“What’s the matter?” demanded the Inspector.

  Kelly snarled: “He’s left out his last trick. Good hunch, Mr. Queen….Hey, ham!” he growled to the magician, “finish your act, damn you! While they’re still clappin’!”

  Gordi was very pale. He did not turn; they could see only his left cheek and the rigidity of his back. Nor did he reply. Instead, with all the reluctance of a tyro, he slowly stepped back onto the stage. From the other side Brinkerhof watched. And this time Gordi, with a convulsive start, saw him.

  “What’s coming off here?” said the Inspector softly, as alert as a wren.

  Ellery swung the glasses to his eyes.

  A trapeze hurtled stageward from the flies—a simple steel bar suspended from two slender strands. A smooth yellow rope, very new in appearance, accompanied it from above, falling to the stage.

  The magician worked very, very, painfully slowly. The house was silent. Even the music had stopped.

  Gordi grasped the rope and did something with it; his back concealed what he was doing; then he swung about and held up his left hand. Tied with an enormous and complicated knot to his left wrist was the end of the yellow rope. He picked up the other end and leaped a little, securing the trapeze. At the level of his chest he steadied it and turned again so that he concealed what he was doing, and when he swung about once more they saw that the rope’s other end was now knotted in the same way about the steel bar of the trapeze. He raised his right hand in signal and the drummer began a long roll.

  Instantly the trapeze began to rise, and they saw that the rope was only four feet long. As the bar rose, Gordi’s lithe body rose with it, suspended from the bar by the full length of the rope attached to his wrist. The trapeze came to a stop when the magician’s feet were two yards from the stage.

  Ellery squinted carefully through the powerful lenses. Across the stage Brinkerhof crouched.

  Gordi now began to squirm and kick and jump in the air, indicating in pantomime that he was securely tied to the trapeze and that not even the heavy weight of his suspended body could undo the knots; in fact, was tightening them.

  “It’s a good trick,” muttered Kelly. “In a second a special drop’ll come down, an’ in eight seconds it’ll go up again and there he’ll be on the stage, with the rope on the floor.”

  Gordi cried in a muffled voice: “Ready!”

  But at the same instant Ellery said to Kelly: “Quick! Drop the curtain! This instant. Signal those men in the flies, Kelly!”

  Kelly leaped into action. He shouted something unintelligible and after a second of hesitation the main curtain dropped. The house was dumb with astonishment; they thought it was part of the trick. Gordi began to struggle frantically, reaching up the trapeze with his free hand.

  “Lower that trapeze!” roared Ellery on the cut-off stage now, waving his arms at the staring men above. “Lower it! Gordi, don’t move!”

  The trapeze came down with a thud. Gordi sprawled on the stage, his mouth working. Ellery leaped upon him, an open blade in hand. He cut quickly, savagely, at the rope. It parted, its torn end dangling from the trapeze.

  “You may get up now,” said Ellery, panting a little. “It’s the knot I wanted to see, Signor Gordi.”

  They crowded around Ellery and the fallen man, who seemed incapable of rising. He sat on the stage, his mouth still working, naked fear in his eyes. Brinkerhof was there, his muscular biceps rigid. Crosby, Sailor Sam, Sergeant Velie, Kelly, Bregman….

  The Inspector stared at the knot on the trapeze. Then he slowly took from his pocket a short length of the dirty old rope which had hanged Myra Brinkerhof. The knot was there. He placed it beside the knot on the trapeze.

  They were identical.

  “Well, Gordi,” said the Inspector wearily, “I guess it’s all up with you. Get up, man. I’m holding you for murder, and anything you say—”

  Without a sound Brinkerhof, the mighty Atlas, sprang upon the man on the floor, big hands on Gordi’s throat. It took the combined efforts of the Texan, Sergeant Velie, and Manager Kelly to tear the acrobat off.

  Gordi gasped, holding his throat: “I didn’t do it, I tell you! I’m innocent! Yes, we had—we lived together. I loved her. But why should I kill her? I didn’t do it. For God’s sake—”

  “Schwein,” growled Atlas, his chest heaving.

  Sergeant Velie tugged at Gordi’s collar. “Come on, come on there….”

  Ellery drawled: “Very pretty. My apologies, Mr. Gordi. Of course you didn’t do it.”

