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

When the lid of the strong-box was raised, we found only a bag of foreign coins of small worth, a new silver spoon that had split from too much hammering, and some ancient account books. The old man look’d about wildly.

“Now you see he lies,” Warwick Lowther said. “Ask the boy if Blossom is not lying so that my neck be stretch’d for murder instead of his own.”

Dennis O’Leary, turning pale, mumbled he did not know ;“I have not work’d here long.”

“A blind boy!” Blossom Gill spat. “Not shuprising. Likely he help’d such a little man drown my nephew.”

“Hang them all,” a wag shouted. “That way they’ll be equally assured of justice.”

“Hold,” cried a hand-rubbing tavern keeper of long and dripping nose, who had been probing about the dead man. “Colonel, Your Grace, all is resolved. See how the blow bloodied the back of the head rather than the top, as if the murderer could strike no higher. Therefore he was a little man. And only one of these three is short.”

“Do not look so concern’d for your widow, silversmith,” a wag shouted. “She can sell a child each year.”

At this, I look’d up, and was not pleased to see on the staircase a whole row of little Lowthers, their faces aghast and flush’d red as their flaming red hair.

The Colonel, too, look’d displeased by this deduction of the tavern keeper, perchance having already determined Blossom Gill to be the murderer. And I was irritated by the tavern keeper’s reasoning, which was weak, if not false, and resolved to confute it.

“I am puzzled, sir,” I interceded loudly. “Would not a man bent over the kettle, dipping candle wicks, present the back his head to attack from behind, no matter the assailant be a dwarf or a giant?”

“Exactly what I had decided,” the Colonel declared. “There can be no doubt the murderer was this old house-pad. For a large, strong man was required to lift the candlemaker into his kettle.”

This I doubted, the mouth of the kettle being no higher than a man’s waist, so that the victim need only be push’d, rather than lifted. But I held my peace, for I was considering the more important matter of the young Lowthers’ red hair. Their mother’s hair was dark brown. Since I had never seen the silversmith without his wig, and since he was closely shaven and nearly hairless upon the wrists, I had never thought of him possessing hair, much less of it having colour. Yet, unless Mrs. Lowther had deceived him seven times at yearly intervals, I now suspected his hair was as red as Dennis O’Leary’s.

So many contradictory deductions having confused the mob, and having shortened the tempers of some, they began to shout in unison: “Throw them in the millpond. All three. Let the pond decide their guilt.”

Truly, a mob is a monster, with many heads and no brains.

“Silence!” the Colonel shouted, a sudden perspiration gleaming on his brow. “We are not examining witches. This admitted thief and murderer shall be speedily arraigned before the magistrates.” And he seized the old man’s elbow.

But Blossom Gill stood fast, tho’ swaying, and cried at the mob: “I am innocent as a babe! ’Tis thish Rhode Island receiver of stolen property has murder’d my nephew.”

The Colonel dragg’d Blossom forward a step, but the mob would not open to let them pass. They preferr’d a Massachusetts thief to any foreigner from Rhode Island. But chiefly they desired a raree show, and a cluster of bawling ropewalkmen began to shout: “String up all three for silver thievery. We must go back to work. Let the murderer be discover’d and judged in the next world.”

Colonel Clinton stood gaping like a fish, uncertain whether to bluster or retreat. The mob, which in a sense had been his creature at the beginning, was his no longer. Having sown wind, he was reaping whirlwind,

Dennis too was dragg’d into the midst of them, pale and protesting. And I guess’d they would not listen, tho’ they must know full well that an apprentice is helpless to prevent an ill-doing to his master, and dare not blab. His master’s word would be taken over his, and revenge against his master might seal an apprentice’s lips forever.

Apologies would not interest the mob any longer. I knew I must give them words they would listen to, and thus I shouted: “Colonel, I have irrefutable proof of the murderer!”

“Hear, hear,” the mob clamour’d, many of them laughing, which irritated me extreamly.

The Colonel, to my surprise, glared; but, uncertain of the temper of the mob, he did not interfere when I carried forward two frames of wicks.

“On this frame,” I cried, “are long white hairs from what would seem to be the wig of the deceased. On the other are a few strangely short red ones.”

Before I could explain the next step in my deductions, they laid hold of Dennis most painfully, ripping his clothing and even pulling out his long red hair. They show’d that a little understanding may be more harmful than none, shouting with joy as tho’ they, the mob, had brilliantly solved the matter. Some even shouted for a rope.

I could not recapture their attention, and fear’d Dennis would be strung up before my eyes, the Colonel making no attempt to prevent it. Since all depended on this moment, I rush’d back to the kettle and scooped the iron shovel into the pan of blackened coals beneath. I raised the shovel full to shoulder height and, whirling, broadcast the warm coals upon the beads of the mob. Needless to say, this regain’d their attention.

At their angry bedlam I shouted: “Another of the three suspects has also red hair, but conceals it. Take off your wig, Warwick Lowther!”

And in doing so, he show’d that his seven children were his own, for his head was as red as theirs. Without the craven expression I had expected, he confronted the mob with his red stubble. Its colour seem’d the same as Dennis’s unkempt red mop. The voices of the mob diminish’d.

“This fiddle-faddle about red hair, white hair, no hair, is of no consequence,” Warwick Lowther stated firmly. “No doubt Dennis left his red hairs on the wicks while working at the dipping-machine. No more candles were dipp’d after he was sent for the beer. Thus, his red hairs are still there, and innocently enough.”

“But these red hairs are all peculiarly short,” I replied. “Most hairs coming loose from a head are long and old, dried at the roots, perchance, like last year’s tall weeds; whilst short hairs are, for the most part, cuttings, not uprootings. If you will very closely examine the short hairs on this wick, you will see that all of them lack the small root that is so often present when hair falls out naturally. By drawing hairs from your comb or brush between your fingers, you will frequently feel this tiny root. Since these hairs lack it, I believe them to be the short hairs that are scatter’d about after a visit to the barber. And since your stubbled hair is cut often, Warwick Lowther, in order that your wig be comfortable, I believe these short hairs to be from your head. And more of them will be found clinging inside your wig.”

“Of no consequence,” the little silversmith cried, shifting his feet rapidly, his voice rising to the excited pitch with which he had accused Dennis while leaping about him on Queen Street. “Plotter! The red hairs are on a different frame than the white ones! Any fool knows that the murderer, bending his victim into the kettle, would touch his head above his victim’s, thus leaving his hairs on the wicks of the same frame.”

Before I could dispute this, he shouted: “The hairs could not be mine — unless this old man treacherously glued them there. For my hair is always cover’d; I protect my head with a wig!”