ellery looked at him, smiling. “Let me show you, skeptic. When Mr. Thorne, Miss Mayhew and I arrived the other day, it was late afternoon. Upstairs, in the room you so thoughtfully provided, I looked out the window and saw the sun setting. This was nothing and meant nothing, surely: sunset. Mere sunset. A trivial thing, interesting only to poets, meteorologists, and astronomers. But this was one time when the sun was vital to a man seeking truth... a veritable lamp of God shining in the darkness.
“For, see. Miss Mayhew’s bedroom that first day was on the opposite side of the house from mine. If the sun set in my window, then I faced west and she faced east. So far, so good. We talked, we retired. The next morning I awoke at seven — shortly after sunrise in this winter month — and what did I see? I saw the sun streaming into my window.”
A knot hissed in the fire behind him. The stocky man in the blue uniform stirred uneasily.