  A shocked silence fell. From behind the heavy curtain voices—loud voices—came. The feature picture had been flashed on the screen.

  “Didn’t—do—it?” muttered Brinkerhof.

  “But the knots, El,” began the Inspector in a bewildered voice.

  “Precisely. The knots.” In defiance of fire regulations Ellery lit a cigaret and puffed thoughtfully. “The hanging of Myra Brinkerhof has bothered me from the beginning. Why was she hanged? In preference to one of four other methods of committing murder which were simpler, more expedient, easier of accomplishment, and offered no extra work, as hanging did? The point is that if the murderer chose the hard way, the complicated way, the roundabout way of killing her, then he chose that way deliberately.”

  Gordi was staring with his mouth open. Kelly was ashen pale.

  “But why,” murmured Ellery, “did he choose hanging deliberately? Obviously, because hanging offered the murderer some peculiar advantage not offered by any of the other four methods. Well, what advantage could hanging conceivably offer that shooting, stabbing, gassing, or hammering to death could not? To put it another way, what is characteristic of hanging that is not characteristic of shooting and the rest? Only one thing. The use of a rope.”

  “Well, but I still don’t see—” frowned the Inspector.

  “Oh, it’s clear enough, dad. There’s something about the rope that made the murderer use it in preference to the other methods. But what’s the outstanding significance of this particular rope—the rope used to hang Myra Brinkerhof? Its knot—its peculiar knot, so peculiar that not even the Department’s expert could identify it. In other words, the use of that knot was like the leaving of a fingerprint. Whose knot is it? Gordi’s, the magician’s—and, I suspect, his exclusively.”

  “I can’t understand it,” cried Gordi. “Nobody knew my knot. It’s one I developed myself—” Then he bit his lip and fell silent.

  “Exactly the point. I realize that stage-magicians have developed knot-making to a remarkable degree. Wasn’t it Houdini who—?”

  “The Davenport brothers, too,” muttered the magician. “My knot is a variation on one of their creations.”

  “Quite so,” drawled Ellery. “So I say, had Mr. Gordi wanted to kill Myra Brinkerhof, would he have deliberately chosen the single method that incriminated him, and him alone? Certainly not if he were reasonably intelligent. Did he tie his distinctive knot, then, from sheer habit, subconsciously? Conceivable, but then why had he chosen hanging in the first place, when those four easier methods were nearer to his hand?” Ellery slapped the magician’s back. “So, I say—our apologies, Gordi. The answer is very patently that you’re being framed by some one who deliberately chose the hanging-plus-knot method to implicate you in a crime you’re innocent of.”

  “But he says nobody else knew his confounded knot,” growled the Inspector. “If what you say is true, El, somebody must have learned it on the sly.”

  “Very plausible,” murmured Ellery. “Any suggestions, Signor?”

  The magician got slowly to his feet, brushing his dress-suit off. Brinkerhof gaped stupidly at him, at Ellery.

  “I don’t know,” said Gordi, very pale. “I thought no one knew. Not even my technical assistants. But then we’ve all been travelling on the same bill for weeks. I suppose if some one wanted to…”

  “I see,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “So there’s a dead end, eh?”

  “Dead beginning,” snapped his father. “And thanks, my son, for the assistance. You’re a help!”

  “I tell you very frankly,” said Ellery the next day in his father’s office, “I don’t know what it’s all about. The only thing I’m sure of is Gordi’s innocence. The murderer knew very well that somebody would notice the unusual knot Gordi uses in his rope-escape illusion. As for motive—”

  “Listen,” snarled the Inspector, thoroughly out of temper, “I can see through glass the same way you can. They all had motive. Crosby kicked over by the dame, Gordi…Did you know that this little comedian was sniffin’ around Myra’s skirts the last couple of weeks? Trying his darnedest to make her. And Kelly’s had monkey business with her, too, on a former appearance at the Metropole.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” said Ellery sombrely. “The call of the flesh. She was an alluring little trick, at that. Real old Boccaccio melodrama, with the stupid husband playing cuckold—”

  The door opened and Dr. Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner, stumped in looking annoyed. He dropped into a chair and clumped his feet on the Inspector’s desk. “Guess what?” he said.

