Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Later, back at Parkinson’s office overlooking the Thames, he and Rand sat examining the intricate workmanship of the artificial eye. It had taken them some minutes to even find the place where it unscrewed into two sections.

“Hollow,” Parkinson said. “And the threads are perfectly machined.”

Inside the hollow eye was a tiny padded compartment, just large enough for a bit of microfilm, or for the microchip it now held. “What do you think?” Rand asked.

“I’d guess it’s one of the most advanced designs, from Britain or America. The right country, the right company, might pay a million pounds for it. So Sillabus and Pryzic were still in business after all.”

“For industrial espionage? Well, Pryzic certainly was. But I suspect Sillabus didn’t want to deal with him any longer. That was why the German took to hanging around on the corner and at Seasons. Sillabus must have known there were a thousand ways he could smuggle something as small as a computer chip out of the country. He didn’t need Pryzic’s eye to do it. His own eye would have served just as well, and it looked more real. With security relaxed, there was no—”

“Then Pryzic killed him for it?”

“No, no! That was Janice Casey, his assistant and junior partner. You see, it was obvious at once that Pryzic couldn’t be the murderer.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” Parkinson asked, showing his familiar displeasure at Rand’s feats of reasoning.

“Because Sillabus’s artificial eye was removed and he was stabbed through the eye socket to hide the fact. If Pryzic had killed him, he would have stabbed him elsewhere and exchanged glass eyes, as I believe they had so many times in the past. Sillabus could have been buried with Pryzic’s eye without anyone being the wiser. The killer stabbed him there because there was no glass eye to substitute.”

“All right. But maybe Wolfe killed him, or someone else. Why the woman?”

“She said Sillabus sent her home at four-thirty because it was snowing hard, but that was the time I met Pryzic and had a drink with him only a block away. It was hardly snowing at all then. Pryzic ran next door in his tunic and returned with only a few flakes on him. Also there was a slim letter opener that Janice Casey was using the first time I visited the office. I didn’t see it when we went back yesterday. She was opening a manila envelope with her index finger. That opener could well have been the murder weapon.”

“That’s speculation,” Parkinson grumbled.

“But what really convicts her is that we caught her passing Sillabus’s glass eye to Pryzic. He must have phoned her after the killing and they worked out a deal. While it was simple for Sillabus to travel abroad with the eye in place and escape detection, it would have been much harder for her if she was searched by customs. Better to sell the eye to Pryzic and let him take it out. You can see how skillfully it’s machined. Even a customs agent who knew about Pryzic’s eye arid examined it might miss the fact that it unscrewed. Today she had the eye with her at Seasons, and when she asked for change she merely stuck it under the bar next to Pryzic. I assume money arrangements had already been made. When we walked in there today and I saw Janice Casey paying the bill, that implied she chose the place rather than Wolfe. Having him along was a convenient cover for her.”

When Janice Casey finally told her story, it was somewhat different. She claimed that Sillabus had removed his eye to insert the valuable new microchip, obtained from one of his shady contacts in the computer world. When he stepped away from his desk for a moment she’d picked it up. He flew into a rage, thinking she was stealing it, and attacked her. She’d stabbed him with the letter opener in self-defense.

By the time he learned of this statement, Rand’s interests had shifted elsewhere. It was a new season, and all the icicles had melted.

Jeremy by R. M. Kinder

R. M. Kinder is the author of a number of published short stories including a collection entitled Sweet Angel Band, the winner of last year’s Willa Cather fiction contest. As far as we know, this is the author’s first suspense piece, a vivid and memorable depiction of the genesis of a chilling crime...

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