Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1. Whole No. 344, July 1972

“He was only looking at a praying mantis — an insect — on the window sill.”

“Okay, but he couldn’t help seeing the armored car in there.”

“As a matter of fact,” said the teacher, “it really was impossible for him to see the armored car.”

“Yeah, so you say,” rumbled the man. “How come?”

“Richie’s near-sighted,” explained the teacher. He crouched as if terrified by the menace of the gun pointed at Roberts. “He needs glasses, but only for seeing at a distance. For close observation he has to take the glasses off. Or else moves them up to his forehead. I spotted this habit twice today but only realized its importance later when I was forced to remove my own glasses. So you see, if Richie was watching the mantis at close range, he wouldn’t have been wearing his glasses.” Mr. Strang crouched still lower, seeming to cower before the pistol.

“Yeah, that’s right,” said the woman. “He had ’em on his forehead like a flier’s goggles.” Roberts, still had the light turned on himself. Bending forward from his crouched position, the teacher felt his hands make contact with one of the large rocks that formed a border beside the garage. Lifting it slightly, he estimated its weight at about 15 pounds.

“And the armored car was at the opposite side of the garage from him,” the teacher continued. “It would have been nothing but a blur to him. Besides which, the garage was dark and the glass was dirty. No, your secret was safe. Until you tried to run the boy down, that is.”

The woman turned to the man beside her. “See, idiot!” she barked. “I told you it would be all right. But no, you had to go after him. You had to try a hit-and-run right at the school. Of all the stupid—”

Mr. Strang took a deep breath, then heaved the rock, his joints cracking at the unaccustomed effort. The rock arched silently through the air.

“Hey!” The woman had time to utter only the single syllable before the rock struck her full in the stomach. The teacher could hardly have missed so large a target at such short range.

“Doris, what—”

“Hold it, both of you!” Keeping the flashlight steady on the man and the woman, Roberts pulled out his own pistol. “Mr. Strang, get their gun. And make sure you don’t get between me and them.”

Mr. Strang made sure. Roberts had just finished handcuffing the two when he heard the rear door of the house slam. Quickly he moved the light in that direction.

The man in the doorway shook his head groggily, rubbing his eyes with huge fists. “Doris,” he mumbled in a voice heavy with sleep. “Turn ’at thing off. You were the one said no lights aroun’ here. An’ keep the chatter down. How’s a guy expected to sleep when—” He was still not fully awake when Roberts jammed the pistol into his ribs and forced him to lean against the wall to be searched.

The three prisoners were marched down Waverly Crescent. When they reached Roberts’ car, the detective put in a call on the two-way radio. A few minutes later two patrol cars arrived to take the three criminals away.

Gingerly the old teacher handed Roberts the pistol he had been holding. “Do you suppose the Killians were in on it?” he asked.

“We’ll check it out,” replied Roberts, “but I doubt it. It wouldn’t be hard for those three to spot an isolated house where the owners were away on vacation. The society pages of the papers are full of information like that.”

He got into the car and slammed the door. “C’mon,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to Richie’s house.”

“Why, Paul?” asked the teacher. “You don’t, think he’s still in danger?”

“No. But in a few minutes this street will be crawling with police, men from the District Attorney’s office, and newspaper reporters. And before they all get here and begin listening to what I have to say, I’ve got some high-powered apologizing to do for not believing Richie and you in the first place.”

Can the oil portrait of a murdered woman be haunted? Can such a painting somehow identify her killer? Actually call out the murderer’s name? Point to the murderer with a hand that moves? A living, moaning, accusing portrait?...

Dr. Guy Nearing, curator of the museum, could not tear himself away from the portrait that, in its way, was more mysterious than the Mona Lisa...

Sometimes I watch a guide bring his group into Gallery 18, in the East Wing of the museum. Usually they are a mixed group of sightseers, and they come to see this particular canvas. They stare at it and mutter to each other. Then the guide speaks.

“The picture you’re looking at,” he says, “is a portrait of Evelyn Anders, and it was painted shortly before her tragic death. The artist is Swithin St. John, and this is considered his masterpiece.

“I call your attention to the eyes. Please notice the way they follow you no matter where you go. You can’t escape them. They watch everybody who comes into this room, and it’s said that they’re seeking out her killer and will accuse him when he comes into this room. If he is here now—”

The crowd giggles nervously. There is something about the eyes. They were painted with a mixture of oil and luminous paint, and the effect is eerie.

“It is also said,” the guide continues, after the crowd has become quiet, “that she will actually speak. Others maintain that her hands will move. Please study the hands.”

They are worth studying. They seem restless, as if they had something to do but were not sure what. They appear to have a life of their own.

“Employees of the museum were the first to hear the sounds. They usually occur towards late afternoon, shortly before the museum closes, but they have been heard at other times, too. Please listen.”

The people in the group strain their ears. Hearing nothing, they look at each other sheepishly, as if they had been duped. But sometimes they catch the sound of a moan. It may be faint and far off, but it is unmistakable. The crowd gasps, scarcely able to believe. Occasionally a woman, oversuggestible, screams. The group stands there for a moment or so — the people are too stunned to move; then, as if released from a spell, one person after another starts to leave, to find his or her way to the main exit and to the fresh air outside.

Usually, however, there is silence, and after a few moments the guide continues: “It is believed, too,” he says, “that Mrs. Anders wrote the name of her murderer, here on this canvas, and that some day the name will emerge in letters of blood. Or perhaps, as in the Bible, a hand will appear and write upon the wall: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Does anyone see the words?”

The guide is laughing at his little joke. Then he turns and crosses the room. His shoes make sharp taps on the polished wooden floor.

I am Dr. Guy Nearing, curator of the museum, and at first I am delighted. A haunted portrait? Great — a happening! It should pull in the crowds, and it does. At one dollar a head.

But as time goes on I begin to dislike the crowds. They come to scoff, or else to stare at what they consider a freak. For me, however, it is something quite different. I find myself engrossed by it — whatever it is. Late afternoons or early evenings, after the museum has been closed to the public, I wander over to Gallery 18, and I look. I think of the few bits and pieces of the story that I know from having read the newspapers, and I am disturbed.

One night last March, Mrs. Ewald Anders, wife of a wealthy real-estate man reputed to be a front for the Syndicate, was stabbed to death while lying in bed. Her husband was away at the time. An undetermined amount of cash and about $20,000 worth of jewelry were taken, and the original assumption was that a cat burglar had climbed up to Mrs. Anders’ bedroom on the second floor, and when she woke up and saw him, he knifed her in panic and fled. But the autopsy showed that she had taken several sleeping pills and that it was almost impossible for her to have awakened. It followed that the robbery therefore was a blind, and that the crime was deliberate murder. The police leaned to the theory of a hired killer. Still — why?