  “I’m a rotten guesser,” said the old gentleman sourly.

  “Little surprise for you gentlemen. For me, too. The woman wasn’t hanged.”

  “What!” cried the Queens, together.

  “Fact. She was dead when she was swung up.” Dr. Prouty squinted at his ragged cigar.

  “Well, I’ll be eternally damned,” said Ellery softly. He sprang from his chair and shook the physician’s shoulder. “Prouty, for heaven’s sake, don’t look so smug! What killed her? Gun, gas, knife, poison—”

  “Fingers.”

  “Fingers?”

  Dr. Prouty shrugged. “No question about it. When I took that dirty hemp off her lovely neck I found the distinct marks of fingers on the skin. It was a tight rope, and all that, but there were the marks, gentlemen. She was choked to death by a man’s hands and then strung up—why, I don’t know.”

  “Well,” said Ellery. “Well,” he said again, and straightened. “Very interesting. I begin to scent the proverbial rodent. Tell us more, good leech.”

  “Certainly is queer,” muttered the Inspector, sucking his mustache.

  “Something even queerer,” drawled Dr. Prouty. “You boys have seen choked stiffs plenty. What’s the characteristic of the fingermarks?”

  Ellery was watching him intently. “Characteristic?” He frowned. “Don’t know what you mean—Oh!” His gray eyes glittered. “Don’t tell me….The usual marks point upward, thumbs toward the chin.”

  “Smart lad. Well, these marks don’t. They all point downward.”

  Ellery stared for a long moment. Then he seized Dr. Prouty’s limp hand and shook it violently. “Eureka! Prouty, old sock, you’re the answer to a logician’s prayer! Dad, come on!”

  “What is this?” scowled the Inspector. “You’re too fast for me. Come where?”

  “To the Metropole. Urgent affairs. If my watch is honest,” Ellery said quickly, “we’re just in time to witness another performance. And I’ll show you why our friend the murderer not only didn’t shoot, stab, asphyxiate, or hammer little Myra into Kingdom Come, but didn’t hang her either!”

  Ellery’s watch, however, was dishonest. When they reached the metropole it was noon, and the feature picture was still showing. They hurried backstage in search of Kelly.

  “Kelly or this old man they call Perk, the caretaker,” Ellery murmured, hurrying his father down the dark side-aisle. “Just one question….”

  A patrolman let them through. They found backstage deserted except for Brinkerhof and his new partner, who were stolidly rehearsing what was apparently a new trick. The trapeze was down and the big man was hanging from it by his powerful legs, a rubber bit in his mouth. Below him, twirling like a top, spun the tall blonde, the other end of the bit in her mouth.

  Kelly appeared from somewhere and Ellery said: “Oh, Kelly. Are all the others in?”

  Kelly was drunk again. He wobbled and said vaguely: “Oh, sure. Sure.”

  “Gather the clans in Myra’s dressing-room. We’ve still a little time. Question’s unnecessary, dad. I should have known without—”

  The Inspector threw up his hands.

  Kelly scratched his chin and staggered off. “Hey, Atlash,” he called wearily. “Stop Atlash-ing an’ come on.” He swayed off toward the dressing-rooms.

  “But, El,” groaned the Inspector, “I don’t understand—”

  “It’s perfectly childish in its simplicity,” said Ellery, “now that I’ve seen what I suspected was the case. Come along, sire; don’t crab the act.”

  When they were assembled in the dead woman’s cubbyhole Ellery leaned against the dressing-table, looked at the sprinkler-pipe, and said: “One of you might as well own up…you see, I know who killed the little—er—lady.”

  “You know that?” said Brinkerhof hoarsely. “Who is—” He stopped and glared at the others, his stupid eyes roving.

  But no one else said anything.

