Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

“Only two real suspects and we can’t solve this thing! Any suggestions, Doc?”

“Just that we go back to the Hale house and keep looking. Maybe something will jump out at us.”

The June weather had turned unusually warm, and Kate Hale already had roses in her garden when we pulled up in the sheriff’s car. “Aren’t they beauties?” she asked. “This is a new bush I planted in Ron’s honor. I think he would have liked that.”

“We’re sorry to bother you again,” the sheriff told her, “but there are still a great many questions to be answered.”

Her husband had noticed our arrival and joined us at the rose garden. “Any leads yet?” he asked. The bright sun reflected off the silver frames of his glasses and he put up a hand to shield his eyes.

“Nothing. I’m sure it’s not news that the two of you are the prime suspects. Nobody else got in or out of the room.”

“We were both unconscious,” Art Hale pointed out.

I shook my head. “One of you didn’t drink your glass of wine until after you’d cut Sandra Gleam’s throat. Let’s go in the house.”

They both seemed reluctant to face more questioning. “I didn’t kill her,” Kate Hale said. “So it had to have been Art.”

He glared at her. “Kate...”

“Inside,” Sheriff Lens ordered, herding them both toward the door.

I took the opportunity to have another look at their kitchen, where that sharpened paring knife had vanished so mysteriously. For some reason, it didn’t seem mysterious at all anymore. I’d wakened that morning remembering that I’d placed the knives on the kitchen counter near the stove. Sure enough, there was a narrow space, little more than a quarter of an inch, between counter and stove. “Do you have a flashlight?” I asked Hale.

He produced one and I pointed it between the cupboard and the stove. At the bottom, resting on the floor, was the missing paring knife. “That’s a mystery solved,” I told them.

“It must have fallen there,” Hale decided.

“Or been put there by the killer. One of you came into the kitchen after we found Sandra’s body, saw the knives, and pushed one of them through the crack between the counter and stove. It could only have been the killer who did it, to strengthen the illusion of a spirit taking the knife to cut Sandra’s throat.”

“Which one of them, Doc?” the sheriff asked. “You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know.”

We’d settled down around the kitchen table, like old friends, and Kate was even brewing a pot of coffee for us. “You see,” I began, “the motive was the key to it all. Even though Sandra Gleam might have been trying to swindle you both out of some money, that hardly made a motive for murder. You could merely have walked away, told her you were through with seancés. No, it had to be something else. When I thought about my conversation yesterday with Sandra’s roommate and old vaudeville partner, I knew what it was.”

“How could you?” Kate Hale asked.

“The dates weren’t right. According to Sandra’s appointment book, she first called you about your dead son on April twenty-fifth and you attended your first seancé in Boston on May eighth, returning a week later. The two of you were notified of Ron’s death in mid April, but the announcement to the press didn’t come until May first. Sandra watched the papers for the lists of casualties, but she couldn’t have learned of your son’s confirmed death as early as April twenty-fifth — not from the papers, at least. In fact, since we live in a small town two hours from Boston, it’s safe to say that the only way Sandra Gleam could have learned the confirmation of your son’s death at that early date was if one of you two told her.”

“Wait a minute!” Art protested. “She might have found his name on an earlier list of the missing.”

I shook my head. “Seancés are only for communicating with the dead. One of you had to have told Sandra your son was confirmed dead. It could hardly have been you, Kate, or there’d have been no reason for her to carefully record calling you on April twenty-fifth. But you told me Art was badly affected by the report that Ron was missing in action at Pearl Harbor. He went off for several days in January and February, and then again in April, when the tragic news was confirmed. You thought he was drinking, and perhaps he was. But I believe he drove to Boston for his drinking, and there he met Sandra Gleam, a woman always on the lookout for men.”

The blood had drained from Kate’s face as I spoke. I knew I was putting her through hell, but there was no other way. “He told Sandra, and she contacted you for a seancé, Kate. When you finally told him about it, he must have been furious, though he may not have shown the full extent of his anger. Perhaps he got on the phone to Sandra and told her to stay away from his wife and not even think about journeying to Northmont. He knew she was after money, and what better way to procure it? I imagine she had a whole series of expensive seancés in mind, and if you tried to stop her she’d have gone right to Kate and revealed you as an adulterer.”