“Anyway, at Bogota, he opened the door of the dim car, jumped out, and closed the door again, ran forward along the station and boarded a coach ahead. The revolver he had planned to throw into the stream just as you explained it, and for the same reasons.”

  “Thank you,” said Lane gravely. His tall figure was etched in black against the mottled ruddy background of the fire. “Then we return to the fascinating problem of the sign. Thompson and the fingers, the fingers and Thompson.

  … What connection, I asked myself?

  “It was not until I recalled a most insignificant fact that I suddenly saw, in a blinding flash of light, the only possible answer to the pestiferous problem…” Lane went on quietly. “Aside from the evil-eye interpretation, which made no sense at all, what else could the twisted fingers mean? Above all, in relation to Thompson?

  “I discarded my hitherto blundering method of thought in this connection and took another tack entirely. What was the physical significance of the twisted fingers; that is, did the fingers, by their odd position, approximate a specific geometric symbol? A moment’s thought revealed an interesting discovery; the geometric symbol approximated most closely by the crossed fingers was undoubtedly an x!”

  He paused a moment, and a look of comprehension spread over his guests’ faces. Thumm crossed his fingers and nodded emphatically.

  “But x,” continued Mr. Drury Lane in a resounding voice, “x is the universal symbol of the unknown quantity. Then I was wrong again. For certainly DeWitt had not intended to leave a riddle behind him!… But - x, x… I could not forget it, felt intangibly that somehow I was hot on the scent. So I tested the x against Thompson. And, gentlemen, the veil fell from these poor mortal eyes, and I remembered that there was one characteristic of Thompson, the railroad conductor, which was distinctly, rigidly an identification-mark of Thompson - as characteristic of this one man as his fingerprints.”

  Bruno and Thumm regarded each other blankly. The District Attorney corrugated his brow fiercely; Inspector Thumm’s fingers crossed and uncrossed with desperation. He shook his head. “I give up,” he said in deep disgust. “I guess I’m just dumb. What was it, Mr. Lane?”

  For reply Lane explored his wallet once more, this time extracting a long piece of printed paper. He looked at it affectionately, then strode before the fire and placed the paper in Bruno’s hand. The two men’s heads thumped together as they bent over the slip. “Merely one of the duplex cash-tickets which passed through the hands of Conductor Edward Thompson, gentlemen,” said Mr. Drury Lane softly, “at the time when you, my dear Inspector, paid our fares just before his arrest.”

  And while Lane turned his back to stride to his fire, breathing in the woody perfume of the curling smoke, Thumm and Bruno stared at the final exhibit.

  At two spots on the paper - by the side of the printed words Weehawken and, lower down, West Englewood - were the clean, sharp perforations of Conductor Edward Thompson’s cross-mark punch - an x.

  The End

 

 

  Queen, Ellery, The Tragedy of X

 

 

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