  Ellery sighed. “Very well, then, you force me to wax eloquent, even reminiscent. Yesterday I posed the question: Why should Myra Brinkerhof have been hanged in preference to one of four handier methods? And I said, in demonstrating Mr. Gordi’s innocence, that the reason was that hanging permitted the use of a rope and consequently of Gordi’s identifiable knot.” He brandished his forefinger. “But I forgot an additional possibility. If you find a woman with a rope around her neck who has died of strangulation, you assume it was the rope that strangled her. I completely overlooked the fact that hanging, in permitting use of a rope, also accomplishes the important objective of concealing the neck. But why should Myra’s neck have been concealed? By a rope? Because a rope is not the only way of strangling a victim, because a victim can be choked to death by fingers, because choking to death leaves marks on the neck, and because the choker didn’t want the police to know there were fingermarks on Myra’s neck. He thought that the tight strands of the rope would not only conceal the fingermarks but would obliterate them as well—sheer ignorance, of course, since in death such marks are ineradicable. But that is what he thought, and that primarily is why he chose hanging for Myra when she was already dead. The leaving of Gordi’s knot to implicate him was only a secondary reason for the selection of rope.”

  “But, El,” cried the Inspector, “that’s nutty. Suppose he did choke the woman to death. I can’t see that he’d be incriminating himself by leaving fingermarks on her neck. You can’t match fingermarks—”

  “Quite true,” drawled Ellery, “but you can observe that fingermarks are on the neck the wrong way. For these point, not upward, but downward.”

  And still no one said anything, and there was silence for a space in the room with the heavily breathing men.

  “For you see, gentlemen,” continued Ellery sharply, “when Myra was choked she was choked upside down. But how is this possible? Only if one of two conditions existed. Either at the time she was choked she was hanging head down above her murderer, or—”

  Brinkerhof said stupidly: “Ja. I did it. Ja. I did it.” He said it over and over, like a phonograph with its needle grooved.

  A woman’s voice from the amplifier said: “But I love you, darling, love you, love you, love you…”

  Brinkerhof’s eyes flamed and he took a short step toward the Great Gordi. “Yesterday I say to Myra: ‘Myra, tonight we rehearse the new trick.’ After the second show I see Myra undt that schweinhund kissing undt kissing behind the scenery. I hear them talk. They haf been fooling me. I plan. I will kill her. When we rehearse. So I kill her.” He buried his face in his hands and began to sob without sound. It was horrible; and Gordi seemed transfixed with its horror.

  And Brinkerhof muttered: “Then I see the marks on her throat. They are upside down. I know that iss bad. So I take the rope undt I cover up the marks. Then I hang her, with the schwein’s knot, that she had once told me he had shown to her—”

  He stopped. Gordi said hoarsely, “Good God. I didn’t remember—”

  “Take him away,” said the Inspector in a small dry voice to the policeman at the door.

  “It was all so clear,” explained Ellery a little later, over coffee. “Either the woman was hanging head down above her murderer, or her murderer was hanging head down above the woman. One squeeze of those powerful paws…” He shivered. “It had to be an acrobat, you see. And when I remembered that Brinkerhof himself had said they had been rehearsing a new trick—” He stopped and smoked thoughtfully.

  “Poor guy,” muttered the Inspector. “He’s not a bad sort, just dumb. Well, she got what was coming to her.”

  “Dear, dear,” drawled Ellery. “Philosophy, Inspector? I’m really not interested in the moral aspects of crime. I’m more annoyed at this case than anything.”

  “Annoyed?” said the Inspector with a sniff. “You look mighty smug to me.”

  “Do I? But I really am. I’m annoyed at the shocking unimaginativeness of our newspaper friends.”

  “Well, well,” said the Inspector with a sigh of resignation. “I’ll bite. What’s the gag?”

  Ellery grinned. “Not one of the reporters who covered this case saw the perfectly obvious headline. You see, they forgot that one of the cast is named—of all things, dear God!—Gordi.”

  “Headline?” frowned the Inspector.

  “Oh, lord. How could they have escaped casting me in the role of Alexander and calling this The Affair of the Gordian Knot?”

  The Adventure of THE ONE-PENNY BLACK

  “ACH!” SAID OLD UNEKER. “It iss a terrible t’ing, Mr. Quveen, a terrible t’ing, like I vass saying. Vat iss New York coming to? Dey come into my store—polizei, undt bleedings, undt whackings on de headt….Diss iss vunuff my oldest customers, Mr. Quveen. He too hass hadt exberiences….Mr. Hazlitt, Mr. Quveen….Mr. Quveen iss dot famous detectiff feller you read aboudt in de papers, Mr. Hazlitt. Inspector Richardt Quveen’s son.”