Ellery turned to Keats.
“From that point it was a mere matter of operations. He’d mastered the technique of cuckolding Priam, psychologically as well as maritally; at every stage he made Priam think Priam was directing events and that he, Wallace, was carrying them out; but at every stage it was Priam who was ordering exactly what Wallace wanted him to order.
“It was Wallace who dictated the note to Hill, with Priam doing the typing ― just as you figured out, Keats. Wallace didn’t call it dictation ― he undoubtedly called it, humbly, ‘suggestions.’ And Priam typed away on a machine on which the T key was broken. Accident? There are no accidents where Wallace-Adam is concerned. He’d managed, somehow, and without Priam’s knowledge, to break that key; and he managed to persuade Priam that there was no danger in using the typewriter that way, since a vital part of the plan was to see to it that Hill destroyed the note after he read it. Of course, what Wallace wanted was a record of that note for us, and if Hill hadn’t secretly made a copy of it, you may be sure Wallace would have seen to it that a transcription was found ― by me or by you or by someone like Laurel who would take it to us at once. In the end, the clue of the missing T would trap Priam through the new T on Priam’s machine... just as Wallace planned.”
The man beyond Keats permitted himself a slight smile. He was looking down at his glass, modestly.
“And when he realized what was at the back of Priam’s mind,” continued Ellery, “the plan to kill him... Wallace made use of that, too. He took advantage of events so that the biter would be bitten. When I told Wallace what I ‘knew,’ it coincided perfectly with his final move. The only trouble was ― eh, Adam? ― I knew a little too much.”
Wallace raised his glass. Almost it was a salute. But then he put it to his lips and it was hard to say if the gesture had meant anything at all.
Keats stirred, shifting in the comfortable chair as if it were uncomfortable. There was a wagon track between his eyes, leaving his forehead full of ruts.
“I’m not going good tonight, Queen,” he mumbled. “So far this all sounds to me like just theory. You say this man is Charles Adam. You put a lot of arguments together and it sounds great. Okay, so he’s Charles Adam. But how could you have been sure? It’s possible that he wasn’t Charles Adam. That he was John Jones, or Stanley Brown, or Cyril St. Clair, or Patrick Silverstein. I say it’s possible. Show me that it isn’t.”
Ellery laughed. “You’re not getting me involved in a defense of what’s been, not always admiringly, called the ‘Queen method.’ Fortunately, Keats, I can show you that it’s not possible for this man to be anyone else but Charles Adam. Where did he tell us he got the name Alfred Wallace?”
“He said he picked it out of thin air when he got an amnesia attack and couldn’t remember who he was.” Keats glowered. “All of which was horse-radish.”