Isaac Asimov - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

“Hello, Hume.”

Hume Baxter stared at me, the stolen envelope in his hand. “How’d you know, Sam? How in hell did you know?”

“It took me a while, I’ll admit, but I finally tumbled to it. The only place we didn’t look. Like Poe’s purloined letter, it was right in front of us all the time and we didn’t see it.”

Later, after Sheriff Lens had arrived to take charge of Hume Baxter and the stolen envelope, I explained, “I got to thinking about how coats can cover up things and change their appearance, and that made me think of a coat of paint. You see, what happened was that you set your box right on top of Anson Waters’ envelope. When Vera yelled and you yanked it back up, the envelope got caught in the cord around the box and hung there. You stepped back a few paces, just outside the counter, and the envelope fell to the floor.”

“How could that happen without someone seeing it?” Sheriff Lens wondered.

“But someone did see it,” I reminded him. “Hume Baxter saw it. Think about our various positions in the room and you’ll realize he was in the best position to see it. You were holding a large box that blocked your view of the floor. And once you’d moved back a few paces the counter was between you and Vera, obstructing her view. Miranda, April, and I were near the door, on our way out, and your back was to us. Waters wasn’t present at that point. Only Hume Baxter, off to the side with his paint brush, was likely to see what happened. While you followed Vera’s instructions and carried the box to that back shelf, Hume tossed one of his drop cloths over the envelope and then managed to pick it up.

“In a single quick gesture he stuck it to the freshly painted wall just above the floor level and near the counter, where the shadow of the counter top kept the light from falling directly on it. And then he painted pink over it. I remember him bending to touch up a spot by the counter. The face of the envelope was against the wall of course, so the stamps didn’t show through. And the buff color of the manila envelope wasn’t that different from the original yellowish-tan brown color of the walls before they were painted, so the pink was about the same shade on the envelope.”

“But how come we didn’t see it even so, Doc?”

“Several reasons. For one, Hume warned us not to get too close to the wet paint and nobody did. For another, down near floor level, partly under the counter, it didn’t show. A freshly painted wall is always wet and streaky looking till it dries, so the edges of the envelope weren’t noticeable. It was a large envelope but very thin, remember. There were only two unfolded sheets of paper inside — the bearer bond and a letter.”

“What about when the paint dried?”

“Exactly! The envelope might fall away from the wall, or at the very least its edges would come loose and be more visible. That’s how I knew he’d have to come back for it tonight. He’d even brought along a little pink paint to touch up the spot again after he removed the envelope.”

Sheriff Lens shook his head. “What people won’t do for money.”

“Or love,” I added and gave him a wink. Vera Brock was coming through the post-office door.

“I said at the beginning it was a unique case,” Dr. Sam Hawthorne concluded, “and it was. For one thing there was no murder, and for another my solution showed that it was Sheriff Lens himself who actually aided the thief by snagging that envelope with his box. I guess in a way they both paid for their crime because Hume Baxter went to jail and Sheriff Lens went to the altar. That’s right — it didn’t work out for Miranda and me, but it sure did for Vera and the sheriff. It was one of the happiest weddings I ever attended, despite a locked-room murder on the very day of the ceremony that almost — but that’s for next time!”