"I got those prints from all sorts of places," Fibsy went on. "Off of
the glass bottles and things in the bathrooms and off of the hair
brushes and such things, an' off of the envelopes of letters, an' off
the chairbacks an' any polished wood surfaces, an' I got lots of 'em
in both houses, an' the police people picked out the best an' cleanest
an' fixed 'em up, an' there you are!"
They seemed to think this settled the matter. But I would not be
convinced. Of course, I'd been told dozens of times that no two people
in the world have finger prints alike, but that didn't mean a thing to
me. It might be, I told them, that Vicky Van and Ruth Schuyler were
friends, that Ruth had withheld this fact, and that--
"No," said Stone, "not friends, but identical--the same woman. And,
listen to this. Mrs. Schuyler heard us say this evening that Fibsy
could photograph the brushes and such things over here to get Miss Van
Allen's finger prints, and what does she do? She sends Tibbetts over
to scrub and wipe off those same brushes, also the mirrors, chairbacks
and all such possible evidence. A hopeless task--for the woman
couldn't eradicate all the prints in the house. And, also, it was too
late, for Fibsy had already done his camera work."
"How do you know she did all that?" and I glowered at the detective.
"Because Fibsy just told me he found evidences of this cleaning up,
and, too, because Mrs. Schuyler purposely kept us over there longer
than we intended to stay. You know how, when we proposed to say
good-night, she urged us to stay longer. That was to give her maid
more time for the work. Now, Mr. Calhoun, go on with your objections
to our conclusions. It helps our theory to answer your refutations."
"Her letters," I mumbled, scarce able to formulate my teeming
thoughts. "Vicky Van sent a letter to Ruth Schuyler--"
"Of course, she did. Wrote it herself, with her left hand, and mailed
it to her other personality, in order to make the police give up the
search. And, too, the letter from Miss Van Allen, found in Randolph
Schuyler's desk after his death, was written and placed there by Mrs.
Schuyler for us to find."
"Impossible!" I cried. "I won't allow these libels. You'll be saying
next that Ruth Schuyler killed her husband!"
"She did," asserted Fleming Stone, gravely. "She did kill him, in her
character as Vicky Van. Don't you see it all? Schuyler came here as
Somers, never dreaming that Vicky Van was his own wife in disguise.
Or, he may have suspected it, and may have come to verify his
suspicion. Any way, when she saw and recognized him, whether he knew
her or not, she lured him out to the dining room and stabbed him with
the caterer's knife."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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