“What about that diagram, sir?” asked Heath.
For answer Vance again took up the second volume of Gross and, opening it, extended it toward us. On the right-hand page were a number of curious line-drawings, which I reproduce here.
“There are the three stones, and the parrot, and the heart, and even your arrow, Sergeant. They’re all criminal graphic symbols; and Ada simply utilized them in her description. The story of her finding the paper in the hall was a pure fabrication, but she knew it would pique our curiosity. The truth is, I suspected the paper of being faked by some one, for it evidently contained the signs of several types of criminal, and the symbols were meaninglessly jumbled. I rather imagined it was a false clew deliberately placed in the hall for us to find—like the footprints; but I certainly didn’t suspect Ada of having made up the tale. Now, however, as I look back at the episode it strikes me as deuced queer that she shouldn’t have brought so apparently significant a paper to the office. Her failure to do so was neither logical nor reasonable; and I ought to have been suspicious. But—my word!—what was one illogical item more or less in such a mélange of inconsistencies? As it happened, her decoy worked beautifully, and gave her the opportunity to telephone Rex to look into the chute. But it didn’t really matter. If the scheme had fallen through that morning, it would have been successful later on. Ada was highly persevering.”
“You think then,” put in Markham, “that Rex really heard the shot in Ada’s room that first night, and confided in her?”
“Undoubtedly. That part of her story was true enough. I’m inclined to think that Rex heard the shot and had a vague idea Mrs. Greene had fired it. Being rather close to his mother temperamentally, he said nothing. Later he voiced his suspicions to Ada; and that confession gave her the idea for killing him—or, rather, for perfecting the technic she had already decided on; for Rex would have been shot through the secret cupboard in any event. But Ada now saw a way of establishing a perfect alibi for the occasion; although even her idea of being actually with the police when the shot was fired was not original. In Gross’s chapter on alibis there is much suggestive material along that line.”
Heath sucked his teeth wonderingly.
“I’m glad I don’t run across many of her kind,” he remarked.
“She was her father’s daughter,” said Vance. “But too much credit should not be given her, Sergeant. She had a printed and diagrammed guide for everything. There was little for her to do but follow instructions and keep her head. And as for Rex’s murder, don’t forget that, although she was actually in Mr. Markham’s office at the time of the shooting, she personally engineered the entire coup. Think back. She refused to let either you or Mr. Markham come to the house, and insisted upon visiting the office. Once there, she told her story and suggested that Rex be summoned immediately. She even went so far as to plead with us to call him by phone. Then, when we had complied, she quickly informed us of the mysterious diagram, and offered to tell Rex exactly where she had hidden it, so he could bring it with him. And we sat there calmly, listening to her send Rex to his death! Her actions at the Stock Exchange should have given me a hint; but I confess I was particularly blind that morning. She was in a state of high nervous excitement; and when she broke down and sobbed on Mr. Markham’s desk after he had told her of Rex’s death, her tears were quite real—only, they were not for Rex; they were the reaction from that hour of terrific tension.”
“I begin to understand why no one up-stairs heard the shot,” said Markham. “The revolver detonating in the wall, as it were, would have been almost completely muffled. But why should Sproot have heard it so distinctly down-stairs?”