Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

“Those diamonds were a plant, a red herring, Elsa, designed to cover the really valuable part of M. Martone’s samples — the powder you collected last night and took to your cabin.”

“The loose powder? But that’s preposterous — impossible.”

“You said the same thing about Dorette’s being killed last night, yet it was true. I analyzed a sample of that powder. M. Martone would gladly have paid duty on smuggled diamonds — if the customs had concentrated on the diamonds and let his powder through. That product of „Chez Martone“ is sixty per cent heroin!”

“Heroin,” Elsa breathed. “So that’s why Dorette was killed.”

“Exactly,” said Cliff. “Just one more thing and I’m through. You said that Dorette was wearing her pink net sleeping cap in bed — yet she didn’t have it on when you found her on the floor?”

“That’s right.”

“Then she must have been getting dressed for some reason. Otherwise, why would she have removed the cap which she wore to protect her hair?” Elsa sat up slightly in her chair and leaned closer to him. Her hand in his had grown cold. “Do you think she had planned to go up to the infirmary and kill Martone? Just as she took off her cap she saw something dangling in front of her porthole. She stuck out her head and—”

“That’s perfect,” said Cliff, “except for one thing. When I went into your cabin and examined the room, Dorette Maupin’s pink sleeping cap, hanging away from the porthole on the head of the bed, was wet!”

Their chairs were close to the edge of the top deck, without a protective rail. Elsa jerked her hand loose from Cliff’s hold and attacked him with the fury of a tigress. Throwing her whole weight against his chest, she shoved his light chair toward the void which marked a drop into the sea.

Cliff’s powerful hands closed about her wrists. She tore one loose, scratched at his face, and pushed again. The chair slid back a few inches, then stopped, for Cliff had taken great care in the afternoon to see that it was firmly secured. From behind a nearby lifeboat three husky deckhands materialized and pinioned the frantic girl.

“You damned flatfoot!” she screamed. “You can’t put this over on me! I’ll—”

Cutting into her hysterics, Cliff said calmly, “Elsa Graves, you’re under arrest for the murders of Dorette Maupin, agent of the French Sûreté, and Jean Martone, your accomplice in an international traffic of narcotics!”

“Of course Martone and the Graves girl were working together,” Cliff told Captain Jordan a short while later. “They were running heroin in the „Chez Martone“ powder, when they discovered that Dorette Maupin of the French Sûreté was on their trail.”

“And the diamonds?”

“Were a screen. If anything broke badly, Martone would admit petty smuggling — and take a small rap at the worst. Who’s going to bother with face powder when there are diamonds in the boxes?”

“Who, indeed?” asked Captain Jordan.

“The gentle Elsa hit on a scheme to double-cross Martone, and get rid of Dorette at the same time. Somehow she tricked Dorette into looking out of the porthole — then dropped the heavy brass-bound window of the port down on Dorette’s neck.

“Then she made a mistake. She took off the dead girl’s sleeping cap and hung it on the head of the bed to make it look as though Dorette was about to get dressed. That sleeping cap was wet, Captain, and so were Dorette’s neck and hair, from the rain. The girl must have had that cap on when she stuck her head out of the port and was killed — and Elsa must have taken it off her. That sewed Elsa up in the bag.”

The Captain rubbed his chin. “What about the table-top missing from the infirmary? And that yam about Martone dropping it down on Dorette’s neck?”

“Hooey!” said Cliff. “That’s what Elsa wanted me to think — and I’m an obliging sort of cuss when I want to please a lady. She went up to the infirmary, got that table top, and threw it overboard herself before she called me. She figured — and cleverly, too — that would hang the job on Martone. She got a nice break when Martone broke in on us searching his quarters. He thought she was still on his side. It must have been a surprise when she took my gun and shot him. She couldn’t have done it if he’d been suspicious of her.

“Then she made a daring move. She took the powder which we’d dumped on the gold tablecloth. That tipped me off to the real game. You can put that powder in alcohol. The talc precipitates, and you have a nice tincture of heroin. I tried it in doctor’s lab today — and the thought of it makes me very dry.”

“Is that so?” said Captain Jordan, hastily moving his Scotch out of reach. “Sometime, Cliff, why don’t you take a great big jump into the sea.”

The Alibi by “Pat Hand”