Stephen Barr - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 4. Whole No. 131, October 1954

I would have ask’d him whether Blossom Gill and Warwick Lowther own’d keys to the door, but this seem’d certain. And, a mouth being better closed when there is no longer wisdom behind it, I held my peace and review’d the circumstances: the candlemaker dead in his kettle, Warwick Lowther above stairs drinking his tea, the front door lock’d, the rear door open. The weapon — here I realized I had been foolishly searching for it before examining the wound, which would show whether the weapon be sharp or blunt, light or heavy, smooth or irregular.

Before I could reach the corpse, Colonel Clinton shouted angrily: “Here, you, lad, where has Lowther gone? The villain, he has fled! Have you been asleep, you dolt?”

Tho’ I had been instructed to watch the silver, not the silversmith, I flush’d and ran up the stairs to Warwick Lowther’s garret. His wife, a slight, dark-hair’d woman much sagg’d from child-bearing, retorted he was not there and follow’d me down.

“All is safe, sir,” I assured the Colonel, “for his wife and children are still here.”

Colonel Clinton’s eyes narrow’d at Mrs. Lowther, and he mutter’d: “Nevertheless, men have deserted their families to preserve their own necks.”

“Mr. Lowther has gone with the others,” she rebuff’d him bravely, “to search for that evil old man. Fight, fight, it is all those two kinsmen did. I should have known it would end this way. Their drunken voices rose nightly to our quarters as if they were shouting up a hollow tree.”

Embarrass’d, hoping the little silversmith had not deserted, leaving her to fend for six or seven young ones, I knelt beside the corpse. Mr. Gill’s waxen face had now harden’d so that he seem’d a man frozen in green ice, and I peel’d away the greenish wax adhering to his closely tonsured yellow hair. The indentation on the back of his skull, I would have wager’d a sovereign, was made by the curved and bluntly pointed end of the poker.

Since my brother had employ’d the poker to retrieve the deceased’s wig, blood could no longer be seen upon it. And I wonder’d if there might be certain chemicals which, applied to even the smallest trace of blood, would give off an accusing smoke or other indication that here was the victim’s life-blood.

Even more useful, I ponder’d, would be a white powder which, sprinkled on the suspect’s hand, would be distinctively color’d by the oil of his skin. The same white powder being sprinkled on the handle of the poker would turn a like colour if the villain had gripped it. But, replied the less fanciful side of my intellect, a murder weapon is immediately pass’d around by the curious, so that a useless rainbow-colour’d powder would invariably be the result.

What would completely simplify this life-and-death problem, I mused, and rule out all danger of faulty human deductions, as well as the need for the foregoing inventions, would be a clockwork mounted beside a horn which concentrates the suspect’s voice upon a brass cymbal. Perhaps experiment would show that when a man utters a lie, his voice produces such unnatural vibrations that the cymbal, tuned to them alone, would vibrate. This motion could be transmitted by means of a lever to the clockwork, which would then strike a chime, infallibly declaring the falsehood.

I stood up and examin’d the bleach’d wig hairs clinging to the once or twice dipp’d wicks on the dipping frame above the kettle. Since invention of the foregoing mechanisms, if possible at all, would require more time and knowledge than was presently at my disposal, I determined that my truth-machine must be constructed of Pure Reason, systematically applied. For, having interceded once in this inquiry, my youthful pride would not permit me to withdraw from it.

Yet, I warn’d myself, I must not hazard an opinion as to the identity of the murderer. Rather, I should arrange the evidence as if it were columns of figures, and let the sum totals finally determine the guilt. Otherwise, I will tend to notice and consider mainly the evidence pointing toward the most likely suspect, and thereby risk building a false case. This is because, being a reasonable creature, I am able to find reasons for anything I have decided to believe. And today a man’s life is at stake.

Turning, I observed on the next frame of wicks a few strangely short hairs of fiery red. And glancing covertly at my Irish friend, I felt my resolve of mathematical detachment sorely tax’d.

At least the red hairs are on a different frame from the white wig hairs, I puzzled, and turn’d again to the candle-dipping machine.

It consisted of a large cart-wheel mounted horizontally atop a stout post higher than my head. The rim had been saw’d out, leaving the six spokes, and loop’d from the end of each spoke by a leather strap was a dipping frame of cross’d dowels, with long wicks hanging from them nearly to the kettle.

In operation, each frame, in its turn, was taken down by hand from its spoke and lower’d, its wicks descending into the liquid wax, then hung up again for the wax to harden, the machine being turn’d so that the next frame might be then taken down.

Thus, I would have expected the murderer’s hair, as he bent the candlemaker into the kettle, to have brush’d against the same frame of wicks as did Mr. Gill’s white wig.

Yet I wonder’d if Dennis might have dallied outside with his empty pail until the old man finally went for the cart and the silversmith mounted to his garret. Then the strong lad might swiftly have return’d, struck down and drown’d his master in wax, lock’d the front door so that no customer might enter and discover the body too soon, then hurried to the Sailor’s Pleasure .

The other two would testify he left before them, and because of the hardness of the wax and the head on the beer when he return’d to discover the body, it would seem the murder had been done some time before, in his absence.

I could see the streaks of wax gleaming on Dennis’s red hair.

Yet this is not conclusive, I argued, for he works often at the dipping machine. Further, he would have expected the old man to return before him. Still further, he would not have fled in such a guilty manner when Warwick Lowther rush’d down the stairs at him; yet one never knows how one will react with his life in the balance.

I must cease these suppositions, I thought sternly, and gather more substance. A house is not constructed by first hammering together the roof in empty air.

Examining the double-boilers on the hearth, I reflected that making bay berry candles would be less onerous than pouring tallow ones as I had done. The excursions to gather berries would be pleasant, and boiling the wax from them would produce a woodsy fragrance rather than the slaughterhouse stench of boiling tallow. Because the bayberry wax shrinks on cooling, it cannot be pour’d in molds, and is therefore dipp’d — a pleasant, rhythmic labour like press-work. I began to think the candlemaker’s apprentice complain’d too much.

And I toy’d with one of the greenish candles. It did not feel greasy, like a tallow candle. Tho’ of more irregular shape than cast candles, a greater price was ask’d, for bayberry candles will not droop against the wall in hot weather, and the snuff is pleasant rather than foul. The smoke is consider’d an aid for parted lovers; each lighting a bayberry candle at the appointed hour, tho’ the Atlantic Ocean separate them, the two smokes are believed to mingle.

I wonder’d that, with two to help him, Mr. Gill had not produced larger quantities of candles and thus offer’d really worrisome competition to my father. Above the mantel was painted the old rhyme: